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Written and posted with permission from Leo_Todrius (who also provided the kickass thumbnail icon!)

You can find his profile and awesome stories here: www.furaffinity.net/user/leotodrius

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Lykos - Wild Things

Chapter 9 - Little girl lost

Drake, standing in front of room 1005, raised his left hand, closed in a fist... And then let it fall down, as if it was too heavy for him. He turned around, to face his silent companion. "Should we really do this, Pat?" he murmured in a humble, defeated tone.

The bear gave him an encouraging nod in response. Well, only if the both of us want to, I guess, he wrote on his notepad. Of course, if you ask me I'd say yes, since I find Clyde to be really hot... Patrick gave Drake a big, happy smile, but then went back at writing. Although, don't let what I think on the matter influence your decision. It's just that...

"It's just that?" Drake repeated, before Patrick hugged him. As always, the bear's embrace had the power to make him feel better, as if it was a therapeutic massage; hearing their heartbeats searching for each other like wolves howling from two opposite sides of a valley, before their voices manage to find the same rhythm and dart through the night as one was something guaranteed to ease his worries and make him feel a lot less tensed and sad, even in a horrible moment like that.

It's just that I think you deserve some cuddles, Drake, Patrick completed the sentence after the hug was over. You don't have to punish yourself or something, nobody is thinking less of you because you lost.

Drake shook his head. "No, Pat, you're wrong... I am thinking less of me because of that." He sighed again. "You know how bad the idea of having been defeated so easily is making me feel? I mean, I'm starting to think that after all I just got lucky, with the direwolf... If a young girl can beat me like that, I can't be that strong, right?"

Patrick shook his head. Drake, whatever is happening to you right now... This is not the real you. I know you, Drake: you are kind, gentle, compassionate, always eager to help anyone, and stronger than you can ever imagine. I feel so proud being your packmate and your fellow beta, every day... So don't say something like that ever again.

To Drake, reading those words had the same effect of another hug. "Thank you, Patrick," he told his friend. "I needed to be told something like that." His tone was more solid, more determined, and he even managed to give Patrick a smile. He raised his fist again, and knocked the door twice.

Clyde immediately opened the door wide, as if he was just standing behind it waiting for them to arrive. "Great!" he exclaimed with his deep sensual voice. He was still wearing his harness, but had switched from his black pants to a skimpy leather thong that emphasized his bulge and made Drake's penis twinge in his underwear. "I knew you would've come!" He stared at the two in silence for a moment. "Did Wyatt give you his permission, right?"

Patrick nodded. "Yes," Drake added. "We wouldn't be here otherwise."

Clyde looked satisfied and a bit relieved by the answer. "Come inside. My boys ain't there, for now at least... Just the three of us."

Room 1005 was exactly like Wyatt and Drake's room, although with more suitcases - and what looked like a small trunk - scattered here and there; the two queen-sized beds had been pushed one against the other to create a bigger one... although, just by looking at the bed one could understand that the occupiers were quite unlike the others: the sheets, instead of being white and lined in gold as it was customary for the hotel, were pitch black and shiny. Leather sheets? Drake thought. Wow, he's so kinky... The scent coming from them was overpowering, the rich aroma of leather mixing with the virile musk of Clyde and his betas. I'm sure they sleep in the nude. Four manly men, embracing each other, reeking powerful manly sweat..., the bearded beta said to himself, and nearly let out a yelp when he felt his cock starting to transform into a wolfish prick inside his pants.

"I see someone here is happy to see me, huh?" Clyde murmured in his hear, and Drake's nipples, already kept semi-erect by the barbells, became as hard as his dick. The leather thong Clyde was wearing quivered and shifted a bit. "Mmmh, my cock is changing, too... So fucking good..." The musclebear embraced Drake from behind, and the beta could smell the same odor emanated from the sheets on him, but a hundredfold more intense and with a persistent hint of cigar to boot. "Wanna suck on it, Drake? Would you prefer it up your ass? Or maybe we could try something a bit more extreme..." Less than a moment later, however, Clyde loosened his grip on the smaller body, and when he talked again his tone had shifted from indecent and full of sexual desire to slightly concerned. "Handsome, you seem perturbed... Your shoulders are stiff, and I can tell from your heartbeat that something is wrong. Are you still upset for what happened during the Battle of the Betas, right?"

Drake managed to push back the tears forming into his eyes. The last thing I want is to cry in front of Clyde, he said to himself. I've already looked like an idiot in front of everyone... "Yeah," he replied in a dejected voice. "I feel really bad having betrayed Wyatt's trust..."

"Did he tell you so?" Clyde replied. "That he was disappointed?"

Drake turned around to face the musclebear, and for the first time he was able to look at him straight in the eyes despite the overwhelming alpha power he emanated. "No, of course not. But I mean, he wouldn't have..."

"No, he would've alright." Clyde shook his head, and his massive nipple piercings bounced on the pelt of his chest. "Really, handsome, this is the fourth time in my life I meet little Wyatt, and you've been his beta and mate for months. That smartass can't keep his mouth shut about everything that comes to his mind, and it's kind of embarrassing that I have to be the one explaining it to his boyfriend." The man fell silent, maybe because he realized he had overdone it. "What I mean is, you're clearly a great packmate, Drake. You're a sensitive guy, you're honest with yourself and how you feel, you have one of the hottest pieces of ass I've seen at the convention... and for some strange reason I love a guy with his nipples pierced." He winked in a lewd but strangely amicable way, as if his attempts at making a pass at Drake were just an innocent joke. "And besides..."

"Besides?" Drake was feeling a bit lighter, thanks to Clyde's words, but something was missing. He held out a hand and Patrick grabbed it with gentle fingers, bringing it to his chest so that Drake could feel his soothing heartbeat through his palm. As always with the deaf bear, words weren't necessary: he just could understand what someone wanted by reading their bodies like they were maps leading to a sweet and secret treasure.

"Besides, there's definitely something wrong about that Inori girl," Clyde shook his head. "Whatever her body has isn't natural, let me tell you that. I mean, even I felt my prick stirring while sniffing at her, and I've never craved a pussy in my entire life. Also, she's like half my age, maybe less... I may call myself a daddy, but I don't mean that literally."

"Huh?" Drake mumbled in a slight surprise. "I thought every werewolf was, you know, bi by default or something like that."

Clyde shrugged. "Well, maybe if I had a girl in my pack I would have loved her just like I love my boys, dunno... In a sense, you can say that we wolves are packsexual. And while it's true that the bite usually turns heterosexual people bisexual, or at least awakens whatever desire they might harbour towards the same sex, the same doesn't apply to gay people... well, most of the time. I think a couple of my packmates would love to bang some chicks, too, but..." The musclebear raised his open hands, as if he was asking for forgiveness. "I love women, I really do. But for me, they are like works of art... In other words, they have to be admired from a safe distance. One doesn't fuck the Mona Lisa."

Drake smiled at the raunchy but effective simile; he thought that Clyde was only going to be a musclehead obsessed with fucking, but he was enjoying his company very much. "You know... Before we, um, have fun together... I'd love to know you a bit better, Clyde, if that's okay to you. Like, how you became a werewolf, how you created your pack, things like these."

The big man looked a bit surprised by the request, and undoubtedly pleased. "You really wanna know more 'bout me? How 'bout you, Pat? Wanna have some chit-chat before we screw?" Patrick nodded. "Okay. But before then..." Clyde started moaning and titillating his pierced nipples, while his body grew some more. "Fuck, I love letting the wolf out, so hot..." His nails grew into points, his beard became bushier and messier, and his gigantic tail pushed his thong down, making him look even more outrageous and kinky. "Too bad I can't smoke in here, I'd love to introduce you two studs to cigars..." His clawed, massive hand-paw absent-mindedly groped his package. "Come on, take off your clothes."

Drake looked at the show in front of his eyes with aroused perplexity. "But I thought we weren't..."

"I said take off your clothes," Clyde repeated, his eyes burning gold. Even Patrick, who couldn't have possibly heard the firmness in his tone, practically jumped out of his pants and shirt: it was the kind of voice only an alpha could manage to pull off, a compulsion weaved through words. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to give you an order, it's just that... I like when hot guys model for me wearing my creations."

Your creations?, Patrick wrote on his notepad. He and Drake were naked now, and apart from their erect canine cocks, looked normal and a bit embarrassed.

Clyde scratched his unruly muttonchops. "Um... You mean Wyatt never told you what I do for a living?" He gestured at his harness and thong. "You see, it's not like I'm wearing these because I like them... It's because I love them. They are my reason to live, so much so that I create fetish gear as a job. Everything is top-notch, made out of the best materials I can put my claws on. Even these..." he patted on the leather sheets. "I lined them personally. And for me, the best thing ever is having other guys - be them humans or wolves, it doesn't matter as long as they are sexy - wear the stuff I make in front of me while I smoke a cig and touch myself. Then I usually fuck'em, if they are wolves."

"Oh. Um, I see," Drake murmured, feeling his cheeks get flushed. To be honest, the idea of wearing something similar to what Clyde donned with pride was making him feel very excited. Even though I won't look as good as he is, I guess it doesn't hurt to try and see the results... He closed his eyes, focusing on the power of the beast inside of him, and when he reopened them, a snarl escaping his mouth, they had been tinged of the incredible and familiar shade of gold he loved so much. In the almost-orgasmic glow that always accompanied the transformation, he stared at his muscles increasing in size, his gunmetal tail forcing its way out of his body, his nails and teeth turning into perfect natural weapons and his ears getting warmer, longer and fuzzy, so pleasurable to lick and be licked.

The wolfman panted hard, the musky and virile aroma lingering in the room now more intense than ever; next to him Patrick was still in the middle of his change, his prominent belly getting a little more compact and solid, his beard bushier. His tongue lolled outside of his mouth, and a generous spurt of pre volleyed through the air and splattered on Clyde's hairy knee. "Come here, you stud," the leather clad wolf growled at him; the two bears kissed for a long minute, their tongues licking each other and exchanging strands of thick, powerful saliva, while Drake caressed his own cock and moaned, adding his own scent to the mix of different odors marking the place.

