At first glance, Noemi mistook the shadow for a husky. But as it rose from the surf, the truth sharpened into focus—the shoulders were too broad, the muzzle too long, the fangs gleaming with casual menace. This was no dog.
A wolf stood on the shoreline, an apex predator pacing the same quiet strip of sand she had chosen as her refuge.
Its molten-yellow eyes locked onto hers. She froze. Every fact she had ever read about wolves surged into her mind: they sense fear, their jaws crush bone, they can run prey into exhaustion.
Suddenly, the vast openness of the beach felt like a trap. The nearest cottages—just distant smudges along the horizon—seemed as unreachable as paintings hung on a wall.
The wolf moved forward, paws spreading like black stars across the wet sand. Silent. Steady. No growl, no warning. Only a lethal curiosity.
Noemi’s heart pounded. She steadied her lungs, holding in each breath as though the smallest flinch might spark the creature’s instinct to strike.
She wasn’t the reckless one in her family. That role had always belonged to someone else. Noemi was the reliable one—the bill-payer, the organizer, the woman who built her career with discipline and late nights. Clients admired her calm voice and clever ideas.
She loved her work: turning bland products into stories people cared about. Advertising wasn’t just a job. It was proof she could shape her own life.