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The Broken World: Desire (Part II)

"Home is the nicest word there is."

--Laura Ingalls Wilder

Lura woke on the cold floor of her shack. The first thing she became aware of was the frantic pounding. The second was how very cold she felt, likely due to the sweat still clinging to her naked body. The third was the deep ache in her every muscle, like she had been pulling a plow for several days without rest.

Groaning as she tried to push herself to her hands and knees, Lura became fairly certain that the pounding wasn't just the result of the headache rampaging through her skull. Someone was beating on the door and calling her name. Lura's vision swam as she tried to stand, only to succumb to the vertigo and fall back to her hands and knees. She tried to focus her gaze on her hands, hoping that by keeping them on a single point the room would cease spinning. This experiment proved a success, but opened the door to a few other troubling discoveries. First, her fingernails were not supposed to be this long. They seemed to come to a point and had a dirty, almost yellow look to them. Secondly, her hair now trailed down long enough to almost rest comfortably on the floor, hunched over as she was. Lura had always kept it cut short. Long hair was a luxury that working hard days in the dusty fields did not allow. Lura was also sure she had never had dark hairs noticeably growing down her forearms, but this was development that could be revisited after she mercilessly ended the life of whoever was still incessantly pounding on the door and screaming her name.

"Yes, okay, I'm up." Lura slowly got to her feet, the tired muscles in her legs protesting her every movement. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, careful not to poke herself with her longer fingernails. Upon feeling reasonably certain she wasn't going to fall to the floor again, she noticed just how much smaller her already tiny shack now seemed. Lura had grown taller overnight. It seemed like the changes her body had gone through had also affected her form even when she wasn't a slavering beast.

And then, just like that, the events of the previous evening rushed into her mind like a dam bursting after a several days of heavy rain. The horrible thing in the corner. The secrets it told her. The agreement. The change. The terrible pain and indescribable pleasure.

Lura frantically checked over every inch of her body, fearing the worst. The ache in her muscles seemed to be rapidly diminishing, but other remnants of her strange bargain remained. Tiny hairs noticeably covered her forearms and her legs looked hairier than most of the men she had seen working in the fields. Her toenails matched her fingernails, long and coming to faint points. Not actual claws, but sharper than she knew they should be. Her hair cascaded down her back and stopped level with her waist. It felt thicker, fuller, but also messy and tangled, her fingers catching several times as she ran them through its soft length. The hair between her legs was noticeably thicker and she felt a line of it rising up to her belly button and slightly beyond. Barely-noticeable hairs seemed to cover the rest of her body as well.

Despite all of these changes, the most drastic was her height. Lura felt like she was standing on a stool. Her eyes were now level with the top of the doorframe, where before the crown of her head came nowhere near reaching it. Now that her attention was drawn to the door she felt she should do something about whoever it was that was still assaulting her privacy.

Throwing a blanket around to hide her nudity, Lura stomped to the door, quickly swinging it wide to convey how little she appreciated the disturbance. Her ire quickly faded as she realized who it was.

Lamyra's face was flushed, her eyes wild. "I'm sorry, but they wanted me to come talk to you. They're having a meeting in the center of town. Did you see what happened to the cows? What's that smell? What happened to your hair?"

"Slow down, slow down." Lura wrapped the blanket tight against the cool morning air. "What do you mean? Who's meeting?"

"All the families. Didn't you see them?"

"No, I'm not standing in the center of town, I'm on my doorstep talking to an annoying little girl."

"Not_them_! The cows! Did you get taller?"

"Don't worry about it. What about the cows?"

"You really don't know, do you? Come on!" Lamyra tried to grab Lura's hand, seemingly intent on dragging her naked to this little town meeting.

Lura could remember little about last night other than the changes to her body, but she could vaguely recall hearing strange noises coming from the neighbor's cows. They sounded alarmed. Maybe they could sense or smell what was happening inside the shack, but there seemed to be something more.

Lura spoke slowly to her friend. "What--exactly--happened to the cows last night?"

Lamyra seemed on the verge of tears, either for the animals or because she was feeling so overwhelmed. "They're dead. All of them. Every cow in the village is dead. Some of the goats and chickens, too. What are we going to do?"

This village depended on its livestock now that the crops didn't seem to grow the way they used to. If some disease had taken out their cattle, the village wouldn't be able to keep from starving during the winter.

Lura pushed her thick locks away from her face. "That doesn't make sense. They all just died overnight? They weren't sick or anything before?"

"Dad thinks it might be something to do with the Tear. Like maybe it's happening all over again. Gods, that can't be it, can it?" Lamyra was on the verge of tears again. "What are we going to do? People are angry. Some of them were asking about you, about your dad."

Lura felt dread in the pit of her stomach. Of course. Something bad happens and people start to look for someone to blame. The likeliest target would be the strange girl living by herself at the edge of town, the one whose father went to work for the Traitor. Even though Lura certainly had nothing to do with this, any of this. Dozens of domesticated animals don't suddenly die off in the middle of the night.

But then, Lura thought, young women suddenly changing into monsters in the middle of the night either wasn't routine either. But the change couldn't have had anything to do with ...

"Oh ... oh gods." Lura's knees felt weak.

There are ... complications when I involve myself directly ...

Lamyra took a step backward. "What? Did you ... You didn't have s-something to do with it, did you? You didn't." She looked afraid, glancing from Lura to the path leading back into town. "Lura? H-How did you get so tall?" One step turned into several, turned into several more, turned into a run.

"No, Pup, wait! I didn't ..." But Lamyra was gone. Gone to her father, to the others, to the people who would be demanding an answer to what had happened. For something to blame for their family going hungry tonight.

What_had_happened? Was this what Shade meant by "complications?" He agrees to help her, turns her into an animal, and for some reason causes her village to starve to death?

They would be coming for her soon. Lura ran back inside, dropping the blanket on the dirty floor. She quickly tugged a shirt over her chest, suppressing a momentary sense of pride when she discovered that her breasts had grown too. She tugged on a pair of pants, stretching them around her wider hips. The cuffs only reached halfway down her shins now. She threw a little dried beef jerky hanging from the ceiling into a sack, grabbed an empty bowl, and was out the door before she could think that this was probably the last time she would ever see her pitiful little home.

* * *

The most difficult thing in adjusting to sometimes turning into a hulking beast is that it tends to lead to significant damage to one's footwear.

Lura cursed, not for the first nor last time, that her only pair of shoes had been destroyed that night. After seven days of walking, the skin on the bottoms of her feet felt practically flayed. Every night she would curl up next to whatever dead tree she happened upon and would begin rubbing her aching feet until she fell asleep. Every morning, all cuts and bruises had vanished. Healing from wounds was apparently another benefit to being a monster.

Three days ago she had eaten the last of the jerky. What little water she had found was brown and smelled terrible. It hadn't kept her from throwing herself into the dirt and drinking as much as she could, sucking the last drops from the muddy rocks. She had hoped to find enough fresh water to carry with her in her bowl, but what little she could find wasn't enough to bother with.

She was starving. She was parched. She was dying.

While water was in short supply, the "rivers" never were. She had passed four thus far, and knew she would pass a few more before reaching the forests Shade had instructed her to find. Surely before the Tear these lands must have been fertile with so much water flowing across the plains. Now the rivers held only dried bones. Bones of fish, bones of turtles, bones of people. The only life she had found since leaving home were the birds circling above her head, a few flies, and a pack of three dogs gnawing at human bones much too small to belong to an adult.

It was hard to tell the difference between the gray light of noon and the gray light of dusk, but Lura felt it was time to find a place to sleep. One benefit to the end of the world was that there were very few predators to bother a lonely traveler at night. Most of the large cats and night-lizards had died off without ample prey to sustain them. Bug bites were infrequent. A few flies had followed Lura for a few days before deciding she wasn't worth the effort. In a strange way, she missed the company.

Lura sighed and threw her useless sack to the ground. Nothing to sleep under, not that it made much of a difference. It was comforting though, to have something with which to anchor youself. A tree, a rock, anything besides the endless expanse of dust. She lay on her back gazing up at the sky as if she still expected to see the stars. She knew she must smell horrible, not that there was anyone around to be offended by it. She could feel the day's cuts and blisters slowly fading away as her skin quickly healed.

She hadn't changed, not since that night. When she saw the dogs fighting over the bones she felt her anger rising and the hair on her back rising with it. She felt like tearing the scavengers to pieces, but felt fear in her heart that she wanted to kill them not for revenge or food but because she wanted the bones to herself.

Shade had said things like that would happen. If she became afraid, angry, or aroused she would start to change. There was little reason for any of those feelings out here. At one point she thought about playing with herself to spur on a change, thinking maybe she could cover more ground as a ... thing ... than as a person. But with no way of knowing what would happen and no assurance she would even be in control when it did she felt it best to continue her long, hot, hopeless walk.

Lura closed her eyes and exhaled. Lamyra. The way the young girl looked at her as she fled was worse than anything that had happened since leaving home. Fear mixed with uncertainty, like this was the first time she had ever seen her older "sister." Like she didn't recognize her. Lura had considered at first the possibility that her wonderful neighbors would attempt to pursue her, but felt sure that no one would dare to venture into these wastes, even if it meant catching the demon-witch responsible for the deaths of their cattle.

Complications. That was what he had called it. Whenever he intervened directly. A spell that powerful had to come at a cost. Lura wondered if she would have agreed to his terms knowing what she knew now. She had to kill Graadig. She had to kill the man who had killed her father, who had taken away what little good would have been left to her in this dying world. But not if it meant the death of her village. She felt sure that Shade knew she would not have agreed if that were the case, and that was exactly the reason he didn't bring it up.

Lura fell asleep thinking about those two white spheres staring at her from the corner.

* * *

She was still dreaming about Shade's eyes when she heard the man clear his throat. It was intentional, she knew, a way to get her attention without startling her any more than necessary. It didn't work. Lura was on her feet before she was even sure she wasn't still dreaming.

A tall man stood about fifteen feet away. He remained still, calm, with his hands held to his side, palms toward her, indicating he did not hold a weapon. At his feet was a small pack with a few clay bottles hanging from the side.

Something was wrong about him. His scent was wrong. Lura wasn't sure how she knew what exactly he was supposed to smell like, but he wasn't supposed to smell like this. It was something dangerous and familiar at the same time, and the combination put her more on edge than she would have been if he had shown up with a sword in his hand. Lura felt her teeth growing in her mouth, her fingernails becoming longer, hair thickening on the back of her neck. She let out a low growl, something instinctual, the sound of a cornered dog.

Still he made no move. He just stared at her in the darkness. Finally he nodded as if the confirm some suspicion. He crouched and sat cross-legged in the dirt, back straight, eyes forward, hands still showing he held no weapon.