After the make-out session was over Clyde started browsing through the contents of his trunk. "Now let's see what we have here..." Every now and then he stared at his two impromptu models and nodded, a small pile of leather clothes and accessories piling in his arms. "Good, now let's put these on, handsome."

Five minutes later, Drake was staring at himself in the mirror of the toilet, and for some strange reason he was reminded on when he had locked himself in the main bathroom of Underhill house to discover how the bite had transformed him; of course, the change this time was not as drastic, but Drake was surprised about how different he looked... and even a little embarrassed. I look like someone straight out of some porn flick, he thought, and the realization pleased him, since he had never considered himself handsome enough for someone else wanting to look at him having sex... until he had become a werewolf, at least.

More than a porn actor, although, the outfit made him look like a male stripper: the leather vest he was wearing was slick and of course open, showing his furry chest, defined abs and of course the steel nestled inside his nipples; the black chaps hugged his muscled legs in a leathery embrace, making them warm and sweaty but in a comfortable way... and, of course, leaving his groin and ass exposed, the canine prick more erect than ever and his wolf tail wagging in horny happiness. One of his hand-paws absentmindedly caressed the pointed tip of the red dick, the slight roughness of the pads against the sensitive skin immediately bringing a lecherous smile to his lips and his fangs. In the meantime his other hand traced the contours of the enormous belt buckle, so big it rested against the base of his sheath: it was made out of steel, heavy and cold, and shaped as a wolf howling at the full moon, his head raised in a majestic gesture. A thin leather band adorned his left bicep, a black bandanna had been tied around his neck and he was even donning a Stetson. I'm a motherfucking cowboy, he thought, looking at himself with a charming grin. Although, I'm probably too furry to be a convincing porn actor...

In a sense, being dressed like that felt liberating. Now I know why Clyde loves this, he pondered, brushing a hand against his vest and then sniffing the subtle scent of leather from his pads. It instantly makes feel you more badass. "Hey, handsome, you ready?" Clyde called for him. "Finished dressing Pat here, come and see him!"

If Drake looked like someone attending a porn shoot, then Patrick was clearly straight out of someone's dungeon: he was donning a harness, black and full of chains like that of Clyde but more complicated in its structure, with a large steel ring right under his ample pecs and five wide straps of leather departing from it, lined with metal studs: two of them crossed over his shoulders, a second couple went down to embrace the sides of his large belly and disappeared behind him, and the fifth one ended in another steel ring, through which Patrick's dick and balls had been squeezed in. The ring now rested at the base of his shaft, looking great albeit slightly uncomfortable.

According to Clyde, however, an outfit like that clearly wasn't outrageous enough, and that was the reason why he had also added a thick, heavy leather collar covered in long and pointy spikes, with a leash attached. When Patrick saw Drake coming out of the toilet he started wagging his tail in happiness, his tongue panting outside his human mouth: he looked so adorable and dog-like despite the fetishy harness, that Drake had to hug him and was rewarded with a joyful tongue bath.

"Man, you two are so hot!" Clyde exclaimed in appreciation. He had been groping his thong since Drake had stepped outside the toilet, and since everyone else in the room had his junk exposed, he discarded it and tossed it in a corner of the room, revealing a girthy and solid wolf cock. The smell his erection exhaled was so intoxicating and overwhelming that Drake had to fight the temptation of getting on his knees and sucking on it on the spot. He's so powerful... a voice yelped in his brain. He's like a herd of bison, strong, bearded and ready to trample all over you. Drake snickered at the silly analogy, but at least the compulsion of giving the musclebear a blowjob diminished. "Now come on, sit here on the bed with uncle Clyde."

"So... Wanna know my story, huh?" Clyde had his meaty arms around the two beta's shoulders, one hand playing with Patrick's beard and the other teasing Drake's right nipple. "Okay, then..." He sighed. "Although, I'm afraid it's not that entertaining."

Drake laid a soft kiss on the rugged cheek of the alpha. "Well, if you don't feel like it, we can just, you know..."

Clyde, however, shook his head. "No. To be honest, I'm quite pleased you asked me that, handsome. You're not just a manly and fascinating guy, you also have a heart of gold, I can tell you that... You don't even know how glad I am that little Wyatt has found someone like you to be his mate, really, that kid needed a man in his life." He cleared his throat in a quite dramatic manner, smacked his lips twice, and finally began to browse through his own past. Of course, his face was turned to face the deaf bear, so that he could read his lips more easily. "I became a werewolf, let's see... Twenty years ago, yeah. At the time, I was a young and very stupid boy with a horrible family and a horniness too intense for me to handle; I was so desperately in need for some love - or for sex, at least, since it was the easiest alternative available - that I acted like a complete slut and let any willing man around fuck me, no matter who they were... because at least in those moments I could feel something that wasn't discontent or self-loathing. Of course, that kind of lifestyle wasn't supposed to last..."

"I was barely eighteen at the time, and... Well, I wasn't particularly bright, as I said. I met this guy, and I should have understood that something was off with him: his sunken eyes, his untidy hair, his small, smelly hole of an apartment... But as I said, I simply didn't care. I was a teenager, I thought that nothing could touch or hurt me more than the pathetic hell my life already was, and of course I had the firm belief that condoms were for pussies. Until, the day after, I discovered why that guy had looked so sickly, and my already bleak world was shattered into tiny pieces."

Clyde sighed before continuing, and Patrick caressed him gently on the side of his face to let him know that everything was alright. "Thanks, Pat," the musclebear replied with a small smile. "You see, at the time something like that was basically a death sentence. I spent at least a week without talking to anyone, just sitting with empty in a corner of some sleazy bar that allowed underage drinking, trying to find enough courage to kill myself, because surely as hell I didn't want to risk infecting someone else... Until, one random evening, the most handsome and fascinating man I had ever seen sit at my table and changed my life forever."

"He was a silver-haired miracle, really: huge, furry, with the most perfect beard in existence and a smile that for at least a moment made me forget of my sickness and made me fall in love for him countless times. The first thing he said to me was, 'I smelled you here often this week'. Not seen, smelled, even if of course at that time I was too drunk and depressed to realize that. I remember myself asking, through the intoxicating fog of the beer staining my brain, what he wanted from me. And he replied, 'I want to know why your eyes are so sad, and if there's anything I can do for you'... His tone was so gentle, and I was so desperate and lonely that I just blurted out the whole story of my life while crying like a baby, without hiding any detail, no matter how embarrassing or disgusting. And the more and more I spoke, the more my mind got clearer, as if the simple act of confessing how much of a mess my existence had been until that moment was enough to clean my body... Even if I was painfully aware that the truth was not as simple or convenient. After I finished talking I looked at him with reddened eyes, fully expecting him to leave me alone because of fear or revulsion... But that man just looked at me with the same wonderful smile and said, 'So there is something I can do for you, kid'."

"I didn't believe him until he somehow convinced me to follow him home and he showed me that he was a werewolf," Clyde let out a nostalgic chuckle. "I was fucking terrified because I thought he was going to devour me, so I started screaming that I was infected, to just kill me and end everything... And in response he bit me on the arm and told me 'Here, I gave you a chance. Now show me that you're a real man, kid." The second laughter that escaped from his mouth was sweeter and sadder at the same time. "He was incredibly gentle but so goddamn impulsive, my first and only alpha... His keepers gave him hell for having bitten someone without even asking him for permission first, but I couldn't care less, of course. I was madly in love for him... He let me live at his house, and not only became my alpha, but more importantly the father figure I had never had. Even if, well, he was old enough to be my grandpa, since he was at least eighty at the time... Even though he looked like a fit and charming fifty years old man." Clyde lowered his golden eyes on his knees, his lips pursed in restrained sorrow.

Drake caressed the man's shoulder. "He sounded like a great alpha, Clyde. I'm sorry for your loss."

The leather-clad wolf looked at him with a quizzical look. "What? He ain't dead yet!"

Drake gulped, cold sweat of embarrassment tricking down his back. "O-oh, I'm sorry! Since he's not your alpha anymore, I thought that... And he was eighty, so..."

Clyde laughed in reply. "Nah, don't worry, it's fine. No, he's still alive and kicking, even if he's at least a hundred years old now... We wolves are a bit tougher than normal humans, after all. Oh, and he's still the alpha of his pack, too! His name's Amos, but everyone simply calls him Boss."

"So why aren't you his beta anymore?" Drake felt the burning need to pose that question, even if he didn't exactly know why.

"Well, roughly ten years ago he took me aside and told me, 'Kid, you're big enough to have a pack of your own now: we're a bunch of old geezers here, but you are young and strong and you're going to be a fantastic alpha. Just promise me something, okay? Should you find someone in trouble, someone who's suffering and thinks their life is over... Offer them a chance, like I did to you many years ago. Although, I more or less forced the choice on you that time, huh, kid?'."

"I took his words to heart: every time I find a guy who's seriously down to his luck and seems ready to end it all, I give them a second chance in life, and a new place where they can belong. And as for Gordon, Eddie and Solomon, my head betas, well... You can say I saved their lives. Each of them has his own story, and they are not pretty; I won't tell them to you, 'cause I know how much they suffered, but you maybe they'll feel the desire to share. To me, those three are my family, more than simply my pack: we share the same house, sleep in the same room together and have a bond that I'll never be able to explain, but who fucking cares. It's wonderful, and that's what it matters," the fingers of the musclebear played with one of the straps of his harness. "So that's the story of how I became a werewolf. I tried to keep it as short and simple and possible, 'cause I didn't want to annoy you."

Drake shook his head. His eyes felt watery and prickly, but he didn't care. "Thank you, Clyde," he simply said, before pulling him a bit closer and placing his head against the man's shoulder. "Now I know why I feel attracted to you... You are like Wyatt. You saved the lives of your betas with your power, and he did the same to me."

Clyde ruffled his and Patrick's hair in response. "Yeah, little Wyatt is a good boy, and you two are the living proof of that." The soft smile on his face evolved into a grin. "Now who wants to fuck? I'm so horny you have no idea, guys!" And indeed, even during the sad and heartbreaking story the captivating, musky scent exhaled by his manhood had kept the level of arousal of the two betas quite high and their own erections firmly in place.

