"Kit Reed - What Wolves Know" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

WHAT WOLVES KNOW
by Kit Reed

Kit Reed’s most recent novel, The Baby Merchant, is now available
in trade paperback from Tor. Thinner Than Thou (Tor, 2005) won
the A.L.A. Alex award, and two of her books—Little Sisters of the
Apocalypse and Weird Women, Wired Women—were finalists for the
Tiptree prize. Her next project is a young-adult novel, The Night
Children, that is forthcoming from Tor. In her latest story for us, Kit
takes a look at what happens when a young man, whose wolf family
may have been less feral than his original human kin, finally decides
to make use of...

****

When you have been raised by wolves people expect better of you, but you
have no idea what they mean by better.

Happy comes out of the crate panting and terrified.

When you have been raised by wolves, you expect better of people.

Injured in the struggle before the dart bit him and his world went away,
Happy blinks into the white glare.

A dark shape moves into the blinding light. Sound explodes, a
not-quite bark. “Welcome home!”

This is nothing like home. Then why is the smell of this place so
familiar? Troubled, Happy backs away, sucking his torn paw.

He hears a not-quite purr. “Is that him?”

“Back off, Susan, you’re scaring him. Handsome bastard, under all
the filth.” The dark shape gets bigger. “Hold still so we can look at you.”

Happy scrambles backward.

“Wait, dammit. What’s the matter with your hand?”

The not-quite bark-er is not quite a wolf. Pink, he is, and naked,
except for fur on top, with all his pink parts wrapped like a package in tan
cloth. A ... Hunter is the first thought that comes. Happy has never been this
close to one, not that he chooses to remember. He looks down. His body is
choking. There is cloth on Happy too! It won’t come off no matter how hard
he shakes. He tears at it with his teeth.

The not-wolf yaps, “Stop that! We want you looking good for the
press conference.”