Lura lowered her clawed hands, feeling certain she wasn't in immediate danger but unwilling to let her guard down completely. She tried to ask him who he was, what he was doing here, what he wanted, but the words died in her throat as she gasped out a ragged breath and began coughing as she filled her lungs with the ever-present dust.

The man seemed to understand and pulled one of the bottles off of his pack before extending it towards her. Lura made no move, and the man seemed to expect this. He tossed the bottle to her, still saying nothing, still watching her every move.

Lura was sure she had never smelled water this clean before. She didn't know if this was the result of her recent changes or if this water was more pure than what she was used to drinking from the dirty streams near her village. Right now she didn't care. She broke the neck of the bottle off and brought it to her mouth. More water seemed to make it onto the ground than into her throat. She hadn't realized just how weak she was until presented with what her body most desperately needed. Before was finished she felt the man's pack land next to her legs. There were six--six!--more jugs dangling from it, all filled with water. Lura felt like she was about to cry.

"It's easier if you pull the lid off. Those take a while to make, you know."

Lura followed his suggestion and consumed each and every bottle over the length of a few minutes. Finally she wiped her mouth, licking the last few drops from the side of her hand.

"What do you want?" she croaked.

"I wasn't really sure at first. But you, I suppose."

Lura reached for one of the empty bottles, about to brandish it as a weapon. "You have no idea how bad of a mistake that would be."

The stranger held out his hands in a gesture of apology. "Actually, I do." Lura could just make out the sharp teeth hiding behind the man's smile. "I didn't mean it like that. It's been a while since we felt the Call. We thought we were the only ones left."

Lura would not have been more surprised if the stars had decided to fall from the sky.

"Gods, you're one too?"

He simply nodded.

Others like you that will help in this fight.

Shade's words came to her mind. The man frowned as if sensing the phantom's presence.

"Something is very wrong with you. How long have you been Gahreer? Did you come from across the ocean?"

Lura didn't know what a Gahreer was, but she could take a guess. She felt very sure that she should not divulge any more information about Shade than absolutely necessary, but saw no reason to completely lie.

"It's been nearly a week."

Lura could see more of the white in the man's eyes. "Gods. A week? Too soon to come from anywhere far away. You're from the village to the west then?"

"Yes. I grew up there with my parents. I've never lived anywhere else."

At this, the man seemed to grow angry. He flexed his fingers, small claws growing from them. "Who gifted you?"

"I ... I found a note my father left."

"Your father? Was he Gahreer?"

"No, but I think he may have known some of you. His name was Darden Veloren."

Lura hoped the name might mean something to the stranger, but he only shook his head. "It ... is a familiar name, but I don't know where I may have heard it before. Perhaps she will know."

"She?"

The man sighed and lowered his hands. "Look, I don't want to cause offense and I'm not trying to doubt what you say. But ... Well, we can sense each other. I can feel the presence of my pack as if they were sitting here next to us. Eloren always said he could feel others across great distances even if they weren't members of our own pack."

Lura shook her head at this flood of new information. "Okay, none of this makes sense to me. What exactly are you talking about?"

He spoke slowly as if talking to a child. Not impatiently, just wanting to make sure he was being understood. "No one sensed you until recently. Probably when you became ... whatever you are." He paused. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound hurtful. But only Gahreer can make Gahreer and we're pretty sure we are the only ones left. Whoever made you wasn't Gahreer or we would've sensed him. So ... what are we supposed to think?"

Lura felt herself beginning to shake. "Look, I ... I don't know where to go. I was told by ... I always heard there were people that lived in the forest. My dad talked about them sometimes. He said they lived more closely with nature. No, more like they were a part of it. They weren't hostile to normal folk, but they didn't want to be around them much either. Sometimes he would go off and talk to them and come back knowing where to look for game or which rivers held the most fish. He seemed to trust their opinions and they seemed to trust him back."

She felt hesitation over what she was about to say. "I'm looking for someone. I was told you could help me find him."

His eyes narrowed. "Who?"

Lura hesitated for a moment until she decided she had nothing to lose. "The Butcher."

The stranger frowned. "And why would you want to find him?"

"He killed my father. I want to kill him. I want to watch him die. I want to make him suffer."

He rose. "This has been a mistake."

Lura jumped to her feet. "Please! Just ... I don't know what else to do. I've got nowhere to go."

He paused for a moment, considering, then picked up his pack and hers as well. "Yes, you do. You will accompany me back to our home. You need to speak with my alpha. She will know what to do. After that I suppose you can run off and get yourself murdered. But until then, you're going to come with me."

It was not a request, but Lura didn't feel like pressing the issue. "We want the same things then. And ... well, thanks for saving my life I guess."

Some of the coldness left the man's face at hearing this. "You're ... very welcome. You'd be surprised at what it takes to kill us, but dying of thirst in a wasteland would probably work."

"And you're right. I ... don't know a lot about ... all of this. You. Us. What I am now."

He smiled. "What you are is tired. We're still a few days from being out of these wastes and you'll need your strength. Close your eyes for a few hours."

Lura started to sit, but kept her eyes locked with his.

He seemed to understand her suspicions. "If I wanted to hurt you I could've ... well, just stayed home and left you to the vultures actually. Speaking of which, I'll see if I can't get us some breakfast. Things are always better with a full stomach and fewer carrion birds circling overhead."

Lura's stomach grumbled loudly at the mention of food. He laughed. The sound felt good to her ears. Slowly she lay down and rested her head against her arm. "Thank you ..."

"Kyrun. You're very welcome ..."

"Lura."

"You're very welcome, Lura." He turned away and walked into the night.

She closed her eyes, and for the first time in a week felt like things would be better the next time she opened them.

* * *

Lura's new companion proved amiable, if wary. In every way possible, he made a much better traveling companion than the vultures. In the "light" of day, Kyrun became much less menacing. He was tall, around a head taller than Lura. She assumed that most Gahreer must be tall. The change would be easier on a larger person. Aside from that, he was fairly normal. A medium-length beard, pretty blue eyes, quiet demeanor. A bit too much hair on his limbs, but that seemed to be another standard trait amongst their kind. His garment seemed poorly suited for travel in the wastes. Animal furs didn't seem very comfortable in the hot weather, but Lura got the feeling it was probably the only type of garment he possessed. Lura suppressed a smile, thinking that their mutual lack of a decent wardrobe was another thing that linked the two of them together.

That and the whole turning into beast-people thing.

About that particular topic, Kyrun seemed fairly willing to talk about, answering Lura's questions as though they were weighing the benefits of purchasing a new hay-cart. He seemed far more interested in learning more about what caused Lura's change, but she wasn't yet ready to say more on that matter. Lura still felt unsure about mentioning Shade, thinking it would likely lead to more distrust from her new companion. Lura had the feeling that breaking ties with Kyrun would likely lead to her own death. They still had water, but the stringy meat of Lura's vulture friends didn't stave off her own starvation for very long.

"How ... am I ... how are we even still going?"

Kyrun glanced back at her. He had taken the lead, scanning the horizon for something the entire journey. "Still alive you mean? I told you. We're hard to kill."

"How hard?"

"Well, let's see." He rubbed the back of his head. "We can go a long while without food and water. You probably know more about that than I do actually. We heal quickly. I once lost a finger when I was younger, before I became Gahreer." Here he wiggled his fingers, making a show of there being ten of them.

Lura stopped walking for a heartbeat before continuing on. "Really? We can grow back fingers?"

"Yes. Fingers, toes, arms, legs, tails. I've heard stories of some of the old ones surviving losing their head to an executioner's block, but I don't really put much faith in that. I'm not eager to put it to the test."

"Wow. What else?" Lura felt like a child asking her father why it rained.

"Hmm. We don't reproduce as your people do. It keeps our numbers low, but it makes more certain that those who become Gahreer do so because they truly want to. We live a really long time. Actually, none of us are really sure how long. Enadyse is ... well, ancient. Nobody really knows how old she is. And she says that before the Tear, she was a baby compared to her elders."

"Enadyse is ...?"

"My alpha." Kyrun seemed to be holding something back. "_The_alpha."

"What about you? How old are you?"

"How old are you?"

Lura smiled. "You're not supposed to ask a woman that."

"You aren't supposed to drink all of the water from my gods-damned bottles."

"Fair enough. About twenty winters."

Kyrun whistled. "You're a baby. I think I've been around for nearly fifty."

Lura whistled right back. "I thought we were around the same age."

"Age doesn't mean as much to Gahreer. I'm not even sure about the other members of my pack. They could be a hundred and they'd still look young. One of the many advantages we have over the humans."

Lura wasn't sure she liked the way Kyrun differentiated his kind from "the humans." _Our_kind, she had to remind herself. Lura had never had anything in common with the people of her village, but now she wasn't even the same species.

"What else?"

"There's a certain metal that burns us like fire."

"Silver!"

"Yes, that's right. How did you know that?"

Lura shrugged. "Just something I've always heard growing up. Silver kills werewolves."

Kyrun gave her an unkind look over his shoulder. "A vulgar word. Not even sure what it's supposed to mean, but I think it's supposed to be an insult. We don't like to call ourselves that."

"Sorry. But what does 'Gahreer' mean?"

"It's ... complicated. Literally I suppose it would mean 'children of the earth,' but there's more to it than that. We're told ... Never mind."

"No, what, tell me."

"It's ... a dumb fable. Mother Earth and Father Man fell in love, but the old gods didn't approve. They met in secret and through their union came the Gahreer. Half human, half wild, that sort of thing."

Lura giggled. It was sound that was unfamiliar to her own ears. "I like that. We're the bastard union of two love-stricken gods."

"I told you, it's nonsense. But Enadyse believes it, even if no one else in the pack does. She's always held close to the old myths. I suppose it makes her feel closer to the world the way it used to be."

"Where were you? When the Tear happened?"

"With my old pack. It was not a good time for us. Not that it was a good time for anyone. We could tell something was going to happen. Even those of us like me who aren't as attuned to the Mother could smell it. Some of us said they could taste it in the backs of their throats. Some wanted to go find out what was going to happen, some of us wanted to stay away and prepare for the worst. I don't think either would have really made a difference." He lowered his gaze. "We lost ... a lot that day. Some of us died right as it happened, right when the sky dimmed. Some of us died a few days later, either from some unknown malady or ... even worse ways. Some seemed to slip into madness, to become wild. They lashed out at the pack and had to be stopped. I had to ..." His eyes seemed devoid of all life as he remembered some terrible pain. "In the end I was the only one of us left."

"I'm sorry."

Kyrun cleared his throat, then tried to change the subject. "Like I said before, we can sense other Gahreer. It's how we knew you had changed. It was also how I was able to find Enadyse's pack and move to their lands."

"I ... suppose I can too. That thing told me ... I mean, certain people had always mentioned there were things like ... us ... living in the forests to the east. But when I was changing that night, I think I could feel a presence. Different, strange, yet ... familiar. Warm. Like my best friend that ... I'd never met? That doesn't make any sense."

