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"Jonas-" I started to say, but my words caught in my throat as I rolled over.

A large, human-like chest covered in thick black fur filled my vision. I looked up to see the beast's broad lower jaw sitting perfectly still on the pillow. It was snoring. The thing's torso was huge; much larger than Jonas's dog form. I watched the creature's chest move up and down in sleep. My bladder protested and I tried to squirm out from under the beast's muscular arm. Evidently, my movement made it roll over, freeing me from its hold. A line of silver fur ran down to the center of its back from the top of its head much like the mane of a horse, though the hair was not as long. Its two large, black wolf ears lazily flopped to the side on the pillow. I slid out of the bed as quietly as I could. I had been sleeping in my clothes and they clung to my greasy skin. I wanted to shower, but I didn't want to be so vulnerable with that thing anywhere nearby. I crept into the bathroom and closed the door, locking it behind me. I tried to be as quiet as I could to not wake the beast. I sat down on the toilette and pissed toward the side of the bowl. When I was done, I stood up and pulled my pants back on. I turned around and without thinking, I flushed. The sound of rushing water through the old pipes in the walls might as well have been the deafening roar of Niagara Falls. I stood there in silence as the sound slowly stopped and waited. There was no sound from the other room, but that was more frightening than the sound of the creature peacefully snoring. With shaking hands, I turned on the faucet in the porcelain sink and splashed my face with warm water. After drying myself off, I stood in front of the door for what seemed like an hour before I gathered the courage to open it.

The room was empty. The sheets on the bed were pulled down as if there had only been one person sleeping under them. Was it only another hallucination? My heart leaped into my throat as Jonas came through the other door to the room. He was wearing the flannel shirt and jeans he seemed to always wear. He smiled at me.

"Good to see you're finally awake," he said.

"Um... thanks," I shakily replied.

I didn't know what else to say.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "We've made some breakfast for you."

"We?"

"Yeah, Sam and I," he said.

He cocked his head to the side as my stomach growled loudly. It wasn't until he had mentioned food that I smelled cooking bacon and it wasn't until my nose caught the scent that my stomach had started to ache from hunger. My fears evaporated in an instant, overtaken by ravenous hunger. I followed Jonas from the room. The hallway outside was wood, just like the room I had slept in. I could see another bedroom at the other end of the hall and a few other doors lined the walls. We arrived at the top of a steep, wooden staircase that spiraled downward. At the bottom, we were in a large living area with couches and armchairs set up in front of a much bigger stone fireplace than the one on the second floor. A bearskin rug sat in front of it and on the mantle rested an impressive rack of antlers.

We moved into the kitchen, where the dining table stood. Sam was toiling over the hot stove with a spatula in hand. The counters were made of stone slabs, but the cupboards holding them up were wooden. The kitchen was already pretty small, but Sam's large build made it look even smaller. Sam was dressed in sweatpants and a white t-shirt that looked so tight on him that it might rip at any moment. At least... I wanted it to rip. He tossed a hefty amount of bacon onto a plate on top of a massive pile of eggs. He carried it over to me with a sheepish grin.

"I um... I hope you like yer eggs scrambled," he said in his thick Southern accent. "This is really the only thing I'm good at cookin'."

He was cute when he was embarrassed.

"Thanks," I managed to blurt out before shoving the first fork full in my hunger-crazed mouth.

"Whoa, don't choke on it now." Sam laughed.

I added some salt and pepper before continuing my feast. Sam went back to the stove to finish cooking his and Jonas's meals. Jonas poured me a glass of orange juice. The three of us ate in silence once Sam was done cooking. I watched as he put the food away with no trouble at all. On the counter by the stove were two empty egg cartons, but that really wasn't surprising to me. Eight eggs a-piece was a normal occurrence when my parents were still alive. I had always had my father's penchant for eating much more than it looked like I could. Jonas didn't seem to have any difficulty scarfing down his breakfast either. I wondered if that was a common staple when it came to supernatural beings. The words on Sam's t-shirt said "Boss Badass" in large, black, balloon-like letters. I didn't think his status in either of those categories was ever in doubt. At least not to me it wasn't. Once my hunger was sated, I became aware of how terrible I must have looked. I could feel my hair standing up on end in certain places from lack of showering and I noticed the telltale scent of body odor. I kept my arms pinned to my sides as best I could as I finished my orange juice.

