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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 13 - Songs from a younger world

"Come on, cowboy!" Wyatt exclaimed, a feverish look in his golden eyes, a trickle of drool down a corner of his mouth. "Ride my big horse!"

Despite the pleasure of the act, the way in which - as always - Wyatt's dick inside him made him feel as complete as he could possibly feel and the unabashed lust coursing through his body like high-pressure blood, Drake couldn't help but to snicker at those cheesy words. "You... like that, huh?" he asked, taking his Stetson off and tossing it on the armchair near the bed. A "Yee ha!" escaped from his lips, even though he tried to keep it as quiet as he could: after all, four other people were currently sleeping in the house, and Drake certainly didn't want to wake Cordelia up with the sounds of he and Wyatt doing the nasty.

"Damn yeah I like that," Wyatt replied, panting a bit. "Best thing we ever got... from Clyde. Even better... than the kiss he... gave me at the airport," he explained with a dreamy grin. "You're so goddamn sexy, my dragon."

"It's a honor... to please you, my alpha", Drake replied with a similar grin. He was donning his kinky leather cowboy costume, something that Wyatt clearly appreciated: since they had come back from the werewolf convention, the alpha had asked him to wear it every time they had had sex, and tonight was no exception.

"Keep... keep going like this..." Wyatt murred, his clawed hands contracting rhythmically. "Oh, m-man..."

Drake squeezed his butt cheeks a bit around Wyatt's canine dick; he could almost feel the knot starting to swell just beyond the fleshy barrier of his rectum as his hand worked on his own cock. The werewolf murred in bliss as the leathery pads on his mutated fingers brushed against the extremely sensitive surface of his crimson fleshy tube. "F-fuck... " he panted, as pre-cum copiously dribbled from his urethra; with a manic grin on his face, Drake took some of the viscous fluid between two fingers and used it to massage his sensitive nipples. "Nnngh..." he murmured as two hard, egg-shaped glands began to inflate at the base of his dick.

"This is..." Wyatt started before his own knot finally bloomed, cutting his sentence in half. "O-oh yeah..."

"C-climaxing already, alpha?" Drake asked with a big grin. "You usually... last... a bit... longer..."

"As if you... are in any position... to talk... my dragon," Wyatt replied between huffs and puffs; one of his hands wrapped maliciously around Drake's rock-hard cock and teased it with slow, deliberate gestures. "You seem... ready to shoot... too..."

"T-that's not f-f-fair..." Drake whined: the simple touch of his lover was irresistible to him, and there was no way he could stop the orgasm at that point. A torrent of cum gushed from the tapered tip of his penis, splattering over his furry leg, the white bedsheets and the leather of his cowboy costume. "A-anf... anf..."

"Hehe..." Wyatt giggled triumphantly. "Looks like I... won..." his lithe body squirmed under Drake's ass as his muscles tensed; the beta could almost feel a jolt of electricity travelling up his spine as Wyatt's meaty dick throbbed and unleashed a jet of warm and sticky fluid deep inside of him. "D-damn... Your ass is soooo good, my dragon..."

"A-as I told you..." Drake whispered, lost in the bliss of the afterglow. "I-it's a honor... to please... you, m-my alpha..." The young man turned around - as much as Wyatt's dick still firmly stuck inside his butt allowed him to - and tried to lean forward to kiss his mate. Wyatt sat on the bed to help him, and the moment when their lips met was sweet and tender and starkly different from the sweaty and passionate sex they had just finished having.

After the kiss was over, Wyatt took a long, satisfied sigh. "Sorry I didn't last that much, my dragon... tomorrow's the full moon, and you know how it is..." he murmured as an apology of sorts. Drake shook his head.

"Hey, it's not like you were the only one," he mused, trying to get back on his feet; Wyatt's knot, however, still hadn't deflated enough for him to do so. "Anf, l-looks like I'm stuck here for a bit longer..."

"I'm not complaining..." Wyatt purred back before licking one of Drake's nipples, still glistening of his own precum. "Another full moon approaching..."

"Yeah..." Drake echoed. "I'm sure it will be awesome as always." The beta relaxed his sphincter, and Wyatt's dick - still erect and proud even after the orgasm - slid out of his manchute with a satisfying plop, the dense yellowish cum dribbling all over Wyatt's groin and the sheets underneath. "Damn, we made a mess as usual..." he murmured, feeling a bit guilty.

Wyatt shrugged. "That's the reason why they invented washing machines, after all," he said, climbing out of the bed and standing with his fists against his sides for a moment, his slender and muscular body covered in a coat of moonlight. "Now move over, my dragon, so that I can make the bed."

"O-oh, sure..." Drake said, frantically getting back on his two feet. He looked around the room, trying to decide whether or not taking off his leather garments there; the two of them also needed a good shower, to get rid of the sweat and all the other bodily fluids they had so generously smeared all over each other... The train of thoughts, however, was halted all of a sudden by a tiny sound; a voice, to be exact.

"Um... Drake? Wyatt?" Nothing more than a tiny whisper, the heartbeat of a field mouse. Drake turned towards the door and saw a small figure dressed in white peeking in, long hair flowing behind her back.

Even after she had been brought back to Cerulean Falls and had started living in the Underhill house ("It's not like there's any other choice," Cordelia had told Wyatt and Drake. She hadn't looked shocked or perturbed by the story her son and his mate had told her, just slightly upset... Which for some reason had terrified Drake even more. "I would have done the same myself, after all. Since it's your packmate, I expect you to take full responsibility for her, Wyatt." And, as always, Cordelia's word was final), Inori hadn't lost her taste for dressing like a little ghost girl. The nightgown she was wearing was apparently a family heirloom, since it had been worn by Talia when she was a kid and it was most probably going to be inherited by Grace in a couple of years; during the following seconds, Drake experienced a brief flashback of Inori standing in the corridor of the convention hotel with nothing but despair in her eyes... Before realizing that he was looking back at her while still wearing his leather chaps, his crotch completely exposed. "U-um..." he mumbled, trying to hide his groin area with clumsy gestures. "H-hey, Inori, w-we didn't see you coming..."

Inori opened the door a bit more, a small, awkward smile on her lips. "Don't worry, it's not like I've never seen one..." she replied, even though her tone was tarnished with a small amount of sadness and pain. "Seriously, I didn't mean to intrude. To be honest, it's a little embarrassing."

"Huh? What's embarrassing?" Wyatt asked. He had just finished changing his bed sheets after sex - something he had never failed to, at least since Drake had known him - and he walked closer to Inori; unlike Drake, he didn't seem to have any problem about his own nudity. "Is everything alright, Inori? You seem nervous," he asked, sniffing the air.

Inori shook her head. "No, I... I feel fine, now. I mean, now that both of you are here," she said in a relieved tone, her large dark eyes shifting from Drake to Wyatt.

Drake's brow furrowed. "Um... What do you mean? We didn't go anywhere. We were here doing..." The werewolf's cheeks turned dark pink. "...w-well, doing stuff."