"No, it does, it does." Kyrun stopped and faced her, looking almost excited. "That's ... a good sign, Lura. The first change is always traumatic, but most of us feel the call of the pack strongly during that time. Can you sense anyone else now?"

Lura closed her eyes. "You, obviously. But, yes, like there's someone waiting for me nearby. Like my mom when she would call for me to come inside for supper when I was young."

Kyrun smiled at this. "That's it. That's the Call. That's a very good sign. I'm not sure what happened to make you Gahreer, but that's a very good sign."

"There's ... something else, too." Lura rubbed her forehead, feeling a mild sting the longer she tried to feel for another presence. "Something ... very far away. It's faint, but it's there. Like us, but ... not."

Kyrun reacted as if she had told him the moon was about to crash into the earth. "You can feel others? Where? How many? Are they near?"

The pain could be felt behind her eyes now. "I ... I don't know. It's there, but it's ... different. Far away. Like it doesn't want to be found."

"We need to get you to Enadyse. She needs to hear this. We haven't felt the presence of anyone outside our own pack since the Tear. We thought we were the only ones left."

Lura opened her eyes and swayed on her feet. She felt dizzy, like she was coming out of a sleep that had only lasted a few seconds. She reached out to steady herself and placed her hand on Kyrun's chest. For a moment she could feel his heart beating and smell something that made her fingers tremble and her mouth water. She looked into his eyes, a strange warm feeling running through her body.

Kyrun took a step back. "We should ..." He cleared his throat. "We should keep going. It's a few days yet to the edge of our land, maybe less if we keep up a good pace." He turned on his heels quickly, seeming uncomfortable. He took a few quick steps before the ground swallowed him whole.

Lura wasn't sure what had happened. One moment, her strange benefactor was standing before her. The next he was gone, and the sand below their feet was swirling around where he once stood. Lura panicked. Through the connection they now shared, she could feel Kyrun was fearing for his life. She glanced around in all directions, looking for something, anything that she could use to help. Her vision seemed somehow clearer, her eyes darting rapidly over every inch of the harsh, useless landscape. She could smell where her friend once stood before the sand covered him. She realized she was changing.

If you become afraid ... you will start to change.

Her fingers grew longer, her nails sharper, dark hairs growing from her knuckles. She stared at her changing hands. If she transformed as she did before, her thumbs would be all but useless. She wouldn't be able to pull him up, even if she could reach him.

Seeing nothing nearby to help, sensing the breath leaving Kyrun's lungs, she did the only thing she could. She was in the middle of a wasteland, her body was a frightening stranger to her, and she didn't know this man at all really. Every rational, human part of her mind told her to leave, and leave quickly.

She leapt into the merciless sieve and pushed herself further away from the open air.

Lura thrashed her arms in all directions. She had never been able to hold her breath for very long. Lamyra used to point out this flaw whenever they were brave enough to go swimming in the dark waters near the village. This was likely the dumbest thing she had done in her life, which was saying a lot given recent questionable bargains she had entered into.

She could feel the faint light behind her eyelids fading to black and knew she was sliding deeper underground. Desperately flailing her transforming arms back and forth, she tried in vain to find her friend in the dark miasma. At last she felt something hard press against her shins. Reaching down, she clasped her clawed fingers around what she hoped was Kyrun's arm. Instead, it was a bone. Another victim to this dying world.

Lura cried out in fear, in anger, in horror. In vain. The breath in her lungs had become a fire. She opened her mouth and swallowed a mouthful of sand. Then another. Pink dots swam in her vision. She was dying. Oh gods, she was dying.

* * *

Lura woke, gasping for precious air. She scrambled to her feet, terrified of what had just happened until she saw Kyrun laying unconscious next to her. She attempted to fall to her knees, but felt her legs shift to the rear legs of an animal, her back hunching over, her tongue spilling from her mouth, panting. She reached forward with her lightly-furred arms, shaking her friend with her unfamiliar hands.

"Kyrun!" Her voice sounded gravelly, his name harder to pronounce. "Kyrun, no, please."

His eyes fluttered open, looking shocked at the face of his failed rescuer. "What happened ...?"

Now sure that her friend was alive, Lura pulled back and tried to hide her face with her paws. "Didn't ... mean to ... Don't look."

Kyrun erupted into a fit of coughing, but reached for her arm as he struggled to get his breath. "It's okay."

Lura leaned away, tears in her eyes. She didn't want to be seen this way. She wanted to be normal. She wanted her father and her mother and her friend. She didn't want to be a monster.

She felt a gentle touch on her furred shoulder. "You saved my life. You must have been really bored."

She barked out a laugh, realizing that it really did _sound_like more of a bark than a laugh. His smile seemed to take away some of the shame she felt at her appearance.

Kyrun looked around, pressing his hands uncertainly onto the ground. "This is the same spot I sank into. How?" He rose to his feet, keeping his arms outstretched like he was making sure to keep his balance. He tapped the ground experimentally with his foot. "What happened to the sand? Why aren't we dead right now?"

Before Lura could hazard a guess, she heard the sound of dozens of dead birds hitting the ground all around them. This morbid rain immediately revealed to Lura just what had saved them this day. Kyrun looked to a newly-fallen vulture and slowly up to Lura's glowing yellow eyes. He stared into them for a long time, not daring to ask what had just happened. Whether from the connection they now shared or from the look of his eyes, Lura knew he was afraid to ask what it was that had spared their lives.

Lura knew. She wondered, not for the first time, if she wouldn't have been better off dying in that dark pit.

* * *

After nearly two weeks of walking, Lura's tired feet finally left the burning sand and were placed upon the cool black earth underneath a canopy of green more vivid than Lura had ever known. Trees were everywhere. The word "tree" no longer seemed to apply to those of her home, which were truly no more than straggly black trunks with leafless bonelike branches. They towered above like columns guarding the entrance to an ancient temple as old as life itself. Lura felt tears running down her sand-encrusted cheeks as she stepped underneath the canopy, gazing in childlike wonder at the ceiling of this new temple.

Kyrun stood on a moss-covered rock with his arms crossed, staring at Lura and unable to hide a smile. "I take it my lady is satisfied with her new vista?"

For a moment she thought he was going to say "her new home." Just as Lura had described feeling earlier, this place felt like home. Like a home she had never known. She could hear birds chirping in the background and had to fight back more tears. Birds. In the trees. Singing.

"I never knew a place like this existed. There were the old tales, but I didn't really believe them until now." She closed her eyes and hugged herself tightly, relishing the absence of the hot sun, feeling like a slave that had finally escaped a cruel taskmaster and was now in the embrace of a loving mother. One that was overjoyed at having her child return home after believing her dead for so long. Lura wondered if this was what the Call really meant to her kind.

"How?" She turned to face Kyrun. "How is this even possible? The Tear took everything from us. How is this even here?"

"Some places fared better than others. Enadyse and Tam speak of this place like it's been reduced to almost nothing compared to how it looked in the old days. I wasn't born here, so I don't remember how it was before the Tear, but to me it's always been ... perfect."

Lura continued gazing at the canopy, watching the dim light of the sun filter through the leaves.

"Come on." Kyrun turned to continue.

"Do we have to?"

He laughed. "You're standing on the doorstep and don't want to cross the threshold. There's someone you should meet."

Lura reluctantly began to follow. "The alpha, right?"

"Eventually. But first I'm about to introduce you to your new best friend."

They continued walking for a few hours more, Lura too dumbstruck in taking in the sights to inquire who it was they were going to meet. There was just so much to see. Leaves. Moss growing against soft gray bark. Pine needles that sounded almost like the sand they had just left when she walked over them. Once she saw a snake slithering in between the roots of a large tree. Rather than feeling afraid, she felt she wanted to rush over and play with it. It seemed well fed, free, and happy. Its eyes weren't dead, its movement didn't indicate it was tired, it didn't seem like it was starving. It was alive.

"Here we are." Kyrun stepped from the small path and motioned Lura forward into a clearing. The light was blinding after walking in the shade for so long, even after being filtered through the darkened skies. Lura walked forward like a blind woman, feeling about and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light.

"Who am I supposed to be meeting exactly?"

"This." Without warning, Kyrun kicked Lura forward. Her feet left the ground and she tumbled in the empty air. For a split second she thought she was going to die before she landed headfirst in a small lake. She felt shocked in a way she had not felt since her first transformation. She relished the weightless feeling of being underwater for a moment more before she began swimming back to the surface. On the way she began sorting every curse word she knew into tidy little arrangements, cataloging them to best be used upon her not-so-funny traveling companion. Instead when she broke the surface all she could do was laugh.

"I thought you might enjoy that. And you really, really needed a bath."

Lura rubbed the water from her face. "What if I couldn't swim?"

"You would've figured it out eventually." He dropped his fur tunic to the ground, stripping down to the cloth wrapped around his waist. Lura felt herself blush as she took in a side of her friend she had never seen before. He was lean without being too broad, his muscles looking like they were built more for sprinting through the forest rather than pushing a plow all day. He took a few steps back before running forward and diving a bit more gracefully into the lake. He returned to the surface smiling. "Besides, I would've fished you out. Eventually."

Lura ran her fingers through her dirty hair, washing herself free of all that she had carried with her since leaving her old home. "I've never seen this much water in my entire life."

"You've never been to the sea then?"

She shook her head. "We just had little streams and sometimes they would dry up for a few months at a time. This is incredible!"

He smiled. "It's a little bit out of the way, but I thought you would enjoy it."

"Can we ...?"

"No. We have to keep moving. It's a long walk uphill before we reach the pack. And now that we're so near, they are very anxious to ... meet you."

She could read between his words. They wanted to interrogate her, to find out what kind of strange magic had made her this way.

"What are they going to do with me? Are they going to send me away?" The thought of leaving this place seemed worse than anything she could imagine.

"I'm not going to lie. We're scared. I'm scared."

"Of me? What could I possibly do to hurt you?"

"We don't know, Lura. That's the problem. We don't know what made you Gahreer. But it wasn't us, and that scares us. And you haven't been very forthcoming with information."

Lura looked at her hands, rubbing the dirt from her fingernails and trying not to make eye contact. "It ... was ... sort of a deal ..."

Kyrun looked confused. "A deal? What does that even mean?"

"It ..."

"You made a deal with something? Like a demon or a spirit?"

...he shaped me out of something that didn't exist. A false shadow of the idiot gods that surround this world.

"Not exactly."

For the first time in a few days, Kyrun looked at her once again like she was an enemy. Something to be wary of, to distrust. "It has something to do with the birds, doesn't it?"

She said nothing.

Kyrun sighed. "It doesn't matter now. You need to talk to Enadyse. She is wiser than any of us that are still left. I just wish you'd trust me enough to tell me the truth."

