Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4
His gaze locked with mine, and I could see his expression darkening as he took a wobbly step closer. The smell of liquor clung to him, strong and sour, filling the small space of the cottage.
He pointed at the rabbit turning slowly over the fire. “Where did you find that?” he demanded, his voice rough. “You must have bought it with coin. You’ve been hiding it from me.”
Before I could answer, he slammed his hand across the wooden table, sending herbs and bowls scattering across the floor. The sharp clatter echoed through the cottage, making me flinch despite myself.
“I… I did not buy it,” I stammered, forcing the words out as my grip tightened around my bow. “I hunted it this afternoon.”
He let out a harsh laugh, one that held no humour. “There is nothing left to hunt on this farm,” he said, his voice dropping lower as he stepped closer.
“Don’t come closer,” I said, the words leaving me before I could stop them. My voice was steady, but my heart was not.
“Or what?” he demanded, taking another step toward me.
I tightened my hold on the bow, my fingers firm despite the slight tremble that ran through them. I did not want to shoot him. I never had. But something in me had finally reached its limit. I could not keep living like this, waiting for the next time his temper turned, waiting for the next blow.
They could hang me if I killed him.
The thought should have stopped me.
It didn’t.
I had endured enough. It had only grown worse after my mother passed, as if whatever restraint he once had died with her. What remained was something harder, something crueller, something that saw me as nothing more than something to take from.
He closed the distance faster than I expected.
Before I could react, his hand shot out, gripping the bow and wrenching it from my grasp with a force that sent pain shooting through my fingers. I tried to hold on, but he was stronger, his grip fuelled by anger and drink.
The next moment came too fast.
The bow struck across my face with a sharp, brutal force that sent me crashing to the ground. Pain exploded along my cheek, bright and disorienting, as the world tilted beneath me. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, leaving me gasping as I struggled to push myself up.
My vision blurred for a moment, but through it, I saw him standing over me.
I saw what he did next.
He took the bow in both hands and snapped it in half as if it were nothing, the sound of the wood breaking echoing through the room. Without a second thought, he tossed the pieces into the fire.
The flames caught quickly.
My chest tightened at the sight, something sharp and painful twisting inside me as the only weapon I had left disappeared into the growing heat.
He turned back to me.
His shadow fell over me where I lay on the ground, the firelight flickering behind him, casting his face in a darker, harsher light. His eyes were cold now, any trace of humour gone, replaced by something far more dangerous.
He took another step toward me, and I tried to push myself up, but the pain in my side made me slower than I needed to be. My hand slipped against the cold floor as I struggled to get my footing.
“Get up,” he snapped, his voice sharp.
I didn’t move fast enough.
His boot struck my side, sending a sharp burst of pain through me that forced the air from my lungs. I curled slightly, my body reacting before I could stop it, trying to protect itself from the next blow.
“I said get up,” he growled, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling me up just enough to force me onto my knees.
A cry escaped me before I could stop it, the sound raw in the small space of the cottage. My hands gripped his wrist, trying to ease the pressure, but it did nothing. His hold only tightened.
“You think you can lie to me?” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “You think you can hide things from me in my own house?”
“It’s not your house,” I managed to choke out, the words slipping free before I could stop them.
The moment they did, I knew I had made a mistake.
His grip shifted, and the next strike came harder, sending me sideways back onto the floor. Pain flared again, sharper this time, leaving my ears ringing as I struggled to focus.
For a moment, all I could hear was the crackle of the fire and the rush of blood in my ears.
Then— Something else.
A deep, heavy sound from outside.
It was not the wind. It was not the shifting of branches. It was something far heavier.
My stepfather stilled, his head turning slightly toward the door as the sound came again, closer this time. A low impact against the wood, strong enough to make the frame tremble.
“What the—” he started, his grip loosening on me.
The next moment shattered the silence.
The door burst open with a violent force, slamming against the wall so hard it echoed through the cottage. Cold air rushed inside, carrying with it the scent of snow and something darker, something wild. Something that did not belong.
I barely had time to react before the space filled with it. With him.
He stepped inside, and the air itself seemed to change.
He was larger than any man I had ever seen, his presence filling the doorway in a way that made the small cottage feel even smaller. Shadows clung to him, the firelight catching only parts of his form, enough to show strength, to show something not entirely human, but not enough to fully understand what stood before us.
My stepfather staggered back, his earlier anger gone, replaced by something I had never seen in him before.
Fear.
“What… what are you?” he demanded, though his voice lacked the strength it had moments ago.
The figure did not answer.
His attention was not on him, it was on me.
I felt it the moment his gaze found me where I lay on the ground. It was not rushed or uncertain. It was deliberate, steady, as if he had already known I would be here.