Sheep

A wolf in sheep’s clothing. That’s what we were. It was me, and Cypress’s first hunt together. He veered left, I veered right to a slow looking one. The smell of sheep was strong in the air. They hadn’t caught are sent yet though. I raced forward, opening my jaws. I bit down on her flank. The others scattered. I took it down with ease. I chomped down. We took down another one each before regaining control. I looked to Cypress smelling the air. We were at Leo’s farm these where Leo’s sheep. I gesture with my wolf head to the woods. I smell him before I hear him. Twelve o’clock. I smell smoke in the air. A sharp pain in my leg. The rusty smell of blood. Cypress not knowing he’s a friend of my mate whipped around to attack. I jump between them. Leo hesitates to take a second shot. It’s just enough time for us to hit the tree line.

“Friend of my mate.” I say. Shifting to human for just a moment before shifting to wolf again.

“Leg?” He ask then is a wolf running beside me.

“Fine. Silver.” The bullet just grazed me. It burns, and it’s sore both from the cut/burn, and the fact I’m running on it. We make it to the woods. I sniff around for the sent of his approach. He definitely tried to follow us, but lost us at some point. After a bit we shift to human. “There’s some stuff I should tell you.” I say. I was stupid not to tell him about the Hunters in town earlier. So distracted from finding out he was alive. Then from hunger. I text Jordan. A quick rundown of what happens asking for his permission to tell Cypress, and someone else. I keep out the fact that I’m injured. Keeping it to myself. He gives it immediately. Trusting me, and my judgment. I would have told Cypress anyway. But I fingered it was only polite to ask. Raina although could loose control had no intention of hunting anyone I cared about. Leo and Cheryl did, not knowing who we were. They thought they where protecting there kin, and there food/money source. How would Cheryl react? A certain level of caution was understandable. Channeling it helped, but control was never a guarantee. I channeled it the best I could to only hunt strangers, bad ones when I could, but that was the best I could do. The only control we were allowed. Hunters hunted only because they had to to protect themselves, and their species.

“It can wait.” He jumped a few feet into the air catching a branch, and pulling himself up. He then grabbed a backpack I hadn’t noticed before was tied to one of the branches. “We should really have a home base somewhere out here.” He says jumping down. He takes out some stuff to clean, and bandages the wound. I lean against the back of the large tree. He puts the backpack back. Then shifts to wolf form resting his head on my lap. It’s safer with Leo about, and with me injured for at least one of us to stay in wolf form. He shoots off into the woods, and comes back dragging a human corpse. I eat with him. I’m not used to someone taking care of me. Being a leader normally means that always falls to me. It’s kind of a nice change. After resting a moment we head to town as quickly as we can. We go into Dan’s Meat Market.

“Hey Charlotte you’re out late.” I nod. I grab a snack size bag of sea salt chips, and a water. I then tell Cypress he can grab something. I pay Dan.

“Thank you Charlotte.” He hands me the 1.5 pounds of burger meat. Cypress just picks out a water. We sit on a bench outside.

“Do you have a place to stay?” I ask.

“A cave in the park. People don’t really come out there much at night. Hunters don’t come. Besides recently.” As he eats half the meat, and I snack on chips. I tell him everything. All of it.

“Does Raina know?”

“Not yet I’m going to tell her.”

“Does he know about us.” He says meaning him and Raina.

“No. He knows I’m telling someone else. I told him someone from RedCreek came here. Nothing else.”

“Well you can tell your new mate about me. But listen.”

“Yeah?” I ask.

“I’m your best friend.” I laugh. We fist bump.

“Always. Now stop hogging the meat.” I order some stuff on my phone for Cypress’s cave. A used phone, blankets, pillows, etc. it’s not like we’re not used to roughing it. Being on the run is always a possibility for us. It’s a good thing we like camping. I fall asleep immediately. I wake up with a sore leg. It’s a little swollen, but fine. I limp a little, but you can’t really notice unless you looking. I make myself some chicken, and waffles. I check my phone.

Want to head to Leo’s farm with me? - Jordan

Skipping school are we? - Charlotte

Yeah - Jordan

K - Charlotte

Pick you up in ten - Jordan

I finish my breakfast. I head to his truck.

“Hey.” He greets. I grab the handle to pull myself up.

“Hey.” I greet. We talk for a bit.

“Yeah I wrote some more.” He says.

“How’s your calculus homework going?”

“It’s not.”He sighs.

“Want me to give you Ross’s number so he can help you?” I ask.

“Please.” I put his in contacts.

“He’ll be able to help you. He’s the smartest person I know.” We go up a winding drive way. I see a wood, and brick farmhouse. There’s a white fence towards the back. There’s a strong smell of sheep in the air. I hop out. I try to land on my one leg, but I flinch. I shut the door, and follow Jordan to the back porch.

“Hey, man.” He says, and they do that causal one armed hug.

“Hey.” Leo says to me awkward. Clearly me, and his girlfriend fighting is going to effect our relationship a bit. I give him a nod. We sit down, while Leo grabs some sodas. “You won’t believe the week I’ve had. I’ve been so stressed. The only upside is that Cheryl’s going to be out tomorrow. Her mom’s going to take time off to watch her. She won’t be able to go back to school for another few days. I think it’s going to be hard to stop her from coming here though. Especially after last night. Two wolves stole four of my sheep.” He says. Wolves not wolf-shifters, for my sake. If we could keep who was wolf-shifter, and who wasn’t a secret between packs we would. But we could sniff each other out if we tried, like Raina when I first got here. The truth was wolf-shifters weren’t even always a secret. Humans just kind of forgot about us. Though they had plenty of stories of creatures that looked human (or wolf sometimes in our case), but wasn’t. We didn’t care if humans thought us real or not, we only cared if they realized which ones of us were wolf-shifter. We were so rare it made sense humans forgot us, and Hunters seemed to think their job was easier to accomplish if other humans didn’t know. I tried to picture what would happen with RedCreek if humans knew. Well it was hard for the few to who did think it best for humans to know to prove it anyway. I could remember so many real videos on line humans were quick to dismiss as ether make-up, or editing. Most of the time we got those videos down fast. There would always be the occasional conspiracy theorist, some one from a Hunters family, a friend or mate of wolf-shifter, or the human family’s who lived in towns were they knew there were wolf-shifters. Unless you got like an entire country to see a wolf-shifter shift in person no one was going to believe anything. And we were far too carful to be caught like that.

