by SM Reine
Disoriented, she got up and shook herself.
He had taken the opportunity to run, and he was gone again. But she could still smell the fresh trail of pheromones.
She darted after him, and this time, she didn’t bother taking it slow to conserve energy. Her stomach was a gnawing void beneath her ribs. Prey was close. Food was close.
The wind changed direction, and she stopped. The wolf could smell people on the air. They trafficked this land, and there were a thousand interesting odors—cotton, leather, denim, sweat, human foods and human perfumes. People were the best prey of all, and there were many of them just down the trail.
“Hey!”
A metal can clattered at her feet. The wolf lowered her head to sniff it—this was the source of the pheromone trail. Boring. It wasn’t food.
She considered the human smells, and the camp below, and wondered how much human prey waited for her there.
“Hey! Hey, over here!”
Her head snapped around. The white-clad prey was higher on the mountain, waving his arms.
Baring her teeth, she ran, and he disappeared into the trees.
Something flashed in the corner of her eye. She smelled it an instant later: meaty, rich, and terrified. It was a deer separated from the herd. Helpless. Delicious. And much closer than the human.
She spun. Jumped on it.
It gave a scream as her claws sank into its hide. Her teeth tore into its flesh.
“Rylie, no! Stop it!”
Meaningless sounds.
The deer thrashed. Its legs kicked out. One cloven hoof struck her face, and she circled around to another angle. The fawn tried to get back onto its feet, but before it could she leaped once more.
She bit, and bit again. The screaming stopped.
The original prey stepped into her line of sight. He didn’t look as weak as he had smelled. He looked strong—maybe too strong for her to take tonight. Would he challenge her? Would he take her prize? Growling, she crouched over the deer to protect it.
“Oh, hell, Rylie,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She ripped into the carcass, watching him out of the corner of her eye for any signs of attack. He only moved to step back into the trees. Good. She had her meal for the night.
Throwing her head back, she loosed a long howl. Her territory. Her prey.
And then she began to feast.
The sun peeked over the edge of the mountains, spilling dawn across the tree tops.
A sunbeam hit Rylie’s eyes. She tried to cover her face, but something restricted her arms. Climbing to consciousness was a battle—she felt heavy and satiated, like she had been sleeping for weeks.
The first thing she saw when she managed to open her eyelids were her hands. Ropes circled her wrists and were connected to her ankles by another rope. Rylie shuddered. Her fingers felt like they were breaking, but it was painless this time. Her claws receded and fingernails grew in their place. It was over as quickly as it had begun.
Rylie was laying under something heavy—a jacket. It was warm, buttery leather, and it smelled like the tang of metal and burning coals. She hadn’t realized it before, but that was Seth’s distinct smell.
She looked up. His face hovered over hers.
It took Rylie a minute to remember how her mouth worked. It was difficult to assemble her thoughts into words, and translate that into the necessary motions to speak. “Seth,” she finally said.
“Hey.”
Realizing she was seated on the ground with her back against his chest, Rylie decided not to move. She was much more comfortable than she had been after the last moon. “What happened? Did we do okay?”
Seth untied the ropes around her wrists and ankles. “It doesn’t matter. How do you feel?”
“I’m... good,” she said. “Really good. I feel satisfied.”
Seth’s mouth drew into a hard line. “Good.”
“Is my face normal?”
“You look fine, Rylie.”
Her nose picked up the smell of drying blood. She sat up to look around and saw Seth’s ruined white shirt a few feet away. Examining her hands once more, she found blood in the cracks of her palms and between her fingers. He must have used his shirt to wipe her off. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No. Think you can stand up?”
She was tempted to say no so she wouldn’t have to move, but Rylie knew she had to return to camp. At her nod, Seth helped her get to her feet.
“Where did the blood come from?” she asked.
“Let’s get you back to your cabin,” Seth said. He was only wearing his undershirt now, but he didn’t look bothered by the cool morning air.
“What about you? Won’t you get in trouble for being out of bed?”
He almost smiled. “They can’t send me home.”
Rylie hugged Seth’s jacket around her as they headed back to the trail. She wished she had worn pants instead of shorts. “I don’t really remember what happened last night.”
“It’s better that way,” Seth said.
He tried to shield her from something on the ground when they got to the side of the trail.
“What is that?” she asked, voice shaking. Seth didn’t respond, so Rylie pushed him aside to see the body.
It was a fawn. She could tell because of the spots on its rump and the four spindly legs. The rest of it, however, was barely recognizable. Its throat was mangled, and its chest and stomach had been torn open, leaving the ribs jutting toward the sky like bloody spears.