Wyatt snickered. "Dude, she's not nine, I'm sure she knows exactly what we were doing." His expression, however, turned serious in an instant. "Still, you don't look that well. How about me and Drake go cleaning ourselves a bit and put on something more appropriate and then we talk about what happened?"

The girl bit her lip; she didn't seem that enthusiast, as if she was regretting coming to Wyatt's room in the first place. "U-um... I think I should go back to bed. It's the middle of the night, and I'm sure you both want to sleep. After all, well... It's going to be a full moon tomorrow, so maybe I'm just nervous about that..." she murmured.

"Wyatt is right, Inori," Drake replied, giving her a warm smile. "If something is troubling you, there's no point keeping it to yourself, even if it may seem something silly. That's what good packmates do, they talk to each other and listen to each other... right?" he asked, turning towards Wyatt for support. The alpha nodded enthusiastically.

"Wait for us here, okay? We'll be back in a moment," he said. Less than ten minutes later, after a very brief shower and having put on some warm pajamas, Wyatt and Drake found Inori sitting on the edge of the bed, her head bowed, her fingers fidgeting with each other. She looked smaller than ever before, but her eyes lit up immediately when she realized that her two pack members had come back. "So... why don't you tell us what happened?" Wyatt said, sitting next to her. Drake did the same, and placed a hand over her head.

Inori still seemed a bit wary and uncertain, and shifted her body between the two. "Um, very well. Just promise me you won't laugh," she whispered.

"I make no such promises," Wyatt grinned, before getting an elbow in the rib by Drake. "Ouch... I mean, sure, Inori, we won't laugh. I promise."

The girl nodded. "It was a nightmare I had, as you have probably guessed already... It started with me waking up in my room at the hotel where we first met. I remember searching every room, every corridor, every empty hall... But nobody was there, not you nor someone else. I tried to find a way out of that place, but to no avail; I remember running up and down and getting progressively worried and scared. A-and then, in the end..." As Inori went on with the recollection of her dream, her voice begin to tether and break, at least a bit. "I heard, well... His voice. Jacob's. I could hear him mocking me, even though I was curled on the ground with my hands on my ears. 'You should have never left me. Now you have no pack, no friends and no family... You are all alone, just like you were when I found you.' T-that's when I started screaming, and my own voice woke me up." Her dark eyes darted from Wyatt to Drake. "But it's all okay because you are both here. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be childish... I just wanted to make sure everything was alright. I'll go back to my room now, okay?"

Drake and Wyatt exchanged a significant glance. "Why don't you sleep here with us for the rest of the night?" the beta proposed. "That way, even if you happen to have the same nightmare again, we'll be here."

Inori bit her lip. "Seriously, I don't want to be a bother..." She tried to put on a brave face, but it was awfully clear from the sound of her heartbeat that she wanted to accept the offer. Wyatt, with a huge grin on his face, lied down on his king-size bed and patted on the mattress a couple of times.

"Come here, Inori," he said in an enticing tone. "The Big Bad Wolf want to cuddle his Little Red Riding Hood." He then turned his eyes towards Drake. "What do you think? Too corny?"

"You sounded like a child molester," Drake replied before snickering. Nevertheless, albeit with some lingering hesitancies, Inori crawled on the bed and placed her head on the pillow right next to Wyatt.

"You know I might be older than you for all I know, right?" she said in an amused tone. Wyatt placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, causing the girl to close her eyes and let out a long sigh of quiet happiness. "O-okay, maybe I will stay here after all..."

"Exactly." Drake climbed on the bed too and curled right behind Inori, nuzzling his face against her head. "You aren't going anywhere now." The young man buried his nose into the girl's hair and sniffed, letting the smell of her shampoo - a somewhat pungent and spicy flavor that reminded Drake of a conifer forest - invade his nostrils.

"Don't worry," Inori replied before she kissed Wyatt on the lips. There was nothing sensual or lustful in that gesture: it was just an innocently intimate gesture between two packmates strengthening their bond. "I don't plan to."

"Good", the alpha murmured in a tender tone. "Because..." The sound of the bedroom door opening once again, however, brought his words to a sudden halt.

"Is everything okay? Are you doing weird stuff as always?" Grace's voice, trying to sound tough but still clearly concerned, made its way into the room. Drake turned around, and saw Wyatt's younger sister standing on the threshold, staring at them with her silvery grey eyes, her curly hair cascading over her pale shoulders and down her back. Against the black backdrop of the hallway, she looked like a child apparition straight out of a Gothic novel.

"Oh, hey Grace..." Wyatt raised his head and murmured. "Did we wake you up?"

The little girl grimaced a bit. "Yes. Well, Inori did when she screamed."

"Oh." The young woman in the bed kept her stare on the mattress, a small amount of red blossoming on her cheeks. "I... I am deeply sorry, Grace."

"Don't worry about that," Grace replied, taking a couple of steps inside the room. "It's better than being woken up by those two making dirty noises, after all."

Drake almost fell from the bed, while Wyatt let out a noise that sounded like a low growl. "H-hey!" he exclaimed. "I-it's..." Wyatt shook his head, looking like a pissed-off Labrador puppy right after an unwanted bath. "A-and anyway, she had her nightmare like half an hour ago! Why are you still awake?"

Grace sighed and her eyes wandered towards a random spot on the wall behind Wyatt's bed. "Because I can't go back to sleep. I feel nervous." Her fingers kept opening and closing into tiny fists, and Drake was sure he had seen small but still deadly claws appearing for a split second from time to time.

"Because it's the night before the full moon?" Wyatt asked. He still tried to sound a bit offended, but his voice had mellowed out considerably. Grace nodded without saying anything. "Would sleeping here with us help?"

"Maybe..." Grace took a two steps towards the bed. "But promise me you won't do anything weird, okay?"

Wyatt's eyebrow cocked. "Seriously, Grace, I may be an idiot but I'm not a perv." Drake cleared his throat with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Okay, I may also be a perv but not that much a perv. Come on, Grace, hop on."

Grace jumped on the mattress with the agility of a young Olympic gymnast and curled just between her brother and Inori; Drake stared at the two girls, marveling at the fact that Inori wasn't that much taller than a nine years old... Even though Grace had her share of genes in common with her mother and her older sister, so she was most probably going to become a tall and statuesque beauty in less than ten years. Drake wondered if she was also going to become an alpha; after all, all the other members of the Underhill family were, so it seemed kind of inevitable... And Drake could totally see Grace fighting tooth and nail - or more appropriately, fang and claw - to get the position of head of the youth pack in some years.

"Wyatt, Drake is staring at me with a weird face," Grace said, making Drake jolt.

"What the hell, man? Are you eyeing my little sister?" Wyatt exclaimed.

"W-what?! No!" Drake replied, shaking his head, his eyes wide.

Inori looked up at him with disapproval. "Drake, answer me in earnest... Are you a pedophile?"

Drake, his cheeks and ear tips crimson, turned around and buried his face into a pillow. "G-goodnight, okay?" he grumbled. A couple of strong hands, however, forced him to face the others again.

"Sorry, Drake," Wyatt said. "We know you're not a pedo. Right, Inori?"

