by Amir Lane
Wolf Kin
A Werewolf Short Story
Amir Lane
Wolf Kin
Copyright © 2017 by Amir Lane
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events, places, or characters is completely coincidental.
Cover by Small Blue Bird Design
Formatting by Keyminor Publishing Services
Lisandros "Lysander" Athanas adjusts to life as a werewolf.
68 Pages
To Devin,
who is probably still listening to me scream about this.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
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About the Author
Chapter 1
A dog attack put Lysander Athanas in the hospital for almost an entire fucking week.
The whole thing had been a complete shit show and, as far as his foster parents were concerned, his own fucking fault for sneaking out. How was he supposed to know he’d get attacked walking back to the house? Beaten, sure. Mugged, definitely. It had been the middle of the night and he’d been wasted off his ass. He’d known damn well what was waiting for him at home, and he needed the drinks to take the edge off before it went down.
What he hadn’t know was what was waiting for him on the way back.
Seven hours in surgery, about forty-six stitches, and one mild infection later, he was on his way with some antibiotics, painkillers, and a note for gym class. Too bad that note couldn’t get him out of getting his ass kicked. During every weekly checkup since, a well-meaning nurse looked at the opened stitches and the bruises and looked deep into his tired eyes.
“Is someone hurting you?” they would ask.
They had to. Any time someone came in with an injury that could have maybe possibly resulted from domestic abuse, they had to ask. It was tempting to say yes. To explain that all he’d wanted to do was go to bed early to sleep off some of the pain, and he’d gotten the shit kicked out of him for being ‘disrespectful’. It wouldn’t matter, though. Eleven years in foster care had taught him that.
The nurse this week was young, and ideallistic-looking. Young nurses were the worst. They still believed in the system. She probably couldn’t imagine that telling the truth could be worse than keeping quiet. Lysander knew what would happen, though. It was the same thing that always happened. The cops or social services would show up, look around the house, talk to his foster parents of the month. If they cared enough, they might talk to him, too, but probably not. Best case scenario, he’d be with another family or in a group home or back in juvie.
Lysander must have hesitated to long, because the nurse touched his hand with a not-so-comforting smile. He pushed his hair out of his face to mask the flinch.
“You can tell me the truth,” she said, and she probably believed it.
The truth.
The truth was, like most foster kids he knew, he’d been born to an alcoholic father and a heroin addict mother. Lysander was sure one led to the other, at least in his case. His father was an angry man who took it out on both Lysander and his mother until she OD’d when he was seven or eight or something.
Then it was just him taking all his father’s crap, being the only outlet for his anger.
The truth was nobody cared. Nobody cared that Dick-Face Athanas had broken his own son’s collarbone and told the ER staff it was from a ski trip. Never mind that Lysander had never gone skiing in his life. People only cared that his father had walked into his former place of employment with a hunting riffle and shot four people. Only one died — thank God, Lysander supposed — and it had been more than enough to send him away for a long time while Lysander, too old to be cute and adoptable, was shoved into a group home and forgotten.
The truth was nobody wanted to adopt a nine year old Mexican-Greek mix from an addict family. So he went from home to home, became one of those kids people took in because nobody else would, one of those kids everybody expected would end up in prison anyway.
And he did.
A year and a half on possession with intent to distribute. How else was a fourteen-year-old supposed to make enough money to buy himself out of the system?
Who would ever want him after that?
People who stole his painkillers for himself and punched his stitches until the pain made him puke, that was who.
Lysander looked at the nurse, at her sincere face, and he really did consider telling her the honest-to-God truth.
And he did.
“You can’t help me.”
Chapter 2
Lysander didn’t feel good. He really didn’t feel good. A whole month, give or take, since the attack, and he should have been feeling much better. The doctor even said so. He probably would have been if his foster dad hadn’t decided to see if he could snort his fucking antibiotics and shit, too. He’d thought the off-brand Tylenol and Advil and ice was doing the trick.
Apparently not.
The fever was back. It soaked his shirt through to the point of being transprent and it clung to his skin, though he couldn’t stop shivering. He tried to hide from the head-splitting migraine under the sheets, despite it only making him hotter, but the TV downstairs was too loud. The sound bore into his skull and smashed his brain against the bone.
He kicked off the damp sheets with as much energy as he could muster. At least the sun had gone down and the moon was rising, cooling the room some. The strength to push himself up escaped him, and he rolled off the thin mattress into a half-standing position. Blood swarmed around his head and it was a moment before the dizziness cleared. His head rushed and he had to support himself against the wall to stay upright.
The bedroom door was unlocked, which meant it wasn’t curfew yet. Or maybe Frank had just forgotten to lock him in again. Lysander flicked the light switch outside his room and upstairs went dark. There was some relief, but it did nothing for the sound. His skull throbbed. He forced himself to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat.
