12. Emily
S o much was happening so fast, and I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster. Terror, attraction, relief, and confusion all mixed within me, a heady cocktail that made me want to scream, possibly throw up.
I’d been so sure that I was about to be attacked or worse when I was grabbed and yanked into an alley. Then I felt so conflicted about being unable to ignore the heat of Caleb’s body, or the way his scent covered me. Invited me.
To say I was overwhelmed and bewildered was not an exaggeration.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare me for what happened when Caleb let me go and took a couple steps deeper into the alley.
I shouldn’t follow him—I knew that much. In fact, I should run away immediately, but I didn’t. In fact, I took a step towards him, or at least I did until literal steam escaped from his mouth.
My jaw dropped open, any saliva within evaporating instantly. My entire body flushed from head to toe. For just a moment, there was no rest of the world. Only Caleb and I.
I supposed that steam pouring from his mouth could’ve been just a vape trick, but there was absolutely no trick that’d explain the way his features wavered, then stretched, his eyes glowing a bright, feral gold.
Oh my God! Oh my God!
Fur began to ripple out from his hairline, spreading in dark brown waves. His body somehow both expanded and shrank at the same time, limbs cracking and joints reversing themselves. All the while, more and more steam escaped from him.
If I weren’t locked in absolute shock and horror, I would’ve thought I was in a sauna. But no, I was all too acutely aware of exactly where I was and what was happening.
Because it was impossible.
I’d been using that word so much lately, but what else could I say? Caleb was toppling forward, but I never heard him hit the ground. I couldn’t see him, either, because there was so much steam filling the space.
The scent.
If I thought he’d smelled good before, it was nothing compared to what hit me through the heady, thick steam. The deep richness of the earth. The heady scent of pine. Something musky and entirely masculine, and something... else.
I had no words for it, but I knew that it called to a presence that felt like it was lodged so deeply into my being, it could never be extracted.
I felt my eyelids flutter, and the world somehow grew even hazier. I took another haphazard step forward as if I were drugged before the steam faded enough for me to see what was left standing where Caleb had been.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, given how Caleb had warned me that neither of us was human. Yet the last thing I was expecting to see was a giant wolf standing there.
The beast was truly massive. He was nearly as tall as I was, his head as broad as my chest. He was a predator in every sense of the word. A wolf, but dialed up to eleven.
I was terrified.
I opened my mouth to let out a scream, but it was like my brain had fully short-circuited. The next thing I knew, I was spinning on my heel and sprinting towards the end of the alley.
Why had I followed him deeper in? Also, how was anything real? Had I really just watched a man shift into a wolf? Had everything I thought was true only a shadow of what was real? Was I going insane? Had I fallen and hit my head, or was I still in the hospital in a delusional coma?
The next thing I knew, I was being fully tackled from behind.
This time, I screamed, feeling immense power and heat at my back, and I slammed into the ground with a thump. It rattled me, but even through all that confusion, I was sure I was about to die.
I was so young, and I had wasted so much of my life just hating myself, and for what reason? I had my flaws, as did everyone, but at my core, I was someone deserving of happiness and of life!
But all of that was gone, because I was an idiot who’d followed a literal monster down an alley like a fucking moron.
But then, I felt myself getting flipped over. Sputtering and blinking rapidly, I blindly struck out with my hand as if I could slap the giant wolf away. I should’ve let a real scream out, but my brain had switched from flight to fight and put all its energy into lashing out.
“Emily!”
Wait…
What?
I blinked about a dozen more times, and my vision cleared to see Caleb above me, his face dirtier but still human.
“Emily, it’s me! I promised I would never hurt you, remember?”
Caleb’s breath fanned across my face, and I was acutely aware that he was straddling me, his arms on either side of my head. It was an intimate position, and I flushed with desire.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“I’m here to protect you, okay?” he said. “Like I said, I know that was scary, but I promise, I swear on my life, that I would never intentionally hurt you.”
“H-h-ho-” I didn’t even know what to say, but I smelled something change in the air as Caleb’s scent turned slightly, and my heart normalized. It felt familiar, like coming home after a particularly rough semester.
Was this what he was talking about? Before, when he asked if I felt different around him?
“I’m a wolf shifter, Emily. Or a werewolf, as they’re commonly known, and so are you. This is what I was trying to tell you.”
