Free Beastmen & Shapeshifters: Three Breeding Stories by Vivian Leigh

Rescued by Wolves
    The small two seat airplane buzzed along at a hundred twenty
knots. Kelli adjusted the trim to keep the plane level and looked
out the window. The countryside was all rolling hills carpeted with
evergreens and dotted with lakes. Minnesota in the fall could be
hot and humid, but at nine thousand feet it was a cool seventy
degrees.
    When the motor cut out she didn’t quite believe it. One
moment the steady drone was there and the next all she could hear
was the whistling of the wind. She went through the restart
checklist, but nothing happened when she turned the magnetos to
“start.”
    She clicked the radio to the emergency frequency. “Mayday,
mayday, this is November Fiver Fiver Fiver Charlie Papa. I’ve
lost my engine and it won’t restart. I’m putting down
approximately one hundred forty miles northwest of
Minneapolis.”
    She adjusted the pitch of the aircraft and looked for a safe
place to put down. The hills and trees looked forbidding, but she
finally saw what looked like a big meadow near a lake further
north. She adjusted course and kept a careful eye on her speed as
she approached.
    From a thousand feet to fifty feet everything happened in slow
motion. She stayed just above stall speed by adjusting her pitch.
Time stretched out and the feet trickled off the altimeter. The
trees crept along beneath her.
    At a hundred feet everything snapped into fast-forward. The
trees whipped past on either side. The ground rushed to meet her.
She pulled up on the nose and bled off more speed. The stall
warning horn sounded and a moment later the wheels smacked down
into the dirt. They slid along and she tried to keep the nose
pointed in one direction.
    The plane came to rest in the middle of the meadow and Kelli
realized she was holding her breath. She sucked in air and clenched
her fists around the yoke.
    She picked up the radio again. “This is November Fiver
Fiver Fiver Charlie Papa. I’m safely on the
ground.”
    There was no response but static.
    “Okay, Kelli, the best thing to do is stay with the plane.
Any search party will see it,” she said to herself.
    She pushed open the door and hopped out. The grass crunched
beneath her shoes. The wind blew gently and carried the scent of
fresh air and pine trees. She walked around the plane and inspected
it for damage. Everything looked normal. She opened the fuel tank
and shook the wing. The sound of fuel sloshing was clearly audible. So I didn’t run out of gas.
    She shrugged and climbed back into the cockpit and settled in to
wait.
    ***
    Kelli woke when it was still dark out. The moon was close to
full and its light lit the meadow around her. She looked out over
the nose of the plane and saw a pair of dark dog-like shapes
standing a dozen yards from the plane. Their yellow eyes glowed in
the moonlight.
    Her heart raced. She wiped her clammy hands on her jeans. The
animals paced around the plane and she saw that they were big
northern timber wolves. Another wolf rose from behind the first
two. I didn’t even notice it.
    The three wolves circled the plane and came to a stop near the
right wing. They pivoted as a unit and stared at the tree line.
Another pack of wolves emerged from the trees.
    One of the wolves in the first pack howled and two of them
charged toward the pack. The last wolf looked back at her and
stared her right in the eye until she looked away. It turned back
and watched the other wolves snap and bite at each other.
    She couldn’t see the details, but the howls and the yips
were audible. The wolves sound angry. Very, very angry. A flicker
of motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked
back to the wolf near the plane and gasped in shock.
    One moment there was a wolf standing before her. Then, in the
space of a second, its shape contorted from a four legged creature
into a two legged human. Where there had been a shaggy wolf a
moment before there was a handsome man dressed in jeans and a
t-shirt.
    The man waved at