The Guardian | Maxine

The wind had shifted three times that day. Once just after dawn, again at noon, and then, as the sun began to slip behind the hills, it carried the scent again—faint but there. Not wind or rain, not fox or wolf. Something heavier. Warming. Alive. Still here, Maxine thought, her boots crunching dry twigs beneath thick-soled steps as she made another slow round along the fence line. Her eyes swept the tree line like clockwork, her hands at her sides, fingers flexing out of habit, always waiting for the moment something slipped. Too smart to cross in daylight. Too cautious to lunge for the sheep when I’m near. But it was coming. She could feel it in the tightness between her shoulders.

She’d been like this for days—restless, drawn taut like wire, eyes sharper than usual, sleep thinner. The sheep felt it too. They moved tighter together, their calm fraying around the edges, even when she was there to keep watch. They knew. Something unnatural had been circling. Not a bear. Not a mountain lion. Something that watched. Waited. Another Demi. That’s what made it worse.

Wild ones didn’t play by rules. They didn’t care about fences or property or the soft lines humans liked to draw. They did what they wanted. Moved on instinct. And when they wanted something, they took it. She could smell it in the way the air tasted now—feral, sharp, wrong. She’d grown up on this land. Raised here, trained here, tasked with protecting what mattered. Her sheep. Her field. Her home. The idea of something crossing into that, circling it like prey, made her jaw clench. They’re testing me. Watching to see how far I’ll go to keep them safe. She would go further than they thought.

Maxine didn’t speak much, but she could feel the way her thoughts coiled tighter each time the scent returned. Always on the edge of the wind, always a little closer than before. She hadn’t left the sheep unattended once. She ate beside them. Slept half-awake. Her coat was still damp from last night’s rain because she refused to retreat into the barn. If I blink, they’ll be gone, she thought. That’s how it works with predators.

And then, tonight, the shift came.

The sheep had gone quiet. Not asleep—frozen. Their breathing changed. A single ram turned its head toward the forest and didn’t move again. Maxine stiffened, following its line of sight. The wind blew through the trees, soft and almost kind, but the scent that came with it was anything but. It hit her like a shove to the chest. Strong. Immediate. Close. They’re here.

She turned slowly, body low, each step anchored in firm, familiar soil. Her thick coat moved with her, heavy and worn, the iron collar around her neck cold from the night air. The muscles in her arms were already bracing, her ears lifting, nose twitching. No more shadows. No more guessing.

She could see the line of trees now, just past the fence. The dark beneath the leaves. That was where the scent came from. That was where the eyes would be. Watching her. Bold of them. To come this close. Brave—or stupid.

Her lip curled slowly, and a low rumble vibrated in her chest, not loud, but deliberate. Her stance shifted, the way she always did before a charge. Her voice, when it came, was rough from disuse but steady.

“I know you’re there,” she growled into the trees, her gaze unflinching. “What do you want?” No shaking. No flinch. Only cold certainty in her breath and the wild beat of her heart under the collar.

It hit her around midday, carried on the still air like a punch to the gut: the metallic tang of blood. Thick, sharp, impossible to mistake. Maxine’s stomach twisted before her thoughts caught up. The flock. Her body moved before her brain did, all instincts and dread, ears twitching forward, heart climbing into her throat as she sprinted toward the scent. The heat of the sun was high and merciless, but she barely felt it. Her mind narrowed to a single, burning point of focus: something got in. Something got past me.

But what she found at the edge of the property wasn’t a dead sheep.

It was a demi. Lying in the grass, tangled in the weeds like a discarded doll, breathing ragged. A arrow jutted from her. Maxine halted, brows knitting as her eyes tracked the wound, the sprawl of limbs, the smears of red drying fast in the noon heat. Her stomach turned again, this time with anger. She knew that arrowhead. One of the neighbors used a bow to hunt, some smug bastard who thought proximity gave him the right to turn anything that moved into game. You hunt food, Maxine thought bitterly. Not people. But even as her fists clenched, the bitterness dimmed beneath something colder.

She knew who this was. Or at least, what. This was the predator Steve had warned her about, the one who snatched a goat from a nearby farm weeks ago, the one who’d been prowling too close to her fence for too long now. She should’ve been relieved, maybe even smug. This was the threat, neutralized by someone else’s hand. A loose end tied off. And yet, she wasn’t. The scene felt wrong. It didn’t belong on her land. Predator or not, this wasn’t how it should have ended.

She stood frozen for a long moment, torn between duty and instinct. The logical thing, the responsible thing, was to end it now. Spare the poor thing the pain of bleeding out. One bite to the neck, fast and clean. No suffering. It would be kinder than leaving her like this. But Maxine didn’t move. Couldn’t. The longer she stood there, the more the shape in the grass looked like something she couldn’t bring herself to kill. Maybe it was the way she was still breathing. Maybe it was the eyes, glazed and half-shut, but not gone. Maxine just didn’t want to admit she felt sorry for her.

