Page 18 of Her Big Bad Wolf
“I can’t last that long. I’m going to go broke in hay costs by then.”
He scoffed. “We both know that’s not true.”
“You don’t know shit,” I grumbled.
“Wrong. I know you’re going to have to wait until next week if you truly want the best.”
His smarmy, condescending attitude was pissing me off.
“Just make it happen,” I snapped, and hung up on him.
A week? That little sniveling asshole wanted me to wait a week? The audacity of him.
That wasn’t going to work for me. I was already plotting ways to just get the job done myself.
Feeling even more frustrated after the call with Archie, I decided that maybe that run would be a good thing after all.
Instead of walking into the woods and calming myself down, I left my house at a full sprint in my skin. When I knew I was far enough away from the farm, I leapt into the air and shifted. My paws made only a slight thud as I gracefully landed in my fur.
Shifting had always come naturally for me. Even as a pup it had been easy when my friends had struggled. A growl erupted from me at the thought as I was momentarily assaulted by old memories I’d rather forget.
Pushing those thoughts back, I forced my wolf to run faster and harder than usual. I needed to clear my mind before I thought of him. The pain that sliced through me was more than I could bear. Another growl escaped.
Forget it,I thought.That was a long time ago.
Even my wolf needed a small bit of community. It was why I had originally started my farm. It wasn’t the same, but it had helped in the beginning. Over the years I’d adapted okay. No regrets or anything like that. I was a proud lone wolf.
My lifestyle was born of hard lessons learned and losses too deep to digest. Some things were best buried in the past.
I pushed all those thoughts away and ran.
There was peace in this form. If he didn’t try to constantly remind me of things I desperately wanted to forget then I probably would have retreated to my fur to live out the remainder of my life. That didn’t seem to be in the cards for me though.
Still, I loved the freedom of the wolf. There was nothing more magical in this world than the feeling of the wind ruffling my fur with nothing but the sounds of nature and my paws pounding against the ground.
Feeling more relaxed than I had in a long time, I gave into my more playful side and splashed through a creek before jumping onto the largest boulder I could find. I howled up into the sky, filling the air around me. But there was an emptiness about it that broke my heart.
Feeling a bit more somber and haunted, I growled in frustration as I jumped down and slowly headed back towards my truck.
Lost in thoughts, I didn’t even realize what direction I was heading in until I heard the familiar chatter of Gertrude.
No!I thought, but it didn’t feel like my wolf was stalking her. There was something else.
Something was off.
I looked around, letting my wolf hone in on what it could be.
A noise caught my attention to the right. My head whipped in that direction as three distinct movements rustled through the underbrush. I started to give chase, but then it caught my eye.
Right there in the woods just a few yards from my barn was a nest of hay.
My hay being treated like straw.
I growled.
Anger filled me. It wasn’t Gertrude or any of my animals. Someone was stealing my hay.
My chest puffed up and I charged.
