Paws

The full moon overhead cast a white beam throughout the entire forest, giving it a hazy, dream-like look. It almost seemed too bright, but for any normal human, it was a normal full-mooned dark night. Not for me, though.

I glanced over my misshapen shoulder to make sure Aniya could keep up with my quick pace. We were unprepared this month, and soon enough, we found ourselves running away from civilization into the deep forest, away from prying eyes and unforgiving glares.

Little Lucas was following on his mother’s toes, running as fast as his forty-eight-month old physique allowed him to. I almost worried we were going too fast for him to catch up, but at least Aniya was with him.

Follow my lead, I told her, and when I took a sharp turn right and her mind presence remained at the same distance it was before, I knew she had done what I told her to do.

My target was close, and it was a huge target. I knew I needed Aniya with me so we could take them down, which is why I told her to follow me into the forest instead of waiting at the outskirts like she did most of the time.

The only difference this time was that we had Little Lucas with us this time, so we couldn’t let anything get even twenty feet close to him. If they cross our territory, we attack. Aniya was tuning in to my thoughts, I knew that, too, which was why I directed that single thought to her.

She replied with something indecipherable, but I took it as a yes. Little Lucas was still whimpering, for some reason, but he always did that when he was worried, so I let it go.

Soon, we were at the threshold of a large clearing in the forest, and sure enough, there was our target. A dark silhouette about double my size was hunched over a flowing river, its antlers disturbing nearby leaves, twigs and predators. Not us, though. We weren’t killers.

Aniya noticed it, too. A silent understanding passing between us, not even having to be telepathic, we both signaled to Lucas to hang back. An obedient little man he was, he sat on the dirt, trying to contain his excitement and worry. I bared my teeth at him playfully, and then proceeded to follow his mother towards the target.

We got as close as we could without being heard, then started moving opposite ways, me taking left, and Aniya taking right. Soon, we’d be on both sides of the target without crossing the river in front of it.

I winced at the broken twig underneath me, but luckily we remained undiscovered. Hey, Aniya?

There was a startling silence in my head. Perhaps she just couldn’t hear me. HEY ANIYA? I called louder this time, but there was still no response. My impulse was telling me to drop everything and go back to where we left Lucas, but then all our hard work would go to waste.

I pushed my alternate limbs further towards the large caribou clueless to me being yards away from it, just waiting for me to sink my-

BANG!

When you’re used to telepathic speech more than actual, verbal words or external sounds, it becomes hard to define where each disturbance of silence was from, which was why I stayed frozen in place until the caribou ran off. It was an external bang, and my ears almost felt like they were bleeding, I just realized.

Faster than light, I took off running back to where I dropped Lucas, which was, to my despair, the exact same direction where the sound was pointing me, the light of the moon I was just cursing minutes ago illuminating my path more than an artificial torch beam ever will.

ANIYA! ANIYA, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, GROWL! I continued to yell at her as I stabbed the ground below with my clawed paws. If anyone dares even to touch my family…

Cole…

It was a faint reply, but as audible as any other thought since thoughts have no volume to increase or decrease, but how loud it should be was contextual, and right now, I knew we were in trouble.

The clearing was empty except for Aniya, her body heaving up and down. We could not speak in this form, not even through thoughts, so I caught Lucas’ scent in the air and started to track it to where he was, but at the same time, I caught something else in the air: gunpowder.

Aniya, red alert. Gunpowder.

She was instantly on her paws, and as the scent met her nose, we were on our way. Someone shot our son and took him away, and whoever did that was going to pay.

Luckily, gunpowder is probably the easiest thing to ever track. No wonder they use dogs to detect smuggled goods and such, but wolves are superior to dogs and they were the main species that dogs evolved from, so assuming they can tame wolves and use them, they’re missing out.

The scent led us to a dimly lit hunter’s cabin in the middle of the woods, and the fresh tracks in the dirt let us know we were in the right place. We only had one problem now.

What are we going to do?

That was Aniya, who although I loved dearly, always chose the wrong time to put me on the spot, because I was just about to ask her the same thing. I don’t know, love. Why do you think they took him, though?

I have no idea, Cole, but I sure do hope that the rifle wasn’t aimed at him.

I hoped so as well, but I didn’t believe in humans dealing with animals as much as she did, so I didn’t tell her I wasn’t that optimistic. The problem we were facing at that moment was that we realized how much our curse, which we always tried to accept and adapt to, was now an actual obstacle between our son.

We were creatures of the night. And tonight was a full moon night. While most werewolves prefer to stay in curfew in the couple or more nights where the moon was full, others see it as a chance to unleash the animal they’ve been keeping in silver chains for so long. I’m positive you can which we are.

We can’t return to our human form under that white beam, unless we were indoors, which was an unavailable option.

Regardless of the odds, though, I circled the cabin for any entrance, any cavity big enough for an irregularly huge pair of wolves, and found none. I did find, however, a wooden shed locked with chains. It was big enough, but tearing the locks open meant noise, and this was a stealth mission.

Cole! Look what I found!

I turned to look at Aniya and see what her discovery was, and it turns out there was a loose plank that, when pushed, provided an entrance to the shed. I hurried her inside and unhooked the small duffel bag we always carry with Aniya just in case.

As soon as we were invisible from the moon’s grasp, we were able to transform back to our initial bodies. Channeling an inner ‘power’ that only people who obtained it can sense, the claws shrunk into normal looking nails, the fur disappearing underneath my skin completely, the only hair visible now my black hair and my stubble.

Aniya, however, got me staring at her just like every other time. She was mind-bogglingly beautiful for someone her age. Whenever I looked at her, I feel as if I’m staring at a goddess. What was more astonishing was that this goddess was mine. The truth always caught me off-guard.

