Chapter 9

We spent the day in silence. Troy cooked more hot dogs and beans for lunch, and I tended the fire when it needed it, but otherwise we spent the day leaning against each other, staring into the fire's depths.

The disc of the sun touched the distant horizon. I nudged Troy to rouse him from his reverie.

"We should take our clothes off."

"Yeah."

We stripped, and looked at the already risen moon.

Troy embraced me from behind. "Do you think it's going to hurt?"

"I don't know. I don't remember much of last night."

He nuzzled the back of my neck.

"Troy, I'm sorry about this. I'm sorry I bit you."

Troy just sighed.

I stared at the moon, and felt it start. My spine tingled. I took a deep breath and moved my hands to flush out the negative feelings.

The tingling spread. It crept from my spine to the other bones in my body. An uncomfortable pressure started building in my body.

I took another deep breath, and focused on finding my center. This was my body dammit, I wasn't about to lose control of it.

The pressure subsided. I opened my eyes and looked. I was still me. No fur. No claws. Maybe we'd been wrong. Maybe we weren't werewolves.

I turned to express my happiness to Troy, only to find that we hadn't been wrong.

Hair was sprouting all over his body as he bent down onto all fours. I heard several sickening pops as his bones and joints moved into new positions.

"Troy!"

He looked at me, his eyes, his amazing eyes filled with fear. "Fight it Troy. Don't let it control you. You can do it." I stepped forward and placed my hand on his shoulder. His body continued changing though. Soon where my boyfriend had stood there was nothing more than a large wolf, with the hair color and eyes of my lover.

The wolf looked at me, and snarled.

It was on me in the blink of an eye, paws on my shoulders pinning me to the ground. The huge slavering jaws snapped towards my face, just like in my nightmare. Shit. I was about to be eaten by my own boyfriend, and not in a good way. I peed myself. What would you have done?

The wolf paused, and sniffed the air. The wolf made some sort of repetitive sound halfway between a bark and a whimper and looked me in the eye. The sounds may have been indecipherable, but there was no mistaking the puckish sparkle in his eye.

Troy licked my face and let me up, making the same sound again. I was beginning to suspect it was laughter.

"Troy!" I cuffed the back of his head.

He had the good grace to whimper at least.

"That was so not funny."

He attempted what I think was a shrug.

"You're just lucky we didn't bring a newspaper, or I'd do to you what I did to Sharpay's mutt after it mistook my bed for the backyard."

He lay down and covered his eyes with his paws.

I found some toilet paper and cleaned myself up. At least I'd been naked when I had my accident.

Troy was lying by the fire watching me. "So… you want to play fetch or something?"

He growled at me. I laughed.

"Tell you what; let's see if I can't join you?"

I looked up at the moon again, willing the tingling sensation to return. It did. The uncomfortable pressure soon followed. I hear popping and cracking sounds echoing through my body. With each the pressure seemed to lessen. I fell forward onto my hands, make that paws. The blond hair sprouting from my arms turned a snowy white, and I felt my mouth grow longer.

I tried an experiment then, and willed the changes to stop. It was uncomfortable, but they slowed to a halt. I relaxed and let the transformation run its course.

I sniffed the air, and found it far more interesting than I had a few minutes before. New instincts flooded my mind as the scents filled my lungs. The fire's smoke was almost overpowering, but even past it I could smell that there were squirrels in the trees, elk somewhere in the distance, and that my mate was nearby.

I looked up to find Troy watching me. His stance showed obvious subservience. There may have only been two of us, but I was the leader of this pack.

My mind was filled with the foreign instincts. It was like my own mind and that of an ordinary wolf were sharing the same space. I walked upwind of the fire, and sniffed the air again. I caught the scent of the elk again, and howled. Troy joined in. The hunt was on.


This time we had the foresight to wash in the stream and return to camp before dawn.

The sun wouldn't be up for an hour, but I wanted to sleep in the tent. Paws aren't ideal for working zippers. I closed my eyes and thought of the tingling sensation I'd felt when the changes started. I pushed the remembered feelings away in my mind and felt pressure building again. A symphony of disgusting snaps and cracks flooded my ears before the pressure subsided. I opened my eyes to find that I had hands again. I stood, and shook my head; the wolf mind hadn't completely left yet.

