by AJ Skelly
I opened her door as blood spewed from her mouth and she fell out of her seat. I caught her and eased her out of the car, her shoulders convulsing, her pulse pounding beneath my hands.
“No, no, no!” I whispered, wanting to let my wolf loose. I didn’t know if I could stand to watch the pain Meg would go through—pain caused entirely at my own fangs.
I steered us into a lightly wooded patch, far enough from the road that nobody would see what was about to happen.
She moaned, low, harsh. Her breathing was labored.
“I…think…dying,” she whispered brokenly, her breath hitching. She buckled in over herself.
Whipping my hand through my hair, I tugged at it, as if pulling my hair could distract me from what was happening to Megan.
“Megan, listen to me,” I tried. My voice squeaked, while Wolf lunged inside me. I forced him back down. “Listen to me,” I tried again. “I know what you’re feeling. It hurts. A lot. Meg, I’m so sorry!” Something that sounded like a sob echoed inside my head. I think maybe I was crying. “You’re going through first shift. You’re going to turn into a wolf.”
She turned tortured eyes on me, and I could feel her anguish, terror, and confusion. Wolf begged for release. I wanted to phase, be a wolf, let the animal lead, to run and run for miles and think of nothing but the fragrance of the forest and the wind in my fur.
Meg screamed, and I about lost it.
Her skin started to crack open, the seams of her body coming unhinged. Blood gushed from her mouth again, and it sprayed the ground in front of her. Her back quivered as her shoulders rolled backward into her spine. Her backbone lengthened, and her shirt split as caramel-colored fur rippled through her skin. Her legs drew up and her feet pushed out of her shoes, claws appearing at the end of paws and footpads. With a mighty shake and a sound more roar than howl, she stood before me on all fours. A beautiful auburn wolf in a clearing, the full moon shining down on her in all her glory.
Every cell in my body homed in on Megan. Wolf demanded that I shift and claim her. She was my mate. There was no denying it. I took a deep breath to calm the shock. I couldn’t let my wolf out now, though I had never felt the urge so strongly before. I clenched my hands into fists and took a calming breath to still the tremors that rocked my arms. I had to think and act in my human skin. Megan didn’t need to be scared more than she already was. Regaining control of myself, I crouched down at eye-level with Megan-the-wolf. I couldn’t stop myself from ever so slowly reaching my hands out and stroking her head.
Wolf howled inside me that Megan was my mate. The only one I’d ever want. The only one I’d ever love. I gulped.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Your wolf is beautiful.” I stroked her ears, and she let out the most guilt-inducing whine I’d ever heard.
Chapter 4
Megan
The pain had subsided. But I was unbelievably disoriented. My brain seemed fuzzy, and I felt, not quite bloated, but stretched—like I didn’t fit into my own skin anymore.
Sam was in front of me, awe on his face as he gently stroked my hair. Was he trying to put it behind my ears? Was he going to try to kiss me again? Why was he touching me like this? It felt incredible. Brody had been flirting with me for weeks, but it had never felt this genuine. Heat pooled in my belly, and I was about to lean into him so he could reach me better when he spoke.
“Hey. Your wolf is beautiful.”
My wolf. In one second, violent images and flashes of bone on bone and sinews snapping filled my brain. I thought I’d lost my mind. An echo of Sam’s voice ricocheted inside my head. You’re going to turn into a wolf now.
A wolf. I looked at my hands but saw giant paws with curving claws instead. I started brutally, jerking at the shock, my teeth clicking together with the force. Sam’s hand softly stroked my head.
A sob choked its way out of my throat—at least, I tried to sob. It came out as a pitiful whine.
Terrified and confused, I shook my head out of Sam’s hands and tried to back away from him. What had he done to me? I tripped on something. My tail? With an undignified thump, I landed on my rear.
“Easy, Megan,” Sam said. His voice was soothing. The wolf creature—thing—that I was, immediately warmed to it. But I—at least what I assumed was left of the human me—wanted to escape. What else would or could he do to me? My jaws snapped at him, but the wolf recoiled, and all I accomplished was to bite my own tongue. Helplessness, anger, fear, and bewilderment roiled through my gut.
