Vesyegonskaya wolf. And the she-wolf will come

Tamirin Iris

Dark. Cold. Scary. This is not how I imagined my wedding, but fate decreed otherwise. And it is impossible to go against her: you risk losing the most precious thing in life. It shouldn't have been like this at all. But what is the happiness of one werewolf compared to the prosperity of the entire pack? Just a drop in a huge ocean.

Now I was a bride, only the groom was not the one for whom my heart was so frantically yearning, ready to burst out of my chest, just to be with the one and only, acquired very recently, but who had become so painfully dear and important.

The changes happened too quickly. They realized too late that there were no other options but one. I had to become the Queen, the wife of the Ancient One, otherwise the entire flock, so carefully protected, would be trampled into the ground. For them, they are just a spending coin, but for me, they are a family that, even if I hate, but at the same time I swore to protect.

Many times I wondered, why me? The answer is obvious. The last descendants of Malika, the Borderwalker, were my sister and I. But Marianne... My sister fell in love. I have never seen her so happy, inspired and reckless, ready to embrace the whole world in her arms. Not a trace remained of the ice princess, as if the spring sun had melted all that permafrost with its rays. And I was not ready to end her wonderful fairy tale. But in her book of life, in a sweeping handwriting, she wrote: “the end.”

Don’t give up, be strong - it was with these phrases that I pushed the real me deep: to where no one would ever find out. This is my refuge. It has no concrete walls and bulletproof windows - only an iron cage in which a tortured heart is enclosed. All my life I had been pushing away suffering from myself that I didn’t even notice that I was breaking ties with those I loved. And it backfired.

Yes, my future husband was ideal: strong, handsome, smart. The line can be continued further, but sooner or later something will emerge that will cancel everything out. He was not the one to whom my heart was yearning, chained to the chain of reason. He wasn't someone you wanted to wrap your arms around and never let go.

For our dying race, love is a gift. Not everyone can meet their soulmate, and we are monogamous. So I fell in love... with an unattainable dream... And he... he has people like me... It hurts. Hurt.

The cold stone burned my bare skin. The dress was not required by the unity ceremony.

The dark, damp room seemed to be the concentration of all the cold of the world, which imprisoned me in its chains, like a prisoner. And the inky darkness did not allow me to see where I was.

Blind as a newborn kitten, I lay on the floor, looking into nothing, and remembering the happiest moments of my short life, until a deep voice interrupted the slow train of thoughts:

Do you agree, Lyubov, nee Malikova, to submit... - the alpha’s further words were drowned in some strange noise, the source of which she could not determine.

Goosebumps ran across my skin at a gallop. Someone lifted me from the floor, and then my frozen body was enveloped in such welcome warmth...

Yes,” the blue flame flashed brightly. The answer has been accepted. Golden eyes flashed in the darkness.

Marianne

The music pulsated in my ears, causing only a headache and a persistent feeling of disgust. These bodies, smelling of lust and sweat, writhing in a twitchy dance rhythm... Disgusting. But she couldn't leave. I waited too long for him. I wanted too much to feel the familiar beating heart under my palm.

She still couldn’t understand how it happened that he turned out to be her mate? Not his brothers, not someone else, but he, in whose bottomless eyes more than one young lady had drowned before her? Fate? No, this villainess of the Marlezon lodge has absolutely nothing to do with it. More like an evil fate! They will have to pay too much for the opportunity to be together.

Why is such a beauty sitting in splendid isolation? - a hoarse voice, imbued with some kind of superiority, distracted her from joyless thoughts. The noxious breath of the drunk got entangled in the golden hair of the she-wolf, which covered her flexible figure in a wave.

So that you ask! - Throwing a scathing look at this drunkard, she turned back to the counter. How irritated she was by these obnoxious little people who did not want to do anything, who considered themselves the crowns of nature. Now most of all the girl wanted to jump up and wring the impudent neck, so much so that the vertebrae cracked.

Baby... - the guy’s hand crawled down his back like a nasty spider.

Hands off! - her heart choked, and then began to beat at a frantic rhythm. Finally, he has come!

But the fact that? What will you do to me? Yes, you know who my... - the guy didn’t finish, falling like a heap near the counter. Her lover's fist always had what he needed.

As soon as you were left alone for a month, the jackals immediately came running - the newcomer pulled the girl towards him and pressed a scorching kiss to her lips. It was as if he was trying to erase all the bitterness that had settled in their souls from such a long separation, which was inevitable.

“I fought back as best I could,” smiling, she buried her nose in his neck, inhaling such a familiar and familiar smell. Gods, who knew how much she needed him.

They had been together for more than two years, but no one knew about it, and no one should have found out yet. The game played was too complicated. Too much depended on their actions. And too many lives and destinies were at stake. They just couldn't lose.

How is it going? - the girl pulled away a couple of millimeters from the young man, then to look into his chocolate-colored eyes.

Mmm, about that? - Having embraced, they left the club, leaving behind them a gray-blue building.

We have one reason,” the girl took a deep breath of the heady night air, carrying with it the smells of magnolias and the sea. She heard the waves roaring against the rocks in the distance. Their white, foaming caps must have shimmered in the soft moonlight.

Nothing. Her trace ends in the 19th century,” the man shook his head dejectedly. He could not understand why this girl then needed to fake her death. What did she want to achieve with this? He didn't understand the reason for her actions. And even superintuition could not help here.

Still, she is still alive. And we are 100% sure of this. And we’ll figure out the rest as we go,” the girl smiled again.

How simple everything is for you,” the man sighed heavily again and, raising his head up, looked at the stars that twinkled there, above, with a soft light.

Why complicate life if everything is not simple as it is? My sister generally considers me the last piece of trash. I sacrifice everything for our notorious plan. And I have no doubt that she will hate me when she finds out the whole truth,” a bitter smile distorted her perfect lips.

She will understand, my joy,” he hugged his betrothed tightly to himself, praying to the gods to allow them to be together.

I ran through the forest, which seemed dark in the approaching twilight. The huge full moon, with its yellow eyes, burned through the greenery of the forest, reaching me, illuminating me like a spotlight.

Faster Faster. The heavy breathing of the beast could already be heard behind him. Attempts to hide were useless - he was too fast. But, nevertheless, this awareness continued to drive me forward. The hope that I could escape the chase still glimmered in my wildly beating heart.... I was mistaken.

The wolf, in a jump, caught up with me, knocking me to the ground, causing me to fly a couple of meters, scratching my cheekbones and arms, and the huge carcass of the animal crushed me from above, burying me under me.

Fingers instinctively grabbed the fur on the back of his neck, trying to delay the moment of death. But what can a weak girl do? Exactly, nothing but submit to your fate. Clasping her hands around the wolf’s neck, she pulled him closer to her, feeling the hot breath moving her hair, and closed her eyes.

The heart beat evenly, as if there was no all-consuming feeling of fear, like a bullet lodged in the chest. And suddenly something changed. A rough tongue ran across the wounded cheekbone, trying to wipe away the blood. That's all. The weight of the predator, squeezing my chest like a vice, disappeared. Instead, fire burned through me and I opened my eyes.

The wolf disappeared, as if he had never existed at all. Now I was pinned to the ground by a naked human body.

I didn’t see his face, I just felt the scalding hot, velvety skin under my fingers.

Who are you? - she croaked, barely moving her lips. I couldn’t understand why my body was burning like an open fire. Really... No, it can't. I don’t know who he is, but something about him feels so familiar, painfully familiar and familiar. And fingers buried in his hair. My need for him seemed simply unreal. I wanted to cuddle up to him, melt and become one.

“You know,” the man growls, turning us over so he’s underneath me, grabbing me by the hair, pulling me closer. I didn't understand what I was doing. It’s just that at one moment the werewolf’s eyes were very close, and his mouth covered my lips. God, what am I doing?

The guy's lips slid over my lips, outlining their contours, penetrating inside. His tongue gently and persistently made its way inside, as if exploring, conquering more and more new territories. Mmm...

I felt how his second hand, sliding from my neck, barely touched my thigh, burning like the hot sands of the Sahara, and then moved to my buttock, clasping it, pulling me even higher...

And there was no strength to move away. I wanted everything he had to offer. An unbearable thirst covered my head, filling every cell, burning at my fingertips. Hands slid down his back. The fingers dug deeper into the skin, making muffled wheezes.

We don't know each other, but what was happening now seemed so right. He pressed me harder into himself, and I only opened my eyes wider, feeling the man under me. Every muscle, every cell. Every movement. All his hardness. And passion, all-consuming, calling for itself... Having released my lips from the sweet captivity, he gave me the opportunity to breathe, so that I could then again continue where I left off.

Tell me no... - he exhaled, looking into my eyes. The meaning of the words did not reach me: the truth was only the hoarse sound of his voice, exciting, enveloping me like a blanket.

Stop me... - empty head. Thoughts, like cockroaches, scattered in different directions. Not a single reasonable statement from a euphoric brain. Nothing. I just melted from the touches he gave me...

Please stop... I can’t... on my own... - the words were just a set of sounds for me, not carrying any semantic meaning

Do you want it?

A? - my spread legs touched his abs, and I tried to convey all the sensations that the man’s actions caused in me. He groaned.

I need to know,” he squeezed my buttocks tighter, trying to keep me in one place, to allow myself to think...

Yes... - she breathed into his mouth, covering his lips, absorbing his taste, tart, like Delacy. He trembled, surrendering, hugging him tighter, almost pressing him into his body, as if he wanted us to become one...

His tongue rushed into my mouth, tearing a groan of pleasure from my swollen lips. The kiss became more and more fierce, more and more frank... My tongue circled, circling my lips, tasting...

He rolled over with me, covering me like a wave from which I couldn’t hide or run away. I was drowning in it, in its heat, wanting to dissolve, disappear in this crazy, stormy ocean of passion...

Leaning on the elbow of his right hand, he did something incredible with his left, driving him crazy... Everything mixed together, giving pleasure, crazy, unearthly.

Tell me... - he pressed himself to my neck, licking it, making me scream with a surge of feelings...

The man sank lower, his hot mouth burned, covering my chest. At what moment the clothes disappeared, I noticed. Was she there at all?

I want you... - a hoarse whisper escaped his lips, his tongue, tracing some symbols, circled his stomach, rising higher. The lips met again in a kiss, and I forgot about everything, surrendering to passion...

For a moment, sharp, unpleasant sensations practically brought me back to earth.

I'm sorry... - one of his hands squeezed my shoulders, and the other. The other held a dagger. In the moonlight, the steel felt cold. A moment... and the blade followed towards my chest. - I'm sorry...

It’s after dreams like this that you realize that you can’t trust anyone. Even to myself. No, especially to myself. This all started six years ago. What caused it? Going over the edge or my partner's refusal? The answer was never found. And only one hope, that all this was just a dream, lived in my heart.

I would never want to die at the hands of someone in whose presence my heart raced like crazy. Although, what am I talking about? The heart is just a stupid organ, blindly obeying who knows what.

Wrestling shorts and sneakers. The race along the seashore can be considered a successful start. My feet ran confidently along the pebbles, splashing sea water in different directions - the drops shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow in the morning sun. Thoughts slowly, as if reluctantly, moved through my head. This damn dream again. How long is it possible? I'm tired of him. Every time, from night to night, my scream broke the silence of the room. Six years. Six long years that became hell on earth. This nightmare... Every time I was killed by someone who was insanely dear, insanely, stupidly important and loved. I didn’t see his face, but his heart... it cannot be deceived. Yes, it’s just a stupid organ, but there are moments when it is it that squeezes the mind in its iron vice.

The wind blew across my face, ruffling my hair, which was pulled back into a high ponytail. They were probably the only thing I liked. Thick, rich caramel color, blazing in the sun's rays, like an open flame, they flowed down the back, curling into tight rings. And everything else... An unremarkable personality. A slightly rounded face, hazel-brown eyes, overly thin lips... and a slightly plump figure. That's all. If you meet such a girl in a crowd, you won’t even turn around. But still... There was one secret in my life that forced people, and many animals, especially cats, to stay away from me. These tailed creatures, well, did not want to get along and recognize us werewolves. I carried such a terrible secret within myself.

We always hid, except only at the dawn of human development: then we were the masters of the situation. And then came a revolution, dramatic progress... And that’s it. The Holy Inquisition appeared, which hunted us day and night. Yes, she killed hundreds of innocents. But out of this hundred, every fourth was a representative of the Twilight World. A vampire. Werewolf. Rinai. We were caught and given up as burnt offerings. After that, we forever went into the shadows, taking with us the secret knowledge that we swore to protect.

