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Rowan's POV

May pulled up in front of my house blasting some Deadmau5 before turning the car off. I held my tea in front of my mouth as she fiddled with the rearview and fixed her glasses.

"I'm glad you're not much of a talker." she said finally breaking the silence as I sipped on my now lukewarm tea. I shrugged, wondering about who this girl really was. She was so much different than she looked.

"I talk, just when I need to." I said looking out at the dark night and feeling frightened for no reason at all.

May snapped in front of my face. I jumped, laughing nervously.

"You look sick." she said putting her empty tea mug in the cup holder. I shook my head.

"I'm just tired. And full moons freak me out. I love the nighttime, theres just something weird about the moon." I admitted resting my head on the window. May laughed.

"You totally seem like the superstitious type." she said in between bouts of laughter. I hid a grin.

"And you seem like you like guys." I retorted.

"Touche. I guess we both learned something tonight." she said as I began to unbuckle my seatbelt.

"Thanks for the ride, and the chill time, I really needed it." I said finishing off my tea.

"Hey, let me get your phone number. For our plans tomorrow remember?" she asked as I froze halfway out the door, remembering the plan we had made to go on a little expedition. "And don't think I'm coming on to you, you're not my type anyway."

OHHHH ZING!! I thought blushing and taking her pen, writing down my cell number on her stretched palm. She winced as the pen poked a small puncture in her hand.

"Sorry." I apologized as she waved it off. I couldn't help but take in the tangy and coppery smell of the pearl of blood blooming on her palm. My stomach suddenly lurched, I wanted to lunge at her. Did that make me the lesbian one? I wasn't sure, but I knew that I had to taste...she smelled so delicious...She left, leaving me to stand outside of my house and look at the windows, the soft slope of the cottage-like roofing.

I closed my eyes and pointing my face to the sky. When I opened my eyes again, I could swear that I saw a figure in my mothers old room peeking from behind the curtains. I felt eyes on me, like I was being stalked. I blinked, and it was gone. Maybe I am crazy.

Or maybe there IS someone out there watching me.

Sebastian's POV

My skin was tingling, a raw and bruised feeling that I couldn't shake. Wait...I thought surprisedly, I'm human again! I sat up, sunlight scratching at my bare skin like a woolen sweater. It was a tolerable day out where it wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold. I was seriously confused. When a human is able to change into a wolf, it usually takes a few days to change back, why did I change early?

I was in the middle of the woods, birds flying low near me, obviously taking me for dead in my state. Naked and concerned about my 'lacking wolf'' problem, I stood up and cupped my hands around my mouth.

"HELLO??" I hollered, my voice echoed around me like an ear to a seashell. The rest of my family must be still a pack. I thought sighing and scratching the back of my neck. I didn't remember anything from the night before, but I did now have a splitting headache. I covered my manhood and started to walk back to the mansion, mud now baking on my naked body from laying on the ground so long. How long had I been sleeping there as a human?

Could I change again? Not that I WANTED to or anything...I was just curious.

I wandered back to the lawn that was littered with clothes and food, trying to find my own clothes and get the hell out of here. I found my jeans and yanked them on, my sense of smell and hearing still sharp. I could hear every fiber stretching to mold around my skin. That was the worst part, wolves have senses that humans can't handle, thats what makes it hard shifting back and forth.

Fully clothed, I walked back to the car, lonely and human.

"Sebastian...you already know you're not normal right sweetheart?"

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked to my mother with wide eyes. I knew more than she ever would. I nodded and held a dead field mouse in my small hands. So much blood, there was red, like rasberries, on my new jeans and my white sweater.

"Uncle Mason says i'm special." My mother's eyes went glassy as she swallowed a bobbing lump in her throat. Why is she crying? I was just playing with the mouse, its a beautiful day outside!

"There is nothing special about this Sebastian. You must try your hardest to NOT do this again." She pointed a manicured finger at my lap, a stench of Chanel No. 5 overpowering the smell of death right below my nose. "Do you...understand?" She asked, her blue eyes that we shared, hurt and ashamed. "You will NEVER be like Uncle Mason. Mommy and Daddy aren't monsters, see?"

She spread out her Lacoste knit sweater covered arms and smiled grandly, Her blonde hair bounced and shone in the light.

"Do you want to be a nasty, disgusting monster, baby? Do you?"

I slammed the car door, feeling embarrassed, like I got caught wacking off or something. Except this was worse, I LET myself turn into a monster. I debated waiting for Marcus to shift back, but I just wanted to go home. Besides, I'm sure he'd love to catch a ride on one of Mason's new bikes. I started the car with numb fingers and blasted the heat to slow down the change. I hated winter, I could never get comfortable in my skin.

My phone buzzed in the cupholder as I backed out into the main stretch. I checked the caller ID. I slapped my head. Shit, I forgot to call Rowan. I picked up nervously.