“What happened?” Jordan asked politely. My guess this is the sort of thing they’d normally talk about.

“Well the first one got away, but I grazed the other ones leg. So we’ll have to keep an eye out for any wolves with an injured leg.” (Or humanoids. I think.) Jordan stealthy looks me over. Leo’s dad calls him over from the fence. “Lucky my dad agreed with all the stress with tests, Cheryl, and the wolves I needed a day off. I’ll be right back.” He helps his dad carry new wood for the fence.

“Was it you?” Jordan whispers though we’re probably well out of human ear shot. Was I the one that was shot? I nod.

“Why didn’t you tell me.”

“Chill. It was just a graze.”

“With silver.” I involuntary flinch at the word, silver. He puts his hand on mine.

“I can’t help you if you keep me out of the loop.” I nod. We quickly change to small talk as Leo approaches. After a few hours hanging out, and talking about a number of things we get up to leave. My leg’s not as bad as it was. This time Jordan puts his hands on ether side of my waist to help hoist me up into his tall truck. We start driving back towards my place Jordan insisting I rest up.

“Yeah, yeah-“ I’m about to say that’s basically what I’ve been doing the last few hours when I catch movement. I roll down the window tying to get a smell for the air with the fast speed, oil smell, and the smell of crisp leaves. When I’m certain it’s him, and relatively sure we’re alone I say loudly. “You’re an idiot.”

“We’re still pretty close to Leo’s farm.” Jordan says, confused.

“My Betas an idiot.” I repeat. More to Jordan this time. “Stop the truck.” I get out. “What are you thinking?”

“I want to meet him. I was carful.” He says.

“You’re stupid.” I tell him.

“So you’ve said, but here we are.” He holds out his hand for Jordan to shake. He doesn’t meet my gaze, a submissive gesture, clearly he knows he was in the wrong. And that I was right. Jordan doesn’t hesitate to shake it. I roll my eyes.

“I’m going to be in the truck.” This time both men help me up. I shut the door, but can still hear every word though the half opened window. I turn on the air conditioning wishing the truck wasn’t so loud. It’s not any louder than most trucks, but still annoying. Not like the background noise of birds chirping, squirrels and mice scattering, or branches swaying against each other. The smell bothers me the most. I don’t like being in a place with a strong single sent. To easy to cover up anything important. When we’re on the move it’s not so bad, but being still like this… The fact that I’m growing hungry doesn’t help. I’ll need to eat a human tonight, despite the danger. Cypress will watch my back for Hunters, and I his. Having a pack again is a relief.

“What’s your endgame?”

“Endgame like marriage? I think that’s for me, and Charlotte to talk about.” We had touched on it a bit. Our relationship is exclusive, long term, and marriage is definitely a future possibly. We’re also both family oriented which I love. But those are all things that can wait.

“No I mean what happens if the secret gets out, and she has to leave. Will you go with her?” Cypress asking the hard questions I had been avoiding.

“I won’t break up with her if that’s what you’re thinking. She’s my mate. Again me, and Charlotte will make a plan depending on the situation. Most likely yes, but I won’t leave my family. Especially Alice.” Cypress nods satisfied with that answer. We’ll plan out every scenario. That sounds like something I would say. I love him all the more for his loyalty to me, and his family. Cypress shifts.

“Tonight ten. Your cave.” I tell him. He nods once, and runs back into the tree line.

“Hunting?” Jordan asks.

“Out of town if we can help it.” I say.

“He’s living in a cave?” He asks. I shrug. “Until I have enough to rent a place out.”

“There’s this old place kind of run down. That my family owns, but if your both willing to help me fix it up. Does that work? It’s in the woods. A small hunting cabin.”

“That’s sounds perfect, thank you.” I kiss his cheek.

“Your my mate. And there’s something you should know.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll tell you next time you come over.” I roll back up my window. It seems I’m not the only one with secrets I don’t want hunters, or non-allies overhearing. I was five minutes early to our meeting spot. I wondered if storing some tents here would be a good idea. It was pretty off the beaten path, but someone could still come upon it way to easily, and any one who found out were Cypress was staying that wouldn’t be a safe place ether. Keeping tents here in case we needed to stay out of the towns would probably be best. That was something to keep in mind. We shifted at the same time. He let me hunt first. Keeping an eye out for hunters. I heard the person’s scream before I dug in. Red sticky blood covered the green grass. We buried the body in a random place in the woods. Then there was Cypress turn. I was so on edge the fur down my spine wouldn’t lay flat. I made a large circle around the house he had broken into. Patrolling, keeping an ear out for Hunters. I was lucky to find someone outside to hunt. I watched Cypress drop from the two story window landing with ease. We shifted, and made a run for it. I dropped into a play bound. He fallowed. I bumped into him. He then knocked me to the ground. I play nipped at him. He went for my shoulder blade, and I rolled out of the way. Then he headed for his cave, and I my duplex. It felt strange being so far from him.