Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“No, thank you. I’m late home. My father will be worried.”
He looks at me with the beady eyes of a lesser predator, not one who focuses on blood or meat, but one who senses weaknesses of another kind altogether. “You don’t have a father,” he says. “You would have called him if you did.”
“He’s…”
I don’t get to finish the lie because the man has pulled off the road and is trying to pull me across the car to him. He smells bad. Sour. Unwashed.
I kick him, I curse at him, and I push him away, but my struggles only make him laugh. He’s a lot larger than me, and a lot stronger. He gets out of the car, comes around to the passenger side, throws the door open and tries to pull me out that way. Kicking only gives him the chance to grab me by the ankle.
“Stop being a stupid little bitch. You’re out here on your own looking for trouble. Girls like you need to be taught what they’re good for.”
He starts ripping at my clothes, and that’s when I grab the knife he has at his waist. He thought it would function as a threat, I’m sure. He must work at the slaughterhouse, because the hilt is caked with old blood, but the blade is clean.
I punch him with it, plunging the knife into his chest. It goes in deeper than I thought it would. I figured it would be stopped by his ribcage, but apparently that’s not actually as good at stopping hard blows from a knife as you imagine.
I pull it out as he reels backward.
“You little…”
I can’t believe he’s still talking, let alone standing. I thought you died when someone stabbed you, but apparently it takes more than the one time. I do it again. And this time it is less of a desperate act and more aggressive.
I am beginning to feel very… inhuman. The sight of the blood, the smell of it, it’s all very… moreish. There are things happening inside me, tectonic shifts of flesh and being. All my life I’ve been told I can be fractious and grumpy, but now I realize it was more than that. I am furious. I am enraged. And those feelings are not bad, or any indication of weakness of character. They are entirely necessary for the transformation that is taking place now.
I stab him again. And again. I make sure that the job of protecting myself is very thoroughly and properly done, and that nobody else will ever be hurt by him.
In the aftermath of doing what had to be done, I am covered in blood. Moonlight makes it look black against my skin, and I am absolutely coated along my hands and arms. I barely recognize them. Were my nails always so long? Was there so much hair, no, fur on the back of my hands?
I find myself on all fours, my body arched in release. It feels like orgasm, like unfolding in a way I had no idea I could unfold. I have been all bunched up my whole life, pretending to be something and someone I am not.
I no longer feel fear. I certainly do not feel guilt. In their place, I feel freedom and strength. I no longer need a bus. I can run home.
Of course, that’s how I ended up naked in a field, but that’s a memory for another time.
“Did something upset you?” Armand asks the question on the way home. The train is chugging merrily through the countryside
I struggle for an explanation, something that won’t require me to actually tell him anything. “Sometimes I don’t feel like I can control myself. It feels like I’m going to come out of my skin.”
I don’t tell him what I heard, or why it upset me so much, or what I intend to do. I know he wouldn’t approve. Nobody ever approves of the way I like to fix things.
“You’ve not been shifting long, have you?” He sighs. “I wish you would tell me how you came to find your wolf self. It would help us bond.”
“Why?”
“Well, it usually comes after mating, as I mentioned…”
I am not in the mood for talk about mating, or questions about my past, or anything. I wish he’d just stop. I turn on him, angry, teeth flashing.
“You think because I have power usually bestowed by some man’s cock, I must have taken a man’s cock?”
“I’m asking questions, not making assumptions.”
“Liar. You keep asking me if I was a virgin when we met. You think I’ve fucked someone else. This is all about where my pussy has been. You know what? Fuck you, Armand. Fuck you, and your castle, and your pack, and your village, which is filled with assholes, and fuck your fucking train.”
I take my wolf form and I jump off the train.