Harley blinked, sure that the kid was trying to talk to her babies. And even more amazing, they seemed to be listening to her. Their eyes focused intently, and Lou’s ear twitched like it did when she was telling him what to do. Then they went back to laughing amongst themselves.
Harley rolled her eyes and muttered, “Rude. No manners at all.” She shook her finger at them. “When we get home, there’s gonna be some changes. You’re gettin’ shown up by a glorified dog, for cryin’ out loud!” She threw a glance at Blind Seer. “No offense intended, you’re a real impressive wolf, but I gotta motivate them somehow or they’re never gonna learn their lesson.”
Bud studied her for a moment, then reached forward to grasp the tip of her finger with his teeth. Then he slid back until his grip was only on the material covering that finger. With a rough jerk, he yanked Harley’s glove off her hand. Harley would have made a grab for it, but with as strong as her babies were, it would be pointless. Lou didn’t agree, attempting to claim the glove for himself, and there was a resulting in a tug of war that ended when Bud actually ate her glove. Lou was beside himself with laughter.
Harley ignored them once the glove was off her hand. Something else had completely taken her attention.
Brother, the girl said. Packmate. And just like that, the psychologist in Harleen Quinzel roared back to life with a painfully loud scream of “wild child!” As far back as Romulus and Remus in Greek myth, even further if some Egyptian texts were to be believed, there had been stories of feral children raised by wild animals. There had been a number of cases over the years, most of them hoaxes. Though they did lend creative influence, inspiring several movies and books about such children, most famously, Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli.
There were a few feral children that had proved to be genuine. In those cases, most often they were feral because of abuse or neglect by their parents rather than because they had been left or taken by wild animals. However, there was James Goodfellow from Brazil, who supposedly had been raised by wolves. Lyohka in Russia who had been documented as having wolf like behavior before he’d escaped the hospital where he’d been taken for treatment. Not that wolves were the only ones that did the raising. There were numerous accounts of monkeys, dogs, gazelles, cattle, and Harley’s personal favorite, sheep. But wolves were what caught the human imagination most, possibly because of the juxtaposition of the danger people perceived to be represented by wolves against the care given to an infant. Or perhaps the opposite, the horror that a human being could become such a threatening creature as a wolf.
They were the psychological holy grail, and if she understood this kid right, it had just fallen into her lap. To be certain she understood, Harley asked point blank, “Packmate, huh? Like family? Like… you’re a wolf?”