• I sat down and curled into a tight ball. My fears fading, my base of all reality crumbling into the torrent of a void in my soul. The blood that coated my body warmed me, but my soul was chilled, my heart covered in black ice. The open flesh cooed over my senses, calling me to feast upon it in the full moon. I looked at the body and quickly closed my eyes. Her eyes were wide, one hanging out like a broken and bloody snake. I muffled a cry as my senses were over taken by a much deeper and historic ferocity. My arm moved to the body, my hand grasping the warm limp arm. I yanked her closer to me and dared to look her again in her face. She was beautiful and she died almost instantly. She was in so much shock, and so was I. But I still tore her heart from her clothed breast with my teeth, still ripped out her throat and dripped the hot blood down my bare chest. I still took her life out of malice and overwhelming fear.

    I went to bit softly into her skin with my nubbed teeth, felt the warmth of her blood on my tongue, and took a mouthful of her sweet flesh in my mouth. I did not tear it off, I did not break the skin, I did not eat her. I slid my tongue over her skin, tasting the sweat of her fright and the iron in her strong blood. I tasted the power she once held inside her flesh, human and wolf, and wanted more with a frightful greed. I wanted more flesh, and more power.

    "I cant." I said, taking my mouth from her skin.

    Aries sat next to me on her hunches, her eyes watching and drinking everything in. She nipped at the air to pressure me further to bite the flesh I had already torn. I laid the arm down and looked away from the site to the other forms coming out from the shadows. Some lowered their heads as they came to lick my bottom jaw in submission. I watched as June crouched on all fours and nipped at the bodies limp leg. I smacked the sack of dead flesh and growled loudly, scaring all the nearing wolfs to the shadows.

    "None of you will touch her body!" I yelled.

    Aries padded over to me, shooing all the younger ones away. She nudged my hand with her cold nose and looked up at me, her amber eyes bright in the moons dripping coldness. Her paws grew long and pale, her muzzle shortened to reveal a goddess upon all men. I looked at her as she crouched next to me, taking my hand in both of hers.

    "It should not make you happy. We kill to survive…" she spoke softly, her white hair slipping over her small breast as she tilted her head to look at me.

    "I had no reason to kill her, and she to me."

    "She felt threatened by you, so she sought the only way her blood lead her. To beat you into submission." She reached a arm over and pulled me to her body. The blood smeared over her pale skin as I touched a cleaned wound in her side.

    "I would not have killed her if she had not hurt you." I pulled my beloved into my arms tight and took her scent in deep, my eyes shut tight. "She would not let me have you. I would not let her have me by force. Who I love is my own choice, not hers."

    We hugged tight and I felt my skin ripple with hunger from transforming and the fight. I did not want to eat flesh. I wanted to go into a store and buy noodles and boil them over a warm, man made fire. I wanted to cut up a salad and eat fresh lettuce and tomatoes, to drench it in Italian dressing. I wanted to just be human.

    "We must dispose of her body." She took my head in her soft hands. "This is the way I was raised, if it bothers you, turn the other way and close your eyes."

    I understood the way they worked to the basics, but the thought of devouring flesh of a human, some thing that I was once of, dispelled my souls old ways. I felt unclean after I was bitten with the bacteria infested mouth of the one I was about to watch be eaten. I felt unsure of my human body afterwards, as if it was just as disgusting. When I was wolf, I felt powerful, sometimes not knowing my own strength.

    I looked on as Aries turned wolf, her white fur soft and flowing. I saw her growl the others away as she searched for a soft patch of flesh to bite, her hackles riveted with authority. She sniffed just under the ribs, and pawed at it, scratching the skin with her tough black claws. She bit with her for teeth and ripped the skin away, then dug her nuzzle deep into the body and pulled out with a piece of intestine in her jaws. She looked at me and then back at the body, blood soft on her face and just reaching under her amber eyes. This was a special moment for her. And she wanted me to join her, to finally become part of the pack, her pack now. I loved her, I loved her before I knew what she was, before I knew that silky fur that coated her body in the moonlight, before she howled my name into a warm summers wind at night. We had not made love, as my virginity was something I grew up holding special to me. I wanted to give it to her, but she refused because her mother would not grant her. Her mother wanted me after I became a wolf, but I not her, human or wolf.

    I stretched my bones, my claws brooding into the soil and my nose catching a new world of smells. I smelt the dirty city mile away, I smelt the dew on the trees, and if I smelt carefully enough it felt as if I could have smelled the stars and the moon high above. My tail laid flat as I approached Aries. She dipped her head under my rugged neck of fur and nudged me to the spot she had just breached in flesh. A whimper from the shadows of the on looking wolves in anticipation to their following feast edged me closer. I smelt the flesh: my skin did not crawl in disgust, nor did my soul reach back in fear as it did when I was human.

    I dipped my grey mouth into the flesh and dug deep until something soft and warm wiggled in over my tongue. I bite down many time to chop it away from the body and pulled out with a mouthful of intestine. I swallowed it whole and felt it stream blood down my throat, coating it in sugary sweetness. Aries licked my bottom jaw and began to eat. I watched as a few higher wolfs stepped forward, their fur raised to each other with low growls as they each searched for a place to eat. They settled and the smaller males came out, and then the pups.

