Chapter 22
Unfortunately for me, I had to take a weekend off from vampire hunting to go to Wolfe Point to do my thing.
“You fucking stink, Ayla,” Aden said, ushering me inside the trailer so we could strip and preserve our clothes before the full moon was at its highest.
Pulling my shirt off over my head, I folded it neatly and placed it in my cubby. Yes, Aden had made us all little square cubbies to place our stuff before the shift. I had laughed when I had first seen them, but it turned out to be pretty awesome.
“What do you mean, I stink? I actually showered before coming up here, which I’m not sure why I bothered.”
He shook his head as she toed off his boots and then began unbuttoning his jeans. “No, not like BO. Like your whole self, your very being.” He folded his pants, and now standing in nothing but his boxers said, “You stink like vampire. You need to stop hanging out with that quee—“
“Shut the fuck up, Aden,” I warned. “Do not tell me who I can and cannot hang out with. Beckett is no danger to me. He’s my friend. And thanks for telling him”—I jabbed my thumb at Aden—“by the way.”
Ryder, now standing totally naked, ignored my comment about how he’d told Aden about Beckett. “Well, I don’t like it at all.”
I lifted my chin and looked at my boyfriend of three years. “I don’t care what you think.”
Turning away, I stripped off the rest of my clothes and ran outside. I found a huge rock to sit on, and curled myself into a ball, waiting for the rest of the pack to come out. I lifted my face to the sky, letting the fat, round moon bathe my face in its light.
“We have time for a quickie,” I heard a voice say.
I looked up to see Sam, the creepy perv of the pack, standing five feet from me, naked and proud with a lascivious look on his face.
“Ugh, piss off, Sam,” I said, looking back up at the sky.
“You wish you could fuck this,” he said, gesturing to his genitals.
I made a dramatic gagging noise and ignored him and continued to look at the sky. I hated that cursed moon. I hated it so much. I should be in Lo-Do looking for a couple of criminal vampires. Not here turning into the monster I loathed.
The first scream drew me out of my musings and I looked up to see Sam now on all fours, his head down, his bones beginning to break as he shifted. It happened fast. I stood up and walked over to Aden and Ryder, who were now falling onto the ground in agony. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to hit me.
And I waited some more.
Aden and Ryder were now already full-blown wolves. All I felt was hot. Feverish, really. Burning up and now panting and wanting water. I heard the first bone crack, but it was in my face, not my back or a limb like usual.
Crack-crack-crack… all the little bones in my face popped and began to protrude like I was getting ready to grow the snout I had become so accustomed to.
Still standing on two legs, I looked down at my hands to see them elongate, the nails at each tip grow to points. Blonde hair began to sprout on my hands and arms, and I was really confused as to what was going on.
Coarse, thick hair began to grow everywhere… and I do mean, everywhere. My feet morphed into some kind of monstrous, bony animal-type feet with my toenails elongating.
I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wasn’t in pain; I was frightened.
“What in the hell is happening to you, Ayla?” I heard Ryder ask in my head.
“I don’t know,” I said aloud, still staring at my hands and feet.
I then put my hands to my face and could feel a layer of hair there, too. My teeth had grown elongated and sharp, and stuck out below my lip. Mortified, I screamed again, and then opened my eyes to see my wolf brothers and sisters standing in front of me on all fours.
“Why is her shift taking so long?” Ryder asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Aden said, walking up to me and nudging my knee with his snout.
“I’m not changing, guys,” I said shakily, feeling the fever and pain subside. I was calmer now. Confused, but calmer.
“What are you? You look like some kind of caveman,” said Maria.
“With boobs,” Sam added.
The world looked strange through these eyes, like it did when I was the wolf, but a little clearer, and not black and white. I could see faint colors but everything was still shaded in a red halo on all sides.
I lumbered into the trailer and threw on a loose tank top and a pair of Ryder’s shorts, since obviously I was not going to be the wolf, and walked back outside. The pack was still standing around, just staring at me.
“What?” I asked awkwardly with fangs touching my bottom lip as I spoke. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” I looked down at myself, still sort of numb in shock, but secretly thrilled I wasn’t a full-blown wolf. I wasn’t sure this was better, but at least I had opposable thumbs.
They all stood there quiet, staring at me, and I began to panic that I couldn’t hear their voices anymore.