The girl looked both at Wyatt and Drake with an expression of genuine relief on her face. "He is not? Oh, thank god, for a moment I was afraid that..." She then probably noticed the sudden shift in the expression of her pack members, because she shut up and looked lost and confused for a moment. "I mean... Of course you are not a pedophile, Drake!"

"Can't we just sleep?" Grace pleaded. And so they did: wrapped in a warm bubble of simple happiness, one after one the four werewolves dozed off, feeling secure and protected in each other's arms. Drake was the last one to fall asleep, instead taking some time to look upon the others: Grace still sported a severe and stern expression, but her body was relaxed and she was even hugging a pillow; Inori was so serene she was nearly unrecognizable when compared to the wild child she had been just a couple of weeks prior; and Wyatt... well, he was the same Wyatt as ever. With a loving smile, Drake brushed the back of his hand over the alpha's cheek, and Wyatt let out a long breath that sounded like a pleasured sigh. Outside the window, in the terse sky of February, the moon was shining, almost full, and Drake focused on the still imperfect circle of light before closing his eyes and resting his head on the pillow.

"Everything is alright..." he murmured before the sleep claimed him. "Everything is alright."

***

Something was not alright. Hiyashi Murata opened his black eyes, staring at the dark ceiling as the last fragments of his dream fluttered away around him.

...who are you?... ...I'm your way out...

The old man shook his head and sat up on his futon bed, his back muscles protesting gently for the sudden movement. He knew perfectly that every time he had that kind of dreams, there was no way he could get back to sleep for the night; and, for one reason or another, those night visions tended to become more and more frequent with the approaching of every full moon. Since there was no point for him to stay in bed, Hiyashi slowly got back on his feet, turned the light on and stared at the clock hanging from the wall of his room: it was almost four, which wasn't that bad for his standards.

In complete silence he put on a pair of slippers and crossed his small apartment towards his kitchen, to fill the kettle with some water for his tea (he had a penchant for Earl Grey), his lips pursed in the middle of his pure white beard. As much as he knew they were inevitable, he had always felt uneasy after dreaming about his past; everything was much more vivid - and much more painful - when his eyes were closed.

...maybe things will change someday, but... ...what if I could change you now?...

"No," Hiyashi growled, his canine teeth growing into fangs for a couple of seconds and sinking painfully in his lower lip. The cold, metallic flavor of blood on his tongue managed to drive away the stray thought. The old man tried to regain his balance and clean his mind by focusing on his rice cooking machine, on the low, electronic hum it produced, and on the sound of the water boiling in the kettle; his breathing became deeper and regular as his ears developed points and greatly increased his sense of hearing, making him easier to concentrate on the sounds and to push away the painful memories of his remote past. By the time his tea was ready - no sugar: the bitterness was part of the tea, and covering that with something else would have meant to ruin the experience of drinking it - Hiyashi felt much more serene, even though the tiredness he was feeling was pressing against his temples and the back of his head like a crown that was too tight for his head.

With slow, careful movements, focusing his complete attention on every small gesture - no matter how insignificant - Hiyashi split the rice into two small ceramic bowls and ate his half in his tiny kitchen; in the half-light of the daybreak that was starting to spread its timid, iridescent fingers just outside the window, the old werewolf could see the small, solitary thread of smoke rising from the other share of rice. After he had finished eating and had placed the bowl and the wooden chopsticks into the sink, he grabbed the other bowl and strolled into the living room. "Here," he said, placing the food offering on a small, simple altar in the corner.

The old woman in the picture placed on the altar had a bob of dark grey hair, two small beauty marks just right under her left eye - kind of like twin black tears - and a soft smile on her lips, but there was something in her stare - nothing more than a faint glimmer, but a glimmer nonetheless - that betrayed her true nature, her inner wilderness and the proud and mighty beast inside her heart. "Rena," Hiyashi said, bowing his head slightly towards the photograph. "We are approaching another full moon."

The picture, of course, didn't reply, but that didn't seem to upset Hiyashi: the Japanese man just sat on the floor in front of the altar and started to perform a set of slow stretching exercises, his dark eyes still fixed on the image of his dead wife. "Our wolves are getting restless, Rena," he said after a while, his deep voice echoing with perfect clarity inside his living room. "Some of them are experiencing ominous dreams, dreams about a dark future... And their anxiety is spreading through the whole pack." His brow furrowed, giving his stern face a surly expression. "It is in times like this that I miss you the most, Rena. You would know what to do to calm them down and reassure them."

Some minutes of silence followed, as Hiyashi stretched his arms, his bones creaking and his biceps and triceps - smaller and weaker than we he had been at his prime, but still the musculature of a seasoned athlete - prickling with awakeness. "And yet, I never experienced that kind of dreams. What I see whenever I close my eyes... It's our past."

"How can you be outside?" He couldn't help but stare at her, right outside the fence. She could have very well be an illusion, a spirit of nature that had just waltzed out of the forest. The girl stared at him with eyes that sparkled at the quiet light of the moonlight. "Because I am free. There's no way humans can keep me in there." "You mean... You are not human?" The girl shook her head. "I am, and I am not." "Who are you?" he asked. "I'm your way out, if you want to."

Hiyashi lowered his head, ever so slightly. "Tell me, Rena: does the fact that I cannot dream about the future means that I am unfit to guide our wolves no more? Do they need a new leader?" The old man's fingers closed into fists; his hands were still strong, but nonetheless they trembled a bit from time to time. The sour shadow of a smile appeared on Hiyashi's lips, as the first rays of sunbeam began to crawl inside the living room with no particular hurry. "Well... It's a little too late to take such an important decision right now. We'll see what this full moon brings." The old man raised back on his feet and took a deep bow towards the altar. "Thank you for the conversation, Rena. I will see you in my dreams, as always," he added, in a slightly bitterer tone, before he left his living room in complete silence, only fragments of memories in his wake.

"That's a funny thing to say." "And it's also the truth. I am Rena, by the way. You?" "I'm Hiyashi. Jasper Hiyashi Murata."

***

There was always an intense, mounting sense of anticipation that sparkled inside Drake's heart they very moment he stepped into the large clearing right before every full moon night, and bubbled inside him as liquid energy flowed freely through his veins and arteries; when he had described that feeling to Wyatt, Drake had equated it to a bottle of coke the second before someone tossed a Menthos inside of it, and even though Wyatt hadn't stopped laughing for a good five minutes after that, he had admitted that it was quite the effective comparison. Every other werewolf from Cerulean Falls was there: Richard and Cordelia were chatting with what looked like other two married couple; Kaylee's great-grandfather was standing in a corner with his eyes closed and his arms crossed against his chest, looking as always like the old master out of some kung-fu movie; and of course there was Talia, her pregnant belly bulging round like a small full moon under her white t-shirt. As always, she was surrounded by her entourage of betas, but when Drake waved at her, she replied with a small but solemn gesture of her head.

A jolt of pain made Drake jerk as a yelp escaped from his lips: Wyatt had just thrust his elbow right under Drake's ribcage. "She already has more attention than what she needs or deserves," the alpha hissed.