She could almost remember it: the smell of fur, the taste of meat, the warmth in her belly as she ate.
Rylie had killed a baby deer. It was the first meat she had eaten in years, and she had slaughtered it with her own teeth and claws. A single eye, forever unblinking, stared out of its bloody face.
Her knees gave out. Rylie drew her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her arms. She didn’t hear Seth approach until he was crouching at her side. “It was an accident,” he said. “I let you get away.”
“I should have taken the muzzle,” she whispered.
Seth touched her hand, and Rylie wrapped her fingers around his.
Ten
Co-Ed
Rylie started throwing up in the shower.
She cupped a hand over her mouth and ran for the toilets. Rylie could hear girls whispering in a tight cluster by the sinks as she heaved. Everyone was too afraid of her now to ask if she was okay.
She didn’t want any help. Nobody could get rid of the guilt or the taste of deer in her throat.
When her stomach was finally empty, Rylie leaned her forehead against the cool porcelain and shut her eyes. The girls were still whispering. She didn’t want to face them. She wanted to vanish.
A hand laid a damp towel across the back of her neck. “Rylie? Are you all right?” The voice was kind and familiar, but it took Rylie a minute to realize it was Louise.
She nodded without opening her eyes. She didn’t feel any better. Rylie could see the fawn’s staring eye and its bloody ribs. She needed to clear the memory from her mind, not the meat from her stomach.
Louise sat with her silently until everyone else finished in the showers. “I’m going to have someone take you to the infirmary,” she said gently.
“I’m not sick,” Rylie mumbled.
“Maybe, maybe not. You can just rest.”
Unsurprisingly, Cassidy came to her side, offering her a hand to get off the floor. “Come on. Are you really sick, or are you just trying to get out of swimming this morning?”
Rylie made herself smile. “I’ve never liked swimming,” she said. It was much easier than trying to explain why she had thrown up.
After the nurse took her temperature and administered anti-nausea medication, she laid face-down on the infirmary bed and pulled the blankets over her head. Seth had said she slept after eating last night, but she was still exhausted.
She sank into a deep sleep immediately. The fawn stared at her in her dreams.
Rylie wasn’t sure when Louise came to bring her back to camp, but she felt more beaten after her nap than she had before taking it.
“Do you want to go horseback riding with the group?” Louise asked.
Remembering how the horses had reacted to her smell, Rylie shook her head. Louise didn’t argue, so Rylie got the afternoon to herself in the cabin. She spent it poring over The Legends of Gray Mountain.
“There has to be a cure,” she muttered. “There has to be.”
Rylie read the sections on the curse again and again. They listed a half dozen ways to kill werewolves. She was, apparently, susceptible to silver bullets, aconite, fire, and decapitation. Considering three of those four things could kill anyone, and that Rylie didn’t want to die, it didn’t help. She didn’t consider death a cure.
The only suggestion of an escape was a single sentence in the section describing the transformation.
If the cursed one changes on the sixth and final moon, he will change on every subsequent new and full moon until the end of his days.
If the cursed one changes?
Rylie wished she knew how to get a hold of Seth when he was on the other side of the lake. He knew so much more than she did.
She didn’t sleep better that night, or the next night, or the next. And things got worse from there.
Louise had an announcement to make while they were roasting hot dogs over the fire that weekend. “How many of you like volleyball?” she asked. The campers responded with muttering and shrugs. Rylie didn’t like volleyball—or any other sport, for that matter—and remained silent. “Great. I’ve signed us up to play tomorrow morning. I hope we’re good at it, because there’s going to be a little tournament against Golden Lake next Tuesday.”
“Ooh, really?” purred Patricia. “Are the boys coming over here, or are we going over there?”
“They’re coming over here.”
Rylie perked up. “All the guys?”
“Any boy who signs up, but it’s completely optional. Our own sign-up sheet for the tournament is on the mess hall door.”
She stabbed thoughtfully at the coals of the fire with her poker, rolling over a hot dog someone had accidentally dropped amongst the coals. If Seth signed up for the tournament, it would be a perfect time to talk to him.
Rylie stood in front of the sign-up sheet during breakfast, studying the names listed. Amber and her crew had, of course, enrolled. Cassidy hadn’t. Those weren’t the kind of people she wanted to play with. But if signing up meant seeing Seth...
After staring at the sheet for several minutes—and making a line form behind her—Rylie finally signed her name on the bottom line.
They gathered at the volleyball court by the lake that morning.
“Two teams!” Louise called. “Kim is captain of the first team. Rylie, you can captain the second.”
“I don’t even know how to play volleyball,” Rylie said.
