Zoey trudged along, nursing a few bruises to her legs and shins, but the bruise to her pride hurt most of all.  “Stupid, stupid boys,” she grumbled. The wolf girl had been playing with her sister and a few tribesmen around their age: a simple ball game that helped train them to hunt in packs.  Once the game was over, they had jogged down to a nearby lazy river and hopped in for a swim.  It was normal for them to bathe nude, but Zoey had never truly been comfortable doing that.
Things got even worse when her sister was involved.  Chloe, the taller and considerably better-endowed of the two, had practically hopped out of her clothing – all two scraps of it – before jumping into the water.  She made a big splash with the boys, which left Zoey as the last one standing on the bank, awkwardly fiddling with the knot that held her modesty together so she could . . .
Could what?  The thought had struck her as the spray from Chloe’s cannonball settled down.  Why should she do this?  Why should the boys have the satisfaction of watching her strip like they were her mates?  The wolf girl had hesitated, which had given one of the boys the bright idea to encourage her.  Loudly.
“Take it off!  Take it off!”  The others took up the chant like dry grass takes up fire.  “Take it off! Take it off!”  Zoey had never been a social butterfly, and the half-dozen strong young men panting and howling at her made her face turn beet red with embarrassment.
“Sh-shut up!” she shouted back at them.  Her hands swept away from the knot on her waist and balled into angry fists.  “I have more to take off than you do, you idiots!”
“So take it off already!” one of them called back.  He was tall, handsome; could be chieftain one day if he hunted and fought well.  In that moment, Zoey hated him and the stupid, cocky, nothing-can-stop-me grin that sprouts on the faces of all young men.
“Leave her alone, you mutts.”  Chloe stood off to the side of the group but her voice cut across the water’s surface like a warning shot.  “Zoey, come on.  You can get in over here.”  Zoey took a cautious step upstream towards her sister.  The water there was deep enough to reach her armpits, which would giver her some kind of modesty.
“Hey, you think she can float like her sister?” another boy snickered.  He pointed a thumb at Chloe, whose prodigious breasts rested on the surface of the water like two ripe melons.“Naw,” said yet another, “she doesn’t have the meat for it.”  Zoey choked, embarrassment and anger making her throat close.  She whipped back towards the group, ready to scream her lungs out before freezing in horror.
One of the boys was holding a piece of dark burgundy cloth in his hands.  Zoey recognized it as her underwear.  She normally wore them under her loincloth but they must have fallen off when she had loosened the knot on her hips a moment earlier.  The boy holding them was the tallest, the first who had chanted at her.  He looked her dead in the eye, tugging the cloth between his index fingers.  “And speaking of things she doesn’t have . . .”
A warm, refreshing gust of jungle air picked that exact time to blow through the trees and around Zoey’s waist.  She shrieked, hopping in place and swatting at her billowing loincloth like it had come alive.  The boys howled with laughter, but not hard enough to close their eyes and miss the show.Chloe was wading back across the river to help her sister.  “Zoey!” she called in a voice heavy with concern.  If she could just make it a bit further—
“SHUT UP!” Zoey screamed as hot, angry tears streamed down her face.  She spun around and sprinted away.
Chloe turned and glared at the boys.  One of them had raised his fingers to his mouth for a whistle, but his breath sputtered and died when he saw the look in Chloe’s eyes.  “Um.”
“You are going to regret doing that.”


“Stupid, stupid boys,” Zoey grumbled again.  She had run and run and run just trying to get away from her shame and embarrassment, but her fatigue had finally caught up with her.  She knew the way back to the river, but she wasn’t ready to start hiking back yet.
In front of her was something more interesting.  Hidden behind a thick cluster of trees and busheswas a path leading to the largest pond she had ever seen – it was almost a small lake, with a tiny strip ofsand ringing the shore and a large tree never more than a few metres away from the water’s edge.  The trees and brush surrounding the lake were dense but didn’t reach far inward, which meant there was a large gap in the canopy over the middle of the water.  The afternoon sun shone down in all its glory.
The water was perfectly still, and its surface was like a mirror.  Zoey walked softly to the water’s edge, rapt at the sheer natural beauty in front of her.  She crouched and looked at her own reflection.  Red, puffy eyes.  Dark streaks where tears had flowed down her cheeks.  The light grey mop of hair on her head was matted with sweat from her desperate sprint.
Zoey chuckled thinly.  “At least I found my own private bath— Huh?”  The wolf girl glanced up at the treetops looming on the far shore.  She thought she had seen a smidgen of movement in the pristine reflection, but the real trees were perfectly still.  She turned back to the water and found it showed the same plain tree branch.
She’d probably see those jeering boys in every blade of grass if she looked too closely.  “I am notgoing to jump at shadows,” Zoey said to herself.  She stood with all the grace she could muster and began to remove her clothes.
