Part I of II
She bites like she was half-raised by wolves, this little morsel of a lamb. To be fair, she learned from the best.
He taught her how to sink teeth into skin.
It was in the dying days of spring when he found her, before the summer’s heat—weeping quietly into a clump of hay by a broken bit of fence, wool soft, scent warm, heartbeat thundering.
He often heard the farmers say her father was a cold one, a ram like any other. A breeder more than a father. She was never a true daughter to him.
Lucky, then. He’d always wanted one of his own.
We could be a little pack together, you and I, he told himself, as he padded toward her sad, hidden corner of the homestead.
Aloud, he meant to tell her, “I mean no harm, little lamb—”
But it was she who spoke first.
“What do you want? Go away, you big bully!”
He could have gobbled her up in one bite. But there was no drop of fear in those watery eyes.
Maybe it was only her youth.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked, holding back his awe.
“You’re a big, bad wolf!”
“Says who?”
“Says everyone!”
“Is that what your father told you?”
That only made her sob all the harder.
What did her tears taste like…
How did it taste, mingled with her wool…
Did those matted clumps taste like salt…
Just a lick.
Just the tiniest lick.
Could he just…
Yes.
He could.
“Wolf!” screeched a human in the distance. “It’s that wolf again!”
“Shoot it!”
“Grab the rifle, quick!”
He wrapped his mouth around her tiny body.
And he ran.
Faster.
Faster.
Faster than their bullets.
He only tired at the next break of dawn, setting her down beneath the corpse of a lightning-struck tree. There was no man-flesh in the air. No meat cooked on a spit. All was raw here in this part of the world.
Peace, for a moment.
His spittle made fine threads between her wool and his mouth. His teeth left behind jagged mountains across that stretch of matted white.
But no blood.
How strange, that he hadn’t hurt her.
Even stranger, still, how she never resisted. Only wept and heaved and whimpered, across miles and through the night.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“No.” Impossible. She still had tears left in her.
“Do you know what happens to lambs who don’t eat?”
“They die.”
This one smelled like she wanted to.
The scent made his blood hiss, turned the world red.
“No lambs are dying in my pack.”
“Lambs don’t belong in packs.”
“They do now.”
“You’re a stupid wolf.”
One bite would break her fragile neck.
But he only found her a patch of clover, throwing it at her hooves, pushing it with his paw.
“Eat, lamb.”
“Or what?” She was shivering. From the cold? From hunger? From fear? From rage?
You should’ve been born a wolf.
“Will you eat me?” she snarled, as best as starving lambs could snarl.
“I would’ve done that already if I wanted to… You’re too small. Thin. Not enough meat on your bones to satisfy me.”
Not yet.
“Bully.”
“Eat.”
She did as she was told.
He’d never tamed a lamb before. This one already knew how to bite.
I can teach you how to make it hurt.
He would make a fine wolf-cub of her yet.