Chapter 10: Chapter Ten

~Mate. Grant. Mate. Grant. Mate. Grant.~

I sucked in a breath and pushed away a branch.

~I knew that you had werewolf blood in you.~

My sneaker caught a long root and sent me tumbling.

~She wouldn’t be the first daughter of the moon to wander in the woods.~

I picked myself up and brushed the dirt and debris off my skirt.

~Luckily, I have no parents to disappoint and no pack to dishonor.~

I broke through the trees and panted as I looked up at Ben’s house. I could hear the boys inside as I trudged across the lawn, keeping my eyes sharp as I looked for Oak. He was nowhere in sight.

I knocked and waited, but no one answered. I could hear Fitz yelling and Will trying to tell him to lower his voice. Ben I couldn’t hear at all.

I pushed the door open, and all conversation ceased. In an instant, all three boys were in the front hall facing me.

“Hi,” I breathed out, finding Ben’s gaze.

He looked past me to the late afternoon sky. “This isn’t a good time.”

He was in even more disarray than yesterday. His hair was completely disheveled, his face covered in stubble, and his clothes untucked and wrinkled.

I pushed myself into the house and smiled at Fitz and Will who were shifting uncomfortably on their feet.

I had interrupted mid-argument, and usually I would have backpedaled, but going back to town meant I was likely to cross paths with Grant, and I wasn’t ready for that.

“I thought I could come and make you guys dinner,” I offered. “I know you guys are probably still sore from yesterday.”

“That’s kind of you—” Will started.

I waved him off. “It’s the least I can do. How are you guys today, still sore?” Fitz grinned as he lifted his shirt, showing off a puckered scar in the shape of a bite mark across his rib cage.

“Healing well,” Fitz bragged.

The three boys padded after me as I made my way into the kitchen, scouring the fridge and cabinets for anything I could throw together. There wasn’t much to work with.

Fitz and Will sat down at the table and kept up a conversation with me as Ben paced the length of the windows, fingers twitching at his sides.

“Oak was not happy when he woke up this morning. He took off into the woods and chased a flock of birds,” Will said with a sigh. “I’m sure the day he shifts back he’ll rip into us for knocking him back.”

“What was he like before he got stuck?”

Fitz’s eyes fell. “He was my best friend.”

“Ben and I didn’t know Oak before he got stuck. We met Fitz when he was running for his life with Oak in tow.”

Fitz cleared his throat roughly. “Oak and I grew up in the same pack. He was training to be a pack doctor and got picked on a lot, and I was always near the bottom, fighting to avoid the omega title.

“I know I seem super talented and strikingly handsome, but I’m only the latter.” Fitz laughed a little, but it died quickly.

“Oak met his mate early on, but then the Sun Warriors came—they were this crazy human cult that knew about werewolves and weren’t happy we existed—and they shot her.

“He tried like hell to save her, but she died on the table. He shifted soon after and never shifted back. We lived with the pack with him as a wolf for a few months, but eventually they got tired of him.

“They attacked, and I defended—directly opposing an alpha’s order is enough to get regular wolves evicted. We ran that night and both became rogues. A month later, I collided with Will and Ben.”

“You must have been close if you left the pack for him,” I murmured, focusing on the package of Kraft Dinner I had found to fight the tears that had welled in my eyes.

Fitz nodded. “My parents had three other kids who were busy excelling and held their attention. I just sort of existed when I wasn’t with Oak. When we were together, I mattered.

“And that feeling? It’s addictive. Once my pack attacked him, they weren’t my pack anymore.”

“Is that what happens when wolves lose a mate?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

“No,” Ben answered, surprising me. I met his eyes and shivered, feeling the intensity of his gaze. “When wolves lose a mate, most of them die.”

I felt my mouth pop open and looked down at the food I was preparing, my cheeks and neck heating up red.

“I can’t wait to find my mate,” Will mused.