"I will. I just ... I want to talk to her first."

"And that's fine. But it's a lot harder to make friends out of strangers when your hiding something from them."

"I'm not good at making friends," Lura whispered. "I'm a lot better at being strange."

Kyrun seemed suddenly closer than he was a moment ago. "In these times, sometimes being strange is the best thing you can be."

* * *

They had bathed until she was reasonably sure she didn't smell like she had been walking across a wasteland for two weeks. Lura went behind a large tree to afford herself some privacy as she wrung the water from her clothes. Kyrun seemed somewhat embarrassed and kept a good distance, examining the trees as if he had never encountered them before. He covered himself again with his fur clothing and Lura blushed as she found herself wishing he would leave them off just a bit longer. Back in her own less than exotic garments she stepped from behind the tree and walked back up to him.

He suppressed another grin. He was very good at suppressing grins.

"What now?"

"We might see what we can do about getting you something that fits a little better."

"Oh, that doesn't seem really necessary. By the time I'm fitted in the finest evening wear m'lord's tailors can provide you'll just push me into a lake again and I'll need to get new ones made. Unless that's your plan? To keep me naked for as long as possible."

Kyrun rubbed the back of his neck. Lura delighted in the knowledge that her strange new friend was so easy to embarrass.

"We should--"

"Get going. Yep." Lura followed him as he began walking. "We should always 'get going.' Out of all the words ever devised amongst all the tongues of mankind, both ancient and new, Kyrun's favorite words will always be 'We should get going.' When they lay you down to rest and place a stone marking your grave, your final resting place will proudly state, 'Here lies Kyrun of ... this big forest ... a man who knew well and true that 'we should get going.' Thousands of years from now, grandfathers will tell their children of wise old Kyrun, whose immortal words have passed through countless generations, imparting to both the young and old that always--always!--'we should get going.'"

"Why would you put a stone next to a grave? That seems like an strange thing to do."

Lura sighed.

* * *

True to his word, Kyrun and Lura reached the top of a large hill a few hours later. Kyrun paused at the summit, turning around to gaze down upon the rest of the forest. From here one could gaze upon the red wastes, if for some reason anyone had a reason to do so. But this was also where someone completely new to the forest could best appreciate the green lands in all their wonder. The sunsets here were incredible--or as incredible as they possibly could be now. The most beautiful birds came up to roost at this height. From here you could hear the buzz of the pack's apiaries. Kryun doubted Lura had ever tasted honey. Kyrun smiled at the thought, thinking of the new wonders his new friend was about to experience. If Enadyse permitted, soon she would make new friends in the pack, embrace the change, have a family that would understand her on a deeper level than she could ever imagine. Provided of course she was welcomed into staying. Kyrun paused, listening for the sound of the strange young woman catching up.

* * *

Lura scrambled to the top of the hill, panting, cursing, and finally content to fall onto her back. She was completely out of breath. "Why am I completely out of breath?"

"You haven't had anything to eat other than stringy vulture meat for two weeks."

"But shouldn't we be able to recover a lot faster?"

"You've stopped panting."

Lura pulled her slightly-longer tongue into her mouth. "Oh. So I have." Lura got to her feet, ignoring a nod from Kyrun to look back in the direction in which they had come. "It's your fault I'm so tired. I have to run catch up with you every five minutes."

"I wasn't walking that fast."

"I had to pee! You can't spare a moment to let me pee?"

Kyrun arched a brow. "You've answered the call of nature more than a dozen times today."

Lura smiled. "Heh. 'Call of nature.' Takes on an entirely different tone when you're a werewolf. Gahreer." Lura corrected herself. "I don't think you've stopped for the call of nature the entire time we've been in this forest."

Kyrun arched his brow further. Lura wondered if she pressed her luck she could make it fly off of his face. "I live here. I've lived here for longer than you've been alive."

"What does living here for a long time have to do with peeing ... oh gods. I'm peeing on trees. I'm marking my territory. Like a dog."

"Like a wolf. We're as much wolf as we are man. Hopefully more to be honest. Turn around. It's a nice view."

And then, as if the gods wanted to poke fun of Kryun's last comment, the largest, hairiest, nakedest man Lura had ever seen walked up the path.

If Kyrun was tall, this man was a giant. He towered over Lura and was several heads taller than Kyrun. He seemed as thick as a windmill and nearly as large, with muscles larger than any man Lura had ever seen. Kyrun's athletic form seemed skinny and weak in comparison. The hair on his chest, arms, and legs was so thick Lura couldn't see his skin in some places. His beard reached halfway down his massive chest, seemingly pointing down to a giant of another sort hanging between his legs.

Lura was snapped out of this uncomfortable discovery as he began to menacingly crack his knuckles, loosening his large hands with a purpose Lura wasn't entirely sure she was going to be happy with. His gaze never left hers, his dark brown eyes almost black as he stared at her grimly. He took a few steps forward and Lura could feel the nails of her fingers and toes beginning to grow longer, her muscles tightening and growing as her body prepared for what could be a confrontation.

Instead the naked giant stopped when he reached Kyrun and the two men embraced like old friends. Old friends who had not seen in each in a very long time and seemingly found it perfectly normal that one of them wasn't wearing any clothes.

"Brother," the giant said, patting Kyrun on his back for a long time. His voice was deep, but his tone was strangely reassuring. There was something more than respect in the word, something more than a friendly greeting. The man really meant it. Kyrun was his brother, and he seemed overjoyed that his brother had returned home. "Your travel was an easy one?"

Kyrun didn't seem to know whether he wanted to nod or shake his head, so he did a bad job at both. "There were good times and bad times, my brother. But I had a good companion on the road."

The giant frowned at Lura. "This is the one?"

"This is Lura. Lura, this is Eloren, my brother and the strongest member of our pack. Also the dumbest."

The giant smiled as he looked back at Kyrun. "You mean the strongest eater. The Call told us to expect you today. We have deer, boar, even a few of those weird lizards you like for some reason. Come! We eat tonight and talk about these good and bad times over the campfire." Here his large hand assaulted Kyrun's spine in a way that was probably supposed to be a friendly slap on the back but seemed more like an axe trying to cut into a piece of wood. He turned back to face Lura and barked out a command. "You will stay here. We will go talk to the alpha and she will decide what we are to do with you." He turned to go.

Kyrun didn't follow. "Eloren," he called out in a chiding voice. "Lura saved my life. I would be buried under a mountain of sand right now if it weren't for her. You will not behave in such a way towards her." This last remark seemed to be almost a threat.

Eloren stopped and turned around to face Lura. She didn't feel this was the right time to bring up that she had not, in fact, been the source of Kyrun's salvation. That honor belonged to something she would rather not think about right now.

"I apologize." He bowed low. "If my words are harsh it is because I feel the need to protect my family from those new to these lands, not to cause offense. But offense you have taken and for that I ask your forgiveness."

He suddenly seemed rather eloquent for a hairy naked giant. "I understand. Loyalty to family is ... more important than anything." She briefly thought of her mother.

Eloren rose back to his rather impressive full height. "On this we both agree. Kyrun and I must speak with our alpha. In the meantime, please help yourself to the food we have prepared for my brother's return and anything else our pack can do to bring you comfort after your long travail." Here he glanced at Kyrun, seeming to ask if he had satisfied his brother's request for niceties. Before turning back to face his home, Eloren gave Lura another suspicious, almost hateful look.

Kyrun motioned her forward.

"He's nice," said Lura. "I think he likes me. We should be friends."

"Eloren is wary of strangers."

"I noticed this, yes."

"He's been through a lot. He's not the oldest of the pack, but he's been here longer than anyone else, save for Enadyse. He's seen a lot of friends die. Most of them died during the Tear, but a lot of them died at the hands of outsiders. Try to forgive him."

Lura held her hand up, swearing a sacred oath. "I'll be nice. I can't wait to see the rest of your happy little family. Are they all huggers or do you sometimes go right to sniffing each other's asses?"

Kyrun frowned.

"Because it's a ... dog thing. Never mind."

Kyrun shook his head. "You will have meet the rest of the pack soon enough. This way. I'll show you the food before I have to speak to Enadyse."

At the mention of food, Lura's stomach rumbled loudly. No, it wasn't quite a rumble. Her stomach seemed to be mounting an all out revolution, demanding restitution for the pains it had had to endure. "More raw meat actually doesn't sound bad at this point."

"It will be cooked."

"Really? I just assumed Gahreer would prefer it straight from the kill or something."

Kyrun shrugged. "Sometimes. But it tastes better when it's cooked and has some honey smeared over it."

"What's honey?"

Kyrun laughed.

The pair entered another clearing with a small hill in the center. At the top of the hill was a narrow opening to a cave. Kyrun motioned for Lura to stay here and Eloren cast another backwards glance to make sure she was doing just that. Lura looked about her as she rubbed her stomach, still protesting loudly. There wasn't much to see, but what was there was quite nice. A few wooden crates near the tree line seemed to be the home of a swarm of loudly buzzing insects. A few trees had been cut down and split in twain, making crude benches around a large fire pit. A few more were set up under a shady spot surrounded by wildflowers that was near the path they had traveled to reach this place. The fire had gone out but the ashes were still smoking, and Lura could smell something absolutely heavenly in the air. Her mouth began to water and Lura gasped as her tongue fell from her lips, more than a few drops of drool hitting the ground. Finally she saw a rather large table set near the fire pit. On it were five wooden plates containing more meat than she would normally consume in an entire year.

She managed to take one step towards this most wonderful sight before someone slammed into her with such a force that Lura found it hard to stay on her feet.

"Oh thank all the gods, you're finally here! We've been waiting so long to meet you!" Her attacker squeezed what little breath was left from Lura's lungs.

Another naked one, she thought. They're all naked, and they all give hugs. She would have to keep this information in mind.

Lura was released from this exaggerated embrace and was finally able to look into the face of her attacker, realizing she was looking at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Her skin was almost white. Long blonde tresses caressed her face and her eyes were the most startling shade of blue, like the reflection of the moon off a deep lake on a winter morning. She was shorter than Lura, but just barely. Her breasts were large and full, her hips curving in ways most men would dream about. She seemed simultaneously matronly and lustful, someone that would braid your hair one moment and tell raunchy stories in the next.

"Come on!" She almost pulled Lura along behind her. "You have to be starving." Halfway to the food, she stopped and spun around to face her dear new friend. "I'm so sorry. I'm just so happy you made it here safely. I'm Tam."

"Lura."

Tam smiled as if Lura had said she was her long lost sister, or perhaps had decided to share with her new friend a castle of immense wealth. "Lura! That's a beautiful name. But what are you doing, go! Eat!"

"You're still holding my arm?"

"Oops!" Tam quickly released Lura's wrist. "Sit down. I'll bring you something."

