Bewere the Night

The plan was to take Claire and the victim into the woods, let Claire change and then ravage him. As an infected she wouldn’t remember the event, and we could make up whatever story we liked.

But she wasn’t just a nameless werewolf to me, not anymore. She was alone and frightened. One more victim of a pack that didn’t take care of their own.

I’d started hating myself for even considering the plan. Of course I wanted to protect my mom, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to kill anyone. And I didn’t want to do it at Claire’s expense.

I hung up with Mae just before dinner time, when Claire was due to arrive at my place. I had invited her to spend the night with me, afraid that she might change early. The first change had a general twenty-four hour window, but any more specific than that was a guessing game and I could tell she didn’t want to be alone for it.

I didn’t share any of this with Mae, who wanted me to keep an eye on Claire and bring her to the Seeonee meeting at tomorrow’s full moon.

I’d baked a ziti dish but I was too conflicted to have much of an appetite. Claire only poked at hers, too. She wore her dark shoulder-length hair down, smooth as silk. Her dress flattered her figure and she pulled off a casual, girl-next-door charm even when she was obviously nervous about the full moon.

I knew I couldn’t put her in harm’s way.

We sat on my balcony after dinner and sipped coffee, looking out at the hedgerow and the patch of woods beyond.

“I can open a bottle of wine,” I offered.

Claire shook her head. “I already feel strange. I don’t want to risk lowering my guard or anything.”

I nodded and we sat in silence for a time, swaying idly in the wooden porch swing I’d hung from the supports of the upstairs neighbor’s balcony.

“I don’t think I should be around the Seeonee when I change,” she said in a quiet voice. She bit her bottom lip and I couldn’t help but stare at her mouth, the softness of her skin.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. We could avoid the Seeonee. They could just kill Mae’s victim, deal with the consequences themselves, and leave us out of it.

She gave me a sidelong glance, her dark eyes suspicious. “Why do you think so?”

I sipped my coffee. If I told her the truth she’d disappear on me. “I just think it’s prudent. Why do you?”

Claire hesitated before answering. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

It dawned on me then that there was a chance she’d be able to harm me. The Rothschild Pack carried the blood of the red Eurasian wolves. A bit smaller than me, but we would be on par as predators. It was too much to hope for her to remain conscious through the ordeal.

“I don’t see how I can live with this,” she said, picking at a loose thread on my sleeve. I was very aware of her proximity.

“This is what you are now.”

“But I’ve got some sort of sickness. Isn’t that what you think? That I’m going to be one of those monsters, the kind that terrorize London in the movies?”

I bit my tongue. It was close to what I thought.

“I don’t see how you can be so hypocritical,” she said. “Natural-borns are the ones who give people this sickness in the first place.”

A growl threatened to rise in my throat. I realized I felt the moon’s pull, too. “So you’re just going to go through life believing you’re a victim?”

“I wasn’t born this way.”

“I was. I’ve been one all my life. That isn’t my fault.” I took a deep breath, and my nostrils flared as I inhaled the natural perfume of her skin. “It’s just who I am.”

Instead of answering, Claire leaned towards me and pressed those soft, pretty lips against mine. Desire fluttered deep within me. I wanted to touch her. But I couldn’t do this, not until I was sure I could protect her.

Abruptly I stood and went in through the open patio door—putting some distance between us—and set my cup down on the kitchen island. I turned the faucet on.

“If you have kids,” I called over my shoulder, desperately wanting to change the subject, “they’ll be natural- borns like me. That isn’t so bad.”

I plunged my hands into the cold water and splashed my face and neck until my roiling blood calmed and my shallow breathing steadied. The water only momentarily cooled the heat of my skin.

I toweled off, waited a moment, took a deep breath and when I heard no response I returned to the balcony. “Claire, listen. I’m sorry. I—”

Claire was doubled over, clutching her stomach with both arms and her face twisted in pain. I rushed to her and put my hand on her back; the muscles beneath her thin dress shivered. I cursed.

It was starting.

“Come on,” I said, and pulled her to her feet. She needed to be in the natural world for this. I took her through the apartment, hoping I could get her down the stairs and out into the hedgerow. Halfway out the door I thought to grab my digital camera. Claire cried, moving slowly from the pain. I dragged her across the lawn, sparing a quick glance to make sure no one saw us, then pulled her into the forest. At the first clearing I dropped everything and stripped off her clothes, thinking she’d not want to ruin them.

Her skin rippled from the spastic changes underneath.

As I yanked her dress off, two loud pops of bone and tendon—sickening sounds, even when you’re used to it—signaled the shift of her shoulder joints.

“It’s all right,” I said.

She writhed on the ground, crying and begging me to make the pain stop. My heart tripped; I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t. I set the camera to start recording, checked the angle of the shot and balanced it on a maple branch. She’d need to see this. Through the viewfinder I saw her snout elongate and the fur grow. I stripped off my own clothes.

Her pheromones filled my nose with wafts of pine boughs and pumpkin seeds and something else, something I hadn’t noticed before when her human scent masked it, something that grew pungent when she changed.

Some sort of drug.

The change came easy to me so close to the full moon. My shoulders dislocated and rolled forward, my nose popped, my insides burned with the familiar fire. It hurt, but I was used to it and I had control. Claire didn’t.

The wolf magic consumed me as my vision blurred and diminished, focus going to my ears and nose. Claire’s transformation was nearly complete. She was not quite a common wolf; her fur was thicker, richer, and ruddy.

I put my big paws on the leafy ground and stood straight and tall. I was a daughter of alphas, and the wolf magic raged within me as I watched Claire, my instincts howling: Infected. Dangerous. Stranger. I moved forward, intending to press her into submission. She was smaller than me and I smelled fear and anger and insanity brought on by the drug. Still beneath the drug she smelled, to my surprise, natural.

Once she shook off the pain, Claire focused on me with fangs bared and lunged for my throat. She only caught ruff and as I recoiled she caught my leg in her teeth and a lightning bolt of agony ran up my foreleg. I lashed out in reflex and latched onto the fur at her throat, forcing her to the ground.

Despite her fury, she was disoriented and confused, though her snarls could have woken hell itself.

I held her there for what seemed like hours.

As she metabolized the drug and eventually grew docile, I wondered whether my family had engineered this unnatural aggression in her.

She whined and I finally let her be.

We sniffed each other, as is the way of wolf introduction, and she bent her head and nuzzled my injury by way of apology.

I watched the video recording of my change for the third time. I didn’t remember any of it.

I sat curled up on the floor of Ginny’s bedroom in a borrowed robe, fresh from a much needed bath, my back against her bed. I winced at the ruthlessness of the two wolves—us, me, that’s actually me—on screen, and rubbed my throat with a shaky hand.

My ached everywhere. The wolf behind my eyes was thankfully silent.