With a reluctant growl, she crouched beside the body, one hand hovering near the wound but not yet touching. Her voice came low, steady. “Can you hear me?” she asked, more a warning than a question. “I’m gonna pick you up. Don’t bite me.” She waited a beat, then carefully slid her arms beneath the demi’s limp form, lifting her with slow, practiced strength. The body was light, probably hasn’t eaten a lot in the past weeks. Maxine didn’t let herself think about that.

The little hut stood further down the slope, nestled between two trees like it was hiding. Steve had built it for her one winter when she refused to come inside. She rarely used it. Too soft, too distant from the herd. But now, for once, it served its purpose. A place to patch wounds and keep secrets. And this secret was all Maxine could think about as she carried the demi inside.

The past few days had put Maxine on edge in a way she hadn’t felt in years. Not the sharp, immediate edge of danger where adrenaline took the wheel and instincts made the decisions. The kind that settled deep into her muscles, made her tail twitch in her sleep and her ears flick at every branch that cracked near the fence line. Something was out there. She’d caught the scent a few times now, just faint enough not to be sure. Another demi, no question, the smell was too sharp, too wild to be anything else. And while they hadn’t crossed the line yet, hadn’t so much as taken a single lamb, the herd had grown restless. The sheep were clustered tighter than usual, huddling near her even in the warmth of day, and that wasn’t just coincidence. Something was watching.

She hadn’t slept well since. But the strike never came. No broken fence posts, no missing animals, no blood in the grass. Just the same scent, the same soft sound of feet skirting just beyond the trees, and the same stillness afterward. It made her wonder. Maybe this wasn’t an ambush waiting to happen. Maybe it was curiosity. Hunger, maybe, or desperation. She didn’t like the idea of assuming the best, it wasn’t the kind of thinking that kept you alive in her line of work, but the longer this dragged on, the more the silence started to speak. Maybe they don’t want a fight, she thought, not for the first time. Maybe they just don’t know how to ask for help.

A thought formed, reluctant at first, then sharper the more it settled in. If they weren’t here to tear through the flock, maybe there was room to talk. Maxine had never put much stock in diplomacy, she was raised to guard, not negotiate, but something about this felt different. So she made a plan. Nothing complex. Just a gesture. A piece of bread, a bit of dried meat from the house, nothing too generous, but enough to signal peace.

She walked to the edge of the pasture, stopping just short of the tree line. The air was quiet, thick with the scent of pine and old moss. Her fingers clenched slightly around the food, and she let her weight shift into one leg, posture steady, calm, unthreatening or as unthreatening as a Anatolian shepherd guardian could look.

“You there,” she called out, voice even, not loud but sharp enough to carry between the trees. Her ears stayed alert, but her tone never wavered. “I know you’re in there. Come out.”

Maxine had been half-dozing in the tall grass, her thick arms folded under her head and her legs stretched out stiffly, tension still clinging to her body like sweat. The night before had been long, too long. Something had been in the woods. Not just the usual rustling of a fox or distant howl of a wolf, but something else. Heavier. Slower. Watching. She hadn’t caught its scent, not clearly, but she’d felt it. A presence, lurking just beyond the tree line, patient in a way other predators rarely were. Her ears had twitched at every sound, eyes flicking between the brush and the herd, and though she hadn’t moved from her post, she hadn’t slept either. Dawn brought no peace, just the slow ache of exhaustion in her limbs and the chill that came when fear had passed but never quite left. So when the first rays of morning sun broke over the hill, she finally let herself sink into the grass, hoping for just an hour. Just one hour to close her eyes and loosen her grip on the world.

She didn’t get it. The soft thud of feet on grass cut through the still air like a whipcrack. Light, but fast, too fast, too frantic to be Maya or Steve. Her ears jerked up before her eyes even opened, and in one breathless second she was up. Scrambling to her feet, dirt clinging to her arms, breath already tight in her chest. No. No, not now, she thought bitterly, ears swiveling as she caught the scent. Sharp, wild, and distinctly unfamiliar. “Oh, no no,” she growled under her breath, and then she was moving.

She ran like the wind had shoved her from behind, her boots tearing through the grass, heartbeat pounding in her ears. The wild demi ahead of her hadn’t noticed her yet, too focused on the sheep, that reckless little idiot, and Maxine’s fury sparked hotter with every step. This wasn’t a game. That herd was hers. Her responsibility. Her life. And no feral stranger was going to tear through it just because they didn’t know how to act like a person.

The moment she was close enough, she kicked off the ground with both legs and tackled the stranger hard, their bodies hitting the earth with a muffled thud. She landed on top, one forearm pressing into the demi’s shoulder, her other hand gripping the collar of their shirt. A deep growl rumbled from her throat, low, warning, protective. Her canines flashed as she bared her teeth, eyes narrowed with a sharp, territorial edge.

“You,” she snarled, voice low and ragged with the weight of no sleep and too many threats, “don’t touch my sheep.”