From each race, one Guardian was chosen, the keeper of knowledge. It was honorable, but at the same time, this position deprived you of everything: family, friends and many other values, and you have no right to refuse. I was glad that the gods had mercy on me.

I didn’t even notice when my legs became paws, still continuing to run along the coast. The she-wolf sitting inside me had again escaped from control and was now rushing towards the water, squealing with delight. Another jerk, and she jumped into the water, raising a cloud of splashes around her. The fun knew no bounds... Eh, who would keep me company? A rapid heartbeat and heavy breathing could be heard in the distance. And who is being carried here at such an early hour? The she-wolf tensed, ready to run away at any moment.

A quiet growl escaped from the bared mouth, and a snow-white wolf, there is no other way to say it, swam ashore. How beautiful he was. A strongly built body with a broad chest, high muscular legs with tightly clenched toes. The forehead and at the same time graceful head of the wolf with medium-sized ears gave him some kind of invisible strength, and his eyes... Eternity splashed in them. Incredible, dark purple color, they riveted me to the spot. And there was no force capable of moving my body from its place. The heart, having made an incredible somersault, beat with redoubled force, dispersing the blood. Who is he?

The animal approached slowly, warily, every now and then I inhaled air through my nose. The last step that separates us... He took it. And now we found ourselves almost touching our foreheads. I greedily inhaled the smell emanating from the stranger. Tart. Heady. A subtle mixture of citrus fruits and something else, so familiar and dear.

Squealing softly, it rushed like an arrow along the shore. He followed me closely, not overtaking, but not getting ahead either. An hour... Two... Time flew by so quickly and imperceptibly. Next to him, I didn’t feel like an outcast or inferior. After my mate abandoned me, the pack took up arms, making me a kind of whipping girl, a kind of superfluous member of their community. And now... Yes, I didn’t know who he was, what pack he belonged to... but it didn’t bother me in any way, and it was so easy... My she-wolf, after what happened six years ago, rarely let me near him. males for herself, not counting the friends with whom she frolicked since childhood. But this wolf... he had some kind of magnetic effect...

Bounce. Another one. And I rolled over, lying down right on the sand, exposing my face to the sun’s rays. How good it is. The snow-white predator plopped down next to me, resting his head on my chest, covered only by a thin T-shirt. Purely mechanically, she ran her fingers into his thick fur... Mmm, soft. Probably, if a wolf could purr, it would already be singing... A rough tongue licked my hand.

Hey! We didn't agree like that! - lightly slapped him on the face. He stood up sharply and growled threateningly. Crap! Did I make him angry?

Quiet. Sorry. I won’t do it again,” she slowly threw her hands behind her head, showing that she wouldn’t stroke him anymore. Yes... easy to say, difficult to do. My raking little hands were reaching out to the wolf. The beast bared its teeth, growling even louder and pressing its furry side against my legs.

The wind carried the smell of the sea, and also... something unfamiliar, incomprehensible and scary. Don't know. Something was approaching us, hitherto unprecedented and stunning in its power... I felt it. The hair on my arms stood on end. The she-wolf was rushing out. The wolf growled loudly at my feet. I don’t know how long this lasted, but the very next second a ringing silence covered the entire shore with its canopy. The wind died down, the sea calmed down... And the snow-white beast disappeared into the thicket of the forest adjacent to the coast.

He laughed. Laughed like a young boy. She... She's just incredible. And her she-wolf... The man could not describe in words what he felt as soon as he saw her.

- "She will be mine!" - this thought visited his consciousness again and again, taking root, becoming something so correct and vital. - “She’s already mine!”

The man did not know what brought him to that coast. It was just some unknown force that drew him there. As if someone had already predetermined their meeting. As soon as I saw her, my heart began to beat faster.

She spread over. Beautiful. Subtle facial features, scattered dark eyebrows. Hazel-brown eyes framed by jet-black eyelashes. A mop of caramel-colored hair... I desperately wanted to run my fingers through it, to feel its softness... as well as the softness of her lips, so alluring...

He laid his head on her chest, which heaved in time with the girl’s breathing, and closed his eyes in pleasure. I wanted more. Much more, but it’s still early, and he still has time. He has eternity at his disposal. And the girl will be his - it simply cannot be any other way.

But first... First, revenge, sweet and so desired. He has been striving for this for many years and now he is unable to stop because of some girl, albeit such a seductive one. Revenge. This five-letter word warmed him all his life, so dark and difficult. Then... a long time ago... he lost HER. The only one that warmed him. The one he loved madly and for so long. And this love slowly turned into hatred for the one who interrupted the thread of her life, separating them once and for all. Now he is too close to completion and will not stop for anything! It will go over heads, over corpses, but not stop...

Chapter 2. (Memories)

Gideon! Lyuba! Stop it immediately! “Daniel screamed so loudly that I wanted to cover my ears and hide in a corner, curling up into a ball. But somewhere inside, my other half whispered that I couldn’t do that. You can never obey anyone! It is necessary to be a mistress, but not a subordinate! Never! Slowly she raised her head, squinted, looked at Alpha and began to beat his son with even greater zeal. This pompous turkey should get his due!

Somehow the ugly boy managed to get his fist in my nose. Something crunched and a scarlet stream of blood flowed onto the white lace of the dress, but that didn’t stop me. Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, she punched Gideon in the eye. Eh, that will be a tasty bruise! We need one more for symmetry! My seditious thoughts were not destined to come true! Someone's bear hug squeezed me in a vice, not allowing me to escape! Wow, they twisted it!!! They piled on!!!

How dare you touch him?! - Well, of course... That's what I thought... Another beating from Daniel is guaranteed for me. He will protect his son!

Is he the navel of the earth? - the question accidentally escaped from the lips.

He is the future Alpha! - our leader said, as if he were cutting, with his hands on his hips.

An alpha shouldn't be a weakling! Shouldn't humiliate anyone! And this one... Yes, he is weak! - the words flowed in an endless stream, not wanting to stop. I poured out everything I thought about this obnoxious boy, in whom I would never recognize my Alpha!

20 hits! - two brave guys from his guard grabbed me by their white little hands and dragged me into the forest. Yes, these are such harsh laws: if you intend to disobey an order, you must pay. And I paid. As a small child, I never restrained myself from saying what I thought. She also resisted orders, although, in principle, this was impossible.

We'll talk to you at home, Gideon! There was nothing good in Daniel’s icy tone. And my offender, with his head down, trudged after him, and they dragged me into the forest, where, having pulled off my dress, they inflicted exactly twenty blows. Blood flowed down my back in cold streams, drawing red paths. From sudden movements, the skin, which had begun to regenerate, tore again, causing unbearable pain. I wanted to scream, but I just whined quietly, watching how these two big guys dissolved in the approaching twilight. It's a shame.

This happened all the time. Retribution was always expected for disobedience, so there were no people willing to speak out against it. I was simply infuriated by the duplicity of this Daniel, with whom my mother slept. How is she not disgusted? After her father's death, she became somehow strange, even angry, although maybe no one had noticed this before? Here it is now. I crawled out of the forest with difficulty, and my parent had already slipped into Alpha’s house like a shadow. Sitting on a hillock, from where we had a wonderful view of our entire settlement, including the house of Gideon’s parents, I watched how the curtains were drawn, how the silhouettes danced in the glare of the night light, and then the lights were completely turned off...

Are you here again?! - Marianna, my beloved sister, landed next to me, hugging me by the shoulders. - Aren't you tired?

You do not understand! She had no right to do this! This is not fair!

What do you think is unfair? That she's cheating on our father? So he has been dead for a long time, and she did not have tender feelings for him. She was then simply married off. She became a bargaining chip, a pawn that united two packs.

But daddy loved her! She...

You know, we have no right to condemn her, after all, she gave birth to us. Let's go, let's run!

No. Do not want. You go, I’ll sit here a little longer, then I’ll go to bed. “Everything is fine, really,” I smiled through force, trying to hide everything that was going on inside me. Anger. Fury. Everything mixed inside me, creating an explosive cocktail. Now, more than ever, I wanted to be strong, able to resist anyone and everyone, proving with blood my right to freedom and independence, not wanting to be a spineless amoeba like the other she-wolves.

A sharp rustling sound brought me out of my reverie.

Quiet. Quiet. It’s just me,” a figure appeared near the edge of the forest, wrapped in a robe. Even with heightened vision it was impossible to see anything.

Who am I"? - she cautiously took a couple of steps, taking a deep breath of air, trying to smell the aroma of the uninvited guest. And nothing. Absolute emptiness. - Who you are? - Now it’s truly become scary. Who could be the one who has no smell, the one who cannot be heard?

Don't be afraid. I won't do any harm. For you, at least,” a figure wrapped in a cloak slowly approached me. - I need you.

You will find out in due time. It's too early now. What am I talking about? You yourself will ask me for a favor,” her whisper gave me goosebumps, creeping into my soul...

No. I won't ask!

Just ask! I know better,” a squally wind blew in and threw my hair into my face, momentarily depriving me of vision. This was enough for the figure to disappear, and for me to shake as if in a fever. There was something in her words that bothered me. As if everything she said here could be true. And who is she? I didn't know the answer to this question.

It all started when I turned twelve. I remember I was so proud of it then. It was from this age that wolf cubs were allowed to attend the meeting that took place every full moon. And this... is indescribable. Full moon... and magic. Ancient, pure and incredibly powerful magic that envelops the entire flock. The aroma of happiness is in the air. Universal unity. Slowly people are drawn to the lists, leaving their affairs, worries, problems somewhere there... But as soon as the full moon sheds its soft, silvery light on the clearing, the wolves are already nearby. Huge predators sing in unison a song of praise that only they understand, and then each voice of the pack sounds separately. And this cacophony of sounds rises up, hovering above the ground... It's incredibly beautiful. You suddenly begin to feel like something small in such a united mechanism, while knowing full well that without you alone this mechanism will not work.

I was looking forward to this moment. Since the very morning, Marianne had been buzzing me about how I would disgrace myself and do something wrong... It happened.

At exactly midnight we left the house, heading to the clearing where everyone else was already gathering.

“We are glad to welcome the new generation,” said Eva, one of the Elders. Such a fighting granny, about seventy years old. In fact, she exchanged the third hundred. Her deep, chesty voice scattered across the clearing, calling for silence, forcing all of us who were here for the first time to take a step forward. Such an uncertain first step towards unity with the pack, with the family.

Gideon was the first to step. Ha, who would doubt it? This big guy always tried to fit into any crevice! The others followed him. Slowly but surely, the young wolf cubs formed a perfect circle. And now there was no one left next to me. I stood at the edge of the clearing, deciding whether it was worth taking this step? Is my freedom worth any bonds based on subordination? Don't know. Then it was difficult for me to talk about it, based only on the meager knowledge that I had about relationships in the pack, but very frequent punishments for disobedience... And I closed the circle, not considering myself part of the family, not wanting to admit it.

The moon floated over the tops of the trees, flooding us with its light. Now wolves stood in the clearing, dazzling in their strength and beauty. Traditions dictated that names be given to them. Only those who observed their first conversion could do this. I don’t know where this tradition came from, which, to put it mildly, was stupid, but you can’t go against the system alone.

As a sign of submission, albeit an imaginary one, she bowed her head, stopping in front of the massive mahogany table.

Father? - the office has not changed at all during the ten years of my absence, just like its owner.

Even without looking at him, I know that he is boring into me with an angry, prickly gaze, and mockery is playing on his thin, bloodless lips.

Got it? Thinking about how to punish me? Naive! Life punished me even without him, so much so that I would not wish it on anyone.

“Don’t you dare call me father,” the alpha of the White wolf pack responded calmly, as always.

She chuckled. In principle, I did not expect to hear anything else in response.

Whatever you say, alpha,” she responded, also without showing any emotion. - Did you want something from me?

It was painful to speak; my cheekbone still ached, despite the accelerated regeneration. Father's mongrels did their best, beating the crap out of the rebellious she-wolf.

A delegation from the Southern pack will arrive this evening, their leader wants to become related to us, you will become his wife.

The same words after which I ran away many years ago, although then he married me to the son of the alpha of the northern pack. And now, unlike at that time, I don’t care whether he marries me or throws me to be torn to pieces by the spirits of Arak.

Okay,” she bowed her head in agreement.

He hesitated, apparently did not expect such a reaction, and I barely suppressed a slightly crazy smile.

“I’m glad you learned your lesson,” the alpha said arrogantly, probably thinking that this was his merit.

