Upon his second awakening, Corey rolled out of bed almost before his eyes were open. He stretched luxuriously, reaching up to the ceiling in worship to the dawn. He yawned, but it was almost a sigh, and then he relaxed and allowed himself a small smile.

I remember.

Nothing important, of course. His last name was a mystery, as were the faces of his parents and the specific details of the attack that got him into this mess, but he had remembered something about himself. Mornings were his favorite time of day and always had been, going back all the way to since he’d been a child.

Heading over to the curtains, he tossed them open to greet the sun and found the moon staring back at him. All the wind went out of his sails. He’d slept for hours, for the rest of the day and into the night, but it was only 1 a.m. and there was nothing for him to do.

More sleep would be welcome but, now that he’d already mentally prepared to be awake, he felt as if he needed to do something else first. A drink, maybe. His mouth tasted like a diaper, and his stomach was hollow enough for a bear to use it as a den.

He normally would have turned on the lights as he made his way to the kitchen, but he found that he didn’t need them. Apparently, night vision came included in the whole wolf shapeshifter package and he had to admit that was pretty cool. All of this would have been pretty cool, had he not been an amnesiac monster.

Once he was in the kitchen, he opened the fridge and ate leftover sausage out of the plastic baggie it had been stored in. He drank enough orange juice to swell his stomach, and he could hear his insides sloshing as he trundled back to the bedroom.

Something caught his attention. A flicker of movement; a shape. Something. He wouldn’t have noticed it before, but he was capable of doing so now, and so he turned his head and saw Dell lying on the couch in the living room. The alpha slept deeply, lips slightly parted and one hand tucked under his scruffy cheek.

He doesn’t look so scary.

In fact, Dell looked borderline cute, like a toddler trying to sleep on a doll bed. His huge body could hardly fit on the couch, both legs jutting up and over the end. His arm not tucked away dangled awkwardly to the carpet, knuckles brushing the material. He looked rather like a puppy in that moment instead of a dangerous adult wolf, capable of doing terrible things if he so desired.

Corey lingered a moment too long. He sensed it. Dell’s breathing changed. The slow rise-and-fall tide of his chest hitched, and his eyes opened with a flash of reflective green. Frozen with fear, like a deer in headlights, Corey just stammered, “I… orange juice.”

Dell closed his eyes again, but he didn’t sleep. Heart hammering in his throat, Corey hurried back to bed and burrowed under the covers. He had no idea how he was going to sleep now but his body did, carrying him toward darkness the moment he shut his eyes.

Neither of them spoke of their awkward pre-dawn encounter when morning finally arrived. They ate waffles and, this time, Corey was allowed to pour his own syrup. He drowned the simple pastry in a pool of sticky sweetness that covered the entirety of the plate and didn’t regret a thing.

“I’m surprised a skinny thing like you can eat so much.”

Corey looked up from his food, cheeks bulging with waffle and syrup running down to his chin. Dell wasn’t looking at him and gave no indication that he’d even spoken out loud at all.

“Is that bad?” Corey ventured, wishing for approval from this man.

“It means you’re recovering.”

So… good, right?

“I already spoke with the others at the station,” Dell said, continuing that unnerving habit he had of beginning conversations out of thin air. “So far, we haven’t been able to find a Missing Person report about you in Montana or the surrounding states. Your first name and description bring nothing.”

“Oh. I see.” The syrup tasted foul now, cloying instead of pleasant. Corey swallowed and felt the lump of chewed waffle drop into his stomach like a rock.

“The search is going to be expanded to include reports from every state. And we’ve given the local news your picture and information. Word will travel. We’ll find you your home yet.”

Corey just stared down at his plate while Dell finished, his thoughts whirling. It hadn’t occurred to him until right now just how much trouble he was causing everyone. It wasn’t enough to just know he was missing. They had to know where from, and how recently, and he’d given them none of that. It was all his fault that they’d been working with nothing, no doubt running into dead ends all over the place.

All at once, he knew he had to get out of this apartment. The certainty formed deep in his gut, a second stone to join the first. He wasn’t going to remember anything in here, looking at the same things and feeling the same things. If his memory was going to come back, he needed to actively find it.

“Hey… um… Dell?”

The alpha said nothing, though he seemed to be listening.

“Can I go out?” he asked, as shy as a teen girl mentioning a first date to her parents.

“Why?”

“I need clothes that fit.”

Dell grunted roughly. “You have no clothes. I tried to wash that junk of yours, trust me, but it disintegrated in the wash.”

“Okay, then I need clothes pretty badly. I can’t just keep wearing yours.”

