There will always be wolves.

Every woman who ever lived knows there will always be wolves.

Some will be gentle and tame beneath your hand, but they’ll rip you to ribbons as soon as your door closes.

Some will be snarling and angry and vicious, but they freeze when you look them dead in the eye.

Some will be charming, some will be powerful. Some will be straight-backed and arrow-head sharp. Some will howl their supper, some will beg for it. Some will trail their breath over you as you shiver, some will sink their teeth into every inch of you they can find.

They will all try to eat you, one way or another.

Please don’t take it personally, that is simply what wolves do.

But the most important question of your life will never be what kind of wolf you encounter after moonrise: The encounter is a given, as surely as the flash of sharp teeth is when you first taste flesh or sin. And that is why you put on your cloak and walk out, isn’t it? Why you risk a path after the sun hides away? We all dream of the wolf, we all hunt him. Even when we let him think he’s hunting us. The only important question for a woman wandering in the Wildwood is this:

Which of these predators will you take with you?

Which one of them will you keep to warm your bed?

For no matter how sharp or shaggy his form is, it will be your decision at the end of it. That is why you allow the hunt to begin.

This is the story of how I made that decision. This is the story of how I took my wolf for my own. It begins and ends in the Dark Wood. It begins and ends with breath and blood on my skin. Off the path in a wild, dark forest far from home, and me on my back and far from a child anymore. Me with my wolf shivering under my hands. It is not for the faint-hearted, this tale of how I earned the right to wear red. It is not for those who wish all wolves lost their teeth and were blind. But it is my- no, our- story, all of it. It is the story I was born to tell and tell it I will.

My name is Stray and this is what happened to me.

This is what happened when I finally decided to shed my skin.