by Harry Nix
Now in his hybrid form, the apartment block smelt far worse than before. He could tell what Mr. Clovis had been cooking and caught the scent of old frying oil. There was dust and dirt and now mold as well. He caught a sharp chemical scent and wondered if Mr. Clovis had finally got it together to do some cleaning using some kind of harsh product.
Deciding he didn't want to spend a single minute more here than he had to, he bounded up the stairs, passing the second floor in a blur and getting to his front door.
He gave a sniff and confirmed that there definitely hadn't been anyone up here other than him for days.
It was only when he reached his door that Alex realized the shifter ring had worked perfectly – his clothes had vanished rather than being torn to pieces and his bag which he’d slung over a shoulder had gone too. But where? Have they teleported somewhere or were now invisible? It was another query to add to a long list.
Alex quickly shifted back to human and his clothes and the bag reappeared in the blink of an eye. He got out his keys and opened the door, going inside and then locking it behind him.
The moment he was inside, the sensation of otherness grew. Although he’d only been gone a few days it felt like he'd been gone months or even years, as though this wasn't his home but a place he’d once lived that he was now stranger to.
Alex put his bag on the kitchen table and then shifted again back to his hybrid state, feeling far more comfortable as a towering eight-foot-tall werewolf rather than the human version of himself.
He quickly found his home laptop sitting on his bed where he’d left it. He unplugged it and stuffed it in his bag and then grabbed the stick blender from the top kitchen drawer and took that too. After that, he looked around, wondering what exactly he should do next. It was clear he couldn't stay here. Given he was a target, where could he stay? He hadn't had any discussion with Juno and Nia. Was it assumed that they’d just live with Juno?
The anger started to rise again. Not only have those insane mages taken away the game that he'd dedicated himself to, they'd made him homeless as well.
Alex looked around his small apartment. Although he didn't have much, it was still worth something. A television and not entirely crappy sound system and entertainment unit to stack it on. The sofa, fridge, and his bed. He went to the closet and opened it, quickly discovering that none of his clothes would fit him any more even in his human state. It was a shame, because he had a semi-decent suit in there. Alex held it up against himself and realized his new bulky shoulders would rip it. He put it back, wondering if he could get a few bucks for it online.
He walked over to the large front window that overlooked the street and the small park, spotting Juno lounging beneath the trees. Nia was nowhere to be seen.
Although Alex had some money in his bank account, there was definitely no way he wanted to abandon everything so Mr. Clovis could nail the door shut. But it wasn’t like he could just hang around and run a yard sale to get rid of it all. It was another example of how the weredogs and the mages had screwed his life. No way to get fifty bucks for his television while keeping an eye out for a psychotic mage.
Feeling his mood darken, Alex left the window and looked back over his apartment. Maybe he could take a photo and sell the lot to someone for five hundred bucks.
Alex got ready to go back downstairs, trying to remind himself there were at least some upsides to this situation, the first and foremost being Nia... and maybe the second being Juno.
He’d just picked up his bag when he felt the hairs on his body bristle. An immense feeling of wrongness swept over him and the chemical smell from downstairs suddenly intensified.
Some wild instinctual part of him took over. He sprinted straight for the third story window, smashing through it just as an enormous explosion tore up from the bottom floor in a fireball of pure heat.
Alex went sailing out through the front window and had once again clearly misjudged his speed and trajectory. He fell in a perfect arc, caving in Boris’ roof and smashing the side windows before rolling off and skidding along the ground, trying to hold his bag so he didn’t destroy his laptop. He felt the Great Barrier pull on him, but it wasn't much. The explosion had clearly attracted everyone's attention. Wary that he might be attacked at any moment, Alex shifted back to his human form and turned around in time to see the entire building collapse down into itself.
Whomever had set the explosives had done a professional job. The explosion had gone directly up and then collapsed the building in on itself, landing in a perfect pile of rubble and fire. There were kids in the park nearby, who was standing mouths wide open, but unharmed.
