Aurora looked out the coach window at the dusty little town of Blackshire. A strong wind was blowing, carrying clouds of sand and grit from the southern desert and the rays of the setting sun seemed to set the town on fire. It was an ominous beginning to her visit. As the horses pulled to a stop before the stables, she lifted her chin and forced a smile of welcome to her face, preparing to meet the Aunt and Uncle she had come (been sent, really) so far to see. But when the coachman, a warty little man, who had leered at her at every stop, extended his grimy hand to help her down, her face fell again when she realized the stableyard was empty.

"Ain't yer kin meetin' ya here?" the man asked, gripping her hand a little longer than was necessary. "This town ain't no place fer a lady after dark, if ya get my drift." A wink and a wheezing chuckle accompanied this pronouncement.

"They were supposed to be here. I expect they'll be along shortly," said Aurora, pulling her hand from his. "Do you know if there's a place I could wait?"

"Well, there's th' Howlin' Moon, just next door, but I doubt a lady like yerself would want to go in there," he answered, turning to take her bags down from the top of the coach. "If you'd like, you can wait here in the office. If they don't come, me and the missus have a spare room. You could sleep there and we'll go find yer family in th' mornin'."

Aurora wasn't sure she liked either option. She'd never been to a public tavern in her life-she could just imagine her mother's scandalized reaction if she even so much as looked in the door, but then her mother had never been very adventurous. Her mother took a very dim view of young ladies of certain breeding "parading about" in public without a chaperone and would never have approved Aurora's traveling so far on her own. But, after her death, there had been no one able, or willing, to make the journey, and Aurora thought she had better get used to being on her own. Realizing that this train of thought was getting her nowhere, she decided that the presence of a "missus" would probably be enough to safeguard her virtue and she accepted his offer of a place to stay for the night.

The missus was a small, dark woman who looked remarkably like her husband, right down to the warts. When the stableman brought Aurora into the ramshackle house on the outskirts of town, she gave the girl a sharp look, but said nothing. Gesturing, she indicated that Aurora should sit at the splintering kitchen table and thrust a plate of some indistinguishable stew that smelled strongly of garlic in front of her. When dinner was over, she led Aurora into a small, attic bedroom with a cot in the far corner and left, all without saying a word. Too tired to worry over the strangeness of her situation, Aurora lay down, fully dressed, and was asleep almost instantly.

Rattling dishes in the house below woke her just after dawn. Yawning, she made her way down to the kitchen where the missus greeted her with another sharp look and plate of garlicky scrambled eggs. Just as she was finishing, the stableman came in, carrying a load of firewood.

"Good mornin', missy," he said, dropping the wood by the cookstove. "I been askin' around about yer kin and no one's heard from 'em for a couple a days. But, don't worry, that ain't so odd around here. Folks come and go every which way. And them two ain't been too friendly lately so likely they're just keepin' to themselves. If yer ready, we could head over to their house and see if they're around."

When they arrived at her Aunt and Uncle's house, it appeared abandoned. No smoke came from the chimneys, no light shone from the windows. But the caretaker's cottage in the back was inhabited. As they drove up, a dark-haired young man emerged, carrying a cup of some steaming beverage. He watched them as they approached, but made no move of greeting.

"People in this town are certainly not very friendly," Aurora thought, recalling the sullen looks she'd gotten as they drove through the village. But she called out to the young man, nonetheless.

"I'm Aurora Weatherspoon. My Aunt and Uncle live here and I'm supposed to be coming to live with them, but they didn't meet me last night when I arrived. Are they around?"

"And just who are you?" she wanted to add imperiously, but thought she shouldn't provoke him too far. Seeing him standing there, as if he belonged, as if he owned the place, made her feel more acutely the huge emptiness left in her life since her mother's death. Always before, it had been the two of them, her mother planning and plotting for Aurora's glorious future, Aurora resisting and fighting, but always giving in, eventually, to her mother's will. Aggravating as it had been, it had given her a sense of place and of structure for her world. But her mother's sudden death had changed all that. When she died, Aurora discovered that the plotting and planning had been in real earnest because there was nothing left of her father's fortune. Aurora was penniless and these strange, remote relatives whom she had never met were all she had between herself and abject poverty. Now, having arrived, hat in hand, when she had never begged for anything in her life, only to discover that her last hope seemed to be evaporating, she felt her composure begin to collapse. She wanted to scream at the smug young man. Clenching her fists and driving her fingernails into her palms hard enough to draw blood, she restrained herself.

"I'm Clieve Rockham, ma'am," the young man said, answering her unspoken question in a surprisingly soft, silky voice. "I've been taking care of your Aunt and Uncle's place while they're..." He trailed off for a moment and seemed to be sniffing the air for some elusive scent. "...visiting elsewhere," he finished. "They told me you were coming, but I didn't expect you until next week, otherwise I would have met you. Your room isn't quite ready, but if you give me a moment, I'll get the fires going and open the curtains."

