8. Eli

It's a good thing she turned me down. I already knew that she was no good for me, after the way she made me act last night.

But goddamn, I feel my entire body rebelling against the idea that she's said no to my flirtation.

It doesn't matter, of course. I don't push it, once she tells me with that hint of sweet regret in her voice that she better not. There's layers to her refusal, I can tell that much, but I don't dig into them. It's clearly not my place, and she's obviously not interested in getting to know me more.

I should have just handed her the card back and sent her on her way. It's clearly what she'd planned. But one look into her pretty hazel eyes, one whiff of that herbal scent that softened into something sweeter the moment she saw me, and I was lost all over again. Aching, for a woman whose name I didn't even know until she finally told me.

Wisteria Avon. According to her, her aunt was someone here in Bayton, and I file that name she mentioned away in my head to ask Adam about. But I've got more pressing concerns right now, as I bring her a styrofoam box and her check, and resist the urge to ask her again if she's sure she doesn't want company tonight.

She already said no. Leave it.I'm not the kind of man to pressure a woman who's not interested. It's not my style, and to be frank, I don't need to. If one doesn't want me, there's always someone else right behind her who does. But this one, Wisteria–

She feels different. Special, somehow. Which is exactly why it's for the best that she turned me down. But this close to the full moon, all my urges feel hotter, raw and clawing, begging to be let out. I'm glad I don't have to step very far away from the bar as I close out her check and hand her back her card, because my cock is hard and throbbing, straining against my fly as I give her a taut smile. I don't want her to think I'm upset that she said no, but it's hard to think about much of anything right now past the sensation of all the blood in my body rushing south.

"Thanks for–" Wisteria bites her lip, and I have a sudden, visceral urge to reach over and brush one of the windblown strands of hair that's fallen out of her bun away from her face. She blushes, as if she can read my thoughts, and I can imagine how warm her skin would feel against my palm. She's curvy, but in a delicate sort of way, with big eyes and a doll-like mouth. I can almost feel how soft her lips would be.

"Have a nice day!" She chirps the words in a high falsetto that tells me she caught me staring, grabbing her card and purse and nearly sprinting away from the bar. It makes the entire situation even harder–no pun intended–because I know people well enough that she's not running like that because she wants to get away from me.

She's running because she's afraid that if she stays a little longer, her resolve will falter, and she'll take me up on what I've offered her.

I can feel my wolf stirring as I watch her go, that drive to chase, to hunt squirming beneath my skin. Running away like that makes her prey, and I want to chase her, catch her, tumble her into the dirt and strip her bare until she's writhing and wet underneath me, skin marked with my claws and teeth.

What was I thinking?I run a hand through my hair, letting out a long breath as I scoop up her abandoned plate and shove it into the bin of dirty dishes. Even if she'd be willing, Wisteria isn't the kind of girl I should be trying to fuck this close to the full moon. She's soft and gentle and pretty, in her lavender-pink clothes and pearl jewelry, the kind of girl you woo, not maul. The way she makes me feel, I wouldn't be able to control myself once I got her alone. It would be animalistic and rough and feral, and she'd be afraid of me by the time we were finished–if we even got that far.

It's a relief when I clock out and head out to where my bike is parked. My hard-on subsided hours ago, but the ache in my groin persists, an uncomfortable pressure that reminds me that my knot is going to be more of an irritation than a pleasure for the next forty-eight hours or so. The full moon is tomorrow, but as I drive back to the lodge, I take a detour out to the woods instead, feeling the need to be alone and in the forest.

It's twilight when I pull off the rustic road, parking my bike in a small grove. I can see the moon starting to rise above the distant lake, just barely able to be glimpsed through the trees. There's hundreds of acres behind Bayton that belong to the township, all earmarked for the shifters who live here, giving them a place to roam and run and hunt to their hearts' content. For now, I'm a part of that.

An odd feeling jolts through me at that thought–something like longing at the idea of being a part of a group, even just for a little while. Not all shifters are pack creatures, but wolves certainly are. And even if I've chosen to be alone, to be nomadic, that doesn't mean it comes naturally. I fight against that instinct to group up every day of my life, reminding myself of all the ways that pack life can be toxic when I feel it. Reminding myself of how I grew up, and what it did to me. To my mother.