Drake, without a second of hesitation, turned around exposing his furry backside, his feet-paws on the ground and his hands resting on the leather sheets in a perfect mimic of the posture Patrick had taken the day before in Wyatt's room. "Wanna ride a cowboy, Clyde?" he asked in a playful tone.

The musclebear furrowed. "Are you sure about this, Drake? I mean, I know I told you that I wanted to fuck your ass, but I wasn't completely serious. Especially if you're submitting to me because you want to punish yourself for having lost against that girl or some bullshit like that."

"No," Drake shook his head with determination. "It's just my way to repay you. You opened yourself to me and told me your story, even if I'm sure it was painful for you to remember those days. And since I don't have something like that in my heart, at least allow me to offer you my body."

Clyde pinched one of his ass cheeks, making Drake yelp in pleasured surprise. "I like the way you think, handsome. Maybe you too will be a great alpha in the future."

"No, I don't want to leave Wyatt," Drake replied firmly. Why does everyone seem to feel entitled to telling me that?, he asked himself with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

"Yeah, that's what I thought about Boss, too," the musclebear pressed. "For me, he was my anchor, the north my compass always pointed towards... But things change, with time. It's inevitable." Clyde stopped waxing philosophical and begin to wax Drake's butthole with his copious pre. "I don't want to sound like a mindless horndog, but man, your ass looks really inviting, handsome!"

Drake chuckled, trying his best to focus on his own arousal and the canine prick that was soon going to ravage his ass than on the uneasiness he was experiencing. "Nah, be a beast alright, Clyde. I may be a good guy, but that doesn't mean I don't like fucking, especially since I've become a werewolf." He turned towards Patrick, that was still sitting on the bed with the face of someone unsure on what to do. "Hey, buddy, why don't you let me taste your doggy bone in the meanwhile?"

"Oh, a spitroast!" Clyde exclaimed in an appreciative tone. "Classic and simple but so fucking good. Yeah, stud, let Drake here give you a good head." Patrick nodded and finally climbed on the leathery sheets: as much as he loved giving pleasure than receiving it, he would've never said no to a good blowjob. "Whenever you're ready, handsome. Or do you want it to be a surprise?" Clyde whispered. One of his hands went down and slapped Drake's buttock, the claws leaving shallow cuts that barely bled and started healing in a couple of seconds.

Drake bit his lips in feeling the remote pain and the almost sparkling energy travelling over the skin of his butt to repair the slight damage. "You are the alpha, Clyde... Do what you want."

"In this case, well..." Drake didn't feel the blow coming until the tapered point of Clyde's prick burst through his pucker at full speed and entered inside him followed suit by the rest of the ample, big dick. The beta let out a long, low yelp of pain, in feeling the delicate skin and muscles of his asshole being brutalized. "Hey, you asked for me to do what I wanted," Clyde explained. "Don't worry, you'll be fine in no time. Bet the pain has already started to dull down... You'll love my cock inside you, everyone loves a dose of uncle Clyde..."

Drake opened his mouth to reply, but when he did so Patrick let fall a fat and oily drop of precum right on his tongue. Overwhelmed by the familiar taste and by the sensation of Clyde inside him, he just yipped weakly and started licking Patrick's stocky shaft with abandon. "Good..." Clyde murmured. His flanks were moving back and forth ever so gently, his dick just throbbing and bobbing inside Drake at least for the moment being. "Get used to having me inside you, handsome, 'cause I don't plan on coming out soon... Feels so good and warm in there."

"Make yourself at home," Drake stopped savoring Patrick's sticky fluids just in time to reply. He's right, it really feels good, he thought, wriggling his ass so that the cock would be buried even deeper inside him. F-fuck, I can feel he's bigger than Wyatt just by how it fills me... For a moment, as he went back at licking and sucking Patrick's dick, he pondered if he had become a slut. Well, I guess there's nothing wrong in enjoying something that makes you feel good, right?, he thought lazily. He looked up and Patrick stared back, a blissful and gentle expression on his wide bearded face; Drake could feel a warm, golden wave of gratitude coming from the bear and breaking at the borders of his soul, and once again he realized with the highest amazement how much intense and sheer the love he shared with his packmates was. Yeah, I wouldn't feel that good if it was just sex... Like with those alpha twins at Echo Creek: it had been great, but something was missing, a real bond.

Having sex while wearing leather felt great in quite the unexpected way, adding more than a new layer to the experience. Drake could smell the raw masculine scent exhaled by Drake's body and the intense, feral musk coming from this groin area, along with the gentler and more subdued - but still reeking of power and manliness - aroma of Patrick's dick in his nose and on his tongue; the peculiar odors of the werewolves, though, were knitted and bound together by something else, something that made them more substantial and poignant like a fragrant weft drawn through their respective warps to create a unique and extremely enticing cloth.

Drake inhaled sharply, his nostrils open and flared: the piquancy of tanned hide was overwhelming and permeating, and yet any piece of clothing had its own slightly different scent attached; the smell of his vest had a rough texture, but not as heavy and coarse as his Stetson, while the bandanna around his neck emanated a sweet, vanilla-like scent that increased the amount of drool he was liberally smearing all over the length of Patrick's dick.

What struck Drake more, though, weren't the odors: in a sense, he was expecting strange new aromas accompanying the presence of leather. The sounds, however, were a pleasant and at the same time bizarre sensorial experience: the slight but unmistakable creaking of the sheets under his thrashed body, the friction of said sheets against the garment hugging his legs and chest, the steely clicks of the chains and buckles keeping his partners' harnesses together, even the light bouncing of Clyde's heavy nipple piercings against his pecs... Every noise in the room converged with the moans, the slap of groin skin against groin skin, the sweaty, slippery sound of hands caressing backs and flanks, the desperate licking coming from Drake's mouth and the growls emitted at random intervals from the depths of three wolves' throats and created a primal, animalistic concert.

Fuck, this is so good..., Drake thought, unable to decide what felt better, whether Clyde's hand-paws caressing the skin of his back or the leather bedding rubbing against his chest. The intense and rough - but also very attentive - anal stimulation was making his brain release a torrent of endorphins, and the desire to feel hot cum flowing down his throat made his redouble his attempts at making Patrick reach the climax. The fingers of the deaf bear toyed with his fuzzy ears and scratched gently the tiny patches of sensitive skin just behind them, making Drake groan in incomparable bliss. It was more than sexual pleasure and stimulation provided by Clyde, even more than the love and the attachment he was feeling for his fellow pack member: every part of his body, of his mind and of his soul felt equally stimulated, as if every kind of pleasure a man could experience had been unified and condensed into unadulterated delight and smeared all over him like a therapeutic balm.

And yet, despite how incredible and rich the experience was, still a small querulous thought kept nagging him in the back of his mind; what was worse, it was perfectly in the right. It would be even better if Wyatt was here too. The thought of his alpha, his mate, his boyfriend, the most important person in his life not being there to enjoy that almost perfect moment with him caused small but perturbing cracks creep open the surface of the fragile bubble of bliss that enclosed the threesome. He's probably alone in our room right now, knowing that I'm being screwed by Clyde, Drake whimpered internally. I'm sorry, my alpha, I...

Like white noise overriding the screen of an old television, the sensation of Clyde's knot inflating inside his butt hole like a hard balloon cancelled the feeling of guilt from Drake's mind, sending him down a new downward spiral of pure carnal stimulation. F-fuck... Being knotted is always so... Nnngh... He whined despite Patrick's cock still obstructing his mouth, and bobbed his head up and down with impressive speed. It didn't take long for the big bear to cum; he had never been the kind of guy who could resist the notion of pleasure, after all.

Drake's mouth was invaded by a intense gush of yellow-white spunk; the metallic taste made him gag a bit, but he swallowed the most of it, even if some drops escaped his lips and stained the black sheets. Patrick's head entered his field of view, and Drake pulled him closer and gave him a messy fat kiss on the lips, while pushing some of the leftover sperm in his mouth with his dexterous tongue. The deaf bear moaned, clearly enjoying being snowballed; their golden gazes met each other, and the two werewolves could read both the joy and the slight, sorrowful dissatisfaction for their alpha's absence... But then Clyde thrust his knotted dick particularly deep inside Drake, and the beta could only moan in vulnerable bliss as a powerful spurt of precum splattered on the leather.

If the pleasure hadn't been so intense, Drake would've surely asked himself if indulging in a sexual act with Clyde was really the right thing to do, even if Wyatt had granted him and Patrick the permission to do so... but the extreme physicality of the moment had turned all his doubts and fears into a grey, pathetic mush just outside the corner of his current perceptions. The only thing he knew was that he was a werewolf, that he was horny, that another big and virile lycan was taking care of that and that he was feeling happy and loved. Nothing else mattered in that particular moment.

Drake was so entranced and so immersed into his cocoon of arousal that at first he didn't even realize he was cumming: he just felt his cock twitch and throb, and stared with glazed eyes at the strands of the dense fluid being sprayed all over him and Patrick; he felt so detached and so lost in his ass being stimulated that it was like looking at the scene of a porn movie instead of living it first-hand, and couldn't help but whimpering in seeing his orgasm being wasted like that... Even if it led the way to the most intense and pervasive afterglow Drake had ever experienced.

"Ooh, I so love smelling the spunk of other wolves!" Clyde exclaimed in unrestrained happiness. Of the three of them, he was clearly the one enjoying the sex the most, since he was the only one without strings attached. "Fuck yeah, handsome, can't wait to bury my face into your crotch and take a good whiff... The scent must be heavenly there!" The tone of frank and complete arousal made Drake yelp like he was in heat.

"Don't worry, handsome," Clyde growled. "As long as I like being inside you, I'm almost finished." He tried to take a deep breath, but his inhalation sounded broken and heavy, like he was snoring more than breathing. "F-fuck, here it comes... G-get read to be cream-filled, boy..."

