The snow was old, left too long in the cold harsh wild to
become crisp and hard. The kind of crisp that would snap beneath even the
lightest foot fall and drag you deeper into its icy grip, only to fill you
boots with that wet cold shock. The silence about me was deafening, and at the
same time far to quiet. The setting sun before me was unnerving in its
perfection, and the quiet about me was just screaming for something to go
wrong. I wanted to flee, to go home, but there was no returning now. And so I
sat, I sat and watched the setting sun; it was as if the sun had exploded all
over the serene scape. A blood bath of reds and orange, that covered the white
open terrace before me, a horrific accident that kept bleeding as the sun went
down, darkening the reds until it appeared as if the very sun had bled out and
at the same time was beating down on its own blood drying it to darker hues and
shades of reds and browns. Yet there was no heat, the cold about me seemed to
eat away the heat and my only warmth the sun gave and left me shivering in the
middle of this beautiful wasteland; a shivering naked boy alone; so alone.
Angelina was gone. How long had it been now, that I sat here, sat here without
her? Waiting for it all to be a dream, waiting for my body to wake up and my
head to clear of the tragedies that had happened? I couldn’t remember but I
knew it had been far too long, the cold had set in, and the sun was almost down
again.
I glanced down to my hands, they were the only warm bit on me and I saw the
blood stained upon them thinking it just the sun playing tricks on my mind, the
sun’s rays skipping off the white before me and staining my skin, but this
blood was real, there was no pretending. It was caked on, even below my
fingernails, I remembered now. Trying to wipe the blood off frantically on to
my clothes, clean them of the horrendous acts they just committed, trying to
pretend what had happened wasn’t me, but I could still taste the cooper in my
throat, the sweat meat of her thigh tasted so good I couldn’t have stopped if I
wanted to. I could feel the tears welling up within my eyes. I was going to be
sick again. It was always like this. The only bit of human that was left in me
couldn’t handle the meat of a human, couldn’t bare the thought of it filling my
stomach and saiting that never dying hunger I had.
I was sick. It spread out before me in browns, and thick chunks of meat. It
steamed in the crisp evening air, the vile smell of decomposing meat.
Off in the distances I heard the howls, the pack calling to me. She led them;
she always led them to me. She wanted me back, she wanted a male to run the
pack, to breed with, to discipline and weed out the weak. She was hungry for
the flesh I had, she was hungry for me, and I refused to given in. I wasn’t
that. I never would be that, no matter how hard she pushed me.
I wiped at my mouth, the bile tasted worse this time, but still, the chunks of
flesh I saw within the brown bile made me so hungry. I hurriedly swallow down
the next batch of bile that rose from my stomach at the thought. What was this?
What was this I was becoming? To want, actually crave the tender flesh of
humans, no matter where it comes from? I was better then this, higher then
this, what would my parents think? What was it I was becoming? The answer was
so simple, so easy, it confused me at first to think of it, but it was true. A
monster. I was a monster. I shook my head and stood from where I had been
sitting. Anger welling within me as the snow fell off my pale skin and hit my
feet, like tiny sharp shards of glass, cutting abrasions into my feet that
healed almost instantly. I looked down to the frost bitten skin that was my
feet and thighs. It had all become so numb I never noticed before how much it
burned.
But the burning forgot to stop, forgot that it was to stay with the frostbite
and it rose from my feet, it rose and welled beneath my skin followed by that
hot itching. I knew all the sensations now, to well. I knew the feeling of what
it was as it washed over me and I lifted my face to the new rising moon. My
eyes glittering with tears as the moon above my head shone so peacefully, yet
pulled so violently at the beast below my skin, like it pulled at the ocean’s
water.
“I don’t want this! I don’t want any of this!” I tried to holler, but my
canines now were too long, and I more bellowed then said real words, an
animalistic howl on my behalf. What a beast.
I looked down to my hands to see the truth. I hadn’t noticed earlier while
sitting watching the setting sun, but my nails were lengthened again. The
transformation always snuck up. No matter. I lowered my hands and turned my
face to look off into the distances. I saw the pack sitting there, all perched
behind ‘her’ like watched dogs, and she stood before them. A long, lean form,
eyes glowing with a dark madness, her dark madness, her wolf that she hid
within a body she never truly owned, nor wanted to own. But no matter how hard
she tried to hide her beast, I could still see it, that flowing free beast that
ran below her skin and pleaded with me to come to her.
It was hard to resist her. I knew every curve of that body, and every inch of
her that could make me scream with painful delight. I knew her better then I
knew myself and I’d never even really seen her human body
before. But I knew if was I was to wrap my hands in that long
flowing hair of hers, the texture would be like silk in its long waves of
silver and brown, and it would cascaded over my hands to brush against every
curve of her body, across her pale white skin, covering her luscious curves,
but not hide them, no, her hair could never hide her body, it just made what
couldn’t be seen more tantalizing. And then as I gripped her hair, and pulled
her closer to me, her soft lips would spread to whisper sweet nothings to me,
and she would look at me, stare at me with those wide golden brown wolf eyes,
reading me, and knowing me as I knew her. Those eyes of hers could see me for
what I really was beneath this false body, the same body I never truly owned. But
I wasn’t, I was not a monster, and was not like her, never would be like her.