It was only then that Aurora realized that the young man, Clieve, wasn't fully dressed and she blushed deeply, looking away, but not before she saw the strange markings that fanned out across his chest and arms. The dark tattoos seemed to ripple, like wind across a vast field of grass or sun on the sea. It was as if a ghostly second skin had settled over him, existing just outside of the range of normal vision. The effect was mesmerizing and she couldn't get it out of her mind. Still blushing and staring at the ground, Aurora heard him direct the coachman to carry her bags into the main house.

Following the coachman, she stepped out of the bright morning into the dim house. It had obviously been empty for some time. As Clieve opened the blinds, dust danced in the sunlight struggling through the dirty windows. All the furniture was shrouded and the whole house had a thick, still hush as if waiting for something, or someone.

"I'll get some of the women from the village to come and clean today," Clieve said. He had taken the time to pull on a shirt, then followed them into the house. "Until then, you might want to rest on the porch. I'll bring you something to drink."

And with that, he established a pattern that was to persist over the next days and weeks. Every morning, Aurora would emerge from the house, book in hand, and Clieve would bring her a cup of tea. The tea was fragrant and dark and tasted of woodland herbs and honey. Sometimes, she would simply sit, watching Clieve tend the garden, or feed the animals, or work on a variety of small fix-it projects, captivated by the quick, sure actions of his hands. She sipped her tea and watched the comings and goings of the villagers, most of whom softened to her enough to offer nods of greeting as they passed. Most often, though, she would read.

Her Aunt and Uncle had a surprisingly large collection of books, bound in aged, cracking leather. The books themselves were very odd. Often, she would read all the way through, engrossed, yet have no idea what she'd read when she finished. It was if the words washed over her, passed through her, and left no mark. She felt too tired, too drained by her loss and the endless waiting for her Aunt and Uncle to think too hard about it, however, and was content to just let it be. Most of the books, though, she did remember. They were curious, thrilling tales of monsters and maidens, faraway places and fantastic events. She read them avidly, letting the compelling stories take her mind far from her current troubles.

In the evenings, Clieve would lay a fire in the parlor and leave her. Every night he warned her against straying outside after dark. There are wolves and bandits that come down from the mountains, he said, and her Aunt and Uncle would be very displeased if he let anything happen to her. And for the first few days, she was content to sit inside by the fire, thinking about her prospects and wondering what her life might bring.

One night, however, she felt restless. She wandered through the house, looking at the pictures and objects her Aunt and Uncle had collected over the years. From the looks of things, they were great travelers. Many of the items were obviously foreign: strange metal boxes and tubes, scrolls sealed with peculiar devices, paintings of people and places that looked nothing like the world Aurora knew.

"Of course," Aurora thought, "There's not much of the world that I do know. My mother certainly saw to that."

It was thoughts like this one that had led to her present state of mind. Her mother had never thought she needed anything more than a good figure, a pleasing voice, and a smile. Worldly skills that might have served her now, such as a trade or even, god forbid, a knowledge of weapons and armor, were anathema to her mother. They were never even an option. Aurora was now alone, poor, and without the skills or training necessary to change those facts. The unfairness of it made her want to weep. Instead, she grabbed up a shawl and went out onto the porch.

The night was still and quiet. In the distance, she could hear owls hooting as they searched for their prey and the insistent sound of crickets. A large animal crashed through the trees beyond the house, howling as it went, but it was obviously a long way off. Around the house, there was silence.

Aurora stood on the front porch idly caressing the petals of the window-box flowers, watching the full moon rise and the darkness of the shadows deepen. In the corner of her eye, she caught a slight movement. It was a black wolf. It stepped out of the shadow of the barn and stared at her, its dark eyes oddly familiar. In them, she read desire, for her, for her death, for her life, but strangely, she was not afraid. She stared back, lost in those eyes, feeling their pull. She was aware of the hot pulse at the base of her neck, of the weight of her clothes against her skin, of the smell of the hot, dusty darkness. She wondered if the wolf could hear her heart racing. He took a step toward her and the spell was broken. She spun around, ran into the house, and slammed the door behind her.

Leaning against the door, gasping and shivering, she was aware of the wolf, still standing, waiting, in the shadows outside. Even within the safety of the house, with the heavy oak door between them, she felt his call. She resisted, wrapping her arms around herself, tears running down her cheeks. "I can't," she said aloud. "I won't." Yet still, she stood there, torn, wanting what was being offered, hearing her mother's voice crying out against the danger. But that voice faded beneath the urgency of the wolf's desire. Almost trancelike, she opened the door and went to him.

