We never speak on nights like this. Nights, when all I can think of is the stranger in the woods, we keep our thoughts and voices to ourselves. Nights when his haunting song and peculiar eyes are all I can focus on. Thoughts that bring me so close to… things I was raised never to speak of.

We avoid it. Letting that night creep up on us, we know it's better forgotten, but sometimes things you try so hard to forget are all your mind wants to conjure. He knows that I still k about that night, he remembers, he tries not to, but he remembers all the same. He can never forget just as I can't

Mama warned me. Good mamas always know, always worry and sometimes good daughters even listen. But everyone in the village knew I wasn't a good daughter. I wore my skirt a little higher than the other girls and strangely that, not my kind heart or unfailing loyalty, was what I was known for. The elder men in the village just didn't understand that after all the time mama spent making me that pretty cream dress with the small red hearts and shiny red buttons that I didn't want it to get muddied up. Daddy said my legs were too long to wear my skirt up but when he went to work, I always took the clips from my hair and hiked the hem to my knees, if I was walking through the brush then even my knees weren't high enough. The first time an elder caught me with my skirt up I was ten. That dress was a beauty too, blue as the sky. It wasn't so bad then but I still got my rear whooped. The thing about whippings though, is that eventually the sting wares off, and then the crime doesn't seem so bad. So, at sixteen I was back to hiking my skirt up when there were no men around. The little girls called me brave, the older girls called me depraved, and the boys, well, the boys were always whispering about me. I smiled at the little girls, told them to do what their mamas told them to do, I grinned at the older girls and told them depravity was the mark of a hungry soul, and didn't worry too much about the boys, my daddy was scarier than I was pretty. But there's always one, isn't there, the one who's more foolish than smart and more arrogant than kind. Wolfe wasn't like the other boys, but then, they never are. Where they were skinny he was strong and when they whispered he was silent, but when they turned their eyes away he stared right back at me, and that I think was what drew me in. His eyes were the darkest grey I had ever seen, so close to charcoal. But they were never dull. The light in them was eerie and intriguing, captivating enough to pull you right in and interesting enough to keep you there. That, as far as I can estimate, is what happened to me. I fell in to the dark wells of ink that held that boy's soul but I never took a closer look at what that soul held. If I had, well, maybe I would have kept my skirt down.

I tasted his lips long before he ever said a word to me and I tasted far more than that after he said hello for the first time. Words weren't necessary with us. I felt like a whole conversation could be had with a single touch. Things like hello were unimportant when all I think of was the way the heat of his skin scorched me and the brush of his fingers left a trail of fire. Our last touch was two fortnights before mama surprised me with a new red cloak to match my dress, she had noticed quickly how much I liked the red paired with my auburn hair, pale skin, and crisp brown eyes. He had gotten bored of me before that cloak, I realized my mistake of course, I gave him too much too quickly, I didn't make him wait for it. I didn't give him everything, no, even I, as depraved as I was, couldn't give him everything, though had he asked for it the story might have been different. I missed him, missed his touch, his eyes, missed the unspoken words, and secret meetings, I missed the strength he had and the way judgment never came from him. I missed everything I was never again allowed to have. That was when I made my decision. If he didn't want me now, he would in just a little while longer, and we would see if I would give him anything then. The cloak was just the thing I needed. I knew I had him when he saw it for the first time. I knew that I looked good. I had stolen the corner of Ms. Carry's looking glass. I knew the way my eyes hooded and my skin glowed, I knew that my lips were full and my red cape fell just right from my shoulders. If I had looked any more delicious I would have been a cherry pie. That day I flirted with Tommy Davis in the square knowing full well, just like the rest of the town, that tommy had been in love with me since we were twelve, I was also fully aware that Wolfe was watching. I knew firsthand how much he hated the way the other boys looked at me when I wasn't looking and he had never let me talk to other boys when we were together. I saw Wolfe's eyes get a little brighter and his fists clench. His mouth opened and for the first time he said my name. "Scarlet!" I was stunned that the way it rolled out of his mouth left me sweating. Foolishly, I ignored him. His first few strides were sharp and angry but they soon became purposeful. Tommy took a step back as his approach but this was my revenge and I was determined to have it. I stood my ground even as he moved right in front of me, but there was no force on earth that could have made me look into the angry grey eyes of his. "You will not ignore me." His words were softly spoken though there firmness was no less than if he had yelled them. I found them perfectly ironic however considering he had been doing exactly that to me. Then I did what only foolish little girls do, I walked away. I should have gone home, but I needed to time to gloat and get my breathing back to normal. I walked the opposite way into the woods. Few but the men ever went into the woods, but I had found a trail when I was small and never hesitated to follow it to the small meadow whenever I pleased. I never heard the foot steps behind me. I never saw the shadow stalking mine.

