Chapter 1: Moonlit Agony and a Fool’s Love
The ache started deep in her bones, a familiar dread that had nothing to do with the evening chill. Scarlett clenched her fists, her knuckles white against the dark bark of the oak she leaned on. Above, the moon was a glaring, perfect coin in a velvet sky, its light filtering through the skeletal branches of the blackened forest to paint the clearing in silver and shadow.
“Stupid,” she whispered to the quiet woods. “So damn stupid.”
She’d miscalculated the date. Again. The frantic energy had been building in her all day, a restless current under her skin she’d mistaken for nerves. Now, with the full moon cresting the pines, she knew what it was. The change was coming, and she was too far from home, from the reinforced cellar she called her “panic room.”
A twig snapped in the distance. Her head shot up, silver eyes scanning the trees. Every sense was dialed to eleven. She could smell the damp rot of the leaf litter, the sharp sap of the pines, the musky scent of a deer a half-mile away. And something else. Something familiar.
“Scar? You out here?”
Mério. Of course it was Mério. Her Mayo. His voice, a low rumble she felt in her chest, was usually a comfort. Tonight, it was a death knell.
“Go home, Mério!” she yelled, her voice strained. It was already getting hard to form words. Her jaw felt tight, wrong.
“Heard you took off from dinner. You seemed upset.” His heavy footfalls crunched closer, steady and unconcerned. He was a lumberjack, built like one of the oaks he felled, all solid muscle and simple purpose. “Brought you a sweater. It’s cold.”
A sweater. She almost laughed, a choked, painful sound. A sweater wouldn’t help what was about to happen to her.
The first real spike of agony drove her to her knees. It was a white-hot fire in her marrow. She cried out, a short, guttural sound that was more animal than human.
“Scar!”
He was running now. She heard him crash through the underbrush, his concern a tangible force moving toward her. She wanted to tell him to run, to get away from her, but her throat was closing up, tightening into something new.
The world swam in a haze of pain. Her spine arched violently, vertebrae popping and grinding like gravel under a boot. She felt her skin stretch, then split with a series of sickening, wet tears. It wasn't a graceful metamorphosis. It was a brutal, messy demolition of everything she was. Her fingernails thickened into black claws, digging furrows in the soft earth. A scream was trapped in her transforming larynx, coming out as a strangled, rising snarl.
The last thing she saw clearly was Mério bursting into the clearing, his broad frame silhouetted by the moon. He skidded to a halt, his face a canvas of confusion and dawning horror. The thick wool sweater he’d brought for her slipped from his fingers, a forgotten splash of color on the dark ground.
The heavy lumberjack axe he always carried clattered onto a stone, the metallic ring shockingly loud in the tense silence.
He didn’t run. He didn’t scream. He just stood there, his blue eyes wide, trying to reconcile the woman he loved with the monstrous thing writhing on the forest floor in front of him.
His voice was a whisper, fragile and shattered. “Scar? You okay?”
The thing that was once Scarlett Oum lifted its massive, fur-covered head. Its eyes, no longer silver but a blazing, predatory yellow, locked onto his. A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the clearing, a sound of pure, ancient hunger.
Mério took a single, stumbling step back.
Mério took a single, stumbling step back.
The thing that had been Scarlett advanced, a low, continuous growl rumbling from its chest. It was all corded muscle and dark, coarse fur, standing nearly as tall as his shoulder. Saliva dripped from its jutting fangs, spotting the leaf litter. Its yellow eyes held no recognition, only a feral, predatory focus. On him.
His heart was a frantic bird beating against his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to grab his axe and defend himself. But this was Scar. His Scar.
He forced air into his lungs, a shaky, deliberate breath. He willed his trembling hands to still.
“Hey,” he said, his voice rough but low. He didn’t move, didn’t break its gaze. “Scar. It’s me. It’s Mayo.”
The wolf’s lips pulled back further, revealing more of the deadly teeth. A warning. It took another step, its powerful shoulders rolling with the movement.
“I know… I know you’re in there,” he murmured, keeping his tone even, a soft drone against its snarling. He slowly, so slowly, raised his empty hands, palms out. A submission. A show of trust that felt like insanity. “You’re scared. I get it. It’s okay.”
He could smell her now, beneath the wild, animal musk—that specific scent of hers, like autumn rain and dry leaves, that always clung to her clothes, her skin. It was faint, tangled up in the monster, but it was there. It was the scent he associated with her laugh, with the weight of her head on his shoulder when she fell asleep on his couch.
The wolf hesitated. Its head tilted a fraction, the intense yellow of its eyes flickering for a split second. The growl lessened, dropping from a thunderous warning to a confused, rumbling vibration.
It sniffed the air, its wet black nose twitching. It was catching his scent too—the pine resin and honest sweat that was just him. A scent it knew. A scent that meant safety, and warmth, and never any harm.
The massive tension in its haunches eased, just a bit. The aggressive advance halted. It stood its ground, watching him, a low whine now mixing with the remnants of its growl. The terrifying intelligence in its eyes was now clouded with something else, something like a struggling memory. It was still a monster, a raw force of nature, but for now, the immediate, violent intent had receded, held at bay by the fragile thread of a man who refused to be afraid of her.