by Lauren Esker
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Lauren Esker
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Published by Icefall Press, July 2015
Copyright ©Layla Lawlor/Lauren Esker 2015
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Prologue: 10 years ago
1. Julie
2. Damon
3. Julie
4. Damon
5. Julie
6. Damon
7. Julie
8. Damon
9. Julie
10. Damon
11. Julie
12. Damon
13. Julie
14. Damon
15. Julie
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Also by Lauren Esker
Prologue: 10 years ago
After the rest of her family had gone to bed, twelve-year-old Julie Capshaw lay under the covers and listened to the sounds of the old farmhouse quieting down for the night.
Her sister, who shared a room with her, was already snoring softly. Ava could fall asleep instantly, anywhere, which Julie had always envied on long car drives. Her brother Terry, two years older than Julie, was allowed to stay up later than the girls, so his bedroom light stayed on for awhile—she could tell by the faint stripe of light at the bottom of her bedroom door. And she could also hear the sound of the television in the living room, where her parents would be doing the evening's bookkeeping for the farm while the nightly news played in the background.
But eventually the TV went silent. Water ran in the bathroom; the toilet flushed. Then her brother's light went out, and the house was dark and quiet at last.
This was the hard part, waiting until her parents were definitely asleep. Julie blinked her gritty eyes, trying to stay awake, and picked at a loose thread on the hand-stitched quilt passed down from her great-grandmother. None of the Capshaw family were night owls. It wasn't in their nature. All of the Capshaws were sheep shifters—all except Aunt Lydia, a regular human who'd married into the family and who jokingly called herself the black sheep of the family—and sheep were daytime creatures. Not that anyone had to be slavishly devoted to their animal-shifter nature, but it was far easier to go along with those instincts than to fight them.
Which meant her parents should fall asleep quickly. Julie waited until she heard her dad's buzz-saw snore, and then she sat up and stealthily pushed back the covers. Underneath, she was dressed in jeans and a sweater. Only her feet were bare.
She rose from her bed and padded to the window. Ava was a deep sleeper, and her breathing didn't change as Julie pushed up the window. A warm night breeze brushed her face, full of the scents of the farm. Sheep might not be night creatures, but Julie felt deliciously sneaky, like Catwoman, James Bond, and Batman all rolled into one. She swung her leg carefully out of the window and felt for the big maple branch with her toes. Her parents were always talking about getting it cut off before it fell down and took out the living room window, but fortunately they hadn't done it yet. She transferred her weight to the branch and closed the window behind her, leaving just enough of a crack to get it open again. Then, with the ease of practice, she clambered down to the ground and picked a twig out of her hair. The dew-damp grass was cool under her bare toes.
She walked swiftly around the corner of the house and up the driveway, sticking to the shadows under the trees. There was a light on a pole beside the barn that stayed on all night to keep predators and trespassers away, and the moon was bright. Anyone looking out the window would be able to see her. But she didn't think anyone was looking. She'd done this plenty of times and never got caught.
She felt better once she was up at the road. Primrose Farms, read the big sign beside the Capshaw driveway. The family's farm stand was closed up for the night; the hinged panels that would fold down to make a platform for seasonal vegetables and fruits had been folded up and padlocked, sealing the stand into a white-painted plywood box. In the moonlight, the children's paint job on the farm stand's sides—flowers, berries, peppers, pumpkins—had all its colors washed out, leaving clusters of black blobs.
As she went past, Julie patted her favorite pumpkin, a lopsided one that looked more like some kind of gourd. Ava had painted it years ago.
The trees and fields alongside the road were leeched to shades of gray and silver in the moonlight. Julie turned left and walked briskly on her bare feet in the direction of the Wolfe farm next door. Fields and bands of woods separated their two properties, but Damon usually met her halfway.
"Damon?" she called softly. "Damon!"
A shadow detached itself from a patch of darkness between two tree trunks, and frisked out onto the road. Julie's heart jumped. No matter how many times Damon told her there was nothing frightening in the night—"The scariest thing out here is me," he'd always say—she still couldn't help being a little nervous.
But she wasn't afraid when Damon was with her.
The lanky, long-legged young wolf pranced around her, his jaws wide and mouth laughing silently. Damon was a beautiful wolf, with brindled black-and-silver fur and bright hazel eyes. However, he was still growing into his gawky limbs, and he got tangled up with his oversized paws and tripped. Julie burst into laughter. "Quit showing off," she said. "Come on, I can't talk to you like that."
Damon sat politely, like a dog, and then shifted back to a teenage boy in a dark T-shirt and jeans, sitting on the edge of the pavement. His black hair stuck up in a scruffy, rakish way, and he was grinning the same devilish smile as he'd worn in wolf form. His teeth were very white.
"Better be nice, Julie, or I'll eat you up!"
"Hush!" She swatted him on the shoulder. "I'm glad my mom can't hear you."
"If your mom knew you were out here, she'd tan your hide."
"Yours too," Julie pointed out.
