by Lee Savino
The blond wolf sat on the edge of my garden, its head tilted as if it were studying the neat rows. I’d latched the gate behind me, but he’d simply jumped over it.
“Where does a wolf lie?” I asked as I dipped the jug in the barrel I kept to catch rainwater. “Wherever he wants. Don’t touch that!” The last was to the wolf, who had put out a paw to bat at a grape vine I’d taken pains to train onto a trellis.
It lowered its paw but didn’t look at all repentant. In my garden he looked bigger than ever, a huge beast. Sitting on his haunches, his head was almost as tall as mine. One wrong move and he’d crush my peas.
I should feel uncomfortable with a strange beast in my garden, but his presence felt oddly right.
Balance, my mother whispered.
“You may stay here tonight,” I announced. “If you promise to keep out the deer.”
The wolf gave me a look.
“They can be quite fierce,” I murmured slyly, and went to find a large bowl. When I returned with a bowlful of water, the wolf had made his bed closer to the fence. Settled in with his great head turned toward the forest, he would be a perfect sentry.
“My carrots are safe tonight.” I set the bowl down close, so he could put down his head and drink. “Water. But I cannot feed you. You’ll have to find meat on your own.”
The wolf yawned, opening his huge mouth to show off his teeth. Then he grinned at me, smug.
“I’m sure you’re a very good hunter,” I said. “But you’d be better off hunting now and then finding better shelter.” I pointed to the oak leaves, curling up to show their white underbellies. “It looks like rain.”
The rain came after nightfall, thick sheets that pattered loudly on the oak leaves. I sat by the fire and organized my herbs, but my thoughts returned again and again to the wolf guarding my gate.
The storm wasn’t so bad. A little wind, a little rain. Nothing a wolf couldn’t sustain.
But this was no ordinary wolf. I’d Seen a vision of a man. Was it an image of who the wolf had once been? Or what the wolf could still become? If he was a man cursed, what would break the spell?
My pestle scraped against the deep stone mortar, grinding the herbs within to dust. When I set it aside, my hands were aching.
“What would you do?” I whispered to my mother, but she was not here. She’d taught me well when she was with me, but I’d been so young, and her instruction had been more of a guide to grow my own intuition.
Now I was alone and my instincts were all I had. My logic told me the wolf was trouble, but my instincts said it was futile to stay away.
I peered out my door. The wolf sat on the edge of the garden, its head and ears drooping in the heavy rain.
“Outside is where a wolf belongs,” I said loudly, as if to convince myself. I slammed the door and went to bed. The rain pattered on the ceiling.
My resolve was slipping. The wolf had saved me.
The wind picked up, buffeting my small hut. Its whine sounded like a wolf, low and sorrowful.
“Oh, all right,” I grumbled to the ceiling. I stuck my head out long enough to shout, “Very well. Come inside!”
I waited, closing the door slightly when the wolf shook himself on my porch.
“Do not grow accustomed to this,” I muttered as it trotted past me. “I must be mad, inviting you in, talking to you like you understand.”
The wolf met my gaze in a way that told me he did understand. I pushed past his giant bulk--his size made the hut smaller by half--to stoke up the fire. A creaking sound made me turn. The wolf had settled on my bed.
“No. Absolutely not.” I made my voice sharp, my hands on my hips. “Down.” I pointed to the floor.
The wolf bared its teeth, slowly enough I didn’t find it a threat.
“Is this how you repay my kindness?”
With a huff, the wolf slunk off my bed. We eased past each other, trading places--the wolf at the hearth, me by my bed.
“That’s better.” I sat down on my now slightly dampened quilts.
After washing up with water from the basin, I took the time to braid my plaits. My boisterous curls would only behave in the morning if I tamped them down each night. The wolf’s eyes were on me as I wove the crown around my head.
There was so much intelligence in those eyes. Its gaze was alert, curious. Its nose lifted in the air as though it wished to get closer and scent my motions. When I was done I turned from it. I pulled the quilts tightly around me. When I closed my eyes, I fell into a dream.