The musclebear's wolf dick shoot its liquid bullets with such intensity and ferocity that Drake feared that one of them was going to puncture the delicate skin of his lower intestines; the orgasm of the burly alpha went on for so long that after a while his cock's spasms weren't accompanied by a jet of cum anymore. Drake moaned and whined, still wrapped inside his afterglow, unable to vocalize both his pleasure and his subtle yet persistent distress; the only thing he could do was wait, his hands scraping against the leather sheets, his toes contracting arhythmically and his tongue hanging limp from the corner of his mouth.

"D-damn..." Drake yelped as Clyde eased down on top of him and pressed against his bushy feathered tail. "This was s-so fucking intense, handsome... A-always good to tie a n-new ass..." The man panted and licked the nape of his partner's neck, as a way to let him know he had done a very good job. "I hope you enjoyed it too, but judging from your heartbeat and your smell I'm sure you did..."

"Y-yeah," Drake murmured in reply. Despite the fact that he was missing Wyatt horribly, there was no need to deny that getting fucked by Clyde had been a mind-blowing experience. "Your knot is... nnngh, so big..." Now that the thrusting had ceased, feeling something that big stuck just behind his pucker was a very strange sensation indeed.

Clyde let out a long and earthy laugh. "Yeah, that's the knot of a true man! Although, I bet little Wyatt still isn't that bad in bed, huh?"

Drake took a deep breath, the scent of leather and musk so intense they gave him the onset of a headache. "No, he's great," he replied in a dry tone. Even if he has Clyde's dick plunged deep inside his ass, the instinct of defending his own alpha and boyfriend was there, blazing strong and proud. "To be honest, Clyde... As much as I find you hot, I wouldn't have come here if he hadn't allowed me, and I'm sure Patrick has the same opinion." The bear, who was looking to Drake, nodded. "I'm faithful to him, and there's nothing in this world that can make me change my mind about that. Not you, nor anything else." He didn't realize that, but he even let out a brief but nonetheless menacing growl after his last words.

The musclebear patted him on the shoulder in an almost fatherly manner. "Don't worry, handsome, that wasn't my intention at all! I mean, Wyatt was the youngest alpha I had ever met when he first came here with his own pack two years ago, and not as a beta to his sister. And knowing how strong Talia is - because seriously, that chick is fierce as hell - and that he had stood up to her, well... I had to respect that kid. He's a great wolf, even if he's not my type of man... Which is kind of sad, since I can smell that he'd love to get in the sack with me from miles away. Oh, well." The man took a step back, dislodging himself from Drake's ass with a sloppy sound and a small yelp of pain coming from the beta. "Sorry for that, guess the knot still hasn't completely deflated..."

Drake massaged his slimy, hurt pucker, that was nevertheless already frizzling and repairing itself thanks to the regenerative powers of the werewolf. "I should probably go wash myself a bit," he said with a small smile on his face. "Sorry for having stained your bed sheets, Clyde."

The musclebear shrugged, making his harness click and shift. "Heh, you can't do my job if you don't know how to wipe cum spots off leather. Just go and clean yourself, handsome."

Fifteen minutes later, after a quick shower, Drake was still inside the bathroom, again (un)dressed as a leather-clad cowboy, his mane of wet brown hair falling quite handsomely on his shoulders. He had ditched the Stetson, that was hanging from a hook along with the red bathrobe he had used to dry himself off; after he had finished taking the shower he realized that he hadn't left his wolfman form, and instead of bothering drying his tail off (which would've taken a godawful amount of time) he had just made it retreat into his body before letting it sprout again. Too bad this doesn't work on the wet dog stink, too..., he thought with a slightly peeved snicker, before spraying a generous dose of deodorant around: the intense smell of pine made his sensitive nostrils wrinkle.

I should really go back to Wyatt now, he thought in a melancholic tone. I can feel his loneliness inside me... Now that the afterglow had been washed away by the shower stream, he was able to think more clearly. Okay, I'll go grab Patrick and our clothes and...

The moment Drake opened the door to the bedroom, though, he was faced by quite the bizarre scene: Clyde sitting on the bed with his legs open wide and a satisfied smirk on his face, while Patrick was busy polishing his fleshy pole with his chubby ass cheeks, bouncing up and down with glee. "Oh, Pat..." Drake groaned, although couldn't help but flashing him an amused smile. The deaf bear looked at him with a guilty face and flushed cheeks, as if to say "Hey, you left me alone with him, what was I supposed to do?"

A faint electronic noise resonated from the other side of the door and three persons barged inside the room, one of them brandishing a key card. "Sorry, Clyde, we got bored, and..." Gordon, one of the head betas of the musclebear exclaimed, before realizing what was happening in front of his eyes. "Oh. Wow."

Eddie, the Latino biker, immediately noticed Drake and walked to him before brushing his mustached against his neck in a very sensual and provocative gesture. "Hey, sexy... You and I have the same build. Why don't you wear my baby and ride me like I was your bike?" he said, while stroking seductively at his slick biker suit. It was clearly a one of a kind, custom-sized model, as the strategically place slit on the back showed; a grey and white tail, not unlike that of a timber wolf, made its way outside and swatted the air.

Pointy teeth nibbled on Drake's neck without puncturing the skin. "Please, Eddie, you're always so boring..." Solomon, the red-haired hipstery punk, replied. "I'm sure Drake here is eager to try something a bit more extreme... What's your opinion about gas masks?"

Drake gulped: the attention the two betas were reserving him had made him excited again, and the arousal was betrayed by his cock tip poking from his gunmetal-furred sheath. "To be honest, after seeing that Doctor Who episode with the gas-masked kid, they creep me out a lot..." he somehow managed to reply.

Solomon let out a disappointed groan. "Why the hell does everyone give me the same answer?"

"Come on, guys, stop pestering him," the gruff voice of Gordon reluctantly drove the two betas away: Eddie latched on Clyde, licking his daddy beard and sucking on his fat tongue, while Solomon did his best to brush his backside on Patrick's bouncing and exposed cock, clearly hoping for some butt action of his own.

"Sorry about them," the short bearded blond guy blurted out while staring at the four werewolves having fun on the bed. "My brothers tend to be quite exuberant, but they are good guys."

Drake looked at him with a surprised look and an amused smile. "Brothers? So you really consider each other family?"

Gordon furrowed. "Of course we do. For me, Clyde is a father, a big brother and my best friend; he saved my life, gave me a second chance and is the most important person in my life. How should I think about him if not as 'family'?" The small bear looked at him, and despite his thuggish face his eyes shone of a gentleness that was both remarkable and quite rare. "I mean, I'm sure you think the same about your pack, right?"

You know I don't like when a family member is late. The words pronounced by Cordelia resonated through Drake's brain once again; being considered a part of the Underhill clan had warmed his heart, even if he already had a loving family back home Although, despite calling his real parents at least once a week and having visited them for Christmas, he of course still hadn't told his mother and father anything about his new nature, not to mention the fact that he had a boyfriend. With the Underhills, on the other hand - not to mention his pack, of course - he didn't have any secret: they knew he was a werewolf and that Wyatt was his mate, and had no problem whatsoever. "Yeah. You're right," he finally replied to Gordon with a gentle smile.

"So?" the blond man asked with a grin, tilting his head towards the bed. "Wanna join the fun?"

Drake looked down, lost in an internal debate: his body and senses were telling him yes, but his mind and heart weren't that sure. "No, I... I'm sorry. Right now I have the feeling that I should be with my alpha."

Gordon caressed his arm in a surprisingly tender gesture. "Dude, that's just natural for us. No need to feel strange or guilty because of that... Bet you love Wyatt, huh?"

"Y-yes. With... with every fiber of my being. I'm sorry, that probably sounds stupid and sappy..."

The small bear looked up at him with a stern face; he looked dour, harsh even. "That's exactly what I feel for Clyde. Are you telling me you think this is stupid and sappy?"

Drake's eyes bulged. "N-no, I didn't..."

Gordon let out a sonorous laugh and patted his back with his callous palm. "Just joking, just joking. But seriously, dude, never belittle your feelings towards your alpha. More than the transformation, more than the awesome sex... I think having someone you can love and trust unconditionally is the best thing about being a werewolf."

The two betas stood in one corner of the room talking about their respective experiences while the other four lycans frolicked on the bed. After a hot, messy climax and a copious amount of sperm sprayed around, Clyde, Patrick, Eddie and Solomon just lied on the leather sheets for a couple of minutes with their limbs and tails tangled together. "T-that was even more awesome than before, stud..." Clyde murmured, caressing Patrick's face with his knuckles. "No offense, handsome," he then added, looking at Drake.

"None taken," the young man replied with an amused smile. In the meantime, he had discarded - even if with a hint of sadness - his sexy cowboy outfit and put his own clothes back on. "Thanks for letting me try some leather, by the way."

Clyde grinned. "What are you talking about, kid? Those are yours to keep, of course. I'm sure Wyatt will love seeing you dressed like that! And the same goes for you, Patrick. I wouldn't want them back anyway," he added in a firm tone when he realized Drake had opened his mouth to object. "You let me fuck your asses while wearing that gear, which means it's rightfully yours now."

It was almost two in the morning when Drake managed to slither inside his own room as silently as possible. Wyatt was lying on the king size bed with only a pair of shorts on, his face turned towards the back wall, but from the rhythm of his breathing it was clear he was just pretending to be sleeping. Drake abandoned the leather gears and his jacket on a nearby chair and climbed on the bed. "I'm sorry, Wyatt, I didn't want to..." he started, before the alpha turned around and his lithe arms grabbed him and pulled him closer.

"Ssssssh. No. Please, Drake... Just stay close to me, okay?" He didn't sound angry or sad, just in extreme, desperate need. "You know what scares me the most right now? The idea of losing you somehow, my dragon... I'm so in love with you that just thinking too much about that would probably destroy me."

Drake wrapped his own arms against his mate's body. "I'm not going anywhere, Wyatt. I promise." I don't care what the other people say... My place is right here, with him and with my packmates, he thought, feeling strangely liberated. "I'll be with you for as long as you need me."