I shake the thoughts off, a physical motion like a dog shaking its fur. I stride through the trees in the vague direction of the lake, feeling the urge to shift crawling under my skin. I could–shifters aren't bound to the moon the way weres are, in the sense that we can shift whenever we choose. The moon affects us like a tide, instead of a chain.

Tomorrow, the woods will be full of shifters and were-creatures both. For now, except for the occasional snarl or howl that I hear in the distance, it appears that I mostly have the surrounding area to myself. I pause a little ways down the path, shrugging off my leather jacket and unbuttoning my shirt, baring my skin to the cool night air. I feel gooseflesh rising up on my arms and chest, my cock shriveling a little against the cold as I strip off my jeans, but my knot remains, a distended swelling around the base of the soft flesh. I reach down, pressing my fingers into it to ease the ache, and let out a hiss from between my teeth.

I need a release, but I need something more than just stroking myself off in the woods. I slide my hand over myself once, giving my cock a reluctant, experimental tug, and then I let go of it, opting for a different kind of pleasure.

I've always heard that giving in to the shift feels different for everyone. For me, it feels like exhaling a held breath, like unclenching every tense muscle at the end of a long day. It's harder and harder to hold it back the closer the full moon is, and right now, on the cusp of it, the relief that washes over me as I let go is almost better than a climax.

Fur ruffles over my skin, like I've turned myself inside out, my body expanding and growing as my form changes. I can feel my joints popping and bones enlarging, but it doesn't hurt, the way I've heard it does for were-creatures. The shift, the wolf–it's as much a part of me as my blood and bones, an intrinsic part of my nature that flows over me like water until I fall down to all fours, my hands shifting into paws, the claws digging into the dirt as I shake my head and gnash my teeth.

I need to hunt, to chase. I think of Wisteria fleeing the restaurant last night, her scent heavy and perfuming the air, of her scuttling escape this afternoon. I can't chase her down, can't hunt her for the things I want, but I can pursue a different kind of hunt. Out here, I can be the animal that I keep so tightly leashed, that others want to cage, without fear or shame.

Tomorrow, I won't be alone. But for tonight I turn my muzzle into the wind, scenting the sweet flesh of a prey animal, and begin to lope through the trees in search of it, alone. Tomorrow, I might run with a pack for the first time in years–and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. Tonight, though, there's no conflict in me. Nothing except the urge of the hunt, the thrill of the chase, and the anticipation of blood in my jaws.

For tonight, I feel utterly and entirely free.

—

When tomorrow arrives, I feel much more conflicted. The night before was what I'm used to–what I've been used to for years. Traveling alone as much as I have, I've always found a hotel near somewhere that I can shift when the moon rolls around–something by a forest, mountains, or a wide open stretch of desert. I haven't come across another shifter in years, not more than a whiff of one. I've gotten good at avoiding others this time of the month, which is entirely the opposite of what a wolf is supposed to do.

I came back from my hunt last night with the taste of blood in my mouth and a pleasant soreness all through my body after I changed back, a soreness somewhat reminiscent of the kind you get after a particularly hard workout or really fantastic sex. I felt sated, more relaxed, and I dressed in the woods quickly and rode my bike back to the lodge, heading upstairs to rinse the taste out of my mouth. Some shifters, I've heard, feel uncomfortable with the idea of what they've done after they change back–the taste after the hunt, the knowledge of what their bellies are full of, but it's never bothered me. It's no different than eating a steak as far as I'm concerned–just in this case, the deer was raw instead of cooked.

Bayton is quieter in the morning when I wake. Some of the businesses are closed for the day, others run with a skeleton staff of non-shifters, and those entirely staffed by non-shifters normally enjoy a bump to their business on a day when tourists are slightly less flush with options for where to spend their time and money. Adam's bar is one such place that's entirely closed for the day–he doesn't have anyone mundane or not-shifter on his staff right now other than the cook, and I expect Xander appreciates the day off.

