Chapter 1

Characters appearing in the first two chapters are:

Zoe

She wolf, 5’-7” tall, 138 pounds, 38D-24-36, 24 years old, long auburn hair, hazel eyes, beautiful

Gus

Male wolf, blacksmith, 6’-3” tall, 240 pounds, 30 years old, light brown hair, gray eyes, muscular

Tiger

Female Cat, 18 pounds, her fur is a striped sandy red and white, and she has large head

My name is Zoe and I love to run. I love the exhilaration, my feet pounding the ground, my blood pumping and my lungs taking in large amounts of air. I love the wind blowing through my long hair. I even love the sweat. What I don’t love is the sports bra that I have to wear to control my 38D breasts. Those breasts though were a part of what make me so attractive to men.

I had been running for about forty minutes on this bright, sunny, but not too warm Saturday morning in September. I had chosen to run through this particular subdivision because it’s just off of my regular route, and I had never run in here before.

I was gliding along at a five and a half minute a mile pace, when I was startled by a large, savage looking dog that leaped out of the shrubbery along the side of the road to confront me. I skidded to a stop four yards from it and dropped into a crouch to lower my center of gravity. At 5’-7” tall and 138 pounds, I knew that I had my work cut out for me, facing this large a dog that must weigh over a hundred pounds. He snarled and barked at me while saliva dripped from his jaws.

I had screamed in surprise when first confronted, but now closed my hands into a fist so that my four, two- inch long claws could project from the top knuckles of each of my closed fists. I threw back my head and howled, while I sent out a telepathic blast that would scare most dogs in the area into hiding for hours at least, and followed this with a vocal snarl of my own.

None of this appeared to have any effect on the creature confronting me. It drop into a crouch also, as it prepared to spring. I braced myself for the shock and impact that I knew was only seconds away. Just as the creature started forward, “The Man” appeared beside me. Initially, I was only aware of a large shape beside me with something protruding in front of it.

The creature rushed forward and sprang into the air, so that it could tear out the throat of its victim. The object that “The Man” held seemed to leap up and jump forward to intercept the creature in midair. The creature impaled itself on the object and then both creature and object headed toward the ground where they landed with a thud.

“The Man” stepped forward bringing his end the object up and turning the creature with it. I could see that the object was buried deep in the creatures chest. “The Man” stepped forward and planted a large, heavy, leather booted foot on the creature’s body. He heaved the object up from the creature’s chest and then with a swift thrust plunged it back into the body again, piercing the heart. All life went out of the creature and blood ran from both wounds as “The Man” removed the object from the creature’s body. All of this had taken less than ten seconds. Much less time than it took to tell about it.

I could now clearly see that the object was a boar spear. The broad 10” long, 2” wide head had a thick steel bar across the back end to limit penetration. The six foot steel shaft was a good inch thick and decorated in places. It was a fearsome heavy weapon, and took a powerful man to wield it as this one had with so little apparent trouble. He thrust the sharp point into the soft ground at the edge of the road, stood up straight, threw out his chest, threw back his head, and howled, “AAA ROOO”.

I drew back in fear and had goose bumps all up and down my arms and legs. This was no normal man. No, this was a pack leader and I instinctively recognized him as possibly my mate to be. My entire body quivered and lust ran through me for a time.

But now I could smell the creature’s blood and an instinct as ancient as lust and sex took its place as saliva filled my mouth and the desire for hot, blood filled meat consumed me. My hands were still clenched into fists and my claws were extended. I drew back an arm ready to strike and rip fresh, hot meat from the kill when I was stopped in my tracks by a booming voice.

“NO,” the man shouted, “not that. You don’t know what disease or other problems it may have had. Come with me. We have a little time before the police arrive, and I have something much better for you to eat.” He led the way then, across the lawn to a building on the side of the house there. As we entered the building, it was obvious that it was a shop - a blacksmith shop. There were two large anvils and several smaller ones. There was the forge with a roaring fire in it, and on the walls and in racks scattered about were the numerous and varied tools that a blacksmith requires.

“The Man” threw a switch and the electric blower stopped supplying air to the forge fire. The fire still glowed white and angry but was now quiet. The man raked coal from the sides of the fire into the center and patted it down. He then placed new coal around the perimeter of the fire from a bucket. Taking a can with holes in the bottom on a long handle, he dipped it in the large water barrel at the side of the forge and sprinkled water on the fresh coal. All of this appeared to be an automatic operation on his part for he continued to smile at me the entire time.

“It will only be a few seconds,” he assured me. “I need to keep the fire supplied.” He then went to the wall and removed a piece of metal with up turned edges. It was about two feet long and a foot and a-half wide. He placed it over the fire and then reached out and moved a piece of metal on the air pipe leading to the forge.

“I need to switch to the bellows,” he explained as he reached out again and began pulling on a rope hanging down from the rafters. Looking up, I saw a huge four-foot wide bellows sitting up in the rafters. As I watched, the bellows opened and closed several times sending air into the fire, which had resumed its red glow and was headed toward a yellow and eventually a white heat.

