Butterflies and Hurricanes

[[Brian]]

Had Costa Mesa not been home to many werewolves anyway, the locals may have found the sudden influx of wolves very strange and rather frightening since they all seemed to converge in the bay during the day time for those staying longer.

It was all good and well getting away for the one night and giving in to it all because for quite a few here, their mates were in fact werewolves like themselves thus they didn't have to leave them, they were together doing what they wanted to.

My mate was human, she was a fragile not even nineteen year old human girl and I had had no choice but to leave her behind in a house with a woman determined to snatch her for her own son.

I feared losing her so much, feared her seeing my world, that I didn't tell her why I was going away. The Ripper had already taken her too far into it and I would not have her dragged in any further. The less she knew the better.

But I was craving her.

I had begged and pleaded for some way that I would be allowed to bring her with me but they all put their foot down on the idea. So she was still in Huntington Beach with Sarah.

My life would just have been so much easier if that one night she hadn't got separated from Johnny, and then I would never have had to step out of line and go save her myself. Because then I wouldn't have become so emotionally attached and being here would have been so much easier.

Why couldn't the Ripper have been after some other London girl? Kirsty would have stayed at home and married some boring man and had children and got her riches back and would still have been safe.

Oh God how can I say that?! Oh Jesus I don't mean a word of that! I take it back! Please don't punish me, whoever is up there, I love her I truly do! I just think her life might have been safer if I was not thrown into it.

Feeling something nudge me just above my shoulder blade I turned my head and saw a pure black wolf stood beside me, his deep green eyes watching me carefully. A sigh escaped me and I turned back and rested my head upon my paws, staring out across the bay.

The guys had left me for a while that evening - the three that had no mate to worry about to go let off some of their pent up sexual frustration, and Zack to do whatever, before all four returning. And with that, so flocked all the others who huddled in groups clearly watching us.

We were one of the strongest groups and our adventures were renowned to the werewolf community world wide. But then pitted against the Vampire race, of course they would know what was going on in other parts of the world.

Zack nudged me with his nose again and I rose up from my comfy position on the long flat surface of a rock formation. Shaking my shaggy dark brown fur I then sat back on my haunches, Zack copying me. I didn't want to be sat here like a wolf anymore.

I wanted to be human, because when I'm human I feel closer to Kirsty.

And so I let myself turn back. Ha, the point of being here is to let out the inner wolf and yet I was denying it still. But then it's not like I didn't let it out anyway all the rest of the time; most nights since that very first I had to escort her home, I had slept on her bed in my wolf form. It was the only way I could share a bed with her, without causing scandal, before we were married anyway.

Kirsty doesn't even know I do it.

And I think our war in London was enough to last us quite a while really, too.

One by one others began to do it too, until all my friends were no longer wolf-like at the least. "S'up with you?" Matt was the first to ask, receiving himself a punch on the arm from both Johnny and Zack.

"Bit of a stupid question, don't you think?" I mumbled.

"I've never seen anyone pine so bad for something," Jimmy then whispered as he watched me carefully as if for my next move. "I mean, you were actually whimpering earlier, almost like you sounded hurt or summats!"

"I don't want to be here," I then said, looking round at everyone who was clearly pretending not to look at us. And then I climbed to my feet, my decision made before I'd even left for this God forsaken place. "I'm going home."

"What?!" Johnny screeched, leaping to his feet and standing in front of us. "You can't go home, do you know how stupid that is?!"

"No, the stupid part was me even leaving her behind in the first place!" I yelled at him. "Besides there's something not right, something doesn't sit well with me. The air doesn't taste right."

I shrugged him off and tried walking again but then Zack was upon me and so was Matt, both of them holding my arms and preventing me from walking further.

"Don't make us lock you up, Brian," Matt warned, giving me a knowing look. I sighed and turned back, hoping that all of them could hear the thought in my mind at that point, the one that said if this bad feeling got worse I was going home.

What?! I wasn't about to share that slip of information with every werewolf in the bay, now, was I?!

We settled once more in silence, most of everyone else returning to wolf form whilst ourselves sat as we were. If I sat as a human, I wouldn't whimper the way I had apparently been doing so I would merely stare in the horizon with a sombre look on my face.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Zack suddenly asked.

I looked round at him, quizzing him with my expression.

"Why didn't you tell Kirsty why we were coming here?" He repeated himself.

"Because I don't want her anymore exposed to who I am than absolutely necessary," I answered, frowning slightly. "She shouldn't have to be, the Ripper already dragged her in farther than was meant and I won't have her pulled in anymore."

"Don't you think that maybe she would rather have the truth than be lied to, though?" He then pointed out.

I bit my lip. "Look, I'm just trying to protect her," I growled. "You can do it your way, but I'm going to do it mine and if that means not telling her then so be it."

"And I'm not disputing that Brian!" Zack retorted. "I'm not even trying to argue with you or say you're wrong, I'm just trying to understand from what direction your thinking is! If you think keeping her in the dark is the way to do it then go on, the less she knows the better."

I had reason to believe from his tone he was mocking me.

"But you think it's better for them to know every little fucking detail and scare them half to death," I rambled on before he could say anymore. "Kirsty's eighteen, she won't be nineteen for another eight months she's still a girl. Me? I'm almost twenty-two, I'm a man but not only that I'm a werewolf! It scares even me to think about that, so why would I say anymore to her?!"

"Pfft, you underestimate her," Johnny flapped his hand at me. "She could totally handle it, especially nowadays. I mean, that punch she threw at the Ripper's henchmen. You can't deny you didn't feel that one."

The memory of the sound his nose made when Kirsty's knuckles connected with it were imprinted in my mind and to this day would make me shudder to even contemplate them. But I chuckled all the same because this was true.

Kirsty did, it appeared, have a mean right hook.

"That still doesn't make me feel any better," I sighed. "You guys don't see her the way I do. You guys see a feisty eighteen year old who can pack a punch. I see something so delicate, I dare not even breathe near her."

They rolled their eyes.

"You're besotted," one of them mumbled.

I grinned helplessly to myself. "I know."