“It’s just to select team members. You don’t have to do anything else.” Louise gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. “Go on. Kim gets first pick.”
Rylie and Kim separated out the group. Kim chose all of her friends—Amber, Patricia, and a few other shrews—and Rylie took whoever was left. Nobody looked thrilled to be on her team, and she didn’t blame them. She was terrible at sports.
Louise tossed a volleyball to Rylie so she could serve. She held it aloft in her left hand, glaring at the ball like it had insulted her.
“Let’s do this,” she growled.
She threw the ball in the air and smacked it with her hand. It bounced over to the other side, and she jumped forward to knock it back when Patricia returned it. One of her teammates had to hurry out of Rylie’s way when she lunged to hit it.
The ball struck the ground on the other side. One point.
“Your serve again,” Louise said.
Rylie hit the ball harder this time. Patricia barely missed it. Another point.
Her pulse sped up. The last time Rylie played a game in gym, she had been clumsy and awkward and missed every shot. But now she was fast and accurate. The ball moved in slow motion.
Rylie bounced the ball over the net and leaped back to catch a spike. She knocked into a teammate with her shoulder.
“Watch it!” a girl yelped.
“Sorry,” Rylie muttered. She was too distracted to care. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the ball. Something about the speedy way it moved excited the wolf in her, like she was hunting again.
The other team threw the ball over, and someone on Rylie’s side sent it back. Patricia struck it hard, and the volleyball rushed just over the net. Rylie dove forward, arms extended, and it bounced off her wrists. Amber struck it back to her side.
Rylie leaped up just in time. She spiked the ball and it hit the ground so hard it deflated.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. She grinned and raised her hand to high-five her teammates.
They all stared at her. It was like she had grown a tail.
Her hand slowly fell. They thought Riley was a freak for being good at volleyball, but they would have laughed at her if she had been bad, too. There was no winning. No matter what she did, they were going to hate her.
Her vision went red around the edges. The wolf was angry and Rylie was ashamed. The emotions warred inside of her, making her feel hot and sick.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got another ball,” Louise said. She tossed it over to Rylie’s team.
Yolanda took the ball to serve, and Rylie sat on the bench to watch the game finish. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone was afraid of her, and a good game of volleyball wouldn’t change that.
“Great job, Rylie,” Louise said enthusiastically as Rylie shucked her knee pads into the basket after the game.
“Whatever,” she mumbled.
“You’re really good. Did you sign up for the tournament?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to be a great asset to the team. Jericho will be excited.”
Rylie’s eyes snapped up to Louise’s face. “Jericho?”
“He’s helping me run the games. In fact, he’ll be over for practice tomorrow with the boys who signed up,” she said. “We’ll have a skirmish before the real games start. Won’t that be fun?”
I need advice, Seth, she wrote that night on a blank journal page. Jericho is going to be in camp tomorrow. I’m afraid. I’m pretty sure he knows it was me at the boy’s camp. What should I do?
She stuck it in the windowsill and waited. Rylie tried not to fall asleep so she could see Seth take the note, but the hours passed too quietly. She dozed off sitting up against the wall.
When she awoke in the morning, the note was gone, and one from Seth took its place.
Don’t worry. He has no proof.
Rylie crushed the note in her hand. Seth always seemed to visit when she wasn’t around. She wanted to talk to him so desperately. Why didn’t he ever wake her up? Was he afraid of her now that he saw her slaughter the fawn? Without Seth, Rylie would be completely alone.
Seth wasn’t amongst the group of boys who signed up to play volleyball against the girls. They all warmed up after arriving the next day and began to play. Jericho stood on the sidelines with Louise. Rylie could feel him watching her.
The practice volleyball game was half-hearted. Most people hadn’t seen anyone of the opposite gender since the beginning of summer, and more of the campers seemed inclined to flirt than play volleyball. The girls played against other girls while the boys played against other boys, but once they started playing each other, there was much more talking and laughing than actual volleyball.
After a few hours, the counselors stopped trying to keep everyone focused. They broke for lunch and the cooks brought boxes of food to them at the volleyball court. Rylie sat by the water to eat her sandwich, picking off salami and flinging it to the waiting birds.
“Louise was right. You’re good at volleyball.”
Rylie looked up. Jericho st
ood over her with his arms folded. He looked even more massive from the ground.
A sense of wolfish calm settled over her. She took a big bite out of her sandwich, chewing slowly while he stared at her. Rylie should have been afraid of him. She had been anxious about running into him for days. But now that she faced him, she felt nothing. What could he do to her? If she wanted to, she could rip his throat out.