I fell to my knees as the sights over whelmed me. I could hear the wolves bay
behind me in unison to my pain.
She came up then slowly, alone, the other pack mates staying behind and she
laid a warm hand on my shoulder. I could feel beneath her skin, the comforting
feel of fur, as she must have felt beneath mine. It wrapped down my shoulder to
rub against me, to warm me and fall away the burning itch of the change below
my skin.
“Don’t fight it Ambrose.” She said in her thick French accent. Her words, like
her hair that now brushed my shoulders, silk. Wrapping me up in a soft warming
coat to relax away my fears. She was in essences everything warm, everything
soft and motherly, yet female, very female.
“Come with us? *S'il vous plaît mon chéri. Come join your true family. We need
you.”
I looked up and saw myself in her wide golden eyes. My short blonde hair a mess
and caked with blood. My clear blue eyes, clouded and hurt, and yet my eyes
drifted from that pathetic portrait of a naked boy to her lips. Those lips of
hers, so soft, and I knew she would drink of me, and take me away to a better
place. The pain would fall away, my mind would shatter but I would be safe. The
pack, it was safe.
She smiled carefully and held out a hand to me, her skin pulling back, jumping
and twisting as if her bones were hot and it wanted off her growing,
lengthening fingers. I don’t remember ever seeing her change before, I don’t
remember seeing her for that matter, but I knew the change was memorizing,
watching it like a dance, her body twisting like a burning leaf, the skin
peeling off in long strips, burning up to ash revealing the hard sinew muscle
below, glimpses of shiny bone, as the muscle wasn’t enough to cover every bone
as her body changed. The muscles would then blossom before your eyes, burst
larger, strong thicker, cover the exposed bone and then she would fall to all
fours and just look at you, with those sad golden eyes of hers. Then that was
it, it was over, and she would sit there, a naked wolf, which was faster,
smarter stronger then any wolf, and more murderous then any human. As she sat
there a new layer of skin would form over her new muscles then the fur would
come. A gust, that would rush over her body as if the wind it self carried the
seed that planted those strands. So graceful. So swift and sleek, but when you
are only borrowing a form, you real form always comes back less painful. Like
the change back too human for me. But before me she wasn’t truly changing, it
was just her hand, the skin already peeled back, her fingers elongated and
stretched, sharpening and twisting, then the new skin formed and was slowly
covered by that wave of fur that bobbed back and forth from the sheer force of
it being grown so quickly. She looked so comfortable with the
changes happening within her, waiting for me to accept it, to come into her
arms. I stayed fallen on my knees, the pain now just starting. I stared at my
hands long and hard willing for them to stay, not to change. I didn’t want to
know what would become of me if I lost control.
Her voice stayed kind, stayed in that same human purr that curled within my
chest and my breathing that much harder.
“Ambrose, you can not fight what the magic’s will….”
The wing picked up carrying her words back to the pack and their light howls
and whines of approval forced my attention away from my hands and up to her.
“Don’t speak my name. Don’t call me anything. Just leave me alone.” The words
came in an animalistic growl. It was becoming more and more difficult to speak.
My jaw felt different, I felt different, but I ignored it. I would not change.
I refused to.
“I don’t know you. I don’t… don’t know me. What have I become?!” The same
question I kept asking myself I asked her, hoping for a different answer.
She shook her head and leaned down towards me. She was as naked as me, and I
just noticed as she came closer, the heat rushing to my cheeks, and then
rushing quickly away as she touched my cheek.
“My child, you are my lover, my mate and my leader….”
The pack behind her cried out once more and her words rang out so true in my
head. How could she lie? Why would she? This felt so right, everything did. Why
was I fighting it?
“Oh, tsk tsk tsk.” She shook her head, those long tendrils of silver and brown
sweeping across her face as she shook her head. “What is this?” She lifted her
deformed hand. It had been resting within the bile I had been excreting from my
stomach all day.
“Was Angelina not… good enough for you?” Her eyes flashed, that fierce beast
was behind them, snarling and snapping, but as she looked down to her hand once
again, her beast rolled back and took a dormant stance once more. She lifted
her deformed paw/hand with a small chunk of meat within it.
“Fine selection. Mid thigh, just below the separation of the legs. Oh dear boy,
did you…? While you were…? Oh, I should have warned you, sex near the time of
the moons is bad.” She grinned an exotic smirk that sent chills down my spine,
then popped that small tender nib let of food into her mouth.
That ill wave of nausea swept over me; made my stomach clench, and I could no
longer remember what was causing it. The thought that I had already eaten that
piece of meat, and she just ate it. The fact that that small piece of meat was
all I had left of Angelina, or if in fact it was the change. I looked up at the
wolf and my eyes slowly trailed over her clean-cut frame, trailing on her
breasts then to her eyes. I could remember now, what had happened. It felt all
like a dream, the night before with Angelina. I blinked and bit back tears. Her
hand was on my face, wiping at the tears.
“*Oh, mon petit chéri. You look so sad? Why? Tell me what happened.”