It sounded like a rabid animal dying a slow death. Screams were mixed with desperate howls, echoing in the chambers of my brain, burning a memory that I knew would forever haunt me.
The moon was calling to this beast in me, and the beast was desperate to appease her. Everything felt like it was spinning out of control. I couldn’t stop myself from answering the moon’s demands, and I sure as shit couldn’t stop this beast inside me. I realized that Derek was right; we were slaves to the moon.
Cracks.
Sickening sounds originating from random parts of my body. My arm broke again into a position that scared me ore than the pain, while my foot felt like someone had taken an iron fresh out of the fire and stabbed it. My gums blazed as fangs angrily ripped through the flesh. Levi rolled up a cold cloth and had me bite on it.
“Morphine?” Derek asked.
Levi shook his head. “She’ll be too loopy.”
Elliot scribbled something in his notebook. “You’re doing fine, Charlotte—”
A wave of cracks rolled over me. It felt like the beast in me was just under my skin, trying to stand up. I was blinking hard, trying to calm myself down, when my leg broke, fracturing slowly like ice shattering in spiderwebs across a frozen lake.
The beast in me was howling for the pain to stop, but one look at my arm made me shake my head. There was no stopping it.
This had to be punishment for the shit mistakes I had made time and time again. Fate was a vengeful bitch. Because this shift was dragging on, and I wasn’t sure if I could last for hours in this kind of torment.
Elliot threw a bucket of water on me. The cold felt better, but it was fleeting. Because as soon as I caught sight of the moon again, it was like she was pulling me out with the tide.
Another wave, another set of cracks, and I was back to a place where Nate’s laughter was dancing around my mind.
It felt like his fists were fracturing each of my vertebrae over and over again. I hunched away from the pain into the only position my back would let me lie in. I felt more cold rags on my body while Nate laughed harder. The beast in me tried to bite him, claw at him, but her actions just made me whimper from the pounding they brought to my brain.
“Look at me. Hey, look at me.” Levi’s eyes were glowing the brightest I had ever seen them. “We both know you’re too goddamned stubborn to let something like this beat your ass.”
I gasped for air. “How much longer?”
Levi looked at the sky then down at me. It was the first time I’d seen him unsure of what to say. “Don’t worry about that.”
Another wave caught her and swept her up in an angry current. She rushed forward, almost like she was about to hurl her way through me. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull her back—tried to save both of us from being caught up in this uncontrollable desire to respond to the moon.
But more cracks came and the fingers on my right hand were like delicate piano keys creaking. I took one look at their new disfigurement and vomited on the grass next to me. Derek wiped my mouth while Levi moved me away from the vomit. Elliot pushed some of my hair back and looked me over. “Well, at least it wasn’t because of me?”
I wanted to laugh with him, but the beast clawed at me, yanked at my resolve like he had yanked me around one time. He’d been in the mood, but I hadn’t. He was never gentle when he was like that.
She was desperate, snapping at the memory. She clawed at me to get out, the memory of him forcing me over the couch too much for her. She wanted to save me—save us—ut this was something that would always be with me. She couldn’t save me from the past.
“Stop it!” I pleaded with her. She cocked her head at me, as if in shock, while I cringed at the memory of his nails digging too deeply into my hips.
The moon pulled us, tugging at the fibers holding my soul together. The beast howled at the sight of her in the sky and yanked at me. She wanted to drag me into the sky because for a moment, I think she thought that the peaceful lure of the moon could save us.
“You’re better than that, Charlie girl.” I could hear Levi’s words dancing around in my head.
She was whimpering in the mess of confusion. She didn’t want to fight me but she didn’t know what to do with this spell over us. I was trying to reach out to her when another wave came, bringing a blanket of needles with it.
A million of them pierced the skin of my back. I screamed into the wet cloth while Elliot wiped my back with another rag that had turned bloodred by the time that he was done.
“Fur,” he murmured to me.
Levi sat next to me, the scent of whiskey invading my nose. He held a glass up to my lips.
I drank it down in two large gulps then let him pour me another glass that I tossed back in one gulp. It burned the whole way down to my stomach, dulling my limbs with the comfort of soft blankets, if only for a short-lived moment before another wave of cracks came.
It felt like Nate had taken one of his fancy cigarettes and welded my ribs into a new constricting position. The spots behind my shoulder from his “accident” burned hotter at the memory. Inwardly, I felt her snap at me in frustration before she snapped at the sound of Nate’s laughter growing louder in my brain.
Derek placed a hand on my forehead. “She’s burning up, Levi.”
A low growl resonated with a vibration next to me. “Get more ice. It’s all we can do.”
“She’s fine. She’s doing fine.” Elliot’s voice was struggling to be calm in the calamity.
Another wave of cracks came.
Nate’s hands were working their way up me. She snapped at him while this thing grew between us. A rope tethering me to her. Nate looked at me, hazel eyes laughing before his mouth did. She hated that. She hated him. She jumped at him in the dull memory, her teeth biting toward him. The sound of them clinking together pinballed through my eardrums.
Another wave of cracks.