Lura did as instructed, feeling overwhelmed after the day's journey and meeting these bizarre hermits. She wondered if she would ever have a full moment to absorb some of what was happening around her before the next surprise arrived. Instead Tam handed her a wooden plate of smoking venison before sitting down next to her. She was a gracious enough host not to interrupt her guest as Lura tore into the most wonderful meal she had ever had in her life.

Her hunger finally sated for the first time it close to a year, Lura turned to face her newest benefactor. She found herself more than a little embarrassed at her voraciousness and tried her best to compose herself before realizing she was actually chewing on a bone. "Sorry. I was really hungry."

Tam laughed. It was a pleasant sound. High pitched and almost innocent. "Don't be! You must have been famished after what you just went through. I hope it tasted alright. Eloren kind of went all out with the hunting when we knew you were coming."

Lura wiped the grease from her fingers on her still-wet trousers. "That was the best meal I've ever had. Without question. How did you get it so sweet? Was that the honey?"

"Yep! Eloren keeps a few hives. They're very productive this time of year." Here Tam seemed a little confused. "They didn't keep bees where you're from?"

Lura shook her head. "They're bugs? We only had the stingy-bitey kind."

Tam giggled again. Lura got the feeling this was going to be a regular occurrence. "Well, these sting too but only if you get them really mad. Eloren almost knocked a hive over one day and they weren't too happy about that. I was picking stingers from his back all day. He was such a baby! It took him a whole day before he got back to being his normal grouchy again."

Now it was Lura's turn to laugh. "I can't imagine him being a baby about anything. For that matter, I can't imagine him being an_actual_baby."

Again the giggling. "You have _no_idea. I catch him all the time flipping beetles back over when he finds them lying on their backs. He's a puppy."

Lura had a very hard time applying the word "puppy" to any of the Gahreer, let alone Eloren. The word itself would always be tied to the memory of Lamyra. Lura wondered what her pup was doing now. Would she ever want to see her "big sister" again? Was the village starving? It felt like ages since she had been in her little village with her little shack playing with her little friend. Lura rubbed her eyes. The world was growing larger every day.

"Oh gods, I'm so sorry!" Tam leaned forward to place a hand on Lura's knee, her large breasts swaying gently. "You must be so tired. Do you want to take a nap? It may be a little while before Enadyse is ready to talk to you."

As if taking a cue from the suggestion, Lura stifled a long yawn. She wasn't quite ready to go to sleep amongst these people just yet. Kyrun she trusted, maybe even liked. Eloren--the puppy--seemed ready to throw her back to the wastes. If she was going to be banished again she'd rather get it over with. She had already been forced to leave one home, why not another?

She had been here twenty minutes. Why was she thinking of this place as her home?

"I'm okay," she finally answered. "Just maybe a little overwhelmed by all of this." Lura tried to change the subject. "So, uh, how long have you lived here?"

"I came here shortly before the Tear. That's the word you use, isn't it? It was a smaller pack and our alpha thought we'd find more food here. We knew there was a large pack but our alpha thought we might be able to come to an agreement."

"Were you? Able to come to an agreement?"

Tam sighed. "There was some conflict at first. Nothing bad." Here Tam's eyes grew wide and she hurriedly spoke out a clarification. "Not _physical_conflict! Gahreer _never_fight Gahreer. Not unless it's a ritual thing. The larger pack just wanted to make sure that we stayed to our corner of the forest and left the rest to them. A few of us drifted back and forth between packs, though. Especially the younger ones. They were excited about the prospect of finding mates. That's how Eloren and I met." She let out a happy sigh. She sounded like a young peasant girl hoping to one day find her gallant knight.

Eloren and Tam were mates? Lura smiled. She supposed it was definitely a case of opposites attracting. Tam was the shortest of the pack Lura had seen thus far. Eloren could probably bump his head on the moon.

"So it all worked out in the end?"

"Oh, better than that! The alphas got together and agreed to unite the packs. That used to happen a lot in the old days. Strength in numbers, more hunters, that sort of thing. All that was left was deciding who would be the new alpha."

"How did you decide that?"

Tam shrugged. "The usual way. Ritual combat. It's really more of a formality, I suppose."

"Two giant wolf-people fighting is a formality?"

"Well, everyone knew how it was going to turn out. There was no way our alpha stood a chance, and he knew that as well as anyone. But he couldn't look weak to a larger male. If you think Eloren is big." Tam whistled. "So our alpha fought and ended up getting his chest ripped open."

This didn't make Lura feel especially at ease. Tam was describing a violent conflict between two monsters as if she was describing how many eggs the chickens laid the day before yesterday.

"Our new alpha was so sorry it gone that far. He carried him to his own bed and stayed by his side all night until he was good as new again. After that the old alpha ended up becoming one of the most respected Gahreer of the new, larger pack. They were the best of friends from that point on. Some of us think they may have even been a little more than friends."

"Nothing builds a strong friendship like disembowelment. But I guess it all worked out in the end?"

Tam smiled. "It was great! More food, more new friends. We were probably the largest group around at that point. Gods, there must have been fifty of us!"

"That's amazing. We'd only heard rumors of you back in the village. We'd certainly never seen any werewolves." Lura corrected herself. "Gahreer. I'm sorry to have to ask this, but ... Where are all the others that survived? Did they split off from the pack?"

Tam's cheery tone disappeared. She started to play with her fingernails. "The others ... There ... aren't any others."

Lura felt the familiar dread in the pit of her stomach. Others like you that will help in this fight."Four? There are only _four_of you?"

"Three ... at the time. Kyrun came not too long after the Tear. I don't know what happened to his original pack. He doesn't talk about it too much."

Four werewolves. Five, if Lura included herself, although she knew she had no experience with combat. Five of them against someone who probably kills more people than Lura has ever met on a daily basis, and who is at the head of a small army. Five.

What was she doing here? It wasn't much of a life at home, but it was a life. Now she was a beast among other beasts she didn't know. She had traded away her humanity to a shadow in the corner for a chance to have her revenge. A revenge that would never come about.

Lura was startled as she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Kyrun, alongside his large naked associate.

"It's time. She wants to see you now."

Lura slowly got to her feet, suddenly feeling even more tired. "What ... What should I do?"

"Just talk. Enadyse is ... well, you'll see. Just be open and honest. And don't use any of your amazing sarcasm. She won't like that. It might be best not to look her in the eye right away. It's an ... alpha thing."

"Am I ... Am I going to have to fight her?"

Tam punched Kyrun in the arm. "Look at her! You've got her thinking she's about to become a slaughtered little lamb." She stood and held Lura's hands in both of hers. "You'll love her. She'll love you. You have nothing to be afraid of!"

"Yes," Eloren piped in. "She'll love you, especially when you tell her how you came to be Gahreer. And just how did that happen again exactly?"

Tam turned to face her mate and let out a snarl that sounded like it couldn't possibly have come from her. Her point made, she turned back to Lura. "It will be fine. Go on."

Lura began the short walk to the top of the hill. Five werewolves. Five.

Perhaps she could go back to her village. Slip away into the wastes again and sneak into her own home in the middle of the night. Find the note. Call the shadow thing again. Ask for her old life back. Ask for her old _species_back. Somehow she didn't think he would be too keen on that. She thought again of the dead birds falling like rain from the heavens.

Reaching the top of the hill, Lura looked into the blackness of the cave interior. It didn't seem like it could be very large. It didn't slope downwards, and this wasn't a very large hill to begin with. There was another crude bench sitting just outside the cave mouth. Whatever was expected of her, Lura wasn't going to go into this cave without being invited.

"Child."

Lura heard the voice before she saw its owner. At first she thought it was Shade. It had the same eerie gentleness. The very sound of the voice seemed ancient, like something calling to her from across the ages.

Enadyse stepped from the shadows. Lura felt a strange urge to fall to her knees.

She was not at all what Lura had expected. Kyrun had indicated she was over a hundred years old. She looked like she hadn't yet reached forty. Her hair was white, but it was the white of unblemished snow. Her eyes were like two shining emeralds, buried in an ancient keep amongst some lost treasure. She was nude, like all the members of her pack, save for a small leather fetish hanging from her neck. It was striped with blue and red thread and must have been some keepsake from happier days long gone. She was nearly the same height as Lura, but her presence made her seem taller than Eloren.

After examining Lura for a long moment she gestured for her to sit. Lura sank onto the bench, keeping her eyes diverted and her hands folded in her lap. Enadyse sat cross-legged at the mouth of the cave, still elevated from Lura's position.

"Kyrun speaks well of you, little one. He has told me you saved his life and are kind, if a bit rash."

"Kyrun is a good friend."

She arched a white eyebrow. "Friend? Yes, you must think that of him. I will speak plainly to you, child. We are not certain whether or not you belong here. I will ask you a question, and if you do not answer truthfully I will know. And I will not be pleased. We are not so great in number that we would ever refuse a home to any Gahreer to come to these lands. But you, child ... are not a normal case. Are you?"

Lura held perfectly still.

"So we come to my question. What made you into what you are now?"

For a split second, Lura felt herself about to tell the same half-truth she had told Kyrun. She realized that Enadyse would know at once and that would probably be the end of her sad little life. For another second she considered her chances of surviving an attempt to flee. If she made it away from Enadyse and began to change, she might be able to make it into the woods before the others realized what was going on. Maybe kind little Tam would talk the others into letting her go. Surely they wouldn't follow her back into the wasteland. But she knew she would lose control when she began to change, and she didn't want to feel that happen again--the teeth and the muzzle and the tail. And the hate.

"It happened when ..." She swallowed hard. "There was a note. From my father. It told me how to summon ... something. I asked it to help me and it made a deal. It made me ... this."

Enadyse watched her in silence for a moment. "I am happy to hear you speak the truth. I am not happy about what it is you called forth that day. It spoke to you, then? The white eyes in the dark?"

Shocked, Lura looked quickly up into those ancient green eyes before remembering Kyrun's warning. "You ... You know about it, then?"

"Yes, I know of it. I have felt it wandering this earth before we were even aware of you. I know it has something to do with the demons your people call the Blind Ones. I'm not sure if I want to know more than that. We are the children of the earth. It is not a part of this world. And you have allied yourself with it. Why?"

"Revenge." Lura saw no point in trying to sweeten her words. "On the man who killed my father."

"Yes, your father. Darden. He was ... a good man once."

"You knew him? What-What was like?" Lura felt she must sound like a sad child.

"Kind. Intelligent. I won't lie, I had hoped he might become one of us in time. But he would never have been willing. He came many times to speak with our alpha, but we knew he would never leave behind his home. He dearly loved his wife and child, and wanted nothing more than to build a better life for them."

Lura would not allow herself to cry. This was the father she remembered from her childhood. He was a good man. He was tricked. He didn't know what he was doing. He couldn't have known.