Together, they walked the deserted streets through the town, past the fountain, through the town gates, and towards a strange, shining light near the base of the mountains. Many more wolves were gathered there, snapping and snarling at each other, but they made way for Aurora and the black wolf. In the center of the pack, she saw the source of the light-a huge bonfire-and beside it, a low stone altar. As she neared the altar, the wolves pressed closer. She felt their rough fur, their hot breath, the touch of their tongues through her clothing. Dimly, she realized they were tearing it off her, picking at the thin cloth with their teeth.

Naked, she stood before the fire, transfixed by the leaping flames. The black wolf pressed her gently down on the altar and she felt the pack closing in. They howled, the chorus of yips and snarls filling her ears. Looking up at the black wolf, she saw his sleek fur, his teeth, his eyes. She saw his gaping jaws, and she saw Clieve, too. The two were there, twinned, each superimposed on the other. She heard Clieve speaking soothingly, heard the wolf growling, felt Clieve caress her, felt the wolf's teeth rending her flesh and when they entered her, she screamed and sighed and embraced them both.

Sometime before dawn, she realized that the other wolves had left, slinking home to the village, to their huts and hovels and unused beds. She was alone by the dying fire with the Werewolf King. For that was what Clieve was, she knew. He alone had mastered the dueling aspects of his being-the man and the beast. They coexisted in him, neither gaining ascendancy, neither subsumed by the other. He understood them and reveled in them in ways that the others, forever divided between their daytime and nightime selves, could never achieve, or even imagine. Not for Clieve the slavish dependency on the phases of the moon-he controlled his nature and used it to his advantage.

As the sun rose, she felt his wolf pelt fade beneath her fingers and the smooth skin of a man emerge. Yet the wolf was still there, a sleeping shadow, its image rippling across his flesh in the strange markings she had seen the first day she met him. Unselfconsciously, he smiled at her.

"Come," he said, rising and offering her his hand. "We'd better get back before the town awakes."

Later that day, Aurora sat on the porch again, watching Clieve as he went about his duties as caretaker. The light seemed sharper, somehow, the smell of the desert stronger, the sound of the wind in the trees louder and more compelling.

"Something is happening," she thought. "Something is happening-has happened-to me. I am no longer Aurora Weatherspoon, debutante, maiden, daughter." She thought this with a pang of anxiety, for once again the world she had known was crumbling and she faced an unknown future. But this future, at least, was more appealing than the one she had anticipated when she had arrived in Blackshire. So she sat, nursing a cup of tea, just watching Clieve and trying not to think.

She was still sitting there some hours later when a small group of travelers approached the house.

"Salutations, M'Lady," said one, a dark, bearded man with a bow slung across his back and two large swords hanging from his belt. "I am Roderick and these are my companions, Alexis, Serena, and Zoltan. We are adventurers on a quest and had heard of difficulties in Blackshire concerning werewolves. Have you been troubled by these foul creatures?"

"Troubled? No, M'Lord. We have had no trouble here that I know of," Alexis replied.

She tried not to look towards Clieve, but Zoltan noticed him and called out, "You there, boy, have you heard anything about werewolves around here?" Clieve simply shook his head and went back to tending the garden.

"Would you know of an inn or public house where we could rest and possibly find out a little more?" Roderick asked.

"There is an inn, I believe," Aurora said. "It's back towards the town gates, near the fountain. It's called the Howling Moon. But I've heard that it's a rough place. You're welcome to pitch a tent behind the house, if you'd prefer. Clieve could help make you comfortable."

"Accepted gladly, M'Lady," said Roderick, bowing slightly. "We will continue our quest in the morning."

As night fell, Aurora paced nervously in the parlor, peering through the curtains to see if the travelers' tent still stood. She had hoped, when she offered them the spot, that Clieve and his pack would make short work of them, protecting their territory and their secret. But as the minutes ticked away towards midnight, all was silent outside and she fell asleep on the sofa.

She awoke to the noise of a great battle. Racing outside, she could see struggling figures silhouetted by the moonlight but could not tell who was winning. Snarling and screaming filled her ears, the smell of blood filled her nose, and she was overwhelmed by the intensity of the battle. It raged on and on, flashing lights and the smell of smoke indicating that magic was at play here too. She longed to wade into the fray and come to the pack's aid, but knew that she could offer nothing in the way of assistance. So she stood and she watched and she waited.

Gradually the fighting slowed. She realized it was over when a bearded figure raised his arm triumphantly, a dark wolf's head clutched in his bloody fist. She fainted.

Aurora awoke in a rocking carriage, the concerned faces of the travelers hovering over her.

"M'Lady," said the dark-haired woman. "I am Serena, a Healer. You are safe with us now. We have defeated the werewolves and slaughtered their king. The infestation was so great that no one was left in the town to care for you. Therefore, we are taking you to Ironfist to be cared for by the monks in the temple."

Aurora turned her gaze to the window and saw snowy mountains in the distance. She placed her hand on her belly and felt, deep within, the spark of life. The Werewolf King might be dead, but the Werewolf Prince would be safe with her.