never have grandchildren.”
“And you’re all I got, and I thought you were dead.” Garrad’s dry amusement came back. “Did you have him because you wanted to have grandchildren?”
“No, I was young, I—”
“You’re still young, son. And even if you weren’t, it don’t justify making Jem into something he ain’t. ’Sides, Ree and Jem . . . Ree brought Jem in, and Jem was dying of consumption. Ree risked getting killed so he could bring Jem in to get help. And then he helped me too. I’d tripped and fallen on that damn rug your mother made, and Ree nursed me and Jem both. Then they both worked hard as any ten men to get the farm back working again. Fact is, if you were to kick them out tonight, I’d have to sell most of my animals and give them the money. They bought those animals with the furs of the creatures they killed in the forest. And they never asked for anything.”
“It’s not right, Father,” Lenar insisted. “It’s just not. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t see enough of it in the army, but . . . with an animal?”
“Ree ain’t an animal.”
Ree couldn’t listen any more. There was too much, and all it made him think was that Lenar was right. Who knew when the animal would take over?
He padded across to the bedroom and slipped inside. Jem sounded like he was asleep, and Amelie too. The old painting on the wall, of Garrad and his brother when they’d been young, made Ree think about families and how he couldn’t have one, not of his body. Nor would Jem as long as they were together. The two young men in the old picture looked happy and relaxed, and so like Jem it hurt.
Ree felt as if something inside him had frozen. Carefully he removed his clothes, all of them, even the boots with their warm felted lining. Jem belonged here. It was Ree who was in the way, Ree who would be a problem for them all the time. Ree who would make Jem’s life difficult. He touched Jem’s face, where it curved in the moonlight, and felt the close-shaved blond beard. The idea of never touching Jem again, never seeing Jem again made him hurt deep inside. But it was just him. He was a hobgoblin. They had no real feelings. Not like people.
“Ree, get in bed,” Jem said and smiled a little, but he didn’t wake up. Not fully. He didn’t move as Ree left the room.
Ree had forgotten how miserable cold he could get, even through his fur. He ached with it, and his feet hurt with each step on the frozen ground. Instead of going far into the forest, he curled in one of the abandoned burrows near the farm. He shivered and dozed till first light, and then he thought he should hunt.
A rabbit, he thought. They were sort of a fuzzier smell than cats and not musky like foxes. He was starving. But he remembered how nasty raw rabbit was, and it made his stomach clench and bitter bile come to the back of his throat.
Some wild hobgoblin he was. Hobgoblins did not use fire. They were animals. But his stomach refused to believe him, and he knew better than to force it. Later. When he was hungry enough.
He’d managed before, hadn’t he? There wasn’t any reason he couldn’t do it again. Let Garrad and Lenar and Jem be a family, without him in the way. There were enough places to hide and not be seen if anyone came looking for him.
His feet were so cold they hurt, and he felt every stone and fallen branch underfoot. His toe claws kept catching on frozen ground, until he thought he’d wrenched them. And no matter how hard he told himself it was better for everyone this way, and he’d get used to living wild, he couldn’t make himself believe it. He already missed Jem.
It was a relief when the long, lonely day faded to darkness and he could find an empty burrow and try to sleep.
A scream sounded, startling Ree awake.
Someone was in trouble. Ree scrabbled from the burrow and raced toward the scream. He ran blindly through the trees, then stopped.
Lenar was ahead of him fighting something. Something invisible.
A snow bear. Ree approached, carefully. He wouldn’t be able to see it unless he was right up close or it got in front of something dark.
Though Lenar knew how to use his sword, the creature was bigger and stronger than he was and would kill him and eat him. It took two people to kill snow bears. He and Jem hunted together. As he thought this, he had launched himself toward the creature’s back.
Ree scrambled to climb up, digging his finger and toe claws into the snow bear’s fur while it swung wildly, trying to dislodge the annoyance. Blood sprayed over the snow, shockingly red against white.
He wrapped one arm around the creature’s head, going by feel to get his claws into its eyes. It howled in agony, rearing to its full height. Lenar struck. His sword went all the way into the snowbear’s chest and came out the back, nearly skewering Ree as well.
Ree jumped off and rolled to the side while the creature collapsed. In the time it took him to climb to his feet and shake snow off his fur, Lenar had pulled his sword free and was staring at the snow bear with a grimace. He glared up at Ree. “Damn fool old man was out at first light chasing after you,” he said. “If there’s more like this, he’s probably got himself killed, and that damn stubborn young pup with him.”
Lenar wiped his sword on the snow bear. “I came looking for them both.” He gave Ree another sharp look. “That thing was waiting for me.”
“They do that.” Ree looked around, hoping that there would be tracks, something he could use to find Jem and Garrad. “You can’t even smell the damn things.” It was too confused here, with the snowbear’s musk and blood, but a little farther on he saw the rounded hole of Garrad’s walking stick and two sets of footsteps. “This way.”
Lenar didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t argue with Ree leading, only gave him more of those long, searching looks. “You’re like no hobgoblin I’ve seen,” he said.
“No,” Ree said. “You see, Jem thinks I’m human. He . . . I think he made me human, he’s so stubborn.” It sounded dumb, but Ree didn’t really care what Lenar thought. He had to find Jem and Garrad and get them home safe.
When he heard snarls in the distance, he started to run. It didn’t sound like snow bears, more like the wolf things. That was bad.
Lenar kept up with him. Ree couldn’t run too fast over the rough ground. Lenar didn’t answer when Ree told him about the wolf things and how the best way to stop them was to kill the queen bitch, because she ruled the pack and they’d be lost if she died. The queen bitch was always the biggest one, sometimes twice as big as the others, and she was usually all white, where the rest of the pack were gray and white.
Jem and Garrad were back to back, Jem using a pitchfork and Garrad his walking stick to keep the pack off them. The pack was playing still, wearing them down for the kill.
Ree slammed into the pack, throwing one of the smaller wolf creatures aside. The smaller ones were maybe hip high at the shoulder, long and lean with jaws that could crack bones and wicked curved teeth. The queen was almost as tall as Ree and more muscular than her packmates.
That didn’t stop Ree from jumping on her and holding on with his knees and toe claws while he scrambled for her eyes with one hand and her throat with another. He had gotten a good hold when one of the creatures crashed into him, and they all went tumbling. Ree felt flesh tear under his fingers, and at the same time he realized that his back and side hurt. The damn wolf goblin must have clawed him. It wasn’t moving now, though.
The pack ran, fast, deep into the woods. They’d be harmless until they found another queen.
It took him a while to pull himself free, what with his claws tangled in the pack queen’s fur and flesh and trying not to get the other hobgoblin’s claws any deeper into him when he moved.
Ree shuddered. He forced himself to look at Jem and Garrad. They weren’t hurt. Garrad stood and leaned on his walking stick, breathing heavily, while Jem and Lenar made sure that the wolf queen was indeed dead.
Garrad glared at him. “What possessed you to run off like that, Ree?”
Ree swallowed. “I don’t belong.” It was harder than he thought to say that. “I . . . Jem should have children. He doesn’t need me.”
“You’re a stubborn proud young cuss is what you are. Seems to me that kind of stubborn is right at home in my family.” Garrad sounded more like his normal self now. “What about Jem, then? Do you know how much he missed you, just one day? Did you ask him if he needed you?”
“But . . . you’ve got your family now. Why would you want me?” Why would anyone want him, really? He might turn bad, forget being human even though he didn’t want to.