"But you, child." Enadyse's green eyes glowed with a naked malice. "You do not seem to be as benevolent as he once was. There is something ... not right about you. But we are not sure if that has more to do with the way you became what you are today or if it is something altogether different. I do not sense in you the kindness I found in your father. Tell me, what was it like when you first changed? What did you feel?"

Lura wrung her hands. "There was a ... need. A need for ..."

"A mate?"

"I suppose that's one way to put it."

"That happens. But there was another need, I think."

She slowly nodded. "I became very angry."

"Very angry. You would not know this, but the first change is different from the others. The Mother gives us a gift we have always longed for, whether or not we ever realized it. Sometimes she gives us the what we desire most. A way to protect loved ones. A family, a true family. An end to disease. That's why many of us want to become Gahreer in the first place. For Eloren, he had a wasting sickness that ate away at his body until he was barely able to stand. One of us had pity on him and granted his request. Now he is the strongest man I have ever known. Tam was born into a body she was never supposed to have. The Mother made her female, the woman she was always meant to be."

Tam was born a male? Tam?!

"Sometimes the change happens more than once. Before I was alpha I looked very different than I do now. I was smaller, weaker. The Mother made me fit to lead this pack, though I will never be half as wise or as strong as those who lead before me. But she has chosen me to rule in these dark times, and I will never question her will.

"But you, little one. You were not made by the Mother. You were made by an abomination. And what, I wonder, did the change do to you?"

"I got ... taller. A little stronger, I suppose."

"As do we all. This is nothing strange. You say you felt a need for revenge. For your father?"

Lura nodded. "He was killed. He was tricked into working with the Traitor and was killed by his lapdog."

"The Butcher. We are not unaware of his movements, though we are now so few we can do little to prevent them. But so we come to the heart of our uncertainty at last. Eloren was made well. Tam was made whole. I was made worthy. And you, it would seem, were made for revenge. That most powerful passion that is all too common amongst humanity and is never known to the Gahreer. You were born in anger's flame, dear heart. Knowing this, how are we ever to give you a place here?"

Lura said nothing. Enadyse rose to her feet.

"I thank you for speaking truthfully to me. I will speak to you just the same. Were it not for Kyrun, you would be dead this very moment. There are too few of us left to risk welcoming one who is not of the Mother and may not even be Gahreer. But he speaks well of you. He has sworn on his life that you will do no harm here. He knows, as I know now, that the only thing you want more than your hopeless revenge is to have a place in which you belong. A home. In time you may find one here. But if the day ever comes when you begin to lead my people on the path to ruin, I will feast on your still beating heart. It may bring upon us the wrath of your creator, but you will die upon that day. You are the least among us now, and you must never forget this. You will work with Kyrun day and night. You learn how to control the change. You will become a daughter of the earth. You will become a sister to this pack. You will bury your anger.

"Or_you_will be buried."

* * *

And so the work began. True to Enadyse's words, Kyrun worked with his new pupil day and night. Controlling the change seemed hard, though causing the change itself was fairly simple. Lura could shift her shape faster each day, though Kyrun confessed he worried that she was using her anger as a catalyst for the change. She spent a great deal of her time in silent meditation, learning to be more mindful of her breath and less mindful of her hate.

To Lura's amazement, she started to enjoy the change more than she felt comfortable admitting. She was so fast. She could sprint from the top of the hill to the lake and back in about an hour, never slowing her pace a bit. And she wasn't even fully changed yet. When Kyrun changed completely he made her seem like a slow turtle in comparison. He would often reach the lake well before her, a black shadow flying through the trees. She would find him standing around waiting on her to catch up, just as he did the first day she came to this place.

She was still not comfortable fully changing, though she became more willing every day to shift just a little bit further. Usually on her runs she would stop at the point her legs did the creepy thing where her feet stretched out and she found herself standing on her weird dog-legs. Her back would hunch slightly, her arms would stretch longer, and her hair--fur--would grow to cover most of her skin. But she was still hesitant to change completely, afraid of being lost in her anger once again.

Or being lost in that other feeling. The one that was less dangerous but far more embarrassing.

She was still uncomfortable going nude. The rest of the pack had no trouble in that regard, but she was becoming more used to it. She was glad that Kyrun was aware of her discomfort and wore his furs every day, although when he shifted completely he would disrobe mid-sprint. When she arrived at their destination he would attempt to cover up his unmentionables, which Lura found rather cute. She was also not ashamed to admit to herself that she often found herself wishing to see just a bit more.

Though running was her favorite activity, it was not the only one she enjoyed. She was also becoming a fairly good climber, reaching the tops of the wondrous trees in a few minutes. Once she had seen something Kyrun called a squirrel leaping from one tree to the next and without thinking about it she had leapt from tree to tree in an effort to catch it. She wasn't exactly sure why catching it was so important, but it certainly was. Kyrun agreed with this sentiment entirely, though this didn't keep him from laughing at her when it happened. In his fully transformed body, Kyrun could reach the top of a massive tree in two or three leaps. More than once she found him staring up at her rear as she climbed above him, though he always had the decency to look away when she noticed.

Swimming was something done easier as a human than Gahreer. Her strangely shaped legs didn't seem to be able to kick quick as well as her normal ones, though she did feel the muscles in her arms growing a bit when she tried to swim faster. The one time she tried to swim after her body had changed a good bit she ended up swimming in a way she had once heard Lamyra proclaim a "doggy paddle." Kyrun didn't seem to appreciate this phrasing.

Out of all their new activities, the one Lura was most hesitant about was hunting game. Kyrun had shown her how to use a bow to catch smaller animals or wound a larger one before swooping in to finish it off with her teeth and claws. Lura felt bad for the rabbits she killed--though never, ever for the squirrels. They didn't deserve her mercy. The first time she had killed a deer she had felt like she was going to cry and had actually thrown up. Still, there was an instinct that drove her towards the hunt, one she couldn't deny was thrilling in its own way. They never hunted to the point of cruelty. There were too few living things in this world--even here--and she was hesitant tor take the life of anything beautiful unless it was absolutely necessary. Kyrun explained that Enadyse held fast to the old ways of taking from the Mother that which she offered her children, but never to abuse her generosity.

Then there was the more mundane but still enjoyable tasks around the camp. Tam worked with her a great deal on making a sleeping mat out of the hide of her first deer. She had tried to get Lura interested in making a necklace out of its antlers, but Lura felt that was going a little too primitive for her tastes. Tam also showed her how to make spears and arrows. Out of all of them, Tam was the best shot and perhaps the best hunter second only to Kyrun. Little Tam didn't stick to tending to crafting because she was seen as a housewife, she did it because she was rather good at anything she tried when it came to craftsmanship. More than once Lura found herself assuming Tam was the homebody of the group until she would return from a trip to gather water with a fresh kill she had found along the way.

Eloren tended to his bees and reluctantly allowed Lura to follow him a few times. He showed her the best way to gather the wonderful honey that Lura couldn't imagine living without now. He also taught her to move slowly to keep from agitating the hive and getting stung. They were only to collect honey from the outermost edge of the hive instead of intruding on the deeper combs. The bees didn't react well to strangers getting too close to their queen. Lura found it fascinating that these little buzzing insects had an autocratic royal family. The first time she had been stung Eloren reacted to her yelp with one of his deep laughing fits, clapped her on the back a little too hard, and was rewarded with a few stings of his own. This seemed to remind him that he was not supposed to be having fun with the new arrival and he would quickly resume his normal everyday dourness. When he wasn't tending to his bees he was usually standing guard outside the cave, dissuading Lura from interacting with the alpha, though he must know as well as she that Enadyse was never in any sort of danger where Lura was concerned.

As for Enadyse herself, she had warmed to Lura a bit, probably against her better judgment. She kept her exchanges with her new ward very brief, but was not unkind when they spoke. She would ask her a few questions every now and then, usually about her father or--when they were alone--about Shade. She was never really surprised at any new information Lura had to say, but seemed rather happy she had found no new reason to be more suspicious.

The pack maintained a small garden on the other side of the hill. Each member had his or her own specialty in this regard. Eloren plowed the land during the fall and planted seeds that would grow into lettuce, carrots, beets, and a strange white thing they called cauliflower. Kyrun actually enjoyed weeding, which was something Lura didn't believe she'd ever heard anyone admit to. He said it was simple work that gave him a long time to be by himself and think. Tam's involvement in the garden was in its harvest. She went on and on about how Eloren had to restrain her from picking the vegetables before they were completely grown. When she was finally unleashed upon the poor plants she harvested them with glee. Tam enjoyed seeing growing things finally reach the heights of their potential, whether it was the vegetables or the wildflowers she regularly tended to near the path. Her favorite of course was watching new trees start to break through the canopy after dozens of years. Lura was amazed thinking about living so long she could actually witness a sapling slowly becoming mature. Of course, this didn't happen as often anymore, and although the little garden was certainly a lovely sight, it couldn't escape the curse this world had placed upon growing things.

Sleeping arrangements were fairly unusual. On warmer nights they would sleep under the stars--or where the stars would be at any rate. Lura would gaze up into the haze until it turned from dark orange to black and would dream of a sky where she could try to count the stars or gaze at the moon. She had a feeling Gahreer felt the moon's absence more than normal folk. On cooler nights or rainy ones they would all sleep inside the cave. It was small, but had enough room for five people as long as they didn't need too much elbow room. Regardless of their sleeping location, the pack always slept very close to each other, both for warmth and out of a general need to be close to each other should a predator arrive in the night.

Due to this there wasn't much privacy, but there really didn't seem to be a need for any. Eloren and Tam would regularly venture away from the pack for more intimate time to themselves, but other than that they slept as a unit. No houses, no rooms. Nothing like that was needed here. Most of the time Kyrun slept next to Lura, though never in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. A few times--and more frequently lately--they had woken up curled up next to each other, especially on colder nights. Once Lura had woken up with her hand pressing against Kyrun's chest. When she pulled it away she saw that it had transformed a great deal and there was a smell in the air that made her pant and feel warm throughout her body. That night she had slipped away from the pack to take care of a more private matter.

* * *

Lura returned to the hill with a few rabbits. More and more she had taken to hunting alone. Though she always appreciated having her friends about, she at times felt like these little hunting trips were her only time to really be alone and collect her thoughts. She found herself thinking less and less about her need for revenge and more for how she might contribute to the pack or do something nice for one of its members. The need for vengeance never entirely died away, but it was no longer the first thing she thought of when she woke up in the morning. The pack, hopefully _her_pack, had become the most important thing in her life.

This made for a shock when she arrived in the clearing to find the other four members sitting around the empty fire pit, all eyes locked on her. Enadyse looked calm as she approached. Kyrun was staring at the ground. Had something bad happened? In contrast, Tam was giving her a reassuring smile. Eloren was glaring at her. Eloren was always glaring at her.

