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Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Everything was going to be fine. No one was going to discover her here. No one but her intended, by way of smell. All the menfolk of her nearby village knew not to come here, lest the intended beast smell them and destroy them for daring to interrupt the ritual.

At some point, Ophelia realized that this was inevitable. She was a young woman who had a history of failed relationships. For one reason or another, each of the men in her life went running. Too thick of a waist, too big of a mouth, too cold of a pair of eyes. She was undesirable for her looks, her personality, her very beliefs, so she could not stay here. And yet, she could not leave, either. She was but a girl with no property or money to her name, and no father to send her to the nunnery, so two options were open to her. Either work all her life as a spinster, quietly, tragically living a life unseen and eventually passing of old age with no children to help her to the afterlife or bury her in a family plot…or this.

She had to admit, this option was terrifying for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest was the quiet fear that she would be rejected once again, sent to live as a spinster once more. But the pinprick goosebumps on Ophelia’s soft skin told her that it wasn’t just that dragging her mind into the depths of fear. No, the idea of being accepted was equally as terrifying. What would happen afterwards? Were all the rumors true? Would she be consumed as any other victim, dying a quick but horrifying death, a gutted corpse left for the priest to find and purify in the morning for fear of another appearing? And if she wasn’t, if on the off chance she was accepted fully, deemed worthy enough to bring back to the castle…

A full body shudder ran through Ophelia yet again. Maybe that particular outcome wouldn’t be so bad. It wasn’t like she didn’t like the idea of living in such luxury. And at such a relatively low cost?

A branch snapped deeper in the wood, startling the young woman out of her thoughts and forcing her to look up in anticipation. Rustling in the bush, and the sense of something immense nearby. This was it, she realized. Her smell had finally reached the beast. Now was her moment of judgment. Ophelia braced herself and watched the rustling bush for what felt like an-

It was a stag. A fucking stag. The thing popped its head out of the bush and gazed over at Ophelia, disinterested, then turned and walked calmly into the wood.

“Oh, COME on!” she cried, thumping the back of her head against the stone.

“I don’t think you’d want that from a deer.”

Ophelia squeaks at the sudden presence of a second voice, one so double-toned and gravelly that it couldn’t possibly be a human man, and looks around. He’s here. He’s here. Where is he? She can’t see-

“I doubt you’d want that from me, either. And that would make two of us,” remarks the beast, so close and yet so far from the girl that she can’t possibly get comfortable. “This old tradition’s always been soooo tacky.”

Her breath comes in heavy pants of anticipation, adrenaline coursing red-hot through her veins. She forces her body to remain still, to not struggle, to not grab or kick anything. The more relaxed she is, the better the results. She’d learned that long ago. But she kicks in reflex anyways when one of the ropes around her ankles snaps as though it were a mere sewing thread.

“I mean, taking a girl from her home in the middle of the night, strapping her to a cold stone slab in her nightgown, and waiting for someone like me to come tear her to shreds just because none of the men want to fuck her?” A gravelly laugh, and Ophelia can’t help squeaking again when her second ankle snaps free. “How pathetic IS your society that you get so scared of women owning a business or running a library or something?”

Overwhelmed with adrenaline and the sinking feeling in her gut that she’s about to be sent back, the girl turns her face away and tries her damndest not to cry. Not in front of him. Crying was death. Weakness was death. She had to hold up, she had to…

“I’m not going to force you to do this.” The last two threads snapped in quick succession, and finally, finally, the beast showed himself. Covered head to toe in silver fur that glinted in whatever little moonlight broke between the trees, the rest of his shadow was immense, twice the size of an ordinary man. His unnaturally wide shoulders, biceps, and thighs especially looked as though they could snap her spine like a twig with enough effort, and that wasn’t even mentioning his paws, padded softly on the underside for stealth and clawed like a set of five tournés. No wonder he could break through the rope so easily, despite it being threaded with thin metal wire. And the sharp teeth breaking through a long muzzle as he spoke…despite his words suggesting mercy, the primal terror in Ophelia was still strong enough that it might not have mattered were the fear of abandonment in her that much stronger.

“Ii tied myself up!!” She squeaks suddenly as the werewolf turns to leave.