Wyatt had his forehead pressed against the chest of his beta, but Drake knew he was smiling. "Can we sleep like this? Close to each other?" he murmured in a drowsy voice.

Drake smiled too, looking at the opposite wall. "Of course we can," he replied, before realizing that Wyatt had already fallen asleep.

* * * *

"Angela?" Drake tapped his knuckles on the door of room 1097. It was almost half past ten, because after he and Wyatt had woken up the alpha had insisted on cuddle a bit and take a long shower together, probably as a way to reassert the bond he had with his beta and lover. "Are you in there? Can we talk?"

A few seconds later, he heard noises coming from the inside of the room, and Angela opened the door; she looked gentle and a bit melancholic as her usual, and the scarf she was wearing was blood red just like her fur as a werewolf. "I was waiting for you, Drake," she said with a tentative smile. "Kaylee went somewhere with Chance, apparently he is trying to find that new girl from Joy's pack. Come inside."

The girl's room was clean and spotless, exactly how Drake had imagined it to be. The young man thought for a momentat the leather gear he abandoned on the chair still reeking of his sweat and musk, and couldn't help but blushing a bit. "So, um... Is everything alright?"

Angela turned around to face him with a very amused expression. "That is probably something I should be asking you, Drake... Still sad for what happened yesterday during the Battle of the Betas?"

"Huh?" Drake did his best not to lower his gaze. "N-no, don't worry, I got over it... for the most part." He felt the need to scratch the back of his neck as always, but instead he just brushed his foot against the floor carpeting. "Although, about that, there's something I should probably ask you. That girl, Inori... Have you noticed something strange about her? Like, did you feel, um... some sort of strange feeling?" God, I can't really ask Angela if she had the hotties for her too...

"Yes," the young woman's reply left him dumbfounded for a moment. "She was incredibly sad. I would say... desolate. That is the word I was searching for." Angela tilted her head slightly on her left, her auburn hair shifting like a wavy curtain. "You seem surprised, like you were waiting for a completely different answer."

"Um... Yeah, to be honest you're right, Angela." Apparently, whatever trick Inori used only worked on men, regardless of their sexual orientation, he pondered. "She didn't look that sad to me." Except for that split second where she seemed in pain while letting the wolf out, he noted himself mentally.

"Well, that is the point, you see..." Angela looked at him with the most sorrowful smile. "If there is someone who can recognize sadness, that is me." She didn't sound hurt, and the matter-of-fact tone of her voice actually made the words she had just said even more depressing; she apparently realized that too, because she shook her head. "Oh, I am so sorry, Drake. I do not want this to be of those overly sad moments where someone talks about their tragic past... I just want you to know a bit more about me, okay?" The girl sat on her bed, and invited Drake to take a seat on the nearby armchair. "I am sure you have been wondering why I always wear scarves, even during the primal moons."

"Um... Well, yeah, of course. I mean, I don't want to sound rude or whatever, but..." Drake looked at the young woman with an inquisitive stare. If she hadn't known her and hadn't been her packmate, he would've thought she was trying to make fun of him.

Angela nodded. "I think it is time for you to know. I have to warn you, what you are going to see is not a nice thing." She unwrapped the scarf from around her neck, but hesitated before taking it off. "Are you sure you want to see?"

Drake looked back at her with a very puzzled face. "Come on, Angela, I'm sure whatever thing you have under that scarf is not even remotely as horrible as you might think!"

The young woman sighed. "Okay. Okay, then," and she let the red scarf fall down on the floor, where it clottedlike a snake made out of blood. Angela lowered her face towards her right shoulder with her eyes closed, as if she was trying with all her might to get as far as she could from the left side of her neck, both with her mind and the rest of her body.

The dark purplish-gray blot that disfigured her skin was long and egg-shaped; it looked too neat and defined to be a simple bruise, and made Drake feel revolted and uneasy for some reason, like that spot was a black hole in which he could fall into head first, if he wasn't careful enough. What was worse, it slightly protruded from her skin and appeared to pulse in accord with Angela's heartbeat. Is that a scar?, the male werewolf asked himself, trying not to divert his eyes from the hideous show. No, that's...

"...a mark," Angela completed the sentence for him. She grabbed the scarf from the floor and quickly donned it again, pressing the cloth against her ruined skin as if the gesture could give her some relief. "Some hunters treat their weapons with silver nitrate, so that even if the bullet doesnot kill their prey, they can still be recognizable." She was still talking in a detached, distant voice, as if she was recounting something that happened to some distant relative. "It does not heal, in case you are wondering, not even when I shift into my primal form; the fur... simply refuses to grow over it. Moira could not find a way to make it disappear, so..."

"Wait," Drake felt a cold shiver slithering down his back, long and unpleasant like a venomous snake crawling just between his skin and his spine. "Are you telling me that... You faced a hunter, in the past?" Everyone kept talking about them, especially after all the deaths that had happened in the airports around the world just a couple weeks prior, but Drake still hadn't managed to understand why they hated werewolves so much... Especially someone like Angela, who - apart from the brief moment of enraged frenzy she had had during the direwolf attack - was one of the kindest and gentlest persons Drake had ever had the pleasure to meet.

"Twice, actually," she replied. "I was seven years old at the time, or maybe eight." She looked almost embarrassed by what she had just said, and lowered her face so that some of her auburn bangs could fall over her forehead and eyes.

"Wow," Drake exclaimed, duly impressed. "And you managed to survive?" Well, okay, that was a very stupid thing to say, since she's still alive...

Angela raised her gaze again, and her now red-speckled golden eyes sent another shiver through the young man's body... and this time in fear, not in horror. "No," she answered. "I managed to kill him."

* * * *

The young beast ran through the woods, her fangs bare, her golden eyes crying. She wasn't human, even if she looked and moved just like a child. The left side of her neckwas covered in encrusted blood, and even if all the other cuts and wounds around her small, delicate body were healing at a slow but definitely inhuman pace, the dark bruise near her shoulder kept sending impulses of pure, cruel pain right to her brain, clouding her sight and forcing her to wheeze and pant. Never before in her life had she experienced something like it, and...

Her life... What about her life, as a matter of fact? The young beast darted through some bushes, her small but deadly claws cutting through leaves and young twigs, while she realized that she didn't remember anything about her life. Not her house, or the face of her parents. Not even her name. The only thing she knew - and she knew that with perfect, alienating clarity - was that someone was chasing her, the same person who had left her with a wound her body wasn't able to heal.

He was still behind her, running among the trees; she was a beast, sure, but she was young and weak and he was a strong man with a rigorous training and years of experience...And since he was the hunter, the only part the young beast could aspire to was the prey. Something whizzed next to her head, making her yelp in pain and dart to her right, trying to put some trees between her and the indefatigable pursuer; she wasn't thinking, she was just acting as her instinct dictated. The ringing sound in her sensitive pointed ears was menacing her balance, and she nearly tripped over an exposed root.

The young beast's lungs were on fire, the hideous bruise on her neck pulsed like it was trying to rip itself from her skin and her bare feet-paws were covered in cuts and wounds that routinely healed themselves while new ones opened, leaving a trail of tiny droplets of blood behind her. Even if she was a wolf, she knew that she couldn't last much longer: she was tired, afraid, alone and she didn't remember anything about her life... And most of all, she was just a little girl.

Her legs were about to give up, the steps of her chaser were sounding heavier and closer with every passing second, and she could see dark red snowflakes clouding her vision; the ringing echo left in her ears by the bullet shot by the hunter had been replaced by a muffled rumbling sound... A sound that suddenly sounded familiar to the young beast: the sound of a remote, yet achievable, safety. Her blood red tail swished in the autumn fresh air as she darted in the direction of the noise, barely avoiding another barrage of shots who made tree bark explode into fragments and a flock of small birds took wing from the branches of a nearby birch with a plethora of daunted screeches.

The young beast dove into yet another barrier of shrubs and emerged on a hard, dark-grey path. Even if she didn't remember anything about her past life, she still knew that human beings could often be found on places like that; her blazing eyes looked around in panic, and she saw exactly what she was looking for: a battered, bottle green pickup truck parked nearby, just by the side of the road. With her last ounce of strength, the young beast jumped inside the back of the truck, and let herself slip under some old, smelly blankets, where she crouched in a fetal position and started crying in complete silence.

When she felt the rumble on the engine make the entire vehicle vibrate and stagger, the young beast quivered in incredulous relief under her fetid hiding place, a small sigh escaping her cracked lips. Despite the dark bruise on the side of her neck still pulsing painfully, she closed her eyes and - lulled by the truck stumbling on the road - she fell asleep, and she somehow managed not to dream anything.

_ * * * * _

When the young beast woke up, the first thing she realized was that the smells around her were completely different, even before staring at the unfamiliar room with confused eyes. The bed sheets she was lying into were cold to the touch and had the pungent odor of mothballs; she was still wearing the tattered, torn clothes she had on when she had been chased through the woods, but someone had cleaned the blood from her skin and feet-paws. The young beast raised a clawed hand, but even before her pads could touch the skin, she knew perfectly well that the purplish scar was still there, still pulsing at the same rhythm of the blood being pumped through her arteries... Although, the real surprise camewhen she felt some bandages wrapped around her neck.

The room around her was bare and essential, but gave off a distinct melancholic vibe: on the brightly colored shelves secured to the wooden walls in one corner of the room some old, mangy stuffed toys stared at her with glass eyes, and a series of slightly faded pictures decorated the surface of the blocky wooden drawer in front of the bed.

"Oh, you finally woke up!" a good-natured sounding voice resonated through the ajar door, before someone slipped inside the room. It was an elderly man, with wispy white hair and the plump yet wizened face that looked like an old apple; he was tall and portly, with an almost unnoticeable lameness, and was carrying a small tray with a colourful ceramic bowl on it. "How are you?"

Less than a moment later, the young beast had her body pressed against the opposite wall, her pointed ears lowered and a distinct growl rumbling in her throat. She bared her fangs, trying to look as menacing as possible. The old man looked at her and let out a sincere and earthy laugh. "I see you are quite lively! Here, I brought you some milk." He placed the tray on the bed, and a sweet, sugary scent immediately titillated the nose of the young beast. "Or would you prefer some meat?"