Angry voices and weapons clinked outside our hut. I peered through the cracks at the assembled men. They were all men from a nearby village, but the light from their torches flickered over their dirty faces, twisting their features so they looked like laughing demons.
“Meadhan--run. Hide.” My mother pressed a packet of dried meat and herbs into my hands, and bundled me into a cloak. She removed a loose board at the back of our hut and pushed me out. I scrabbled on the ground, splinters in my hair, but did not run.
“Mama,” I turned and reached for her, but she had withdrawn. She would not follow, would not escape with me.
Her face, white and strained, her eyes huge in her face as she snarled at me. “Go! Hide.”
And I watched helpless as she went to the door and opened it, and faced the firelit mob.
“Mama! No!”
Something nudged me. A weight, thick and heavy. I stopped thrashing at the nightmare and slipped into an entirely different dream.
A man standing between the trees in the dappled light of the forest. He wears a blond wolf pelt over his shoulders. His golden skin and hair blaze brighter than the sun. I should leave, I should run, but instead I move closer, my footsteps matching the beat of my heart. He raises his head and meets my gaze and liquid honey pours over my skin. I am naked. His hands reach for me--
In the deep warmth of my bed, a rough hand traced up my thigh. Instead of pressing my knees together, I let them go lax and fall apart.
Fingers whispered over my breasts and my nipples beaded into tight points. My breath hitched. My dreams had never taken this turn, but I was thankful for the new direction. Even more, I was curious to see where it would go.
The hands traced down my belly. They parted my thighs and found the tight bud there. The pressure built like my power. I tried to contain it but I could not. Warm and golden, it poured out of me.
I was trembling when I woke up, gasping for air in a chest that was panting with want. I pressed my thighs together again.
Something was not right.
I was not alone.
I reached under my pillow for the dagger I always kept near. Beside the steel of my blade, I felt a rough, long-fingered hand.
Someone else was in my bed.
6
Siebold
I was dreaming. I lay in a soft bed, with a sweet-smelling woman in my arms. I dipped my head and breathed in the scent of her soft dark skin. Honey and spices. Enough to drive a man mad.
But I was already mad, wasn’t I? This was a dream. A pleasant one.
I shifted my hand and palmed the thick thatch of hair between the maid’s thighs. Slowly, my fingers stroked her folds until her arousal ran between my fingers. My other hand cupped her soft breast until her nipple beaded.
It’d been so long since I've been with a woman. So long since I dreamed of one. The last time--
No, I would not think of that. There was no madness buzzing in my mind. Only a pleasant armful. For once, the madness had given me a good dream.
My cock was hard enough to ram through rock. If the dream lasted a bit longer, I’d roll the woman over and sink into her heat.
I opened my eyes to a regal head, crowned with a thick brown braid. It was her. The woman who glowed with the light of the sun. I’d met her on the path, and now I was in her bed and she was in my arms.
The woman turned to face me. Her beautiful face hovered in front of mine. She was a vision. But she was real.
Sh
e slammed her elbow into my nose.
I sputtered, my eyes watering with pain. This was no dream. I was awake, and I'd never been so happy in my life. I'd get to sink my teeth, my claws, my cock into this perfect slice of heaven.
As soon as I relieved her of the blade she had at my throat.
7
Meadhan
There was a man in my bed. A beautiful man. Hard and muscular, with a blond beard and more coarse blond hair on his scarred chest. The warrior from my vision. He was real. He’d touched me.
By Ceridwen, he’d touched me. He’d stroked me and I’d felt… I don’t know what it was that I felt. Before a moment ago, I would’ve sworn that there was no such thing as a love potion. But whatever magic the wolfman had was potent enough to make my limbs shake. My blood simmered, molten honey.