"Hello?" I answered expecting a verbal beat down.

"Are you home?" She asked sleepily. I looked around, pulling my signature skull cap lower on my head.

"Nope. Not close either." My gas was running low, so I sacrificed the heat, I should be able to keep warm with my own body heat, I figured. Rowan sighed.

"Well get home. We need to talk." She said wearily.

"Didn't have a good nights sleep huh?" I asked cruising right through a stop light. The poplulation down here was pretty much null, so who cared if I California rolled.

"No." She admitted while I chuckled. "Just get home." She said, my heart jumped a bit. It sounded nice hearing her say that, but I kept quiet.

"Aye aye captain." I said before I could let anything else come out of my mouth. I hung up and tossed my phone on the passenger seat. My hands were clammy as I made sure all the windows were rolled up tight. I couldn't help but feel that sick feeling in my stomach, that shifty feeling.

"No not now." I griped with myself as the temperature dropped one more degree. But the feeling spread through my toes and throughout my whole body, like I was going to explode. My skin was itching. I slammed a hand on the dashboard.

"FUCK!" I hollered in the empty car and pulling over. The road was empty and I was grateful for that, I huddled up against the steering wheel and tried to warm myself up, but to no avail. Eventually, I had to crawl from the car and begin to shed of my clothes. With shaky hands, I took my keys out and locked the doors, using what human I had left in me to fold them into my pile of clothes in a bush by the side of the road. Then, I erupted into another being.

Rowan't POV

I woke up from a nap the next morning to a persistent buzzing in my ear.

Am I dreaming? I thought groggily remembering the nightmarish sleepless night I had, being afraid of my own shadow and cringing at every creak in the night. I picked up the phone and pressed it to my face, hoping it was Sebastian telling me he was home.

"Whats up?" I asked sitting up and wiping drool from my upper lip, GOD I needed to get a life.

"Uh...in your driveway." I heard May say confusedly. I slapped my hand to my forehead. I completely forgot, May was going to show me this spot where she saw wolf tracks all the time. She had invited me last night, Sebastian would have to wait.

"DUDE! UGH! Give me like, 10 seconds." I said immediately dropping my phone and yanking my discarded shoes off of the floor. I slipped a bra on underneath my t shirt and pulled a coat on. Passing my grandmother on the stairs, she grunted wearily, still in mental anguish at my mothers fleeting visit.

"I'm going out with a friend for a bit, ill be back before lunch." I said clambering over a laundry basket overflowing with my grandfathers whitie tighties.

"Friend? You mean Sebastian?" She asked before I ran out the door. Stomping off of the stoop, I realized what my grandmother had just said. She didn't expect me to have any other friends, did she? I was just an outcast...even to my grandmother. Sliding into the car immediately in a bad mood, I slammed the door.

May jumped, startled at my hasty appearance.

"Well hey there young padawan. Are you okay?" She asked nervously as I yanked my hair out of its ponytail, She was wearing a soft looking blue cashmere sweater and had her hair tucked behind her ear with a butterfly clip.

"It's nothing, let's hit it." I said as she backed out of the driveway.
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We drove on the highway for a while, turning off on a side road that led to a flat open forest. It looked like a bad set for one of those 'hills have eyes' movies where a redneck is chasing you with a hatchet or something. The car bounced and leapt over boulders and rocks. I held on for dear life.

"Don't worry, we're pretty much there." May said, her jaw bouncing with the movement of the car. The truth was, I wasn't worried, just excited. Little jolts of energy flowed through my skull and had me pretty much pressed up against the glass of the window. What could I find out from the tracks, what else would we find there? I straightened the bandana I tied on my head as May parked and opened her car door. I got out of the car too, in complete shock at my surroundings. It was a tree lined path that lead straight to a cliff, as if someone threw a couple hundred sticks of dynamite in a field and had a barbeque. The sky was overcast and only made everything darker in the leaf stripped forest.

"May, how'd you find this place?" I asked, in awe. It was like a romantic and gothic meeting place in an old Jane Austen novel. May came and stood by me.

"Me and my friends used to come down here, it used to be a factory space or whatever and apparently they tried to sell some mansions near here but couldn't get anyone to buy them. Except one crazy S.O.B. I heard he was crazy as fuck and tried to move in with his loveslave to make some kind of evil magic or something."

I snorted, laughing and looking to the hill where the houses were hiding behind. "Thats crazy, I've never heard that before. I think you're making it up." I said trekking into the woods with May hot on my heels.

"No really! People that saw him said he was like a vampire, all pale and toothy. My mom said when she was in high school, this girl dropped out and became his sex servant. She was never heard from again, at least thats what my mom says."

"Doesn't your mom knit hats for dogs?" I asked referring to her moms business as a personal dog groomer with a salon near the school. May was quiet for a second.

