Mytherotica. Kerry Greenwood

I don’t belong anywhere.’

      ‘Try having paws and fur and fangs and a terrible desire to tear out throats. I don’t belong anywhere, either. My name was Tommy, and you were my friend.’

      ‘God, Tommy, Dammit, I was so looking forward to meeting you again!’ Hal dragged the wolf into a close embrace. After a startled moment, the wolf nosed him, huffing into his neck, absorbing his scent. Hal lay down, and the wolf curled up almost in his lap, licking his hands.

      ‘You joined the army, too?’ asked Hal.

      ‘Just after you. And, as I said, in Portugal the loups got me, and here I am.’

      ‘And here I am, too,’ said Hal. ‘I loved you, my Tom.’

      The wolf licked his hand again, then reached up and licked his face.

      ‘I love you, too. But there isn’t much I can do to prove it at present. In any case, you need to shoot me. If you have a silver coin you ought to be able to beat it into a pellet which can be fired out of your musket.’

      ‘Don’t be foolish, wolf. How many little girls have you actually eaten around here?’

      The wolf looked ashamed. He hung his head and licked a paw nervously.

      ‘Er, well, none. I haven’t eaten any people. Just deer. Human blood smells delicious, but... I think I came in here to try to be a real werewolf. I don’t know if I could have done it. I’m a failure at being a werewolf, as well as everything else.’

      ‘No, listen,’ urged Hal, scratching the wolf’s ears. ‘How much news of the war have you heard?’

      ‘Not much,’ confessed Tommy.

      ‘There was a great battle at a place called Salamanca. We captured the baggage train and found a lot of gold coins. The others went straight for them, but I knew there’d be trouble about gold, so I collected a knapsack full of silver. I was wounded and waiting for the surgeon, so I sewed my coins into an ammunition belt and put it back around my waist. I changed them in London. I’ve got enough money to buy a house and to live on for the rest of my days. Come and live with me.’

      ‘But I turn into a wolf for three days at the full moon!’ protested Tommy,

      ‘I limp on my left leg,’ returned Hal. ‘We all have our problems. Can you change back into a man at all?’

      ‘I only have to be a wolf in direct moonlight,’ said the wolf. ‘I can turn back into a man if you want me to be a man.’

      ‘Do you agree? Live with me? Think of what successful hunters we could be! I can put a collar on you so that no one will think you are anything but a dog, though you are a beautiful, silver-furred animal of great magnificence,’ added Hal, as the wolf seemed insulted. ‘If you agree, bring my dear Tommy back to me. I have missed him for a whole war, over the seas, through Portugal and Spain, fire and smoke, blood and death and fever and very poor rations.’

      There was an eye-tearing moment, the air blurred, and lying in Hal’s lap was a naked man of great magnificence, his hair silvering in the firelight. Hal leaned down and kissed him, and was kissed and then licked in his turn.

      ‘Build up the fire, take off those military rags, and come to bed,’ said Tommy. ‘Oh my dear fellow. It’s snowing. Without my fur, I’m cold.’

      Hal did as he was bid, barring the door of the small house. When he padded back to bed, his feet icy on the stone floor, the wolf and Tommy both dragged him into their arms and they fell into each other’s embrace with gladness.

      In the morning, Grandma Boone returned, having been detained at a lying in. She sold Tommy suitable clothes and even a pair of her late husband’s boots. Hal introduced him as a soldier overcome with fever, having torn off his garments and thrown them away in his delirium. Grandma Boone, who needed the money and didn’t need the clothes, did not question the story.

      When the woodcutter, who had followed wolf prints to the very door, burst in to rescue the inhabitants, they had to give him quite a lot of money to go away.