TOUCH OF THE WOLF By Susan Krinard

Under the dim cover of twilight, Braden fled to the woods.

First he ran as human, feeling the cool wind on his bare skin, the lawn under his feet. He passed the scent of his sister, and then that of Isabelle Smith, dodging them both in his keen desire for solitude. At the woods’ edge he Changed; he leaped, and when he landed again it was on four paws, four swift legs that carried him into the moist forest that cradled the burn.

This was home, as surely as the halls of Greyburn. This was the place he was most at peace, more truly himself than anywhere else in the world. He knew every inch of the wood, of the surrounding fells—every rock and tree and turn of the waters path. He remembered from his days of sight; he felt each subtle change from season to season through the pads of his feet, the thick fur that covered his body, the sensitive leather of his nose.

Greyburn’s brief summer was upon them, a season of glorious life and music no human could hope to hear. Low-hanging leaves brushed his ears and muzzle, but he didn’t mind his occasional encounters with new-fallen branches or other new obstacles in the landscape. Here he was undoubted master. He gloried in the bunching and flexing of muscles, the speed and grace his human form could never match.

After a time he paused at the bank of the burn to lap the cool water. A bird called, unafraid; some small animal rustled among the thickets. He found himself listening, head lifted, turning inevitably back toward the house. And her.

He burst into a run again, hardly aware of the direction he took. The woods settled into the hush of evening, and then grew quieter still.

He skidded to a stop, paws sliding on mossy earth. Her scent didn’t overcome the odors of wood and water and growth and decay; it was a part of all the rest, blending and insinuating itself into the place he loved.

She was near, on the other side of the burn, and he thought that she might turn and run like any ordinary human faced with the unknown.

“Braden?”

Her feet were bare, jumping over stone and splashing in water. Cloth rustled about her legs, too loose for petticoats and stays.

“Braden?” she repeated. “I didn’t know…” She stopped before him; her scent enfolded him as she knelt. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.

All his stern resolutions splintered in an instant, brittle twigs under his paws. He could not see her, but his wolf’s senses made even those of his human form as negligible as a weak midwinter sun on the coldest day of the year. The very tips of each hair quivered, keenly aware of her nearness. He opened his mouth, and his tongue could all but taste her.

Like a poacher she’d invaded his woods, his brief peace, and slain him with gentle words more deadly than the shafts of arrows.

His lip rose from bared teeth. As a man he was armored by the Cause and years of discipline; now he was defense-less in his power, vulnerable in a form that had always meant freedom. More than speech had deserted him. He was irrational, driven, desperate with primitive hungers like to drive him mad, and it was her doing.

Go, he cried inwardly. Go—

But she was as deaf as he was blind. Her fingers skimmed the ruff of fur at his cheeks, drew back to his neck, plunged with hesitant wonder into the depths of his coat. She touched the wolf as she wouldn’t dare touch him as a man, and yet with such innocence, unstained…

And he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear the tender naïveté that made her so oblivious to every warning, to all awareness of what was fitting and what forbidden.

“Magnificent,” she murmured. Her hand caressed the underside of his jaw, the space between his ears. “It’s so much more than I ever dreamed.” When he thought he could bear it no longer, she let him go. She rose to her feet, stepped back…

And began to run. With a deer’s grace she sprang into motion. With a hunter’s impulse, he followed. Along a narrow path beside the burn they ran, he at her heels. Then they were side by side, her feet striking earth in a steady beat, his making no sound. He could have outrun her easily, but he did not. He gave himself up to the glory once again, free of human thoughts and human fears. In the wood all was one, and they were equally children of a mother more ancient than time itself.

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