Chapter 7
“Are you kidding me!” I said under my breath as I stared at the graduation schedule our homeroom teacher had just handed out.
“What?” Gemma asked. “The weather will be perfect! And it’s on a Friday. It’s gonna be epic, girlfriend!”
I had learned quickly to know the days of the month when the moon would be full, and graduation night, unfortunately, was going to be the first night of the full moon. That meant, that Ryder, Benson, half the football team, and even that ass, Sam, and I would have to spend our graduation night writhing in pain instead of partying our asses off. I wanted to cry… and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
“Nothing,” I murmured and shoved the flyer into my bag. I needed to tell my parents that I would be out all night for graduation. I had, after all, turned eighteen last month, and now that I was graduating, I didn’t think they’d have too much heartburn with it.
I’d learned over the past few months to make up excuses about my all-night shifts. I’d tell them I was staying at Gemma’s or Kiera’s on the full-moon nights, that way I wasn’t coming home at dawn with no explanation. I would also have to make up more lies about why I was coming home so early, like Gemma had to go to a soccer tournament for her little brother two cities over and I had to leave her house, or Kiera and her family were leaving on a trip. It sucked lying to them, but I wasn’t sure what else I could do. Aden told me to stop lying and just say nothing, but I couldn’t do that to them. My brothers and I owed them everything… our lives. I didn’t want to disrespect them like that.
As I sat and listened to Gemma and Kiera make plans for graduation night, I tried hard to fight the sadness inside of me at the thought of their parties and the kegs and the fun they were going to be having while I was killing deer with my bare teeth and having animal sex with Ryder.
Yes, we totally had sex as wolves. I tried not to think about it because it was just too weird. Admittedly, the sensations were still the same, just not the position. I told him early on “no doggie style” in the bedroom because we got enough of that during the shifts. He had laughed, but I wasn’t kidding.
We did it on every shift, too. Ugh.
* * *
Graduation was amazing. I had never been so happy in my life. To walk on that stage and accept that diploma, and to see the pride and happiness on my parents’ faces was the best feeling in the world.
With our caps and gowns on, Ryder lifted me up and twirled me around. When he set me back down, he wrapped me in a hug. “We did it, baby. We did it.” He pulled back from the hug and put his hand on my face. “I love you, and I’m proud of you.”
I felt like I had been through so much with him with his werewolf stuff, so to hear him say those things to me made me all warm inside. I had to fight back tears. “I am proud of you, too, Ryder. Onto bigger and better things.”
CU Boulder had, to my amazement, accepted the both of us, and we were set to start in the fall. Thankfully, my parents told me they had enough money that I could live in student housing. After all, Aden and Austyn hadn’t gone to college, so I got all the college money they’d saved.
Yay me.
After the graduation ceremony, we got in all our hugs and photos, and we all went to Benson’s house for a huge party. The wolves were happy and relieved that the full moon wasn’t going to be at its highest peak until after eleven so we could enjoy ourselves a little.
Benson’s parents weren’t home… I suspected they had to go someplace themselves for their shift… and I wasn’t quite sure if they knew Benson had offered to throw the graduation party, but regardless, it was fun.
I had had two beers and was feeling pretty loose and happy. Gemma and I were laughing together, when suddenly, my buzz wore off just like that. I checked my phone to see it was 10:35. I started to feel twitchy and angry—the feelings I always got when the shift was close.
“I need to find Ryder,” I said to Gemma.
“Oh, whatever. You go find your man. I’m gonna find myself one.”
I smiled weakly at her, threw my plastic cup in the trash, and began to wander around the massive house. Spotting Ryder in the front room talking to Benson, I went over and put my hand on his arm, and then looked at Benson.
“I think we need to go,” I said, bouncing from foot to foot.
I saw both Ryder’s and Benson’s eyes flash yellow, and then back to their natural colors. Ryder looked at his fitness watch. “It’s not even eleven yet.”
“I know, but we need to go.” I looked around briefly, and then added, “I know you feel it, too.”
Chancing a glance at Benson, I could see sweat starting to break out along his hairline.
“What do I do? Just leave these people in my house?”
“Tell them the party’s over, they need to go somewhere else,” I suggested.
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, that’s probably the safest thing. I can’t stay here and make sure they don’t trash my shit.”
Ryder put his fingers to his mouth and blew out a whistle. “Attention, everyone!”
Then Benson spoke. “Something’s come up, everyone has to go! Make your way toward the front door… now.”
A chorus of groans followed as I watched him unplug the speakers from his cell phone, which had been playing music, and I think that helped kill the mood.
Thankfully, nobody gave us much hassle as we began ushering people outside.
Suddenly I felt scorching hot—on fire. My body tingled and I could feel the shift coming.
“Ryder,” I whimpered as I tried my hardest not to strip my clothes off.
He looked over at me, his eyes wide, and also turning yellow.
Benson, who was sweating profusely now and had already stripped off his shirt, was urging the last of the guests to leave.
Crack… my arm bone. I muffled a cry.
I kicked my shoes off. Next came my pants, shirt, bra, and then my underwear.
Crack… my spine. I fell to the ground and whined.
I watched as Benson closed and locked the door, including the chain at the top of the door, and then went and closed all the blinds and curtains. He was shaking.
Crack… my shin bone. I screamed out in pain.