“Why not? My clothes not good enough for you?”

“No,” Corey said, flatly. As scared as he was of the alpha, he wasn’t going to be treated like a prisoner when he wasn’t. “They aren’t. Sorry, but you dress like a cop and brown isn’t really my color.”

For a long moment, Dell just looked at him with that cold amber gaze. Corey wondered how he had ever thought those irises were warmed honey, when they were burning through him right now. Then, Dell gave a gruff laugh that was deep enough to reverberate in his stomach. “So, you do have some bite. I was beginning to wonder if you were actually a wolf.”

He wanted me to argue with him?

“How are you going to buy clothes?” Dell asked.

Now that he’d caught onto the game, Corey was ready for this. “I guess you’re just going to have to buy them for me.”

“Then, they’ll technically be my clothes.”

“You’re welcome to try to fit into them if you like. And I’m sure once I remember my bank account number, I’ll be able to pay you back.”

“I hope you aren’t one of those annoying kids who only wears name brand clothes.” Dell stood up and grabbed for his keys.

Corey followed him out to the truck. “I’m pretty sure I’m not, but what would I know? I have no memory, if you’ve forgotten.”

“You do like to push your limits, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question, not that Corey understood quite what it was anyway. Everything Dell said to him now seemed to have some sort of double meaning that he just couldn’t grasp.

They drove to a small store in the middle of Eureka. The day was warm but not overly so, and it seemed as if everyone in the entire town was out and about to make the best of the fair weather. Corey tilted his head back and squinted at the sun until his eyes hurt, wondering if this was the same view of the sun that he had known for all of his life. Was this the same angle of the moon he was used to seeing, and were the stars above the constellations of his home?

“Any day now, kid.”

He followed Dell inside, where they were greeted by a group of three little old ladies standing around a counter. Only one seemed to work there, as she was behind the counter with a cash register in front of her, while the other two were gossipy customers.

Dell spared them only the barest of greetings before turning his attention away, putting the old ladies at his back. Corey followed his lead and then looked around to see where to begin. While small, the store was packed with floor-to-ceiling merchandize, ranging from an entire section of nothing but girly headbands to emoji t-shirts. Corey curled his lip at those. He wasn’t much for pop culture, he thought. So many things that others his own age did and said were absurd, making him embarrassed to belong in the same generation.

“You look as if you’ve remembered something.”

Corey sighed. “Nothing important.”

“Perhaps not, but once you know who you are, the rest might fall into place. There’s no rush.”

This man makes no sense to me.

Corey browsed the small stock of men’s clothing, occasionally feeling a sort of heat pass over his body. It was as if he was being watched, but every time he looked at Dell, the alpha wasn’t looking at him. Odd, but what hadn’t been?

In the end, he picked out three cheap t-shirts and two pairs of jeans. It wasn’t exactly anything he normally would have worn but it was better than being naked, and a great deal better than wearing Dell’s clothes.

The alpha paid for the clothes and then reached for the bag to carry it before Corey could get to it, stowing it away in the back of his truck.

“Any other pointless errands you want us to go on?”

“I am kind of hungry.”

“Should have finished eating breakfast,” Dell snorted. “Skinny little thing like you needs all you can get. So many of you omegas are just too fragile.”

There it was again. That word, omega. Corey had begun thinking of Dell as being an alpha, since that was already a concept he was familiar with, but he hadn’t as of yet figured out what it meant for him to be an omega. Clearly, he wasn’t strong, and he wasn’t gruff or dominating. So, what was he, if anything, or was an omega just defined by what they lacked?”

“Why?” he dared to ask. Dell raised his eyebrows, not understanding. Corey looked at the other man as he drove, admiring the depths of concentration that allowed him to be able to drive and hold a conversation at once. A relatively new driver himself— something else he remembered that came to him so casually—he was in awe of such prowess. “Why are omegas fragile?”

“It’s just the way things are. Alphas are strong. Omegas are not.”

“But is that the truth or just something that everyone’s been told and now they think it’s true? Because women were viewed as inferior for ages, so maybe…”

“You think you’re a philosopher now, Corey?”

Why did his name coming from Dell’s lips make him want to hear it spoken again, over and over until he was satisfied?

“Humans are one thing. We aren’t human. We’re less than human, half-animal, and animals can’t escape their nature. Someone has to be an alpha and someone has to be an omega. That’s just how life goes. You’ll understand soon.”

“Why?”

But Dell didn’t answer.

Once back at Dell’s house, Corey sat on the couch where the other had slept and watched him prepare grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He operated with the measured movements of one who has done the same thing before too many times to count, not even really needing to focus on his task anymore.