Drake frowned. "I was just trying to be polite. I mean, she is my sister-in-law, after all..." he added in a playfully teasing tone that made Wyatt's cheeks flush.

"Y-yeah, whatever. Once her pup is born, people will stop focusing on her so much anyway," he mumbled.

"In case you haven't noticed, Inori, Wyatt has a bit of a big sister complex," Drake explained to the girl next to him.

"No I haven't!" Wyatt protested vehemently.

"I noticed that," Inori replied, her eyes staring at Talia with peculiar intensity. "And I can see why... She looks strong. Probably too strong for me to handle," she added, her shoulders tensing.

"Can we stop talking about her?" Wyatt grumbled. "There's really no reason to."

"I thought you and her had stopped being so antagonistic towards each other," Drake said while his hands begin to massage Inori's shoulders to help her relax.

"The fact that I don't despise her as much as I did doesn't mean I like her," Wyatt replied, curtly. Angela, who in the meantime had reached her three packmates along with the rest of the group, leaned her head against Wyatt's shoulder in an affectionate gesture, as Patrick hugged both of them from behind.

"Relax, my alpha... Everything is alright," the young woman said with a gentle smile. "It's a full moon night, let's just be happy together." Wyatt turned his head a bit to stare at her, a puzzled look on his face.

"I still need to get used to your new and improved personality, you know?" he said with a small grin. Angela shrugged, but still with a good-natured expression.

"I am just trying to be less mopey, that is all," she explained. "Especially since the atmosphere around here is a bit strained."

"Um?" Drake glanced at the young woman. "Really?"

"You mean you didn't notice, big bro?" Chance inquired, sounding a bit baffled. "Both my parents had those dreams everybody has been talking about recently... And yesterday at the breakfast table they were both nervous and had a fight over some stupid stuff and made my sister cry." The boy shook his head as he smacked his lips in annoyance. "Though it's weird... You're the only one of us who had some of those dreams, right, Kaylee?"

The girl leaned her head towards her shoulder, her brow furrowed. "Yeah. Still that nonsense about the hole in the floor at the bottom of the wall or whatever. It's more annoying than anything, really. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I want to go and say hi to my great-grandpa."

"Is she okay?" Drake asked to Chance. "I mean... Did she tell you anything else about her dreams?"

The boy eyed Drake with something that seemed awfully close to suspicion in his dark eyes. "Why are you asking me?"

Drake shrugged. "Because you are her best friend? And also because I'm a bit worried about her." The werewolf stared at Kaylee, who was talking with her great-grandfather: the two of them seemed to be having quite the serious conversation, and the girl looked like she was fighting to hold back tears.

Chance gulped. "I... Yeah, I think we should talk to her after the full moon."

Once again, Drake's eyes scanned the clearing; now that he knew what to look at, he finally noticed all the small hints hidden in plain sight: the strained, worried or saddened expression on the faces of some of the werewolves and the keepers, and the fact that the members of the various packs were scattered around more than usual, as if they were all lost in the crowd. When Drake turned back around, he realized that nobody had remained by his side: Wyatt had approached his parents, Chance was talking with Ian and Lea, and Angela and Patrick had apparently escorted Inori to Moira; the woman was staring at the girl with her arms crossed and one of her small and smelly cigar sticking from a corner of her mouth. She looked pensive and even a bit pleased as her nostrils let out small puffs of smoke like a sleeping dragon, which sent a shiver down Drake's spine: Moira being satisfied by something gave him the same sensation he would have gotten from seeing a direwolf acting like a huge adorable puppy.

"Hey, man," a deep bass voice almost made Drake jump. He turned his head around just in time to see Boris - Talia's pierced Viking beta - pat him on the back with a hand the size of a small frying pan.

"Oh, hey," Drake replied when he managed to start breathing again. "W-what brings you here? Hope you won't try to convince me to join Talia's pack again, because that's not going to happen."

"Um? Nah, of course not," Boris replied with a wide grin. "I mean, I know you and Wyatt are kind of an item now, so that would be awkward. No, I just wanted to talk to you a bit, you know... from head beta to head beta."

"I thought you shared the position with them," Drake replied, nodding towards Jeanne, Bradley and Jordan, who were busy conversing with Talia.

Boris shrugged. "Some people are more head betas than others," he smiled, and there was nothing reassuring in that expression.

"I... guess?" Drake replied while scratching the nape of his neck. I still don't get the whole "head beta" shtick, he thought in the meantime. Is it just because Wyatt is my boyfriend or what? "So... you wanted to tell me something, right?"

"Oh, yeah, indeed!" Boris exclaimed in his booming voice; his face got serious all of a sudden, a stark contrast to his usual boisterous, bombastic self. "People are getting nervous and scared. It's because of the lunar eclipse, the one that is bound to happen in April... And those who are nervous and scared tend to make really stupid decisions." Boris nodded towards a veritable mountain of a man in his mid forties or early fifties, dressed like a trucker and with a voluminous copper red beard; he was talking with two other men, laughing at some jokes probably, but between one burst of laughter and the other - for maybe half a second, and only if you knew where to look - a haunted expression appeared on his face, the shadow of something dark and wrong, something trapped in the corner of his eyes and right under his eyelids... The fragments of a horrible dream, perhaps. "That's my old man," Boris explained. "Not a bad man, maybe a bit too brash and impulsive sometimes, but he's always been a decent husband and dad. You know, built us a tree house, taught us how to play football... that kind of stuff. But lately he's been... different." The feeble voice coming out of Boris' mouth made him look smaller than he was. "He's nervous and irritable all the time, he gets angry at the drop of a hat, and... well, he never raised a hand over my mom or my little brother, but there are times where he looks like he's a mere inch from trying to beat the crap out of us. And, apparently, everything started with those fucking nightmares."

Drake stared at Boris for some moments, his lips pursed. "I'm sorry to hear that," he replied in a sympathetic tone. "But why are you telling me all that? I mean, I'm in Wyatt's pack, and..."

"And what?" Boris cut him short. "We are not enemies, Drake. We are both wolves at heart, and that's what matters in the end. We may belong to different packs and our alphas may hate each other's guts, but at the end of the day we are still one big pack." A small smile appeared on his mouth. "Just don't tell Talia I said that or she'll hang me from a tree by my testicles. Now that she's pregnant, she's even fiercer than before." A laughter escaped from his lips, but he looked reasonably terrified.

"Sure," Drake replied. "So, basically, you're afraid that some werewolf may react badly to... whatever those dreams are?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Drake scratched the beard on his chin. "Have you tried warning the alpha of the adult pack?" Or maybe it's 'the alphas'? Drake didn't know much about how the biggest pack of Cerulean Falls worked, but since both Richard and Talia were alphas, it clearly had a much more complicated structure than the other two.

"My old man is one of them," Boris explained. "There are nineteen alphas, plus the head alpha of course..." The big guy stared at Drake. "You mean you didn't know that? Even though you've been here for months? I mean, you even live under the same roof of two of them!"

