by C. J. Pinard
Crack-crack-crack… all the little bones in my face popped and began to protrude like I was getting ready to grow the snout I had become so accustomed to.
Still standing on two legs, I looked down at my hands to see them elongate, the nails at each tip grow to points. Blonde hair began to sprout on my hands and arms, and I was really confused as to what was going on.
Coarse, thick hair began to grow everywhere… and I do mean, everywhere. My feet morphed into some kind of monstrous, bony animal-type feet with my toenails elongating.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wasn’t in pain; I was frightened.
“What in the hell is happening to you, Ayla?” I heard Ryder ask in my head.
“I don’t know,” I said aloud, still staring at my hands and feet.
I then put my hands to my face and could feel a layer of hair there, too. My teeth had grown elongated and sharp, and stuck out below my lip. Mortified, I screamed again, and then opened my eyes to see my wolf brothers and sisters standing in front of me on all fours.
“Why is her shift taking so long?” Ryder asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Aden said, walking up to me and nudging my knee with his snout.
“I’m not changing, guys,” I said shakily, feeling the fever and pain subside. I was calmer now. Confused, but calmer.
“What are you? You look like some kind of caveman,” said Maria.
“With boobs,” Sam added.
The world looked strange through these eyes, like it did when I was the wolf, but a little clearer, and not black and white. I could see faint colors but everything was still shaded in a red halo on all sides.
I lumbered into the trailer and threw on a loose tank top and a pair of Ryder’s shorts, since obviously I was not going to be the wolf, and walked back outside. The pack was still standing around, just staring at me.
“What?” I asked awkwardly with fangs touching my bottom lip as I spoke. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” I looked down at myself, still sort of numb in shock, but secretly thrilled I wasn’t a full-blown wolf. I wasn’t sure this was better, but at least I had opposable thumbs.
They all stood there quiet, staring at me, and I began to panic that I couldn’t hear their voices anymore.
“Well, don’t just stand there staring at me, you mutts. Let’s go eat!”
“Mutts! You look like Bigfoot’s bitch,” Aden said, muttering a laugh and turning tail.
“Funny,” I said dryly, following the wolves into the forest. It was odd to be up this high, seeing things from up here instead of at wolf level. It was odd that I could look at each wolf and know exactly who was who.
I walked as stealthily as I could, even though it was hard to in this form. I wasn’t just covered in hair, my bones felt heavier, and it was a little hard to breathe. I followed as quietly as I could, and when we all heard a twig snap off in the distance, we froze. I spotted with my new eyesight a doe about fifty yards away, and looked down to see my brothers and sisters also looking in its direction.
In the same way we always did, half of us began to move in unison toward the doe, while the other half of the pack began to move in the opposite direction for another victim.
I watched in awe as my brothers and sisters stalked with complete silence and grace toward their prey. I stepped on an acorn and it made a popping sound under my foot. The doe looked up from where she was eating, saw me, and took off running in the opposite direction.
Shit!
“Goddammit!” Sam cried.
“That sucks!” Aden said.
The rest of the wolves grumbled and moaned in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said aloud. “I didn’t know there were so many acorns around here. I’ll try to be quieter.”
They all just stared at me, then Ryder finally spoke. “Ayla, maybe you should just go to the trailer and get some rest or something.”
“But I’m really hungry,” I whined.
“Then eat some pizza. I brought five of them for snacks when we shift back,” Aden answered. “They’re in the trailer’s kitchen.”
I felt hurt by his comments, but knew I was just hindering them. I nodded and lowered my head and made my way back to the camp so they could hunt in peace.
I lay on one of the beds, unable to move. I had eaten at least five slices of pizza and felt sick. I had been so ravenous with hunger, I hadn’t been thinking. I looked down to see a horrific, strange hand on my protruding belly and realized it was my own. Slowly rising from the bed, I went to the small bathroom inside the trailer and put my hands on either side of the sink. I took a deep breath before lifting my face to the small mirror attached to the wall.