The practice of giving shifters the day of the full moon off is something that I imagine is yet another perk for the residents here. Anywhere else, they'd be expected to figure out how to make it through the day at their jobs, the way a human might have to suffer through a workday with a particularly bad flu–except this flu makes us feel as if we're on the verge of coming out of our skin and devastating everything around us. That, of course, is the excuse plenty of mundane folks use for why they want to lock us up, restrict our movements–even pushing for a motion that shifters be required to report to jails or zoos on the day of the full moon for the protection of the general public, if they live in populated areas–that we're one bad lunar day away from massacring the people around us.

Which, for the most part, simply isn't true. No more so than any ordinary human..

I use the day to manage some of the things I haven't gotten a chance to do since arriving in Bayton. I drop off a load of laundry, go to the bank to open an account for the savings I'm able to put away from my tips–and I try not to think about Wisteria.

She has a home here now, she said. A shop, and I find myself glancing at the storefronts as I walk past on my way to the bank, unable to stop myself from wondering which one might be hers, apparently willed to her by her aunt. There's a rustic little coffeeshop, a small bakery, a florist's, an apothecary. The bakery and apothecary are closed for the day, signs hanging from the front doors that say, in pretty script on wooden backgrounds–closed for the moon, see you soon! and We'll reopen before you know it! It's the sort of kitschy pandering that usually makes my metaphorical hackles rise, but something about the idea of it being Wisteria who hung up one of those signs makes me soften to the idea of it. It seems sweeter somehow, adorable instead of grating.

She's really done a number on me.I shove my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket, striding towards the bank, trying not to think about her. She made it clear that she's not interested, which means there's no point in continuing to try to narrow down where her business is, or wondering if the shop is still closed because she hasn't finished ironing out the paperwork–or because she's a shifter, and today is an off day for her, too.

Although she can't possibly be a shifter. I would have smelled it on her. I smelled the rabbit on Marley the moment I met her, even if it didn't give me anywhere near the same reaction I felt when I smelled Wisteria.

When dusk starts to fall, I'm well and truly ready to strike out for the woods, even if it means mingling with other shifters. There's a charged energy to the air when I slip out of the lodge, and I catch a glimpse of others starting to head into the treeline, still all in their ordinary human forms. Faintly off in the distance, I hear the sounds of howling, and I can feel the restlessness just beneath my skin.

Fuck it.The moment I'm within the treeline, I strip off my clothing, leaving it at the base of a tree. The change comes on even more easily than last night, as natural as breathing, as if for tonight my wolf form is more natural to me than my human one. My paws hit the dirt with a heavy thud, my muzzle upturned and sniffing as I let out a long, aching howl at the moon and take off into the trees.

All around me, I smell other wolves. In the distance I can smell the far-off scents of other, less pack-natured beasts–bears, mountain lions, coyotes. Somewhere out there is Adam, prowling the woods on his own, well away from the other shifters. And as the moonlight spreads through the forest, filling my blood with the kind of ecstasy that would be impossible to explain to anyone who didn't change once a month, I feel the other wolves closing in.

For a moment, I have the swelling urge to either run, or fight. This isn't my pack, these aren't my people, and I've been on my own for so long that it feels almost like a reflex to either attack them or try to put as much distance as I can between them and me. But something else rises up in me too–the wolf's natural urge to hunt as a pack, to share this night with others.

I'm not going to stay here in Bayton.There's no point in letting myself enjoy something I can't keep. But even as I think it, I feel myself shifting direction towards the other wolves, giving in to the instinct that I find myself not wanting to fight any longer.

It feels like I've been fighting just about everything for so long–the world around me, myself, the things I want that I know better than to try to have. For one night, at least, I let myself give in.

I tilt my head back again, letting out another long howl as the wolves surround me. They follow suit, adding a chorus that spreads through the forest as we take off together, a symphony of fur and teeth and claws as we scent our prey. There's plenty of it to go around, and I feel my human self fading into the background, the beast within me taking over as I give in to the primal, animal need thrumming through my veins. The wind ruffles my fur, the scent of the forest fills my nose, the ground is soft and damp beneath my paws–and I'm free.

Free–and with my own kind for the first time in years.

