Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

51. The Werewolf Awakens

AN: If you've skipped the previous chapter, Volya and Liam were making out when Volya experienced dark, domineering urges. 

***

With an anguished cry, Volya shoved Liam aside, as far as he could manage.

"Back," he barked in a half-human, half-beastly voice. "Run."

Liam didn't understand. He sat where he fell, naked, wide-eyed, his expressive face radiating hurt at first, then concern when the convulsions hit Volya. Terror, even.

Volya's neck craned at a weird angle, so he'd lost sight of Liam, but he heard that the guy wasn't moving. Moonlight filtered into the tent through the opened flap, filling it with the ethereal glow.

Sweat trickled down Volya's face. "Run! The moon's rising."

His efforts to talk were useless. Liam froze, awe-struck. So, once the first bone-bending, ligament-tearing wave stopped battering his body, Volya flopped onto his stomach, put his arms and legs under him, and bolted outside.

If Liam wouldn't move, he had to put as much distance between them as was humanly possible. Or faster than that, because he was no longer completely human. He was more.

The moon hung over the tree canopy, heart-achingly beautiful. Volya's face kept tilting up to it, extending his neck beyond the limits of its usual flexibility. Lonesome howls burst out of his heaving chest.

Liaaam, the predator within him howled, Liaaam.

At the same time, an unbroken piece of his consciousness prayed for Liam to be smarter than to respond to his mating call. The guy had to have a shred of self-preservation despite his soft upbringing, dammit! Plus, a human shouldn't find his howls sexually appealing.

Volya's clammy hands curled into fists, nails digging into flesh. When had his fingernails gotten so sharp?

He covered about five hundred yards before the next wave of convulsions hit. This one brought more than pain. His body stopped being his. It bulged, broke and rebuilt under the skin. Coarse hairs prickled their way to the surface. They bristled on his chest thicker than his first beard. Forearms, thighs, calves... everything sprouted the bumper crop of fur.

Volya thrashed, suffocating, while the bones of his skull screeched and hinged, freed from the old mold.

Extra canines pierced his gums, filling his mouth with the tangy taste of blood.

I want to die... can I please just die? The thought shone as clear as the moon above his head.

Then his writhing subsided as suddenly as it had started.

He fell back, exhausted, and raised his hands in front of his face for inspection. Claws... black leathery palms... fur... yup, the whole enchilada of beastliness.

His anatomy matched Naktim's werewolf shape and closely resembled fantasy artwork. Except the artists usually modestly divested the werewolves of genitalia, and his didn't disappear. Small blessings.

He groaned and rolled to his side, ear to the ground, unsure if he was going to retch or not. The sound of running footfalls spooked Volya before he could anyways. He wished he could curse, but a wailing bark was the best he got as a werewolf. He hoped Liam could read, For God's sake! Just run away, you big idiot! in it.

Overcoming nausea, using his muscular, hairy arms as levers, Volya pushed his torso up. The ground sent jolts of electrical current through him every time Liam's foot touched it. His body ached to stalk his mate and fight him into submission, but he forced himself to run in the opposite direction.

The freshly grown tissues warmed up with every stride Volya took. The joints creaked less, adapting to his new weight and the center of mass. Breathing came easier through the muzzle. He resisted letting his tongue loll at first, but gave in, and it bought him even more relief.

The wind carried the smells that his nose could never discern before. This was the scent of his kin. It was faint and old, but not that old. The Buyan Island wasn't deserted. They would come back.

On the scent, he ran until the trees blurred with the sky. His body parts had never worked so smoothly together. Heart and lungs, hamstrings and his core, everything maxed out. After a mad headlong dash, he came to a skidding stop on the bluff. His laughter buzzed with power and potency.

The midnight river rippled before him. The drifts of stars stood out more since the moon had climbed higher, shrinking to a size of a saucer.

Volya vibrated like a string, from the leathery soles of his feet to the tip of his nose, producing a howl after a howl. Each was piercing enough to peel the stars off their orbits. Let the stars drop. Let there be a star-fall over him. He had to call those who were closer than the stars. Those who could understand the lone werewolf calling for his pack.

They didn't respond.

Hollowed out, Volya stayed on the bluff long after the echo had died down to whimpers. The heavenly bodies paled when he fell to the ground in defeat. He rubbed his forearms tentatively, willing to see soft flesh rather than coarse hair and leathery skin.

In response, his limbs trembled, folding inward. Tissue kneaded itself like dough, itching and throbbing, inflamed through and through. He understood why toothpaste couldn't squeeze itself back into its tube, but, apparently, he could do something similar.

He sighed with relief once his shape firmed up, with no weird leftovers of a werewolf. No tail or ears, like Damir had joked, thank goodness. He wished that the transformation was a madman's dream. Alas, the evidence it was all real was right under his nose as he followed the trail he'd left back to the tent. It was his claws that tore through the mud.

The grass, wet with the morning dew, slashed at his ankles. A thousand tiny cuts also formed in his mind, as he tried to come up with his excuses.

I'm sorry, I had to shove you. I can't explain it, okay? I had to transform. Moon made me. Please, understand?

It would sound absolutely pathetic coming from the mouth of an exhausted, naked guy.

A dozen of scratches and bruises started to throb as the extended adrenaline rush wore off. He hugged himself, and stumbled on, until the tent came into view. The weak sunrise typical of Buyan was kindling in the East.

Doubts crawled into his heart. He had to apologize to Liam. Otherwise, he was unfit to live among the humans. But... should he return? He was an actual freak of nature, not just a boy with life-threatening allergies; not a carrier of an odd genetic sequence; not a fatherless cur.

He had transformed into a beast under the moon.

Maybe he should hide between the oaks, wait for his kin and see if his mother would turn him away after he'd found his way home. If his sister would refuse to know him after she learned the truth of his lonely existence. And if they did as the ancient creed demanded, if they chased him away the way the Yamnaya chased away Yasuwa, what would he do then?

And the tent was right there, in front of him. Inside, Liam was waiting, probably scared out of his wits, because Volya had stranded him on a magic island!

Had he really just dared to call himself a werewolf? An alpha? Lol. He was a frigging gnat for doing this to Liam.