The Wolf and the Willow

The spring crept over the Ukrainian steppes like a cautious animal, reluctant to show its warmth after the brutal campaign of winter. Villages smoldered in ruin, caught in the teeth of war. And somewhere along the Dniester River, in a grove thick with willows, a man bled beneath the pale sky.

Jurko Bohun, Cossack colonel and fury incarnate, had not fallen easily. Ambushed during a raid gone wrong, he had dragged himself away from the battlefield, stubborn even in near-death. His vision was red with pain, his breath shallow. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was the sway of willow branches — and the face of a girl kneeling beside him.

She had not meant to find him.

{{user}} had been foraging, a woven basket slung over one arm, when she stumbled upon the wounded figure by the river’s edge. He looked half-wolf, half-man: blood-streaked, hair matted, face locked in a grimace even in unconsciousness. Everything about him screamed danger.

But still — she had not walked away.

She fetched water and herbs, laid a hand to his burning brow, and whispered to the air, “If you mean to kill me when you wake, then so be it. But not today.”

For two days, he burned with fever. On the third, he opened his eyes.

“Who are you?” he rasped.