With her scarlet hair that fell tenderly over her shoulder and her skin that was paler than the moon, I can never get tired of seeing her.

But now wasn’t the time, I reminded myself, quickly dressing myself with the pile of clothes at the bottom of the bag. Little Lucas’ clothes were there, too, but we needn’t to claim he was our son unless he’d returned to human form, which was extremely unlikely since he was only a cub and not such a master of his powers.

“So, what’s the plan?” Aniya’s voice rang in my ears for what felt like the first time ever, after all this telepathy. But, truth be told, I had no idea how were going to exit this tiny shed, knock on the wooden door and convince the owners to let us in without showing at least a claw or two.

“I don’t know…But we must stay vigilant. Anyone living in the middle of the woods knows when to act if they hear noise in their house shed.” She nodded, clearly as hopeless as I was.

Then, a sharp shriek sounded from inside the house, an echo vibrating against the lonely trees just a few yards away from the cluster of the larger trees they belonged to. Aniya’s eyes were screaming at me to do something, probably forgetting our telepathy was gone temporarily. I motioned for her to wait, since I had a good idea of what was coming.

As if on cue, the cabin’s door was slammed open, then there was a heavy thud on the ground near the shed. That thud was a body. Aniya could tell, too, which was why she tried to scramble out of the shed, but I dragged her down before she made it outside.

“Are you crazy?! They could still be standing there! Did you even hear the door close?” I whisper-shouted at her. She was breathing heavily, her hands shaking. She never functioned well under stress, especially when it concerns our son.

There was a scraping sound against the wood shielding us from the curse of the full moon, and I instantly knew they were paws. The scraping was circling the shed, as if looking for an entrance like we did minutes ago…Or maybe Lucas had caught our scent.

Once the scraping was on the right plank, I reached outside blindly and pulled the clawed paw inside, its body trailing behind it.

And there he was, our Little Lucas, in wolf form. Except that something was a bit off, which I recognized from previous sightings of little pups his age. Despite the fur and the claws, he still looked human. To us, that meant that he was interrupted mid-transformation, hence the scream from inside.

Aniya and I clung to his weak body, patting him affectionately, calming his nervousness away.

“Alright, Lucas. Focus. Channel the power inside you and think-”

“WHO’S IN THERE?” More yelling, more unnecessary noise, more reasons why I didn’t like humans. From that man’s voice, I could tell he carried a lot of muscle on him, just from the way his tone sounded gargled and deep.

Aniya held Lucas to her while he trembled, because he had never dealt with any humans in his wolf form. I knew what I had to do, though. I was always prepared, as Aniya would tell me when he ended up in crap like this.

I focused, closed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth. The shifting came naturally and thoughtlessly. I’d only been like this for 5 years, and my mentor used to tell me I was the fastest learner he’d ever taught, and that was a lot coming from a vampire-werewolf, also known as a hybrid.

I made sure Lucas was watching so that maybe he’d learn something, and sped out of the shed, letting out a loud growl to announce my presence. My calculations had been correct; he was a buffed man with puffy arms and fists looked like they were made of iron.

Upon seeing me, he stumbled a few feet back, before regaining his balance and holding the dagger with its sharp ending trained on me despite the seven feet distance between us. He didn’t understand that to me, he wasn’t dinner. He was just a threat to my son’s wellbeing, and I had to react to make sure that didn’t happen again.

I bared my teeth at him, showing my pointed fangs and letting him know I was to be feared. But then something in his face changed. It was no longer concentrated anger, but now he was staring at me in what looked to be both horror and shock. He stepped away a little before swallowing deeply, his jaw muscles working tensely.

“But…how…” He stopped short, then tried again. “That…wolf-kid ran inside the shed…then I heard a guy speaking inside and you’re the one that came out…” His eyes were wide in horror, but they kept undergoing several changes, until something behind me caught his attention.

Without looking back once, I knew Lucas had transformed fully and that Aniya had shifted in the two seconds the man’s gaze was on me. “I know you…” He said simply, stiffened. “You look like you understand me...”

No, Cole! He can’t find out! Please, please don’t let him find out. Do anything, just don’t let him find out.

Aniya was minutes away from bursting, I could tell. I knew she wasn’t concerned for us, but for Lucas. We wanted him to live a normal life during the mornings, only letting the animal in him loose at night just like we did…

My intentions were to never hurt a human with my own will, but he had just crossed a line. We couldn’t bear the cost of him finding out anything.

I slowly, painfully, advanced towards him, trying to seem as animalistic as possible, growling and snarling every once in a while. He lifted his dagger up in response, clearly understanding this was no fun and games.

Then, I leaped.

COLE!

She didn’t know what I was doing, which was normal for me. I slashed with my claws at the man’s arm that was holding the dagger, knocking it away from him onto the soft soil. My claws loosened a river of blood that gushed from his triple wounds, and then I pounded back to my family while he groaned in pain. I was always the faster one.

“Goddammit!” He cursed through gritted teeth as I ushered Aniya and Lucas away from the lights. He had his other hand on his arm to prevent the bleeding as he staggered into his house, where a young girl could be heard saying “I told you he was a werewolf!”

But then her father’s strained, angry voice cut in. “Naya! I’ve had enough of your nonsense! Look where it’s gotten us.”

There was a faint “Sorry, Dad.” before the cabin door slammed shut, cutting off the rest of the conversation.

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God, that was close. I could literally hear the sigh of relief in her thoughts, and did my best to smile through my teeth.

The beautiful, beautiful sun was creeping its way through the tall trees near our home, pushing the terrors of the other night away. Little Lucas had the remnants of a squirrel he himself had hunted between his teeth, pride radiating from him.

At least we weren’t discovered. I told Aniya, and a wave of agreement washed over me, projected from her.

Cole Murphy saves the night. Again.