So, it will be much easier... - he muttered quietly, and with a lightning-quick movement he grabbed my throat with his hand. - You will do what I order you...

Magic flowed through his veins like prickly needles, forcing him to listen carefully and agree with his crazy plan...

The guests arrived late, so the alpha of the White wolf pack could hardly contain his anger when, finally, the car stopped at the gate, and a young man with the same cold eyes as his father got out.

He looked attentively at the delegation that met him at the door of the house, and pursed his lips in displeasure.

Good. Tall, thin, with short dark hair and noticeable stubble on his cheekbones. A typical representative of werewolves - probably in addition to his appearance is also arrogance, permissiveness and the conviction that the whole world should revolve around him.

“Good evening,” despite the dissatisfaction that showed in his ragged movements, he tried to speak in a friendly and inviting manner.

The union of two packs is an interesting event, I must say. Both alphas hate each other, but stubbornly play the role of bosom friends.

“Good evening,” my father said like a nightingale, literally pushing me forward. - Here, meet Yegor, this is my eldest daughter, Diana.

And then the parent did his best - they dressed me up in a blood-red dress, unacceptably short, with a deep neckline on the chest, and a transparent lace insert on the back. So to speak, so that the groom can immediately appreciate the product in all its glory.

I looked at him mockingly, not even making allowance for the fact that I was “very much” asked to behave appropriately with the guest. But my father forgot to clarify - what was appropriate? I looked like a whore who had escaped from a brothel...

“Nice to meet you, lovely Diana,” the alpha of the Southern clan was able to say after a long examination and a look lit with lust.

“Male,” an indifferent thought flashed.

“Let’s go into the house,” the father said contentedly.

Let's pass, why not pass? After all, this is why Yegor came here.

The agreement suits us,” when dinner was over, the men started talking about business.

Yes? - the father was feignedly surprised, however, not really hiding his joy. - Then, I think there is no point in delaying signing it?

The Alpha of the Southern Pack hesitated; it was clear from his gaze that if the circumstances had been slightly different, he would never have taken such a step. But, alas, life is not fair at all.

“I agree with you,” the man nodded, taking a sip of wine from the wine glass.

Great, let's go to the office.

Not freedom... Something else was the meaning of my life, but this is no longer there.

I wanted to get drunk so that I could forget at least for a moment, and I was already reaching for a bottle of wine when the cold voice of one of my father’s faithful mongrels stopped me:

I wouldn't advise you to do this.

She grinned.

Is it true? What would you recommend?

The guy was confused by my question, however, I didn’t have to answer him, the office door creaked, and loud footsteps were heard in the corridor.

You can take it, now it belongs to you,” the father said without hiding a smile, as if he was praising Yegor about some thing.

In fact, for him I am a thing, a very profitable thing, I must note.

Alpha, or rather now my husband, nodded in agreement and kept his gaze on me.

Come on, Diana, it's time for me to go.

Yes, I didn’t stay under the roof of my home for long, not long at all.

Slowly she rose to her feet, smiled broadly and walked towards the door. Nothing holds me back here, just like anywhere else in the world.

A tall, fair-haired guy opened the car door for us. He looked at me with undisguised hatred, to which I just chuckled quietly. Not a bad start.

Egor sat in front. The car started moving with a squeal, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I have a short break before the next act of this cheap show.

...The wind rustled heavily at the top, tore the snow from the branches, showering rainbow dust on the backs of the wolves lying below. The spruce tree swayed, and Yegor pressed himself even closer to the trunk, belatedly regretting that he had not thought to take a rope from the wood. Now I would get attached and not think about anything. It would be better to freeze than to hit the wolves in the teeth...

That's how things turned out! He's been hunting these same wolves for years, he's shot and caught who knows how many, but he's driven up a tree himself! Eh, life is a tin can, you don’t know where you’ll fall... Did you think when you were going to the plot that the she-wolf would track him down here too? It would be another matter - she would have lain in wait in her swamp, but no, she brought it here, the damned thing!

Yegor did not have a watch, but even without it he determined that he had been sitting for more than an hour. True, it was still possible to sit - neither the wind nor the frost penetrated through the sheepskin coat and cotton trousers, and my feet were warm in felt boots, and yet no clothes would help if I had to wait a long time. But I didn’t want to believe it. According to estimates, it turned out that the wolves did not catch up with the horse - they returned too quickly - and now she is already in the village, and there is turmoil there.

Yegor imagined how the village men and women were running around, how the chairman was in charge of everything, and his soul felt joyful from the picture painted. And only the thought of his wife and daughter muffled his joy. Okay, my daughter is only three years old, she still doesn’t understand anything, and my wife is probably roaring, probably thinking that he’s no longer alive. He remembered that, when leaving, he ordered his wife to heat the bathhouse for his return, and she probably heated it, and he sits here like a fool. One joy is tobacco.

The tobacco and matches were in his pocket, and Yegor smoked, and threw the cigarette butt on the heads of the wolves - it was nice to annoy the animals with at least something.

Thoughts returned to the old ways. Well, look how it all came together! I came, as they say, for logs! But he could have guessed that things would not end well, because everything was heading towards this. First they devoured Dymka, and then the she-wolf came to the house - isn’t that enough for you? No, he got along like a fool: the wolves won’t do anything to him! Sit now, cuckoo, since you are so brave, and pray to God that they will be missed in the village as soon as possible... And all the she-wolf. And where did such a whore come from? Look what I've come up with - to pay for the brood! How many times did he take broods, and nothing happened, but this one became enraged. Six months have passed, but I haven’t forgotten everything...

Sure enough, six months passed, Yegor took the wolf brood in May, but in general his hunting activities were long ago, such that you don’t even remember right away.

Yegor started hunting early, when he was still a boy. And how could it be otherwise, when all the Biryukovs have been hunters from time immemorial? And not just any kind, but wolf cubs. Yegor’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, Timofey Biryukov, was a wolf hunter, known throughout the area for hunting with a tame wolf. How this wolf got into his great-grandfather’s house—whether Timofey Biryukov took him as a wolf cub or wounded an adult animal and then tamed him—none of Yegor’s relatives knew. Even my grandfather didn’t remember anything about that time, because he was just a boy when his father disappeared in the forest. He disappeared without a trace and without hearing - he left and disappeared along with his wolf. An abyss in a dense forest is a simple matter, anything can happen to a person there, but rumor did not connect Timofey’s death with the wildness of these places. Timofey was not the kind of man to get lost or accidentally break his neck in some gulley. No, it was not through his own oversight that Timofey disappeared - it was no one else but a wolf who killed the hunter. Apparently, he brought a pack on him, and the animals killed Timofey.

After such an incident, it’s time to beware of Biryukov, stay away from the forest, wherever! They were all of an inveterate nature; they did not part with their guns, passing on to each other the dangerous science of wolf raids and tracking.

From the age of twelve, Yegor also began to hunt. At first it was kind of fun, but then I got really addicted. I shot hares and upland game from my grandfather's Berdanka. He didn’t get much: he didn’t have enough strength, dexterity, or fire supplies, but what he brought was food for the table, where, apart from potatoes and milk, there were no other pickles. The times were difficult, there was a war going on, and their father had already received a funeral, and Yegor had two more little sisters. Here every extra piece was in place.

The lack of gunpowder and shot, of course, is a problem for the hunter, but it taught Yegor to shoot rarely, but accurately. And by the age of sixteen he became the first shooter in the village, and by twenty he decided to no longer chase small change and took up the wolves. There were always enough of them in that remote corner of the Kalinin region, near Vesyegonsk, and after the war they disappeared, apparently and invisibly. There was no one to shoot the animals, the men in the villages were driven out by the war, and the wolves finally became insolent. There was no way to save the dogs and cattle from them. Some mongrel gapes a little, and you see, the wolves are already dragging him into the forest; As soon as the shepherd turns away, the sheep or heifer are no longer there. What a beast - they were afraid to let the kids go pick mushrooms. Therefore, no one restrained or dissuaded Yegor from becoming a wolfman. Everyone knew about his accuracy and luck, and besides, the profit was considerable, since for each killed wolf the procurement office paid five hundred rubles. It’s a dangerous business, of course, and not everyone will dare to go after a wolf, but Yegor was such a tough guy. And five hundred rubles aren’t lying around on the road.

But soon the fairy tale is told, but not soon the deed is done. The wolf is a serious beast, here an old Berdanka is a poor help, and you also need buckshot and traps. And where to take? Thanks to the chairman of the village council, he helped me out. Together with Yegor he went to the area, bothered about a gun and traps. He vouched for Yegor, saying that he would justify all the expenses for him. They respected the chairman, who, after all, is a front-line soldier, has two “Slavas”, and handed Yegor a brand new twelve-gauge “tulka” and three wolf traps, thickly greased with grease, as an advance payment. We weighed out gunpowder and shot and buckshot.

Everything seemed to be working out, but trouble soon began. Having once gone on a raid with a hunting team, Yegor told the chairman of the village council that he would hunt alone, because he did not agree to wander through the forest uselessly. Is this hunting when everyone is noisy like crows, smoking and rattling various pieces of iron?

The chairman, who fought the entire war as a scout, agreed with Yegor in his heart, but his position obliged him not to allow partisanship, and he admonished Yegor for a long time, asking him not to go against the team. There are already few hunters in the brigade, and when Yegor leaves, there will be no one to work at all. Well, it didn’t work out one time, it will work out another time, and he will tell the foreman to tighten up the discipline of the men.

But Yegor insisted on his own, even though he had a hard time afterwards. The brigade, whatever it is, is all a brigade, in it everyone helps the other and works for everyone, and one is the only one. Do everything and figure it out on your own, no one will tell you anything. By the time you think of some wolfish trick, your brain will go to one side. That’s why it so happened that during the first winter Yegor managed to kill one wolf. Oh, and the hunters laughed! They bullied Yegor as best he could, called him a one-man farmer and a jerk, but Yegor sniffed in his two holes and disappeared in the forest for days on end.

Knowledge of wolf habits was difficult. Take the trails, for example. It only seems that wolves run through the forest indiscriminately, but in fact they have their own path for every occasion. And what and for what - here Yegor had to rack his brains. But a lot became clearer, and Yegor, having stumbled upon a wolf path, no longer wondered where the wolves were heading, to hunt or to lie down, but could tell about it exactly. What about the tracks themselves? Here, too, an eye was needed, because if you look, it looks like one wolf has passed, but if you look closer, a flock has passed by. Wolves, when they are not being chased, do not run scattered, but run after each other, trail after trail, which is why it seems as if one animal has passed by.

Little by little, Yegor figured out the wolf howl, learned to separate the voices of the young from the seasoned, to recognize what they were howling about. And he himself began to imitate the howl, to hammer, as the hunters say. But here, too, there was a lot that did not fit into any gate. Let's say you howled. You howl, you try, you even lift your head up like a wolf, but you think: is it really possible that a wolf, a wild animal, won’t distinguish this howl from its own, a wolf’s? They didn’t differentiate like that! It was enough to howl, and now one, another, a third responded. And don’t flap your ears here: howl, lure the animal under the shot. Yegor beckoned, marveling at the wolf’s foolishness.

True, not all wolves succumbed to deception, and she-wolves, especially old ones, were very rare. They managed, no one knows how, to guess that they were being fooled, and never responded.

In a word, over time things went well for Yegor, and all the scoffers bit their tongues. And what was there to talk about if Yegor didn’t take less than a dozen wolves during the winter? In the procurement office they now greeted him by the hand and called him by his first name and patronymic, and from year to year Yegor’s portrait hung in the village council on the Honor Board.

Why not live, one wonders, but fate decided in its own way, bringing him, as if on purpose, with this flock in the swamp. A rotten place, a swamp for all swamps. The villagers called it Verkhovy, it began about five kilometers from the village, and no one knew where it ended. Yegor, who wandered there more than once, was sure that if you walked through the swamp without turning anywhere, you would run straight into the tundra - these domains of kikimors and goblins seemed so vast to him. It’s true that Yegor never met either one or the other there, but he knew one swamp inhabitant, as they say, by sight.

Last spring, in May, Yegor was returning from the forest. After a whole day of walking, the footcloths had become tangled, and Yegor sat down to rewind them. Taking off his shoes, he smoothed out the foot wraps on his knee and was about to wrap his leg when he suddenly saw a wolf. Holding the hare in his teeth, he slowly trotted very close to Yegor. The day was windless, in the stillness of the air the smell of a person did not reach the wolf’s nostrils, and the beast did not smell Yegor. However, Yegor froze: he didn’t smell it, he’ll hear it, just move. A wolf, like a cat, just the slightest rustle, he’s already right there. But Yegor didn’t want to scare away the beast. Firstly, the wolf was carrying a hare, and secondly, he ran straight into the swamp. Isn't it for the kids? What the hell is a hare for?