I whined again. Tears, or whatever the wolf equivalent was, pricked at my eyes. Slumping to the ground I covered my head with my paws in defeat and whimpered.
“Megan, it’s going to be all right. You’re not going to stay a wolf. You’ll change back in a few minutes.”
My head came up. I tried to convey my jumbled thoughts—I needed answers.
What am I? my brain shouted.
Sam jerked like I’d slapped him. He took a deep breath. “I’m a werewolf. You’re…you’re a werewolf now. When I, when we collided.” He took a deep breath. “When I bit you, my wolf toxins must have infected you, too. I hoped maybe it was just a bad nacho. I was human when I bit you. I wasn’t sure if it would change you or not. Obviously, it did. I’m so sorry, Meg.” His eyes told me he was undeniably sincere.
Werewolf? Werewolves were real?
The tingling started at the base of my tail and shivered up my spine before I could formulate my next thought.
I whimpered, afraid of the pain that would certainly follow.
“Don’t fight it,” Sam instructed gently. “Let the shift come and feel your shape going back to your human form. Imagine your arms and your legs and your fingers and toes.
I did my best to follow his directions. In fact, I became so focused on the sound of his voice that the creaking, groaning, and cracking were dull noises in the background until the fire that started in my gut became a raging inferno. Every inch of me felt enflamed. A howl escaped my lips, and I was vaguely aware when it turned into a scream.
The scream stopped, and I lay on the grass panting, utterly worn. And then I felt cold wind on my sweaty skin.
Oh. My. Word.
I was naked. In skin! But totally, completely, naked-as-the-day-I-was-born, naked in front of Sam Wolfe.
I felt him drape his jacket around my shoulders, and I gripped it around me, covering as much of my exposed self as possible. My humiliation was complete even as my brain was spinning.
“Turn around,” I rasped.
“What? Are you okay?” He sounded totally baffled.
“No! I am definitely not okay! I am naked!”
“Meg?” He trailed off.
I took a huge gulp of air and rolled the thoughts through my aching head. Blood. Fur. Claws. Skin. I felt a nudge inside me—the creature was still there. Werewolf. They—I—were real and not the product of over-active imaginations. I choked back the horror. Okay. Focus on what I could control. Process the insanity later.
“Did you see anything?” I croaked.
“As little as possible,” he replied.
I knew full well he must have gotten quite an eyeful. At least he was attempting to be chivalrous and reduce the confusion, insecurity, and mortification swirling inside me. The rational part of my brain knew it was stupid to be worrying about my nakedness when my body had just defied the laws of physics. But nakedness I felt I could control. Turning into a wolf? Not so much. I grappled with reality and fiction and felt I was teetering on the brink of both.
A sob started building in my chest but before it could escape, a hard fist of irrational anger surged to the front. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, barely containing my wild emotions.
“Are you okay right here for a minute? I’ve got some extra clothes in my trunk.”
I sniffed and nodded.
“Meg?”
I forgot he had turned as I’d asked him and hadn’t seen me nod. “Yes.”
Wrapping my arms and the sleeves of hi
s jacket around me, I watched him jog to his car. I shivered. It was cold. I was naked. I was in pain. And I’d just turned into a wolf.
Laugh? Cry? Commit myself to a mental institution? All three? I hardly knew what to think. I prided myself on being a relatively rational, logical sort of person. But rationality and logic were utterly failing me now. My emotions were ratcheting around inside me, and I was sure I was going to explode any minute. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I pictured Grandma Elsie’s face, all warm and wrinkled and round, with a dusting of flour on her cheek that she often had when we’d baked together. Another breath. Anger still simmered below the surface while tears leaked without my permission from the corners of my eyes. I gripped Sam’s jacket around me like a lifeline.
Leaves crunched as Sam returned with a wad of clothes.
