My mind was playing tricks on me. I couldn't be a wolf. I wasn't event able to process what was going on. How could I have transformed into this?
I couldn't even move correctly. I tried standing on all fours, but it felt weird.
I was having another panic attack, and being a hound wasn't helping with it. I didn't know what to do. What was there to do? What could I have done? How could I go back?
"Just breathe. You'll get over it."
I heard a voice talk. When I turned around I saw a girl, maybe around my age, looking at me. She looked calm, even though she also looked small.
How was she not scared by the obviously overgrown wolf right in front of her?
"Didn't you listen to me? Take deep breaths. You're losing it."
Since she didn't seem to be going anywhere, I decided to do as told. I took long deep breaths until I was calm enough to reason. When I did calm down, she approached me.
"There. Better?" She asked.
I tried nodding in response. I ended up moving my whole body up and down in the process.
She giggled. "Slow and steady. Now, try and concentrate on every part of your body. Every hair, every muscle, every bone, and try to command it into going back to a human."
"How?!" I tried to say, but only a weird whimper came out of my snout.
"Just calm down, keep breathing, and concentrate on your body. Feel everything in you." She somehow understood me and kept ordering me around.
I tried, and tried, and tried. After a couple of minutes of pain, I was able to get back into being a human.
"Thanks." I told her once I had stood up on two legs again.
Then I realized I was naked. I looked around for my clothes but my jeans and shoes were torn apart. My shirt was the only thing I saw still in one piece. I took it and I did a makeshift underwear with my shirt, hoping it would cover at least most of my private parts. Then I realized this total stranger saw me naked. But when I turned to look at her she seemed unaffected.
"Are you done?" She asked in an annoyed tone.
"Um, yeah." I answered, a bit overwhelmed about everything that had just happened.
"Look, this here isn't owned by any pack, but I sort of own it, the forest at least, and I would highly appreciate it if you left my home." She told me in a serious tone, no doubt trying to intimidate me. But I didn't care about that. What did she meant by packs?
"Packs? Look, with all due respect, this place is owned by my mom. All this territory is hers, which gives me the power to take you out of here if I wanted." I told her, trying not to leave any room for argument.
"Really? I thought you were lost and that's why you had a panic attack just now. If that wasn't it since this is your mommy's place, why were you scared?" She asked, unaffected by my previous warning behavior, and seemingly curious.
"Because I woke up like- that!" I answered dumbfounded.
"Like what? Your wolf?"
"I don't know how that happened." I answered her.
She started laughing and looking at me as if I was crazy. "Well, let me be the first one to inform you, my new rogue friend, you are a werewolf."
"What's a werewolf?" I asked.
"Before there were humans, there were wolves. Some deity decided to turn wolves into two-legged hairless beings. But then another decided to make an in-between and now we are this. We are humans that can transform into wolves at will. I can't believe you didn't transform for the first time at thirteen. That's the age where everyone transforms for the first time, unless one of your parents is human... Didn't your parents help you, or even tell you what you are?" She explained very inspired and uninspired at the same time. Changing from joy to sarcasm in an instant.
"No. Never." I couldn't believe what she was telling me. I was, like a monster. Something out of a sci-fi film. Deities? Werewolves?
"This is the first time someone has told me something about werewolves. I had never heard anything as crazy as that." I told her.
She sat down next to me and motioned her hand telling me to sit next to her.
"Well, we've been around for a while. You've never seen us cause there's a commission to stay under the radar by the alphas of the world. Speaking about alphas, you smell like one." She told me.
"What's an alpha? Like a leader or a king?" I asked her.
"The alpha is the pack leader. But you could call their social status a monarchy. The alpha family is the one that puts the order on the pack. The male is always stronger, unless he's a human and the mate of the female alpha that's next in line for the throne."
"Mate?" I asked.
She sighed. "Look, there's a lot I need to tell you. Let's go someplace else, I'm hungry, and I bet you are too."
As if it was rehearsed, my stomach growled loudly.
"That's my cue. C'mon, let's go to my place." She offered me.
I ended up going to her house in the forest. It looked nice inside compared to its appearance outside. After eating a steak sandwich with Arizona ice tea for drinks, and handing me clothes, she taught me how to control my shifting and explained everything about werewolves. From how werewolves live around humans, to how mates work, what to do and what not to do as a rogue, which is what she kept calling me and herself, and told me how packs go around and the latest gossip involving them.