I knew she hated him for what he had done to me. I hated him for what he had done to me. I hated me for letting him do what he had done to me.
She wanted to protect me, but this wasn’t working. This was going to get us killed. This just sent us faster on a merry-go-round gone wrong, where every face I saw was his and the music I heard was the sound of my own screams.
Another wave of cracks.
My face had been shoved into the wall. He loved to play rough. He thought I enjoyed it, too, but this time all the little bones in my face fractured. Rearranging themselves from the impact.
I opened my eyes and his hazel eyes were looking right into mine. He was a black hole, and I was such a fool not to see it. He nipped my lips. His quirked into something vile.
“It feels good doesn’t it, baby?” he whispered.
“Fuck you!” I spat. His laughing had gone too far.
Another wave of cracks.
Something smacked my cheek then smacked it again.
I opened my eyes and Levi was slapping my face, saying something to me in slow, robotic motion. The beast in me was whining, pacing, begging for me to do something.
I could hear Nate whispering to me to just lie down and take the pain.
Another wave of cracks.
I was a dried-up Christmas tree lighting into a frenzied fire. The sea of pain was trying to drown me. It was harder to breathe, my ribs had rearranged more, collapsed, so it sounded like a death wheeze coming out of my mouth.
My fingers ached but they weren’t really fingers anymore.
I screamed my head off as the knives punctured my nails, hands turning into paws and fingers turning into claws. My toes fared no better. But I dared not look at them. I didn’t want to vomit again.
She was begging to be let out, pushing harder at the inside of my skin. He watched me from behind the line of salt. He cocked his head and snickered at me before he casually started to walk the salt line. The beast almost lunged at him as he lingered in front of the moon. I yanked her back because it felt like she was about to burst out of my skull.
Something smacked me across the cheek again. I blinked, and Levi was looking right at me. His silver eyes were marinating in anxiety. “You can’t fight her.”
Another wave of cracks came.
I could hear Levi telling me not to fight her, to work with her. Nate was watching me again with a look that dared me to cross the salt line. She was howling at me and ramming at the inside of my mind to come out. She wanted to show Nate her teeth, but I just wanted his laughing to stop. I just wanted him to stop but he never stopped when I asked him to.
My eyes opened and my mouth gasped for air, while the voices around me all called out my name. Levi was saying something to me again. He tossed cold water on my face, snapping me back to reality. “Stop fighting her,” he told me.
“I don’t want to die,” I wheezed.
“Then let her out.”
Another wave of cracks came.
She wanted to jump out right then, but I yanked her back until it was the two of us dancing in the dark. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to keep falling down the black hole that felt darker than Nate’s soul.
I couldn’t fight her. I knew I couldn’t fight her. I didn’t want to. She nudged me to move, and in that moment, moving felt like a life raft thrown to me.
Weakly, I rolled to my stomach and let her push me forward while I clawed at the blankets. My legs tried to move behind me while bones shattered with every movement.
The moon looked like a heart pulsing in the sky, and for a moment I swear I thought I could hear it thumping as it drew me closer. A clawed hand reached out and shredded the blanket while it dug into the ground to pul me forward. There was more cracking, but I didn’t care.
All the pain felt the same now, and I had to keep moving.
She pushed me forward because it was either move or die.
I hadn’t come this far to be eaten up by a fucking fairy tale.
Nate was kneeling down. I took another step, grasping the ground while she coursed through me with an anger that felt too damn good to be real. I took another step, and it wasn’t just me stepping, it was me and her—us. With each step it was like she became the breath coming from my lungs and the heartbeat thumping erratically in my chest.
Another wave of cracks.
Black spots came into my vision. Nate was shaking his head at me. “You’re a monster, Charlotte,” I heard him say.
I felt my tongue lick over my fangs before something ripped through my chest in a vibration that made him stumble back. “I am,” I answered. I lunged at him and yanked him down the dark hole, ripping him apart piece by piece as blackness swirled around me.
For a moment I thought I could hear my mother again.
For another moment I thought I could hear my father. I was floating in a painless peace that was tempting to stay in, but I wanted to live. My hands clawed at the walls of the blackness, desperate to find something to hold on to so I could pull myself out of the darkness.
It was in that moment that I grabbed something. It felt like a rope that this beast had tossed to me. I could hear Nate screaming at me as he fell down the dark well, but his screams faded as she pulled me closer to the light. She pulled, and with each step she took, it was like our DNA was being sealed together. I reached for her, and I swear I could feel her fur between my fingers while I held on to her with everything I had.
She was intertwined and interwoven with every fragment of my being, and in that moment, I felt our hearts beat as one and our souls seal themselves together. I realized that I could never be without her. She was just as much mine as I was hers. She was my beast, a part of me, as was the blood that ran through my veins. She was the beacon of hope that I never realized I wanted or needed, but right now she was the fire that was keeping us from perishing.
I took one last look at Nate. He was still falling, yelling horrible things at me. The beast snapped at him, but I pushed her back. He wanted retaliation, and he wasn’t worth that. She stilled while I tried to pull us out of the darkness.
