I like how she looks. I like the way the sight of her shape makes my cock ache. I don’t like how frightened she is. I need to get at her so I can cover her with my body, let her inhale my scent so she’ll learn it, so she’ll know that when I’m near her she’s safe. So she’ll know the scent of her mate.
My small female has long and shiny hair the color of sunshine, with a few chunks the shade of blueberries. She has long eyelashes and long legs, though she’s not tall. She has pert breasts. She reminds me of how I imagined the sprites in the stories Uncle Cornelius would read me when I was a boy about little shapely fairies that would flit around at dusk. I never saw one, but painted one from my vision of what they might look like. If that painting is still in the house somewhere, I want to see it… see if it resembles her.
I remember that painting and remember wanting to have a sprite of my own but there’s a lot I don’t yet remember.
It takes time to adjust after not shifting for a year, but I know it’s been more than two years, more than four I think. This is why my brain is hazy with confusion.
But there’s no time to adjust. I need her. I only hope it doesn’t take me so long to adjust that it puts her in peril.
This is what brought me close to the town today. This was why I was thinking halfway between wolf and man. Something changed. Her.
I’d woken far too early to hunt, though ravenous and restless until my nose twitched with interest like never before, sending me in aimless circles for what felt like an eternity until I was hit with the onslaught of her scent.
It slammed into me with such physical force that all my fur stood on end as I tried to process the sensations, sensations that were utterly foreign.
As I picked up other aromas with hers, I grew angrier and angrier as I tried to track her because I immediately knew… I knew she was mine. I also knew there was an unpleasant male scent near her. Furthermore, I now knew that any of my previous attempts to find the woman who would be mine was useless because this scent attacked me. I didn’t look for it. It found me as if meant to be.
I knew, intuitively what it was. Who she was. The one. My only one.
And the fragrance… the best scent to ever hit my nose, uniquely her was also infused with something wrong. Not quite fear from her but something like fear. I suspected it had to do with the male scent near her. And that made me dizzy with rage.
The moon wasn’t right tonight. Too large. Too close. Instinct told me it had been interfered with. Based on the proximity of her scent, it should’ve taken no time to find her. Uncle once told me that sometimes witches interfered with things. That sometimes they made the road lead to new places. That sometimes they trapped you where they needed you to stay so that they could complete some purpose either for you or in spite of you.
This night felt reminiscent of those things that Uncle talked about sometimes when he would get in one of his dark moods. The dark moods happened often throughout my life and were often fueled by whisky. I would listen, let him speak though his words often didn’t make sense, and then leave him be. Most times when I asked questions, his answers were non-answers, or he grew agitated and didn’t answer at all.
When her scent moved too far away, I was confused for a time but finally, the haze of confusion lifted enough for me to surmise that she got into a car and left. I hadn’t set eyes on her yet at that stage but knew the scent of cars and knew the scent of this particular car, already having had it imprint on me, but tracking that scent isn’t as easy as tracking a person or prey. I got dizzy from the onslaught of emotion I was feeling which meant I lost time and the car scent. When the scent got stronger as I scoured while tracking the car, my nose to the ground, finally, the fragrance picked up in intensity and got not only stronger, but the onslaught of the strength of her aroma was so powerful that it disoriented me and because of that, the car struck me.
This was my fault, not hers. If I’d been shifting each year as uncle told me we were meant to do, I’d have more clarity right now. I’d have gotten to her sooner. And now I’ve shifted to man and the overpowering aroma has me hard, ready, disoriented, and anxious because I need to get to her and yet this car she’s in prevents it. And I want her. I want to claim her. And it’s in the way. And my head feels…fuzzy.
It has always felt foreign to be in this body. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it, not since that first time I shifted as a child and felt wolf was my true form. But I feel like I will enjoy this form more when I get her under me. The air is cold, and my nails have receded as have my teeth in a scenario that feels like I should be on alert. I feel defenseless out here like this in the chill. How will I adequately protect her if I’m like this?
I will my body to shift back, or attempt it, but it fails and I’m still man. This shift was not a conscious choice, instead a need. And despite how foreign it is, it occurs to me that it’s necessary. How can I help her if I’m wolf? Perhaps I’m man right now because my instinct tells me I need to be. For her. I need to listen to my instinct.
In my man form I’m peering in through the glass at my female who is startled and frightened at the sight of me. She was shocked a moment earlier when I was wolf and now she is both frightened and confused. I see it on her face and smell it in the air. Even more than when her car struck me. She fears me even more now, it seems, than when I was wolf. I’ll get to her, calm her, and then mount, mark, and claim her.
Uncle directed me to woo them at that bar, but I never felt like I was good at that. Successful always, but never comfortable doing it. I have no need of wooing this time, only claiming, because this one belongs with me.
I know she’s not a female of my kind, but that doesn’t matter. I know she’s mine and feel no disappointment. The opposite. Her fragrance called to me; it woke the dormant man in me.
My wolf waits. Intrigued.
I pound on the window and ponder how to get her out. Can she open the door from inside?
Even though I’ve shifted annually almost all my life other than this last few years, I speak very rarely. Only if I must. It looks like I must. She fears me; she doesn’t know she’s mine.
I’d rather show her she’s mine than speak the words of it to her. Metal and glass prevent that.
The haziness is dissipating too slowly. I need more clarity.
3
Ivy
I’m trying to work this out…
Seconds after the wolf disappears from my view, a man stands in the same place. The exact same place. A muscled, huge, naked man.
My forehead crinkles. Can’t be.
Was that this guy’s wolf? Where is it? And where did he come from?
The exact same place? No. No. My brain is racing at turbo-speed, trying to make sense of what my eyes have just seen; trying to tell me the explanation – an explanation that just… it
JUST
CAN’T
BE.
He pulls on the door handle and I gasp. It’s locked, thank God, so he doesn’t gain entry. A long moment passes while he stares at me thoughtfully before he speaks.
“Open this,” he demands in a rough, raspy voice.
I hear the sound first and then see rain as it begins to patter on my roof and trail down the windows of the car.
He pulls on the handle again and it doesn’t give.