What was happening to me? I grabbed my head and stumbled backward slightly.
~Hero~
I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to see it, but there it was. Roxie Malone. The only girl I ever even slightly cared for. She was on the ground howling, her eyes changing, and I knew what would happen next.
“Everyone back,” Bose shouted. I already warned him ahead of time what might happen. It was why I chose a tented setting over the outdoor easy-to-take-pictures setting last night. I already knew there would be an exorbitant number of project wolves showing up. I tried to plan for everything, good and bad. I even made it darker inside than last night just in case some of the press found a way in, it would be harder to snap pictures.
I watched as Roxie’s fur set in. It wasn’t black, brown, gray, or white. No, it was orange and black stripes, and some white on her muzzle. The colors of a tiger. She tried to dart off but I could not risk hurting someone. “Roxie?” I called to her, wishing I could get through.
No response that she knew me, only a low growl came from her. She stood on her hind legs and howled. I watched projects start coming in vast numbers, like some great prophecy was about to come true.
As Roxie continue to howl, people yelled and screamed from the outside of the tent, calling for me all over the place. I could not answer their call though. Who knew what would happen to Roxie?
“Hero,” Bose yelled for me. “What are you doing? Stop her.”
I knew how to stop her, but I couldn’t. I glared at the projects lining up around her. I never had problems killing any project, and they knew I would kill her if I had not . . . “Bastards, all of you. A bunch of feral fucking bastards.” Roxie was unleashing something, and if I didn’t get the nerve to stop her, I would be a worthless hero. “Roxie. Roxie Malone. Please, remember. It’s me, Hero. Just come back to reality, please. Stop this, I do not want to have to kill you. Roxie.”
Her eyes dazzled with a turquoise glow. Roxie remained standing on her two back paws while people continued to scream.
I could not even say her name to do it. My voice was hoarse, and a man or not, it would be hard to hold back the tears. It had to be done. The projects had won against me, for the first time, I failed. I would save the world, but only by destroying Roxie. I had hoped that something else could have happened. All I could manage was a slight whisper as I jumped in the air above, transforming to a wolf, ready to strike on the next blow.
“Forget the camera shot, run!”
I didn’t land a crushing blow. That phrase I just heard? Roxie was my girlfriend, why were people freaking out that she was transforming? Press headlines even wrote rumors, wondering if she was a wolf. Excited about it. The press would be snapping pictures, not running away. Was I being set up?
I checked around her. The sky. Nothing. I stayed in one place and watched her. Listened to her howls. Roxie wasn’t feral, she was scared. She wasn’t becoming a feral wolf, she was maturing into a werewolf.
Those little bastards, especially Greg. He probably set up that wolf attack on her so that I demanded an answer. Perfect excuse for him to say it. They made sure it leaked to the press too, they wanted me to kill Roxie, just so I would feel pain. Sniveling little- he was dead now as soon as I had the time. I’d feel no pain for him either, no more than I do prey out in the open. I shouted for Bose. He had been ready with a blanket if anything happened. Snagging the blanket he threw me, I transformed back into a human and whipped it around Roxie.
Holding her comfortably in the front of my arms as she wailed in confusion and desperation.
She was becoming human again. I kept her close, her naked body wouldn’t be exposed to the press. Now that she was safe though, and everyone stared at me?
I knew the trouble was just beginning. I growled and kept everyone back. People with tasers and ropes and chains and cages were showing up. Anything it took to contain the alien wolf.
Alien wolf. A wolf that no one knew or understood, that’s why everyone was freaking out when she changed. It wasn’t because she was a project wolf. It was because, she wasn’t.
I tried not to hurt the people trying to get her. I didn’t listen to the press or the reports. I wasn’t moving. Humans were fearful, if I gave up Roxie to them, there was no telling what they would do. Thirty minutes passed before Roxie’s mother showed up.
I was still on high alert. She must know something about her origin. Was she an enemy to her own daughter? “What do you want?”