There was one last wave that drew a groan from me. I felt the cool air around me. I prayed that it meant that we were close to the end of this misery.
The pain was dull, but it felt like the tides had calmed around us. Something wet brushed my cheek. I thought Levi was throwing water on me, but it felt rough. I tried to swat it away while my eyes opened.
Someone was stroking my fur. The moon was still ready to bleed out into the sky, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was how good the fingers felt running through my fur.
Fur.
I raised my head and looked up to see Derek staring down at me with a teary-eyed smile. He opened his mouth a few times before closing it. I felt my brows raise at him, begging him to say something. Elliot was squatting next to Derek. He leaned back with a laugh, then fell back on his ass. “Bloody hell, Charlotte,” he said with a shake of his head.
Something nudged my face. A large silvery wolf—Levi.
I moved my head to look at the rest of my body. The paws in front of me were almost black, but the warm brown undertones told me otherwise. I had paws and a tail. I was a wolf. And I wasn’t dead.
I had a fucking tail.
I was still here. I was alive, in the middle of the salt circle, while the moon’s red rays blanketed us in the cool night breeze.
Derek started to laugh. “Try to stand up.”
My shaking legs weren’t sure what they were supposed to do. Levi moved his head under my belly and helped me lift myself until I was standing at my full height. I wobbled, still unsure of how to use four legs. Levi moved his head away, leaving me on my own while Derek stood beside me with his hands ready to catch me. Elliot just smiled and held his phone up. “Just recording the moment.”
My beast and I took a step forward, relishing the feeling of the cool night breeze sweeping through our fur. We took another step on the cool grass, which felt like a pillow under our paws. I took another step, and this strange muscle memory kicked in. I took another step, and it was like breathing.
Levi motioned his head toward the forest, a strange smirk on his snout. He turned then darted into the darkness.
Without question, I chased him, instinct kicking me into gear.
Running in this form was even better than in my human form. It was like the energy of the forest was coursing through my blood and driving me to run after the trail of Levi’s scent. It smelled like rain about to fall, alongside that feeling you get when a chill sweeps over you. It was a breathless reverence that his aura demanded.
He was waiting patiently for me in a clearing. I trotted to him, taking everything in around me. I didn’t think my senses would get better, but I was wrong. The picture my fine-tuned nose and eyes painted was that of a world so much more elegant and magical than the one I once knew.
My ears heard everything. Every breath the forest took. I could hear the flap of the birds’ wings before they flew away, I could smell the little squirrels keeping a watchful eye on us, and I could see the rabbits hopping away to the safety of holes hidden to the human eye.
I trotted past Levi straight to the little stream, and my beast practically threw herself in. We heard Levi rustling in some bushes behind us while we gulped down our weight in water.
After she was finished drinking, we turned and found him leaning against a tree in old jeans and a sweatshirt, barefoot on the forest floor. He was staring hard at us. I cocked a brow at him until I felt a pressure in my mind. A stabbing that made my beast whine while we pushed it back.
He rolled his eyes. “Stop fighting it.”
He looked at me again, the pressure coming back.
Instead of pushing back, we let it pass. At this point, both my beast and I were too tired to fight anything.
A wall fell down in my mind while something electric crackled to life. “Charlotte? ” Levi’s voice said in my mind.
My eyes went wide. I had to be losing it. “Charlie.” The gruff voice called in my brain space again.
“Yeah? ” I answered inwardly, to this new strange mental ether we had now connected.
My mouth hung open. Levi shook his head with a tired laugh.
I wanted to know more about how this telepathy worked, but all the questions were too much for my tired brain.
“All right,” he said out loud. “Shift back. You’re exhausted.”
I looked down at my paws. I was exhausted; he was right. My wolf didn’t want to shift back, but we couldn’t deny how tired we were. However, getting back to two legs felt like another mountain to climb over.
Levi just sighed. “Just imagine yourself in your skin.”
There was no way it was that easy. I huffed and closed my eyes, trying to imagine myself in my previous form. I felt like a moron. There was no way it was going to be this easy.
A few moments passed. I was sure that Levi was just screwing around with me. I was afraid I would be stuck like this indefinitely, but I focused harder, tugging on something while the image of my two legs came to mind.
The cracking started again, followed by the rippling of my skin. Screams and agonizing groans silenced the forest. I wanted to take a break halfway through it, but Levi wouldn’t let me; he sat next to me and kept telling me to push through.
Cold air rushed over my wet cheeks. Calloused hands picked me up from the ground and carried me. Through wet lashes, I could see Levi above me, walking quietly, deep in thought.
“I’m not dead.”
“Thought you almost were there for a minute.”
“You have to quit smoking.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“I’m not rogue.”
Levi let out a long breath. “You’re not rogue.”
“I’m normal though, right?”
“Charlie girl, there’s not much about you that’s normal.”
“Levi?”
“Mmm?”
“Thank you.” I breathed out, a yawn following my words.
He looked down at me with tired silver eyes still glowing as the beast in them came closer to look at me. “For what?”
“For not killing me.”
He nodded solemnly and kept walking. “Sleep, Charlie girl, you need it.”
