(poly werewolves 141 x female human reader || part one)
The forest had a rhythm to it.
Not one of ticking clocks or hours counted on a calendar, but a living rhythm- crows taking wing at dawn, the hush of deer at the river come twilight, the cicadas sawing the silence into ribbons each dusk.
You had lived long enough in your solitude to learn that rhythm as if it were your own pulse; it told you when the seasons turned, when the rains would come, when the bears would lumber down from the higher ridges.
And now, it told you this: you were no longer alone.
Not alone in the way of creatures and their breath in the dark. That, you had already grown used to. It had been weeks since the night of blood and storm, since four shadows had collapsed on your porch and vanished again like wraiths. Weeks since your quiet life had been rewritten with the subtle signs of guardianship- the gifts left on your steps, the predator tracks cut short by heavier, sharper prints circling yours, the strange hush that fell upon the clearing as though the forest itself bowed to some unspoken command you werenāt privy to learn just yet.
It began with smoke: not yours, but a thin, rising thread of it curling from the tree line across the lake. The abandoned cottage there had stood for years, sagging into the earth, its roof bowed, its hearth gone cold. You had passed it once in your first spring here, peered into its hollow frame and decided it was a place ghosts might linger and one youād not waste time on.
But one crisp morning, you looked up from your own chopping block and saw smoke rising from that chimney, steady and sure. Not ghosts, then. Neighbors.
You almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. Neighbors. Out here, where the road gave way to little more than deer tracks, where storms cut power for days and the forest demanded a kind of loyalty from those who dared live in it. Few came this far. Fewer stayed, and the closest civilization was the village more than a few miles away.
And yet, the very next week, you saw them.
Four men, crossing the river path with lumber on their shoulders, voices a low rumble of camaraderie. They moved like soldiers: even in their quiet, you recognized the familiar cadence of it. Broad-shouldered, scarred in places they did not bother to hide, eyes sharper than any civilianās had right to be. You stood at the edge of your garden with your cane, watching from beneath the brim of your hat as they passed.
They raised hands in greeting. Not intrusive, not prying. Just a neighborās courtesy.
āMorning,ā the one wearing a cap said, polite and friendly.
You returned the nod, though your throat felt thick. Morning.
And then they were gone, melting into the forest trail with their burden of timber.
It should have ended there; A curiosity, an oddity you would eventually grow used to, the way one grows used to a ravenās nest high in the eaves. But it didnāt end, because you noticed the rhythm shift again.
One night, when the coyotes returned, you woke to find your porch lamp already lit, its flame burning steady in the storm winds. You had not lit it. And in the woods beyond, instead of growls, you thought you heard the heavy tread of boots driving the animals off.
Another morning, your cane slipped from your hand as you struggled with a basket by the river. Before you could stoop to fetch it, one of the new men appeared on the path, his russet-colored sweater catching the light, eyes gleaming. He bent and handed the cane back with a grin quick as a flame, gaze bright and unreadable. āCareful there, Miss. Slippery ground.ā His voice was warm and careful as honey, and he vanished again before you could properly thank him.
And yet another time, as dusk bled into the forest, you froze on your porch when a bear lumbered near the treeline. You were reaching for your gun when you saw movement from the corner of your eye.
A pale shape- no, a man this time- standing just beyond your gardenās edge. He didnāt shout, didnāt wave his arms. He only stood, utterly still, eyes fixed on the animal. And somehow, impossibly, the bear huffed, turned, and wandered off, as though cowed by something larger than it could name.
When you blinked, the man was gone before you could thank him.
They eventually introduced themselves to you proper, of course. John Price, Kyle Garrick, Simon (just Simon), and Johnny MacTavish. Normal names. Names no one in the village had, so they couldnāt be related to anyone there. They gave them easily, with the kind of ease soldiers had when lying about where theyād been stationed or what unit theyād served in- it wasnāt so much dishonesty as a well-worn habit of keeping the truth folded deep.
You offered your own name, a little stiffly, though your voice warmed when Johnny tilted his head, smile bright enough to catch in the lamplight.
āBonnie name for a bonnie lass.ā Heād said, syllables lilting. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and you found yourself looking away too quickly, unsettled by how closely he looked when he said it.
John had only given you a slow nod, his pipe stem caught between his teeth, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth. Simon- towering, quiet, eyes like bruised steel- didnāt say much at all, only let his gaze sweep across your porch as if assessing its defenses. Kyle had been the first to offer a hand, warm and calloused, his grin kind, his touch gentle and firm.
It should have ended there, polite words shared over a fence-line, the sort of introduction that fades back into distance.
But it didnāt: you began to notice them even in the smallest corners of your life, even after those previous few instances.
Once, when you walked to the cottage after a trip to the village with a pack too heavy for your frame, you found yourself flagging by the first step of your porch. The weight dragged your bad leg nearly to buckling.
Before you could curse the ache in your thigh, the strap lightened- lifted clean from your shoulder. Kyle had taken it without asking, carrying the burden as if it weighed nothing at all.