The young beast took a couple of cautious steps towards the bowl full of warm liquid; she was scared, nervous and confused, but most of all she was tired and hungry. Her canine tongue darted outside her lips and licked the white surface: it was tasty and made her stomach rumble. She lapped another couple of times, before grabbing the bowl and gulping down its content in mere seconds; she even let out a small burp, before putting the big cup back on the tray with unexpected care. "You liked it, huh?" the man asked.

The young beast looked at him, and her tail left the secure spot between her legs... At least its tip. Her ears raised a bit, before she nodded begrudgingly. "Can you talk, young lady?" the man asked her next. He stood close to the door, and didn't try to get closer, not even to get his tray back.

The young beast lowered her gaze. "Y-yes," she whispered in response. She again brought her hand up to the bandages wrapped around her neck. "Y-you did this?" she asked, still without looking to him.

"Yes," the man replied. "Are you feeling a little better?"

The fingers of the young beast twitched, but she couldn't help to blush a bit. "Still hurts. B-but... yes. T-thank you."

The man let out another amused and gentle laughter. "You are a very polite young lady!" He sounded a little surprised. "My name is Bernard, by the way, but you can call me Bernie. And you are?"

The young beast opened her mouth as if to reply, but no sound emerged from her lips; she seemed to try and say something one, two, three times, but there was something broken in the link between her memories and her tongue. "I... I don't remember. I'm sorry." She sat down on the light blue carpet, her arms around her knees and her tail swatting gently on the floor.

"You... Do not remember?"Bernie repeated; he sounded worried and sad, all of a sudden. "How about your family? Your life? Your home?"

The young beast shook her head, tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. "Nothing. Nothing..." she murmured in a desolate tone. Bernie took a step forward with a big smile on his face. His teeth were too white and regular to be true, and despite the fact that she was crying the young beast instinctively raised her head and growled, her fangs bare and her eyes shining gold; even if the old man had treated her gently, she couldn't get rid of her fears that easily... For her confused and anxious mind, someone showing her his teeth like that was nothing short of a threat.

Bernard took a step back, making sure not to do any sudden movement. "Alright, I will stay here. Although... You will still need a name, right? At least until you remember your real one." He looked at the old pictures arranged over the drawer and his luminous eyes became bittersweet. "How about... Angela? Do you like that? It was the name of a beautiful and polite young lady, just like you."

"Angela?" the young beast replied. The name rolled on her tongue in an unfamiliar, but not unpleasant way. "I like... Angela."

Bernard smiled at her, even if judging from the wrinkles around his eyes he looked like someone on the verge of crying. "Yes. I am sure you would have." The man shook his head. "Anyway, if you need to use the bathroom, it is the door right in front of this one. Should you need something, just call me. Do you remember my name?"

The young beast nodded, an incredibly slow gesture that took her a considerable effort. "B-Bernie," she whispered.

"Good." With slow and careful movements, despite his lame leg, he managed to recover the tray and the empty bowl. "See you later, then... Angela." After Bernard had closed the door behind him, the young beast kept her eyes fixed on the wooden panel for several long minutes, fully expecting it to burst open and the black-dressed chaser to jump into the room, his rifle pointed to her face... But nothing like that happened: the door remained closed, and the young beast could feel her eyelids lower against her will; the young beast yawned, her fangs glistening in the golden light of an Autumn afternoon seeping through the white curtains at the window, and crawled back on the bed with a small grumble.

This time she dreamed a bit, but she couldn't still remember anything afterwards.

* * * *

The first time the young beast left her new nest not to use the bathroom was three days later. She could smell a rich, appetizing scent that made her drool a bit over the bed sheets: the aroma of roasted meat became so intense that before she realized what she was doing, she was already on her way to the kitchenette.

Bernie was standing in front of an old stove, cutting some potatoes into small cubes and singing a random and slightly off-key - but very happy - tune. When the old man realized that someone was staring at him, he put the knife down and turned around very slowly with a big smile on his face (even if he was careful not to show her his teeth, this time). "Oh, hi, Angela! Are you hungry?"

The young beast took a half-step back and lowered his ears a bit, but she didn't try to appear menacing or to bare her fangs: she just stood there, unsure of what to do and with just a hint of drool trickling from a corner of her mouth. "Yes, you are definitely hungry!" Bernie exclaimed. "Take a sit at the table then, miss. I have enough beef here to feed an army!"

The young beast climbed on the wooden chair Bernie pointed at; even if she was still wary and a bit scared, she didn't fail to notice that the table had already been set for two. She swung her legs back and forth, the clawed nails of her feet-paws barely scraping against the floor; her golden stare still felt too heavy to be raised. Only when Bernie placed a white ceramic plate full of a generous serving of steaming hot meat she dared to look up: the beef was juicy, covered in thick and rich gravy and served with roasted potatoes on the side. A part of the young beast's body growled ferociously, but this time it wasn't her throat: she devoured the meat and everything that was on her plate, potatoes included... although, she still remembered to use her cutlery.

"I am glad you liked everything so much," Bernie looked at her and gave her another warm smile. "Want another serving?"

The young beast considered the offer: to be honest, she was still a bit hungry, but she thought that maybe asking for more would've been impolite, so she just shook her head, her auburn hair bouncing over her shoulders. "T-thanks, Bernie..." she murmured, once again lowering her golden eyes.

"You are most welcome, miss," was the old man's reply. "You know, having someone to eat lunch with is a great thing, especially since my Cora was... well, gone. It's been seven years since that." He sighed, his stare lost in the stains of gravy studding his own empty plate. "Can I ask you something, Angela? Exactly... what are you?"

The young beast looked back at him - well, at his chin, at least - more confused than ever. "Angela?" she repeated in a tremulous voice, as if she was desperately trying to give the right answer to a question that was too difficult for her to handle.

Bernard slapped himself on the forehead. "Sorry, I forgot about your memory loss!" The man stared at her for a long moment. "Well, maybe we are a bit different, but..."

"D-different." Angela stared at the dark claws that tipped her fingers, then at Bernard's pink nails. Her tail twitched uncomfortably against the back of her seat, and her furry ears dropped down a bit. "I..."

"Listen, Angela... Are you feeling happy now that you are having lunch with someone else?"

The young beast bit her lower lip with her tiny fangs. "Y-yes."

"Me too. And how about the roasted beef? Was it good? Did you like it?"

"Yeah," the young beast moved her eyes to her empty plate, and a small and timid smile surfaced on her lips. "It was really good."

Bernard nodded, and the smile on his face was larger and more luminous than before. "See? We both are human, then, even if we look a bit different from each other. And by the way, that tail is incredibly cute!"

"U-um," the young beast still didn't feel like raising her gaze again, but she felt pleased and warm inside, as if the old man's words had lit a tiny fire in her chest. She brushed her padded fingers over her belly, and that gesture made her realize she had been wearing the same dirty and ruined clothes for days; she brought an arm close to her face to sniff it and winced at the penetrant odor. "I need a bath," she proclaimed in a displeased voice.

Bernard laughed again, his nose red and surrounded by a network of microscopic capillaries. "I will find some new clothes for you in the meantime, then. Just give me some minutes to do the dishes and I will fill the tub."

Less than an hour later, the young beast was sitting in an old - but spotless clean - bathtub, her tail floating like a furry island in a sea of white foam. She sighed, crossing her lithe arms over the border of the tub and resting her chin over them, her eyes closed; she was feeling better than she had had, well... since she could remember, which wasn't much. With the hot water caressing her body and soothing her inner turmoil, she even managed to forget about the black-clad hunter that had chased her in the woods... Until, of course, she remembered the horrible mark she had received from him.

The swollen bruise was still there, of course, feeling out of place and disgusting like a cocoon planted just under her skin by some monstrous wasp, almost ready to hatch into a grotesque larva and devour her from the inside. The young beast hissed and pulled out her fingertips from the purple blot as if her skin had suddenly turned scorching hot; she sighed, feeling her stomach heavy and nervous again, and slipped out of the water. Her wet tail wagged, spraying droplets all around the small bathroom before she realized she was making a mess and her furry appendage slithered in the space between her legs to drip quietly over the sponge mat.

The bathrobe Bernie had given her was so big she lost herself inside it for a couple of seconds, trapped under a tent that smelled of medicines and aftershave; the jumpsuit she put on once she had dried herself off was at least her size, even if it looked old and smelled like the inside of a cabinet: it was pink and decorated with a happy-looking unicorn, so it had surely been destined to a young girl like her. "Look at you, Angela! You are adorable," the old man exclaimed when she finally emerged from the bathroom. He seemed happy, although there were still some fragments of sadness trapped in the corners of his eyes.

"T-thanks," the young beast replied, her cheeks red. "B-but..."

Bernard nodded. "I know. That's why I want you to have this," and the man wrapped something warm and woolly around her neck. "Until we find a way to get rid of that bad bruise, at least you won't have to look at it if you don't want to."

The young beast stared at the scarf around her neck with awe and wonder: it was long, striped and a bit itchy, but it was really soft; she nuzzled the side of her face against it and let out a small, contented moan of happiness. Even if it was lopsided and some of the stitches had fallen out leaving some tiny holes here and there, it was still the best gift she could remember receiving. "My dear Cora knitted it for, well..." Bernard gulped, and from the expression on his face it was clear that he had a hard lump hidden somewhere in his throat. "Have you seen the pictures in your room, miss?"

The young beast nodded; there were at least twenty of them, all sharing the same subject: a young girl with blond hair and freckles, shining green eyes and the slightest hint of a hooked nose. She looked happy, vibrant of energy and life, and almost always smiling. "She was your age, eight years ago... when it happened. She loved coming here during the holidays... After all, every little girl and boy loves his grandparents, right?" His sigh was long and broken. "She was playing in the backyard, that day. Me and Cora told her countless times not to go into the woods alone, and since she always listened to what we told her, we weren't worried, but..."