Walking didn’t hurt until he started on the stairs. Something about the shift in his weight, which really wasn’t much for his age and height, landed wrong in his back. A cold pain raced across his pelvis and up his spine. His legs and feet tingled, and he found himself imagining life without use of his legs. That was what that meant, right? Some kind of spinal damage bullshit? But his legs kept working at least long enough to get him down the stairs. He fell into the wall, panting heavily.
“I need to go to the hospital,” he rasped.
Frank peered around the wall, looking up at Lysander from behind thick glasses. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the fact that Lysander could barely stand.
“And who do you expect to take you?”
Lysander pressed his forehead to the wall in an attempt to cool himself down. The drywall felt so cold compared to his burning skin, cold enough he nearly whimpered in relief. There was no way he could get himself to a hospital and Frank knew it.
“I really don’t feel good.”
As if to emphasize his point, his stomach twisted and he puked onto the floor before he could stop it. There was some slim consolation in the fact that he at least hadn’t had the stomach to eat much today, and not much came up. Frank didn’t see the plus side of it.
“You little piece of shit.”
A big, meaty hand clamped down on Lysander’s arm and wrenched it out of the socket as Frank pulled
him off the wall and up the stairs, cursing and swearing and spitting the entire way. Lysander stumbled behind him, tripping over his own bare feet and the edges of the steps. He hit bedroom floor with a scream. Cold pain tore his shoulder and jostled his hips, no carpet to soften the blow.
“Please,” he choked out, “please!”
The bedroom door slammed shut and the locks clicked.
Lysander struggled to shift into a position that didn’t make his shoulder or back worse. He dry-heaved onto the cheap, dirty laminate. Not like he could ruin it any more than it already was. Bile stung his throat but it was nothing compared to the cold burn that tore through his entire body as his bones began to break. His scream came out distorted and his vision blurred again until it went black. Muscles shifted, expanded, tore his skin open.
The volume on the TV went up to drown him out.
Lysander scrambed to his feet. Nails, then claws, scratched up the floor.
There was no rational thought in his mind when he opened his eyes to the red-less world, only anger. Anger at being beaten and caged, at having his pain ignored, at the hunger gnawing at his stomach and making his bottom ribs poke out.
Lysander wanted out of this room, and he wanted out now. He threw himself at the door. His shoulders didn’t even reach halfway up the door. Still, it rattled under his weight, but not enough. Again, he hit the door. Again and again and again until it splintered open.
“Hey!”
Even from the top of the stairs, Lysander could hear Frank standing again, the creak of the couch springs as his weight lifted, his heavy footsteps. The smell of cheap beer and cigarette smoke reached Lysander’s nostrils and he snarled. How many cigarettes had been put out on his body, by Frank and other men?
Too many.
Too fucking many.
Frank stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The stench of piss and fear hit Lysander’s nose. He didn’t give Frank the chance to run.
Chapter 3
Grass tickled Lysander’s bare skin, and the sun warmed his back where it came down through the trees. He rolled over, enjoying the heat. His room was always so cold in the morning. What time was it? Maybe he had a bit more time to sleep.
Lysander opened his eyes.
He was not in his room.
He was outside. And naked. Outside and naked.
‘Okay… This is new.’
He sat up, wincing at the throb in his temples and the sharp hunger in his stomach. Hunger wasn’t new to him, but hunger that actually made him nauseous was. He pressed his forehead to his knees, groaning.
“Morning.”
Lysander’s head jerked towards the warm voice and found himself eye-level with a firm pair of thighs and ass. A very naked, very masculine ass.
“What the fuck?”
He scrambled to his feel despite the deep ache in his muscles. His thighs felt like they’d been punched, which he wasn’t sure hadn’t actually happened. Possibilities of last night’s events floated through his mind, each more fucked up than the last. He couldn’t remember this guy hurting him, or worse, but he didn’t remember much of anything. For all he knew, he’d been roofied. It didn’t make sense that buddy would have stuck around, not that anything about this did make sense.
“What the fuck?” he repeated, falling against a tree. The bark was rough against his shoulder. “Who the fuck are you? What the fuck did you do to me?”
That kind of language would have gotten him smacked by Frank. Son of a bitch hated it when Lysander swore.
There was something about Frank at the back of his mind, the knowledge that he’d never be able to put his fat hands on Lysander or any other kid unfortunate to be stuck in his so-called care ever again. It was bullshit. He’d have to go back to that god-awful house and take whatever punishment he got for sneaking out again.
He didn’t remember sneaking out, though. He didn’t remember leaving the house, period.
The guy held his hands up and took a step back, putting a good amount of space between them. His shoulders dropped into a non-threatening stance, and he tipped his head to the side with something of a grin.
“Hey, man, relax. I didn’t do anything to you,” he said with conviction and sincerity.