My eyes followed the rope down again to his large hand. Then there was the thick wrist and the muscular forearm. Above this were the bulging muscles of his upper arm and then the massive shoulders. It was apparent that this was a man used to hard work and exertion.

“My name is Gustav, but everyone calls me Gus,” he said as he pumped the bellows. He is a tall man, at least 6’-3” tall and weighing at least 240 pounds from his build. He has brown hair and gray eyes. They were eyes that didn’t flinch when I returned his stare but only seemed to smile.

“My name is Zoe,” I said, when I found my voice. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Preparing a snack,” he answered and then checking the fire, he released the rope to the bellows.

“Follow me,” he said. It was not a request. From the way that he said it, it was a command and not to be ignored.

We went across the shop, along a porch, and through a door to the house proper where we entered the kitchen. It was large and open to the rest of the house, which was not as tidy as I would have kept it, but was never-the-less not a total mess either. I could see weapons hanging on the walls. There were a number of different types of swords. There was a rack with various types of spears and other pole arms, and over the fireplace hung two things. One was a double bit ax with long curving blades and the other was a large, heavy looking rifle.

My attention was drawn back to the kitchen as Gus opened the door of a very large industrial looking side by side refrigerator. He removed a covered pan and shut the door.

“You can look at the house later,” he said as he headed out of the kitchen and back to the shop with the covered pan.

Back at the forge, he sat the pan down and resumed pulling on the bellows rope for a few minutes. Then he reached over to a shelf and removed a dirty looking glass bottle, opened it and poured some of the contents on to the hot piece of metal there. I realized then that it was some kind of homemade pan of thick metal.

“Olive oil,” he said as he replaced the bottle. He then opened the covered pan to reveal the large chunk of meat inside. There was also blood on the bottom of the pan. He reached in and picked up the piece of meat, which must have weighed twelve pounds judging from its size, and dropped it on the pan over the fire. It immediately started to sizzle when it hit the hot pan. Then he took the other pan, that the meat had been in, and poured the remaining blood over the top of the meat.

The smells overloaded my senses. There was the meat sizzling, and the blood and olive oil mixed together. My mouth dripped saliva and my fangs, which had come out for the fight clashed together. I was ready to attack anything that got between of me and that meat. Gus merely smiled.

“Give it a little time, yet,” he said.

How could he wait? The smell was overpowering and to kill for. Did he have the patience of Job or what, I wondered?

“Soon, my little Zoe, we’ll have a meal fit for a wolf,” he assured me.

He produced a large, heavy-duty, two prong fork, stabbed it into the chunk of meat and turned it over with a flip of his powerful wrist. This I knew required considerable strength, for as I had said before, this was at least twelve pounds of raw meat. I noticed that some of the meat stuck to the pan when he turned it. Also, all of the blood from the top of the meat splattered down on the pan and renewed the smell of hot blood and olive oil mixed with that of the natural juice from the meat.

I was ready to pounce. How could this man wait? The smell was driving me crazy!

“Only another minute or two, my Sweet,” he assured me as he went over to another shelf and withdrew a large wooden platter. He returned to the forge and using the large fork, he lifted the edge of the meat to judge its condition. Shortly, he seemed satisfied and again stabbed the fork into the meat and lifted it off of the pan and deposited it on the wooden platter in his other hand.

My gaze was still on the pan over the fire. The smell of hot blood was still almost overpowering. Obviously, he knew where my gaze was, for he reminded me about the pan.

“That pan is very hot. If you try to get the blood left there now you will burn your mouth. Later, when it cools, we will clean it up using slices of French bread. There is nothing quite like blood soaked French bread, but that’s for later. For now there is the meat.”

I followed him back to the house, like a puppy follows its master. He placed the platter on a small table with two chairs. Then he handed me what looked like a fancy piece of finished wood. I could see several pieces of metal embedded in it.

We sat down, and he pulled out the ends of his piece of wood to reveal a large heavy knife and an equally hefty fork. He stabbed the fork into the meat, cut off a chunk, and popped it into his mouth. I quickly followed suit, fearing being left out.

I stabbed the fork into one end of the meat, cut off a chunk, and popped it into my mouth. The meat was fantastic! It was divine! It was hot, juicy, and still contained blood. It was charred on the outside, but still red in the middle. The flavor was amazing, and I now knew why he had waited so long while it heated.

We finished all of the meat. I can’t say that we ate it. We consumed it in large chunks and only chewed it sufficiently to get it down our ravenous throats. I’m sure that I got at least five pounds of that meat, and Gus let me lick the platter clean of the juices there. By the time I was finishing up, we heard the siren of a police car approaching.

“Time to go outside again, my Sweet,” Gus said.

“What will I tell them?” I asked, in fright.

“Tell them the truth. That is always best. It will astonish some and amaze others. It’s the easiest thing to remember, also. Just tell them that you were out running. That was what you were doing, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes, I was running when that creature jumped out at me,” I told him.