Ember Scalecrown's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Ember Scalecrown loved a man who wanted her dead. She crouched at the edge of the pines and watched the hunter chop wood outside his farmhouse. His name was Garrett Blackwood. He had sworn to kill every wolf in the northern woods, and Ember, half-girl and half-wolf, walked those woods on two legs and four. She wanted him. She wanted to tell him she was not a monster. The trouble was simple. To Garrett she looked like a wolf whenever she got close. Twice she had crept toward him. Twice his rifle had cracked before she opened her mouth. A bullet had grazed her shoulder last week. The wound still burned. She could not speak one word if he shot on sight. So she made a plan. She would come without teeth or fur to frighten him. She would come helping instead of hunting. For three nights the woods had troubled his farm. She had heard the hens shriek in the dark. She had smelled a strange wolf, a real one, circling his coop. Tonight Ember waited for it. The strange wolf came at moonrise. It slid toward the coop where the rooster and the two hens slept. Ember broke from the pines and hit it hard. They rolled through the dirt. Teeth found her graze and tore it open. She yelped, twisted, and clamped her jaws on its throat. It went limp. The farmhouse door banged. Light spilled out. Garrett stood on the porch with his rifle up. His big white dog charged past him, then stopped short and did not bark. The dog only watched Ember, calm, as if it knew. Garrett saw two wolves in his yard, one dead, one bleeding. His finger moved to the trigger. Ember did not run. She stepped back from the dead wolf. She sat down in the dirt beside the coop and lifted her head, offering her throat. "Get out of here," Garrett said. His voice shook. The rifle stayed level. But his eyes moved from the torn coop wire to the dead wolf to Ember, sitting still, guarding his hens. The hound walked to Ember and pressed against her side. It licked her bleeding shoulder. Garrett lowered the barrel one inch. "You killed the one that's been after my birds," he said slowly. "Why?" Ember could not answer with a wolf's mouth. She only held his gaze and did not move. Garrett did not shoot. He crouched, set the rifle across his knees, and stared at her a long moment. "You're hurt," he said. "Stay. Just stay." He went inside and came back with a rag and a bowl of water. He did not aim at her again. He let her live. He even wanted to help her. But now he thought she was only a clever wolf, a beast worth keeping. Ember had won his mercy. She had not won a single word. And soon he would expect her to leave on four legs, not stand up on two.