I could only stare at him, my breath echoing in my ears. I was a… what?
I couldn’t be a werewolf! I’d never had a great love for the outdoors, or… wanted to hunt down a caribou. I was just Emily! I was a nerd. A slightly chubby nerd.
“I had to show you because when you shift for the first time, when you first take on your wolf form, you’ll be more animal than human,” Caleb continued. “I promise it won’t always be like that, but you’ll have to learn control. Learn not to be feral. You really should be with shifters when you first shift.”
“Are you telling me I can never go home because I might eat my family?” I asked.
His gaze softened at that, and a strange fondness rose within me, one that was entirely out of place. Still, as my mind caught up with everything that had happened, Caleb’s erratic actions made more sense: why he seemed to pop out of nowhere but tracked me so efficiently, why he was so determined to follow me, the strange draw toward him I’d scolded myself for so many times.
If we were both wolves, I wasn’t insane for the way I felt towards him.
“No, not at all,” Caleb answered. “There’s no reason you can’t continue to live a happy and fulfilling life with your family. It’s just for a year or two that you might have to go away once a month and have your private time. Once you get the hang of things, you’ll basically live like any other human.”
“Once a month? Like a full moon?”
“Yes and no. The full moon influences us, makes our wolf sides much stronger and generally enhances our abilities, but it can only compel new shifters. It’s overwhelming that way. But like I said, once you get more experience under your belt, you won’t have to worry about ever harming anyone you love.”
Not exactly ideal, but something I could live with—at least once I wrapped my mind around the fact that my body would explode into some hairy beast.
“D-does it hurt?” I asked, my tone warbling. Of course it had to! I’d personally seen Caleb change from one body to the other in a horrific display. I’d seen how much his human body had twisted and distorted to get into his animal form.
“It can, yes, but it’s not guaranteed to. From what I’ve heard from female shifters, it’s about the worst period you’ve ever had, but condensed into a minute or two instead of a week.”
Why did that make me being a werewolf sound more plausible? Maybe it was the mundane comparison of something I’d been dealing with my entire puberty to something that I’d also have to deal with for the rest of my life.
It suddenly didn’t strike me as fair if every month, I lost a week to my uterus, then another week to the full moon. I wasn’t sure the world was ready for a werewolf who was menstruating. Was that even a possibility? It was getting harder and harder to think when Caleb was so close to me, his heart beating against mine.
“See, this is why I had to talk to you, and why you had that awful reaction to the silver bracelet. That stuff is no good for a shifter.” He sighed. “Look, if you never wanna see me again, that’s fine. I just want to make sure you and your family are safe.”
It was a noble cause. I understood that much. But why? As far as Caleb knew, I was some strange wolf that wasn’t even a full animal yet. He had no reason to care about me, yet he was acting like I was a beloved member of his community.
“Why do you even care?” I choked out as I felt tears coming on. Dammit, I hated when I cried. Especially since I wasn’t really all that upset, just confused and overwhelmed. I didn’t want to seem weak, or even overly emotional. A strange thing to be worried about when it’d just been revealed that humans weren’t the only sentient species on earth, and that I was one of the creatures that went bump in the night—or howled.
Oh, God, that was right! Wolves howled! Did that mean I’d end up literally caterwauling at the moon like some cartoon character? How embarrassing.
“I care for a lot of reasons,” Caleb said. “One, I’m an alpha. It’s my responsibility to take care of others in the pack. Secondly, like I said, we’re kin. We’re connected. I don’t want any harm to come to you for any reason.”
He lifted one of his hands from beside me and gently stroked my face. I should have been disgusted, considering the grime clearly on his palm, but I now felt a little more grounded. A little more anchored in place from the insanity swirling all around me.
But the calmer I was, the more the reality of everything sank in, even if that reality was incredibly bizarre. According to Caleb, I was about to shift into a dangerous creature, one that could hurt the very parents I’d felt so fondly for at our shared birthday party. The same parents who’d so fretfully held each other’s hands in the hospital, hoping I was safe.
“T-this doesn’t make any sense!”
That’s when the waterworks took over. Big salty tears welled up and burned their way down my cheeks. I half-expected Caleb to mock me or tell me to suck it up. Instead, his thumb gently stroked them away while the low and soothing rumble issued from his chest.