I screamed at my reflection. I truly did look like the Wolfman from the old horror comic books. Pointed ears, wild hair, yellow eyes that were red in the middle, a slit for a pupil, and lots of hair. I had hair everywhere. Cheeks, forehead, ears, chin, neck… oh, my God.
I opened my mouth to see a set of gleaming white teeth with those sharp incisors protruding. I lifted a hairy finger to one and when I touched the tip of one, I was rewarded with a stinging poke to my finger. I licked the blood that beaded there, and realized that I was still hungry.
But how can that be? I just ate so much. Then I realized that pizza could not satiate the hunger that went down to the very core of me. But where would I get some of the red stuff? I obviously was too big and lumbering to sneak up on some poor, unsuspecting animal. I grew sad when I realized that I kind of wished that I could be the wolf once more. She was stealthy and graceful and could hunt with the best of them. She was accepted and loved by her pack.
This thing looking at me in the mirror was nothing but an unnatural monstrosity. I used to think becoming the wolf was unnatural and an abomination. But I had eventually come to accept that I wasn’t any of those things; the magic in the blood of which I was born was just the way it was supposed to be. I was born to be a wolf, to shift during a full moon. As much as I loathed it, to hunt, and kill, and protect my brothers, was all I had.
But this thing staring back at me in the mirror was not natural. It was an abomination. This was what a hybrid looked like. Wasn’t that what Sanja had called me? A hybrid? It had to be the reason why I couldn’t fully shift anymore. I had too much vampire venom in my system. Maybe the venom would eventually leave, and at the next full moon, I would fully turn into the wolf and I could put this all behind me. I believed it was possible that this could be temporary. After all, wouldn’t the magic in my blood fight the venom? All I knew was that being a hybrid wasn’t going to work for me. I could not turn into this hideous beast once a month. At least when I was the wolf, I had my brothers and sisters—my pack—and we just accepted what we were and spent three days together doing what we had been cursed to do.
But this? How in the hell was I supposed to deal with looking like this once a month for eternity? My pack clearly wasn’t going to accept me like this, and it wasn’t like I could go hang with Beckett on the weekends unless it was, like, Halloween.
Fuck my life.
Chapter 23
That was three days of hell. As Ryder and I drove off the mountain early Monday morning, I was emotional, restless, and exhausted. He hadn’t said much during the daytime we were up there, just acted like he normally did, but now he just seemed withdrawn. We had driven a half hour in silence before I couldn’t take it any longer.
“I need you to say something.”
He cut me a sideways glance as he drove, then put his eyes back on the road. “I literally don’t know what to say.”
“And you think I do?” I snapped. “I’m terrified about this.”
“So am I,” he said. “It’s weird and I’m confused. Hell, the whole pack is. Why aren’t you shifting all the way, Ayla?”
I adjusted my leg under my other as I sat in the front seat of his muscle car. “I have a theory.”
“I’m all ears, babe.”
“Sanja says I’m a hybrid. That beca
use a young vampire bit me, he released too much venom into me because he couldn’t control it.”
“Like a baby rattlesnake,” he said quietly.
I smiled. “That’s exactly the analogy she used.”
He tapped his fingers on and gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter, the morning sunlight bathing half his face in topaz light. “It makes sense.”
“It does, but it doesn’t solve my problem. Believe it or not, I’d grown used to becoming the wolf. Now I’m just a damn monstrosity. I won’t ever get used to becoming that.”
He nodded. “It was quite strange, I won’t lie. I’d grown so accustomed to the sleek, beautiful wolf, that you standing there looking like you did… it… it was unnerving, to say the least.”
I felt hurt and a little angry. “It was… unnerving? How do you think I felt? I am still completely mortified that happened to me!”
