Madeleine stared into Hæra’s pleading eyes. They weren’t human eyes, not with how they rolled in distress. They weren’t horse eyes either, not with their supernatural intelligence.

She said slowly, “You were going to kill me.”

Hæra made a low, pained sound. “Yes.”

Madeleine clutched her wet sweater. She had to be missing something. “But you saved me.”

“Hang on,” Jonathan said, his voice strained. “She should change back to human, we should talk inside⁠—”

“No!” Madeleine leaned forward, on her hands and knees, getting mud everywhere. “You saved me on the night we met!”

“You saved me first.” Hæra rubbed the side of her head into the ground. “As you said yourself, you set me free. I was in your debt. I paid you back. And then…”

And then the debt was paid, and Hæra had owed Madeleine nothing else. She was free to—to⁠—

“Eat me,” Madeleine managed. “You were going to eat me. This whole time I’ve been here—that was your plan?”

All their nights together, the way Hæra loved to nibble and suck at Madeleine’s skin, how she whispered that she wanted to eat Madeleine alive. How she’d licked the blood from her finger. It had felt so good, and it had only been a poor substitute for something else.

For what Hæra had wanted all along.

“At first,” Hæra whispered. “At first, yes. So I could regain honor with my herd. So I could become a Stormhorse.”

Jonathan cursed again. Madeleine fell on her bottom and scooted away from the monster in the mud.

“But I couldn’t.” Hæra’s voice rose into a plea. “Didn’t you see, that night I found you on the beach? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you...I swear it on the Great Mare, on all the tides…”

Madeleine couldn’t go back into the cottage. Not the place where she and Hæra had lain in each other’s arms for so many nights now after Madeleine had thrown aside the teachings that had defined her life. She couldn’t stay here either.

Madeleine rose to her feet. She had to leave.

“Wait,” Hæra moaned. “I’m not just this.”

She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate. Her fish tail split again and took the shape, not of horse legs, but human ones. Her body shrank, her barrel chest slimmed down and grew two breasts, and her front legs became her muscular arms. Before Madeleine lay the naked form she’d enjoyed for weeks, but bleeding and bruised.