    It was a frenzy of flesh and growling over meat as we tore away the body of the once beautiful woman. Bones were broken down and the marrow sucked clean out once no flesh skimmed them and the sex organs left aside later for Aries to eat. Full bellied and boastfully stuffed, some left and wondered back into the forest, back to their own homes toward the cities and hidden safe houses for clothes. Aries and I were left, grounded with the food in out bellies, the bones shredded about us. She sniffed the ovaries and ate them as if slurping down fish, and she tore apart the uterus and ate it in strips, savoring the taste maybe.

    "We have a test tomorrow." Aries said after she came and laid next to me, her tail waging over mine.

    "Joy." I growled and started to lick her neck clean of blood until it shinned bright again.

    "I wish she would have at least waited until I graduated from college." she sighed a whine and closed her eyes.

    I softly licked over her eyes and her ears, being sure to take care not to lick to rough to their sensitivity.

    "She indulged to much in the humans world. Her mind was filled with greed and lust even before you came along. I guess you remind her of father and it just broke her sense of self and who she really was."

    "I am sorry."

    Aries shook her main of fur and started to clean me, rough yet soft. I felt my body grow warm, and if I was human, I would have blushed at this touch.

    "For what? It's the way of life in a pack. No one judges you more than they judge me. Its no ones fault over death. Murder does not apply here as it does to humans. It's a way we keep order and strength. And without it, we would fail like humans."

    "We grew up much differently. Almost like different worlds. You pretend in the humans world, and I pretend with the wolves."

    "There is no need to pretend here." Aries said as she sniffed out dry matted blood just under my right ear. She combed over it with her teeth very gently, shivers ran the length of me. "Humans fear change, but we embrace it each night, not fearing the dawn which will bring about another change. We take on both sides, moving with the tides of both humans and wolves. We do not know pretend, just survival."

    She licked my ears clean and began to lick her own paws, cleaning them delicately. She bit down on her nail, scraping the bottoms for flesh and dirt. I copied her and licked at my large paws, biting my tongue once or twice. She took time to watch me and told me a easier way to scrap my nails clean, and it involved closing my eyes. That was the key.

    "We should be getting back to the city soon. Its almost dawn." She said passionately as she stood up. "You can sleep at the safe house with me now." She trotted off into the lighting forest.

    I stood up and stretched. I looked about, nothing was left to tell of a murder of a human, but the scent was still vivid as if the body still lay their motionless. The Alpha female of a pack of wolfs was killed tonight. Not a murder, but a way of life, a ceremony taken place to promote her only female born to Alpha. No regret seeped into the soil with the blood, no left over anger or fear stunk up the place, no human was left to worry about the ways of wolves.


    We reached the safe house for a few hours of rest among humans and wolves alike, all piled unto one another in a comfortable balance of sleep. Some where their just to sleep in their wolf forms from which they were more comfortable in, others were from other clans traveling across country. Some were visiting family and other trying to recruit the pups who hung onto every word of freedom from humans in the wild.

    "Here. The Alpha room." Aries leapt over sleeping bodies and made her way down a hallway that was decorated with many pictures of humans and wolfs alike.

    She pushed past a large doggy door and I followed. We were in a large empty room, a decorated pool in the middle. Trees and bushes were in full bloom about the pool. Stone benches specked the outer wall of the room, and in the far back, hidden behind a hedge, was a very large, blood red bed. It went in a full circle, covered in pillows and silver silk sheets hung about it, barley transparent. She leapt onto the bed and lay down softly, her paws stretched out before her.

    "Ah, I have always wanted to rest here." she let out a small whine, wagged her tail and looked at me. She gave me puppy dog eyes, so bright and large.

    I hopped onto the bed and stretched out beside her, out bodies touching, our fur merging. Foot steps echoed in the room and she perked up her ears, as did I. A wolf and two half clothed men came in eye sight.

    "Congratulations sister!" one man huffed as he sat on the bed and scratched her head.

    "Did she put up much of a fight?" the other man said.

    "These are my brothers. Archie and Aral." Aries spoke softly, nodding to the two men. They both nodded to me, smiles on their faces.

    "Hey." I said and nodded to them.

    "Yeah, we just got back from our trip and just heard the news. Apparently they will have a feast set up tonight in celebration of your succession."

    "Yeah, the counsel already has you written up as Aries, Alpha of Boxton. They will be here tonight as well to congrat you."

    "We have a test today." Aries said plainly. "We need rest brothers."

    "Yeah, sure thing." They nodded to me and raced another to the doggy door.

    "They seem nice." I said and rested my head onto a pillow, turning on my side.

    "Yes, they are blood." she moved a pillow in front of her and laid on her side, staring into my eyes. She drew her paws over mine and I saw her lips pull back into a small black smile. Her white fur fluffed about her neck, and her ears relaxed. "I love you."

    "I love you, too."