"Child, sit down for a moment."

Lura moved closer, laying the rabbits beside the pit before taking a seat next to Kyrun. Before Enadyse could say anything, Lura blurted out "You're going to tell me to leave."

Enadyse's shining eyes made it apparent to Lura that she did not enjoy being interrupted. Lura averted her gaze.

"You came to us a stranger. In many ways, you are a stranger still."

Sometimes being strange is the best thing you can be.

"You have been with us for nearly two full months. In this time you have worked with us each individually and together as a group. You have proven yourself more capable than I had first believed. You are clever in your own way and are an adequate hunter. I believe you would be just fine if you were to set out on your own."

Tam reached forward as if she were going to put a hand on Lura's shoulder. A sideways glance from Enadyse made her retract her hand as if she had touched hot iron. Kyrun looked away.

"You know we have concerns. You've known this since the first day. I cannot put this pack into jeopardy from outsiders and the ... allegiances they may still hold."

Lura closed her eyes. She felt as if her mother was stabbing her in the heart.

"Are you, child? An outsider? An ally of something not of this earth?"

Lura thought of the Butcher.

"I don't want to be an outsider."

She desired his death.

"I don't want to be allied with something like that awful shadow."

She desired to avenge her father's memory.

"I don't want to go."

She desired a home. She desired a family.

"I don't care about the Butcher. I just want to stay."

The group said nothing. Lura kept her eyes closed and couldn't bear to see the look on their faces.

At last Enadyse broke the silence. "I truly believe that is so. Kyrun?"

Lura opened her eyes and looked at Kyrun. He was staring directly into Enadyse's eyes, something he had cautioned her never to do. More than that, he seemed defiant. Protective. Almost confrontational.

"You still vouch for this girl." It wasn't a question.

"I do. Lura belongs here." She had never heard Kyrun sound so forceful. He was not trying to convince his alpha. He was making his alpha aware of the truth.

"Then that is that." She stood. "Lura ... you have a place here as long as you wish to stay. You are now among family. Welcome home, daughter."

Lura bolted to her feet. Tam was already rushing in for a hug but never have time to reach her. Eloren was coming towards her fast, his arms outstretched, a look on his face Lura did not understand. Before she knew what was happening she was under assault. Arms like tree trunks wrapped around her body. She let out a pitiful cry.

"Little sister!" Eloren laughed. It was a sound she had heard once at the beehives, but it was now amplified tenfold. Her ears actually hurt.

"Put her down, you ass!" Tam pried Eloren's arms apart with surprising ease and Lura dropped to the ground, struggling to keep her feet. "She can't breathe!" Kyrun helped her steady herself.

"Thanks," Lura wheezed. "Large ... naked guy. I like you too."

Eloren laughed. Tam was wiping away tears before she leaned in for a much less deadly embrace. "I knew you were one of us. The first moment you came walking up that path, I knew. We're so lucky to have you."

When she let go, Lura saw Kyrun standing next to Enadyse, a much more submissive look on his face. Enadyse nodded to Kyrun, indicating all was well between them before turning towards Lura. She smiled. Lura didn't realize she _could_smile. Lura stepped forward and took her hand. Enadyse embraced her as well, though she said nothing. Over her shoulder, she met Kyrun's eyes. He offered only a small smile and a congratulatory nod before walking away.

* * *

There was more food. There was a bigger campfire. There was even an awful-tasting drink they called mead that made Lura's head and stomach spin in opposite directions. After a few glasses of it, Eloren began to sing. It was the most horrible thing Lura had ever heard in her life, and she loved every moment of it. The last time she had felt this happy she was in her father's arms being carried back home from where he had found her lost in an open field.

For some reason, Kyrun stayed away from the group, muttering something about the noise attracting some predators and someone needing to keep watch. It was the worst excuse she had ever heard and Eloren said he would welcome any predator brave enough to approach the home of five Gahreer, especially one strong enough to brave the wastes all alone as his dear sister had done. He emphasized the word "five" as if reaffirming her place here.

Tam indicated that out of all the dumb things her mate had ever said, this was perhaps the greatest and said that he should put his drunken tongue to better use. The pair walked together into the forest, Eloren stumbling the whole way.

"Each celebrates a new brother or sister in their own way. When there were more of us the night would be filled with the howls of dozens of Gahreer, thanking the Mother for bringing another of her children home."

There was a sadness about Enadyse that Lura had never felt before. "I'm sorry."

Enadyse held Lura's hand. "No, child. Now that we are so few in number the Mother must be even happier that one of her children has found her way home. Whatever brought you to us doesn't matter in the face of that. We are far stronger with you than without you. You make this pack a better place in your presence."

She patted her on the hand and rose to her feet. "But it is late and I'm an old woman who must rest." Lura laughed at the lie. "Each celebrates in his or her own way. I would like to collect my thoughts. In the morning we will go for a hunt as a pack. Goodnight, little daughter."

As she watched her alpha walk away she suddenly did seem to be older, worn down by the long years and the brothers and sisters she had seen pass away. It made Lura sad to think about, and she wondered if Kyrun would mind having someone to talk to before they all turned in for the night.

Lura walked down the path that lead to the river, hoping the way her body healed wounds would also apply to the headache she was going to have in the morning. She felt alive in a way she hadn't felt before her mother fell ill. This wasn't feeling content after a good meal or well rested after a long sleep. She was happy. Her family had given her a reason to live; she couldn't remember the last time she really had one.

Kyrun was sitting on a log at the crest of the hill gazing out past the canopy into the darkened sky. "You know," he said without looking at her, "the first time I brought you here I was looking forward to showing you the view from this spot. It's really something. But by the time you made it here, Eloren was already coming up the path and then there was suddenly so much happening the moment was past."

She sat down next to him. "I had to go."

He laughed at this. He seemed generally more happy than Lura had ever seen him. "The view is best at sunrise. I know you've stood here a hundred times since then, but I keep coming back to that moment. I thought it would have helped you feel better about this new place, about our little group of oddities."

It was her turn to laugh. "It all worked out in the end, though I would have liked to have seen it that day. I needed something like that."

Kyrun turned to look at her, his blue eyes seeming a dark gray in the dim light. "No. You didn't."

Lura cocked her head to the side, confused.

"You didn't need any of it. Not really. I mean, yes, you needed shelter, something to eat, a warm place to sleep the whole night through. And you were a lousy hunter and an even worse swimmer."

Here she punched him in the shoulder.

"But you didn't need us, Enadyse, and Eloren, and Tam. You would have been just fine on your own. Even without someone helping you learn more about being Gahreer, you would have been fine. You're a much stronger person than you believe yourself to be, Lura. If anything,we_needed _you. You've helped this pack more than you realize. I haven't heard Enadyse laugh in the fifteen years I've lived here. Tam is so happy to have another woman to talk to. Enadyse isn't very talkative, you may have noticed. Eloren even told me how much he enjoyed teaching you about the hives."

"He said that?"

"'She's a quick learner, and I hope she comes to be one of us.' His exact words."

Lura wondered at what point their resident titan had gone from distasteful grunting to tolerant grunting.

"Things are going to change now. Enadyse was surprised to hear you were able to sense other Gahreer. None of us have been able to hear the Call from anyone outside the pack. Not since the Tear. Not since you. She wants to try to find them, to bring them here. She wants you to lead us to them so we can offer them a better life, a home."

Here he placed a hand on her shoulder. She leaned into the touch.

"Like I said. You didn't need us. We needed you."

She sighed, maybe not quite the response he was looking for. "I've been here for two months and I'm not any closer to being comfortable with what I am. Not truly. We're something out of a silly kid's story, monsters living in the wilds and eating bad little children who don't help with the wash."

"They really say that? We'd kill children for not washing their clothes?"

"Something like that. I've ..." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I've never changed all the way, not since that first night. I've been afraid to. I was so angry. I hated what was happening to me and wanted to kill the thing that caused it to happen, but I think I would've settled for anything that walked through the door. I think I would've ... Has that ever happened? Has any Gahreer ever killed someone during the first change?"

Kyrun nodded slowly. "Normally the first change is anticipated, something agreed upon by the pack and the recruit. Sometimes we don't notice a bystander get scratched or maybe even bitten. That's usually enough to start the change, after a time. And there have been lone Gahreer who have intentionally caused others to change just to watch the panic that ensues--and not just from the person changing. That fear can lead to anger sometimes, which can cause the gift to become a curse. I've heard of it happening. A man turning into a wolf, running through the streets and killing whatever was unlucky enough to cross his path. Normally the transformation doesn't complete before a crowd gathers and the new Gahreer is killed."

Lura rested her forehead against the palms of her hands, slowly releasing her breath in a low hiss. "I guess ... I guess I should be happy it turned out the way it did."

"No. No, you shouldn't. That first change is terrible in many ways. It's frightening, it's painful. Sometimes you don't really know what's happening."

If you want it, I will tell you what I am going to do.

"I wish that someone had been there that night, to help you through it. I wish I would have been there."

She looked into those gray eyes. "So do I."

His breath seemed to catch in his throat. "It can be ... strange ..."

She leaned forward. "Sometimes being strange is the best thing you can be."

It was the first time Lura had ever kissed a man. She hoped she was doing it right, but really she just hoped the moment would continue.

Finally they leaned back. Kyrun's shyness had made a return. "I ... uh ..."

She leaned forward, placing one hand on his thigh and another on his strong chest. There it was again. His heartbeat.

"Are ... you sure?" he asked.

"Do y-you not want to?"

"No ... I mean yes, yes! I just want you to ... just want you to ..."

She slipped her shirt--the same one, barely in one piece anymore--above her head and tossed it aside. Kyrun's eyes fixed on her breasts.

"Want you ..."

She pulled him off of the log and on top of her, relishing the feeling of his hard chest pressing against her nipples. Gods, she thought, he smells so good. Their second kiss was longer, softer. She gasped as she felt his tongue slip past her teeth before he pulled away slightly and gently bit her bottom lip. She moaned, though it sounded more like a growl before the end.

He sat up a moment, pulling aside his fur cloak. He had worn it every day since they had met in the wastes. Maybe it was shyness, or maybe just a way to make her feel more comfortable among the others. She ran her fingers across his chest, feeling the thick hair that ran in a line towards his belly. She felt her fingernails growing longer as she lightly scratched the skin around his navel.

Kyrun leaned forward again, nibbling and biting at her neck with his sharper teeth in a way that threatened to drive her mad. She moaned again, deep and guttural. She had never enjoyed that sound coming from her own throat. It was the sound of an animal, a monster. Now it felt right to her ears, like it was a muscle she had forgotten she even had that was finally being stretched. She felt his strong hands roaming down her sides, caressing her waist. There was a gentleness in his touch, but also an element of strength, perhaps dominance. Her claws scratched at his back, perhaps a bit too hard. But she felt the need to make it known that--at least for tonight--he was hers just as much as she was his.