From that time on, Yegor began to circle around the swamp more and more often and even go deeper into it, hoping to discover wolf paths or meet the wolves themselves. But they disappeared into the water, but the paths were soon found. Having studied the tracks, Yegor tried to determine whether the flock was large. It turned out - four wolves. And only in winter, when animal tracks were read in the snow like letters on paper, did it become clear that there were seven animals in the pack. This was what was needed, and Yegor began to prepare for the hunt. But everything fell apart due to a stupid incident: one day, while chopping wood, Yegor hit his leg and spent the whole winter at home. The leg healed only by April, but April is a good time, time is lost. There was only one consolation left - to wait for the she-wolves to give birth. The pack lived in a swamp, there was nothing to guess here, and it was necessary to find a den and take the wolf cubs - although it was half, it was still a benefit. And then, you see, hands will reach the flock.

...Egor smoked again and again threw the cigarette butt at the wolves. Meanwhile, the frost began to bother us in earnest. At first my cheeks and nose stung, and then the cold penetrated under my sheepskin coat. No matter how Egor tucked or tucked the floors, the wind found cracks in them and reached the lower back and back. And then his legs went numb, and Yegor stretched them this way and that, tossed and turned and cracked his branches, and the wolves, as if feeling that they didn’t have long to wait, lifted their muzzles up and looked at Yegor. He showed them the bullshit and swore.

The forest turned blue, the shadows shortened, but no one rode, and Yegor thought that the wolves must have caught up with the mare. Of course, we caught up, can a horse with wood run away from the animals? That’s why they don’t go, they don’t know anything. On the weekend, everyone is full of their own worries, who cares where Yegor went. Even the groom is unlikely to remember, because Yegor promised him that he would put the horse in the stable himself. The wife, of course, is waiting, but she doesn’t think about anything like that. And he can’t imagine that the wolves drove him up a tree. He heats his bathhouse and waits. God willing, by the evening he will realize that something is wrong, so you won’t sit around until the evening on a bitch. Not a rooster, you can’t tuck your paws and hide your head under your wing.

This thought made Yegor angry, and when he saw a dry branch above his head, he broke it off and threw it at the wolves. But they just ran away. Yegor smiled sadly: he found something to scare him with - a stick. They should be whipped with buckshot now, especially this bitch wolf. Ooh, cunning creature! He can smell everything. How he watched over her after that night when she came to the house, and all in vain. It's like she fell through the ground. What about the lair? She hid it better than any fox. I searched for almost a month, I was knocked off my feet and, if not for binoculars, I would not have found...

The best time to look for dens is May. Wolves whelp in late March - early April, and litters must be taken before June. If you don’t take it, the wolf cubs will grow up and won’t be taken into your hands. They will hear that you are approaching the hole, they will run away and hide. And then at least you can find them.

Yegor had such a case, so this spring he did not want to miss the deadline, and as soon as the holidays were celebrated, Yegor settled into the swamp.

“Whoever gets up early, God gives to him” - the deceased grandfather always insisted on this, he taught his grandson to this, and Yegor left the house at first light. The sun had just rolled out from behind the palisade of fir trees and was rising in a steep arc into the sky, where clear, bluish clouds hung like laundry on a line. The stoves were burning in the huts, the cows were mooing in the courtyards, and the dogs were seeing Yegor off from the gates with a gentle, lazy, nonsense. It rained at night, there was a strong smell of water and blossoming birch leaves, and Yegor thought that since the birch tree had turned into leaves, there would be no more cold weather.

Yegor walked lightly - a knife in a leather sheath on his belt, a gunny bag under his arm, and a hunk of bread and lard in the pocket of his padded jacket, so that he would have something to chew when he wanted. Yegor hasn’t worn a cap since spring, putting it on only in August, when a tick, or moose louse, as the villagers called it, appeared in the forest, and of all the shoes he preferred in the summer, he preferred one thing – shoe covers. The most suitable footwear for a hunter is long stockings that go above the knees, made of thick canvas and soaked in some kind of ointment that does not allow moisture to pass through, even if you stand in the water from morning to night. Light and durable - not a single snake could bite through them - shoe covers were indispensable in forest wanderings, and Yegor wondered why they were not sold in stores. He himself got shoe covers from seasonal workers at peat mining - he traded them for black grouse and wood grouse. With a foot wrap or a woolen sock, shoe covers were better than any boots.

Yegor breathed easily on this warm May morning. Two weeks ago, just on Easter, he turned twenty-six, he had been married for three years, he doted on his little daughter, and he wouldn’t trade hunting for the golden mountains. Of course, summer is not a hunting season, in the summer animals and birds give birth, and it is forbidden to kill them at this time, but for the work that Yegor was engaged in, no prohibited periods were established - the wolf was allowed to be exterminated all year round. And in whatever ways you want. If you want, shoot, if you want, catch in traps, and if you want, kill with poison. Yegor did just that, though he didn’t use poison; he was disdainful, believing that killing anyone with poison, even a wolf, was not a hunting activity. A wolf is not a bug or a cockroach, but a smart and cunning animal, so get it in truth if you are a hunter.

Egor had a concern for the winter - a flock in the swamp. But this is for the winter, we still have to live to see it, but the wolf cubs that grow somewhere in the den are a good bonus. The wolves don’t bring anything little by little, six or seven wolf cubs, sure enough, there are more, but Yegor didn’t try too hard. Let it be at least five heels, that’s fifteen thousand in your pocket. They pay three hundred rubles for a wolf cub, and one and a half thousand is half a cow.

Everything was going very well in his head, but Yegor knew: finding a lair is not finding a mushroom. Of course, wolves won’t go far into the swamp, there won’t be enough food for them there, they’ll settle somewhere closer to the forest or the village, but where? They can dig in from any edge, and you'll be walking around the bush for a week until you come across it. And how can you tell if you’ll come across...

The swamp greeted Yegor with the heavy smell of fumes, dampness and that special silence that secret, dense places preserve. It was as if some kind of curtain separated the swamp from the rest of the world, from its usual sounds and manifestations of life; Here, against my will, I wanted to step silently and speak in a whisper, as if both steps and words were forbidden among these swamps and swells.

Bright green spring moss sprung underfoot like a sponge, filtering through itself brown peat water that filled the deep indentations of the tracks to the brim. Many islands, overgrown with dense birch saplings and low crooked pines, were scattered throughout the swamp interspersed with windows of open water, fenced off like a palisade with thickets of cattails and sedges. Such windows could also be hidden under moss, when you look - it seems like a harmless green meadow, but if you step on it, remember what their name was, and Yegor stopped to pick up a pole - it would be something to probe a suspicious place. There were a lot of woods of all kinds lying around, and it was only necessary to chop them off from a suitable branch.

Yegor did not have an axe, he never took an ax with him, which in the forest always clung to something; The knife made by the village blacksmith Goshka served him no worse than an ax. With a handle made of elk horn, with a wide and heavy blade, the knife was suitable for any task. Egor used it to remove skins, chop spruce branches for bedding and dead wood for a fire, and even chop nails for a bet.

The knife came in handy now. Five minutes later the pole was ready, and Yegor, leaning on it like a staff, moved into the depths of the swamp. Each island in it could be the very place where the wolves settled, and Yegor did not miss a single one, poking his pole into all the cracks. Every now and then his legs fell into potholes, but the worst thing was in the thicket; he had to bend his way through it, and soon Yegor was sweating. Having found a small barrel in the moss, he drank from a handful and washed his face. After the water, I felt the urge to smoke, but Egor, sparing the time, overcame himself and moved on.

The sun, hanging overhead, slowly rolled towards sunset, when Yegor decided: that’s enough for today, and so he got into the devil, it’s time to get out. Finding a dry place, he spread the bag and sat down. He started to get some shag, but remembered the lard and took a package out of his pocket. He unfolded the rag, broke the bread, and cut the lard into slices. In the warm weather it lost its hardness, but the garlic spirit alone made Yegor's mouth water. He ate lard with the skin on and looked around in between.

The swamp changed its appearance before our eyes. The air above him turned slightly blue, and this blue, mixing with the green of moss, sedges and foliage, like fog, enveloped everything around, moved and pulsated, as if alive, strangely changing shapes and outlines. Everywhere someone seemed to be moving, some sighs were heard, some bubbling and hissing, and from time to time huge bubbles burst onto the surface of the dark windows and immediately burst to make room for new ones. It seemed that some kind of unprecedented cooking was taking place throughout the swamp, that someone, having loaded this huge cauldron, had retired for the time being and was somewhere waiting for the results of his experiment. Condensing, the vapors stood over the swamp like smoke, and the rays of the low sun, piercing it at an oblique angle, flared up and shimmered with tiny multi-colored sparks.

It was time to get out of these stuffy and deceptive abysses. Egor rolled his cigarette one last time and smoked it with pleasure. He didn't think the day was a waste. The start has been made, and that's the main thing. Tomorrow we need to look from the other side, but we will need to look from the third. Yegor did not believe in any luck in hunting. Only fools are lucky - that's right. And hunting requires patience. Here you can achieve a lot in one fell swoop and a swoop. But there’s no point in fussing either. Until the end of the month, my nose is bleeding, but I need to find a lair. If you don’t find it, your fifteen hundred are gone.

But the following days did not yield anything. Yegor came home in the dark and, without even eating, collapsed on the bed. His wife picked up his things scattered throughout the hut and once again began to persuade Yegor to quit hunting. Are there other things to do on the collective farm? There are not enough men, they will be gladly accepted everywhere. And you won’t have to trudge through this damned forest from morning until night, getting cold and wet and endlessly tearing your clothes. She doesn't have time to fix it anyway. You won’t earn all the money anyway; you can only live on workdays. Others live.

Yegor did not enter into conversations. They went on repeatedly, and he knew that his wife would grumble and grumble and leave him behind. Listening to her with half an ear, Yegor imperceptibly fell asleep, and in the morning he got ready again and went to the swamp. He had already admitted to himself that the matter had turned out to be more difficult than he had thought. The search dragged on, time was running out, but he was left with nothing, and remained with nothing. The enormous extent of the swamp confused all the cards, and the further Yegor penetrated into it, the more clearly he realized that it was possible to find out even the carrot’s plot. He did not know the main thing - at least the approximate direction to the lair.

That’s right: there are many paths, but which one should you take? There’s no way around it anyway. God himself will not understand this.

God might have sorted it out, but Yegor had nowhere to retreat, and he eventually came up with a way out of the situation. True, he needed help here, but Yegor hoped that he would not be refused. With this, he went the next evening to the house of the chairman of the village council.

We had dinner there - we ate fried potatoes. A large frying pan stood in the middle of the table at which the whole family was sitting.

- A-ah, Egor! - said the chairman. - Just in time, sit down at our hut.

Yegor had just had dinner at home, but did not offend the chairman with his refusal.

“Not yet,” Yegor answered.

- What's wrong? Tea, you've been going for the second week.

- It’s a swamp, Stepanych. Prorva.

- So you won’t find it?

- I’ll find it, they won’t go anywhere.

- Aren’t you going to be late? By the end of the month they will become fast, damn it.

- I'll take it first. Just help me, give me binoculars for a day or two.

- What do you need it for? – the chairman was surprised.

– There is one thought. Do you know Mane near Dry Creek? I’ll make an ambush on a pine tree - no wolf will slip past. I just want to know which way they are running.

- Well, that’s right! We did this at the front. Sometimes you climb much higher, and from there, through binoculars, everything is clear in the palm of your hand. “The chairman walked behind the partition and returned a minute later with binoculars. - Here, I give it. - And, seeing Yegor’s surprise, he laughed: “Take it, take it, I still have it lying around idle!”

The binoculars were German, captured, and magnified so much that when Yegor once looked into them, he saw the entire village right through to the smallest detail. If he had such a technique, he wouldn’t be running through the forest with his tongue hanging out. But Yegor couldn’t take the binoculars for nothing. That's why I suggested:

- Let's go head to head, Stepanych.

- How is this possible? – the chairman narrowed his eyes.

- It’s very simple. You are my binoculars, and I am your knife.

- Goshkin? And don't you feel sorry?

- Just think! What are you giving away that you can’t give to me? Yegor knew that the chairman liked his proposal. He admired the knife more than once, and Yegor was pleased that everything turned out right.