Bernard hesitated and his lame leg betrayed him for a moment, forcing him to lean against the wall for balance. "When we realized she was gone it was already too late. We searched her for hours, but... T-they said it was a mountain lion. When they found her, I..." Tears started streaming down his face. "Our daughter has refused to speak with us ever since, and Cora, she... she loved both of them so much, she basically l-left herself..." The old man shook his head and brushed away the tears with the back of his hand. "I am sorry, I don't know why I am telling you all this."

The young beast let out a soft and tremulous yelp. She was feeling sad and miserable, the loneliness and the sorrow in Bernard's words having hit her squarely in her small chest like a block of stone; she desperately tried to find something she could do to make him feel better, and resorted to the simplest thing she could think of: the young beast hugged the massive body of the old man, brushing her face against the shirt stretched over his prominent belly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she kept repeating, like a mantra or an enchantment to give him some solace.

Bernard looked down at her, his eyes still watery; only in that moment he seemed to realize that for the first time in four days the young beast was touching him on her own volition. One of his meaty hands patted her gently on a shoulder, in a sweet and caring manner. "Thank you, Angela. You are so kind... How about having meat again for dinner?"

_ * * * * _

When the young beast woke up, roughly a week later, she felt oddly nervous and restless; lying in her bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, she inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm herself down without that much success. There was something odd and magnetic that was drawing her stare up, something that she knew she should have remembered but that - just like everything else from her previous life - was shrouded in a thick and unfathomable fog.

Her sensitive furry ears, however, caught something strange coming from the living room: Bernie was talking with someone, another man who sounded a whole lot younger than him. The young beast, feeling curious, slid down the bed and started plodding towards the door of her room, but then the smell of the human conversing with Bernard hit her nostrils like a punch right into her face; she backed away against the wall, her small fangs bared and a dull growl in her throat.

"I'm just here to warn you, mister Ford," the hunter was saying to Bernard. "I asked around in town, I know you bought some kid's clothes, and..."

"I am sorry, mister... Hunt, right?" the old man replied in a cheerful voice. "I would say that what I do or what I buy are my own business and mine only."

"Let's cut to the chase, mister Ford," the hunter said. His tone was calm and collected, but the young beast could hear his heartbeat from there: he was rapidly getting angry and nervous. "I know you are hiding her, probably right in this very house, and..."

"I honestly don't know what are you talking about, mister Hunt," Bernie interrupted him with seraphic tranquillity. "Truth is, I just bought some presents for my granddaughter Angela. She'll visit me next week. Now if you'll excuse me I have to start cooking lunch, and..."

"Well, don't tell me I didn't warn you, mister Ford," the hunter hissed. "The thing you're hiding... she may look human and innocent, but she's a heartless monster and tonight she'll surely kill you. Or worse."

Bernard let out an amused chuckle. "I'm sorry, mister Hunt, but I don't have time to deal with lunatics. There's a group of youngsters in town who pretend to be elves and dwarves in the weekends, and I'm sure they'll love your stories about being a werewolf hunter or whatever you believe yourself to be. Now I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave my house, unless you want me to call the cops. Have a good day, mister Hunt."

"Mister Ford, listen, I..."

"I said, good day."

After she had heard Bernard lock the front door of the house, the young beast risked leaving her room; the old man was standing at the start of the hallway, looking at her with opened arms and a big sad smile on his face. "You heard everything, right?" The young beast nodded, her prominent fangs sticking from under her upper lip more than any other day, really giving the vibe of a savage woodland creature. "I am sorry, Angela. I still don't know who you are, but I want to protect you until you get your memories back... That guy won't hurt you. I promise."

The young beast nodded. "T-thank you, Bernie," she murmured. She felt somewhat relieved, but the nervousness she had been feeling since waking up wasn't that easy to calm down: it was a voice speaking in growls and roars in her ears, telling her of dark woods, of spicy warm blood and of long sonorous howls under the silvery light of the full moon.

Both during the awkward, strained and mostly silent lunch, and during her daily bath time, the young beast tried with all her might to put that voice to sleep... But the more the hours passed, the more the night inevitably approached, and the more the whispers were turning into screams right in the middle of his brain.

At four in the afternoon, when Bernie went back into the living room after having cleaned the kitchenette, he found the young beast staring outside the window with feverish eyes at a sunny afternoon that was right on the verge of descending into dusk. "What are you doing?" the old man exclaimed, walking towards her to take her away from the window. "What if that guy is still around here?"

The young beast turned around with a swift gesture and bared her fangs, her tail erect and fuzzy in fury behind her; her yellow eyes were blazing gold, and her hands twitched making her deadly claws appear and disappear at random intervals. Bernard gulped and blinked his eyes repeatedly, but didn't divert his stare, nor he stepped back. "Calm down, Angela," he said in a quiet but tense tone. "I am not going to hurt you. I just want you to calm down, okay?"

The young beast growled again, but this time her throat vibrated in confusion more than in rage: she was in the very middle of two completely different feelings, the affection she had for the old man in front of her and the dark and irresistible instinct telling her to run, to hunt and to be wild. Bernard took a step forward and stretched his arm, as if he was trying to pet her with his slightly trembling hand...

With a sudden snarl, the beast lunged forward, and sank her fangs into the wrinkly skin of the man; the sudden metallic taste of blood on her tongue made the young beast snap from her confusion and let out an alarmed yelp. She looked down, and discovered that her little fangs had barely punctured Bernard's hand; with a supreme act of force of will, the shame coursing through her veins, she raises her golden irises, and saw that the old man was still smiling at her, even if he was clearly a bit shocked because of the bite and the pain. "S-sorry, Bernie..." she whispered. In the back of her mind, she knew she had done something wrong, but she didn't exactly know why.

Bernard looked down at the dots of crimson blood on his skin. "Don't worry, Angela... See? It's not even bleeding anymore." With some difficulty, because of his creaking knees, he sit on the sofa and patted on the cushion next to him. "Come on, sit here with me." The young beast obliged, although with some circumspection. "You know, Angela... We never actually talked about it, but... you really don't remember anything about your past? Not even the reason why that man is trying to... well, to find you?"

The young beast stared down at her clawed feet. "I... He thinks I am a monster, right?"

"And are you?" Bernie asked, and despite the apparently blunt question the tone of his voice was sweet and caring.

Angela shook her head. "I... I don't know. I don't remember... M-maybe I am..."

_ The old man took a deep, somewhat fatigued breath. "No, don't say that. You are a wonderful young lady, Angela. Never... never forget that." The man groaned and tried to get back on his feet. "D-damn, I feel my throat burning... Better go and drink something..." The attempt at standing up, although, failed miserably: Bernie lost the balance and fell back against the sofa, a long gasp escaping from his lips. "What the..."_

"I'll get you a cup of water!" the young beast exclaimed: more than anything, in that moment, she wanted to be useful to her savior. Jumping on her feet-paws she trotted towards the kitchenette and filled a big glass with tap water, before scooting back to the living room. "Here, Bernie! ...Bernie?"

The glass of water fell from the paws of the young beast and bounced against the fluffy carpet, spreading its liquid content all around. Bernie was lying against the sofa in a strange position, like a fat ventriloquist puppet; his cheeks were flushed and red, the skin of his nose tensed and full of broken capillaries. "A-Angela... I..."the man croaked, trying to keep his eyes open and failing to.

The young beast run to him and placed her leathery pads against his forehead: his skin was so hot that for a moment she felt like burning. "I..." she whispered, her eyes full of tears. "Is it... because I bit you? I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Her small canine tongue darted outside her mouth and licked the hand of the old man; tasting her own blood, even such a tiny quantity, made her stomach revolt.

"N-no..." Bernie managed to lift his other hand and placed it on the head of the young beast. "Angela... this week has been... happier than the past... seven years..." The old man wheezed like an agonizing dog. "T-thank you... for..."A single tear rolled down from the corner of his eye and landed on the sofa, leaving a tiny, perfectly round wet spot on the fabric.

"B-Bernie?" the young beast asked. The hand of the old man slipped down from her head and fell next to his body; the meaty fingers twitched a couple of times before they stopped moving altogether. "Bernie...?" she repeated in a tremulous voice. Now that the man wasn't breathing anymore and his heartbeat had stopped, he looked awfully small despite his size.

"Bernie, I-I am sorry... P-please, Bernie, please..."the young beast, tears staining her cheeks, grabbed the old man for his shoulders and shook him, making his head bounce around like that of a deranged puppet; his mouth opened a bit and his swollen tongue rolled out grotesquely.

You killed him, t_he voice inside the young beast whispered in devious glee._ But it was all his fault, you know? He wasn't strong enough to be one of us. He was just a pathetic and sad old man.

"I killed him..." the young beast replied, her eyes wide; she could feel her irises prickling and burning, as if she was staring directly into the sun. "I killed him, I killed him, I killed him..."

Yes, you did, the implacable voice went on. After all, you are a beast, right? You are a monster. And that's what beasts and monsters do.

"N-no..." the young beast shook her head, but something had changed inside her: her eyes were slowly but surely turning blood red from their usual gold, and she could feel something crawling under the skin, ready to rip its way out of her. She cried and whizzed, trying to resist but feeling the pain and the fear and the guilt mounting inside of her, becoming too overwhelming for her weak willpower...

And then, a second voice overrode the first one, just for a moment. A gentle, familiar voice, speaking to her from a place too distant to be reached. "You are a wonderful young lady, Angela. Never... never forget that," Bernie said to her. He didn't sound angry or sad... If anything, his tone was grateful: wherever he was headed now, his wife and granddaughter were probably waiting for him.

The young beast closed her eyes and focused on the memory of those words, trying to exclude the whispers of the dark voice from her mind, turning it into harmless white noise. The silent fight continued for several long minutes, the young beast standing with her eyes closed next to the dead man who had saved her; when she finally opened her eyelids again, the irises had gone back to their usual golden shade... although, they were now stained by tiny specks of scarlet, as if they were permanently blood-shot.

The young beast raised her head to the ceiling and howled, crying her little heart out, tears streaming down her face. Her body was getting warmer and she could feel a strange and powerful energy swirling around her and inside her; but even as her skin sprouted blood red fur, her body became bigger and her face extended into a lupine muzzle, she kept whimpering and mourning the only person she could ever remember having been gentle and kind to her.