āYou shouldāve called for one of us,ā he said, his tone almost scolding, though softened by his smile. āCouldāve saved you the trouble.ā
āI didnāt know I was supposed to.ā You replied, half defensive, half annoyed by the pack, the fall, and the ache in your leg.
His answering smile was gentle and so pretty you wanted to look away, boyish in a way that contrasted with the scars along his jaw. āSupposed to? Maybe not. But next time, eh? Youāve got four big men around, weād carry anything you asked for.ā
He didnāt give the pack back until you were safely at your door, and even then he dropped it on your table and only then left.
Another evening, you lingered in the garden, tending to the last stubborn shoots of late summer. Your hands were deep in the soil when you realized you werenāt alone: Simon stood just beyond the fence, arms folded, shadow long across the tilled earth, a balaclava on his face.
You startled, dropping the trowel. āHoly shit, I didnāt hear you.ā
āYou werenāt meant to,ā he answered simply, voice deep enough that it seemed to stir the very air. Then he climbed over the fence, and knelt beside you. āLet me help.ā
You frowned, brushing dirt from your palms. āā¦. Why are you here?ā
His eyes moved- slow, deliberate- across the treeline, then back to you. āBecause youāre out here.ā
He didnāt explain further and didnāt step closer. But something in the words lingered in your chest, heavy and oddly steadying. He remained until you finally rose, cane in hand, and went inside.
Only then did his shadow slip away into the dusk.
John was more deliberate in his approach, but quieter too, woven into habits you didnāt notice until later: your woodpile, once dwindling faster than you liked, seemed replenished each week with neat stacks of logs you didnāt recall chopping. Your fence rail, loose and wobbling, had been reinforced with fresh nails one morning before you woke.
You caught him once, pipe smoke curling through the mist as he set down an axe (deliciously bare-chested, though you didnāt let yourself focus on that for now).
āJohn, you donāt need to-ā you began, bristling at the thought of being pitied like this.
He cut you off with a steady look, his voice calm but edged. āA stormās coming, and I hate having nothing to do, doll. Let me do this for you.ā
There was no mockery in his tone. Just fact and just care wrapped in command.
And when he walked past you to the gate, boots crunching against frost, he paused just long enough to murmur, āYou shouldnāt be doing it alone, anyhow.ā
Johnny was the opposite of Johnās steady gravity. He was the fire you kept roaring in your fireplace during winter- restless, bright, and impossible to ignore. He turned up most often in the in-between hours, whistling as he carried back game from the woods, or lounging on your porch rail as if it were his own.
āDinnae like the way that trap was sittinā,ā he remarked once, nodding toward the line of your snares along the brush. āLet me change āem for ye, lass. Or add more.ā
āIāve been setting those for years.ā You replied, defensive and unimpressed.
āAye, and maybe Iāve got sharper eyes.ā He winked, grin flashing quick. āHumor me, hen. No harm in letting me take a look.ā
And somehow, by the end of it, youād let him place new snares, his broad hands surprisingly delicate with the wire. You told yourself it was easier than arguing, but the warmth in your chest when he looked up, face flushed with exertion, said otherwise.
There were subtler things too. Things you couldnāt explain: when you once left food cooling on the windowsill overnight, you woke to find no scavengers had touched it, though the forest was full of them.
When you walked the river trail, you sometimes caught the smell of woodsmoke and earth that wasnāt your own, and felt the hair on your arms rise as though someone padded just beyond sight.
And in the coldest nights, when your pain kept you awake and the silence pressed too close, you sometimes swore you heard it: the long, low timbre of a howl rolling down from the ridges. Not threatening and not mournful, but something as deep as the forest itself. Claiming.
It should have frightened you.
You fell asleep without clutching your gun.
Bit by bit, you softened toward them: At first, it was in the way you didnāt chase them off when you found them mending something around your homestead. Later, it was in the way you let Kyle carry heavy things without argument, or let Johnny sit on your porch and chatter until the stars came out, or let Simon stand in the dark corners of your garden without demanding he explain himself.
And with John, it was in the way you eventually set two mugs on the table instead of one when you brewed tea on colder mornings- never asking if heād stay, but always finding the second cup drained when you returned from the stove and found new chopped wood.
They were men, yes. But they were something else too, something you hadnāt yet named. Their movements were too fluid, too sure-footed, their eyes too sharp when they caught the light. They carried the forest with them, as if it bowed to their passage.
And sometimes, when you looked too closely, you thought you saw it: a shadow of fangs when Johnny grinned too wide; a glimmer like molten gold in Simonās eyes when the moon was high; the twitch of Johnās shoulders, as though his body itched to shake free of its human shackles; the way Kyle sniffed the air, subtle, like scent was as telling as sight, and accirately told you whethere itād rain or not.
Subtle signs and little truths you kept tucking away, telling yourself they were tricks of light and fancy- but you knew the rhythm of the forest better than anyone.
And the forest whispered back to you, clear as bone and blood:
These men are not just men, and perhaps peace did not shatter.
Perhaps it only changed shape.
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