The Girl Cried Wolf

Thinking was hard. It was especially hard when the aroma of a fresh kill was still wafting in the air and the enticing scent of a possible mate was within immediate mating vicinity.

Hunter left the pile of tatters and returned to the deer carca.s.s. He ate the leg that Ash had dropped, fed on the entrails, and tore apart the deer"s front legs. When he had finished with his meal, it looked like a pack of wolves had descended on the poor deer. He would leave the rest for the scavengers to find.

If a forest ranger were to pa.s.s by, the carca.s.s would just be another hard piece of evidence for predation in action: another prey animal succ.u.mbing to a carnivore, just another day in the wild with Mother Nature.

He turned his attention back to Ash, eager to sniff at the new werewolf up close.

When he found her, she had surrept.i.tiously reverted back to her human form and was still lying in a heap on the ground. Her human scent held no sway over his werewolf form and so his interest in her dissipated.

Werewolves typically didn"t hunt humans. They fought them for territory and sometimes competed with them for game, but humans were not their prey. A werewolf eating a human was akin to a human eating a gorilla: it was generally considered unethical especially given the shared ancestry, and then only the truly depraved did it.

With his hunger sated and the urge to mate gone, Hunter stood over Ash who was lying on her side on the ground. Her face was turned to the forest floor, and while she was still breathing, she was not moving.

He had to do something about her. His werewolf brain was intelligent but this was a human problem that needed a human solution. He needed to think clearly so he reverted back to his human form. When he finished shifting, he realized something that he had not considered while he was still a werewolf.

Ash was naked.

His human eyes immediately swam over her body and drank her in. It was dark now, and while his vision had gone back to human, the half-moon was out and there was just enough light for him to see. And he was standing over her, so close that he could see everything.

His eyes took in her skin, lightly tanned in the daytime but white sand pale under the moonlight. Her long black hair covered her body like Lady G.o.diva"s in the myth[1], tracing the curve of one exposed breast, barely covering the nipple. His eyes traced along the valley of her small waist, glanced off the soft flesh of her stomach, went up again to the ripe swell of her hip and dallied around the curve of her attractively plump b.u.t.tocks.

In his mind, he saw her awake and beckoning him with opened arms. She would speak his name and he would swallow it. He would bury his tongue in her pale pink mouth and bury himself in her warm, welcoming body.

His entire body burned at the thought.

But then he looked at her face: her eyes were closed and her mouth was silent. He didn"t have her consent to do anything. Hunter shook his head and quickly regained himself.

"H-hey . . ." he called out to her, tentatively.

She didn"t stir.

He knelt beside her and reached out a hand to touch her face, patting her lightly on the chin.

He felt the cold air on his skin as he stared at her still closed eyes. A minute ago he had been filled with a desire to cover her with his body, but now that he had recovered himself, he was afraid of touching her any more than he already had.

What was he supposed to do now? He couldn"t just take her back to the school. He couldn"t sneak her over the fence in human form. He could probably get her over the fence in werewolf form but what if he got caught? And even if they didn"t get caught doing that, where was he supposed to take her? He didn"t know where her room was. He couldn"t just leave her naked at the lobby of the Girls" Dorm.

Hunter scratched his head in frustration.

[I need to cover her first,] he thought, quickly.

He took off his leather vest and lay it on top of her. It didn"t cover much, but at least it was something. He raced back to the tree and retrieved the tattered remains of her uniform, scooping up all the rags including the socks and underwear.

When he returned she still hadn"t moved. He put his hand over her mouth and nose: she was still breathing.

Hunter let out a sigh of relief.

He rolled her on her back and shimmied the torn skirt over her legs, pulling it up to her waist. He placed her blouse under her legs to keep them from touching the ground, wrapping a torn sleeve around each leg as best he could. He thought about having her actually wear his vest instead of just using it as a cover, but that would have required him to remove it from her and he didn"t want to do that.

He had put his vest on her to cover her and if he were to remove it now---even if it were just to dress her properly---he would"ve been undressing her, and he couldn"t do that: it felt to him like he would"ve been violating her. But if he didn"t put his vest on her, her back would still be on the cold ground and she would still be technically half naked.

"Ugh, s.h.i.t! Now what do I do?" he muttered to himself.

He finally settled on a compromise. Sitting sideways, he lifted Ash and propped her up so that she was in a sitting position with her back against his knee. Ash"s back was now off the cold ground and he didn"t need to take the vest off of her.

He put his hand on her shoulder and began to shake her.

"Hey! Hey! Can you wake up, please?" he pleaded.

Still nothing.

Ash had been pa.s.sed out for about half an hour then. He"d attempted to wake her several times now but she"d been unresponsive. Hunter was starting to feel worried. He racked his brain for theories.

She wasn"t drunk or drugged (he didn"t smell anything like that on her). It most likely wasn"t hunger because she had been feeding when he came upon her. She didn"t have a fever, but maybe she was sick? But what kind of sickness would she have? He had never heard of werewolves pa.s.sing out before. It made him think of Myotonic goats: it was a breed of goat that would freeze up and fall over when it was startled. He smiled despite himself.

"I wish you"d tell me what to do, Boots," he said to her. Ash"s face was still. She probably couldn"t even hear him.

He had no idea when she was going to wake up. And he had no idea what to expect from her when she did. Hopefully she didn"t misunderstand the situation and claw his eyes out. She could at least let him explain himself.

"I"d meant to come up to you, you know, after today," he said, talking to her---well, at her, since she wasn"t listening anyway.

He knew it was going to be a one-sided conversation, but after hearing himself out loud, he felt like saying more.

"I actually wanted to meet you again, after today. Well, especially after tonight," he laughed. The situation was so ludicrous it actually seemed funny, in a way.

He sighed.

"Not like this though. Whatever this is, this isn"t the best way to meet."

[1] Lady G.o.diva was the wife of the Duke of Mercia. According to legend, her husband levied oppressive taxes on the people of Coventry, causing them great suffering. Pitying the people, Lady G.o.diva begged her husband to remit the tolls. Her husband in turn told her that he would grant her request if she were to strip naked and ride on a horse through the streets of the town. Taking him at his word, she ordered the townspeople to stay indoors and shut their windows, and she rode on a horse through the town, naked and covered only in her long hair.