“I don’t care either way,” Fitz said, his voice too thin for him to be telling the truth. “I just hope she’s hot.”

I threw an uncooked pasta noodle at him. He answered with a grin. “How many mates do you get?” I asked. “Do you get to choose from a panel?”

“One,” Fitz answered, his face sobering up.

“Once you find your mate, the connection is lifelong,” Will said.

“And it’s a long life,” Fitz mused, “so you better hope you don’t find them in your teens.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” I mused. “To live a long life with someone you love?”

“Not when you live for centuries,” Fitz countered.

I felt my face pale and my throat dry out. I hadn’t known that piece of information. “Centuries?” I repeated. That was impossible.

For whatever reason, my brain could rationalize transforming into a massive predator but not expanding the lifespan.

“Werewolves age about one year for every ten a human lives,” Ben explained.

I tilted my head to the side, finding it interesting how he used the term ~werewolf~ as though he held himself separate from his kin.

“I wouldn’t mind another twenty years of being single,” Fitz joked.

I focused on the meal I was preparing and kept my mouth shut, trying to wrap my mind around all the new information. I wasn’t sure my brain was large enough to understand and process everything.

The water came to a boil, and I poured in the pasta noodles, squinting at the packaging for the umpteenth time as I tried to remember how long they cooked for.

I tried my best to cook a good, coherent meal, but the boys didn’t have much on hand, and I wasn’t the best cook to begin with.

In the end, I set a large bowl of Kraft Dinner on the table coupled with slices of cooked ham, toast, and slices of celery smeared with peanut butter.

The boys said nothing as they dug in, Will and Fitz eating without a word. Ben didn’t eat. Instead, he sat with his arms crossed as he stared at the table, gradually growing paler as the meal wore on.

“That was amazing,” Fitz said, “thank you.” Will echoed him.

Ben stood abruptly, rising so fast that his chair fell over backward behind him.

He gripped the edge of the table and raised his eyes to mine. A fine sheen of sweat was hanging over his brow and above his lip.

“You have to go, Morda,” he panted, eyes shining.

I looked at Will and Fitz who both looked stricken. Will looked at the clock on the wall while Fitz looked to the sky outside. “Already?” Fitz asked.

Ben looked at him and then at me with obvious intention. I recoiled but tried not to show how hurt I was, tried not to feel like I was back in high school being dismissed from a cafeteria table.

Ben closed his eyes, grinding his teeth as he hunched over. Will jumped up and grabbed him, supporting him by the shoulders as he helped him into a chair.

Ben grunted out a sound of pain that sent shivers along the column of my spine.

“Ben?”

Ben groaned and pounded a fist on the tabletop. “She has to go,” he growled.

“What’s happening?” I asked, panic weaving its way through my voice.

“He’s changing,” Will answered, trying to brace Ben as he convulsed.

“Changing?” I shook my head, not understanding. It only took a moment for it to dawn on me. “Changing… he’s becoming a wolf.”

“Sort of,” Fitz amended, “look, Morda—”

“Get out!” Ben shouted, his voice dropping in pitch. He clawed at the table as his back bent and straightened.

The kitchen was growing rapidly darker, the sun taking the final plunge for the evening as it headed toward the horizon and slipped beneath it. Dusk settled in, and Ben’s body seemed to spasm with it.

“If you’re staying, then you’re helping,” Fitz said, looking at me. I nodded quickly, trying my best to smooth out the nerves that I was feeling.

I approached Will and Ben slowly, not sure where I was going to be the most effective.

I placed my hand on the base of Ben’s neck and nearly snatched my hand away. His skin was scorching hot. I looked up at Will, panic flaring. “He’s fevered,” I said. “He’s got to be over a hundred and three.”

“He’s higher than that,” Fitz said. “His body is attacking itself.”

I thought back to all I knew about fevers, about the brain damage that can occur.

“We have to get him cooled off,” I said, reaching for the bottom of his shirt and yanking it over his head. “He could overheat.”