It's nearing dawn when the pack circles back towards the beginning of the treeline, all of us sated with blood and meat. Half the wolves are drenched from a swim in the lake, shaking out their fur as we run back, and I feel that faint sense of regret that I so often experience the morning after the full moon. A part of me doesn't want to go back, to return to being Eli, and all the challenges that the world forces me to face. A part of me wants to stay like this, where it all seems so much simpler.

Slowly, as we reach the treeline, the wolves begin to shift back one after another. I feel the fur flow away from my skin, bones reforming into a human skeleton as I kneel in the grass, slowly pushing myself up to my feet and dusting myself off. A little ways down the path, I see a gorgeous blonde woman standing up, her perfect body illuminated in the dawn light. She turns slightly, tossing her long hair over her shoulder, her gaze sliding down my naked form as she raises one eyebrow suggestively.

She tilts her head, back towards the woods. She's not the only one to want such a thing–I see other pairs starting to drift off together, some of them not bothering to wait to find privacy. A dozen yards away, I see a red-haired woman push a tall man up against a tree, sinking to her knees to take his hard cock into her mouth, and my own twitches as I see her lips brush up against his swollen knot.

Sexual lust is always heightened in the week before the full moon, but never so much as right before and immediately after. I feel myself swelling, my cock lengthening against my thigh as it rises up to jut out in front of me, eager to follow the blonde woman. She smiles enticingly, swaying her hips as she walks a few feet forward and arches against the nearest tree, her heart-shaped ass pushed out in invitation. All I would need to do is cross the space between us and sink myself into her. I can smell her slick from here, the lustful perfume of her and a handful of other rutting bodies filling the air. My cock jerks, brushing against my abdomen as I feel pre-cum spill down my shaft, and I grit my teeth, wondering why I'm hesitating.

For years, I've suffered through the day after the full moon alone, jerking off again and again in a hotel room until I'm exhausted and dehydrated. Now, there's a gorgeous woman in front of me, offering what I haven't had in so long–the chance to sate that hungry desire inside of her instead of my own hand. I can almost imagine the heat of her around my oversensitive cock, how good it would feel, even if I didn't knot her.

I take a step forward–and my thoughts fill with images of Wisteria. Her dark hair, her pretty face, those soft doll-like lips. It's her that I want to push up against a tree and sink inside of, her mouth that I want brushing up against my aching knot, her eyes that I want looking up at me wide and glazed as I make her come over and over again. It's her slick that I want to taste, sweet and heavy on my tongue, not this unknown woman in front of me.

She's the reason that I find myself shaking my head, turning away from the eager woman towards my clothes lying where I left them at the base of the tree. It makes no sense–I can recognize that even as I bend down and reach for my jeans, my erection rubbing uncomfortably against my belly. No sane man turns down a woman bent over and wanting him in favor of going back to an empty bed and jerking off to the fantasy of one who doesn't. But as I slide on my jeans and force my hard cock behind my zipper, I realize that's exactly what I'm doing.

I need to see her again. Not to talk her into fucking me–I've never been that kind of guy, and I don't intend on starting now. But clearly, I need to see with my own two eyes just how uninterested she is, so I can purge her out of my fantasies.

Out of the corner of my eye, as I slip on my shirt, I see another man walk up behind the blonde woman. He drops to his knees, running his tongue over her pussy from behind as his hand feverishly works his length, and I feel myself throb with frustration as I watch him stand up a moment later, thrusting into her hard enough to make her cry out.

That could have been me,I think grimly, fishing my keys out of my pocket as I walk to my bike. I've never in my life lingered over anyone the way I've stayed stuck on the idea of Wisteria. And I've certainly never turned down a quick and easy lay.

But I swing my leg over my bike, revving the engine to drown out the sound of the woman's moans, and throw it into gear. The sooner I get back to my hotel, the sooner I can go about starting to ease the ache in my cock–for a little while, at least, until I have to go to work tonight. I don't know if I hope that I'll see Wisteria there or not, given my current situation, but I know one thing for sure.

I need to find a way to get her out of my system, or else my stay in Bayton is going to be a lot less pleasurable than I'd imagined.