And fuck if Lysander didn’t almost believe it. Buddy’s voice was honest, if there was such thing as an honest voice. Lysander tore his eyes from the half-hard dick in front of him — and if he finally developed the presence of mind to cover himself, it wasn’t out of self-consciousness — to look at his face. The guy was all right looking, the sort of thing that might have been called ‘classically handsome’ if he were in some shitty, English-class-classic. Not one of the popular ones, either, something obscure like Ordinary People or some shit. Lysander didn’t actually hate that one. Better than Catcher in the Fucking Rye and its faux-intellectualism. Whatever book this guy was from, he was tall, about Lysander’s height but not as broad, with straight, Photoshopped features. He looked like the kind of guy that would have been prom king.
He looked like the kind of guy Lysander dreamed about.
Lysander’s feelings about guys who looked like this guy were complicated. He did like the look of them, those firm muscles and that sharp V of his waist, but it had never been safe for him to like it too much. It still wasn’t. He didn’t know this guy or what he might do if he noticed Lysander looking too long.
“Yeah?” Lysander snapped. His throat was dry and his voice came out rough. He kept his eyes on those stupid cheekbones instead of his stomach. “So you wanna tell me why we’re both ass-naked? ‘Cause I don’t remember shit.”
“So I’m guessing you don’t remember where all that blood came from either, huh?”
“I—”
The strangeness of the words hit Lysander. He looked down at himself and found dried blood on the backs of his hands and wrists, and on his chest. When he wiped at his mouth and chin, more blood chipped off like dry paint. God, was that what that taste was? He hadn’t thought about the copper on his tongue, assumed he’d bitten his tongue again. His tongue poked around and found something between his teeth, something with a texture not unlike undercooked meat.
God, was that what that taste was?
Lysander doubled over and the contents of his stomach came up as if to help him piece the night together. His stomach acid was thick and red, soaked up by chunks of undigested tissue.
He’d been sick last night, too, hadn’t he? Or, he assumed it had been last night, he couldn’t really say. Frank had yelled at him, dragged him upstairs.
And then Frank had screamed.
Nothing solid came up anymore, thank fuck, only bile. A warm hand touched his bare shoulder blade. It was gentle, more gentle than any touch Lysander had received in longer than he wanted to admit. Reflex kicked in, and he flinched away.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.”
Again, the guy held his hands up.
“First shift, huh?” he said sympathetically, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Lysander.
“What?”
The guy nodded to the white lines of scar tissue on Lysander’s stomach. “Wolf attack? About a month ago?”
“Dog.” Lysander paused and frowned, working backwards. “Exactly a month.”
They were so not having the conversation Lysander thought they were having. No fucking way.
The guy twisted to show Lysander similar scars on his side. Did he have no problem with the fact that he was naked? That they were both naked? He turned back and held his hand out.
“I’m Scott Davies-Wright.”
“Lisandros— Lysander Athanas.”
After a moment, Scott obviously realized Lysander wasn’t going to take his hand and rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward grin. His perfect, straight teeth made Lysander hyper-aware of his own, crooked and, in the case of a couple back molars, missing.
Except, Lysander realized as his tongue moved out of habit to the hole in front of his wisdom tooth, they weren
’t missing anymore. All his teeth were where they were supposed to be, and none of them hurt when he prodded at them. No missing teeth, no cavities.
“Hey,” Scott said, interrupting his train of thought, “I’m parked about a kilometre down. I think I’ve got some spare clothes in the trunk. Is anyone waiting for you?”
Lysander thought of Frank, of the blood in his mouth, of the contents of his stomach, and shuddered.
“No,” he said quietly. “Nobody’s gonna be waiting for me.”
* * *
The sweats and hoodie Scott lent him were a little tight, but it was better than being naked. Lysander washed off as much blood as he could with a couple disposable bottles of water, warm from sitting in the trunk for who knew how long.
Scott drove a fucking convertible. Again, Lysander had that prom king image. Or maybe he was a drug dealer. Lysander still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that he’d been roofied. But as they sat in some locally-owned, free-trade, 24-hour, all-you-can-eat breakfast place that must have been the entry to heaven, Scott said the dumbest thing Lysander had ever heard in his life:
Werewolf.
Lysander tried not to laugh, since Scott was paying for the stack of pancakes and eggs and sausage they were scarfing down, but he choked on his second cup of coffee.
Werewolf. Was this guy fucking serious?
“You’re high,” Lysander said.
Scott shrugged, but he wasn’t looking at Lysander. He was looking at the TV behind Lysander’s head.
“That you?” he asked.
Lysander twisted around and lost his appetite. On the screen was Frank’s run-down, garbage house blocked off with police tape. Frank’s wife, Beth, wandered around in the background. A woman spoke to the camera, a black ticker-tape transcribing. Beside her head was an old picture of Lysander, a school picture from two homes ago.
