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"It's getting warmer," Amanda said, touching the plastic jug resting on the work table.

Jacob recalled the first time she said that, the first full moon since her dialysis treatment started. The lycanthropic waste filtered from her blood was at its greatest concentration then, and even then, the dialysis hadn't fully cured her. Only a few treatments in, Amanda changed part of the way into a werewolf. She was partly furred and partly feral, but his wife was somewhere in there, completely conscious of the world around her. She recognized him and talked with him, and that was a small success, even as she begged to be released from the restraints that they no longer used.

By the second full moon, she was fully herself, or at least as herself as she would be. Amanda didn't change at all since then, even if her mood swings and bestial tendencies remained in some form or another. Otherwise, his wife was back, and had been for over half a year, longer than when she suffered the full effects of the werewolf's curse.

Still, the dialysis continued. It had to, or the wolf would return. Amanda remarking how warm the jug in which the werewolf's filth was deposited after dialysis was when she touched it was sign enough that lycanthropy would always be a part of her blood. He had a simple routine after every dialysis treatment. Unplug Amanda from the machine, clean and prep the machine for the next treatment, and ready the jug for disposal the next day by keeping it on the work table so he wouldn't forget. He had done it so often now that he wouldn't touch it, or even think about it, until the next morning.

Especially on the night of the full moon. Jacob had plans for the two of them to go out for dinner with a couple of fellow publishers to celebrate a new engagement between two mutual friends. They were scheduled to go out once her dialysis that day was complete. He was just getting ready when he heard her talk about the contents of the jug.

"You're still fascinated by that, huh?" He was working on his tie when he absentmindedly kissed her on the cheek. "Are you okay, honey? Your skin is flushed."

Amanda shrugged. "Just a little tense at work, is all."

"Why aren't you dressed?"

"In a minute."

Jacob was so hurried that he didn't pay any mind after that. After deciding to change neckties, he ran upstairs to the bedroom to pick out something new from his wardrobe. It was only after choosing the fourth necktie he took from his collection did he notice that Amanda didn't follow him upstairs so she could get into her dress.

"Don't you want to go?" he said when he came back downstairs, finding her reading that morning's newspaper on the coffee table.

"I do. I want to go. I just...I don't feel so good. Something going around the office, I think."

"Jill's been expecting you," he said of their mutual friend, having just gotten engaged the week before, "Can you...take some aspirin? We can leave early if you still aren't feeling better."

Amanda looked like she wanted to pout, but she subtly nodded. "I'll go find some," she said, clutching his arm as she tiptoed upstairs.

As she did so, he went to the closet near the garage to grab his and her coats to leave. His keys weren't in his usual pocket, he noticed as he put his coat on. Then he remembered he left them on the work table in the garage. There it was, sitting next to the jug from the dialysis machine.

Jacob eyed the jug as he took his keys. A curious thing not to trust one's wife, but he couldn't help but touch the side of the jug to feel how warm it was.

Instead, it was as cold, maybe even colder, than the air in the garage.

Confusion washed over Jacob. Lycanthropy burned during the full moon, he knew that much since those first treatments. Maybe Amanda was fully cured of lycanthropy, and there really wasn't a trace of the beast inside her. But that didn't explain the mood swings she had in the days leading up to the full moon, to every full moon since she was cursed. Maybe the beast was so weakened after months of treatment that the full moon didn't generate enough heat inside the jug anymore. No, that wasn't right. He had been rearranging the garage last full moon, and the jug then was as warm as the the jug after Amanda's first treatments.

There was only one other likely conclusion.

He marched up the stairs to the bedroom, and found Amanda pacing the floor. She was a touch more frantic now than moments before.

"Honey, I couldn't find the aspirin," she said quickly, "I really think I should stay ho--"

"I plugged you into the machine today, didn't I?" he said, trying to conceal his accusation.

Amanda eyed her husband for a moment. "Yes."

"The jug downstairs is cold. You told me it was warm."

She offered an evasive smile, saying, "I don't have a thermo--"

"So why isn't the jug warm? The full moon is already up, it should be hot right now. Maybe you turned the machine off while I was working in the study?"

Amanda bit her lip at Jacob's question. By now, a hint of fear was welling up in her eyes as Jacob looked. He stared her down, looking for an explanation.

"I need you to go. Tell Jill I'm sorry. I was sick. I am sick."