"Um... could I shower?" I asked.

"Sure," Sam said. "Towels should be up there in the bathroom."

Well that confirmed that this was Sam's house. I excused myself from the table and hurried back up the stairs. The shower felt good, but I couldn't shake the memories of the monster's attack. If he was right, then I would always be a slave to the full moon. My sudden allergy to the moon light was due to the fact that my "true nature" had been suppressed for so long. I had no reason to doubt Jonas thus far and the only alternative to trusting him was letting the monster bury that horrific blade hand into my chest. When I was clean, I stepped out of the shower and dried myself. Having no alternative, I reluctantly put my dirty clothes back on. However, when I left the bathroom, there was a new set laid out on the bed for me. The blue button down shirt, underwear, khaki pants, and white socks all fit me. I put them on with much haste and headed back down stairs. Jonas and Sam were chatting in the kitchen, but their conversation stopped when I came back.

"Sit down, Mal," Jonas said. "There are some things we need to talk about."

I returned to my seat at the table.

"Where are we?" I blurted out before either of them could speak.

"This is my place," Sam said. "It's out of the way enough that the people lookin' for you won't be findin' you any time soon."

I nodded.

"And what happened last night?"

"Last night, you slept in that bed upstairs," Jonas said. "You've been sleeping up there for seven days."

I was speechless. They repeated the events that lead up to the appearance of the monster and then told me that he was run off. They did not go into detail.

"What did Cecilia mean when she mentioned removing my glamour?"

"Well..." Jonas faltered.

"I can field that one," Sam said. "The glamour is apparently fueled by your fear. You need to face that fear head on, but to do that, you need the help of a loup."

The word was foreign to me.

"A loo? Why would I need a toilet?" I asked.

Sam laughed.

"No, boy, l-o-u-p."

"Well where can we find one?"

I noticed Jonas shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he looked from me to Sam.

"Don't worry," Sam said. "If you want to start as soon as possible, we can find one by tonight."

I wasn't sure. On one hand, I was terrified of the prospect of facing my fear, but on the other, I knew that I didn't want to live with the pain that the full moon brought. After a long pause I nodded.

"Ok," I said. "Why wait? Let's do it."

***

"You don't have to rush into this," Jonas said.

He had been trying to convince me to put it off for the better part of an hour. We were sitting on the back porch of Sam's cabin in front of a large fire pit in the yard. Sam had already built a small pile of sticks in the pit for later. The sun was already low in the sky and Sam had left to find a loup.

"Have you ever felt like your heart was on fire?" I asked. "And that fire was spreading through your veins until you thought that every part of your being was burning to ashes while you were alive?"

Jonas sighed as he looked out into the woods beyond the yard.

"I know we came here for the express purpose of removing your glamour," he said. "I just hoped it could be done with less... traumatic means."

I gave him a sidelong glance.

"Traumatic for you or me?" I asked.

Jonas gave me a dry chuckle.

"Both of us, really. I've just never liked watching someone's first experience."

I rolled his words over in my brain as the sun finished setting. I was about to reply when Sam came into the yard from the house. I would have asked Jonas a question I already knew the answer to anyway. Jonas approached the fire pit and set it alight while Sam beckoned me closer.

"Alright," he said in his Southern accent. "This is gonna be awkward for both of us, but I'm the only one for miles willing to go through with it."

I stared at him partially from shock, and partially from devouring his delicious torso with my eyes as he pulled his shirt over his head. His barrel chest and slight gut were covered with short, spiraling body hair. His belly had been noticeable under the t-shirt, but it wasn't a fat gut. I could see his abdominal muscles move as he bent to remove his pants. I managed to tear my eyes away to save myself the cheek flushing embarrassment of seeing him in even less clothing. After a few moments I heard him snort a chuckle.

"You'll have to look at me if we're going to do this thing," he said.

Maybe this hadn't been a good idea after all. I turned to face him again. he was now only wearing a pair of boxer briefs that hid very little. His powerful legs were just as hairy as his arms and torso. I felt my cheeks getting hot as I admired him. It was more than just heat from the flames. Sam awkwardly looked into the fire and scratched the back of his head.

"You might want to take off those new clothes too," Jonas told me.

"What-?" I started to say, but Sam cut me off.