...With every minute it became unbearable to sit. The felt boots, frozen through, became like wooden ones, and the sheepskin coat stood like a stake. The icy wind made Yegor's forehead ache, his frozen fingers did not bend, and in order not to fall, he leaned sideways against the trunk. It seemed to feel better, and Yegor closed his eyes tiredly...

In the morning, Yegor went into the forest before dawn. This time he left all his hunting equipment at home, taking with him only binoculars, nails and an ax. The knife, although Yegor still had it, was not suitable for today’s business. Cutting brushwood or spruce branches is not at all like building a shelter. You can't get by here without an axe.

In general, Yegor’s plan looked like this.

The mane near Dry Creek, which he told the chairman about, was a sand spit that jutted deep into the swamp and was overgrown with hundred-year-old pine trees. On one of these pines, Yegor intended to build a perch, or, more simply, a platform, from which he could observe with binoculars everything that was happening in the swamp. The wolves could not sit near the den all day long, they had to feed the wolf cubs, run back and forth, and Egor hoped sooner or later to spot some wolf in his binoculars, and it would lead him to the den. But complications could arise here too. If the pereyar had caught the eye, he would not have helped the matter. In the summer, the pereyarkas keep to themselves, the seasoned ones do not let them close to the den, so it was necessary to detect adults, a wolf or a she-wolf. Only they knew where the lair was and could show the trail.

Egor quickly found what he needed - a tall pine tree growing at the very edge of the mane. The tree was old, the bark on it was stiff and cracked, and the lower branches had long since dried out and fallen off, and in order to get to the strong paws, it was necessary to build a ladder. Yegor had no intention of making a real one; it was easier to nail meter-long cross members to the trunk, and he, having knocked down two sushi trees, was done with the job in an hour. All that remained was to climb higher and make a platform. This took another hour, and when Yegor finally settled down on the spruce branches as if on a blanket, he cursed himself out loud: he couldn’t think of a simple thing right away, he’d wasted a whole week.

From the height of the perch, the swamp was indeed visible far away, each island on it, each window was seen separately, and through binoculars one could see the ripples from the breeze on the surface of the windows, and the swaying of grass and bushes on the islands. To make it all better, Yegor took off his padded jacket, rolled it up tightly and put it under his elbows. Then he took the binoculars out of the case, adjusted the sharpness and moved the eyepieces from side to side, figuring out where it was best to start.

The first people Yegor saw were two herons. If Yegor had been on the ground, he would never have noticed them - thickets of reeds and cattails hid the herons completely, but from the platform, zoomed in with extreme magnification, the birds looked like in a picture. Gray, with dark wings, with crests on their heads, they walked back and forth along the water-filled lowland, at times they froze for a second and suddenly made a quick lunge with their long necks. The beaks opened like scissors, and the herons, throwing back their heads, swallowed their prey. Yegor even looked at what kind it was - frogs. The poor fellows were in the midst of the love season, crazy from an excess of feelings, they lost all caution, and the herons caught them without any difficulty. They swallowed frogs with extraordinary ease, and Yegor was not surprised by this - he had seen more than once how herons with the same ease swallowed palm-sized ides on the river.

On the left bank, the bushes began to stir, and Yegor pressed his binoculars harder to his eyes, ready to see a dark gray wolf’s body among the delicate greenery. But instead, a moose came out of the bushes. He stood there like a horse, moving his ears in different directions, and slowly walked along the edge. He clearly did not intend to enter the swamp, and Yegor, looking at the moose, thought: is this not the same one that he and the men pulled out of the swamp the summer before last? He looks like him, and he glances sideways at the swamp, like a dog at a stick, as if he knows that it’s better not to go there. If so, then everything is clear. That time the kids saw him. We went looking for reed cones and came across it. Let's run to the village. Well, the men got ready. They took ropes and axes. Just when we got there, the elk was already stuck, one head was sticking out. They barely pulled him out with ropes and wagons...

As time went. The herons had long since flown away on their business, the elk was lost among the wilds of the forest, and there were no signs that wolves were hiding somewhere, perhaps in the neighborhood. To somehow unwind, Yegor smoked into his fist several times. He was not afraid that the wolves would smell the smell of tobacco at such a high altitude, but during his forest life, smoking with his fist became a habit. God protects those who are careful, his grandfather, also a hunter, used to say, teaching Yegor to walk quietly in the forest, not to waste his time with his tongue and not to leave behind various pungent odors. And Yegor remembered his grandfather’s orders, but today was not the case when all sorts of tricky rules had to be followed. There is a difference between detention and detention. Now, if you were to guard a bear stealing oats in a storage shed, that would be a different matter. Sit here quietly, don’t breathe, and don’t even think about smoking. If you smoke a clove, you'll ruin everything. And the current ambush is not an ambush at all. You just need to take a look at where and where the wolves are running from, and one or two cigarettes is not a hindrance here. The main thing here is not to make noise. So he doesn’t make any noise, and even if he sings a ditty out of boredom, it’s done quietly, and not in full Ivanovo style.

The wolf, as always, appeared unexpectedly. Large, foreheaded, with a straight tail, as if flowing through the air, the wolf easily jumped over turns and rubble, going deeper and deeper into the swamp. He wasn't carrying any loot, but that didn't mean anything. The wolf could swallow the meat and then regurgitate it at the lair.

Yegor immediately recognized the wolf - it was him, his acquaintance from last year. Previously, when Yegor had not yet dealt with wolves, he considered them all the same. Yes, it wouldn’t have worked out any other way. Wolves could not be distinguished, like dogs, by color, they were all gray, go figure which of them you had met and which ones you had never seen. But, having encountered the wolves more closely, Yegor became convinced that among them there was not a single one similar, they were all different and for an experienced person they were remembered at first sight. Just like people who walk differently, do things differently, talk and laugh differently, so wolves ran differently and had different styles and habits. A hunter who met a wolf once would no longer confuse it with others.

The beast was about three hundred meters away, no more, and Yegor saw it well - seasoned, powerful, but not yet finished molting and therefore seemed skinny. The wolf's sides were especially sunken, having not had time to grow new hair; the old hair was growing with all its might, forming entire bald spots on the skin.

Yegor estimated the direction the wolf was heading and decided that he was most likely aiming for a pine island visible in the distance, the dark green of which stood out like a spot among the spring green of the rest of the swamp small forest. The island was probably higher and drier - why not a place for a lair?

Meanwhile, the wolf reached the island and disappeared into the bushes. Yegor was looking forward to what would happen next. If he was mistaken and the lair was in a different place, the wolf could show up at the opposite end of the island any minute. But if the lair is there, the beast will not come out soon. While he feeds the wolf cubs, he catches his breath. I probably covered a hundred kilometers in a day. What if the island is not a den, but a bed? Even though he is a wolf, and he can’t run around the clock, he needs to rest.

The wolf did not appear. Den or bed? Yegor could not find out this today for one simple reason - he did not take the bag with him. I thought: why carry the extra load when you first need to find out where the wolves have dug in. I didn’t expect to be lucky on the first day. But come on, you seem to be lucky. But you can’t go without a bag. If it’s a den, you can’t put wolf cubs in your bosom. And you can’t leave it overnight, because overnight the wolves will carry the kids to somewhere far away. They have spare apartments for such cases. So let them wait until the morning, as they say, the morning is wiser than the evening.

...Leaning sideways against the trunk, Yegor closed his eyes tiredly. And then it seemed to him that he was throwing back and falling, and he screamed, as if in a bad dream, and grabbed the trunk. Whether it was a moment of brief oblivion or whether he really almost fell, Yegor never understood, but death in the wolf’s teeth presented itself to him with such terrifying reality that he felt both the pain from the fangs tearing his body and the stench coming from the gaping wolf’s mouth .

And for the first time in his life, Yegor thought that perhaps such a death was destined for him. To be near the water and not get wet? Always with wolves, someday you will miss. Here I waited. They will eat them like the dead meat that he himself fed them...

The den, a shallow hole, equipped according to wolf custom without any bedding or side passages, was dug among the rhizomes of two pine trees fused together. There were gnawed bones lying around and there was a pungent smell of wolf urine.

The wolf cubs, huddled together in a tight group, looked at Yegor more with curiosity than with fear. Fear still sat in the very depths of animal souls, only experience could free it from there, and what kind of experience did the wolf cubs, who just recently were naked and blind?

And yet they sensed danger, and when Yegor began to pull them out of the hole, they snarled and tried to bite into his hand with their sharp teeth. Egor distracted their attention and, grabbing them by the collar, immediately shoved them into the bag. The cubs crawled along its bottom, poked their noses into the corners and quietly whined.

It all took no more than ten minutes, and while tying the bag, Yegor was once again amazed at the strange property of wolves, who did not even think about saving their offspring. All animals and birds protect their broods, which is true - even those birds will peck out the eyes for the chickens, but wolves will not. They run away and look at everything from afar, and Yegor could not explain to himself what was going on.

But when it comes to oddities, Yegor himself was known among the other hunters as a man with quirks. How can I say it differently, when everyone who was involved in hunting wolf litters always killed wolf cubs - with a stick, a butt, whatever they could, but Yegor did not kill? Without any hesitation, he shot adult wolves, caught them in traps, but brought the wolf cubs back alive. He handed them over alive to the procurement office, which at first caused a complete scandal there. They looked at him like he was a fool and asked: “What are you, guy?”, but when Yegor silently put the wolf cubs back into the bag, the harvesters became silent. A plan is a plan, for every extra skin they got a bonus, and they decided that it made no difference whether they accepted the skins from a smart person or a fool. Egor, for his part, did not care about how they thought about him in the procurement office. They would give gunpowder and other supplies, but nothing more is required from them. And they gave it to him. And even more than others, because no one brought as many skins during the season as Egor.

A good start has been made today. We still have to wait and wait until winter, but here they are, five skins, in a bag. The same one and a half thousand that almost floated away from under his nose if he had not come up with a number with binoculars. And what’s interesting, Yegor reasoned. After all, I wished that there would be five wolf cubs, and it turned out to be five. As ordered! And if snow falls, it will reach the whole flock.

...He was increasingly surprised why no one was coming for so long, but, imagining the course of events, he realized that it could not be any other way. Even if the horse ran away from the wolves, the village would not immediately shake things up. First they will go to the groom to find out who he gave the mare to and for what purpose, and only then they will rush to the chairman.

But most of all Yegor had hopes for his wife. And the groom and everyone else might not remember him, but his wife could not. It will take time to realize that something has happened. The bathhouse, the tea, had long since cooled down, but he promised to go to the bathhouse. That's not even the point. A woman’s heart will tell you everything, the soul of a pigeon Machine. It’s good that he didn’t tell her anything about the she-wolf then, she’d better think that the man was late and would come...

Although Yegor took a brood not for the first time, he did not consider himself an expert in this matter. The same as in hunting with flags. Having rejected it from the very beginning, he later tried his hand at raids twice, but never warmed to them. The most interesting thing in the raids, which Yegor had a disposition for, was tracking down the flock. This required intelligence, knowledge of animal habits and patience, but Yegor never found any real helpers, and he finally gave up on the raids.

Traps - that's it for him. Here he alone acted in all faces - he himself tracked down, he himself attracted the wolves and set traps, he himself caught animals from them. No one bothered him, did not advise him or shout at his hand, but no one helped him when he had to take the wolf. Everything was done one-on-one, with risk, and this risk gave the matter a special urgency and made the blood hot.

One thing was bad: trap fishing was a purely seasonal activity. At best, he spent three or four months a year on it, but the rest of the time he had to subsist on bread and kvass. There was, however, an outlet - broods, but Yegor dealt with them without much passion. It is no great merit to take helpless wolf cubs. The boy can do it too. It’s as simple as that: he came, he put it in a sack like firewood, and it didn’t take long. You don't even need a gun. Why, one might ask, a gun, when there is no one to defend against anyway - you just sneeze, and the wolves are already greasing your heels.

However, for some time now, Yegor began to notice that some kind of incomprehensible chaos was spinning around him. To begin with, Dymok began barking at night. There didn’t seem to be anything special about it, Dymok had barked before, that’s why he was a dog, but then it was like a bark, but now there was constant fear in him, which surprised Yegor. Of course, Dymok was the most ordinary mongrel that lived in every village yard, but cowardice was never noticed in him. On the contrary, he never missed an opportunity to avoid getting involved in a dog fight, he furiously drove out the cows that wandered into the garden and even tried to go into the forest with Yegor, but there he was as useful as a milk goat. The wolves sensed Dymok a mile away, and Egor once and for all convinced him that his place was at home. Run around, guard, do your damn business, and don’t poke your nose where they don’t ask.