“Well, don’t just stand there staring at me, you mutts. Let’s go eat!”
“Mutts! You look like Bigfoot’s bitch,” Aden said, muttering a laugh and turning tail.
“Funny,” I said dryly, following the wolves into the forest. It was odd to be up this high, seeing things from up here instead of at wolf level. It was odd that I could look at each wolf and know exactly who was who.
I walked as stealthily as I could, even though it was hard to in this form. I wasn’t just covered in hair, my bones felt heavier, and it was a little hard to breathe. I followed as quietly as I could, and when we all heard a twig snap off in the distance, we froze. I spotted with my new eyesight a doe about fifty yards away, and looked down to see my brothers and sisters also looking in its direction.
In the same way we always did, half of us began to move in unison toward the doe, while the other half of the pack began to move in the opposite direction for another victim.
I watched in awe as my brothers and sisters stalked with complete silence and grace toward their prey. I stepped on an acorn and it made a popping sound under my foot. The doe looked up from where she was eating, saw me, and took off running in the opposite direction.
Shit!
“Goddammit!” Sam cried.
“That sucks!” Aden said.
The rest of the wolves grumbled and moaned in my head.
“I’m sorry,” I said aloud. “I didn’t know there were so many acorns around here. I’ll try to be quieter.”
They all just stared at me, then Ryder finally spoke. “Ayla, maybe you should just go to the trailer and get some rest or something.”
“But I’m really hungry,” I whined.
“Then eat some pizza. I brought five of them for snacks when we shift back,” Aden answered. “They’re in the trailer’s kitchen.”
I felt hurt by his comments, but knew I was just hindering them. I nodded and lowered my head and made my way back to the camp so they could hunt in peace.
* * *
I lay on one of the beds, unable to move. I had eaten at least five slices of pizza and felt sick. I had been so ravenous with hunger, I hadn’t been thinking. I looked down to see a horrific, strange hand on my protruding belly and realized it was my own. Slowly rising from the bed, I went to the small bathroom inside the trailer and put my hands on either side of the sink. I took a deep breath before lifting my face to the small mirror attached to the wall.
I screamed at my reflection. I truly did look like the Wolfman from the old horror comic books. Pointed ears, wild hair, yellow eyes that were red in the middle, a slit for a pupil, and lots of hair. I had hair everywhere. Cheeks, forehead, ears, chin, neck… oh, my God.
I opened my mouth to see a set of gleaming white teeth with those sharp incisors protruding. I lifted a hairy finger to one and when I touched the tip of one, I was rewarded with a stinging poke to my finger. I licked the blood that beaded there, and realized that I was still hungry.
But how can that be? I just ate so much. Then I realized that pizza could not satiate the hunger that went down to the very core of me. But where would I get some of the red stuff? I obviously was too big and lumbering to sneak up on some poor, unsuspecting animal. I grew sad when I realized that I kind of wished that I could be the wolf once more. She was stealthy and graceful and could hunt with the best of them. She was accepted and loved by her pack.
This thing looking at me in the mirror was nothing but an unnatural monstrosity. I used to think becoming the wolf was unnatural and an abomination. But I had eventually come to accept that I wasn’t any of those things; the magic in the blood of which I was born was just the way it was supposed to be. I was born to be a wolf, to shift during a full moon. As much as I loathed it, to hunt, and kill, and protect my brothers, was all I had.
But this thing staring back at me in the mirror was not natural. It was an abomination. This was what a hybrid looked like. Wasn’t that was Sanja had called me? A hybrid? It had to be the reason why I couldn’t fully shift anymore. I had too much vampire venom in my system. Maybe the venom would eventually leave, and at the next full moon, I would fully turn into the wolf and I could put this all behind me. I believed it was possible that this could be temporary. After all, wouldn’t the magic in my blood fight the venom? All I knew was that being a hybrid wasn’t going to work for me. I could not turn into this hideous beast once a month. At least when I was the wolf, I had my brothers and sisters—my pack—and we just accepted what we were and spent three days together doing what we had been cursed to do.
But this? How in the hell was I supposed to deal with looking like this once a month for eternity? My pack clearly wasn’t going to accept me like this, and it wasn’t like I could go hang with Beckett on the weekends unless it was, like, Halloween.
Fuck my life.