Her top was the first: burgundy cloth that covered her small breasts, with two strips reaching over her shoulders.  She undid two knots and the fabric slid off her like a whisper.  Zoey folded it into a neat pile and set it down on the ground.  Her loincloth was next and just as easy; she barely touched the knot on her hip and it fell down next to her top on the grass.  Zoey flicked it away with her toe and stood there, naked as the day she was born, relishing the warm breeze ruffling through her fur.
Her light grey fur was even lighter on her chest, belly, and crotch, topped by a cute little tuft at the centre of her collarbone.  Her nipples were pert black dots on top of her small breasts, which barely stuck out from her ribs.  Her entire figure was thin, lithe, and wound tightly around her bones: the picture of youthful womanhood about to blossom.
Zoey pinched at her breasts dully.  “. . . Meat.”
She sighed.  A big part of her hoped she was in fact about to blossom, and not already blossoming.  The wolf girl’s eyes rolled up to the sky as her mother’s admonishing, gentle voice came into her thoughts.
Not all flowers bloom the same way, Zoey.
“I know that, Mom, but all the boys seem to know what kind of blooms they like.”  Zoey blinked, then looked around nervously.  Still alone.  No-one to hear her have an imaginary conversation with hermother about being jealous of her sister’s boo—
“Alllright, time to clean up.”
Zoey strode forward into the water, which tingled as it ran over her toes and up her ankles.  “Ooh,” she cooed.  The top layer was warm from the sunlight, but the sandy bottom was cool and soft.  The water’s cloying, twofold embrace crept up her thin legs and towards the tight curves of her butt.  Zoey might not have been as voluptuous as Chloe, but she was beautiful in her own way.
But it was hard to appreciate yourself when all the boys your age just saw you as a skin and bones copy of the girl they really wanted.  Zoey sighed and sat down, letting the sand and water cushion her fall.  She plunged her head into the refreshing, warm-yet-cool water and ran her fingers through her hair.  No soap to get the sweat and dirt out, but even a rinse made her feel much better.
The wolf girl sat there, up to her ribs, leaning forward rhythmically.  Zoey scrubbed at the fur along her legs and arms when she wasn’t dousing her head, digging her claws into the skin in little grooves and feeling the rush of warm blood and cool water follow after them.  She leaned back on her elbow and closed her eyes so that only her head stuck up from the surface with an easy smile.  “Now this I don’t mind,” she said.  It was a good thing to clean yourself up after a hard day’s work or play.
Zoey’s face wrinkled.  But it was quite another to be embarrassed and humiliated by the only boys in the tribe who were around her age.  Didn’t they know what it was like?  Didn’t know how she was always careful not to give herself away?  The wolf girl’s face changed into a new expression, tense but with the beginnings of a smirk.
No.  No, they must not.  They couldn’t have had any idea how she felt around them.  Otherwise they wouldn’t have stood in water that only came up to their—
Zoey’s head jerked forward and her eyes sprang open.  She locked her gaze on a point on the far shore.  There was a ripple there, spreading languidly across the still-as-glass water towards her.  For thesecond time, she felt as though something had slipped by her without her noticing.  A primal feeling halfway between panic and anger flooded through her as she tried to sort out what happened.
Alone.  Bad.  Weak alone.
Had something made that ripple?  Should she go look?
Pack strong.  Go to pack.  Good to be in pack.
Zoey slapped her hands to the sides of her head and dug her fingers into her scalp.  “Enough.”  
The voice inside her said nothing.  Zoey sighed with relief.  Okay.  Now what?  She stood and looked out at the lake, weighing her options as droplets of water fell from her frame.  After a minute of dead silence, she figured that her primal voice had been barking sense: it was a little too quiet for midday in the jungle.  She didn’t really know what was out here, and her packmates didn’t know whereshe was, either.  If something happened to her they wouldn’t be able to help.
The wolf girl smirked at the thought of the six boys dashing out to save her.  Would they fight over her like would-be alphas?  Would they snarl and bite at one another for the chance to protect her?  Would the tall one be there?  Would he—
“A-hem.”  Zoey brushed aside her daydreams with a huff.  She turned to walk the handful of metres back to the shore and nearly tripped as she caught her foot on something big and solid.  It felt like a submerged log, heavy with water.
There hadn’t been a log when she walked out here.  Zoey stared dumbly at her foot, just barely able to see the log’s outline in the shallow water.  It ended just off to her left in a tapered, organic-looking shape.  She watched a single bubble creep up to the surface and pop, sending small ripples towards her.  But logs didn’t breathe.
The brown head of a snake rose from the water abruptly, coming to rest at eye level with Zoey.  Rivulets of clear, silvery water ran down his scales before splashing back into the shallows around her shins.  “Hello, wolf cub,” he said.
“Oh,” said Zoey.