After her transformation was over, the young beast took off her pink jumpsuit with some difficulty and placed it on the sofa next to Bernard; for a moment she considered leaving the scarf there too, but the sensation of the wool against the foul mark on her skin was too comforting to be abandoned. With slow, uncertain movements she lowered her muzzle and gave one last lick to Bernard's immobile face, just on his cheek; she mewled once when she felt the warmth starting to abandon the body, then turned around with a flicker of her blood red tail and darted towards the back door to disappear in the forest.

When the young beast found herself outside Bernard's house after a week of living inside, however, she felt disoriented and confused: she had no other place to go, so she just darted through the woods in a random direction, smelling the rapidly descending night and trying with all her might to find something familiar hidden in the messy bundle of odors.

Unfortunately, she found it.

Even if he was clad all in black, the hunter was painfully visible, sticking against the sea of darkening trees like a remnant of nothingness in the shape of a man; he was young, in his early twenties maybe, with a short black beard peppering his chin and grey eyes, steely an unforgiving like the barrel of his rifle. "I knew you were hiding there, you stupid animal," he exclaimed in triumphant glee. "Let me guess, you've already killed that idiotic geezer, right?"

The young beast felt her eyes burning again, the red starting to surround her pupils and the black monster in her heart struggling to be free at last... But then she thought at Bernie again, at his kindness, at his laughter, at the scarf still around her neck, and managed to reach a precarious balance once again. Yes. I did, she thought bitterly. But I still want to live, and... And I want to be happy.

She looked up at the hunter in front of her: even if she was still a child, she knew that there was no way she could convince him to let her go. There were only two possible outcomes to that night... Both of them involving someone's death. Can I kill him?, she asked herself with lucid and terrifying clarity.[/i] Will that turn me into a monster?

A voice replied in her head, but it wasn't the dark, creepy whisper anymore: it was familiar and strong, and sounding a lot like her own. He's not an innocent, the voice told her. This is a matter of survival: if you don't kill him, he will kill you. What are you going to do?

The answer was simple, and at the same time the only one possible: the young beast lowered her head, her triangular ears pressed against the sides of her skull. A growl, high-pitched but nonetheless menacing, came out of her throat while the fingers on her front paws twitched and clenched, getting ready to slash and cut.

The hunter smirked. "Well, serves him right. It's not like I didn't try and warn him." The man brought up his rifle and pointed it towards the werewolf. "Now stay still, so that I can finish my work..."

The young beast darted to the right and started running, albeit in a rather erratic way, as if she had a thorn stuck into one of her paws. "What, you think you can escape me?" the hunter made fun of her while throwing into her pursuit. "You may be a monster, but you're nothing more than a stray puppy, after all!"

Do not listen to him, the voice in the young beast's head warned her.[/i] You are strong. Even if you do not know who you are, even if you do not remember, you are still a wolf.

I know, the young beast replied to herself. Her ears peeled, she listened to the hunter tinkering with the trigger of his weapon, and took a sudden swerve on the right; she heard the rumble of a shiny bullet coated in silver darting mere inches from her furry cheek before it crashed into a nearby tree with a small rain of tree bark fragments. The young beast heard the hunter swear behind him and struggle to find a second bullet. It's now or never..., she thought, and couldn't help feeling a slight pang of guilt inside her: even if it was a matter of survival, she was still going to kill a man.

The young beast pirouetted rapidly, her tail swishing through the cold night air like a blood red whip; her hind paws kicked against the hard terrain and she darted towards the hunter, head down. "What the..." the young man exclaimed in confused and bewilderment. He raised his rifle in front of him as an impromptu shield, but the young beast pushed it away with her hand paw.

The young beast pushed the hunter down and landed on his chest, pinning him on the ground. She looked at him in the eyes, and for the first time since she could remember she recognized the emotion called "fear". "N-no, wait..." the hunter murmured with a perplexed and yet detached tone, as if he wasn't the one being threatened by a werewolf but was just witnessing at the scene from the outside. "That's not how things were supposed to go... right?"

Let me handle this, the animal side of the young beast whispered to her. She nodded, and quickly drifted into a dreamless slumber as blood started gushing and the gurgles of agony stained the unquiet night.

* * * *

It was a misty, uncertain dawn, enveloped in a pearlescent grey haze. A small herd of deer was grazing the hard, dusty leaves growing at the side of a highway, before the rustling of some nearby bushes made the five animals raise their heads in a collective gesture of alarm. The adult male, the head crowned with an impressive set of pronged antlers, let out a bell to warn the three females and the young male - his son, probably - and walked back into the relative safeness of the sea of trees before the young beast could emerge from the shrub.

She moved like someone in a drugged stupor: her golden eyes were unfocused and staring at an impossible distance, her limbs twitched and trembled from time to time and her hand-paws were dirty with encrusted blood, plastering the already red fur that covered her fingers. The scarf around her neck hung loose, showing part of the nightmarish bruise on the side of her neck; it was a bit tattered and torn, with leaves and twigs stuck into its woolly web and huge blots of dark red staining the colorful stripes... but, as if it was acting for the sole, last protector for its owner, it still wasn't ready to give up.

Even if the night was over and she had reverted to a more or less human form, her claws, furry ears and tail still betrayed her otherworldly nature; her mind nothing but a blank slate full of white noise, her body on the verge of consuming its very last remnants of energy. The young beast took another couple of uncertain steps towards the large strip of grey asphalt, turned her head on her right and vomited a small torrent of white froth on the ground next to her foot-paw; she looked down with her irises dilated in stupor: the small mound of saliva and gastric juices for a moment seemed awfully similar to the full moon. She let out a perturbed cry, made a half-spin on herself and crumpled on the ground at the side of the road, her tail mercifully covering her prepubescent groin.

The young beast lay there motionless for an immeasurable amount of time, too weak to even try and get up and at the same time unable to fall unconscious. Her eyes could see but her brain didn't process the images, her nose smelled all the odors of the surrounding but none of them made any sense, just a jumble of vague and undecipherable stimuli filling her as if she was a plush waiting to be stuffed with cotton wool. She barely had the energies to breathe and stay alive. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.

The field of vision of the young beast was filled by a black, round form stopping next to her face with a weepy metallic sound. Her ears captured noises of big, steely mouths clapping and dull patter of feet over the pavement of the street, before she was enveloped by two worried voices and a warm coat.

"Oh my god, Allen, she's a..." the female voice gasped.

"Yeah," the male voice replied. "And she's covered in blood. Do you think she..."

"It was full moon last night, she probably hunted a deer or something... At least I hope so." The female voice fell silent for a moment. "But... Why is she here? Where is her pack?"

"I don't know... But luckily we found her before anyone else could."

"She looks so little, though... How old could she be? Seven? Eight?"

"Let's bring her into the car first, Marsha."

The young beast felt her body being lifted by strong arms, the cool air playing with the tip of her tail. She could see tall, confusing shapes towering over her. "Look! She's awake!" the female voice exclaimed in barely restrained relief. "Are you alright, dearie? What's your name?"

The young beast, despite her extreme exhaustion, managed to open her lips; they were dry and cracked, and with a supreme act of will she pushes her canine tongue outside her mouth to moisturize them. "I..." she murmured, nothing more than the sound of air escaping her mouth. "A-Angela," she finally replied. "I am Angela."

* * * *

"Those were Allen and Marsha O'Leary. My foster parents," Angela explained. She had told the story of her first, terrible memories in a calm and collected tone as always, but the emotions pushing to erupt from her mouth and her eyes were opening multiple tiny cracks in her voice anyway. "They were already keepers for the adult pack of Cerulean Falls, and they did not manage to have children, so... well, they decided to adopt me, once they had realized that I was alone." The young woman fell silent, as if she was waiting for the inevitable question.

Drake decided not to disappoint her. "So you've never discovered about your origins, right? Who your parents and your pack were? You never... got your memories back?"

Angela shook her head. "No. To be honest, I don't care anymore... I am who I am now, and there's no point in being sad about the years of my life that I have lost. I am Angela O'Leary, and that's it," she told Drake in quiet and dignified resignation. "Maybe my parents are out there somewhere, or maybe they had been killed by that very same hunter. I do not even know how I got my amnesia, after all... But there is one thing I will never be able to forget: that I killed two people; and even if one of them probably deserved such a fate, the other one was innocent and good and saved my life. Every time I look at myself in a mirror and I let the wolf come out, my eyes constantly remember me of my failure. That's why I..."

"That's why you decided to be the omega of Talia's pack?" Drake deduced, an unpleasant shiver departing from the center of his spine to wrap his entire body in a cocoon of sudden and cold sorrow.

It took Angela some time before she finally nodded. "It was the only way I could think of to make amends for my horrible sins."

"Sins? You were just a child!" Drake exclaimed. He sounded almost shocked, and to be honest he didn't care; knowing that Angela had submitted herself to years of physical and mental abuse as the pack's bitch for something she had hardly been guilty of was making him feel pissed off; not towards his packmate, of course, but at the whole situation, and at the hunters at large specifically. Why do they have to attack us?, he asked himself, unable to find any kind of answer. We just want to live our lives in peace, we don't want to hurt anyone!

"And yet I ended two lives just because of what I am. Just because I am a werewolf," the young woman replied. She lowered her speckled eyes and for a moment the expression on her face mellowed, a small smile even daring to appear on her lips. "Although, well... When Wyatt fought for me, when he showed me that I did not necessarily have to be the omega... for the first time in my life since Bernie had saved my life I felt happy to be a werewolf; and that's when I realized that I was..." Angela shook her head. "That I was destined to be his beta."

Angela's heartbeat hadn't changed while telling those words: after all, she wasn't lying. That's not what you were going to tell me, though... right, Angela?, Drake thought, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. He knew the words Angela had left unsaid, and he suspected that Wyatt knew them too, even if he just pretended to ignore them.

...and that's when I realized that I was in love with him.

(next chapter: What can be seen beyond the voice)