Drake scratched the back of his neck once again. "I'm sorry... It's just that I never considered the idea of asking about it." His eyes browsed the crowd once again. "So, who's the head alpha, then?"

"Old Hiyashi there," Boris replied, hinting towards Kaylee's great-grandfather. "He's been in charge since way before I was born."

"Wow, seriously?" Drake exclaimed. "But isn't he a bit, um... too old?"

Book shook his head. "Never say something like that in front of him. Let's say he doesn't just look like mister Miyagi..."

A werewolf karate master?, Drake thought, trying to imagine the scene. In his feral form his body was bulky, a bit lacking in the agility and subtlety departments. I guess mister Murata is like Wyatt, smaller and built for speed. The fact that a man in his nineties who had favored skill over brute force could be the leader of nearly two hundred werewolves made Drake feel a sudden, tingling warmth in his chest; it didn't take him long to realize that the name of that sensation was respect.

"Speaking of which, I think he wants to talk to you," Boris said. Drake followed his gaze: indeed, Kaylee was gesturing for him to come closer, while Hiyashi simply looked at him with his arms crossed and a thoroughly unfathomable expression.

"O-oh..." Drake mumbled. He took a step forward, but his legs were unresponsive and jelly-like all of a sudden. Oh, come on, there's no need to be nervous... He just wants to talk to me, right?, he told himself while shaking his head.

"Great-grandpa, this is my packmate Drake," Kaylee said when Drake was close enough; the young man noticed that the voice she was using was more serious and lower in tone than her usual chipper, hyperactive and high-pitched one. "Drake, this is my great-grandfather, Hiyashi Murata."

"U-um... It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Murata-san..." Drake said while glancing nervously at Kaylee, hoping for a cue of some sort. Should I bow or something? Luckily, the old alpha saved Drake from his crippling doubt by extending his right hand.

"It's a pleasure for me too, Drake," Hiyashi replied with perfect clarity, his voice deep and modulated. The back of his hands were marked by a constellation of liver spots, and his fingers were probably strong enough to bend a steel bar. "Kaylee told me a lot about you. She described you as one of the kindest and bravest wolves she has ever met."

"S-she did?" Drake replied in an incredulous tone. Kaylee shrugged.

"Hey, it's not like I was lying," she said with a tiny grin.

"She also told me your life was saved by Wyatt," Hiyashi went on. "And that you accepted to be bitten by him."

"Yes," Drake replied. "Is this... important?" he added, tentatively.

"I was just remembering the past... never mind me," Hiyashi shook his head, his expression becoming a tad more paternal. "Hopefully chatting a bit will make you feel less uncomfortable."

"B-but I'm not..."

"Yes, you are. Your heartbeat is way more truthful than your tongue is."

"O-oh..." Drake brought a hand to his chest, as if the gesture could slow down the heart hammering against his ribcage. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful."

"Honesty is the highest form of respect. Never forget that." Once again his stern voice mellowed just enough for the shift to be recognizable. "Is there anything you want to tell me, Drake?"

The young man jolted. "Um? What do you mean, Murata-san?"

"You and the oldest son of Ivan Breznev were talking about me some minutes ago," a glint appeared in the old man's irises. "My eyes may not be as good as they were when I was your age, but I can still read lips quite well, even from a distance."

Wow... this guy is fearsome. Drake couldn't stop his eyes from widening. From his seemingly random spot in one corner of the clearing, the old werewolf was able to observe everyone.

"Well, when you are the head alpha of such a big pack, there are some skills you need to possess... or develop, at least," Hiyashi explained in a matter of fact tone, as if he had simply read inside Drake's mind. "Are you experiencing some of those dreams, too? Kaylee was just telling me about hers." The girl stood silent, but gave the two of them a sheepish smile. "Or maybe young Breznev had them? I've known him since he was a tiny pup, and despite his size and attitude he has always been a scaredy cat when it comes to authority figures."

Drake cleared his throat. "Um... apparently his father has been having them. They're making him nervous and irritable, and Boris is afraid that he might do something... reckless."

Hiyashi nodded. "He might indeed," he replied in a calm tone.

Drake waited for many long seconds for the old alpha to resume talking. "That's... that's it?" he asked in the end.

"Yes," the old man said. "I can assure you I am taking each and every possibility into consideration, young Drake." The beta believed he had heard the word "young" to be spoken with particular deliberation, but it could have just been a trick of his mind. "And if it's not Ivan Breznev, it might very well be someone else... my wolves are growing restless, and I am ready to show them they can still count on their head alpha."

Hiyashi raised his head towards the darkening sky, as if he was trying to sniff at the upcoming stars. "You two should get moving. It will not take long before the moon rises," his bow towards Drake was respectful and earnest. "It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Drake."

"I-it's the same for me, Murata-san," the young man replied, trying to replicate the solemnity of Hiyashi's gesture and most probably failing.

Kaylee stepped forward and hugged her great-grandfather with gentle and careful movements, as if she was afraid to break his ancient bones; the embrace didn't last more than a couple of seconds, and Hiyashi didn't reciprocate - though he caressed the girl's hair once - but the act emanated an aura of intimacy and innocence so intense that Drake almost had to divert his gaze.

"Your great-grandfather is quite awesome," Drake murmured to Kaylee after Hiyashi had walked away in perfect silence, his steps barely making any discernible noise even to the sensitive ears of a werewolf.

Kaylee stared at the slender back of her ancestor with intensity and melancholy; she looked like she was afraid he would have vanished the moment she had closed her eyes. "Yes," she replied after a while. "Yes, he is."

***

"Well," Moira stared at Drake from the other side of the silvery barrier that extended from tree to tree. "You should get out of the way, Drake. The last thing I want to see is your dog dick in the moonlight."

The young man smirked. "There's something I need to ask you," he said.

"And let me guess, it's something that cannot wait for tomorrow morning," the old woman replied. "Or that you could have simply asked me earlier tonight. Or yesterday, for what matters. You know where I live, you even have my Skype contact."

"W-well..." Drake cleared his throat. "Um, I guess it can w..."

"Okay, then go," Moira interrupted him. "We'll talk tomorrow."

"But..."

"Tomorrow."

Drake lowered his gaze, defeated: there was no way he could win against Moira. "Okay..." he murmured.

"You want to know about those dreams," Moira said; Drake wasn't even surprised by the fact that she was right: he was used to it, after all. "Don't worry about them, Drake. At least for the time being, let us keepers take care of the matter."

"B-but..." Drake tried once again, only to be cut short for the second time in a row.

"No buts. Just do as I say and stop making me waste time," Moira snorted. "I'm not saying this is not a serious matter, mind you... But there's nothing you can do about it, at least for now. Now go, find your packmates and have your usual werewolf orgy or something."

"H-hey!"

"No point acting all embarrassed, Drake; everybody knows that full moons are all about doing the nasties." The old keeper continued, merciless. Her eyes glanced at her old cellphone's screen. "Only seven minutes until the moonrise. You better hurry."