Instantly he freezes in place, that answer wholly unexpected.

“I’m…sorry?”

This was her last shot and Ophelia knew it. If he walked away now it was back to the village with her. Back to rot in that terrible place. So finally, fully, she admits her sins.

“I tied myself up,” the girl breathes out, her words shaking as she dips her head, unable to meet the werewolf’s eyes. “I don’t…fit in. With my village,” she chokes, if barely.

There’s a beat of silence. Then two. Then, slowly, he returns and sits beside her on the stone alter, intrigued and empathetic.

“You must have been very desperate.”

Ophelia hugs herself, the cold night air finally seeping into her skin now that the adrenaline and lust are starting to subside.

“I was told I had to marry by the end of this year,” she murmurs, “Or else I’d be enrolled in spinning classes.”

The beast tilts its great head in soft confusion.

“What’s so wrong with those?”

She makes an almost offended sound, gesturing openly, as if it’s right in front of his face.

“Only everything! If you get enrolled in spinning classes, everyone knows that you’re unlovable!” she mourns, emotion crawling into her voice. It only seems to hit her just how vulnerable is---physically and mentally. “If you’re a spinster, you never have your own kids. You never have your own house or garden, you can’t ever participate in town meetings, you’re not- people mock you all the time, call you a lesser woman…”

Not even she could have predicted just how much the very thought overwhelmed her, and she caught herself in the midst of panic, holding herself. The werewolf, lost on whether to hold her too or keep his distance, just looked at Ophelia, stunned beyond words.

“I don’t…I don’t want this to be the only thing I’m known for,” she admits, voice thin and innocent, like a child. “I’m not just this body. I have a spirit just like men do.”

A few moments of silence lets the air breathe between them, the gravity of this situation hitting full force. So much of the girl’s life had been defined by the fact that she was, in fact, a girl. And she was seeking out his touch as a way to make a statement, a way to escape.

The last several women that Gael and his father had found tied to this altar were the exact opposite: Comfortable in their stations, squirming in fright, wanting to live among their own. They were thin, pretty, almost decorative things that had very little spirit to their fight after a night of abuse. And his father made the call, over and over again, to take advantage of that, teaching him how to be “a real man.”

Good riddance to that bastard. Good riddance to that tradition. But now…

“Dammit,” Gael growls, gripping his knees with great clawed hands.

Blinking a couple times, Ophelia looks up at him with some degree of curiosity.

“Dammit as in you were horny and I killed it, or-”

“No! No,” Gael rebuttals immediately, surprised she’d even think that. Then again, with the way women were treated where she came from, maybe he oughtn’t be. “No, dammit, as in dammit, I never even intended to come back here, but now that I know what’s going on I can’t just leave you here. You know how often that happens?” He asks, looking to Ophelia with stress on his face. “Never. It never happens. But…”

The werewolf gives a great, heaving sigh, the night cool enough that a great puff of steam comes from his muzzle.

“Look. I wasn’t lying when I said before that I hate this old tradition. I don’t like fucking some human just to kill her or send her back to her people “tainted.” That’s tacky," he notes, picking at the moss growing on the underside of the stone slab idly. "If I fuck a human it's got to be because she wants it just as much as I do---WITHOUT coersion. But when you put it like that? …dammit,” he sighs, grumbling just a touch.

Some part of Ophelia, the worst part, tells her to hide her face from the werewolf despite his gentle words and demeanor. He had power over her, he was getting angry, and if she didn’t appease him somehow he’d hurt her. But she squashes that instinct down. He had been nothing but gentle to her this entire time, and she didn’t intend to insult his kindness by fawning.

“...and you don’t have a home to go back to without these “spinster classes” happening,” Gael confirms slowly. “No mother, no cousins or aunts, no extended family?”

Ophelia looks in her lap, her silence to the question speaking everything he needs to hear.

Gael’s great body heaves in a sigh, and he stands to his full seven foot height, silver fur glinting yet again in the moon. Then, with one swift motion, he takes Ophelia into his arms, tucking her against his chest, easily dwarfing her by both sheer size and the thickness of his fur. (She sticks a whole hand in to test---and it keeps going to the tough skin beneath.)

“Then once we get home I’m going to need to ask Mother what humans eat.”