“Alex? Is that you? Are you okay?”
He turned to see old Mrs. King, who lived in the neighboring building. They’d met a few times when she’d be out watering the flowers that she was growing in the small communal garden.
“Yeah, I got out in time,” he said, still stunned.
“Where have you been? The police came asking about you. I just saw you jump out that window! How did you do that?”
Alex got the feeling that he definitely had to get out of there right away. An explosion like this meant police attention and Mrs. King would be sure to tell them that she'd seen him. What answer could he give? Yes I was missing for a few days, so I came back to get my laptop and stick blender and luckily got out right before it exploded! They’d probably think that he’d detonated the place.
He saw Juno approaching from one direction and Nia from the other. He said goodbye to Mrs. King without answering her questions and rushed back to Boris.
Juno waved a hand and Alex felt the magic pull, seeing the same spells before that had returned Boris back to his original state. The roof that he'd crushed popped back out. The three of them got in, careful to avoid the broken glass from the windows that were only starting to heal themselves.
He saw Mrs. King look, frown and then look away, putting a hand to her head.
“These mages are insane,” Juno said, starting Boris and then hitting the gas.
“I didn't see anyone, but I agree, you can't go back anywhere that you used to go,” Nia said.
“The building was empty – no people at all. Just bugs, rats and mice. I smelt chemicals on the ground floor when I went in but I thought it was maybe the owner cleaning. It must have been explosives or something used to cover up their smell. Are mages really that insane to wire up an entire building just to kill me?” Alex asked.
“You're the first werewolf mage that I've ever heard of, and I mean ever. I don't know why that would be so dangerous though. Like yeah, maybe you can write a bit of magic into other people’s spells, but is that really worthy blowing up entire apartment building? I just don't know,” Juno said.
Alex forced himself to relax and sit back, realizing he been sitting with all his muscles tensed up as though he was going to be attacked at any moment. As he watched the windows reform, Alex tried to collect his thoughts but they were a confusing maelstrom.
Bailey saying Arkovis werewolves had been forced off their land so now they were flooding into Baxer. The surreal experience of seeing a pawn shop where there definitely hadn’t been one before. Weredogs and magic rings. Everything he owned obliterated.
Although he had Nia pressed up against him and could smell her comforting scent he still wished he could close his eyes and make all this go away.
15
The drive back to Juno’s was done in a shocked silence – but that only lasted until they got inside the house.
“You! What are you?” Juno said, whirling around in her lounge and pointing a finger at Alex. It seemed the initial calmness she’d had when driving Boris had evaporated.
“What? We went over this.”
“Not enough. Mages don’t detonate an entire apartment block for some no-name werewolf, magic or not. So I want to know who you are. Who made you.”
“Juno, he doesn’t know his parents,” Nia said.
“Who raised you then?”
The witch was breathing heavily and pacing around. Alex noticed her hands were shaking and there was a quaver in her voice.
“Her name was Jane Merryweather. She was sixty-five when she took me in at the age of two. She died right after I graduated high-school, when she was eighty-one. She’d raised a lot of adopted children over her life and I was her last. Those plants on the windowsill came from her,” Alex said.
He wasn’t sure Juno heard him though. She was pacing and still breathing like she’d just run a sprint.
“Juno–” Nia started to say.
“What!”
A burst of cold filled the room in an instant. A filigree of fractal ice climbed the wall behind Juno, quickly spreading to the ceiling.
“What did Jane tell you about your parents?” Juno said.
Alex watched as the ice continued to crawl its way across the ceiling. He let out a breath and saw it plume into the air, like it was now the coldest winter day on record.
“She told the truth – that they died when I was very young. After she passed, I ended up with a few boxes of my things... you know, school reports, pictures I'd drawn, awards and somewhere in there were my adoption papers. I never really bothered to look into it because far as I'm concerned, Jane was my mother. She raised me. She cared for me.”
“Where are those papers now?”