“Where do our clothes go when we shift?”

“No one knows,” Dell replied, shaking a pan to see if the grilled cheese was ready to be flipped. Seemingly dissatisfied with its progress, he set the pan back down on the stove to wait some more.

Corey blinked. “You mean no one’s bothered to research it?”

“We’re animals. We have simpler desires from the world than humans. Maybe the world isn’t here for us to figure out like a puzzle. Maybe we’re all just here to survive the best we can.”

He didn’t like the sound of that idea, especially when he’d just been told that alphas were weak and omegas weren’t. If some were automatically given the tools to survive better than the rest, what was even the point of an omega’s existence? What was the point of his existence?

“Do you think it’s possible to apply science to magic, Corey?”

Magic…

“I’m sure it’s been studied. I’m sure there are answers, whether we know them or not. But I also know there’s a point where science and magic… they’re indistinguishable. If it’s beyond us to understand, if we haven’t reached that level of knowledge… Isn’t that magic?” Dell flipped his grilled cheese too late, scowling down at the blackened side facing up. “But I really don’t know about any of that, so you’re asking the wrong wolf. I’m a simple man. I don’t need the cosmic answers of the universe to keep me going when my needs are simple.”

Corey didn’t answer for a very long time, because he had caught sight of something he hadn’t noticed before. It sat out on the coffee table in plain sight, but he’d never chanced to see it: a small notepad with a pen clipped to it, exactly the right size and shape to be tucked away in a breast pocket. Someone had drawn a wolf on the top sheet of paper, though not just any wolf. He recognized it as himself, a majestic creature with patient eyes peering out from beneath a graceful brow. It wasn’t a nightmare wolf, and could never ever be a nightmare. The shape of the face was slender, the fur sketched out in silky little wavy lines that draped down the nape of the neck. Silver and black, with wide, pale eyes that observed the world and missed nothing…

It was him. The wolf that lived inside of him, drawn by someone with a fantastic amount of talent. Every stroked pen line, every scribble, was masterful and deliberate, yet so smooth that the individual parts of the drawing could easily be ignored to focus on the subject matter depicted.

Looking at this image of himself, Corey knew Dell drew it. When, he didn’t know, but it was undoubtedly Dell. The aloof, gruff, mysterious alpha, had drawn Corey the way he saw him, the way he undoubtedly saw himself. Beautiful.

Is that really what I am? Is that what I could be?

Looking up, Corey saw Dell watching him. The alpha knew his drawing had been seen. It was written in every aspect of his body, tension and acceptance mingled to form a whole that had no name. His wolf was on the surface, gray and darkness with those predatorial eyes.

“What needs are those?” Corey finally managed to ask, barely able to whisper out his question. Breath caught in his lungs, and time seemed suspended on the tip of a pen.

Dell broke the spell, flicking off the stove with a twist of a knob and grabbing the plates of food to bring them over. “Same as any man,” he said. The forced lightness in his voice simply just didn’t belong. “To eat, to sleep. To fuck.”

Unbidden, Corey imagined two wolves locked together in a sex act, and the thought did something strange to his virgin body that could only be described as arousal. He readjusted his plate on his lap to hide the beginning bulge of his erection, hoping against hope that Dell wouldn’t notice. “Do shifters eat other shifters?” he asked, desperate to change the conversation. Any bit of distraction would be good, to keep him from thinking of the sex he’d never had and imagining how it would be with Dell.

Am I gay? I can’t remember. I must be.

“Do humans eat other humans? Not unless they’re crazy or desperate.” Dell stood up to collect their plates and take them to the sink. Corey hadn’t even noticed that he’d finished his sandwich, hadn’t even tasted it.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand this,” he quietly lamented.

“You will. It’s part of you, whether you knew it before or not. You aren’t just Corey anymore. You’re an animal, a proud predator. It feels good and you know it, so get used to it. And leave me alone. I’ve had enough of you.”

Corey hadn’t successfully managed to get rid of his erection, so he angled his body away while heading to the bedroom for a nap. As he turned the corner, he glanced over at Dell and his eyes widened. He couldn’t help it. What he saw was exactly what he hadn’t been expecting to see. Instead of disgust or boredom, Dell wore an expression of simple confusion. A bulge tented out against the front of his jeans, visible until he turned toward the counter.

Uncertain what any of this meant, Corey just went to sleep. He dreamed of pounding fists and blood, and heard the strangled voices of an angry crowd, sentences too tangled together to make sense of anyone in particular. When morning came, he was glad.