Teeth Made For Kings

They took me in winter. When the moon was a slit throat across the sky and the snow stank of blood. I had not eaten in two days. The deer had fled south. The old ones in our pack were the first to starve, bones jutting like broken branches beneath their fur. My mother told me not to howl. Not even once. The wrong ears would hear.

The wrong ears.

They heard anyway.

Men with iron in their teeth and torches in their fists. The fire licked the trees. The pups screamed, high and soft, until they were silenced. I do not remember if they were killed or merely muffled. I only remember the hands. So many hands. Reaching. Grabbing. Holding.

A net made of wire. It closed around me like winter itself.

They muzzled me with something that tasted of rust and salt. It bit into my snout, my gums. I thrashed, but the blows came fast. A boot to the ribs. A stick to the spine. One broke my tail. Another cracked a tooth. I still remember the sound. Like a pebble in a river.

They did not kill me. Not yet.

I was not for food. I was for sport.

They named me something stupid. Cinders, maybe. Or Grim. The names changed with each master. Each was a different shade of cruelty. The first tried to ride me. The second starved me until I ate my own waste. The third beat me so severely my hind leg never healed straight. He laughed when I limped.

None of them wanted a dog. They wanted a weapon.

They took me to the woods. Shackled me to trees. Dressed their prisoners in rabbit skins and let them run. Then they released me.

The first time, I didn’t bite. I sniffed. I backed away. The man wept into his fur-lined sleeves. Said I was useless. Said I was too wild to understand.

So they starved me again.

The second time, I chased. I tore. The taste of flesh was familiar. But human skin is strange. It tears too easily. It doesn’t fight back the same. It gives. Too much. Too soft. Too salty.

But they cheered.

And I learned.

Soon, they brought me out on leashes made of gold. They displayed me to their guests. “Look,” they would say, “look at what we made from the wild.” They paraded me like a severed head.

They fed me offal. They gave me skins to sleep on. Not furs—skins. Flayed. Dried. Flattened. I pissed on them. They beat me again.

I tried to run once. Only once.

They caught me before I reached the outer wall. I was dragged by my neck. They broke two of my claws with a hammer, one by one. Afterward, they fed me raw liver as if I were a child being rewarded for obedience.

I never tried again.

Not because I feared pain. But because I forgot the sound of the forest. The rhythm of the pack. The meaning of the wind.

They took even that.

---

My jaw grew heavier. My eyes, dimmer. I learned to feel the leather tighten before the hunts. I learned the scent of fear before it bloomed. I was used to track nobles who had betrayed other nobles. Sometimes they wore armor. Sometimes they begged. It did not matter.

I killed because I was told to.

I ripped the throat of a merchant who owed debts. They called it justice. I tore the belly of a pregnant girl who ran from the lord’s son. They called it mercy. I was set upon thieves, widows, servants, bastards. Anyone who offended the skin of nobility.

Blood became my leash.

And they loved me for it.

---

Once, I was brought to a feast. Not to eat. No. I was chained beside the high table. Decorated with bells. Jewels tied to my fur with twine. My mouth was kept shut with silver wire. I could not growl. Could not yawn.

The room was warm. Too warm. They laughed and sang. A child poked me with a fork. I did not react. I waited. I watched. I saw a woman lower her eyes when a man grabbed her by the jaw.

She looked like someone I knew.

Not a wolf. Not quite.

But she smelled of ash and water. Her eyes were kind. Or had been, once.

When the feast was over, the child untied the bells. He told me I was beautiful. I bit him. Through the hand.

They did not kill me.

They made me worse.

---

The alchemist came next.

He called me precious, and rubbed oils into my gums. He broke the bones of birds and whispered things into my ears. He made me drink black water. I vomited for days. I bled from my nose. He was thrilled.

Said I would live forever.

Said I was a perfect vessel.

I slept in a cellar where rats screamed beneath the stone. My dreams were of water I could not drink. Of meat I could not eat. Of air that refused to fill my chest.

Sometimes, I woke not knowing where I was. My body heavier. My thoughts slower. My bones humming. My mouth full of the taste of smoke.

He had made something new of me.

Not a wolf.

Not a dog.

Not a god.

A thing.

I was given to the duke for his wedding gift. The duke had enemies. They fed me a list of them, dripped in piss and honey. I learned their scent.

I killed twelve in one week.

I remember their eyes. Not their faces. Just the eyes. Each wide and round. Each reflecting me back—teeth bared, breath steaming, the leash always behind me.

---

But one night. One night—

The leash broke.

The duke had grown fat on war. Too fat to move quickly. His grip faltered. I smelled fear. Real fear. The kind that rots from inside the skin.

I turned.

Not toward the enemy.

Toward him.

I lunged.

I caught his throat.

And this time, there was no cheering.

Only silence.

Only the sound of boots, backing away.

Only the wet noise of his breath gurgling through my teeth.

They tried to kill me, of course.

They sent dogs. I tore them. They sent men. I blinded three. The fourth got me in the ribs. A hook, not a blade. It tore my side open like fruit.

But I ran.

Bleeding, broken, blind in one eye.

I ran.

---

The forest had changed.

Or I had.

I did not know the smells. The winds were unfamiliar. I did not know if my pack had lived or starved. I howled.

No one answered.

I slept in hollow logs. I ate what I could steal. My wounds festered. My jaw ached with every bite. My tail dragged.

But I was not chained.

Not anymore.

---

One morning, I woke to birdsong.

Not the song of prey. The other kind. The kind that means the sky is still turning. The kind I had not heard since before the net. Before the name. Before the teeth were stolen from me and made holy.

I stood.

Slowly.

I walked toward the river.

The water reflected something I did not know. A muzzle thick with scars. One eye white and useless. My mouth a black wound of missing teeth and bone.

I opened it.

And howled.

Not for my pack.

Not for revenge.

For me.

The wolf that was taken.

The wolf they tried to hollow and fill with fear.

The wolf who learned the taste of men’s blood and still remembered how to walk free.

---

They say a ghost haunts the forests now.

A beast with silver scars and the breath of a king’s sin. It does not howl. It screams. It has no master. No name. It kills not for sport, but to remind the nobles what they made.

And what cannot be unmade.