To be honest, you had no intention of contacting Lanius again. Really, you didn't.
Until one morning you walked outside to find a dead deer on your doorstep.
You let out a horrified shriek, shouted, "Jesus fucking Christ!" at the top of your lungs.
It was a massive stag, the handsomest you'd ever seen, with a huge rack of antlers. It would have been majestic if it were alive. Instead, the poor beast was completely disemboweled and had its throat ripped out.
What the hell was it doing in front of your porch, though? Was this a prank? A threat? You remember in The Godfather, the mafia put a horse head in some poor schmuck's bed to let him know he would be swimming with the fishes soon. What did an entire buck mean?!
Calm down, you told yourself, taking a deep breath. The carcass hadn't started to decompose yet, but the thick smell of blood was still in the air. You gagged, retreated back into the house, slamming the door behind you.
After a quick crying jag, you concluded you were being paranoid. Just like your mother before you. And just like her mother before her.
Judging by the obvious cause of death, the deer must have been killed by an animal, not a human. A bear or wolf or something must have killed the stag and been lugging it back to its den before giving up and accidentally leaving it conspicuously on your property.
Yeah, that had to be it...
New question! How were you going to get rid of the damn thing?
Ten minutes later, you walked out of your house again, wearing a pair of dishwashing gloves, an apron, and a face of determination. All you needed to do was drag it to the treeline. Nature would take care of it from there. The creature that killed it would probably come back to collect it in the night.
But, boy oh boy, was the thing damn heavy. After fifteen minutes of straining, you managed to tug it maybe two inches to the left.
As much as you hated it, you were going to need help.
You tried calling 999 first. The lady on the other end of the phone was extremely unhelpful.
"You're saying there's a dead animal on your property?"
"Not just on my property. On my front stoop."
"Uh huh... And why can't you remove it yourself?"
"I told you, it's too heavy!"
"What do you want emergency services to do about it?"
"I want you to send a firefighter or something down here to take care of it."
"The fire department has more important things to do than pick up your garbage."
"Like what?! Rescuing kittens from trees?!"
She ended up hanging up on you. You couldn't blame her, though. You got pretty belligerent towards the end of the call.
Looked like you were up shit's creek without a paddle. There was no one else you could call.
Well, that wasn't quite true... There was one person.
You looked from the animal carcass to your phone and back again, before groaning and looking for the name in your contacts.
"Woah, that is one big buck!" Lanius laughed as she jumped down from her pickup.
"That's not funny," you glowered, arms crossed due to annoyance as well as the cold. "This morning has been an absolute terror."
"Don't tell me you got your feathers all ruffled over a little dead animal."
You knew she was just teasing you, but your hackles couldn't help but raise. "Little? Little?!" You could feel the blood rushing to your face, knew your complexion was likely getting redder and splotchier.
She snickered as she donned a pair of gloves before grabbing the buck by the horns, lifting it with nothing more than a quiet grunt. "This deer head is going to make a great decoration. Where do you plan on hanging it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'll stuff it for you, obviously. I doubt a city girl like you knows much about taxidermy. I could show you how to stuff it yourself, but the process isn't for the faint of heart. And you already look a little faint, honeybun. But where in the house are you going to put it?"
Maybe it was the city slicker in you, but you found taxidermy absolutely barbaric. There was no way in hell you were hanging up the head of a dead deer in your abode, even if it was a temporary one. The mere idea of those sightless glass eyes watching you made the hairs on the back of your neck raise.
"Keep it," you offered. "As thanks for taking the carcass off my hands. And off my porch."
Lanius frowned sternly but didn't argue. "What about the meat and hide?"
"Keep those too."
She sighed. "Hun, if we don't use all parts of the animal, then it died in vain." That, admittedly, made you feel kind of bad. You weren't the one who killed it, though! Upon seeing your guilty pout, she continued, "Why don't you come over to my house for dinner next week? We'll have venison!"
As much as she was trying to suppress it, the corners of her mouth twitched upwards in a smile.
God, accepting gifts from a complete stranger and intruding on their family dinner? What fun!
"Why didn't you tell me your first name?" You asked, head tilted like you were curious and not confrontational.
Her jaw tensed and that little smile fell. "Who said it's not?"
"My mother did, Diana. Why the secrecy? Got something to hide?"
She dropped the deer head, letting it fall back into the bed of red snow. You instinctively took a step back.
"No one has called me by that name since my ma died," she confessed. "You see, it's tradition for the Lanius family matriarch to go by the surname. Grandma was lucky enough to die of old age, but Ma died in a hunting accident when I was eighteen."
Your mother wouldn't have known. She left town as soon as she herself turned eighteen, four years before Lanius did.
You looked away, your expression crumpled under the weight of your remorse. "I'm sorry."
"Why the animosity?" Lanius asked. "Haven't I been nothing but nice?"
Not knowing what else to do with your body, you shrugged. "Therein lies the problem. I guess I just don't understand why you're being so nice to me."
"Don't they have any basic human kindness back where you live?" That was both an accusation and an excuse.
"I just thought..." I thought you were a cult leader. In fact, I still suspect you are. "I don't know. Like I said, I'm sorry," you said, running your fingers through your hair helplessly.
"So you'll come to dinner?" There was a hopeful undertone to her question.
You looked up at her again, surprised. "You still want me to?"
"More than anything," she answered, painfully honest.
Forcing a smile, you shrugged again. "How could I refuse?"
------
Mr Wolf, Mr Wolf, what time is it?
Five o'clock...
------
YOU ARE READING
The Work of Wolves || Yandere!Werewolf X F!Reader
Horror"People should be judged not by their outward demeanor but by their works, for many in sheep's clothing do the work of wolves." Based on Mr Wolf, What Time Is It?