"Oh! Y-yeah, you are right!" Drake turned around and got ready to dive into the sea of trees, but he stopped almost immediately. "Thank you, Moira," he said in a serious tone.

"You're welcome," the woman replied with a small smile. "Who knew you liked being talked over so much?"

As Drake ran into the woods, he started feeling lighter and more relaxed: Moira was right, he didn't know anything about whatever threat the lunar eclipse was going to bring, so there was no point getting too worried about it. The keepers were probably going to handle the whole thing just fine, as they had always done.

Drake burst into the first clearing he found and started shedding his clothes with frantic movements; after he had put his jeans and jacket in a safe place - specifically, the intersection of two big branches of a nearby oak tree - he stood there, unsure of what to do with his underwear; his body was shivering already because of the cold winter air, his nipples swollen and pulsating painfully around the small steel bars that pierced them. "Summer is a way better season to be a werewolf..." he lamented to nobody in particular; the rustling of some nearby bushes, however, sounded like an answer of sorts. Drake's brow furrowed, as he moved to inspect the source of the noise.

A laughter flowed to his lips like the foam of a freshly poured beer: Patrick was hopping around, a leg of his trousers stuck in his foot, his face flushed under his beard. When he realized Drake was staring at him wide-eyed, his cheeks exploded in crimson, his mouth agape; his hands began to gesture in the air, sign after sign, before he realized that Angela wasn't there to translate for him. The big guy sighed in silence, standing there with his shoulders low, clearly unsure of what to do.

Drake, however, after the briefest moment of hilarity started feeling a bit guilty for having laughed at the expense of one of his best friends and packmates; he silently knelt down and helped Patrick with his wardrobe malfunction. Once both of them were naked and their clothes had been put on the oak tree branch, Drake took Patrick's meaty hand and guided him in the middle of the small clearing. Patrick stared at his pack member in confusion, but all the doubts and insecurities melted like hot butter as Drake's lips touched his own.

The two men laid on the cold ground, their arms wrapped around each other's bodies as they cuddled in intimate silence; as Drake savored Patrick's mouth, tongue and skin, he could feel the pressure of the upcoming full moon expanding inside his rib cage like a balloon destined to blow up. Patrick pushed Drake's face down and nibbled on his neck with pointed fangs; that was the very moment when the bubble in his chest exploded, and the energy of the impending transformation spread all over his body, making his bones tingle and his muscles tense, as if he was getting ready for the run of his life.

Patrick looked at him with a huge grin on his face... a grin that was a deal larger of what a human face would normally allow. Drake pulled him close, sticking his warm tongue between Patrick's lips and frenching him as the big guy's mouth and nose slowly extended into a muzzle; the mere idea of being able to have sex while changing was so powerful and overwhelming that Drake's dick sprang into attention immediately, red, veiny and tapered, his pre smeared against his partner's prominent belly. Patrick let out a broken yip as his features kept deforming and mutating: he was no longer a man, but a big, powerful minotaur, except that his head was canine instead of bovine.

The desire for such a hot specimen, coupled with the extra energy bestowed upon him by the moonlight, pushed Drake well over the edge: with his right hand - a hand that was getting larger, furrier, stronger with every passing second - he scooped up a generous amount of viscous fluid and then went down, his fingertips massaging Patrick's plump ass and smearing the pre all over his pucker, until a clawed middle finger penetrated inside, just the first phalanx. Patrick shivered in surprise and joy, then simply nodded to Drake. With a wicked grin, Drake rose back on his feet - unstable, slowly getting used to a digitigrade stance - and helped Patrick up before pushing him against the trunk of the oak tree with a firm but gentle movement. A red tongue emerged from Drake's mouth, licking his darkening lips: he wanted to pound Patrick so bad, he wanted to fuck the man out of his body and leave only the wolf behind.

On the other hand, Patrick seemed more than happy with Drake's decision: his sizeable butt wiggled as a dark tail bloomed out of his coccyx and waved in the cool air like a palm branch in the wind. Since of course he couldn't speak, he just turned around once and looked at Drake with his bright golden eyes. Come on, that stare was saying, the change won't last all night. Better get moving!

Drake advanced towards him, his feet gradually elongating, morphing into clawed - albeit still hairless - paws and giving him a weird gait. His erect dick was already lubed enough by the precum, and Patrick's butt seemed very receptive: it didn't take more than a few seconds for Drake to pierce through the weak barrier of his packmate's pucker. A duo of satisfied sighs hovered in the winter air like twin ephemeral clouds of vapor, before Drake began to thrust his powerful sides, pushing as deep as he could.

The fur began to travel downward from Patrick's head, covering his back in a veritable forest of unruly gray hair. Drake grabbed two handfuls of it in his paws, in order to get a better grip; Patrick yelped softly, but the brief moment of discomfort ended as soon as he realized that new rows of sensitive nipples were blooming like flesh flowers on his chest and belly: the big werewolf massaged them between his fingers, causing them to grow rock hard as if tiny diamonds were trapped right under his skin.

Drake murred as his pointed ears got flatter and larger while slowly orbiting towards the top of his head. He still looked human enough, but he was more muscular than a couple of minutes earlier, his features more feral and brutish, his body covered in a generous dark pelt. A manic smile appeared on his face, showing fangs that looked too big for his human mouth; more than a werewolf, he looked like a savage caveman, but that was destined to change soon.

Patrick's change, in the meantime, seemed to have gone full speed: his upper half was completely lupine now, and only his legs still resisted the inevitable transformative way that appeared to be travelling downward through his body. As Drake pounded it rhythmically, Patrick's pucker slowly turned from pink to brown, then from brown to black as it became more elastic, his insides more spacious and more fitting to house a mighty werewolf cock. A murr escaped his otherwise silent lips as his prostate engorged, doubling in size and becoming more sensitive; the sensation of being fucked in the ass was overwhelming, and Patrick's dick began to drip a puddle of clear precum right in front of his still human feet.

Drake panted as his face extended and deformed, his nose flat and dark brown already; one of his hand-paws touched his soon-to-be muzzle, enjoying the weird and enthrallingly disturbing sensation of his bones cracking and the muscles of his mandible extending like hot caramel under his skin. Drake the human slowly disappeared under the fur and the new feral features, until only Drake the werewolf remained. His other hand went down, messily masturbating Patrick's dick until he could feel two apricot-sized spheres emerging from the furry sheath.

The changes were almost over now: Drake could feel the raging waves of orgasm advancing, unstoppable and irresistible. The wolf pushed his cock deep inside Patrick's ass, and discovered with sick pleasure that he couldn't pull it off anymore; his knot had inflated, and now there was no coming back.

Patrick squirmed under Drake's ever increasing weight, his skull pressed against the hard bark of the oak tree. As his toenails honed into curved, dark points and dug into the precum-splattered ground, his balls churned almost painfully, sending a wave of tingling through his groin and pelvic region as his dick spasmed and sprayed his belly fur in copious hot lycan cum. The big guy let out a long, almost silent sigh as his legs trembled and his arms relaxed, making him feel like a huge bowl of furry jelly.