Damon was two years older, the same age as her brother. Damon and Terry had been in the same grade ever since kindergarten, and had been getting into fights for about that long. At this point, no one even cared who started it anymore; everyone just assumed that when one of them showed up with a black eye or a bloody nose, it was probably the other one who did it. And then her mom would call up Damon's mom to yell at her, or Damon's dad would drive over to yell at Julie's dad.
Meanwhile, Damon's sister Vanessa was Julie's age, so they'd been sharing classes, and avoiding each other, for almost as long as their brothers had.
It was just a fact of life in the little town of Johnson's Mill that the Wolfe and the Capshaw families hated each other. Julie couldn't remember a time when her parents hadn't warned her and her siblings away from "those Wolfe kids". Which was a little frustrating since it was a small town and there weren't very many other families with kids on their rural road. Julie had once overheard Ava asking what was so bad about the Wolfe clan.
"They're wolves, dear," their mother said. "We're sheep. We all know how that story ends."
But Julie still remembered exactly what had made her decide the Capshaw-Wolfe family feud was stupid. She'd gotten cornered by the Corrigan kids behind the Dairy Queen. There were three of them, two boys and their older sister, all in the same general age range as Julie, Ava, and Terry, and they were horrible bullies. Julie was a scrappy fighter, but she'd been carrying two ice cream cones—one for her, one for Ava—and so she couldn't fight back until they'd knocked Ava's chocolate cone onto the gravel.
Then Damon piled into them out of nowhere, bloodying the Corrigan brothers' noses just the same way he'd been beating up Terry (or trying to) ever since the Wolfe and Capshaw kids were old enough to notice each
other. Julie helped him by kicking the Corrigan sister in the shins. Soon the three bullies were routed, leaving Julie and Damon staring at each other over the ruins of Ava's smashed ice cream cone.
Julie was the first to offer a hesitant smile.
"Thank you," she said. "You didn't have to."
"I hate bullies," Damon said, giving her a lopsided grin. "And those jerks got in some licks at Vanessa the other day, so I owed 'em one. Sorry about your ice cream."
"I can get more money from Mom. She won't mind when I tell her what happened." Julie hesitated, then held out the mint chocolate chip cone she'd managed to save—the one that was for her. "Do you, uh—want this one? As a thank you, I mean. I'm gonna have Mom buy us some more anyway." Honesty compelled her to add, "I already took a couple licks off it, but only on this side."
Damon took it. His fingers brushed against hers in a way that made her feel shy. His pink tongue darted out and took a lick of the ice cream, next to the little scoop her tongue had made. It gave her a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome."
They stood looking at each other, neither one quite sure what to say next. Then Ava called Julie's name. Julie jumped and turned around to see her little sister come trotting around the side of the Dairy Queen.
"Was that the Wolfe boy you were talking to?" Ava began, and then saw the smashed chocolate cone on the ground, and wailed.
At least it distracted her. Damon was already gone, having vanished so suddenly she almost expected to see his devilish smile lingering behind like the Cheshire Cat's grin. Julie herded her sister back down the street to the gas station where Mom worked as a part-time cashier, to tell their tale of woe and get cash for two more ice cream cones.
She didn't see much of him until the next fall, when she transitioned from elementary school to the same middle school where her brother also went. And from there it had grown, somehow, through that winter and now into the summer—conspiratorial smiles across the school library (they couldn't openly talk to each other; the town was too small, and first their friends would know, then their parents), casual words passed in the hall, and eventually these clandestine nighttime meetings on the side of the road, halfway between their two farms.
"Come on, shift already," Damon said impatiently. "My folks are out hunting, but they'll notice I'm gone sooner or later."
Hunting. The word sent a shiver down her spine, even though she knew that wolf shifters were not the feral, terrifying predators of fairy tale and family legend. But Damon had told her that his family still liked to shift together on full moon nights, and race each other in the moon-dappled woods, chasing deer and rabbits and wild turkeys. Above them, the moon was not quite full, a leaky balloon trailing light across the treetops.
Damon was with her. Damon would protect her from any predators, wolves or otherwise.
Julie shifted.
In daylight she always noticed an instant difference, because sheep were partly color-blind, able to see only in the yellow to blue end of the color spectrum. At night, however, the world looked very similar to sheep or human eyes, except she had a broader field of vision—she was able to see both her sides at once—and not much depth perception in front of her.
Her parents had always assured her that she was a very pretty little sheep. Her wool was mingled gold and tan, similar in color to her dark blond hair when she was human-shaped.
She did a little skip and pirouette for Damon, showing off the delicate grace of her legs and fine, honey-colored hooves.
Damon shifted, going in an instant from a lanky boy in ripped jeans resting on his hands to a lean-bodied wolf sitting on his haunches. Silver dusted his dark fur like starlight.
Julie felt an instinctive surge of fear skate down her spine, something so atavistic it bypassed her human brain entirely. Some deep part of her still knew that his kind had been chasing hers for much longer than humans had gone on two legs. But then her rational side reasserted itself: this was Damon, her friend, and he would never hurt her.
He sprang to his feet, tongue lolling, and dipped his head in a "play with me!" gesture. This time her instinctive response was pure joy and delight. When Damon raced away, Julie bounded after him, all four hooves leaving the ground in long leaps.