“Our bodies don’t work like that,” Will argued. “He can handle a fever, he won’t notice a difference if you try to cool him down, he’ll burn through whatever you have.”

Despite the warning, I took off Ben’s shirt, throwing it to the floor. His skin was smooth, freckled around his shoulders and collarbone.

Muscles coiled underneath his tanned skin, defining the lines of his shoulders and back.

I swallowed as I laid the back of my hand to his neck, not satisfied. I pushed past Fitz and grabbed a cloth, running it under cold water and bringing it back to lay across the back of his neck.

To everyone’s surprise, he seemed to relax a little.

I flipped my hair over my shoulder and shot a glare to both Fitz and Will. “I need to know what’s going to happen, I need you guys to give me a rundown of what to expect.”

Will and Fitz exchanged a quick glance. They weren’t sure whether or not they wanted to let me into their pack. Ben groaned beneath me, and I flipped the cloth over so the cool side was touching his skin.

“S’okay,” he murmured, “Morda’s my mate, you can tell her.”

I withdrew my hands immediately, my entire body flushing with heat and then cooling off in the next moment. I was sure I had misheard until he murmured it again, this time quieter.

I felt another panic attack cresting but shoved it aside when Ben’s skin started to reheat and I had to fetch a new cloth.

Later. I’d deal with that later.

“Ben isn’t like us,” Will started, “he doesn’t shift…he changes.”

“Okay,” I barked, “so what does that ~mean~?”

“He’s a different kind of werewolf, more traditional? I don’t know. He only shifts once a month, sometimes more, it changes, and we don’t always know why.

“But when he changes, it takes hours, and it’s painful, it’s not like our shifting, it’s… horrific.”

I felt my stomach roll. Ben was a son of the moon. He had to be.

Later.

“We should move him,” Will said, “to the living room.”

“Help me lift him,” Fitz ordered, coming around to tuck his shoulder underneath Ben’s arm. Together the boys moved Ben from the table to the couch, trying their best to keep his body level.

“How long does this take?” I asked, placing the cloth on Ben’s forehead.

Will shrugged. “Sometimes an hour, sometimes a few. He’s usually not done until around midnight, and it’s barely nine now. It could be a while this time.”

I knelt beside the couch, hovering beside Ben’s head. I pushed his hair from his forehead and adjusted the cloth on his forehead, making sure it didn’t fall into his eyes.

He opened and closed his eyes rapidly, as if battling himself.

I ran my fingers down the side of his face and neck, and he followed my touch as if yearning for something gentle among the pain.

I looked over the plains of his chest and stomach, my own body tightening at the sight of his carved muscles and taut skin.

“He seems to be okay,” I said, running my hand down his arm and clutching his fingers. “He isn’t—”

Ben’s back arched severely, pushing his shoulders and hips off the couch as his body strained and pulled against itself.

His eyes flew open, and his mouth formed a silent scream as he tried his best to keep his pain in.

“It’s okay,” I urged, “let it out.”

He flopped down on the couch and let go of a long breath before he clenched his hands into fists.

I watched as the muscles along his chest and arms started to ripple underneath his skin, pushing grotesquely on their confines and testing Ben’s strength.

He swore and pushed his face into the couch, his whole body burning up and then shivering.

I looked over my shoulder at Will and Fitz who were seated on the other couch, watching Ben with twin expressions of pity, worry, and sadness.

Their looks told me all I needed to know. They had tried soothing him, tried holding his hand, but ultimately this pain was Ben’s alone.

“It’s going to be a long night, and we should keep our strength up, does anyone want tea?” Will asked.

I ordered a cup to keep him busy, not sure if I could settle into a cup when Ben was moaning in pain.

“What you’re going to see… ” Fitz started, “it’s not pretty, Morda. If you can’t handle it, then you shouldn’t stay, you should go and make it easier for us and for him.”

