Dirty Lying Wolves

3. Truths in the Forest

"I don't want to hear what any of you have to say," I told Dom, my voice shaking. "I want to go back home."

And I want a chance to call the cops.

Dom sighed through his nose and pressed a hand to his forehead. "Look, you're in a position you don't know you're in yet, but you're going to want our help. You barged in on us, and while I know what it probably looked like, that wasn't it. We're taking these two somewhere safe to heal."

My eyes flicked to the grunting, pained figures on the ground and back up to Dom. I couldn't possibly have read the situation wrong, could I?

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" I asked slowly.

He shrugged. "You don't. But you will when the shift starts. Or you can try to ask one of these two, if you can get them to talk at all."

I looked down at the figures on the ground. The man made a choking sound, then spit out a wad of clotted blood. I gasped and jerked away from the sight.

"Yeah, that's about how they've been all day. Actually, the warlock said it was only supposed to last nine hours," he muttered.

I was breathing hard, trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. I clutched at my chest and pulled my arms and legs in tight to my body.

"Hey now, relax," Dom said. "If we were going to hurt you, we would have by now."

That's... probably true.

I took in a deep, shaky breath and managed to let it out slowly. Then another. Then, I was ready to talk.

"Okay, okay," I breathed. "Fine, what was it you wanted to tell me?"

Dom nodded sharply, not smiling but somehow looking more at ease now. "You've been bitten."

I frowned. "I know that, it was pretty obvious."

"No... you've been bitten by a werewolf," he said.

If I was in any mood for humor, I would have laughed. "A werewolf."

"And on the next full moon, which is what, three weeks away? Your body will try to shift. If it can't shift completely, it will try the next full moon and you'll get a little closer. If it doesn't happen then, you'll go through the shift the next moon, and the next, until you either shift or..."

He sounded crazy, but he looked dead serious. If he had a psychosis, or a mental illness or something, it might be dangerous to argue with him. I just nodded slowly to appease him.

But then I realized, the other three were watching this whole crazy exchange and they didn't see anything wrong with it.

Seriously? A werewolf?

I cleared my throat, trying to keep him talking and see if something important slipped. "What happens if I don't? You said I either shift, or something else, and you didn't say what that something else could be."

He shrugged. "You shift, or you eventually die trying."

My breath caught in my throat. I was telling myself in my head that what I was hearing was crazy. And yet...

I glanced down at the woman on the ground, snarling and curling her legs up to her abdomen. She was in pain, and she was furious.

And what she was when she bit me, it wasn't human.

I flicked through the eyes of all the men at the fire and Dom. They were serious, and... yellow? I blinked. No, they were normal eyes, it was just a trick of the light. But their eyes, they were all serious.