Her lover's eyes stared longingly into hers, slowly shifting from shades of blue until they were two moons piercing deep into her thoughts. She raised off the ground, propping herself up on with one hand, caressing his bearded chin with another as she drew him in for another long kiss. His hand gripped her shoulder even as sparse brown hairs began to grow from it.

Gods, she wanted this. She frantically grabbed at his lower back, feeling in the dark for his loincloth before finally finding it and ripping it off his waist in an almost violent motion, snarling as she did so.

"That's my only one of those, you know."

"Then you'll have to go without, won't you?" She gave him a feral smile, a few drops of saliva falling from her mouth. They both laughed as she pounced on him, knocking him to his back. She caressed his legs, now mostly covered in thick black hair. Her eyes trailed up his legs as the hair grew thicker around his crotch until she found what she was looking for. His shaft was as hard as iron even as it was angling closer to his waist as a furry sheathe began to connect it to his naval.

She gasped. "I've never really ... saw it before." He relaxed his legs as she began to experimentally touch him. It was hot to her touch and his scent was even stronger here. The smell made her hand start to tremble. She lowered her head and gave its tip a quick lick. He let out a cute gasp. She had always heard men became putty in a woman's hand when she did this. She could feel a drop on her tongue from when she had licked the end of it. It was almost burning. She went back for seconds, her tongue extending further from her mouth as it grew longer until it was caressing nearly every part of him at once. He lay on his back, now her helpless plaything. She watched as his sheathe finished enveloping him while his shaft slowly turned red and became slick, the head growing tapered to a point. As she watched its transformation she cradled his balls as they too swelled to the size of plums. The hair from his crotch had started to fuse with the hair spreading down his belly before spreading to his sides, becoming soft as velvet to her touch. Satisfied that his member had undergone its final change she began lapping at it once more, slowly at first but increasing in frequency as his clawed hands caressed her face and pointed ears.

"Gods ..." he whimpered. She smiled, drool running in rivulets from her blackened lips. Putty. Her sharp teeth lightly brushed against his sensitive skin and he whimpered a bit in obvious worry. She laughed again before she began simply bobbing her head up and down its length, occasionally pausing to run her long tongue along his balls , across his sheathe, to the pointed tip. He whispered her name as she tasted more of his warm nectar and she knew he was close now.

"You want this, little wolf?" she teased, tongue lingering against the tip of his spear.

"Yes yes yes, please. Don't stop!"

Her cruelty for the moment satisfied, she resumed her ministrations until his soft caress against her cheeks turned into an urgent grasp and he erupted into her mouth. She gagged slightly as the first burst slipped down her throat before she realized what was happening and began to swallow his seed for what felt like several long minutes. The taste was strange, salty and bland, hot against her tongue. It tasted strongly of his scent. He lay panting, his chest rising as he inhaled the air. She traced her claws against his sides, feeling the muscles of his lower torso becoming as hard as granite.

Slowly he sat up and she could see just how much of his face had changed. His lips were a slick black but were bright in contrast to his fur, now as dark as midnight. His eyes gave off an almost eerie glow. His teeth had grown sharp as he smiled in the darkness, making Lura think of the expression "a wolfish grin" and realizing how apt the description really was. His hair and grown longer, now reaching his wide shoulders. He placed a hand on her shoulder, gently rubbing the hair that had grown there, his caresses becoming awkward as his thumb began to shrink and his palms stretch.

"Let me return the favor?" he whispered.

She nodded before slowly laying on her back. She was suddenly no longer teasing and confident. She felt almost afraid as he pulled her pants from her legs slowly.

"This-This isn't going to hurt?"

He ran his paws down her legs, caressing the muscles in her thighs. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to. I just want to make you feel good too, okay? Tell me to stop and I stop."

She nodded and gave a reassuring little smile. He traced his paws down her legs to his shins before caressing her growing feet. They began to stretch longer, the heel pushing further away from her feet until it became another joint in her legs. Her large toe pushed away from the others, rising until it was where her ankle used to be, its claw growing longer than the others. Pads were rising from the soles of her feet. He ran his paws up her legs, caressing the inside of her shins, her knees, her thighs. He slowly pushed her legs apart and she suddenly could feel herself become so wet.

"Gods you smell good." She held her breath as she could feel the hot breath on her lower lips. She felt his tongue slowly licking the hair there and she stifled a giggle as she felt his cold nose touching her. His tongue began probing inside of her, just a little at first, until it found her clit. She inhaled sharply, feeling her need return in force as she felt the pleasure radiating slowly through her body. Encouraged, he began to lap at her clit, running his long tongue in circles until she was snarling and drooling like a beast. She ran her paws over his breasts as they swelled larger, her aching nipples feeling amazing as the pressed into the paws growing from her palms. His tongue began probing further into her canal, retreating every now and then to return to her throbbing clit. Her nipples pressed even harder into her paws as she felt six little nubs spring to life in a row trailing down her front.

"Oh no, no, stop!"

He pulled his head from between her legs, afraid he had hurt her in some way. "What? I'm sorry, what is it?"

She pushed against her new breasts even now forming under her still swelling original pair. "No, it's not you, I just don't like this part. It makes me feel ... dirty." They both watched as her eight breasts filled in, the topmost nearly as large as her head, the others decreasing in size down her chest before ending in the small pair near her pussy. She rubbed her paws down her front slowly, experimentally feeling the nipples. They felt good, just as good as her original pair. But they made her remember that first night, when she realized in horror she was becoming less and less a woman and more a beast of the woods. He was entranced as he watched her caressing her nipples as they swelled to the size of her human fingertips, perhaps a little wider.

"It's okay. It's just part of being Gahreer." She didn't look entirely convinced until he lowered his head and began to kiss and suck the two lowermost teats. They were level with her swollen nether lips and she felt a familiar sort of pleasure emitting from them as her lover gently sucked, pulled, and softly nipped at them. Slowly feeling less embarrassed and more curious, she continued caressing her upper pairs of breasts as well as she was able while he resumed his exploration of her mound. The pleasure radiated across her body once again, this time being amplified by the caresses she lavished upon her strange new breasts. She gradually felt better about them. They marked her as an animal. But that's what she was now. She _was_a beast, there was no use in denying that. Instead of being revulsed by these thoughts, these urges, she began to embrace them, just as she embraced her lover's head with her inner thighs. She was Gahreer. She was a werewolf. She was not human. These thoughts triggered her first orgasm. She pressed herself off of the ground slightly, further into her lover's tender kisses. She snarled, almost roared as she felt her juices being lapped up by the beast tending to her most carnal desires. Her pussy began to pulse, slowly pushing away from her groin until it resembled the sex of a bitch in heat, swelling larger in its need as his tongue probed even deeper. Her orgasm stretched into another, then another. This was pleasure like she had never felt, had never known she could feel. She raised off of the ground, flipping onto her belly as a fourth orgasm ran through her veins, pushing her into a bestial lust she would have felt ashamed of before this moment.

She lowly rose onto her hands and feet, her knees still shaking. "Now. I need you now."

He rose to a crouch. "Are you--"

"Now!" She glared at him primally, hate almost present in her eyes. She needed this. He was denying her what she needed. "I need you inside me now! Now!"

With no further encouragement needed, he straddled her slightly smaller form, his arms wrapped around her waist, lightly brushing against her second pair of breasts. Why is he still teasing? she thought. She growled at him, not a playful sound, but a warning that he was dealing with an angry beast who was not pleased that her demands were not being appeased. Finally getting the message, he began to lightly bite her on the scruff of her neck, holding her in place with his long muzzle and asserting his will over her. She growled at this as well, a strange struggle of dominance coming between the two lovers.

Finally she felt her slick red member pressing against her swollen lips, slowly pressing its way inside of her. She emitting a deep inhuman noise of an animal in heat as she pressed back against him, urging him on. Finally he slipped fully inside her and began thrusting himself harder into her, eager to sow his seed as deeply inside his mate as he could. At first she tried to aid him, wanting as much of him inside her as she could, before she became content to merely enjoy the sensation of his balls slapping against her ass and his shaft thrusting over and over, touching part of her no one had ever felt. She moaned, growled, drooled, as she felt another orgasm coming upon her. As if sensing this as well, he bit down harder on her neck, pushing her once again over the edge. Her moan continued on for a full minute, her need proclaimed loudly to the forest wilds around them. Finally she felt the last of her changes spread through her, melding with another almost painful orgasm. The changes were mixing with her own pleasure and were becoming almost more than her tired body could bear. She felt her face push forward into a muzzle, her eyes going wide as a final burst of pleasure flowed through her body. She could feel her tail growing in, long and beautiful, arching to the side to allow her mate his reward for sating her needs. She felt her cunt release her juices with an audible splash. Everything was pleasure, washing over her, increasing in intensity until she could barely see through the glaze of her eyes.

She wasn't sure how long her climax lasted, only that it stretched in wonderful agony until he mate reached his own climax. He released his grip on her neck and howled, piercing through the veil of the trees, piercing through the thick haze that enveloped the heavens. She joined the sound, their song joining together in defiance of this hateful dead world, two broken spirits becoming one.

Now spent in every meaning of the word, Lura collapsed to the soft earth as she felt herself becoming once again in control of her body and her mind, the primal spirit finally content and rational thought once again making its return. Kyrun's paws once again began to caress her back and breasts as he too became the quiet, lonely man she had always known him to be. Together they collapsed in a sweaty heap to the cool ground, now damp with the intensity of their lovemaking.

"I never imagined ... it could be like that," she panted. He licked the tip of her ear and she giggled softly as it tickled her.

"Let me know when you're ready again. I promise it will feel better next time."

She shuddered as she considered the thought. "We can do that again? Tonight?"

"All night if you wish. We call being Gahreer a gift, remember? It's a gift in many different ways."

She pressed her back against his chest, relishing the warmth of his body. "It's a pretty good gift, then. Just hold me for a little while longer, okay?"

"As long as you'd like. I couldn't let go if I wanted to." Here he moved his waist slightly, emphasizing they were locked together by a large knot at the base of his member.

"Oh!" She giggled again, a rather odd sound coming from such a creature. "I see what you mean. I had wondered about that."

"So now I've got you right where I always wanted you. He nodded towards the open space in the canopy towards the horizon.

She let out an exaggerated fake sigh. "Yes, yes. You'll finally get to show me that sunrise."

They laughed before they began caressing each other again, their need quickly returning, their moans and howls ring into the night sky, a sound oblivious to the pain of this broken world. A sound oblivious to another sound, far to the west. The sound of fire rising into that same night sky. The sound of the screams of the dying, the heartless laughter of cruel men, and the wails of a young girl.