I felt Ben’s hand clamp over mine like a steel trap and found his eyes locked on mine. He didn’t want me to leave. He didn’t want to face this on his own again.

I reached out with my other hand and laid it across his forehead.

“I’m not leaving,” I announced. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here.”

Ben nodded his head in one jerky movement and then closed his eyes and released me, curling both of his hands into his chest as his body was stretched tight and then rippled.

His skin was red hot and covered in sweat, and no amount of cool cloths was going to help him.

“His muscles change first,” Fitz murmured behind me.

“They change from human to animal, get a little thicker, a little longer. This takes the longest. From what we can deduce, his organs start to shift now too.”

Ben cried out as another spasm hit him. He barked out a foul word and then let go of a tearless sob. The sound held my heart and then broke it in two pieces.

It was the sound of someone who was in agony, of someone who wanted it all to end.

Will came back into the room and set our tea on the table before coming over to Ben and started to tug off his pants. He met my questioning gaze with a sly smile.

“It’s better we take them off now, trust me. You don’t want to be wrestling the pants off him once his bones are shifting. Or worse, you don’t want a wolf struggling to run with a belt on.”

We sat there for another hour in near silence. Our tea went untouched on the table. Ben panted and writhed in pain as we sat, powerless to relieve his suffering.

The longer I was there, the easier it became to watch. I became less intimidated by his body as I observed the impossible.

“It’s nearly ten now, it should start to pick up,” Fitz said.

I looked at Ben and tried to imagine what he had been going through for the past couple of hours. Tried to imagine what it would feel like knowing that you’d be stuck in that prison well into the night.

“What is he like when he’s a wolf?” I asked.

Will folded his hands together on his lap. “He’s not himself. He doesn’t seem to have the same sort of functioning that we do when he changes. He usually finds Oak, and they run together for a few days.”

“A few days?” I repeated.

Fitz nodded. “Sometimes it’s a few hours, and other times days go by and he’s still stuck.”

I lifted my hand to my face and rubbed my eyes. How much worse could it get?

“Please,” Ben grunted, hands clenching. I whipped around to him, placing my hand on his cheek and trying to catch his eye. His gaze was darting everywhere, though, too fast for me to follow.

“What is it?” I asked Ben, Fitz, Will, I didn’t care. I could feel the shift in his change, could sense the acceleration that was coming. Something deep inside of me was answering to his pain.

“He always does this,” Fitz said, voice strangely hollow.

“Does what?” I pressed.

“~Please~,” Ben moaned, skin flushing a new pale color.

“He begs us to kill him,” Will finished.

I froze in horror, hands hovering just over Ben’s face. To think that every month he went through this. Every month he begged for someone to end his suffering.

It was a torture I would not have been able to endure.

“It’s okay,” I cooed, “you’re almost th—”

Ben cried out as seemingly every muscle strained against his skin, pushing and writhing and shaking. I held on to his hand, letting him squeeze my fingers near breaking point.

The veins along his arms and neck stood taut against his skin, pulsing with his heartbeat, which was steadily increasing.

Ben flopped back onto the couch, whatever stage was seemingly over. That was until the first pop echoed throughout the house.

The noise was so faint I was sure I had imagined it until another pop echoed, followed closely by another.

“Get ready, Morda,” Will said. “It’s time.”

I heard a pop and then a crack that froze my blood. Ben's eyes were open and staring at the ceiling above him, nostrils flaring and teeth gritted as he tried his best to endure as quietly as he could.

I hated the idea that he was causing himself extra discomfort because of my presence.

The next break was too large to ignore. The bone along his forearm snapped and bent, the edge of the bone nearly poking out of his skin.

I slapped my hand over my mouth as I watched the bone ~move~ under his skin, fusing together to form another joint.

His left leg was next, his femur snapping in three different places as it fused together to create the backward slope of a wolf’s thigh.

Ben swore and cried out, “Please kill me, fuck, please just—” He screamed in pure terror, lifting every hair on my body.

