Chuffed

The familiar sound of a sharp axe splitting a log felt satisfying.The raised eyebrow from his friend and family member Sean was answered by a tiny shake of Mikael’s head.There was no need to split the pieces further.Sean tossed both pieces of wood,now split into halves that would fit any of their numerous fireplaces,to the pile in the corner of the wood shed.Mikael handed the axe to Sean,barely able to suppress a groan.

“Tired already?”Sean grinned as the older man wiped his brow with his sleeve.

“Nah,just want to save my shoulder.I don’t get what’s wrong with it.”Mikael frowned.

“Might want to have Zoya take a look again.”Sean swung the axe in a perfect arc,and the thunkof the blade penetrating the wood and connecting with the chopping block made Mikael smile slightly.It was all about the little things.

“Maybe.We’ll see tonight if it bothers me more during the day.”He shrugged,and then promptly winced when the pinching pain flashed through his shoulder.

Sean’s wife,Zoya,was their resident masseuse.She had some training,and she knew acupuncture as well,which made her the go-to person on the farm when someone had this sort of pain.

“You know,maybe we should—”

Mikael’s words were cut short by a loud banging noise,a frantic neigh or two,and the sound of hooves.

“Shit!”Sean swung the axe again to make it stick on the chopping block,then ran after Mikael to the farmyard.

“What the fuck?”Mikael cursed,watching as all three of their horses vanished toward the forest.The wrong side of the forest,because they were running toward the Russian border instead of away from it.If the horses managed to lose the people chasing them,they might get to the border and be impossible to retrieve without the help of the border guard.

“You grab the lead ropes and the bucket.I’ll run after them,”Sean said quickly and began to strip off his jeans and flannel shirt to be able to shift.

By the time Mikael reached the stable doors,a large gray wolf sped past him,vanished around the corner and after the horses.

“What’s going on?”A worried call in a soft,feminine voice floated down from the main house’s porch at the upper yard.

“Gate is down,horses ran,”Mikael called out to Lark,a young female lynx shifter who was like a kid sister to him.“Go check the sheep!”

Lark’s light steps on the wooden stairs leading toward the back of the house barely registered with Mikael’s mostly human hearing.He was already straining to keep up with the task at hand,and he hoped that the sheep,at least,would be where they should:safely inside their fence.

As he finally made it to the edge of the forest,he caught a glimpse of red and another of gray from his left,coming from the lakeside.That explained a lot;the banging sound had been someone running on the sauna’s plate roof.It made his blood boil to know that the rules set for everyone’s safety had been defied again.

“You two,shift back immediately when you get to the horses!”he yelled at the teenagers trying to be helpful after—most likely,because no one else would do such a thing—causing the whole commotion in the first place.

He ran with the bucket,knowing that the horses would hopefully stop where they always did:a little patch of grass on a flat spot not far in the forest.There wasn’t much grass yet this time of the year,but the horses weren’t picky.Anything green,even if it had been just uncovered from the snow,would do.Unless they were too scared of whatever it was the two adolescent members of the farm family had done.If the horses were truly panicked,there was no telling when they’d stop or where they’d run.Gods help the boys if the horses got injured because of their stupidity!

Finally,Sean raced through the forest,back toward Mikael.

“The meadow?”the human asked,and the wolf made a sound that was clearly a yes to a trained ear.“It was the boys,”Mikael added,slowing down so he wouldn’t scare the horses away again.

The wolf trotting next to him made a disgusted and slightly snarly sound,and Mikael knew Sean’s son,fifteen-year-old Jude,who was one of the troublemakers,would get a strong scolding this time.

When the men got closer to the clearing,Sean stopped and tilted his head toward Mikael.

“No,go ahead.The boys will do the walk of shame,and I’ll grab Onni,”he said,and the wolf began to trot back to the farm.

“We’re really,really sorry,”Anton,the other misfit,said as soon as he got to the clearing with Jude in tow,and Mikael could tell both boys were nervous and ashamed.

“No,you’re not.At least,not yet.”Mikael grinned evilly at the boys and threw them a lead rope each.“I’ll take Onni.You take the others.”

His tone left no room for argument,and the boys,both naked as the day they were born,walked to the horses behind Mikael’s old Finnhorse gelding who was guarding his herd.

When Mikael shook the bucket,Onni—Finnish for luck—immediately walked closer and began to happily munch away at the oats.The other two horses,a young cross-breed mare called Candy and a Shetland pony called King,were trickier but would follow Onni to the ends of the earth if need be.

So there they were,Mikael leading the gelding on a loose rope,walking briskly without paying any attention to Jude,who was struggling with the mare a little,or Anton,who was led here and there by the stubborn-as-a-mule pony.It was a good punishment,but it wouldn’t be the only punishment.No way.

“You do know your parents will kill you for this,right?”Mikael asked over his shoulder when Jude finally managed to make Candy behave enough to stay on the narrow path leading to the yard.

“Yeah,we’re really so—”

“Save it.Your parents will deal with you.Anton,I’lldeal with you,so once the horses are in the smaller paddock and you’ve repaired the bigger one’s fence,you’ll report to me immediately.”He made his tone emotionless and firm.

“Yes,sir,”Anton called toward him from where he was trying to tug the pony from a tuft of apparently delicious early spring grass.

Mikael led the sad little parade into the yard and made sure the horses were safely in their other paddock,as he thought about the mess he had in his hands.The problem wasn’t new;the boys misbehaved and caused trouble every now and then,but he would have thought that Anton,who had just turned eighteen,would be a little more responsible.What if one of the little ones,Jude’s siblings,had been close when the horses rushed out of their broken fence?