“To save her,” her mother said. “She’s not like the others.” Then, she mouthed something to him. The word ‘home’. She had a home.
Did that mean she would share how Roxie had arrived after all?
I had followed her mother’s directions, running off to the address she gave me. I didn’t know it, it wasn’t Roxie’s address. I ran through the press as quick as I could, carrying Roxie on my wolf back. Confused and dazed, she was still able to hold on as we moved through the streets and back alleyways to reach that address.
I felt something heavy and strange as I came to the house we were to search for. Roxie lifted her head up toward it and looked. “Aunt Cheryl’s.” Roxie waved as someone answered the door. Roxie went in with the people who came outside. I trotted into her relative’s domain, not knowing what was there.
We were escorted through a room with huge iron locks.
As soon as the door opened, I could feel it.
Roxie moved ahead of me, approaching a large area in the middle. It didn’t suck anything up, but it must be what I thought. “A black hole.” A gravitation hole of some kind that would create the wormhole. This was how Roxie had traveled from so far.
“No one told me.” Roxie continued to stare at the object. “I didn’t know I could ever go back.” She reached out her hand, some part of her seeming to remember now.
“It’s where my ancestors came from,” I added. I watched her start to change form again. The pair of us stood there, feeling a calling. A calling to see it.
We both ran in to meet whatever was on the other side.
Chapter 11: Her World
~Hero~
This world. The very air of it seemed cruel. I was still transformed but I had been unconscious once I reached the other side. Roxie awoke, she was still wolf. This time though, she stayed wolf and her understanding was even greater. Not feral, not at all, just maturing. My heart leaped with joy inside, I wanted to hold her close to me.
One second more, just one second back at the tent where we danced, and I would have carved her tender flesh with a death maul. A sound I could not stand to think about let alone perform.
“I . . .” Roxie looked away at first. I managed to coax her with my muzzle. “I’m a wolf.”
Yes, she was coming out of it. “The most beautiful I’ve ever seen,” I couldn’t help but add. “Dangerous though. You won’t be welcomed back with open arms, I know that much.” I looked all around us. Nothing but forest. “This is your world, Roxie. You asked me what was wrong tonight, and this was it. I feared events of a portal. Greg told me what would happen.” I tried to hold back a small howley whine. “I didn’t want to believe. I put in checkpoints and I took precautions, but I didn’t want to believe. He said you would go feral.”
“Feral? I don’t remember,” she admitted, “but I am so sorry he lied to you.” She looked around. “How did we get here, where is here exactly?”
“Your world.” I didn’t know how to explain it to her. “Project wolves aren’t just from humans and wolves, but from alien DNA. You are that alien. When you were an infant, a random hole in your Aunt’s house opened to this world. After that, your parents must have found out and took care of you as their own.”
Roxie’s feet were wobbly as she tried to walk. Letting the information sink in, I showed her how to walk correctly instead of by instinct. With both her paws on one side first, and then the right side. “Let them work together. Your body wants to let them work together.”
After a few more minu
tes of talking, we were both set. We knew the risks. We wouldn’t stay long because we didn’t know the world, but each of us wanted to know more about it. It was our culture. Our ancestors. How could we refuse? Five minutes, just five minutes.
I walked slowly beside Roxie, scanning the horizon. It was dark and foggy. Each of our breaths as we exhaled could be seen. This world didn’t feel welcoming. It felt isolated and invaded.
“If I came from this exact hole, I wonder if I was from somewhere around here.” Roxie broke the silence first. “This is really my home world. What happened?” Around us were ruins. Ruins of odd shaped homes. I moved over toward one of the ruins, a door still ajar on it. I pushed it down and looked inside. The entrance was made perfectly for a wolf to trot through. “Stay here,” I said to Roxie as I moved into the home. There was no sitting furniture but there was some décor. It was covered in cobwebs, spiders had long taken over the den. There were embellished rugs draped all over the floor in all of the rooms.