He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just tired, and…”
“It’s fine, Ryder. I’m tired, too. I can only hope that the venom will leave my system soon and things can get back to normal.” I finished my sentence with a cringe, knowing that nothing about this discussion was ‘normal’. Not even close.
He reached over and grabbed my hand. He gave it a squeeze. “Let’s hope.”
We drove in comfortable silence the rest of the way home. Ryder crashed at my downtown apartment. After sleeping all day, I awoke around five p.m. to find he had already left while I’d been sleeping.
I wasn’t sure if I was happy or disappointed by that, as all my dreams had been about the mysterious vampire, Kellan.
I had to find a new job. I was gonna throat punch the next asshole who yelled at me over the phone. Like, I would find them at their job, and go in and scream at them, then I would collapse their windpipe with my fist.
My rage was high today. I needed to play the Lotto or something, because this gig was not working for me.
Like, not at all.
“Yes, sir, I’ll be sure to put you through to the right person this time,” I replied in a cheery tone with no feeling behind it.
“Do not put me through to their voicemail. You hear me, young lady?” came an older man’s voice on the other end.
“Of course, sir, I’ll make sure.”
I pushed the transfer button, dialed the extension, and then hit send. I didn’t give a single crap if the supervisor answered or it went to his voicemail.
I looked at the clock and realized it was lunchtime. I was starving, as I had been since I started my shift, but nothing could satisfy me. I knew I needed blood, and I hated that fact, but it was a fact I couldn’t avoid. I was sure it was the reason for my elevated rage status.
A secretary named Nan came to relieve me of my receptionist duties so I could take my glorious sixty-minute lunch, and I thanked her with a weak smile before bolting out the door to my favorite deli three blocks away.
I ordered my Reuben sandwich and was handed a ticket with a number on it. As I stood waiting for it, I looked around and assessed the patrons in the restaurant. They all seemed to be wearing the same bored and uninterested faces. I watched as each one went to the counter to retrieve their lunch as their numbers were called.
I also began to feel a slight headache begin to build behind my eyes. Before I could analyze what was going on, the slight headache turned into a blinding migraine in my head and I fell to my knees, the ticket fluttering from my hand. I pressed the sides of my skull to quell the pain.
His eyes pierced me with some kind of control I’d never known before. I had no idea where I was, but I knew at the time that I just didn’t care. Nothing mattered but his deep, penetrating gaze. I felt a cold breeze skate over my skin, but I paid it no mind. Nothing mattered but him.
Without permission, my legs propelled my body in his direction as he stood stock-still, waiting with a grin on his perfectly smug but handsome face for me to come to him.
Oh, and come to him I did.
It was like his command had some gravitational pull; I was powerless to resist it. When I reached him, there was nothing I wanted more than to be embraced in his strong arms. To be held and touched by him.
I was rewarded when, within inches of him, his arms reached around my backside and pulled me flush against his rock-hard body. I looked up into his pale, chiseled face and waited for him to say something, but he never did. Only his sweet breath caressing my face greeted me before he leaned down and rewarded me with another searing kiss that made my toes curl.
Kellan.
Swooning, I knew this guy… this vampire… he was going to destroy me. And I would love every single second of it.
“Oh, my God, is she all right? I heard a voice say.
“Check to see if she has any head injuries,” another voice said.
I blinked open my eyes to see a crowd gathered around me. Quickly sitting up, the crowd in the deli slowly backed up when they saw that I was okay. I stood and, gathering my wits about me, grabbed the sandwich from the counter, and bolted out of there. I practically ran back to my job, wishing for a private place to eat my lunch so I could analyze the vision thing I’d just had.
I was terrified that the vision would come true again, like it had last time. But a small part of me was thrilled at the thought. I was conflicted and confused, just wanting to be alone.
Barely acknowledging Nan sitting at the front desk doing my job, I bolted past her and into the company’s breakroom, grateful it was empty.