He was big and hard all over. Everywhere. Too big. Too hard. I pressed the knife to his throat and his cock grew against my leg. His fingers might’ve been magic, but a cock so big would bring no joy. I glanced down. It was long and thick and hard and pointed at me.
"Wolf," I whispered, feeling his magic still in the air.
There was a metallic tint to it. Like the bitter taste left after sucking on a small cut at the fingertip.
He didn't deny my accusation. He didn't need to. His golden eyes blazed as he offered me a sharp, white-toothed grin, wide enough to swallow me whole.
To show him I was serious, I pressed my dagger down. He smiled and leaned in. Blood trickled down the blade. The man was crazier than the wolf.
"Me and," he rasped, his voice rough as if he hadn't spoken in a long time.
What was it about this man, his eyes, his body stretched under me that felt so familiar? That felt so right?
Without meaning to, I eased off the blade so he could speak.
“Mead...ahh.”
"Mead?" I asked. "Are you thirsty?"
In automatic hospitality, I rose to go to get him a drink, but he stopped me, his hand clamping around my wrist. My knife was at his heart now. But he ignored it. His eyes bored into mine. He took a deep breath and tried his hand at words again.
"Mead Ann."
With his other hand he reached out and touched the center of my chest. I realized he was saying my name.
I raised my chin. "Yes, my name is Meadhan. How did you know?” I answered my own question. “You followed me.”
A quirk appeared in the corner of his mouth. “And you? What’s your name?"
"See bowl."
I looked around for a bowl. He took my hand and pressed it against his chest. Under my palm, his heart beat strong.
"Siebold," he said again. His growl reverberated up my arm.
"Siebold," I repeated.
He grinned again. I bet many women fell for that grin. It certainly worked on me. Here I was, facing a naked stranger, a very muscular, very blond stranger but a stranger nonetheless, and I was exchanging conversation like we were at market. But it felt right.
I checked the power within me, but it lay quiet. Not suppressed, but expectant. Eager, but content to wait.
I set the knife to the side, on the bed. Siebold’s grin grew wider. He was so handsome I felt dizzy. His charm a thousand times more dangerous than a village man’s, if only because Siebold was so much more dangerous. His body was large, made entirely of honed muscle. Magic fairly crackled between us. I froze. Does he know that I'm a witch? Kin knows kind, my mother used to say. Something drew him to me when he was a wolf.
Maybe that’s all this was. He felt the strangeness in me, and couldn’t stay away.
His attention was fixed entirely on me now. Like I was the only woman in the world.
His hand cupped my face. His fingers were rough with healed cuts and calluses, but they were nimble and gentle as they explored my cheek.
I couldn’t forget, he was no longer a feral wolf, but a naked man. The latter was far more dangerous and much less desirable to me.
I made to rise again. But again he held me firm.
"Let go," I demanded and glanced at the knife. Something told me that, when it came to this warrior wolf who fought off a gang of mercenaries as easy as scattering chickens, a small knife would be an ineffectual weapon.
"Stay," he said. It didn't sound like a plea. More of a command.
"You are an uninvited guest in my house."
"Welcome... here." He spread his hands over my mattress.
"When I thought you were a wounded animal. And not in my bed."
He grinned. Apparently he had no problem with comprehension. His words were becoming clearer the more he used his voice. How long had he been in wolf form?
He dipped his nose into my neck and inhaled. "Smell so good."
My skin prickled but not with danger. I kept my tone dry. "You're not going to eat me, are you?"
He pulled away and smiled. Flashing those canines. For some reason I felt no fear.
He reached up again. But this time for my hair.
I slapped his hand away before he could touch my braided curls. The pale men and women of these lands were always fascinated by them. “Don’t touch my hair,” I said as I patted my head to check my braids. Then I cursed. They’d come loose in the night. Likely his doing.
He laughed when I glared at him and then he captured my chin in between his fingers.
"Meadhan," he sighed.
The cadence of his speech was becoming clearer. His words were slightly accented, and guttural as if he was unused to a human tongue. The low rumble of his voice thrilled me.