I finally reached the meadow and was not disappointed by the sight. Beautiful soft green grass blanketed the ground along with hundreds of small white flowers, making a bed fit for a god. The trees around the meadow shaded just enough to let light dimly in overhead but the meadow still became dark hours before the village. It and was a few hour after noon meal and already the light was fading and dipping behind the full, leafy branches of the trees. I stood in the grass enjoying the soft feel against my bare feet. My skirt was up around my thighs again and my cloak flowed open to reveal the baby-soft skin above my breasts. My breathing wasn't labored but the walk had been more difficult than usual because the ground had been soft from a recent rain. I might have sat down, I don't really remember. The next thing I can recall was being grabbed roughly from behind. Thick fingers gripping the delicate skin around my wrists, rubbing and biting, I felt that along with the hot breath on my neck. A whimper escaped my lips before I could think better of it and the deep growl behind me expressed how dangerous any sound could be.

A thick leather band was being wrapped around my wrists and thinking back I can only assume it was his belt. Next my eyes were covered with a thin scrap of material. I was pushed forward roughly, made to walk with no way to see where I was going. Suddenly I was yanked to a stop and the leather around my wrist pulled upward, further chafing the already sensitive skin. I felt the tell-tale lift and drop that meant I had been hooked on something. My arms stretched up and a difficult angle behind me and my shoulders rubbed together painfully. The hands I has lost track of grips my hips and strong fingers massaged the skin over my sharp hip bones. The shot of heat that went straight to my core made me cry out. My hips were pulled back and my supple rear met a wall of steal. I was panting now from the sharp angle of my arms paired with my need to be touched. A hand crept down to the bottom of my stomach and my hips pushed forward of their own accord. "Mine!" he growled and I was undone. "Yes," I panted out, "yours, I'm only yours."

I was grinding my hips into his hand now and though I was embarrassed I couldn't make myself stop. "I was going to leave you alone, going to let you move on, but you just couldn't let that happen could you? Always pushing for more, always pushing even when it's not your place, you don't know what you need. I know what need!"

He was suddenly in front of me and all I could feel was his hard body against mine making me beg for more. I wanted to touch him but my hands were bound too tightly to slip my trappings. His hands moved toward the buttons at the top of my dress and one of his legs slipped between my own. He roughly began to move it against me, pushing into me and then away. Every move he made was agony, glorious agony. His lips crushed my own, kissing me harder than he had ever dared before. Unexpectedly I was thrown off a cliff I didn't even know was there. Every push of his leg only added to the clenching in my body. The sounds that came from my mouth left my throat dry and scratchy. Then a cry of pain came that I had not made. His body left mine and I started to struggle to see to reach out anything but my bindings did there rigorous job and kept me in place. I heard shouting and so much noise. Finally someone was undoing the bindings on my hands and I struggled to free myself from their grasp so that I could lift the blindfold away from my eyes, but they wouldn't allow it. Soothing whispers tried to make their way to my ears but the voice wasn't the one I wanted to hear. I was yelling and struggling but the grip on me never left and soon I realized that we were moving. I quickly grew too tired to struggle any longer. My eye drifted shut against my wishes and the dampness that had gathered finally spilled over.

When I awoke, I was lying in my bed alone. The shadows on the walls told me that it was dark. I lay still trying to understand what had happened. I heard talking in the room outside mine and I strained my ears to hear what the voices were saying.

"I pulled her down from there but I didn't think it was a good idea to take the blindfold off. She panicked when I touched her but I… I think that would be expected after… "

"I checked her over, she has bruises and the skin on her wrists was rubbed bloody but nothing else. I don't think he ever broke her. I don't think he had gotten that far yet."

"I just can't get the sound of her screaming out of my head. She sounded like she was being pulled apart."

"We'll send her to her aunts. We told her to leave that boy alone. He should never have been allowed in the village."

I recognized the voices of my parents but no one else. I made myself keep still. They had found me like that. Hanging from what I could only think of to be a tree, but they didn't see the truth right in front of them. I hadn't been hurt, I had not been in any pain, I had enjoyed it. I could never tell them that of course, I could barely accept it myself. I could only hear Wolfe's words, "I know what you need." He had known, better than anyone else ever had.

I was sent to my aunts and when I came back no one would tell me what happened to Wolfe. I was taboo, broken. I said vows with Tommy at the command of my parents. He had found us that night, he had "saved" me, and he was the only one who would have me now.

So we don't talk tonight, just as we haven't talked on any full moon before this one. He is silent thinking about the things that happened to me and he thinks I am silent for the same, but my silence isn't one of horror but of longing, longing for the boy with grey eyes, who knew me better than even myself. So we are silent and he is regretful and I am desperate, but tomorrow we will talk and he will tell me he loves me and that he understands why I can't say it back, that he understands why I never ask for intimacy and why I never say a word when he lovingly and slowing takes it anyway. Tomorrow he will push the memories away but I will still want my big bad Wolfe.