And so Dymok began to be afraid. Every night he barked and asked to come into the house, and Yegor did not know what to think, how to explain such a change in the dog. Previously, Yegor did not have the habit of waking up at night, but now Dymka’s barking woke him up. As soon as you left the house, Dymok would run up and unusually cling to your feet. Yegor sat down on the rubble, calming him down, stroking the dog and peering into the darkness. What could scare Dymka so much? Not wolves, really! Wolves do not approach the village in summer. In winter - yes, in winter there is little food in the forest, and the animals become impudent, but now there is enough food everywhere. But then what? Dymok won’t get scared for no reason at all.

Without thinking of anything, Yegor returned to the hut, while Dymok tried to sneak through the door and settle down on the bridge, but Yegor, like a true villager, could not allow this. It was not enough for the dog to live in the house. And he kicked Dymka back out onto the street.

- How did he get mad, Egor? - asked the wife, whom this night fuss also woke up.

- What more! - Egor answered. - I don’t know when a dog is mad!

But the wife did not calm down and asked Yegor in the morning to put Dymok on a chain, otherwise she was afraid to let her daughter go for a walk, in case Dymok would bite her.

“I’ll put you in jail,” Yegor promised.

But in the morning Dymok behaved calmly, caressed and wagged his tail, as if there were no night fears. And then everything got better, Dymok stopped barking, and if sometimes he remembered that he was still a dog, he barked, like in the good old days, loudly, with cheerful joy.

“Why, you fool, have you been going crazy all week?” - Yegor was perplexed, not yet suspecting that the fuss in which he had been drawn in the last days was only the beginning of a long chain of unprecedented, one might say, events, that a conspiracy had already been formed against him, in which there would be opposing forces, and blood, and victims , and that Dymok will be the first victim.

On Sunday afternoon, Yegor heated the bathhouse. It was already possible to break the brooms, because Trinity had passed, and after Trinity the leaf held tightly, and Yegor went into the forest and tied two fresh birch brooms. And although he still had last year’s ones in the barn, he had long missed fresh ones. They gave off a breath that filled the whole bathhouse, and most importantly, they were softer and didn’t whip like the old ones, when you leave the bathhouse and don’t understand whether you were steaming, or you were being torn like Sidorov’s goat. Of course, if you steam for show, as some people do, then it doesn’t matter what broom you go with, even with a bare face, but Yegor understood the use of a bathhouse, he steamed passionately, and he was not indifferent to what to whip himself with.

Accompanying the owner within the boundaries of the house and village was a matter of his dog’s honor for Dymka, and he could not allow the bathhouse to be prepared without him. While Yegor carried water and heated the boiler, Dymok hovered around with a businesslike air and got underfoot, but, seeing that the owner had no time for him, he decided to visit the barns in the meadow. It was full of mice, and Dymok was not a fool to fill his belly on the side, which outraged Yegor to the depths of his soul. It would be nice if he were homeless, otherwise he has a home and food, but he still tries to pick up what’s lying around. He'll catch another infection. But all attempts to wean Dymka from his bad habit led to nothing, and Yegor spat on his efforts. Just as he spat now, having discovered that there was no trace of Smoky, and having guessed where the difficult thing had taken him.

Having closed the door, Yegor undressed, splashed from the ladle onto the red-hot heater and climbed onto the shelf. The first run was always the most blissful for him, and he whipped himself to exhaustion, throwing a ladle from time to time when he noticed that the steam was not coming out as well as at first. After a final splash of cold water, Yegor went outside to rest. The bathhouse was located at the very back, no one could see Yegor here, and he sat down on a ledge, spreading a broom under him.

The day was hot, but after the heat of the steam room, this heat seemed cool. A breeze blew from the river, blowing around the hot body. Yegor turned his face to him and, like a cat, squinted with pleasure.

It was good all around. Swifts flew squeaking in the blue sky, butterflies fluttered and dragonflies flew over the meadow, and rooks buzzed on the birch trees along the street. Although Yegor's house was located on the edge, Yegor would not exchange this place for any other. What else do you need? Everything is nearby, close at hand - the forest in full bloom, the fields, and the river from which the meadow began, turning into the wasteland behind the village. Once upon a time, the meadow was mowed, but gradually the hayfield moved further away, the meadow was overgrown with bushes, and only two barns remained on it from previous times. They stood here for a long time; Yegor, as a snotty boy, played with them with his friends and caught swallows nesting under the roofs. Hay was still piled into the barns in the barns, but now they were empty, and only the mice felt at ease in last year's hay dust.

Yegor went to the dressing room, rolled a cigarette and again sat down on the podium, thinking at the same time that it was high time to update it, the boards had become completely rotten. Yes, and the lower crowns need to be changed, as long as the bathhouse already costs, it’s about to collapse. All hands are not available, although the logs were harvested in the summer and they just need to be brought from the forest. But before winter there is no point in thinking about it: the road is a pothole upon a pothole. It'll freeze, then we'll go.

Having finished smoking, Yegor crushed the butt with his heel and stood up, intending to make another entry into the steam room, but remained standing. What he saw plunged him into complete amazement: Dymok was rushing headlong from the barns to the bathhouse, and behind him - Yegor couldn’t believe his eyes - was being chased by a real wolf! Yegor's amazement intensified even more when he saw him - it was the same one he had already seen twice in the swamp.

Taken aback by surprise, Yegor continued to look at everything as if from the outside, as if it was not his dog that was being chased by a wolf who had come from nowhere. And the situation in the meadow was tragic. Dymok was by no means a hound and could not compete in a race with a wolf, which was all intended for chasing and was about to get the dog. For now, one thing saved Haze: he was driven by horror, which instilled strength in the unfortunate dog, but it might not be enough for such a leap.

There was no more than a hundred meters left to the bathhouse, and Dymok was probably already confident of salvation, but then another smaller wolf jumped out of the bushes, in which Yegor immediately recognized the she-wolf.

Dymok ended up in the "pincers". It was a real ambush, the kind that wolves often use in their hunts, when one chases and the other waits for the victim somewhere in the shelter. There is no salvation in such cases, because the hunted person does not even have time to understand what happened.

Smokey didn’t understand this either, but the she-wolf calculated everything exactly. Jumping, she knocked Dymok off his feet, a second wolf flew up from behind, and Dymok screeched, but the screeching immediately stopped and turned into a wheeze.

And only then Yegor came to his senses and realized that something unprecedented was happening: before his eyes, wolves were slaughtering his dog, and he was standing on a stump. There was only a broom in his hands, but that didn’t stop Yegor. Screaming at the top of his lungs and raising a broom above his head like a club, he rushed to save Dymok. The wolves, seeing a man running towards them, abandoned the dog and disappeared into the bushes, but when Yegor ran up to Dymko, who was struggling on the grass, he saw that it was useless to help: the dog’s neck was cut like a knife, his stomach was torn. Smokey was still wheezing, but it was agony.

After standing over the dog, Yegor went back to the bathhouse and saw his wife. Frightened and pale, she looked at him as if he were crazy.

- What are you doing, Egor?!

- The wolves killed Haze!

- God! – the wife said through tears. “I thought what was wrong with you.” When you screamed, my legs gave way and I could barely make it.

“Well, okay, cry,” said Yegor. - Better bring a shovel, we need to bury Smoky.

The wife walked towards the house, but turned around on the way:

“At least cover up your sin, you’re running around naked.” If anyone sees it, it will ring the bell throughout the village.

Having sent his wife and daughter to wash, Yegor, out of habit, lay down to lie down. He always lay down, or even slept, for an hour or two after the bath, and although today it was not a success, the long-ago routine took its toll.

Covered with a sheepskin coat, Yegor lay there, hoping that he would take a nap at least a little, but there was no usual calm, his thoughts revolved around one thing - what kind of unprecedented incident happened today?

If someone had told Yegor about this, he would have considered it nonsense, a hunting tale, but it happened to him, and therefore required an explanation. Yegor had no doubt at all that the wolf attack was not accidental, but prepared in advance, but did not find any reason for it. What harm did Smokey do to the wolves? He had never even seen them, much less done anything to annoy them. However, they tore it apart. And before that, apparently, they were on guard, approaching the house - that’s why Dymok barked. But again the question arises: why were they on guard? Of course, a wolf will not refuse a dog’s meat on occasion, but it will not hunt for a dog in front of everyone. And then they were hunting and set up an ambush. But not for mining, that's for sure. If it were for prey, they would not have torn it, they would have carried it away. But these people threw it - it seemed like they dealt with them for something, and that was the end of it. But what kind of sins should be dealt with? After all, Dymok did nothing to these same wolves, nothing!

Yegor stood up, brought a jug of milk from the bridge, and without stopping, drank half of it. The chaos with Dymko turned out to be interesting. On the one hand, the wolves had no reason to hunt him, but on the other hand, it turned out that they could not take their eyes off him. And they released the guts.

And then a guess flashed through Yegor’s mind: what if the wolves were taking revenge? Until now he had not believed in such fables, although he had heard about it from many hunters. But you never know what kind of fables go around the villages. Once you live, you'll hear enough. They said about Mironov’s grandmother that she was a witch, and this could be verified, you just need to watch when she goes into the yard for something. Then you need to stick a knife over the door frame, and the grandmother will never leave the yard, because witches have no power against a knife.

Yegor was about thirteen years old when he decided to find out whether Mironikha was a witch or not. But it was scary to go on such a task alone, and Yegor took the Platonov brothers as his assistants. The brothers had to stand guard and, if something happened, shout: “Fur coat!”, which meant danger, and Yegor took upon himself the main thing - to stick the knife. He did so, and then with bated breath he waited for the old woman to come out of the yard or begin to ask to be let out - this was supposed to show that she was a witch.

The idea failed miserably. Mironikha left the yard as if nothing had happened, and at the same time took a knife with her. From then on, Yegor did not believe in anything that was not confirmed by experience, and when he was told some mysterious story, he asked whether the narrator himself had seen it or was speaking from hearsay. And it always turned out that no one saw anything, but they knew about it from a faithful person who, supposedly, would not lie.

Yegor did not believe in the vindictiveness of wolves either. Thank God, he had been hunting them for several years, there were different cases, but so that the wolves would be afraid? Wolves could anger and even drive you crazy, because they were smart and cunning and demanded constant attention, but they could not threaten - Yegor confirmed this as an ABC. But then what? Why did the wolves, whom he always despised for their cowardice, tear his dog to pieces for no apparent reason? Or is talk about wolf vengeance not fairy tales?

It seems that this was the case, and as soon as one agreed with this, everything incomprehensible was completely explained, and both causes and consequences were revealed. The wolves had something to take revenge for - for the brood. And who to take revenge on - Yegor. Dymka’s only fault was that he lived in the house of a person he hated. But things that followed from this, in Yegor’s opinion, were completely absurd. If Dymok paid for the sins of others, then someone will have to pay for their own. And to whom? So it’s clear to a fool - Yegor. After all, wolves, one must think, will not stop halfway.

But then Yegor got angry. Won't they stop? How can they stop? If they try buckshot, they will forget the way to the village. And they will still cry for Dymka.

Yegor did not say anything to his wife about his suspicions. If you say so, then you won’t be happy. All sorts of womanly fears and annoying conversations will begin about how we should give up this hunt a long time ago, that independent men don’t do it, that Yegor is never at home, he’s always running around his forests and swamps and someday he’ll get there. And again it will be told about great-grandfather Timofey, who once went into this very forest and still walks somewhere. The whole village searched, but what was the point? There was a man, and he is no more, he evaporated. No, it’s better to keep quiet. Who knows what it’s really like with Dymko. Maybe he crossed the path of the wolves after all, so they reckoned. And there is no point in raising a panic ahead of time, but we need to get another dog. It somehow felt empty without Dymka.

Meanwhile, summer was turning to autumn. Before we knew it, the haymaking arrived, and then the cleaning began. There were not enough workers, and in order to cope before bad weather, they worked from dawn to dusk and, having left for the day, fell asleep like the dead. One after another, the lights in the huts went out, the sounds fell silent, and only the barking of dogs announced to the dark surroundings that they were not barking in an empty place, but in the courtyards of an earthly settlement.

While working, they forgot about events that had recently seemed important and were lively discussed on village porches and rubble. Now they were empty. Only sleepless village grandfathers smoked a cigarette or two on them and climbed onto the stoves again, feeling even more alone among the boundless silence and darkness.

The incident with Dymko was also forgotten. The wolves no longer showed themselves, and Yegor finally became convinced that all the rumors about them were nonsense and would remain nonsense.