It was no matter. I had to get him out of my bed. Out of my house. The last thing I needed was to be associated with a man who could become a wolf.
Siebold’s grin fell into a fierce scowl. His head whipped to the door before I heard the visitor’s approach.
Fear clouded my vision. Magic was one thing. I was an unmarried woman. If I wanted to keep my respectability and not have all manner of men reaching up my skirts, whoever was at the door could not find a man in my bed.
I shoved the naked man out the back and pulled on the wrap. “Stay,” I hissed at him as if he were a dog. His jaw set as if he would argue and I panicked. “I’m serious. I cannot be seen with a strange man in my home.”
His belligerent look fell away and he nodded.
Relieved, I shook out my braids and I opened the door, striding into my garden to face the men at my garden gate. A sickness crawled over my skin.
They were not from the village. I knew every face of every man from the village. I wish I could say these men were strangers. These were Offa the Bloody’s men.
“We came to check on you,” said the tall one. “After the incident with the wolf last night.”
“I’m fine, as you can see,” I said. “Did one of your men need an herbal remedy?”
They looked me up and down. Herbs were not what they wanted.
"You're far out of town,” said one who was missing most of his teeth. “A pretty little thing like you needs a man's protection."
My dagger was back on the bed. My best chance to avoid any assault was to keep them on the other side of the gate. I could run to my hut, shut the door quickly and scramble out the back, and lose them in the forest. I kept a board loose in a corner, just so I could escape.
In a flash of panic, I thought of all this. But I didn’t think of Siebold until a golden wolf streaked around me.
“No,” I gasped, but too late. The wolf stood between me and the men, his statue dwarfing them.
Offa’s soldiers were all mean looking warriors, but they startled when faced with a giant wolf. The wolf growled low in his belly making the ground rumble. The men reached for their weapons, already backing away.
“He’s harmless,” I lied, moving swiftly to Siebold’s side. Whether I was protecting the wolf from the interlopers or them from him, I wasn’t sure.
“That’s the wolf from last night. He wounded Emyr,” one muttered.
“He followed me home. He’s harmless to me,” I ke
pt my voice cool. “I can’t promise the same to others.”
Siebold’s ears flattened and he growled louder. The sound rumbled through me and made me bold.
“Calm down,” I ordered as if he would listen to me. But he was already pushing past me, planting his huge body between me and the men. He plopped right down on my radishes, but I didn’t complain. I tried to tug him back, but when he wouldn’t budge, I settled for running my hands through his fur, and he relaxed somewhat.
“What is it you men came here for?” I asked. I couldn’t get rid of Siebold, so I’d try to get these men to leave. With any luck, before blood was shed.
The men’s gazes flicked between me and the wolf, mostly fixed on the wolf. Please, just leave, I prayed. I was a strange woman living alone in the forest, now with a pet wolf. The last thing I needed was word traveling back to the village about my strangeness. Eventually people would stop tolerating me and come as a mob to cast me out.
Kill the witch! The cries echoed in my memories and I bent my head to hide a shudder, digging my hands in Siebold’s fur.
“Offa the Bloody has claimed this valley,” the spokesman said slowly, reluctantly. “He’s sworn to protect the folk who live here.”
“Mmmm. What does that have to do with me? I need no protection, as you can see.”
“We were hired by the priest,” another blurted.
“Hired to do what?” My stomach lurched but I kept myself calm.
“To root out any magic or witchcraft.”
“I don’t believe in either,” I said. “You’ll find nothing here but the herbs that God put here.” I pulled my cloak about my shoulders.
At my feet, Siebold growled.
“You might not believe, but you’ll still pay for our protection,” the spokesman jerked his chin up. “All villagers must.”
So that was what this was really about. That was how it began in my mother’s old village as well. Hopefully, if everyone paid, they would leave us all alone. Otherwise, I would have to go on the run once more.