"Yeah thats true. But never doubt the urban legends man." She replied grabbing my arm and stopping at a clear point in the forest. "Here. Right here. See, theres a bunch of tracks, like this is their meeting place or something."

I squatted down to the moldy and dead grass covered ground, observing the broken twigs and scraps of flesh from animals, defined paw prints stamped in the mud. May sniffed and pushed her glasses on top of her nose. I smelled them, their thick and musky coats, their blood stained jowls. I suddenly felt nervous, like I had been here before, or visited in another life. I stood up and grabbed May's wrist, her hazel eyes were confused.

"What, no pictures? Evidence?" She asked as I began to walk her to the edge of the woods and back to the car.

"No, I don't think it's safe to be this far in the woods." I said lamely, feeling urgency in my gut as I tripped over a stone and stumbled foreword. May tumbled behind me, twisting and falling over herself.

"Ow shit." She said, her words muffled in a pile of leaves. "I think I scraped something." She said wearily as she sat up and inspected her knee. And as she suspected, a bloodied knee was we both saw. My eye twitched as i covered my nose. Don't smell it. I told myself as my mouth began to water. You're normal. YOU ARE NORMAL.

"A little help." May said trying to stand up. My jaw quivered as I gingerly stepped forewords. She smelled so freaking GOOD. She should no longer fear the forest, but me, her new friend. I thought guiltily as I took her hand and held my breath.

There was a snapping of a twig behind us and we froze. All the hunger in my belly was replaced by fear.

"What was that," I whispered as May leaned on me, her glasses cracked and falling off of her face.

"I don't-" And before she could finish, a trio of wolves emerged from behind the trees, their teeth bared and dripping with saliva. May swallowed loudly.

"I n-never thought I'd get to see one up close." She said, trying to make a joke out of the situation. But there was nothing funny about this, her knee was bleeding and the wolves had us in their sights.

I shakily put the injured May behind me and put a hand out to the dogs, seeing the same silver one from my walk the other night.

"P-please." I said, knowing that they couldn't understand me. The grey wolf seemed to grin at me, black and brown wolves at his flank and snarling. "Get down!" I yelled to May, my voice breaking the calm of the wood as we crouched to the ground. The wolves lunged and I waited for the searing pain that would then encase me and eventually reduce my body to death at wolves hands. There was still so many things I didn't get to do in life, get a job, have sex, read Macbeth...and now I'd never get to do any of those things.

Suddenly, I heard fighting and growling and barking from dangerously close to May and I. I peeked out from behind my arms and fell to my knees as May stood up bravely, as we watched the scene before us. A much bigger wolf was wrestling on the ground with the other wolves, his fur a tawny brown, mixed off white. I shook violently, frozen in place as the new wolf attacked the other wolves ruthlessly. He teared at their muzzles and snapped at their necks with stunning accuracy. Before collapsing like his mates did, the brown wolf got one good swipe at the tawny wolf, creating a deep gash on his front haunches. The tawny wolf whimpered but didn't back down as the great brown beast swayed and fell to the ground, alive, but seriously wounded.

The forest was deadly silent, the only sound coming from the wind in the trees. The tawny wolf looked to May and I, his eyes a brilliant and humanlike blue. May sniffed from above me, obviously crying and frightened. The wolf whistled from his throat at me and never looked away. I felt cold for the first time, my fingers numb and clinging to soggy leaves from the ground, but I was mesmerized. The wolf licked at his gaping wound, blood matting his beautiful and golden-like fur. He looked at me one more time before limping back into the woods, his paw broken, but still a hero.

My hero.

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"OH MY FUCKING GOSH. WE'VE GOT TO CALL EVERYONE AND TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED! THE NEWS! EVERYONE!" May hollered, balancing her broken glasses on her pointy nose and steering us home. After our ordeal, she had finally realized that she got what she had always wanted, a firsthand account with the lost wolves from up north. I stared out the window, and shook my head. I felt like we should protect the hero wolf. What if the press go and search for him. Or worse, put him on display. Hell, I wasn't even sure if I could call him a 'he', for all i know, it could have been a girl.

"You have to be careful May. They could exterminate all the wolves to reduce threat." I said weakly. But May wasn't hearing it, she just kept talking, While I warmed myself with the thought of the wolf's blue eyes melting into mine as he hobbled away.

Sebastian's POV

I shifted back, not far from my house, my head fuzzy and memory cloudy as I laid on the cold ground. I sat up and retched, my chest on fire and my arm pulsing with pain. It was an astonishing pain that shot up my side and above my bicep. I shivered and looked at my arm, and to my horror, it was covered in deep red blood and still flowing.

I cursed holding the wound shut and standing up shakily with legs of a newborn foal. It must have happened when I was still a wolf. Because I didn't remember anything. Naked and hungry and tired, I clambered through the forest like a reborn Frankenstein and went to the nearest road to find my car, I had to get to the hospital. But more importantly, my gut told me I had to find Rowan.