Curious, Roxie walked in too. “This is . . .a home?”
“For wolves. For wolves like us, I think.” If it had been fixed up, it would have been a nice home. There was even a small area hollowed out in the backroom. In it, the embellished rugs were pastel with soft textured designs. “A cub's area.”
Roxie came up beside me and looked down. Could that be hers? “Everyone is gone. It hasn't been used in years.”
“This might be yours. There are different abandoned houses though.” I was going to dig at the rug to see if there was something there, when I spotted something else. “Broken frame on the floor.” I couldn't ask Roxie to pick it up in her form, it was too new to her. Picking up broken glass wasn't a good idea for me, but the home was not large. It was made for a wolf form so I couldn't transform. Delicately picking it up with my paw, I flipped it over.
It was a family. Not of wolves, but human forms. There were two kids, a baby, a dad, and a mom. “This could be your family.”
“Maybe.” Roxie couldn't remember. “They looked happy.”
Both of us left the home but I kept myself on alert. There were more small homes that looked abandoned, but some larger ones too. I quickly checked out a large house, but came to the same conclusion. I came back to Roxie. “Roxie. These are dens. Even the big ones, there are old pictures of wolves I've seen.”
“Like me.” Roxie sat on her haunches. “Whatever happened must have been bad. I must have been taken over to the other world for survival.”
“Some kind of attack.”
“Is the whole world like this?”
“I don't know. We could travel farther if you want.” I know, bad idea. We really needed to leave, but who knew how long this chance to explore our roots would last?
“No.” Roxie hung her head down. “The home I was born in is gone. There's no one here. On the other side, I don't know how to live either. I can't go to school like this. People will mistake me for a project when I walk down streets. Not unless I remain in a human form.”
“No, that's not nature,” I stressed to her. “Look at these homes, Roxie. People chose either form, not giving in one way or another. Some are large, but most are small. Probably more affordable if that was the way it worked. You weren't born human, you were born like me. We must embrace both forms. Denying your wolf side is denying your heritage. Denying who you are. I cannot let you do that.”
“I don't want to be a wolf!” She shouted. She bent her front down, lying on the ground. She moved her head all the way down. Her body was as sunk to the earth as it could be. “I just want to be Roxie. Why can't I just be Roxie? The girl who goes to school, has normal friends and a normal life. Why do I have to have weird pheromones, want to have sex with you all the time, and have to be the one to get married?” She looked over at me. “We don’t have an X here, why aren’t we doing something?”
“Roxie.” I swished my tail. I lied down beside her in a similar position. It felt nice to cuddle with another wolf. “Projects and this world are connected. You aren't a project z, and I think you just had some heat cycle, but I don’t know. I can't guarantee it won’t happen again. I don't have that information. This world, if someone is here, they would understand better.” She had a strange look to her though. Almost, embarrassed?
~Roxie~
What's wrong?” Hero asked. “Are you remembering?”
He knew? Shoot, was it that obvious on my face? “I don't know.” I tried to move away more, not ready to deal with anything else.
“Roxie. Do you remember something?”
I couldn’t say the words. Explain the lust. I couldn’t tell him. I just stood there with my mouth gawking. We were almost like animals, ready to claw at each other. Instinct was so passionate within each of us. The thought alone, I know that’s how he knew. In this wolf form, I was probably expelling extra arousal. Words wouldn’t be enough to explain, instead my mind had a different instinct.
It wasn’t a wolf instinct like hunting for prey like projects did. It was a different one. I felt like I could share moments with him, like if I put my head to his, he would remember as I did. The act of doing something bizarre like that though, it was too strange to want to try. “I don’t know. I haven’t been here since I was three, and yet it’s like a forgotten language on the tip of my tongue.” I looked around it. More and more of what might have been memories. Young memories. I was too young to understand. It didn’t happen to every wolf, but the feelings when it did were so intense, yes, yes. I closed my eyes, like I could taste it. Like I could remember something. But I was just so young. “I think there were laws or something.” To keep us from getting together too young because of our lust. “Maybe, a shot? An injection.”