His leg was now bent at an odd angle, slightly lifted off the couch. Will stood and lifted his ankle over the edge so the malformed leg now dangled in the air.

“We have to keep adjusting his”—he stopped and cringed as Ben screamed—“position as his body changes.”

Ben's ribs popped rapidly one after the other, his ribcage becoming longer and thinner.

I watched in horror as a bone pierced his skin and then slid back under the surface, leaving a thin trail of blood slipping down the side of Ben’s body.

Ben sobbed as he lifted his hands. The small bones in his fingers were moving too rapidly for my eye to follow. I just watched as his hands became stubbier, more rounded.

His palm started to slope upward until it started to resemble a paw.

His nails darkened in color until they were near black. They pushed out farther from the nail bed, became sharp and pointed.

The wrist bones were next to change, moving quickly to adhere to the new paw that was forming.

Everything in me was screaming to look away, to leave the room, to leave the house. But I forced myself to stay still, to murmur sweet nothings to Ben and to keep my hand on his cheek.

If he could endure the pain, I could endure the show.

Ben’s other femur cracked as his foot began the same slow change his hands had gone through. “Kill me!” Ben roared. “Please, please, ~please,~ no more.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered, feeling cheap. “You’re doing great.”

Ben cried out, spit flying from his mouth as tears started to leak from his eyes. He was panting hard, his chest rising and falling as fast as a hummingbird moved its wings.

The bones along his chest were breaking up and reforming, his hips making the transition at the same time.

I heard a faint crack and looked over his body, trying to see where the next change was happening.

When I saw nothing but calm, deformed skin, I turned to his face, realizing when I noticed he had turned his head away from me that the next change would take away his identity.

“He doesn’t like anyone to watch the next few parts,” Fitz told me.

“I don’t want him to feel like he has to hide,” I murmured, straining to see whatever was happening.

There were a series of light pops and then deeper cracks as the more significant bones in his face started to rearrange.

“It’s time to stand back,” Will said, reaching for my arm.

I let him tug me toward the other couch, keeping my eyes set firmly on Ben who was still writhing in pain but using every ounce of control to keep us from seeing.

“Will,” Fitz said, “we need to flip him over.”

The boys stood and went on either side of Ben, both keeping their eyes away from his face as they slipped their hands under his ribcage and turned him as gently as he could.

His new limbs held him in a strange animal-like way.

His legs now bowed out and backward, his elbows no longer performing the same way. His hands were now unmistakably paws, his nails digging into the couch cushions.

He kept his head low, bowed between his shoulder blades so we couldn’t see the reforming. We could only hear his bones popping and whatever sounds of pain he made.

After another ten minutes, Ben finally raised his head, and all I could see were his tawny eyes, still unmistakably human, watching my reaction, waiting for the horror, waiting for the confirmation that he was a monster.

Slowly, I let my eyes leave his and wandered his new face, keeping my face a mask as I did.

When I had seen it all, when I had seen every horror and strange beauty, I met his eyes, and I smiled.

Something eased in his look, the line of his shoulders dropping if only for a moment before his skin heated up and almost seemed to glow red.

“Fur,” Fitz announced.

Sure enough, tiny pinpricks opened up all over Ben’s body, introducing tiny dark strands of fur along the ridge of his back, the line of his arms, the slope of his stomach.

He panted as the fur spread, grew longer, covered his entire body. By the time his fur had settled in, he was beginning to look more and more like a wolf.

“Something isn’t right,” I murmured, “he’s missing—”

Ben released the most awful sound I had ever heard in my life. It was a sound of agony, that much was obvious. But the sound was a mixture of human pain and animal suffering.

His vocal cords could no longer form sound the same way.

Ben’s spine went taut before it started to elongate, pushing ~out~ of his skin to—I looked away sharply, not sure if I could stomach watching Ben grow a tail.

I wanted to be brave for him, yes, but I didn’t want to spook him if I screamed.

