Page 62 of Werewolves Don't Howl
I frowned down at my hands where my beast’s claws were pressing against the pads of my fingers. No. This wasn’t happening. I was in control of my beast, truly. I could willfully shift one nail or just my head. There was no way that I’d lose control, particularly not in the middle of the wedding. I looked up at Cross, desperate, and his eyes narrowed back at me in concern.
“I’m not feeling well,” I whispered while my eyes watered and the urge to shift into a beast grew as irresistibly as the need to sneeze in a dusty room. I had to leave, now, in the middle of the ceremony, with my brothers sitting next to us, blocking the aisle.
I pressed my lips together and started climbing over their knees while my beast flexed under my skin. I kept my face down, hoping that no one noticed anything weird going on as the bones shifted.
When I hit the aisle, I ran, ignoring the looks I got as I raced out and burst into the bathroom. My beast exploded, ripping through my lovely dress and shedding the humanity and the civilization, and leaving me shuddering and panting on the tile floor. What was wrong with me? My beast never came out like that, even before I learned to control the triad. I shuddered again, my spine snapping as my beast filled up the bathroom, stretching and flailing, my limbs all over the place, slapping the tile painfully. I tried to breathe steadily, but the beast wasn’t just the beast, it was sick, convulsing, out-of-control. I couldn’t lose control, not here, not now, but I did anyway.
“Delphi?” my mother asked, opening the door.
“Don’t come in!” I growled and scrambled for the window, my claws sliding over the slick tile.
“Dear, are you sick?” she called through the crack.
The window was high and small. Could my beast fit out of it? I grabbed the lever and ripped it off the frame. I stared at the small piece of metal stupidly. I’d broken it. I tossed it over my shoulder and clawed at the frame, leaving deep runes in the metal.
“Don’t come in,” I growled again, trying to get the stupid window to just open. My beast’s claws weren’t dexterous enough, and even if they were, the latch was broken and…
My mother’s gasp had me turning to stare at the gnome, who stood with slack mouth, hands limp at her sides, her purse on the ground, the contents spilled over the tile.
My dad was behind her, visible through the open door. He came in and closed the door behind him, frowning coldly at me.
“Don’t move,” he commanded, and pulled out a gun.
Seriously? He’s going to shoot me? And why would he be carrying at Bram’s wedding? I almost laughed. Everything was so ridiculous. And impossible. “Let me explain,” I rumbled through my distended jaws. “It’s me.” Could they understand that garbling?
My mother’s face was still blank with horror and shock. Werewolves were death to gnomes. Also, I’d let her think werewolves kidnapped me out of my school to keep me with those other poor women.
My drool was getting all over the place, drool that might infect them. I turned and lunged for the window, clawing my way through and breaking out the frame while I scrabbled my feet, trying to get purchase on the wall.
A gun went off, and I felt a burn through my back before I came out of the window, tumbling headfirst into some very prickly rose bushes. I gritted my teeth so I wouldn’t howl from the pain and frustration. It was still before noon, and people were starting to leave the church. I’d missed the end of the wedding. I wanted to cry, but werewolves don’t cry.
No one could see me. I had to run far away and never come back. Except that Cross already knew what I was. And he could fish the bullet out of me. He’d been sleeping in the barn, so that’s where I’d go.
I limped a run, holding to the shadows as much as I could, calling on the mystery and confusion of my elf magic to help camouflage me as I raced, leaving the shredded dress in scraps behind me. My beast was fast, even if I was bleeding heavily from the chest wound. My dad had shot me. He hadn’t waited to see if I was a threat, just shot the werewolf because all werewolves are evil and dangerous, deadly dangerous to gnomes. That last bit was true. If I’d infected my mother, she’d be dead. I never should have come and put all the other gnomes in danger. I trusted myself, my control, but I’d lost it in the middle of the crowded wedding. I was so stupid!
I finally got to the barn, found the darkest corner behind a pile of hay that smelled like Cross, and crouched down to wait. While I waited, I reached back, claws extended, and dug into the flesh until I found the huge bullet and ripped it out. There was so much werewolf blood, but I kept it all in the corner so it could be washed down easily. Eventually, the beast subsided, and then it was gone, leaving me in tatters of my pretty floral dress. I crouched there, barefoot, arms wrapped around my knees while I felt my back knit slowly together. It hadn’t been a silver bullet. At least that was something.
“Delphinia?” Cross murmured from outside the small stall where I crouched.
I sighed shakily. “Hi.”
He moved into the stall door, a tall shadow in the back reaches of my parent’s barn. “You left a trail of blood.”
I whispered, “My dad shot me. He didn’t ask questions, just shot me right in the back. I think he might have hit my heart. That would explain how much blood…” I took a shaky breath, but I didn’t stand up. I was just going to stay in a crumpled up pile for the rest of my life.
“I don’t think that they know it was you,” he said carefully. “If you’d like to get cleaned up, you can?—”
“Pretend like I’m not a monster that puts all their lives in danger by existing? No. I’m going to tell them. They can write me off as dead and I won’t have to pretend to be normal. Win-win.” I sobbed once before I got myself under control.
Cross came in, shut the stall door behind him and moved slowly towards me before he crouched so our knees touched. I pulled away, because his suit was going to get ruined, like my dress.
“Delphinia, you aren’t putting them in danger. You weren’t ever going to hurt them, and you aren’t contagious. I know your blood, your transformation, and it’s not communicable.”
I looked up at him, frowning. “That’s what you think, but my beast is experimental. Who knows what I really am? You were so stupid to eat that brownie.”
“It wasn’t stupid. It was the best brownie I’ve ever had. It would be worth dying to eat your baked goods, but death was never an option, and neither was werewolfism. You can’t infect me, no matter how many times you bite me. You’ve bitten me a lot of times in the past, remember?”
I put my face down on my knees, because I didn’t want to remember, the pain of shifting, the betrayal of him, injecting me with horrible poisons that made me so sick so I’d transition slow enough to stay alive, to stay in control. “It doesn’t matter. My dad shot me.”