I unzipped the tent, and let Troy lope in before me. He lay down in the corner and fell asleep, I joined him soon after.

I slept until well after noon, and even then I was still tired. I awoke to find myself being spooned by the naked form of my beautiful boyfriend. I rolled over and pressed my lips against his. He groaned, and batted at my face without opening his eyes. Looking for the entire world like a sleeping puppy.

I knew how to wake him up. I kissed a down his jaw and onto his chest before latching onto a nipple.

Troy's eyes fluttered open. "Hey there."

My lips followed a well known path down his body, and those were the last intelligible words he said for a while.


I returned to camp from the outhouse, wishing I still had shoes as I was beginning to believe my feet were attracting the sharpest rocks available, and was greeted by the smell of bacon. "I thought you only brought hot dogs and beans?"

He laughed. "A guy has to have a few surprises up his sleeve."

I sat down next to him and rested my head on his shoulder.

"So what are we going to do, Troy?"

He was silent for a long time, and flipped the bacon in the pan. "I don't know."

"What happens if a rehearsal, or worse a basketball game falls on the night of a full moon?"

"Well, you seemed able to control it last night. Can you teach me that?"

"I can try. But what if it doesn't work."

He laughed. "Well, if Teen Wolf taught me anything, it's that werewolves are great at basketball, so I won't let the team down."

I groaned. He popped a sizzling hot piece of bacon into my open mouth.


I spent the rest of the day teaching him the basics of yoga. Troy spent about half of it making bad jokes about the pose called Downward Facing Dog. That pose was a notorious joke magnet under normal circumstances, but the werewolf thing gave him an entire new set of jokes to throw into the mix.

We both stripped naked, and waited in each others arms for the sun to set.

When at last it sank below the horizon we turned our attention to the moon. It was the last night it would be full for a month. I felt the tingling start in my spine, but forced it down with a single deep breath. Troy didn't have such an easy go of it though.

He was sweating, and trying hard to breathe. I could feel his whole body shaking.

I leaned in and whispered in his ear. "You can do it Troy. I believe in you."

With that the tremors passed and his arms squeezed around me in a bear hug.

We stood there for perhaps ten minutes before he started nibbling on my ear. "Now what?"

I pulled from his embrace and gave his body a longing look. "Well, we're already naked."

He smiled and pulled me into the tent.


I woke to find him lying next to me, his eyes open and exploring my body.

I felt a blush creep into my cheeks.

"Have I told you how perfect you are?"

I smiled. "Not today."

"Well you are, perfect in every way."

I looked away from his adoring gaze. "Yeah, so perfect that I turned my boyfriend into a werewolf."

"Hey now." He reached over with a finger and turned my head to face him again. "That's not your fault."

"But it is."

"It's my fault you were on that golf course in the first place."

"Like you knew there was a werewolf lurking in the bushes."

"Well then, either we're both to blame, or neither of us is. It doesn't matter, I love you, Ry."

"What are we going to do, though?"

"It won't be that bad. You can control it. And as long as you're by my side I can too."

"I'll always be there for you." I said, and sighed. "After all the trouble I went through to live an open life, and not keep secrets, I have one again."

"We have one. And as long as we're in this together, nothing bad can happen."

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Always know the perfect thing to say."

He just smiled and kissed me.

After that it was time to pack up. It was already Sunday afternoon, and we had to return to the wilds of civilization. Our vacation together had proven all too short.

As soon as we left the protective cover of the mountains both of our phones detonated. I reached for mine, but Troy grabbed it first.

"Nuh uh, you're driving."

He checked them both. "We each have almost a dozen voice-mails, and almost twice that many texts."

He started listening to his. I heard a gasp from his seat. "Ryan, pull over."

I did it without questioning.

He handed me my phone. "You'd better listen to yours."

"What happened?'

"Gabi's boyfriend is dead."

I entered my access code and started listening. The first was from Gabriella, the next five were from Sharpay, after that Kelsi, Taylor, Chad, and even Jason had called.

I scanned the texts; there wasn't any information in them that hadn't been in the voice-mails.

I heard Troy dial his phone. "Taylor, its Troy. What happened?"

I put the car in drive and started speeding back towards Albuquerque.