“The boxes were in my closet so I guess amongst the burning rubble that used to be my apartment,” Alex said. The sting of it made him wince. The papers he could live without. After all, who needed their fourth-grade report card? But the plants that Juno had seen growing along the windowsill in pots had been succulent cuttings from Jane's garden that she'd given him. Alex had moved them from home to college and every house he’d lived in. Now they were destroyed as well.
“There's has to be more to this story. I have a really bad feeling. There is something seriously seriously wrong. We need to find out who you are, who your parents were or how you came to be adopted. You could have been killed back there!” Juno said.
With that she broke, the tears streaming down her face quickly crystallizing into ice. Juno turned and finally noticed the ice climbing the wall.
“Oh and great – Chaos Witch nonsense again. Just what we need!”
Alex wasn't quite sure what to do. Hug her? Tell her it would all be okay? Right now it felt like a lie.
Juno turned, starting to pace again and just then Nia shifted into her hybrid form, closing the distance between her and Juno and kissing the little witch, pulling her body close. Alex gave a double blink – he hadn't expected this. It certainly one way to help someone calm down.
Juno relaxed against Nia, absorbed in the kiss. When they broke apart, Nia kissed a trail down Juno’s neck before turning to look at Alex.
“She’s cold. Get over here and help me warm her up,” she commanded. Alex shifted just in time for Nia to reach out and grab him, pulling him behind Juno, the little witch in between them.
It was true what she said – the room was already below freezing and Juno skin was as cold as ice. Alex wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, bending down to press his face against the back of her neck. Her scent was there again, that spice but no warmth now, just a deep and eternal cold, like the polar ice caps frozen for millennia. Nia reached up and clasped the back of his neck before giving him a kiss over Juno’s head.
“You take one side I'll take the other,” she whispered to him before she returned her attentions to Juno's neck and earlobe.
Alex dipped his head again, breathing in Juno's scent and then kissed her gently on the neck. Although Juno was freezing cold, it seemed that when he returned for a second kiss the spot on her neck had begun to warm. He kissed her again and then gently bit her earlobe.
Juno had been quiet through this. She still had frozen tears on her cheeks and the kiss from Nia had silenced her. Now as the two werewolves kissed each side of her neck she began to let out a small grasps and gentle sighs.
Although at first Alex felt as though he was hugging a block of ice, the deep cold radiating from Juno started to fade. With each kiss on her neck, the temperature rose and Alex saw from the corner of his eye the fine lacing of ice retreating down the wall.
Alex ran his hand up Juno's body, feeling she was quickly warming and then the witch surprised him by giving him a quick kiss before turning back to Nia. She pressed her butt against Alex, a subtle movement at first, as though she was unsure whether she had permission to.
Soon Juno was pushing hard back against him and his body was responding. A wild roar seemed to be filling his head again and then Alex realized he was the sound of his own heart beating and blood rushing about his body. With the three of them so intimately connected, he could feel the magic again, sloshing and surging. Soon, Juno was no longer being passively kissed by the two of them. She wrapped her arms around Nia, kissing her back, the werewolf turning her head to the side as Juno ran a hand through her hair and nibbled her neck.
Alex breathed in and this time through the scent of Juno's magic he could smell her need and also Nia. He could tell Juno was wet and ready for him. But he wasn't sure he could move from here. This moment felt like a soap bubble that would break. Was it only happening because the three of them had almost died?
It was Nia’s moan as Juno's hand made its way between her legs that finally wiped away all indecision. He picked up Juno and put her over his shoulder before grabbing Nia’s hand, heading for the closest bedroom, which was Juno's. It was a warm cozy space with a large queen-size bed covered in soft pillows. There was a wooden desk in the corner, a full-length mirror and a pair of lacy red underwear and bra hanging off a chair.
Alex lowered Juno on to the bed and stepped back. He was in his hybrid werewolf form, effectively naked. As soon as he put Juno down, Nia grabbed hold of is hardness.