“You can look,” Fitz told me, laying a hand on my shoulder.

Slowly, I turned. Before me stood a wolf.

Ben’s entire body was shaking as he lowered himself to the couch, lying down and tucking his new tail close to his body. His skin was shuddering in certain places, the change not fully over.

“These are the last moments where he’s conscious,” Will informed me. “In a few minutes, he’ll be completely wolf, and we’ll lead him out to Oak.”

I nodded and swallowed, moving carefully toward Ben. His tawny eyes followed every movement, still sharp and human and assessing me.

I smiled and approached, kneeling beside him and trying to keep my breath even.

Ben blinked at me slowly, trying to communicate with me with his eyes. Tentatively, I placed my hand on the back of his neck, smoothing out the long, rich-brown fur that now sat there.

He closed his eyes under my touch and leaned into it, grateful for me.

“You did amazing,” I told him. “You’re beautiful.”

And he was beautiful. He was a large predator, powerfully sculpted and covered in thick dark-brown fur shot with lighter strands of gold.

This new body was lithe and strong, capable of running and hunting and killing.

He whined high through his nose, eyes starting to become less active as he started to slip further inside himself.

I felt panic claw at my throat, worried that he was suffering, afraid for a moment that I would lose him to the wild and never get him back.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw Fitz standing behind me, a small smile on his face. I squeezed Ben’s fur once more before standing and allowing Fitz to tuck me behind his body.

Will got behind Ben and gently prodded his back, prompting Ben to stand on the couch and shake out his new fur.

The two boys half herded and half pushed Ben toward the backyard, Ben resisting near the door as he lost the last of his human self.

I watched from the windows as Fitz and Will shifted in an instant, one moment boys and the next wolves.

I wondered what it was like for Ben to watch his friends shift in an instant, wondered if he resented them for it.

Together, Will and Fitz chased Ben into the woods, disappearing from my line of sight. I sat in the empty house for a moment, my brain not being able to settle on a thought.

I reached up and swiped away a few tears before I stood and started cleaning up the dishes from dinner, finding peace in the work.

Will and Fitz entered the house an hour later, both tired and quiet. I made fresh tea, and we all sat at the table, no one drinking or speaking.

It was another ten minutes before they finally let me in on what I had missed.

“We got him out to Oak,” Will said. “Ben usually finds his way to him one way or another. Anyway, it just gives us some peace of mind to know Oak is looking out for him.”

“And Oak,” I started, “he still has his human mind?”

Fitz shrugged. “No way to tell, he’s pretty intelligent. If any other wolf had pinned you like that, then you would’ve been dead immediately.

“He had the sense not to disable his prey, so we don’t think he’s relying completely on his animal instinct.”

“There isn’t anything else we can do, Morda,” Will said. “We just have to wait.”

I nodded, pressing my fingers against my mug and drawing in the heat of my tea. I looked at the clock above the stove and was surprised to find that it was already well past midnight.

“If it’s okay, I’d like to stay the night,” I said, taking my phone from my bag and sending a text to my mom.

I told her I was staying with Jocelyn. I was too tired to care whether or not she believed the lie.

“You know where Ben’s room is,” Will said, “let me know if you need more blankets or water or anything.”

I nodded and pressed on a smile before taking my things upstairs and finding Ben’s room. I took a shirt from his drawer and traded mine for his, slipping off my skirt before I crawled into his bed.

I lay with my nose pressed against his pillow; his scent was faint, but it was there, and I tried my best to memorize it.

I closed my eyes and thought of his—thought of how they darkened when he changed, thought of how I lost a piece of him while discovering a new one.

In the distance, a wolf howled. A heartbeat later, another wolf joined in the song.

I let myself fall asleep to the sound, knowing that Ben was with Oak and hoping that he’d be okay.

I was just about to drift off the edge of consciousness as the gentle wolf song was cut short and the sound of panicked whining and deep growls filled the air in its place.

Something was horribly wrong.