Sheep, especially young sheep, were more agile than they looked. ("Am I raising three mountain goats?" her mother sometimes said despairingly.) Damon dashed through the woods and Julie bounded along behind him, sometimes falling behind, sometimes nipping playfully at his low brush of a tail. She stretched out her legs, enjoying the pleasant burn of her strong young muscles.
Through the moon-dappled forest, they darted with the joy and abandon of the children they were.
They paused to drink at a stream out back of the Robson farm. The water was cool and pleasant after their exercise. Julie dipped her head completely underwater and then flicked the water off her ears. Damon grinned at her in silent canine amusement before dipping his muzzle into the stream again.
Julie thought what a picture they must make in the moonlight, the lean black wolf and the gangly half-grown sheep, drinking side by side. Like an illustration from a children's book.
But, slowly and yet too fast, they were leaving childhood behind. This fall, Damon would be moving from the middle school to high school. He'd have to take the bus for almost an hour to the high school which was attended by kids from all the small towns in the area. He'd be tired and would have to stay up late doing homework, and he'd mentioned he would probably be looking for an after-school job as well.
Will I see you at all anymore? she wondered. Will we still be able to run and play in the moonlight?
A sudden, mournful howl shivered the air, not terribly far away. Julie's head snapped up, water dripping from her muzzle. It had to be one of Damon's relatives, his parents or sister or one of the many dark-haired cousins, aunts, and uncles who lived in the area. The Wolfe clan was as numerous as the extended Capshaw brood.
Damon started to raise his head, tipping up his muzzle to howl in return. Julie nipped at him and he dropped his head guiltily. Automatic response, his guilty look seemed to say. Sorry.
But it reminded her that he'd chosen to spend this bright, moonlit night—prime wolf-shifter playtime—with her rather than his pack. She bumped him with her shoulder and then bounded away playfully. Damon's ears and tail came up, and he started to jump after her.
But he didn't get a chance. A young ram came charging out of the brush and butted Damon in the side, knocking him tail over head.
Damon gave a startled yelp and tumbled into the edge of the water. He scrambled to his feet, dripping and growling.
The young sheep lowered his head aggressively. His stubby horns were just beginning to grow.
It was Terry, of course. Julie would know her older brother anywhere, shifted or not, and she shifted hastily back to her human girl form. On her knees in the muddy verge of the stream, she shouted, "Terry! Terry, stop it! Damon!"
Neither of them paid any attention to her.
Terry was starting to grow into his adult height, even if he hadn't filled out yet, so he and Damon were roughly matched in size. They circled each other furiously, the gangly adolescent wolf and the scrawny ram. They probably weighed about the same. But teeth and hooves could do serious damage. Julie was genuinely afraid they might hurt or even kill each other.
"Stop!" she yelled.
Terry feinted at Damon and then lunged, head down, but Damon darted away with lightning speed. While Terry was still recovering from his missed charge, Damon darted in to nip at Terry's curly flank.
Desperate, Julie scooped up handfuls of rocks and mud from the streambed and hurtled them at the combatants. She managed to paste Terry in the face with a handful of mud, and bounced a rock off Damon's side.
Both boys stopped fighting and turned to stare at her in hurt shock.
"Stop being stupid and shift, you jerks."
They shifted back to teenage boys. Both of them looked sullen. Terry wiped mud off his face and raked his blond hair out of his face. "Stay away from my sister," he snapped at Damon.
"Hey!" Julie protested. "Don't I get a say in this?"
"She doesn't need you going all white-knight on her behalf," Damon snapped back. Both of them were completely ignoring her. "Or, white sheep, I mean."
"You think sheep is an insult, don't you?" Terry retorted. "That totally sounds like something a wolf would say."
Damon bared his teeth. "You want to talk to my wolf again? Because it sounds like you do."
"Guys!" This time Julie interposed herself directly between them. "Stop being such—such boys. Terry, what in the world are you doing here?"
"Followed you." He wiped mud off his lips and spat. "I knew you'd been going out at night. I just never dreamed you were running around with wolves!"
"Bring it, Capshaw," Damon growled. "Or are you all talk?"
Terry spread his feet apart and put his head down, assuming a belligerent stance.
Julie pushed them apart again. "You're both being utterly ridiculous. Damon is my friend, and—and he's kind and gentle. He wouldn't hurt anyone!"
Terry gave her a look of disbelief. "He tried to bite me!"
"You headbutted me," Damon shot back. "Those horns might be tiny, but they hurt!"
"Did you just call my horns tiny, wolf? Not as tiny as your—"
"Boys!" Julie wailed, shoving her brother away. "Now is not the time!"
And then, seemingly melting from the shadows, the wolf pack appeared out of the woods.
For that first shocked instant, Julie felt as if she'd been transported into her worst nightmare. All the stories she'd been raised on—don't go into the woods, wolves will eat you—came flooding back and rooted her to the spot. The huge furry shapes came prowling out of the forest just as in her dreams: the long lean bodies, the gleaming fangs, the eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Terry, though he was shaking with terror, moved to put his body between his little sister and the wolves.