“What are you talking about?” Hero asked. “Your heat cycle?”
Maybe. I lowered my head. I mean, my muzzle. It was so hard to believe I was now a wolf. “Until a certain time? A sister? Someone. Crying. Being separated, swearing love.” I felt my eyes water. So close. “I was just too young, I can’t make sense of it all.”
“I understand.” Hero nuzzled me softly with his muzzle. “Your head is fuzzy, isn’t it? You were three. My own memories are not good, and I was five. You are lucky to have anything at all.”
“Yeah, well.” I looked toward Hero. He just didn’t understand. “I guess we better get back. There’s nothing here anymore for me. Not that the other world is much better.”
“Mm.”
What was that? “What’s wrong, Hero?” Those eyes. He was hiding something again. “Hero?”
“Have you ever howled at the moon?”
He was trying to change the subject but I looked toward the moon. “Not something an average girl does on a school night.”
Hero lifted his head and howled next to me before he continued. “To howl releases all that frustration and anger out towards the serenity of the moon. Try it, now that you aren’t feral. See what happens.”
“To howl?” I continued to stare at the moon. I felt silly at the notion. “I don't know how to howl. It would probably sound like a shout.”
“Try. There is no one in need of a moon howl more than you right now,” Hero said right before he howled again.
“Okay, but don't laugh.” I tried a small howl, but it didn't sound anything like Hero's at all.
“Try again. It's your first day as a wolf, you are doing fine.” Hero howled again, probably hoping I'd join in.
I tried again. This time, I was firmer with my voice. Hero kept howling, so I continued. After a minute, I found it. I stumbled back slightly, surprised that came from my throat. I lifted my head and gave it my all one more time. I thought about the fact that I couldn't be in school anymore. I was treated like a toy to other wolves for so long. I lost one of my closest friends. How long I agonized over not remembering my first time. How I had to depend completely on Hero for the rest of my life. It all came out in one mind-numbing howl.
After I finished, Hero looked proud of me. “How do you feel?”
/> Better. My body having released that frustration felt so much more relaxed. Another thought struck me about the date too. “That table was hard.”
If wolves could smile, that’s probably what it looked like. Hero's teeth were slightly exposed to her. “What table, Tigress? How much are you remembering?”
“Tigress? What is exactly a tigress?” I asked him, my turn to avoid the subject. That word felt familiar in my memory.
“My father used to call my mother that. She was not treated the same as us, she was not a common wolf. I didn't understand at first, but I think she was similar to you. Closer to the real thing.” He looked out onto the horizon. “Now I understand.”
I understood too, but about something different. More than just a wolf. I had been purring. How could I even purr? More missed memories.
“Those colors, that sound, and the name.” Hero looked around. “Could it be? Are there actual tigers here too?”
I wished I was able to shrug, but I wished more that I could stop purring. Hero didn't call attention to it of which I was glad. My purrs had only ever come in front of him.
“Are you okay?” Hero asked as he walked around me. “Your purring hasn't stopped. Do you control that?”
“No.” Great, he was drawing attention to it. “Nothing, it's nothing.” I tried to back away, but I was still getting used to my feet. My back went up oddly instead before I fixed myself right.
“Then what, embarrassment?” Hero moved toward me slowly. “Is your purring from pleasure?”
“No, it's just confused. I mean, I'm just confused,” I said quickly. “You aren’t going to kill me now that I’m a wolf, right?” I joked.
“We are the only two wolves that care about more than their next meal,” Hero reminded me, once again forgetting about Greg. I didn’t blame him, it sounded like Greg planned on getting me killed. “We should share a fresh kill some time.”
A fresh kill? “No, thank you.”
“I bet it would drive your wolfish taste wild.” Hero approached my other side. “There is nothing I want more than to hunt something for you.”
Wolf in Hero Clothing Page 11
