Page 32 of One Night with the Werewolf
Afternoon wanes, and finally, we reach the campsite. Emelia clearly has experience putting up a tent, which I like in a woman. We get it erected in a matter of minutes, and then unroll our sleeping bags, as if we’ll be using them.
Little does she know I’m going to be a werewolf until the moon sets, which isn’t until two or three in the morning. And we’ll make sure she’s stuffed full of me the entire time.
We spread out to find tinder, then Emelia quickly assembles a pyramid and lights the fire. We cook a dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, getting ketchup and mustard all over ourselves. I lick it off Emelia’s fingers, which makes her giggle with delight, and then we kiss a sloppy kiss.
I feel so young again, being with her. Suddenly I’m twenty-six, too, and learning for the first time what it means to love someone. She’s so bright and full of life, simply radiating it, that building a family with her seems like the best idea I’ve ever had.
As the sun sets, the sky turns darker and the moon appears. Emelia glances from me to the moon and back again.
“The sky has to be fully dark,” I explain. “Then it happens. Don’t worry when it does.”
She frowns. “Why would I worry?”
“I make a lot of noise. It’s… a little painful.”
Her face twists in horror. “It’s painful?!”
“Yeah, I mean, my bones are changing, so are my muscles. Everything. It’s all rearranging and then reforming.” It’s an ugly process, too, so I was hoping I could do it without her watching. But I think it’s inescapable now.
“I’m sorry,” Emelia says, looping her arm around me. “I’m really sorry this happened to you.”
It’s been many, many years and lots of therapy sessions since that backpacking trip, but I think this is the first time anyone has ever expressed true sympathy for me.
I hold Emelia closer to me, kissing her hair, grateful for her generosity and love.
“Don’t worry about me,” I say. “Worry about you. When I tell you to run, you run, okay?”
She peers up at me. “And you won’t hurt me?”
The wolf growls. He would never.
“No, I won’t hurt you. Not unless you want me to.”
She doesn’t react immediately, like I expected. No, Emelia thinks for a moment, and then says, “Okay. Do you have a first aid kit?”
“In the camping box.”
“Then you can scratch me,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes. “But obviously, no biting.”
“Scratching, got it.” I bring her even deeper into my embrace, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. “We need a safe word. So I know if it’s too much for you.”
“Pineapple.”
I laugh at her instant answer. “Pineapple it is.”
We wait for the milky periwinkle sky to turn fully dark, stars appearing in a wonderful kaleidoscope that simply isn’t possible back in the city. We sit on a log together in silence, waiting and watching, until I feel the change begin.
I surge to my feet as my bones start creaking, breaking, moving. I howl in pain as it takes over my body, the sudden need to eat, to devour, to tear and rip. It’s always an onslaught like that at first, becoming the wolf.
The ground shrinks beneath me as I shoot up into the air. Even my fingernails burn as they change into claws. My mouth stretches, dragging my jaw along with it and all my teeth as they, too, change and shift into fangs.
Emelia cries out beneath me. I glance down to see her terrified face, her hands extended toward me.
“Roscoe! Oh my god, are you all right?” There’s probably some blood on me, like there usually is after I change.
Mate. That’s the only thought in my big, stupid head as Emelia looks at me.Mate her. Breed her. Fill her.It doesn’t matter that she’s already carrying my baby.
“Go, run,” I try to say to her, and it comes out a rumbling growl. “Run, Emelia.”
