Dalton looked to him with pure pleasure as though his change was arousing to him. His arm dropped from my neck, so that he could tilt his head up to the full moon that was revealing itself from behind the clouds, glowing bigger and brighter than before, and let out an eerie howl.
Dalton’s fingers began to sickly lengthen in what looked like slow motion, his nails extending into sharp claws and his arms filling in with rough patches of fur.
Xander screamed in pain as his body contorted also.
How the hell was I going to get myself out of this one? Davin had been right all along, and I didn’t listen to him. It was already too late for Xander, but I wasn’t dead yet and still had a fifty/fifty chance. Hell would freeze over before I gave in without a fight.
Bones grinded and shifted throughout their entire bodies, further progressing the change that was happening simultaneously to the two of them. Xander wailed in excruciating pain while Dalton’s look of pleasure intensified with each pop or rip of flesh, furthering his sadistic ecstasy. Their arms and legs had doubled in size and they were covered from head to toe in thick, rough fur. Xander’s was a mixture of light and dark brown while Dalton’s was once again his all too familiar gray with large patches of charcoal scattered through it.
Their mouths had stretched into monstrous snouts baring frighteningly sharp teeth; ready to delve into anything they came into contact with. Each shortened breath they took in showed every outline of their distended ribs, until they breathed out again and they disappeared, only to reappear seconds later.
Seeing Xander as this horrid creature pained me more than I ever thought possible, guilt tugging at my heartstrings that I had caused him to lose the life he had always known. Aspiring football star reduced to nothing more than a creature thirsty for death.
Xander’s head thrashed violently against the tree, begging to be released from the ropes that still held him in place. The ropes would only hold him for so long. Once released, he would go after whatever his new master told him to -which I knew would be me.
A tiny voice inside my head screamed run. So, for once I finally listened. Stumbling over my own two feet -high heeled no less- I fled towards the entrance of the cemetery. Not knowing how far it would take me before one of them caught up to me, but if I had any chance at all it was the only way out of here.
Snow pelted my face from Hanover’s first winter storm that had finally arrived. The bare skin on my arms and legs were numb from the icy air, and my hair was no more than a wet mess stuck to the sides of my face. But I continued to retreat to the wrought iron archway.
I could see my cell phone covered in snow outside the entrance right where I had left it, no doubt ruined from the moisture and making it of no good use to me anymore. A few more paces and I would be out of these death grounds.
A sudden jerk in my hair snapped my head back, knocking me backwards and onto the cold, wet ground. Sharp rocks scraped along my back as whoever had hold of my hair dragged me back toward where I was running from.
I turned my neck, hearing my hair tear slightly; to see who my abductor was that was dragging my half-naked body along the ground. There were only two possibilities, neither a better choice than the other. All I was able to see from this angle was the hairy brown arm of Xander; the grip he had on me didn’t let me see any further than that. Kicking and screaming wildly, I fought against him, but nothing loosened his strong grip from my hair.
So I did the only thing else I could; bringing my arms up above me, I brought my hands around his thick forearm and sank what was left of my nails as far as they would go into his skin, raking them down his arm. He squealed, dropping my head into the ground. Pieces of thick skin stayed beneath my nails. I pushed myself off the ground and ran toward the entrance again, only to run straight into Dalton’s were-form.
His long gnarled fingers reached straight for my throat, giving me no time to move myself out of the way before our bodies skimmed across the air into the hard iron fence, slamming my back into the metal and pushing all air that was left inside me instantly out.
He lifted me off the ground by my throat so that I was eye level with him now, heaving his warm breath in and out making smokey puffs into the cold night air -something that never happened with Davin’s icy breath.
Hate had to be the only emotion this creature could feel because it radiated so deep into his eyes it was impossible not to feel its poison throughout my entire soul. I felt a warm, sticky tear trickle down my cheek and fall below me. How could this ferocious creature be the semi-attractive punk guy in the club, or even the seemingly normal looking long-haired man? (Personally, I liked him better as the Sid Vicious replica).
His voice spoke inside my head. “I am a shapeshifter. I can be whomever I choose to be, Adelay.”
With that, his face morphed into a strong jaw with pearly white teeth smiling from behind full lips, his hair into dark silky strands messily styled to perfection, and black