But they didn’t live to see autumn, and Yegor made an unexpected discovery: the wolves were still watching the house. Now only Yegor and his wife remained in it, and the daughter had been living with the grandmothers for a month. She needed supervision, and neither Yegor nor his wife were at home for whole days. All the time in the field. They had lunch there, and when they returned, they had a quick dinner and went to bed - they were very tired during the day.

That night Yegor, as always, slept without waking up and had difficulty waking up from his wife’s jolts.

- A? - he said, thinking that it was already morning and he had to get up and get ready for work. But it was dark in the hut, only a moonlit path stretched diagonally from the windows to the stove.

“Egor, but Yegor,” his wife said in a whisper, “someone knocked on the window.”

Yegor raised himself on his elbow and looked at the window. It was covered with two halves of curtains that reached to the window; A shorter curtain descended from above, leaving a narrow gap in the window through which the purple night sky could be seen. The breeze stirred the lilac leaves in the front garden, and Yegor heard nothing except this familiar rustle.

“You’ll always come up with something,” he said displeasedly, preparing to lie down again, but then an incomprehensible but distinct sound reached his ears. It was as if someone had touched glass and it rattled slightly.

The wife frightenedly grabbed onto Yegor, but he pulled her away and jumped off the bed. Walking silently on the floorboards, he tiptoed to the window. The sound that alerted him was not repeated, but Yegor felt with a heightened sense that there was someone outside the window. Trying not to make sudden movements, he carefully parted the curtains and almost recoiled from the window: from behind the glass, illuminated by the moon, a wolf was looking at him point-blank. Standing with its front paws on the rubble, the animal peered into the dark interior of the hut, as if wanting to make sure whether it was empty or not. The moonlight reflected from the glass, and the wolf's eyes glowed with an eerie greenish fire.

Yegor was not a cowardly type, and forest life had taught him not to be frightened by surprises and sudden meetings, but now he felt a shiver run down his spine. Something, but to run into a wolf like this, nose to nose, and even under his own windows - Yegor could not have foreseen this.

The wolf and Yegor looked at each other for several seconds. It is not known whether the wolf saw the man in the dark hut, but the parted curtain probably scared him away. He jumped off the rubble and, jumping over the fence of the front garden, disappeared into the darkness.

Yegor did not take a good look at the beast, but still it seemed to him that it was not the same wolf that was chasing Dymko. The window is low, and if he stood on the blockage, he would reach the window. But the current one was not as tall as he could barely reach the middle of the window. She-wolf?

- Well, what is it, Egor? – my wife called out from the darkness.

“Yes, there is no one, it was just your imagination from a dream,” Yegor answered, trying to speak calmly. He didn't want his wife to find out the truth. If he finds out, he will never live in the house, he will go to his mother.

- They were knocking, I heard it myself!

– You never know what I heard! The wind must.

Yegor went into the closet, drank half a ladle of water and returned to his wife.

“Go to sleep,” he said, hugging her. “Otherwise we’ll just wander around all night.”

In the morning, before work, having examined the rubble and the ground under the windows, Yegor immediately discovered wolf tracks. They were small, and he thought that he was probably right: the she-wolf came at night. Now everything has fallen into place. The wolves have not calmed down and are roaming right under the windows. But what else is this damned wolf up to? Isn't it getting to him? As if he were Smokey, whom you could watch in the bushes. Well, keep your pocket wider! But you, bitch, should be kept in wait. It was not enough for some wolves, which he had caught and shot who knows how many, to be running under his house!

So, war was declared, and Yegor was ready for it, but one circumstance still worried him. The season will begin, and you will have to wander around the forest all day long, and God knows what this abnormal she-wolf is capable of. Since she wasn’t afraid to poke her head right under the windows, maybe she’ll get a cleaner room. God forbid, he sets his sights on his wife or daughter. You can’t force them to sit at home on a leash. Your wife has a household, so go and run there, but your daughter needs to go for a walk. Well, will it turn out like with Dymko? Egor became inflamed from such thoughts, but he could not do anything. Summer. You can’t grab a gun and run into the forest to look for wolves. At night all cats are gray, and in the summer every wolf is a werewolf. Either he will pretend to be a stump, or he will turn into a bump. He walks around and around, but there are no traces of you: moss, grass, and bushes - everything will straighten out, and you won’t guess where the gray one went and where it went.

Only snow could help Yegor, but winter was far away, and while the trial was in progress, he tried to ambush the wolves, which greatly surprised his wife, who decided that Yegor had completely gone crazy with his hunt. She didn’t remember her husband hunting at night, but here, every night, he had a gun on his shoulder until the morning. Maybe she would eventually suspect that the matter was not pure, but Yegor was saved by an unexpected circumstance: last week, a ferret climbed into the barn and stole a chicken, and this gave Yegor every right to declare that if the ferret was not tracked down, he would ruin the entire chicken coop . And since the ferret steals at night, it must be caught at night. Everything looked plausible, and Yegor, with a clear conscience, waited for the wolves either near the bathhouse, then in the garden, or near the barn. The behavior of the she-wolf showed that she was very embittered, and in embitterment anyone, be it an animal or a person, loses their head and decides to go to extremes.

But the she-wolf did not come again. Either she sensed a hidden person, or she forgot to think about everything, but Yegor was tired of night forays. To hell with her, with the fool, he said. She didn’t come, and she didn’t need to. It’s better for her: if we meet on a narrow path, she won’t run away.

...The memory of his wife seemed to warm Yegor. And in general, he noticed that it was no longer as cold as before. This made him happy, he thought that the frost must have eased, and now it would be easier to wait. Something else was bad: Yegor was uncontrollably drawn to sleep, and he was afraid of not being able to control himself and falling from the tree in his sleep. I only wanted to sleep so much after a whole day of walking through the forest, when fatigue set in like fasting at night. But why were you tired today? I didn’t walk on foot, I rode, and here I only dug up a stack. I didn’t even have time to dive in - these bastards wouldn’t let me. They lie there, waiting. We haven't gotten drunk all autumn. Tea, a whole cart full of all sorts of dead meat, and everyone was skinny like nags. Ugh!

Yegor only thought he spat, but in fact his frozen lips did not form as they should, and the spit hung on his chin, from which icicles were already hanging. There were mustaches and eyebrows in the icicles, but Yegor did not notice this. For some reason, he was very outraged by the sight of skinny wolves, as if that was the most important thing right now. Insatiable wombs! All autumn I carried bait to the stinkers, they ate as much as they wanted, but it was all to no avail. Ugh!..

It really took a lot of bait in the fall.

September was ending, and with it the field work was ending, and it was possible to rest and sleep, but for Yegor even now every day counted. There was a month and a half left before the snow, and it was necessary to have time to introduce the wolves to the places where Egor was going to set traps in the winter. Attracting is the same as plowing: if you don’t plow, you won’t sow or reap, if you don’t attract wolves in the fall, you’ll be left empty-handed in winter. So almost every day we had to scatter bait on the wolf paths - dead sheep or calves, or even hares, if there was nothing else.

A lot of meat was needed, and Yegor got it wherever he could, where there was a death of livestock - both among his villagers, and in other villages, and at the regional veterinary center, where they brought all kinds of animals for autopsy.

But the most profitable place was the soap factory. There, in long sheds, there were large vats, under which a fire was always burning. Soap was made from dead horses, and the entire wasteland where the factory was located was littered with horse bones and skulls. Silent crows sat in groups on them.

It was seven kilometers to the factory, there was no passing light, but there was always enough meat there. The soap makers, mostly older men, looking like butchers in their aprons, greeted Yegor cordially and, without stinting, gave him horse meat. They respected Yegor for the fact that he was engaged in such a dangerous business, in their opinion, and asked him about everything related to wolves, not forgetting to throw firewood under the vats and test the soap for readiness - a thick black liquid that would be quite suitable in hell as tar for sinners. The sample was taken simply: one of the soap makers dipped his finger into the vat and tasted the brew on his tongue, after which he announced whether it was ready or not. Yegor was not particularly squeamish - skinning dead wolves also meant something, but even he shuddered when he watched the procedure. This required special hardening.

And yet sometimes there was not enough carrion - a pack of seven wolves could eat a hundredweight in one sitting, and then Yegor shot hares and crows. In the absence of fish and cancer there are fish, but the wolves don’t care what to eat, there would be more.

The work was hard and dirty, but Yegor, inspecting the bait from time to time, was happy to see that the wolves had acquired a taste for it and were eating regularly. This promised good luck in winter: no matter how careful the animals were, hunger would drive them to familiar places where they were accustomed to finding food, and here were the traps. True, here a lot depended on the leader. A shot, seasoned wolf will not allow the pack to approach the bait until he is sure that it is safe. And in the pack that Yegor kept in mind, the owner was, of course, a she-wolf. The fact that she was now eating bait with others did not equate her with them. Now the bait had no traps, and the wolves knew about it. In winter everything will change. In winter, the wolf will measure seven times before approaching the meat. And if you set a trap somehow, hastily, he will not only find it, but also urinate on it - well, you fool, get it if you don’t know how to set it.

The she-wolf also belonged to this poisonous breed, and Yegor understood that he would not have an easy life in winter.

That year, the anticipation of winter tormented Yegor. The wolfish antics seriously angered him, and he was impatient to get down to business as quickly as possible.

But the weather made pretzels. Snow fell after the Intercession, and Yegor began to fuss - early winter was not unusual, but the old people, by some of their signs, determined that the snow would not lie there for long. And that’s right - a thaw suddenly struck, and everything went haywire.

October and November - Yegor did not like these months. In October it’s rainy and muddy, in November it’s even worse – wind to the bones and green melancholy. Not a leaf anywhere, the trees were black, as if they had rotted at the roots or were charred. Only on the oak trees do the leaves still hold on, rattling like tin.

And yet, the winter could no longer hold back, the snow was about to fall firmly, and in order not to miss the deadline, Yegor had to do the last thing - prepare the traps. He had a dozen and a half of them, and they all needed to be cleaned of the summer grease and evaporated so that not a single wolf would smell the smell of iron in them, much less the human spirit. Every hunter prepares traps for the season in his own way, each has his own tricks and secrets for this; Yegor had his own way. He didn’t come up with it himself - his grandfather showed something, other hunters taught something.

First of all, Egor made lye - he diluted ash in water and boiled the traps in it, which got rid of any grease that was on them. And in order to destroy any smell, Yegor loaded the tub with traps, like cabbage heads, chopped brooms and pine branches into it and poured boiling water over everything. Having kept the tub closed the whole night, he then put the traps in a canvas bag and hid them under the porch.

There they had to lie until the snow, and no one dared to touch them, otherwise all the work would have to be done again.

The snow finally fell, the frost and wind dried it out, and Yegor set traps. In two places - on the edge of the swamp and in an old clearing. The bait lay here and there, but where you were lucky - that’s up to fate. Both places were suitable - like a forest, but not a thicket, not a wilderness. In a deep forest, wolves don’t really go to bait; there, as they say, you can’t see the forest because of the trees, but the animals need to look around. Until they look around, they won’t approach. Sometimes they spend three or four days sniffing before they decide.

Yegor checked the traps every day, but every time they were empty, and the first wolf was caught only a week later. He fell into a trap with his hind paw, and when wolves are caught like this, they go far, although there is a log tied to the trap for weight. This one also went far, but Yegor tracked him down, shot him, skinned him, and dragged the carcass to his old place - why not bait? Wolves eat everything indiscriminately, they are either horse meat or their brother wolf - just come on. They will also fight during the division, and, look, in the turmoil, what other one will come across.

But something else turned out to be an opportunity. Arriving at the place, Yegor found only a eaten paw in the trap, and blood and shreds of fur in the snow. The picture was clear: the man caught in the trap was torn apart. This is common among wolves, especially when they come to the bait with the whole pack. There is no shortage of bickering here, everyone tries to grab a bigger piece, and in this hungry greed the wolves are merciless. But those caught in the trap are torn apart not only from hunger. They are taking revenge for being caught, so that others can have knowledge, so that they can live and remember: if you join the pack, keep your eyes open and don’t get into trouble. If you go, get what you deserve.

But these rules are wolfish, and they did not suit Yegor. It was not for this reason that he was deformed all autumn with a twist, so that, because of a wolf's whim, he would be deprived of his rightful share. But I lost it, five hundred rubles went down the drain. Phew - and no. It’ll be good if it goes on without any misfires, but for now it’s a complete disappointment: at home, only one skin is drying, the horns and legs of another remain, and the other five are running around in the forest.

