Waiting For August

Part 26 ~ Something about Henry

I awoke to a chill over every inch of my body. I struggled to raise my head, to open my eyes. My brain was still heavy with sleep, but my body ached with a bone chilling cold, demanding my attention.

Where am I?

With a start, I sat up. I was outside. The sky above me dark and bright; illuminated by a sea of glistening stars. The air was chill. The ground beneath me frigid. And I was naked. Naked and so very cold.

I hugged my knees to my chest as I looked around. I was in a meadow. A meadow surrounded by forest and sitting near the middle, where the vegetation surrounding me had been trodden down into a small grassy bed.

A sound behind me, a gentle rustle set a shock of fear down my spine. I turned quickly, backing away from that sound. A black wolf, probably the largest I'd ever seen was curled up there, nose in its tail. It peeked at me, blue eyes blinking heavily, sleepily.

A wolf with blue eyes?

Recognition washed over me as I realized that I knew those eyes. Caleb. It was his wolf. This was Caleb, but in wolf form. My mate. I immediately relaxed. But how? I closed my eyes as I scanned my memories, trying to remember.

Fleeting images took shape. I recalled the moon on the water. The rich, earthy smell of soil as my paws kicked up the turf. The fresh, clean smell of vegetation as I raced through its midst.

We had run. Caleb and I. Our wolves together. And it was here that we had bed down for the night. Sometime while I'd been asleep, I had shifted back to my human form. My hairless, bare, human form.

Why? Why had that happened? Never before had I shifted back until morning. It was almost as if my wolf wanted me to remember this moment. To embed it into my memory.

It was beautiful here, and but for the cold, I felt content. When was the last time I had felt this way? I looked to Caleb and sighed. When I lay with him. That was it, wasn't it? Whenever we were together nothing else mattered. Every other worry, every other stress, just melted away into nothingness. I could relax when I was with him. Be at peace.

Fine. Stupid wolf. I got it. Can we switch back now? My snowballs are freezing.

The next time I awoke dawn had broken out across the sky. I was curled up in a ball lying in our circle of grass. Something had awoken me from a deep slumber.

I sat up, ears prickling. I heard it again.

There was a sound, a rustle in the vegetation and it was quickly growing closer. My ears pricked and turned, focusing on an area of the thicket. It was from there that the sound was approaching, from a tangle of fern and grass and bush.

A moment later I could see movement; branches swaying and breaking as the sound grew closer. Whatever was coming our way was moving fast and almost upon us. Instinctively, I retreated as the source of the sound came breaking out from the undergrowth. I backed into Caleb's wolf behind me, just as a pair of squirrels came darting out from the brush angrily pursing one another.

From behind I heard an almost immediate huffing sound. Ears flattened, I looked to Caleb's wolf. He was fully awake, head raised as he took in the situation. It only took a moment for me to shamefully realize that the huffing sound was his wolf self laughing at me.

How embarrassing.

Seriously? What kind of wolf would retreat from a squirrel? I would never live this down. My wolf was not going to forgive this. If he had been in charge this would never have happened, but strangely, now that it was morning, he was allowing me to remain in the driver's seat. Perhaps he had decided that we were meant to share in this experience.