“I’ll leave them here and turn around again.” He briefly met my eyes as he put the clothes on the ground beside me, and to his credit, his eyes didn’t drift anywhere else.
I tried to scramble for the clothes, but it felt like I had to unlock each joint and focus each muscle to make it move. I’d never been this clumsy—like I was numb but completely on fire while trying to wade through chest-deep gelatin.
“The stiffness is normal. It’ll pass after a while, and you won’t be sore at all after shifts,” Sam tried to encourage me, apparently hearing my awkward attempts to get dressed. I silently seethed at him and couldn’t quite help the sob that escaped as I tugged the gray sweatshirt over my head. I hurt all over, and I did not want to be a…I couldn’t even think the word. My brain refused to process what had just happened to me. Werewolf. I forced my mind into submission. The internal presence nudged me again, and I flinched.
“All right.” My voice was rusty.
He turned. His face contorted in distress. Some—but not much—of my panicked anger faded at his miserable expression.
“Meg, I don’t even know where to start. Let’s get you back in the car where at least it’s warm.”
He held out an arm to help me, but I ignored it. At that moment, I wanted nothing to do with Sam Wolfe. The thing inside me lurched happily toward Sam’s outstretched hand, and I stumbled as I resisted the beast's movements. Pride and anger won out over the creature’s sudden fondness for the boy with the shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. My eyes landed on my shoe. What was left of it. The leopard spotted ballet flat was ripped apart where presumably, my paw had gone through it.
“Those were my favorite shoes,” I said wistfully. One more casualty to add to the list tonight.
“I’m so sorry, Megan,” Sam whispered.
I blundered over a fallen branch in my bare feet but still refused the arm Sam offered.
Chapter 5
Sam
I blasted the heater and aimed all the vents at Meg, who sat shivering in my sweats on the passenger side. Man, she looked good in my clothes. I shook my head. She may be my wolf’s mate—a rare enough phenomenon in itself—but clearly, she was not reciprocating any warm fuzzies. Which was puzzling, since I was the one who bit her. Apparently, it didn’t go both ways. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but I did know I was in way over my head and that I’d be in a whole pile of crap once my dad found out.
She pulled her knees up to her chest, clutching my jacket over her. I’d tried to be quiet and let her process. The silence was deafening.
Finally, unable to stand the stillness, I slowly reached my hand out to her.
“Mm-nn. Don’t touch me.”
I jerked my hand back, Wolf whining inside at the terror in her voice. “What can I say, Meg?”
“Is this permanent? No chance of cure?”
“It’s always permanent when you’re bitten by a wolf, but since I was fully human at the time, and you didn’t change right away…it would be something to double check with my dad.”
“Your parents know?” She somehow seemed both hopeful and scandalized at the thought.
I nodded. “My dad is the leader of our pack.”
She blinked twice.
“Your pack. How many is the…pack?”
“There are fifty-three of us. We’re a fairly large pack.”
“Fifty-four,” she muttered.
I had no idea what to say. After another minute of silence, she spoke softly. “Sam, I want to go home.”
I’d been dreading this unavoidable topic. My stomach lurched while my wolf crawled back into the dark recesses, leaving the human me to deal with this alone. Wimp, I silently chided my wolf.
“Megan, you can’t go home.”
Despair settled over her face.
“What do you mean, I can’t go home?” Her voice broke on the word home.
I sighed. “You’re unstable. For at least the next few days and probably the next few weeks at night, you won’t be able to totally control your phasing. You’ll shift randomly as you and your wolf adjust to each other. You could hurt anyone in the vicinity, not to mention scaring them half to death, and you’d reveal the existence of werewolves.” I tried to be gentle, but firm. This was so much for her to take in but going home wasn’t an option for her right now. She needed the pack—she needed me—whether or not she realized it or wanted it.
She was silent for a long minute. Her jaw clenched.
“Screw you, Sam.” Her voice cracked, and she furiously swiped a tear that trailed down her cheek.