"It's ok, boy," he said. "Ain't nothin' between us that should make seein' each other even more uncomfortable."

It was easy for him to say so. I imagined that my crush on him was extremely obvious. I hadn't exactly been trying to hide my lewd gazing. Perhaps they both had other things to worry about. Or maybe they just didn't think about the same kind of taboos that humans did. As I stripped down to my underwear, a question leapt into my mind.

"Are either of you going to tell me what a 'loup' is before we really get started?"

"I'm a loup," Sam said.

"Your parents were and your Uncle is too," Jonas added.

"That makes me one... I guess, but what actually are they?"

Sam stepped closer to me and gripped my shoulders. His warm, rough hands on my skin made me shiver. It was extremely difficult to not be aroused by his proximity and by his masculine scent, but I managed to shake that feeling off. He looked down at me with those beautiful amber eyes and I saw his face start to change.

"Loup is short for loup garou," he said.

I watched as his nose and mouth jutted out from his face, black fur sprouted all over him as his shoulders widened even further and his chest expanded. The realization of what the word meant hit me like a ton of bricks and I clamped my eyes shut. I was terrified that the creature that was stalking my dreams; the beast I had been so afraid of was actually myself.

"Stop it!" I yelped as that familiar fire began in my chest and I heard Sam's bones start to realign.

The sound ended shortly after and I felt Sam's rough hand patting my head.

"You can open your eyes, Malcolm," he said. "I won't do this if yer that freaked out about it."

I nervously peeked at him. His torso was back to normal, though he was holding his briefs up with one hand. The elastic in the waistband had been stretched beyond saving. I tried to get my heart to stop thudding in my chest, hoping that would stop the burning. I turned to Jonas as I put my clothes back on.

"I-I'm a monster, aren't I?"

"Only if you let yourself become one," Jonas said.

I was suddenly struck by memories of my uncle. His strange behavior made much more sense to me than it had when I lived with him.

"Why would my parents let someone make me suffer like this?" I asked.

Sam turned away and dropped his briefs, pulling his pants up over his toned, naked rear.

"If I said it was to protect you, would you believe me?" Jonas said.

I had to admit, I was skeptical. In any case, I didn't want to continue trying to face myself in that moment. We agreed to retire to sleep for the night. Once back in the room I had awoken in, I slipped beneath the sheets alone.

***

In the middle of the night, I woke up. The sound of scratching on the wall outside of my window caught my attention in the dark room. I could also smell a disgusting odor that I couldn't easily identify. I quietly slid out of bed, placing a pillow under the sheets to make it look like I was still asleep. As I made my way out of the room to find Jonas or Sam, I could hear the scratching getting more insistent. I closed the door behind me. The cabin was nearly impossible to navigate in the dark. I felt my way along the hallway wall until I reached a door in front of me. I hoped it was the bedroom door I had seen earlier. I opened it and was relieved that the light from the moon outside lit up the room enough for me to see. I approached the bed and shook Sam awake.

"Unh..." he grumbled when he saw me. "What's up, Mal?"

"There's something trying to get in my window," I said.

Sam was out of the bed in an instant. He didn't seem to care that he wasn't wearing anything. I followed him back down the hall to my room and Sam opened the door. The awful smell of rotting flesh punched me in the face from inside the room. I felt bile at the back of my throat, but swallowed it and kept myself from vomiting. On the bed, was a strange, three foot tall creature. It had spines on the top of its head that ran down its back. Leathery skin covered it, but it was impossible to tell the color in the darkness. Feathers floated in the air as it dug at the bed as if trying to find something inside the demolished pillow. A low, guttural growl came from Sam's throat and the creature on the bed leapt to the floor, scrambling over the hardwood toward the open window. It's claws clacked in vain as it struggled to move. Sam leapt on top of it, pinning it to the floor by forcing its fangs downward and holding his arm at the back of its neck where there was a gap in its spines. I watched in awe as black fur erupted out of Sam's skin. He wasn't taking it slow this time. His eyes squinted shut and he gritted his teeth as his bones snapped into a different alignment. In retrospect, it looked painful, but I was too terrified by the sight to even realize that fact in the moment. His hands grew larger, fingers widened and each was tipped with a vicious claw. Black wolf ears sprouted from his head. His feet became bent backwards like a dog's, and the claws on each of his toes were black and just as pointed as the ones on his fingers. I hid in the darkness beyond the door frame, feeling my heart racing and burning in my chest. Sam was nearly twice his human size with a long, black wolf tail that arched outward, held high and away from his back. It was rigid and straight as it slapped the floor next to him. Was he wagging? The pause in my train of thought made me notice the familiar silver fur topped his head and my searing heart skipped a beat. The flames inside of me died slightly as my mind tried to process what I was seeing.

