II
"You're staying here... here at the penthouse with me? Please say you're staying here..." Belle pleaded with him her pale blue eyes gleaming.
"You know I can't, Belle... I'll be staying at the loft." Brady was a large strapping lean specimen of maleness. He was the very opposite of Belle's petiteness, however it only took one look at them to know that they were siblings. Unconditional love was a constant between the two of them and radiated in an opalescent glow throughout the room. Of course your everyday mere mortal couldn't see this glow. Belle and Brady weren't ordinary mortals, they were special at least Brady was. Belle possessed no latent abilities but she had gained insight from her closeness with her brother over the years.
"Brady, Mom and Dad are away for a couple of weeks, in Europe, you could stay here..." She pouted, her lip sticking out.
How could he say no to that face? "Ok, Belle, but the day they come home it's to the loft I go."
"Thank you, you're the best!!" Brady held on for dear life as his petite little sprite of a sister proceeded to squeeze the very air out of his lungs.
The night was growing near as Chloe walked down the street toward her house. She had felt free all day, and had even made friends. It wasn't something that often happened to her. She was usually kept on a tight leash. A strict private school had been her education. Extra-curricular activities had been strictly forbidden. With nothing else to do but study she had graduated early. Now being eighteen she longed to go on to college to spread her wings but it hadn't happened yet, her mother had forbidden it saying it was too dangerous to be so far from home. Now perhaps, just perhaps things would change. Her father encouraged her independence and after all Salem was a college town, she could stay home and still take classes.
"Oh Chloe you should definitely enroll, Meems and I are starting in the fall. We can go together!" Belle had been so excited. Chloe felt like she had known her all her life. She would definitely have to ask her father if she could go.
Blinding headlights and screeching tires broke her from her trance like walk down the street toward home. 'Who could that be?' she thought raising her arm to shield her sensitive eyes from the blinding headlights directly in front of her. Doubt fled the minute she heard the voice from the open car window.
"Where the hell have you been, young lady! Do you know what time it is?" Cathy Lane was angry and Chloe would surely pay for making her angry.
Chloe got into the car and silently they drove back to the Lane house. It would do no good to argue with her. They pulled into the driveway and Chloe made no move to get out but waited patiently for the tirade she was sure was coming. "Don't think you can pull the silent treatment on me!! I like you better that way anyway! Now you get into that house and up to your room. I don't want to see you till morning!"
"Yes, Mother..." was all she said as she slid from the car and silently made her way into the house.
"Chloe, baby..." her father called from the kitchen doorway as she stepped onto the bottom step of the stairway to her room. "How was your day? Did you like Dot Com?"
"Yes, thank you, it was wonderful, Daddy..." Chloe smiled at him as she began ascend the stairs.
"Aren't you going to eat dinner with Mother and I?" he asked hopefully.
"No, Daddy, not tonight, I'm not hungry..." Cathy gave a shrug of indifference when Patrick gave her a questioning glance. Maybe she was just tired he thought.
Tonight there would be moon. Chloe was sure she felt it's cool touch even though it had not yet risen. Chloe made her way to her adjoining bathroom and stripped to nothingness. Stepping beneath the pulsating shower she rinsed away the smells of the day. Down the drain they went she would face the night as she was meant to be, clean. Nearly an hour later when the water finally began to run cold, she stepped from the shower and heard the slide of the deadbolt on the door of the outer room. The sound shouldn't have surprised her because if was a routine sound having been heard every night for the past half dozen years, but it still made her grit her teeth in silent protest.
Pale moonlight filtered in through her open window as she came into the room still wet from the shower. A gust of wind blew through the room and the moisture beaded on her silky skin causing her to shiver, but Chloe knew as she approached the window and stepped into the pooling moon light she would soon be warm again.
Without hesitation, Chloe stepped into the moonlight and in an instant where once had been Chloe, now stood a dark wolf, tall and proud.
Had she been an ordinary wolf she would have been considered quite large having the same weight as her daytime form, but at night she was very different. She was strong and quick, her fur thick and smooth. She was dark as the night and her blue eyes gleamed.
Chloe's wolf heart cried with silent joy. This was right; this is how it should be. She loved being the wolf. Chloe lifted herself on her hind legs and placing her forepaws on the open windowsill, and peered out. Even during the daytime her senses were keen but in the night by the light of the waning moon they multiplied a hundred times over. What was a mere image during the day, at night became not only image but also taste, texture and smell.
"Oh the wonder of it all." Her inner voice spoke.
She could still smell the rain from the night before, the damp earth, as it lay undisturbed in the flowerbeds below her window. She hadn't noticed it before the change but did now and reveled in it. The sharp wind blew with it the fragrance of the city. Some scents were definitely more pleasant than others. Her favorite she decided was the smell of the waterfront, oh how she longed to look out over the open water. Running a close second had to be the wooded park in the opposite direction. Oh to actually run free in the moonlight. Chloe dropped her forepaws to the floor with a soft nearly indistinct cry of longing.
Suddenly the room evaporated from around her. Now she stood tall beside a clear mountain lake, the moonlight glowing softly across the water. All around the lake she heard the rustle of the trees as they stood reaching for the sky. The night was a live with movement. Her ears pricked forward and perceived what her eyes could not in the darkness, the whoosh of a screech owls wing in flight, the wine of bats diving, flitting, and foraging in the cool night air.
The memory faded. Chloe found herself staring at the locked door.
This was her prison of that she was for sure, but someday... someday things would change, but for right now she would be patient and bide her time.
Chloe's lips drew back in an angry snarl, her teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Her anger was pointless. Whether the locked door or the barred window, they both stood between her and the freedom she longed for. She began to pace about her cage for the room was nothing but. All the while her mind screaming, "MY TIME WILL COME!"
Brady paced the balcony of the penthouse high above the city. Why had he agreed to stay here in this prison in the sky? He had come back to help his father run his company but was it a mistake? He hoped not. Stopping to peer over the balcony wall to the city below, Brady's mind drifted back to earlier in the evening.
"Thank you, you're the best!!"
"Tink, please sto..." he was asking her ease up a little on her viscous hug when a glorious scent assaulted his nose.
Sniff, sniff.
Sniff, sniff.
Belle began to giggle uncontrollably as Brady continued to sniff her all over her neck and down across her shoulders and up and down both arms.
Sniff, sniff.
Sniff, sniff.
"BRADY STOP!" Belle finally fed up pushed him away, "You know I hate when you do that!"
"I'm sorry Tink," Brady said shaking his head to regain control, "Where was it you went today?"
"I went shopping with Meems, why?"
"Just curious."
Coming back from the memory, Brady raised his face to breathe in the cool night air and his inner voice spoke. "Where is she tonight?" The one who owned that scent was out there somewhere and he would find her. He was not alone in the city.
