Charmed Wolf

Look at your nose!”
The wily old wolf who’d slapped down three teenagers last week for eating the last sliver of pie she’d laid verbal claim to lowered her head to sniff the infant’s cowlick. Her face broke out in an angelic grin.
So that was settled. I’d never understood the obsession with baby scent. But if it was going to help me outsource my sticky problem, I wouldn’t look a gift instinct in the mouth.
I only realized Kale was still trailing my footsteps when I stepped outside, toed off my shoes, and reached for my shirt. “You realize you shouldn’t really strip in front of me,” he observed.
Right. I’d forgotten I had an older human child to deal with. “Your room is where it always is,” I reminded him.
“Come on. My grandmother’s in the hospital.” He pouted out his bottom lip the way he used to when I refused to give him a second piece of candy.
He’d always gotten that second candy. And, most days, a third candy. Still....
“You want to see wolves tearing into each other?”
He nodded.
“Blood won’t bother you? You won’t run in and try to ‘save’ me?”
Kale shook his head, then grinned. “Your air quotes are awful.”
He was right. Human gestures weren’t really my strong suit.
Challenges, on the other hand were. If Kale was intent on coming along...I supposed I could handle one human kid plus tonight’s challenges.
“Okay,” I decided. “I’ll walk you there then shift.”
“Great!” Kale’s enthusiasm returned immediately. “I wanted to get a closer look at your Veronica officinalis anyway.”
When I looked at him blankly, he elaborated. “Your speedwell. Little blue flowers? These.”
He tapped the ground with one foot.
“Oh, sure. Those.” I skirted around flowers I didn’t know the name of but did understand the Guardian had a particular fondness for.
“They’re usually such drab little blooms,” Kale continued. “But they’re brighter and bigger here than I’ve ever seen before. Do you think they might be a new subspecies?”
I hummed and his face fell. His voice, when he continued, was a whisper I likely wasn’t meant to hear. “Boys aren’t into phytobiology.”
And even though the moon was already two fingers above the horizon, meaning I was late again, I stopped dead and turned to face him. Because I didn’t understand scientist-speak, but the flatness of Kale’s tone had been thoroughly understandable.
“Translate,” I demanded.
His ears reddened, but he obeyed me. “Flowers. Boys don’t like flowers.”
Okay, that was predictable and wrong. “Do you like flowers?”
Kale’s eyes were on his feet when he answered. “Yes.”
“And are you a boy?”
His voice rose at the end into a question. “Ye-es?”
“Then boys like flowers,” I growled, or perhaps my wolf growled. Didn’t matter. Kale wasn’t going to second guess himself on my watch.
And his face turned up, cheeks rounding and catching the moonlight. “Okay, Tara.” His scent was as sweet as the candy I used to ply him with.
Nodding decisively, I dropped the issue. “Now hurry up. We’re late.”
A CIRCLE OF WOLVES awaited us in the east clearing. The first to see me howled a greeting. A dark shape—Willa—padded away from the others and placed herself by Kale’s side.
So that was taken care of. No one in my pack would forget themselves and attack a human, let alone an underage human. Still, Willa’s presence was a good reminder. I left her to her job, stalked far enough away from Kale so he wouldn’t be offended by my nakedness, then I fell into mine.
Fell into fur that swallowed me and warmed me. April in Appalachia was as fickle as a tween’s willingness to have his hair tousled. Tonight, chill hung above the soil. By morning, there would be frost.
Now, though, there was only heat as the first wolf rushed me. He was barely strong enough to hold his head up in my presence. But it was good to give weaker pack mates a chance to stretch their muscles. I sidled around him while he snapped and feinted. Then, remembering the long line of contenders still awaiting their turn, I lunged in and rolled him over onto his back.
He panted out regret that I wouldn’t choose him as Beta. At least not tonight, not based on this showing. That, after all, was the point of these challenges. Because Willa had been my father’s Beta, but since we were both women she couldn’t be mine.
And the Guardian was getting antsy. I could feel it when I walked barefoot through the forest. Could feel it every time another month passed without me conceiving an Heir and choosing a Beta.
Still, it was hard to make a selection while fighting males who had no chance of beating me. Eventually, I hoped, one might improve enough so I could choose him as my second-in-command. It needed to happen soon. I could only hope the Guardian’s patience stretched that long.
So we fought. One on one, five more battles. By the time the moon crested the top of the oak tree at the edge of the clearing, my right forepaw throbbed from where I’d clawed too deeply into an opponent’s flank. There was blood on my tongue. And I’d finally worked my way up to the wolves who I couldn’t fight with my eyes shut.
Ash was one I’d been considering for the role of Beta. He wasn’t as strong as Willa yet, which was a problem. But he was my friend, someone I trusted to have the good of the pack as his guiding light always. As a result, I’d been training him in private, taking him through his paces time after time until he leveled up from novice to amateur.
Ash had clearly been practicing on his own also. Because a double feint surprised me. His jaws clenched down around the tip of my ear.
A less experienced wolf would have yelped and flinched, perhaps even submitted. But ears were just shreds of tissue. I ripped away, ignoring the sharp pain and the warm blood, using Ash’s overreach to toss him earthward. Unlike the others, I did him the honor of