Winter Wolf

Part 2

The first time Axton saw Leander, he'd been limping across a lonely stretch of dirt road and bleeding in four different places after running away from a bear fight. Expecting to be run over, Axton had jumped aside and hurt himself in the process. With a soft whine, he'd gone down into the dirt--but at least he was safe, he figured, and the car would be long gone by the time he managed to push himself back on his feet.

Instead of rushing past, the car stopped. A blond man shot out of the door and jogged forward, calling out, "Hey, you okay?"

Intrigued, Axton pricked his ears up and lifted his head.

The driver skittered to a stop.

Axton looked straight into the driver's widening eyes and understood: the man had thought he had stopped to help a hurt dog. But Axton only looked like a dog from a distance, with his dark fur and gleaming gold eyes. Close up he was too big and his eyes shone with too much intelligence. He looked like a wolf, because that's what he was.

"Oh, fuck," the driver muttered, under his breath, "fuck fuck fuck."

Axton watched as the realization hit, and then cocked his head to the side. The man was just standing there. Usually people scrambled away when they realized their mistake. Sometimes they threw rocks. Occasionally someone froze, but driver guy was actually starting to edge forward slowly. What was his deal?

"Easy, boy, easy," he said, softly, hands held out in front of him.

Inhaling sharply, Axton considered the human in front of him. Driver Guy, as Axton now thought of him, looked put together--nice clothes, in good shape, new car--and probably not crazy. Approaching dangerous wildlife was pretty crazy behavior, though.

"I just want to see if you're hurt," Driver Guy said, soothingly, "and then I'll call--a wildlife rescue, I guess?"

He wanted to help. Axton found this baffling. He also found it sort of touching. Driver Guy wasn't in touching distance yet, but he had extended a hand, as if offering a dog a chance to sniff his knuckles. Axton thought about acting the part, sniffing cautiously and allowing a brief touch to his fur.

No, no, no. Axton couldn't let him get any closer. Human contact with werewolves did not go over well, generally speaking, and Axton in particular didn't consider himself a people person. He was wounded, yeah, but he couldn't let Driver Guy make contact like that. Someone could get hurt.

It was sort of a pity. He was good looking and apparently brave, maybe kind of stupid, but possibly just brave, and Axton could appreciate that in a man. This was a human, Axton thought wistfully, that probably wanted to do something dumb like pet him behind the ears. It would have been nice, except that it was an impossibly bad idea. Ah, well. Too bad. Axton got ready to show his teeth.

Driver Guy froze when he heard the warning growl.

"Easy," he said, "steady, steady. I'm not gonna hurt you--"

The answering snarl shut him up, but still the human didn't run.

Reluctantly, Axton shoved himself up on all four paws and snapped his jaws in a half hearted lunge. That did it: Driver Guy scrambled back and away.

"Shit, shit, shit," he said, throwing himself back in his car.

Axton sulked around for a couple of minutes--he hated doing threat displays on humans--and then very pointedly and visibly trekked off into the woods.

Only then did the car drive away.

++

The first time Axton met Leander was a few days later, when he jerked awake to the sound of someone knocking at his front door. The noise was so unexpected that panic hit Axton square in the chest, and he was halfway to instinctively shifting before he knew what he was doing. Before he could blink, Axton was out of his human shape and in his wolf one again.