A slap across the face would have hurt less. Wolf cringed at her anger and desolation, wanting to comfort, completely unable to.
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Megan. I don’t know what else to do. You need to come home with me and let my dad and the pack help you. They may know something I don’t.” Dread filled me, and Wolf whined as I thought of explaining this to my father. Being the son of the Alpha wasn’t easy. There were expectations, and no matter how hard I tried, I always felt like I came up short. Tonight’s events would plunge my father’s opinion of me to uncharted depths.
“Fine.” She frowned, resigned. She got her phone out of her purse from the floorboard.
“Who are you calling?”
She stared at me. “My grandpa needs to know not to expect me home tonight then, don’t you think?”
I nodded, guilt swamping me. George Carmichael was the only family she had left. They loved each other fiercely in a way that I envied. I had the pack, and I had my parents, but things with my dad, especially, weren’t perfect. Sometimes I wished we could just be a regular father and son, without being an Alpha and Beta.
I pulled the car away from the curb, thankful that no one had happened upon the whole first-human-into-wolf experience.
“Hi, Grandpa,” Meg said in a forced light tone. “I’m going to stay at Rachel’s tonight if that’s okay. She’s having some boy trouble and could use the moral support.” It was a good excuse. Megan and Rachel had been inseparable since first grade.
“Okay,” she said after a pause on the other end. “Love you, too, Grandpa.” She hung up, sniffed, and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
I started to apologize again, but she cut me off, her voice weary.
“It’s not that. I’ve never lied to my grandpa before.”
****
We had to pull over one more time for Meg to shift before we got to my house. Unfortunately, the sweatshirt I’d loaned her didn’t make it. We arrived in my driveway both half-dressed—Megan in my shirt, sweatpants, and jacket, me in my jeans and my shoes. This wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned bringing my mate home to meet my parents.
I slowly took the key out of the ignition, avoiding the coming confrontation as long as possible.
“Meg,” I began hesitantly. I swallowed. “My parents are likely to be almost as shocked by this as you are. They may say things they don’t really mean. Whatever comes, I promise I won’t let anything else happen to you. Okay?”
Her eyes, dark and large in her pale face, stared at me for a full minute, sizing me up.
“Promise you won’t let m
e…shift in front of them?”
I nodded. “Promise.”
Discreetly, she brushed a tear from her cheek. I wished she’d let me do that. This would be easier for me if she’d let me at least try to comfort her.
The night air was cold on my bare chest as I walked to Meg’s door and opened it. Her face tightened up as she slowly got out, refusing my help once again.
The sidewalk to the front porch seemed to stretch for a thousand miles. It was both the shortest and longest walk of my life.
Chapter 6
Megan
Sam led me to the front door of a large brick house in a secluded neighborhood surrounded by forest.
Fear of the unknown twisted in my gut.
Were werewolves safe?
I shook my head and then winced as my muscles protested the simple movement. I’d known Sam for years. Granted, I’d never known he was a werewolf. As scared and confused as I was, I tried to keep hold of the fact that Sam hadn’t bitten me on purpose. It wasn’t like he’d kidnapped me and changed me against my will. Although, he had technically changed me against my will and might as well have kidnapped me. I swallowed the resentment down as it flared back up.
We were at the door. I gulped. I felt the animal pacing inside, threatening to erupt again.
“Sam,” I whispered shakily. His eyes trailed over my face, and he took my hand before I could refuse. I thought it might have been as much for his benefit as for mine. He’d never been anything but kind to me, was even voted the most responsible guy in our senior class. He wasn’t a figurative monster.
Please don’t let me burst into fur and then be naked in front of his parents!
Sam squeezed my hand as though sensing my thoughts. I tried to tug my hand from his grasp but was strangely relieved when he held it firmly.
He opened the door, and my world shifted on its axis for the second time that night.
“Rev?” I blurted unceremoniously as my eyes focused on the three people in the room. Sam’s parents jerked to their feet. The third adult was none other than my grandpa’s closest friend and army buddy, Reverend Daniel Butterfield.