Drake, however, still wasn't ready to orgasm: his changes had proceeded at a slightly slower pace, and he felt the powerful, aggressive desire to dominate Patrick, to breed his plump ass and mark it as his own personal conquest. As three additional sets of nipples blossomed under his pecs and as his abs refined and defined themselves under the pelt of shaggy fur, Drake pushed his girthy cock as deep as he could inside Patrick, before the pressure became unbearable and he started hosing the interior of his packmate's rectum with warm wolf juice. The climax went on for at least half a minute, getting more and more intense before a very slow and satisfying fadeout; Drake let out a powerful howl, as a way to ascertain his power over Patrick, before his muzzle came down, biting the other wolf on the shoulder. Patrick let out a surprised sigh as the crimson fluid filled Drake's maw, bitter and metallic; some seconds later, however, not even the tiniest tooth mark remained on Patrick's skin, the wounds having knitted themselves at imaginable speed.

Drake kept pounding Patrick's ass long after he had finished cum, his dick still hard, his knot still prominent. It took him at least ten minutes before he could pull his beastly member off his pack member's butt, as a small cascade of cooled yellowish spunk trickled from his pucker and down to his fuzzy balls. After their knots had deflated, Patrick and Drake once again laid on the ground - even though this time it was much less uncomfortable, thanks to their dense and warm fur - and cuddled tenderly for some minutes, licking and caressing each other's bodies. The afterglow was making them feel a bit sleepy and lethargic, but it didn't take long for the moonlight to recharge their internal batteries: soon, they were both back on their hind paws, ready to find their pack members.

Let's see..., Drake thought, pricking up his pointed ears. Which direction should we go? As always, for some moments he was overwhelmed by the countless rich stimuli his lupine hearing provided: it was like having a party happening directly inside his brain, a crazy rave made out of the creaking of branches, the rustling of leaves, the beat of wings of nocturnal predators, the sound of distant, powerful paws stomping on the ground, the faint growling of one of his pack members...

Drake froze on the spot, before he motioned Patrick to follow him. There was something wrong and unsettling in the growl his ears had caught: it had sounded menacing and predatory, and as the werewolf ran in the direction of the sound he couldn't help but thinking with a long shiver to the encounter with the direwolf, during his very first full moon... he knew he was strong enough to take down one of those monstrosities - especially with Patrick's help - but last time, the act of killing had left a bad aftertaste in his mouth and in the back of his mind that had taken days to dissipate.

When the two lycans had gotten closer, however, they could recognize the peculiar smells of two of their packmates coming from the same direction of the noise. Inori and Chance? What are they doing?, Drake thought, before a horrifying idea hit his brain like a metal baseball bat. Oh, no... We have to worry..., he said to himself, gesturing at Patrick with urgency. The couple hid behind some trees, and glanced into the nearby clearing: two of their pack members were fighting, and it didn't look anything like a playful training session at all.

It didn't take more than a quick glance and a sniff for Drake to understand that Chance wasn't clear headed: his pupils were pin pricks, his claws kept flicking and a rivulet of dense, yellowish drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. There was something wrong in the way he smelled too: there was lust all over him, but it was a lust without purpose, something dark crimson and poisonous and destructive. A crazed chuckle escaped from his lips as he lunged towards his prey... even though, of course, it was a prey who had every intention to fight back with all means necessary.

Drake's muzzle hanged agape; it took him a long moment to recognize who Chance's opponent was, because that was the very first time he had seen Inori's primal form. She was slick, slender and agile, just like her human body; a mane of shining hair crowned her refined muzzle - more similar to that of a fox - and her silvery fur was threaded with moonlight. The wolf girl jumped backwards effortlessly, avoiding Chance's clumsy attacks and staring at him with a curious look on her muzzle, as if she was pondering the situation. She didn't seem to have noticed the other two lycanthropes, at least for the time being.

Drake gestured at Patrick to cover his muzzle with his paw, in order not to fall prey of Inori's mysterious bourgeonal. Patrick gave his packmate a quizzical look, before he realized what the other meant; the big wolf squeaked and slapped his meaty paws over his face, a gesture that would have looked incredibly comical in any other circumstance.

As he advanced with slow and careful movements, all while hoping that Chance would have been too focused on his prey to realized he too was getting stalked, Drake sniffed the air a couple of times before his furry brow furrowed in surprise: though he could easily detect the weird fragrance given off by Inori's body - intense and fruity, like a liquor produced on some remote southern island - it wasn't brainwashing him as it had done during the Battle of the Betas. Even though he recognized the smell as pleasurable and enticing, it was just that, a smell among others. Maybe it's because I care about her?, he asked himself; it seemed a bit too simplistic an explanation, but as long as it didn't cause him to try and rape Inori, he was perfectly fine with that.

Chance was still trying to hit and subdue Inori, who avoided every blow with effortless grace, always moving and shifting as if she was made of water and moonlight. Chance growled in dismay, lost in a crimson cloud of mindless rage, ready to pounce once again... before Drake jumped out from behind a tree and delivered a mighty slap right across his muzzle.

"Get a hold of yourself, pup," Drake growled in a low tone. "She's a packmate. Keep that in mind."

Chance mewled pitifully, bringing a paw to his hurt muzzle, and a semblance of clarity seemed to return in his eyes. "I..." he murmured, his ears flattened against his skull. "Oh my god, big bro, I'm so sorry..."

"Tell that to Inori," Drake replied. Chance, his tail tucked between his legs, scratched the hard ground with a hind paw a couple of times, his muzzle lowered.

"S-sorry, Inori... Don't know what's gotten into me," he whispered in a forlorn tone. The silver she-wolf, however, simply shook her head.

"Don't worry, Chance. I know. And I also know it's not your fault," she simply replied. She then eyed at Drake. "I can assure I could have taken perfect care of the situation myself." Her pointy, hieratic muzzle - as solemn and inscrutable as a statue of Anubis - showed just the hint of a smile. "But still, thank you, Drake."

A messy rustling of leaves and branches, and Wyatt, Angela and Kaylee - followed by Patrick in tow - emerged into the clearing, their stares confused and worried. "Did something happen?" the alpha asked, his eyes surveying the area. Drake, Chance and Inori shook their heads almost at the same time.

"No, don't worry," Drake explained. "Just a small accident. Nothing serious." Wyatt nodded.

"I see." Only in that moment he seemed to realize that Inori was present too, and his eyes went round and wide in surprise. "O-oh. Inori... you are... wow." A moment of silence. "You are like the moon... mysterious and wonderful."

Inori lowered her head and closed her eyes, her slender body arching in a perfect bow. "You are way too kind, my alpha," she replied. "Though I should probably go now, find a place to spend the night."

"Why?" Wyatt asked, his head cocked. "We are your packmates, Inori. I promise nobody is going to hurt you." Inori shook her head.

"That's not the point... considering what happened to Chance," the wolf boy lowered his stare, his lips pursing. "I'm afraid of what my presence could do to you."

