Wolf Bride by Elizabeth Moss Page A

a boy to get away from my lessons. Sometimes to escape the rod. There’s a cave down there in the hollow, near the spring. When the weather was fine I would bring a fleece or a cloak and sleep there, away from the hubbub of my father’s house. It is a good place to be alone.’
    Still reeling from that fleeting contact, Eloise found she could make no reply. She gazed about the place instead, surprised and a little enchanted that Wolf would have brought her here, though they were still very much strangers. So this was a private place of his from childhood, a hideout where he could feel safe. She had her own little spots too, secret hiding places on her father’s estate, but she could not imagine ever sharing them with him.
    ‘Would you like to see inside the cave?’ he asked softly, and Eloise found herself nodding instinctively. Wolf took her by the arm and drew her down into the shadowy hollow, his breath warm on her cheek. ‘Mind your head as we go in . . .’

CHAPTER SIX
    At first there was merely a glimmering rock face with shadows ahead, and she went willingly. But then they reached a second passageway, and their bodies blocked the light from the mouth of the cave. The air grew cold and Eloise shivered. It was much darker inside the second cave, as dark as the inside of a glove, and as they ducked their heads to enter the cavern, a strange rustling came from above.
    It seemed to Eloise, who was not usually given to dreams and fancies, that something brushed her hair in passing.
    A cobweb – or some kind of evil spirit?
    She jerked back and clutched Wolf’s shoulder, unable to disguise the apprehension in her voice. ‘What . . . what was that?’
    He laughed softly in her ear. ‘Bats.’
    She shuddered, crouching even lower as they entered in case the tiny flying creatures were tempted to come back.
    ‘You used to sleep here? Alone?’
    ‘Alas, I was never able to persuade any of the local maidens to join me for the night,’ he replied, and she heard rather than saw the smile on his face. ‘Though if you had been a little older . . .’
    ‘No thank you!’
    Wolf slipped an arm about her waist as she tried to turn round and escape. ‘A little further in,’ he murmured persuasively, ‘there’ll be daylight, I promise. A cleft through the rocks up above. Besides, if we keep going, your eyes will adjust to the light.’
    Once again she caught his masculine scent and closed her eyes, glad he could not see her expression clearly. What did it matter to walk blind in this darkness?
    He helped her negotiate the narrow passageway, his gloved hand on her arm. She had to go first, stumbling across the uneven ground, but felt him close behind. Her breathing began to sound ragged to her ears in the enclosed space, and she wondered he could not hear her heart, it beat so loud.
    ‘Look,’ he whispered, and she stopped, opening her eyes at last. ‘Over there.’
    Wolf was right, she thought, feeling oddly off-balance now that her eyes were open again. There was daylight here, filtering down through the weight of rock and earth above them, illuminating the damp rock walls.
    Turning her head slightly, Eloise followed the line of his pointing arm, and came face to face with a horse. Not the animal itself, but, even more remarkable, the painting of a horse on the rock walls. To find a painting in this dark space was so unexpected that she blinked and caught her breath, suddenly speechless, staring at what he had shown her.
    A horse indeed, but not any horse she had seen. This was a horse from some other world, not her own. Thin curved lines described its back and legs in motion, its proud raised head, a single black dot for its eye.
    ‘What do you think?’ he asked at length.
    ‘It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Who drew it?’ She looked at him uncertainly. ‘You?’
    Wolf gave an odd laugh. ‘Not I, no. It was here when I found this place as a boy, and long before that too. I used to lie on this