It wasn’t like a car motor or even a cat’s purr, yet there was something completely natural about it. Something that took the sharp edge off the emotional storm I was falling into.
Was that an alpha trait?
“Hey, like I said, I know this can all be overwhelming, but I need you to trust your instincts and go with what feels right. Put away everything you’ve been told you should know and just listen to what your body is telling you. Your instincts are not your enemy; they’re just the pathway carved out by your ancestors. You can choose to follow it or not, but they’re there to help, not hinder.”
Okay, I could do that. Trust my instincts.
Closing my eyes, I slowed down my breathing and tried to focus on everything going on in my body. It was a lot, and it felt like sifting through an entire library for a single novel, but the more I let the rumble from Caleb reverberate in my own chest, the more I breathed him in, the easier it was to think.
To feel.
What I felt was an intrinsic connection to him. A call toward something wild and eldritch, but also entirely my own. I felt his strength, his power, and most importantly, I felt safe. Protected.
Connected.
I’d always been at peace with my being adopted. In fact, I was always the first to maintain I was lucky my parents chose me. But sometimes I felt that sad disconnect of not knowing where I came from or wondered if there was anyone who knew how I came to be. I wondered why my birth parents had gotten rid of me or if something had happened to them. I wondered if I was the product of violence or that of a poor young girl making a desperate choice in a bad situation. I didn’t indulge in those thoughts too much, as they left a mild ache in their wake.
That feeling was entirely soothed by Caleb’s touch, because I knew now where I came from.
I had pack.
For the first time, I was struck by overwhelming emotions, but this wave wasn’t one of horror, terror, and delusion. Instead, it was full of interest and kinship, of succumbing while acknowledging a truth I hadn’t even known existed, of attraction to the strong and warm wolf above me, and the desire for... well, for more. I was lost in a sea of information and revelation, with Caleb as my only mooring.
I looked up into Caleb’s eyes, and the way he was staring down at me was just so intense. His eyes had gone from that shining, feral gold to their usual deep brown, and I swore I saw the entire world contained within them.
It made no sense that he was looking at me like that , and yet he was, and I felt myself responding to that care, that intense desire and worry. Gavin had never looked at me like that. It was like Caleb was so reverent, he was scared I’d disappear from underneath him.
So I kissed him.
I didn’t even make the conscious choice. At one point, I was underneath him. The next, I lifted my head and pressed my lips to his.
The crazy thing was that it felt right.
I could tell he stiffened for a moment, no doubt surprised, and guilt flooded my brain. I’d been so worried about somehow being assaulted by Caleb, but now I was the one touching him without permission.
But then he relaxed into it, and I swore I could feel his own arousal rise. Not physically, but like I could... I could... I could smell it. This was supposedly impossible, but apparently, I was a werewolf, so maybe that was just what we did.
At first, it was just that, our lips pressing against each other, our bodies aligned on the dirty alley ground. But then the kiss deepened, and one of Caleb’s strong arms slipped underneath my back, pressing my form into his.
Oh, God, the contact. The contact!
It was what a hit of a drug must feel like, as I was flooded with so many happy chemicals, I might have floated off if Caleb hadn’t been pressing me down into the choppy alley brick. So much stress relief, so much oxytocin. It was a release from the anxiety that’d been riddling me, like a physical weight had been lifted.
Then the guilt hit.
I had a boyfriend!
I ripped myself away so hard that my head slammed into the ground. A cry escaped from my lips, and if anyone were to stumble upon us, they’d likely assume the worst.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I scrambled out from under Caleb, and he let me, though my feeble push to his chest wasn’t nearly strong enough to move him. But as I scurried away, I accidentally kneed him in the gut. Obviously not enough to hurt, but he did let out a groan.
Jeez, I was just fucking up everything, wasn’t I?
Horrified by my actions, I finally popped onto my feet and sprinted out into the alley and back into the populated streets. There were slightly more people than when Caleb first shoved me into the alley, and I wondered how absolutely no one noticed that I’d been nabbed. Or that there was a werewolf in the narrow gap between the buildings.
“Emily! Wait!”
I just sprinted away, like I could actually flee the fact that somewhere deep inside me, there was a monster who’d grown tired of waiting to get out.