"Yes, I know what you're sick from, Amanda."

"It's just me! I'm still your wife, nothing's changed!"

"I know, and I want to keep it that way."

"Just go," Amanda began to beg him, "I'll be here in the morning."

Jacob glared at her, as if she had broken something. He felt betrayed, lied to. But more importantly, he didn't know what to do next. "Where are you going to go?"

Amanda paced the floor faster now. "Out. Just for a little bit. Please just let me out. I promise nothing bad will happen. I can control it."

"Do you even hear yourself? You're talking about controlling a werewolf!"

"I'm the werewolf!" she cried, "I know it more than you do! I will handle it, but you can't leave me here!"

Jacob was angry, not at her but at the whole situation. But he couldn't help but show anger on his face. His cheeks felt hot as the adrenaline surged. He remembered that they had never taken down the restraints they had used to shackle Amanda when she turned. But as he grabbed her by the arm, she remained rooted in place. Not out of refusal, but out of lack of control.

"It's starting," she said in between staggered breaths. "I...need to tell you...how good this feels..."

Amanda gripped her hair, showing her arms to Jacob. They had sprouted small tufts of pitch black fur, a familiar sight that he didn't miss after months of being rid of the curse.

"It's coming out," she said. She flashed her teeth at him through pained grunts, and her fangs lengthened from underneath her darkening lips.

Jacob thought to run, but as he turned to face the doorway, Amanda stopped him, grasping his shoulder with her hand. She showed claws for fingernails and a developing patch of thick fur on the back of her hand.

"I won't...let the beast...hurt you," she said as a growl developed in her deepening voice, "I can't...control it...but I can...control this."

Jacob froze in terror as Amanda, his loving wife, or the last vestiges of her as she transformed, leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. As he looked, her eyes had turned a feral glint of yellow. He wanted to trust her, but the hold she now had on him, with both hands restraining him from leaving, filled him with an intense fear he hadn't felt since her last full transformation into the wolf.

This close to her, Jacob heard the sound of fabric ripping. The clothes she wore that day had strained underneath her growing frame. Black fur peeked out through the expanding tears in her shirt. By now, he pictured, she was completely furry. Months of dialysis had been undone by however short a time Amanda had intentionally neglected her treatment. It could have been one day, it could have been up to one month since the last full moon when he knew she didn't change. Whatever it was, the werewolf was fully in her blood, reawakened and spiteful that it had been denied the transformation.

Amanda broke her grip on Jacob, only to thrash about on the rug on their bedroom floor. Tattered bits of clothing and black fur shed from her frame as more thick, coarse fur enveloped her body. Her bra snapped, freeing her breasts, full and swollen from the change, and still somewhat hairless for a moment until they, too, were afflicted with fur.

"I...love...you...Ja--" she said in a dark, inhuman voice that became swept up with the last bits of the transformation. Her face, a mix of human and animal, began to fully contort into an animal snout that concealed the features of a once delicate human being. As her snout blackened, Amanda turned on her chest, sat up on all fours and wagged her tail skyward.

"AaaaaarrrrrooOOOOOOO!"

Jacob finally found his feet as his wife howled to the moon, fully taken over by the werewolf. He raced down the stairs two or three steps at a time. He didn't want to abandon his wife, but he knew he had to get away. Anywhere besides this place would be just fine.

He was pinned to the ground as soon as he reached the hallway connecting the dining room and the foyer of their house. Chest down, Jacob looked up to see a large, furred monster with its monstrous front limbs pinning him with enormous force to the ground. The werewolf was about to eat him.

"Amanda..." he said, almost wanting to plead for his life.

The beast growled and bared its sharp, white fangs at him. Drool dribbled onto his neck, and the werewolf's tongue reached down to lap it up.

"Ittttt's...mmeee..."

The werewolf struggled to speak. But the sounds melded somehow into simple words. His wife was, indeed, somewhere inside the cursed animal.

It was no less frightening for Jacob, however. He trembled underneath the wolf, whose face seemed to contort as it smelled his fear. His wife howled again out of anger, but before Jacob could regret his reaction to her, she sniffed the air and rushed toward the patio door in their dining room overlooking the backyard. The glass shattered against Amanda's body as the werewolf rushed out into the night, leaving a distraught Jacob to ponder what his wife will do that night.