My Envied Lady: Chapter 17

Chapter 17
The cave was dark when morning came, but the smell of roasting meat drifted into the entrance. Johan woke to pain in his foot and a dull ache in his arm. Where was he? He remembered the fight with Fenris, the flight through the woods in the rain, and coming to this place. He hobbled around the cave until he found the entrance and crawled out to where the light and food were. It was Maenad, in human form with Peewit. Two rabbits were roasting on a spit over a small fire under a rock shelter. Peewit was eating a third. Maenad was eating a tiny cake from Peewit's pack of food. She was covered in dried blood, but she looked completely healed. Tan skin and fading scars showed under the tears in the back of her dress where bite wounds should have been. "You're awake." She said, looking his way. "You look awful! You need to eat!" Exclaimed Peewit, rummaging around in his pack of food. "Where did those rabbits come from?" Johan asked. "I caught them," said Maenad, wiping blood and crumbs off her chin with her sleeve. It made her look slightly less savage. "It's easy now that I can shift again. Those two are yours and Sabina's if Peewit doesn't eat them first. I already ate two right after I caught them, but I figured you'd want yours cooked." A breeze blew through the plants obscuring the cave entrance and Johan shivered. He realized with some embarrassment that he was very under-dressed in the presence of a Lady. Of sorts. He blushed and apologized as he backed quickly into the cave. Maenad rolled her eyes, picked up the spit and a burning stick, and followed him. He was wrapped in one of her furs when she got to her den. She propped the spit with rabbits still on it against a wall and lit the torch. "You don't need to be moving around anymore until help arrives. Leave everything to me; I owe you for killing Fenris." She left the den and could be heard talking to Peewit outside, something about needing to find their animals and more food, then quiet. There was a rustling in the furs nearby and Johan noticed Sabina was starting to wake up. She shuffled over to where he sat wrapped in the hide and hugged him as tight as she dared. "How do you feel?" she whispered, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I was so worried about you." Her hair was tangled and her dress was torn and muddy. Even now, she's still so beautiful, he mused. "It hurts, and Maenad won't let me move. I was worried about you too. It's better that this happened to me than to you. I've trained for this sort of thing." "Don't say that. It scared me to death to hear you fight with Fenris, and then to see what he had done to you and to Maenad. It's because of me that this happened anyway. This isn't the first time you've had to save me from being kidnapped because I'm the princess of Hauvon." "I'd have fought a werewolf to save you if you'd been a serf. I…your uncle told me not to come here...he ordered me to stay behind, but I couldn't stand the thought of waiting in the castle while you were in danger. I disobeyed him. But I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you." "Oh, Johan...I think once he hears what you did, he won't be too angry. I can tell him everything…well, maybe not everything everything." She smiled and gave him a kiss. "Though you're right, a lot of things would be easier were you not a princess." "That doesn't matter right now. No one's around but Maenad and Peewit, and I know they don't care about whether or not I'm being ladylike. I don't think Maenad even knows how a proper princess ought to act." "I think they both left to get more food. Peewit finally has someone who eats as much as he does." Sabina giggled and kissed him again. He decided to forget modesty and aches and pains for now, and held her close with his good arm. "Let's not talk about Peewit and Maenad right now." Sabina returned his embrace and ran her hand over his chest. God, he was so handsome, and he loved her enough to risk staining his honor and angering her uncle. Why did she have to wait to give herself to a near-stranger, when here was someone she truly loved and trusted, someone who stirred all manner of improper desires in her? There might not be another time like this, and they both knew it. They would worry about the King, Maenad and Peewit, Barbara, Lothar and Andrew later. In wolf form, Maenad was a swift as the bolt of a crossbow, and Peewit had trouble keeping up with her on foot. They went to the place they had left Bayard and Biquette, thankfully still tethered and grazing. Biquette was delighted to see Peewit, and even a little glad to see Maenad...that is to say, she didn't try to run from her.

See if the animals were safe, then get food, then back to the cave, that was the plan. Mounted on Biquette, Peewit could keep up with Maenad much more easily. They left the ravines and woods and headed over open country in search of food. Bayard followed them, knowing they would eventually lead him to his human. As they approached more woods, they found a scruffy man cleaning a freshly killed deer. Maenad stayed out of sight, and Peewit followed her lead. "A poacher," he whispered to her. She nodded in agreement, then charged the man, making him drop his knife and run into the woods, screaming for help. She chased him up a tree, baring her fangs and snarling to make him squirm. After a while, she trotted away until he tried to come down, then she charged him again, watching with amusement as he scurried back up the tree. If the poacher didn't know any better, this wolf was laughing at him! Peewit crept into the clearing, and cut the deer down from its truss. Maenad trotted back to him, and shifted to human form. "See? Wasn't that easy? He did all the hard work for us, and I doubt he'll want to poach in these woods again" They cut the deer up and started walking back to the caves. There was enough meat to last them for days. "Why do you need to eat so much, Maenad?" "I should ask you the same." "Hmph. I asked first." "Fair enough. When I get injured, I heal very quickly thanks to my, uh, condition. But it takes a lot of fuel to do it. Like keeping a bonfire versus a cookfire. Now you answer me." "I'm a growing young man," replied Peewit indignantly. "Just how did you come to live at that castle? You don't act like you grew up there," Maenad replied. "Where do you come from?" So Peewit told her the story of how years before he had been a forest goblin, and how he happened to meet Johan, Sabina and the Smurfs.