At age fourteen, the girl was still far from being a women, but not so far that one couldn't see the kind of woman she would one day become. Some - like myself - saw the destiny ahead of her.

Others saw merely a pretty face and a pleasing form, albeit one clothed in a rough dun trousers and tunic combination more commonly worn by boys of that time.

“One kiss,” one of those boys dressed in similar (albeit finer) clothing was half-pleading, half-demanding as he dogged her steps through the exact same woods in which seven years ago a wolf had tried to tear out her throat. “Just one kiss, Elfreda, is that so much to ask?”

“Not if that was all you wished, no,” she sighed without turning around.

The boy's eyes fairly glowed with gloating triumph when she said that, but even though I was the only one who saw it, fortunately, I wasn't the only one who knew it.

“But as you do wish more,” Elfreda said sternly to ensure she would not be “misunderstood” as being flirtatious in any way. “And will not truly be satisfied until you get it, it is indeed a great deal to ask.” She whirled about to face the boy head on. “Too much. As I have told you before.”

He decided to give wheedling one last chance. “Am I so ugly to you then?” he asked with a grin and wink. He'd had a lot of practice with that look, and almost as much success with it.

But not with Elfreda.

“In form, no,” she admitted, her eyes, as he had intended, taking in his form which was already bulky with muscles despite his mere fifteen years. Ruddy of skin and dark of hair and eye, he was indeed handsome in his own unwashed way, and had a confidence born of his own perceived importance of his lineage. His grin wilted though when Elfreda continued. “The glee I've seen in your eyes as you harm anything and anyone weaker than you, on the other hand . . .” She trailed off deliberately, feeling quite correctly, I thought, that further elaboration was unnecessary. “I know your plans for me, Rolph, and I tell you here and now that they are not my plans, and never shall they be.”

All comeliness drained from Rolph's face as she said that. “You shall be mine someday!” he hissed.

“No . . . I shall not.” Elfreda assured him.

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