Alex took a halting breath he felt Nia's fingers around him. Juno was on the bed, her pupils wide, her blonde hair mussed and red lips wet and inviting.
“Do you want to take your payment for helping us early?” Nia asked.
Juno nodded.
“You're wearing too many clothes my little witch,” Nia said.
Juno had on a skirt and a T-shirt, which she quickly shimmied out of. Underneath she had on the bright red lacy bra that Alex had seen at the Grease Trap. Her body was smooth and slender like Nia but she also had a bubble butt and the bra was holding up some epic cleavage. As Alex watched Juno reach behind her and undid her bra, flinging it across the room before her hands came down to loop into the sides of her panties so she could strip them off. She threw them at his feet and he could smell the scent of her on them.
“She needs a tongue first, alpha,” Nia said to him. She let go of his cock as Alex kneeled onto the bed, the springs letting out a protest at his weight. Juno had moved back up the bed but her legs were still spread. He saw around her ankle she was wearing a gold bracelet with little charms on it. He grabbed both her ankles and pulled her down the bed towards him, Juno letting out a squeal of surprise.
Normally Alex would have waited, building up kisses from foot to calf to need to inner thigh but the scent of the two girls was driving him wild.
He pulled Juno close and then slipped his tongue into her as a little witch let out a moan.
Despite Juno being ice-cold only a short time ago she was now burning hot. It felt like he was sticking his tongue into a hot cup of tea. The scent of her was like the taste of her – warmth and spice. He grasped her by the waist as he began licking. As he did, he saw Nia come across on the bed and bend down to give Juno a passionate kiss. It was hard to maintain through Juno’s moaning, however.
From Alex's position he could see the curves and rises of Juno's body, the shape of her hips and her breasts. The curve of her neck. The way her hands grabbed at the bed sheets. As Nia kissed Juno, Alex saw she’s slipped back from the fully hybrid state. She was now a wolf girl with furry ears and a tail. As Alex concentrated on teasing Juno w
ith his tongue he saw Nia lift her leg and place herself over Juno's mouth, before sliding back onto it, letting out a gasp as the little witch began licking between moans of her own. Nia reached down and began gently pinching Juno's nipples as she started rocking her hips back and forth. Sometimes as she moved, Alex could see her rising up, a small gap forming between her and Juno. He saw Juno's small pink tongue licking Nia.
The scent and taste of the magic changed then – it seemed to grow warmer as the connection between the three of them grew more intense. From the corner of his eye. Alex saw sparkles appearing. This time they weren’t golden but rather a deep red. Through the connection he could feel both the girls climbing towards orgasm, Nia riding Juno's tongue and Juno jolting beneath his.
It wasn't long before Nia's gasps grew more urgent and then she clenched her thighs, pressing herself down on Juno's mouth while she pinched Juno's nipples with both hands. Alex felt a surge in the magic as though a jolt of power had been released as Nia came. It rippled around between them and as he licked Juno, sending her over the edge, she gave a muffled moan and clenched her legs together, trapping his head. He was stuck there for a few moments, mouth full of the little witch, quivering and twitching beneath him. Eventually, Juno released his head and Alex could pull his head back. She saw that Nia had slipped off Juno and was standing up by the side of the bed, albeit somewhat shakily.
“Oh goddess, this has been such a good deal,” Juno moaned.
“Still gets better,” Nia said she came around to Alex was kneeling and bent over and kissed him, virtually licking the wetness from his face. Alex in his hybrid form was more wolf than man, covered in dark hair and weighing more than both girls put together. He stood up at Nia surging and then she grasped again, gently moving her fingers up and down.
“I am yours and she is yours and you are ours,” Nia whispered to him.
That inner wild part howled in agreement and Alex didn't resist as Nia pulled him up the bed and gently pushed Juno's legs apart. Alex soon had his cock touching Juno, feeling that liquid heat at the end of it, still with Nia’s fingers around him. Juno was breathing in short gasps seeming hypnotized and frozen beneath them.