"Who sent ya?" Sam said in a much deeper voice.

The thing under him squirmed, but didn't respond. The lycanthrope lifted the creature's head from the floor slightly and I could just barely make out its beady red eyes and two, sharp fangs.

"This is the last time I'll ask, grunch," the wolf growled. "Who. Sent. Ya."

Sam's Southern accent seemed much more pronounced in his wolf form. The creature snarled and spit gibberish at the darkness around it as it thrashed in his grip. I didn't even know if something like that could even speak, but Sam seemed to think it could. Despite Sam's size advantage, it looked like he was having trouble keeping it pinned. It kept trying to bite him or roll over to spear him with its back spines.

"Fine. I warned ya," Sam said after a few moments of thrashing about.

He gripped the thing's lower jaw, avoiding it's sharp, gnashing teeth, and twisted its head violently sideways until a positively sickening cracking noise filled the room. It went limp in his arms and he stood up, panting. He had to stoop to avoid hitting the ceiling, but he turned toward where I stood and started to approach. He was covered with muscle, the gut had completely vanished from his stomach. His thick, powerful looking thighs seemed built for running and leaping. The thought of him chasing down prey in the wilderness briefly entered my mind.

"Ya alright, Mal?" He said.

As he came closer, I was suddenly assaulted by anger as I realized what the silver streak of fur down his back meant. It shoved the fear and nausea in my mind aside when I realized that he had invaded my privacy the night before. The combined stress from fear and at being so offended made me act without thinking.

I slapped him.

He barely grunted at the slap and rubbed his jaw, taking a few steps back as he did.

"What was that fer?" he said.

"You were sleeping with me!" I hissed.

"Yeah well... I deserved that I s'pose," Sam growled.

"What's the big idea!?"

He dropped his arms to the side, keeping an eye on the dead thing on the floor as he did.

"Look, Jonas thought ya might need the company of another loup in case ya changed in yer sleep."

"Just because we're the same species, doesn't mean you can just climb into bed with me!"

It was hypocritical of me to say, but I was still riding high on adrenaline. My anger had pushed the fear right out of my mind. Sam laughed a hearty baritone laugh.

"Don't be upset. I thought ya'd like it. I've seen ya undressin' me with yer eyes ever since we met," he said without skipping a beat.

"B-but..." I sputtered. "T-that's..."

"What? Didja expect me ta sniff yer ass first?"

I wasn't sure how to respond. I watched as he turned around, tail still angled up towards his shoulders. It gave a nice view of his sculpted rear as he sauntered over to the thing's corpse on the floor.

"No way to tell if she was sent by yer enemies," he said. "Well, my enemies too now I s'pose."

He picked up the body, carefully avoiding the spines as he did.

"How can you tell that it's a female?" I asked, wrinkling my nose at the stench as Sam shifted back into his human form and walked passed me into the hall.

"She don't smell as bad as a male would."

I found that hard to believe.

"What are you going to do with it- er... her?"

Sam turned toward me with a stern expression.

"Cut off her head, then set her on fire," he said. "It's the only way to make sure she's really dead."

I gulped.

"You don't have to follow me. Why don't you head to my room and try to go back to sleep? I'll keep watch until mornin'. You won't have to worry about me creepin' into bed with you again."

His words were only slightly reassuring, but I didn't really have any other options.

"Just so you know, I'm locking your door," I told him.

"Good," he said. "Keep it that way until the sun's up."

We parted ways at the top of the stairs. He carried the foul smelling monster down with him to do his grisly work. I went to his bedroom and locked the door. As I pushed my feet between the sheets and rested my head on Sam's pillow, I was enveloped in his wonderful scent. If I had been in my own bed, I would have considered touching myself, but my fatigue prevented any specifically lewd thoughts from creeping into my head. I fell into sleep in mere moments.