Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves (Folk Lore 2)

“We can’t have you running off to chase girls. You wouldn’t survive,” Yev continued as if he were talking about a pet, not a man with desires and needs!

Radek had thought he could put off finding ways to communicate what he was, but this moment made him reconsider. He huffed, looking around for something he could write on. It would be a tedious process, but he would form letters somehow, even if he had to use his back legs. He attempted leaving scratches on the floor, but it was covered in varnish and the wood itself—quite hard. Making signs in snow or dirt would be much easier, so he rushed to the door and bumped his head against it to signal he wanted out.

“You wanna do your business? Uh, I don’t have a collar for you,” Yev said and rose, picking Radek up and carrying him to the cage where he’d been sleeping after the surgery. “We’ll have to think of something tomorrow,” he said and easily fended off Radek’s struggle, shutting the little door behind him with a latch.

Radek whined in frustration, circling the confined space. There was literally nothing he could write on in there! His earlier idea for communicating with Morse code passed through his mind again, and he started tapping the steel lattice in front of him, but Yev didn’t pay attention to his efforts and got back to his guitar. Radek rattled the cage with a screech.

He was not losing his balls, and it terrified him that Yev could just hand him over to the vet and make that happen. Radek was now small and trapped. A pet.

Yev glanced his way with a soft sigh, cradling the guitar against his chest. Radek stilled and glared back, but instead of this giving Yev a hint that his new pet wasn’t normal, it made him laugh. “You’re really something. How am I gonna explain you to my family? First, guys, and then this?”

Radek made a frustrated noise, somewhere between a whine and a snarl, but it died in his throat at the sound of wolves howling outside. He backed away in his little prison, once more reminded that Yev held his life in his hands now, and if he decided to make his life easier by throwing Radek outside, it was well within his power to do so.

Yev looked over his shoulder, his muscular chest relaxed, as if the noise coming from beyond the wall was nothing out of the ordinary, while Radek’s fur bristled with every passing second. Yev must have noticed Radek’s fear, because he smiled at him while getting to his feet. “It’s okay, Ember. They wouldn’t hurt you while I am here,” he said, walking off to the kitchen.

Oh, yeah, because Yev was an ex-circus animal tamer. Christ.

Despite the reassurance, Radek couldn’t stop trembling. He’d felt small next to Yev as a human, but he’d since become a tiny, insignificant furry thing that wouldn’t stand a chance against a single wolf, much less so against a whole pack of them.

Through the bars at the front of his box he saw Yev come out from a back room, and the smell of blood hit him before he even realized what he was looking at.

Yev carried two massive deer legs, one in each hand, and when the wolves outside howled again, he yelled, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

What the actual fuck?

Radek didn’t dare move, didn’t dare peep, his heart in his throat as Yev unlocked the door and opened it with his elbow. The howls stopped, as if the sheer presence of this massive man with claw marks on his back was enough to make a pack of wolves shut up. Snow darted inside with a gust of wind, but Yev remained unshaken as a massive four-legged-figure emerged from the darkness, approaching soundlessly.

Wolves. Real fucking wolves.

Yev tossed both the pieces of meat outside, then stepped back and locked the door as growls and the noise of tearing flesh reached Radek’s ears.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Yev came over and scooted by Radek’s cage. “There, all done. Nothing to be scared of.”

But there was everything to be scared of. Radek whimpered again and again, too overwhelmed to hide his fear. His leg hurt, he was trapped in this animal body with no way to be understood, and he couldn’t leave this house in the middle of the forest.

Yev exhaled, and from up close, the scar on his pec looked like an old bite. Had it been a wolf that had left it? At this point, Radek didn’t want to know. He needed to feel safe, and the metal cage was oppressive rather than reassuring.

Yev unlocked the door and reached inside, his face relaxed. “Come here, Ember, come here.”

And he did, because nowhere felt safer than Yev’s arms. Radek limped forward and wasn’t ashamed of the little whimpers he kept producing, because what was the point in hiding his fear and pain? Who was he supposed to impress? He was a wounded animal and if it hadn’t been for Yev, he’d have been dead already. Even if he hadn’t gotten trapped in the snares, he knew nothing about surviving as a fox and out in the wild, he’d become prey within a day.