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"Are you not supposed to be helping me practice? The dance?"

The twang of my bowstring clipped the end of my words, but my would-be brother by marriage could understand them well enough. Just like my betrothed, his body was powerful and sleek, coarse with muscle and ferocity. Yet when you caught the sidelong glance at his muzzle, or when you narrowed your focus on the same target, you never felt more kinship with another being.

My arrow had struck a bit of game, and he bounded immediately to drag it back. He took pleasure in launching himself to all fours when he could, raking claws against the roots and bouncing from trunk to trunk. He returned with the viperhare in hand. The ophidian eyes and scaled head in discomforting opposition to the rest of the dusky-furred body. It was limp, with only a trickle of blood running across its pelt, stemmed by the shaft.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks. Is it big enough?"

He took one of the thing's small paws in his own. It certainly didn't look big enough seeing it like that.

"No."

"And what about my other question?"

His shoulders slooped and he sighed, you'd have thought I were nagging him about a surprise party and sapping the joy of it for him. He smiled though, and with the golden rings about his pupils narrowing on me, and the sardonic growl gurgling from the back of his muzzle, he reminded me much of his sister. "Either she kills you. And you die." The viperhare jostled in his hands as he gesticulated. "Or you live and we will laugh about this tomorrow morn."

I gaped at him a moment. Being outside of the tribe was already a black mark on my record. Being a human triply so, if it weren't for how passionately she stuck by my side I'd have thought I was playing part in a deadly joke at my expense.

Before I could figure what new angle to drive, or if I should just shut my trap, he made a move at me. He leapt at me with a gleam of teeth and a flash of eye that no man can ever fully shake the fear of. You can shake the reaction, but the inner ape still wails. I was wrapped up in his arms, feeling my own crushed to my sides and my face being smothered by the fur of his neck before I could so much as puff out a breath. A wet, warm but instantly cold, lick rolled up my neck to just behind the ear. I felt the viperhare whip my back twice, the arrow shaft snagging on my clothes.

"I have seen you fight. You will be fine. Besides, it is only three or so minutes."

He released me as quickly as he had grasped me, and already had his back turned.

"She will really be trying to kill me? Entirely?"

"Yes. Our women are raised from birth to bitch that if they can kill a man, they cannot tie a bond with him. You have been told that before, do not think it just a bit of pretend." He added a second later, "Come on, I think I've got the scent on another. We need a bigger spleen."

---

The bonfire was large enough to illuminate the ceremony aplenty. In its great fires though it cast long and grim shadows. The air was stiff with chill and auspice. The spleen pulp from the viperhare we caught had practically frozen itself in two streaks across the bridge of my nose and left check, and in a circle on the forehead. The taste on my canine teeth was foul, but there was too much to focus on to bother with that.

The ground had been stamped into a meeting place a long time ago, and the bonfire's light licked just close enough to the village huts that wreathed the parade where we all gathered. Many I knew, and many more I did not, had taken up to observe the ceremony. It wasn't so often a human marries a wolf. In the past, it had been more common.

From the other side of the clearing she arrived. She parted the observers gracefully, never once taking her unflinching sight from me. She could have fallen from a sliver of clipped moonlight, with how her fur shown. White bristled with undercurrents of grey and black. A thick coat, like many wolves, for the north was cold. Her tail hung limp, soft, and low. Nothing like the twitchy and over-lively tails of their cousins in the cities. Like we humans wear foppish clothes and speak with haughty accents so too they wagged and swayed their tails too often.

Her muzzle was slender and graceful, but even the smallest part let one see the violence it could unleash. The flutter and close of her eyelids were at once languid and terrifying. Her brother shadowed me, urging me a few paces forward. He was standing in for their father, who had passed away some time ago.

Limned by the bonfire, a wolf so old he'd begun to shrink back upon himself leaned heavily on a staff. The grey of his fur was that sort undeniably brought by age and not by design. "You will be his sponsor?"

"I will. I vouch his worth for this courtship."

The heat of his words were right by my ear, the breath warming my skin, and yet they felt so distant. I felt a sort of weakness, a softness, impressed and thankful. It was one thing to be told you were a friend and family, and another to see that bond be confirmed. His hand remained on my shoulder, arm draped there too. I was thankful for the bit of warmth, it was chilly.

There was the pat and dig of his staff as he turned a few degrees toward my betrothed. I caught this only from the corner of my eye, as I could not take my sight off her. I was beginning to be a bit worried then. There was not one single shade of love or softness that I could detect upon her. She looked like a stranger. I had not seen or spoken to her for a week. That was demanded of all affianced. Seeing her now, like this, made my stomach twist with a lovestruck pang.

This was no human wedding ceremony in a chapel.

"And you wish to test this man's value as a mate and spouse?"

"I do." The feminine, sweet honey of her voice came through the wiry strain of her accent.

"You vow to endure your part in this handfast? To not strike back, or exit the circle, until the music stops or you are dead?"

I felt so removed from it, as if I were observing someone else’s vows. I only remembered my line when I felt the slight dig of claws to my shoulder. "I do."

He began puttering away, and the arm withdrew from my shoulder, in a few seconds it was just me and her. Staring. "Disrobe," the old priest said, almost too quiet to be heard. I understood it properly only when I saw her shoulder off her gown.

The long, concealing cloth collapsed in a pool around her footpaws. She was bare aside from the groin, where a breechcloth kept some modesty. I had seen her body before, beside a river's bank, beneath the bough of a tree, held within my arms. That did not diminish the wonder of it.