These “others” were like a bone in Yegor’s throat. The hassle with them could last all winter, but here, as luck would have it, household chores were delayed. And this needs to be done, and the fifth, and the tenth, but most of all the worries were with the bathhouse. She could collapse any day, but the logs for her were still lying in the forest, and bringing them from there was a red tape affair. While you beg for a horse, while you ride. You can’t bring everything in one trip, and no one will give you a horse for two days, so wait until next time. And this – and there’s nothing to think about – is a week. There is no worse way to put off an established business, but there is no escape from farming, and Yegor decided to go for logs on the very first Sunday. Nothing will happen in a week, the light will not converge, the wolves will not scatter, and we cannot delay with the logs any longer.

So the year passed painfully hard and in constant moving; sometimes it feels like we are hiding from someone. All my feelings have completely become calloused; too many tears were shed for what can no longer be returned, for what is lost forever.

Chapter 4

Lucy twirled in front of the mirror wearing only a white nightgown embroidered with lace. Sticking her tongue out at her reflection, the girl laughed merrily.

Miss, Lucy, you are charming! - the girl tried to portray one of her fans in front of the mirror, pressing her hands to her chest, and making her almost childish, bubbly voice serious and rude.

Ah, what a compliment! I am so grateful to you! - Lucy rolled her eyes and curtsied. - But unfortunately you are not worthy of me... What a shame!

Suddenly the girl heard hurried steps along the corridor. Quickly running to the bed, Lucy climbed under the heavy blanket and stared blankly at the ceiling. There was a knock on the door.

Sign in! - the girl said very quietly, groaning slightly.

Good morning! - Ralph stood on the threshold. - Can I come to you? - in response, the young man received only a weak nod of his head. - How did you sleep today? I hope you feel at least a little better?

For a week now since that fateful incident, Lucy has not left her room. That day the girl never came to her senses after fainting, and in the evening she developed a fever, and she moaned and tossed about in delirium. The doctor, called by her concerned parents, attributed her terrible condition to shock from what she saw. The next day Lucy came to her senses, but she seemed so weak and pale that any family ghost in the castle could have looked more alive next to her.

I feel very bad... it even hurts to get up,” the girl moaned again in confirmation of her words. - What news have you heard? This beast didn't show up? I hope there are no more victims?

No.. everything is fine,” Ralph lowered his eyes, because it was hard for him to tell a lie to his sister right in the face.

Throughout the week, every morning, the torn corpses of girls were found in exactly the same place. They were all brunettes, which seemed very strange. The identity of the first girl killed was established; she turned out to be the daughter of a local artisan. The parents of the other girls also recognized their daughters. Indescribable horror gripped all people. Inspector Mr. Jones, an elderly, slightly overweight and good-natured gentleman, could not do anything. The inspector forbade leaving the house after seven o'clock in the evening, and did not take any further measures. All those who had daughters, and other concerned residents, held meetings right in front of his house, demanding to protect them from an unknown criminal, or to catch the beast. The fact that all the girls had the same signs indicated that it could not be an animal, but the traces left on the bodies proved the opposite. Some too superstitious claimed that evil spirits were involved in all this. The priest walked the streets and sprayed all the houses with holy water, muttering prayers. Fear-stricken people almost committed lynching of a local healer, considering her a witch. If Mr. Jones had not put her behind bars, protecting her from an angry crowd, the poor woman would simply have been burned at the stake.

Are you hiding anything from me? - Lucy raised herself on her elbow and tried to look into her brother’s eyes.

Of course not! - Ralph smiled.

Why then did my father write a letter calling an inspector from London?

How do you know about this? - Ralph looked at Lucy in surprise. The young man could not understand how the girl knew about what was kept secret from her.

I... - the girl became embarrassed and bit her lip. - I heard it by accident... but it doesn’t matter! The main thing is that you are hiding something from me!

Lucy, my father is just worried... and.. - the young man did not know how to get out of this situation. Lucy managed to make him feel guilty and ward off further questions. The girl chuckled to herself at her resourcefulness, and thought that she could twist ropes out of her brother, which she had not noticed before.

“I’m tired and I want to rest,” Lucy smiled tightly, and Ralph caught himself thinking that her smile had become somehow different, not so sincere and open. - Leave me, please, and tell me not to bother me. I want to sleep! - the girl closed her eyes, making it clear that the conversation was over.

Count William Erton walked around the living room with long strides. Dry and fit, William seemed many years younger than his real age. Thin facial features, a Greek profile, large eyes under sternly knitted eyebrows attracted the gaze of many women, but the count did not look at anyone except his wife, whom he had loved for many years. Although Mrs. Erton was not distinguished by a great turn of mind and deep knowledge, and had a bunch of shortcomings, which included excessive talkativeness, and the ability to skilfully gossip with all the surrounding gossips, Count Erton noticed only advantages in her, because true love does not see shortcomings.

A few days ago, William, concerned about the murders taking place on his land, sent a letter to London asking for help and to send a specialist. He didn’t even believe that Inspector Jones could do anything worthwhile, because he had known the lazy, narrow-minded gentleman for many years.

Lord Erton! - The maid came into the living room. William winced slightly. Everyone loved the elderly Miriam, who for so many years had become a member of the family and raised Ralph and Lucy, but her shrill voice filled the ears, and it was simply impossible to follow the flow of words. - There is a young man asking to be received. He had just arrived in a mail carriage with a suitcase in his hand. Very decently dressed and so handsome...

He introduced himself? - the count managed to insert a word after several fruitless attempts.

Yes, sure. His name is Brendan Hill, and he is an inspector from London, although from his appearance you cannot tell that he holds such a post. This Mr. Brendan is not at all like our fat Jones. Like earth and sky...

Miriam, how can you keep such a guest outside the door? Invite him in immediately! - The count waved his hand, and the maid, grumbling something under her breath, left.

Miriam turned out to be right: the young man was indeed the least suitable for such work. Aristocratic facial features are too refined and regular, a long narrow nose, thin lips, a courageous chin, blond hair, smoothed in the most careful way, and large brown eyes. His straight, tall figure, dressed in a strict traveling suit, would be the envy of most dandies.

Hello Lord Erton! - the young man extended his hand with long thin fingers.

Welcome to our abandoned place! - The count smiled and shook the outstretched hand. - I didn't expect you so quickly, Mr. Hill.

Your business interested me very much, so I immediately decided to come. You know, everything inexplicable attracts my imagination,” Brendan spoke in a slightly arrogant tone, drawing out his words, not at all as rosy as a hospitable host. - I would like to know all the details.

Maybe you can rest from the road first?

No, I'm not tired at all and I want to get down to business as soon as possible...

The Count sighed heavily and began to tell his guest the whole story that had happened this week, having first seated the young man in a chair and asked Miriam to bring coffee and cigars, which he could not live without for a long time. The young man listened to him attentively, sometimes asking questions.

Lord Erton, please tell us about your neighbors,” the count finished speaking, and silence reigned for a couple of minutes, interrupted by Brendan.

My neighbors are very respectable people. I’ve known them for a long time,” William lit another cigar. - We usually meet Mr. Red on Fridays to play cards. He is a great person and has two daughters of marriageable age. I hope that one of them can make a good match for my son Ralph. Mr. Dawson and I usually go hunting. Although he loves money, I didn’t notice anything bad about him. Who doesn't have flaws? We are all people with vices...

Current page: 1 (book has 2 pages in total) [available reading passage: 1 pages]

Marina Kistyaeva
She-Wolf's Passion

He smelled her when she was still far away.

Exciting.

Maddening.

The man groaned muffledly and closed his eyes. Then he abruptly opened them, rose to his feet and headed towards the fireplace, where the logs were burning out.

He planned to go to bed, and did not wait for her to appear.

She came again...

Just as he told her.

The man's lips twitched into a grin. Stupid girl. She doesn't know what she's doing. He believes that he can beat him. And most importantly, he openly states this. Well…. He accepted her rules of the game. For her body.

Supreme Moon! What kind of body does she have...

Zakhar could not even imagine that a woman could have such a body. Perfect. Made for him.

Over his long life, he saw hundreds of undressed women. And each of them beat in convulsions of orgasm from his caresses. He liked different women. Tall and small, thin and full-bodied, dark-skinned and distinguished by the whiteness of their skin. He made no division between them. If he wanted a woman, he took her.

Usually without a long courtship, without a bouquet and candy period.

He just came and took it.

And everyone was satisfied.

But he had never seen such perfect proportions in any of his previous women.

Agatha was of average height, with long legs, high full breasts, a thin waist and steep hips. She was passion itself. Defiant gait, from the hip. The eyes are brown, looking at the world with mockery and superiority. Lips are full, rich pink. Gold-colored hair completed the picture.

When Zakhar saw her in the alpha’s house, he thought – a mistress. In a tight black leotard and a leather corset, she looked very provocative. Zakhar immediately wanted to bend it down and take it.

Right there, in the home of the alpha of the Northern pack. On the carpet. No foreplay.

With people like her, that’s how it should be.

He even decided that he would take her away from the alpha. The alpha will not dare refuse him.

Imagine his surprise when Ignat introduced her as his only daughter, and jokingly complained that with her character she could safely take his place after his death. The pack under her leadership will continue to flourish.

Zakhar grinned. He was one of the incorrigible chauvinists, and believed that a woman should be under a man.

And nothing else.

Agatha read it in his eyes, and her brown ones flashed predatorily.

She silently challenged him.

And Zakhar accepted him.

That day she did not yet know who she had contacted.

And he didn't know...

She was getting closer. Her smell intensified, and Zakhar felt a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Soon she will be his again. Again. As last time. And not otherwise.

Throwing logs into the fireplace, he went into the kitchen, went down to the cellar and prepared a bottle of white wine. Knew she preferred red. But he loved white.

He returned to the main hall again and sank into a chair.

And he began to wait.

We didn't have to wait long.

With his super sense of smell, even for werewolves, he could smell any person or animal from several kilometers away.

She was no exception.

He definitely saw how she ran with large leaps, how she covered the distance separating them. How to stop before reaching his house. He will try to regain his breathing.

And then she lingers at the threshold, and doubt flashes in her eyes...

Shouldn't we go into the night again...

Should I run away into the night again?

Agatha stood on the porch of a small veranda and clenched her fists. What is she doing here? Why did you run to him again?!

Her chest rose and fell noisily.

How she hated herself for her weakness. But she hated him more. How she hated him!!! Who would have known! With the appearance of this Ancient One, her life changed and went upside down. She felt trapped and could not do anything about this suffocating feeling.

Zakhar was stronger than her father. Stronger than all living werewolves. He was Ancient.

A legend.

Almost a myth.

He came from nowhere and settled in their area. Agatha clenched her teeth in anger. Why didn't he pass by? Why didn't you choose another pack?

Then she would not have become dependent, she would not have humiliated herself by resorting to him.

He made it clear that if she wanted him, she would always have to make the first move herself.

Agatha would have done it. This is not the first time for her to conquer men. She is a free wolf, her father's daughter. If she liked a man, she saw nothing wrong with telling him about it. And burn in the fire of passion. Meet for a while, and then part amicably. Without obligations. No future. Normal modern relationships.

With Zakhar everything was different. He made her bend. He pointed to the place that, in his opinion, a woman should occupy.

And this place was one.

Agatha began to shake. With what pleasure she would grab him by the throat! Bled him! Destroyed! I’ve never noticed bloodthirstiness in myself, but here...

I would kill if I could!

But the bastard is strong. His father said that he is the strongest werewolf alive.

The worst thing was different.

She wanted him madly. I wanted it like I never wanted anyone before.

What did he do with her...with her body.... Full Moon, what was he doing….

Agatha shook her head, causing her straight blond hair to fly over her shoulders, and opened the front door.

Zakhar stood with his back to her. I looked at the fire. He didn't turn around, didn't move. As he stood, he continued to stand.

Agatha's heart sank. How good he is….Incredibly good. A real beast. Strong.

And domineering.

She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and narrowed her eyes.

He again makes it clear that he is the master of their relationship.

Agatha was about to get indignant and say something brazenly obscene when she heard him calmly:

“Did I tell you in what form you can enter my house?”

Agatha shuddered and swallowed noisily again.

- Why then did you dare to come in dressed?

Agatha's body vibrated. How dare he!.. He gives orders again!

- Take off your clothes or leave.

Everything is very simple for him. Either one or the other. And her insides are twisting with desire and unsatisfied passion. Of course, you can leave, you can go to the first tavern you come across and... So what? Look for a man among the guests who vaguely resembles the Ancient One? Let's say

end of introductory fragment