The shift happened fast after that, and it was a total relief to be the wolf. Lightweight and carefree. Now wandering the house.
Ryder’s and Benson’s clothing was shredded as they shifted quickly.
“We have to spend the night in this house like this?” I asked, horrified.
“Well, we can’t exactly go roaming my neighborhood like this,” Benson replied.
He had a point, but seriously? I needed to hunt. I needed to run.
Seeing that the backdoor had been left open, I bolted for it and happily bounded into the massive greenery of his backyard.
“Ayla, no!” Ryder said, running after me.
“There are no fences,” I said, looking at all the space I had to run. A small, short length of chicken wire separated each backyard, and I knew I could easily bound over it.
Benson’s backyard had a lot of tall scrub oak trees jutting up from the ground. I began sniffing around at all the different smells.
“We have to go back inside the house,” Benson said inside my head.
“No, I don’t want to be inside, I need to run around.”
I won that battle pretty easily, as the other two had to know we couldn’t be cooped up in a house for the next eight hours.
They both sniffed around the backyard when we all stopped suddenly and lifted our heads. I followed Ryder’s big, black wolf’s gaze to where a family of deer stood, frozen in the neighbor’s yard.
“Get them!” Benson yelled, and we all tore off toward the deer, who began to run in the opposite direction.
The run felt exhilarating and fun. The deer ran, but we were able to catch up. As I was about to swipe at the back leg of one of the smaller deer, we heard a deep, threatening growl. I looked over to see a large mountain lion headed our way.
“Ahhh!” I screamed as it pounced on me, knocking me to the ground.
Benson and Ryder stopped short and turned around to see what had happened. With a growl, they both jumped on the mountain lion as I bit and scratched at him to get him off of me.
The lion growled and turned to fight the males. With anger and bloodlust now fueling me, I sank my razor-sharp teeth into its back leg as it was fighting Benson’s and Ryder’s wolves. The mountain lion howled in pain, so I bit him again.
Knowing he was outnumbered, he turned to run, but Ryder jumped on him. With a swift movement, Ryder bit into its neck and I watched as the life drained out of the animal. That was when Benson and I jumped in, licking and drinking its blood.
Huh. Mountain lion blood is pretty tasty.
We woke the next morning to a blood-curdling scream.
Blinking open my tired eyes, I had to wait for them to focus before I saw a small child standing at an open sliding-glass door. She wore a long, pink nightgown and her hair was sticking up in places.
Then I smelled urine and dog. I looked over to see a large German Shepard with his leg lifted, pissing all over Benson’s naked body.
“Shit!” he said, jumping up. “Shit! Get the hell away from me!” he said, shooing the dog.
The little girl screamed again. It was like one long, continuous scream.
Two adults came to the door and stared at us in horror. And did I blame them? Three filthy, naked, bloodstained teens sleeping in their grass.
I immediately placed an arm over my breasts. “Um, we need to leave,” I said under my breath.
“Is that the Gibbs kid?” I heard the mom say.
“Benson? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the man asked, finally gaining his composure.
“Axel, get in here!” the mom called to the dog, as he went bounding for the door.
We didn’t answer the man. We just took off running through three yards to get back to Benson’s house.
Weirdest graduation night ever.
* * *
“What the hell happened, Ayla?” Benson said, emerging from his room, still filthy but now in a pair of athletic shorts. He threw Ryder his clothes.
“Why are you blaming me?” I asked, slipping my shirt over my head. My modesty had completely left about three months ago when I realized that nakedness was just part of being a wolf. At this point, Benson had seen me naked more than my own mother had.
“You said eleven thirty-six was the time the moon would be the highest. We barely had time to get everyone out of the house before we shifted and it wasn’t even eleven yet!”
“I can’t control what the website says!” I bantered. “It’s never been wrong before.”
“Then what happened?” Ryder asked, slipping on the last shoe.
I bit my lip, exhaustion taking over. “I don’t know.” And I truly didn’t. I would need to do some research on this, and clearly not rely on that stupid “moon-phases calendar dot net” website anymore.
Stupid, stupid website.
Pound-pound-pound… was the sound coming from the front door.
Benson ran a hand through his filthy blond hair. “Shit.”
Opening it slowly, we were greeted by the man whose backyard we’d just woken up in.
“What?” Benson asked.
“Don’t you ‘what’ me, boy. What the hell were you doing in my yard, all naked?” He looked at the three of us, and then said, “Are you kids on drugs?”
Benson sighed, clearly not wanting to deal with this right now. “No, Mr. Ashton. We’re not on drugs. It was just a rough night.”
He narrowed his eyes at us. “Did you three have some kind of orgy in my backyard last night?”
My eyes went big. “No, no way! We just had a bit too much to drink. Sorry, sir.”
Benson glared at me, and then said, “Yeah, rough night.”
“I want to talk to your mom or dad. Get them now,” he demanded.
Benson shook his head. “They’re not here. Sorry.”
Mr. Ashton huffed. “Well I’ll be by later to talk to them. You three scared, and probably traumatized my daughter. She was just letting the dog out and did not need to see that!”
“There wasn’t anything to see,” Ryder said under his breath, clearly as irritated as we all were.
Mr. Ashton tied his robe tighter around his middle, and stormed off in a huff. We waited for him to go into his house before Ryder and I left.
I would be an ass if I admitted that I was laughing at the whole situation, but hell, if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.