I mimicked the gesture, kicking back the robes and standing firm. Just as she was, I had nothing but a loincloth. The cold did concern me a measure more than her, considering the fur.

The music wouldn't start yet, not until she marked me as her husband. Even if she were to kill me, I suppose I would have been hers for a few moments. She strode to me deftly, clearing the distance in a few paces. She was only a hair shorter than me, discounting her tall ears. She betrayed no love for me, and being this close I felt her broil with... contempt? Bitterness? I was bewildered. Her mark snapped me from it.

From the inside sternum across my pectorals, she raked a quadruple-clawed wing across my body. I gritted my teeth and made no sound. Several of the men howled and yipped approval, her brother leading them. Immediately the blood began weeping across my skin, running in rivulets across the bounds of my muscles and tickling down further where they did not drip off to the ground.

The music began, slow and discordant. Beautiful, like a violin almost. The musician had a large box of some sort in his lap, and cranked the top. I couldn't waste any time observing, as she didn't waste any other. She swung for my head with so much fury I nearly was caught by it. The yipping and howling that began now didn't seem normal, there were some shocked gasps too.

I could pay them no mind. She was trying to kill me in earnest. A wolf has many more talents of the body than a human does. By all rights, they should rule us. And yet...

She was more wildcat than woman, a raking flow of claws whipping for any flesh she could find purchase on. It was as if being attacked by the wind, ripping flows of it cutting the air and leaving a visible trace in their wake. Splatters of blood occurred to me before their pains did, and I staggered to keep myself from getting winded or tripping.

This wasn't just a survival contest though, I was meant to prove myself. I realized then why they keep you from her. And why she acted so bitter. I stopped considering the thing trying to kill me as anything other than a threat. Just with the caveat that I could not harm her. I found, as I regained my footing, that was the harder of the two tasks.

The lacerations to my skin were deep in some places, and she dipped and dived often to catch me where I might be weakest. Along the legs, calves, and throat too. She bobbed, staying in evasive motion even with her attacks. However, where she dipped I rose. Where she rose I dived. And I did so with flair. It wasn't enough to just survive. This was a dance. And once I could move past the terror, I could read her movements with the same ease a human husband might lead his wife during their first dance.

So I began to lead her. And then the yipping and hollering and howling became so vigorous it nearly drowned out the music. She was beginning to look nervous. I could hear her becoming ragged, and myself too. How long had it been? Surely three minutes had passed. The song seemed to be win—

She swung her leg to kick mine out from under me. It was a wonderful move. If I had more breath in me, or an instant's more awareness, I might have jumped up to avoid it. The way it was, I was laid flat on my back and dazed. I saw the bonfire and moon, until they were blocked out by a killer's gaping maw, drooling.

A wide swing came with her right hand, and before it struck I knew it would open up my throat. I couldn't hear much, between the ring in my ears from a hard thump on the head, to the howling. I had no clue what notes of music I was about to be killed to. Until I felt the claws miss, and realized the music had stopped. She diverted all that force, too close a shave to stop her swing, into the ground beside us, digging into the dirt with a low yowl both relieved and exhausted.

I began to get my feet under me just as I was lifted up. A half dozen of the males I was closest to in the village surrounded me, licking and hugging and patting my wounds. Their voices were a chorus of yowls and praising words. Plenty of teasing jabs thrown in too. I couldn't care much, I was looking across at her.

She was surrounded by twice as many females, some aghast and some as excited as my friends. There she was again. With my blood on her face, arms and chest, serenely sweet. The woman I'd last seen a week ago was back. She didn't want me to think she would go easy on me. She didn't want me to flinch and think she'd let me live. She wanted me to truly best her. She didn't want anyone to doubt I was worthy of being hers.

I was brought back from my stupor only by the tight squeeze of my brother's hand to my bicep. "You know why we were yelling at the start, yes?"

I shook my head, stupidly, giving the lump on my head a good excuse to develop into a proper headache.

"She picked the longest out of the handfast dirges. I told you, she truly wanted to kill you." He yipped and cackled a laugh more hyena than dog. Now the gasps and looks on those women made sense.

The priest had returned, and all the others but me and her melted away for the final portion. He placed in my palm a set of knuckle rings set with four obsidian shards. Claws, for human husbands and wives. I noticed a second how the wounds on my chest had become a splatter with movement, the dried, smeared blood became something artful. I wondered how much of the hare spleen had survived the dance, I couldn't taste any of it on my fangs.

She was trembling when she approached me, presenting her chest. I knew enough to know it wasn't for fear of pain. Not when her eyes were watering so. Not when she was held back from wrapping me in her arms only by ritual and tradition. I incised my mark across her chest, and the very second my hands fell aside we wrapped each other in a tight, and mutually stinging, embrace.

"Now we share blood. We share everything. I love you." She nibbled at my neck and licked between every word, her voice a tremble of tears.

I sunk my fingers into her fur, careful of my borrowed claws, feeling the firmness of her upper back. And, despite the pain, relishing the slippery and stinging throb of our chest-to-chest bond. She repeated her oath of love to my ear, and I told her what she already knew a thousand times over.

The only thing that stopped me from hauling her to our yurt was needing to return those claws. I noticed then how stained with others blood the soft, time worn wood was. I wonder if any of my distant relations had blood on them.

There was some sort of chant, maybe, 'chest to chest', that rang out behind us. Of course, every single person knew what we were going to do. They had food and drink to enjoy. We had wounds to lick, bonds to tie, and love to make.