She also told me about herself. Her name is Autumn. She became a rogue at the age of fifteen because both her parents died by the hand of rogues and she swore to avenge them. But she couldn't start her quest for revenge in a pack, so she left her pack in order to avenge her parent's deaths.
She also told me that to be a werewolf, you needed two werewolf parents or one, and the genes would pass down to the following generation. Something that caught my curiosity.
Was mom a werewolf, or did she have another relationship before meeting Rachel?
-
"I have to find out about this myself. Thanks for everything Autumn, you've been really kind." I told her, trying to convince her not to come with me to talk to my parents about this "situation" I'm having.
"But I haven't visited the human city in years now. Pretty please?" She pouted her lower lip like a little kid.
"How old are you again?" I asked her.
"Twenty two. Why?" She said.
"Act like it please." I told her.
"Look, not to be rough, but you haven't been a werewolf for too long, other rogues could smell you and jump on you and your family. Not every werewolf is as kind as me Aiden. Plus, I'm strong enough to take care of me and you, from most threats at least. This is all but an advice." She said in a serious yet relaxed tone.
"Fine. You do have a point. Plus you can help me get some more fitting clothes." I told her, motioning my hands around the clothing she had let me borrow.
"Sorry, I only had my size." She said, chuckling at my tight looking chest and butt.
After going to a shop I discovered that one thing she told me was true, humans and werewolves smelled different. Humans let out a more soothing smell, while, somehow, werewolves exhaled pride and threat. Something that could certainly come in handy in the future.
It was past five in the afternoon when we reached my home. I saw the mustang I borrowed from Rachel outside the garage. No doubt they looked for me all day since I didn't call, or actually couldn't, since my phone got destroyed while I transformed for the first time. I felt guilty for not going to them before, but I needed to find out what happened and why.
I knocked on the door. Rachel was the one who opened. She saw me and smiled, but when she saw Autumn her face grew angry and she slapped my face, hard. I could've dodged it, now more than ever, but I felt too guilty not to. Plus, knowing her, hitting me would make her know I'm okay. As I expected, she hugged me hard afterwards.
"What the fuck were you thinking? Just who is she and why didn't you answer the calls? We were worried sick!" Rachel yelled at me.
I couldn't blame her. I would've done something similar if I was in her shoes.
"Aiden?" Mom said from the other side of the living room. When she saw me she ran to me and hugged me. Tears were falling from her face, and I couldn't help but cry as well.
"Um, excuse me. Aiden needs to tell you both something very important." Autumn said carefully. I thanked her for her tone towards all the things that were going on.
When we reached the living room mom and Rachel sat closely in a love seat holding hands, while I took a chair from the kitchen and sat on it in front of them. Autumn stood in the middle of us.
"Mom, Rae, I want you both to tell me who is-" I tried to tell them, but Rachel interrupted.
"Whoa whoa whoa, are you kidding me? Before we answer any questions you are going to answer me something. Where the hell were you last night?" Rachel said in an angry tone
I guess she was right, in a way. But I couldn't have contacted them, but since they were oblivious to what had happened and worried, I just took a deep breath and answered.
"This is the truth. Please hear me out until I'm finished, ok?" When the two of them nodded I proceeded to tell them what happened, hiding the whole werewolf factor for now.
I talked about my whole day and who Autumn was. Then I continued to ask them.
"I really need to know this, who is my father?" I directly asked mom.
She seemed hesitant to answer, and even looked at Rachel for approval. She started taking deep breaths and exhaling slowly. She looked on the verge of crying. I simply kept waiting. When she cleared her eyes up, she sniffed her nose and got ready to answer.
"Truth is Aiden, I don't know." mom told me and then she started crying again.
I couldn't understand. Why didn't she know? Many thoughts came to my mind about a horrible fate that she could've suffered, to which I was the product of.
"Mom, were you raped?" I asked, scared for the possible answer.
"Oh good heavens, no. Aiden don't worry. I wasn't raped. The reason I don't know who your father is because, well-" she looked at Rachel and then turned to look at me with watery eyes, "we adopted you."