Ravenous, I ripped open the sandwich, bit into it, and then pulled my phone from my pocket, shooting off a text to my new friend: I am having serious problems. I need a cocktail and an ear. You free tonight?
Knowing he was asleep, I put the phone back into my pocket and devoured my sandwich. The sauerkraut and mustard were so pungent and flavorful with the rye and corned beef, that my eyes rolled back in my head. I knew this sandwich wasn’t going to satisfy me completely, though.
Once done with my sandwich and bottle of water, I surfed on my phone for a bit until I realized it was time to go back to my perch at the receptionist desk where I would continue to get verbally assaulted for the next four hours.
As I was about to get up, the door whooshed open and one of the project managers, Lance, came in holding his hand. It was dripping blood everywhere, and he was cradling it in his other hand. His assistant, Jane, was behind him.
“Let’s get you to the sink,” she said, steering him toward it.
I was frozen, completely fixated on the blood dripping from his hand and onto the floor. My throat turned dry and I began to pant. I watched in strange fascination as they rinsed Lance’s hand under the faucet of cold, rushing water.
Jane turned around and looked at me. “Go get me the first-aid kit.”
I stared at her blankly. “Where is it?”
She huffed, and with her chin, indicated the wall across the room. “There.”
I nodded and rushed over to a glass box affixed to the wall that contained a first-aid kit and an AED machine. I opened the box and grabbed the kit, and with unnatural speed, set it on the counter next to Jane.
“Here you go,” I said.
Wait. What the hell just happened?
I’d never moved that fast in my life. I could run superfast, all wolves could, which was why we excelled in sports—that and our exceptional healing ability—but I’d never moved that fast. The room had passed me in a blur. Just like I’d seen vampires move.
Shit.
“Thank you,” Jane said, oblivious to what had just happened because her back had been to me. She opened the box and pulled out a small bottle that looked like some kind of superglue and a couple bandages. She also found a small bottle of antiseptic and untwisted the cap.
Shutting off the water, she grabbed Lance’s hand and set in on the counter. It continued to bleed at the edge of his palm, and my mouth began to water.
Dammit! I cleared my throat. “What happened?”
&n
bsp; Without looking at me, Lance said, “I was trying to clear a jam out of the copy machine and I sliced my hand on something inside the machine. I don’t even know what it was.”
“Wow. We should get hazardous duty pay to work here,” I said jokingly.
What a weenie.
“Seriously,” Jane said, squirting the antiseptic into his wound.
“Shit!” Lance yelled out, and I bit back a laugh.
“If nobody is going to die in here, I better get back to my desk,” I said slowly.
Neither of them responded, so I left the breakroom. The tiled floor leading to the breakroom had fat droplets of blood on it, and after looking around, I bent down and dipped my finger into one of the droplets, and then shoved my finger into my mouth. Resisting the urge to groan in pleasure, I mopped up every droplet with my finger, sucking it clean each time.
It was going to be a long month until the shift again.
Chapter 24
“That’s some messed-up shit,” Beckett said, sipping his cocktail, the blue lights of Moon Chasers pulsing inside the club. Some techno song pumped through the speakers as we sat at the bar together.
“I couldn’t help it,” I whined, swallowing the last of my gin and tonic.
“Do you know how many germs are on a floor? Especially a high-traffic area like that? Girl, that’s gross.”
The beer paused at my lips. “I just told you I lapped blood from the floor and you are worried about germs? Pu-lease. I have bigger problems.”
“Don’t you crave blood as a wolf? I don’t see how this is a new issue for you.”
I set my glass on the bar top a little more forcefully than necessary and said, “Did you miss the part of the story where I told you that I turned into the damn wolf-woman this past weekend? It was very disturbing!”
He looked around the bar, and then said, “First off, don’t take that sassy-ass tone with me, or I will find some big burly chick to kick your scrawny ass. Secondly, that’s what hybrids are. Freaks. No offense.” He offered a sympathetic smile.