"Well, if that is the case... why not spending the night with us?" Angela stepped forward, her scarf of choice - black and simple - bouncing against her back as she sashayed towards her newest pack member. "I cannot be influenced by your scent, and neither can Kaylee." The younger female nodded, coming closer and nuzzling Inori's neck with tender movements. "I am sure we can have some fun together. Nothing that you would not want, of course." One of Angela's paw travelled down until her clawed middle finger sank delicately in the warm slit in Inori's groin; the girl let out a weird yip as her lithe body pressed against Angela's. "See? It does feel good, right?" Angela went on in the same motherly and nurturing tone, even though she was basically fingering her. "You do not need to be alone, Inori. Just trust us, okay?"

"Yeah!" Kaylee playfully licked Inori's nose, her tail wagging. "We'll have so much fun together!"

Wyatt and the others watched their three female packmates disappear into the woods, only leaving the fading scent of Inori's bourgeonal behind. Chance let out a wistful sigh as one of his paws tormented his dreadlocks.

"Sorry, guys... I'm afraid I messed up everything..." he murmured. Wyatt elbowed him with a huge grin on his muzzle.

"You mean you don't want to have an all boys' night?" he asked. Chance's amber eyes sparkled.

"O-oh, yeah! Definitely!" he exclaimed, his excitement punctuated by vigorous wags of his tail. Behind him, Patrick made a huge silent smile as he patted his own belly.

Drake rose his head towards the sky - towards the moon, glorious and majestic - and let out a joyous howling, his three companions following only seconds behind, each of them adding a peculiar note to that wild symphony: Patrick with his broken, guttural noises, Chance with his high-pitched, coyote-esque barks, and Wyatt with a long, firm and haughty howl.

That was going to be an awesome night of fullmoon.

***

There was something uneven and disconcerting in that full moon of February: it was too tall in the sky, and the silvery shimmer it emanated had the cold, unforgiving shades of steel. More than a gentle, motherly goddess shining upon her countless children, it was a distant and detached observer, hovering over the world in supreme disinterest like the gigantic eyeball of a once forgotten eldritch abomination. Hiyashi, crouched on a tree stump, raised his muzzle - covered in greyish white fur, still lustrous despite his age - and stared at the satellite above in perfect silence, his other senses acute enough to give him a perfect mental map of his surroundings: he could hear, smell and feel his hundreds of subordinates finishing their changes, frolicking around, enjoying the pleasures offered by their temporary bodies, born and gone with every full moon.

Hiyashi sat on the tree stump in a decidedly human posture, his slender feathered tail tracing slow arcs behind him, his eyes still fixed on the cold, harsh moon up in the sky, as if he was focused in an interplanetary staring contest. What are you trying to tell us?, he thought, his black lips wrinkling and showing the tips of his yellowish fangs. Or at least trying to tell them. Why are you not talking to me? But the moon, of course, remained as silent as ever.

In a way, however, Hiyashi didn't feel particularly perturbed by the fact that he wasn't dreaming about the ominous future. At least I can be with you when I'm asleep, Rena. Even if it's just an illusion, he thought, shifting on the log a bit. Are you looking at me, wherever you are? Even now? I wonder what would you think. For some moments, the old wolf thought he could see the silhouette of his dead wife painted over the surface of the moon; and yet, of course, that was nothing but another illusion. About me, and about the pack... the way I've been guiding it.

There wasn't much time left, Hiyashi realized. Soon they would emerge from the trees, one after another, crowding all around the clearing; strong, feral creatures from the dawn of time, all waiting for him to impart a command... or, alternatively, waiting for him to show a sign of weakness - no matter how small, no matter how fleeting - and a chance to strike.

It's not like Hiyashi didn't trust his wolves, of course. However, they were still wild beasts at heart; creatures of blood, of adrenaline, of instinct. And since a pack, especially one that was as big as his was, was a powerful - almost tangible - synergy, way more than the mere sum of its part, Hiyashi was sure some of his subordinates wouldn't tolerate the idea of having a weak and unworthy leader.

Maybe I am really getting too old for this, he thought, shaking his muzzle and finally breaking eye contact with the cruel Moon. Almost instinctively, the old wolf's breathing became deeper and slower: that kind of doubts was the very last thing he needed, especially in that moment. Please watch over me, Rena. Wherever you are, he silently prayed to his dead wife as the first few werewolves started stepping inside the clearing, their wet, warm breaths creating small and ephemeral clouds of vapor in the cold February air.

As always, only the nineteen alphas - eight females, eleven males - took more than a few steps towards Hiyashi, while the betas stood in a circle just where the line of trees ended. Nobody talked or even made a noise: it was eerie and bizarre watching two hundred of huge, muscular canine creatures standing perfectly still on their hind paws, their golden eyes burning like countless twin supernovas. The atmosphere was dense and syrupy, as if the air around them had been replaced by water; with slow, careful movements, Hiyashi raised on his paws, his white tail swishing behind him like the flexible blade of a katana sword.

Usually, there was no need for Hiyashi to say anything: verbal communication - although perfectly possible - was much more difficult and energy-consuming as a werewolf; there were times, however, where talking was a necessity, even during a full moon. "I know you are scared," he said. His voice would've probably sounded like a string of growls and noises to anyone who wasn't a werewolf - or wasn't Moira - but to his pack it was perfectly understandable. "I know some of you have been having weird dreams. But our pack is strong, and fear will only make us weaker. You have nothing to be afraid of." Hiyashi fell silent; after all, he had always been a man - or a werewolf - of few words.

One of the female alphas took a half-step forward, her strong-lined and slightly blunt muzzle sporting a solemn expression. "You are right, head alpha," Cordelia replied. "This is not the first crisis we have to face, nor it will be our last. And yet, our species has survived for millennia." The majority of the other alphas nodded and grunted in agreement.

"Yes, our pack is strong," a hulking mountain of muscles covered in a fuzzy copper pelt grumbled, his massive arms crossed over his chest. He probably weighed two and a half times Hiyashi, and towered over him like the big bad wolf straight out of a fairytale. Next to him, three other alphas - two males and a female - also try to look intimidating, with varying degrees of success. "But it can be stronger. Much stronger." The giant lycanthrope bared his fangs in a slasher smile; more than a wolf, he looked like a bloodthirsty white shark.

Hiyashi turned his muzzle towards him, in a very slow (and deliberately so) gesture. Ivan Breznev, he thought. Young Drake got it right, apparently. "If you have any suggestion, please say so. This is a pack, not a tyranny," he replied in a neutral voice.

Ivan took another step forward, his back slightly crouched, making him look less tall but a lot wider and bigger. Hiyashi could smell the nauseatingly sweet breath of the Russian wolf; it reminded him of putrescent fruit. "Well, you see," the beast said. "A strong pack needs the strongest leader possible."

"And you do not think I am that leader," Hiyashi replied. Behind him Cordelia, her husband and two other alphas motioned towards Ivan, but the old head alpha raised a clawed paw. "No. He has every right to express his opinion."

"You are old, head alpha. Too old." Ivan walked in front of Hiyashi, his grin wide. Dense drool was gathering at the corners of his mouth, like the froth of a rabid dog. "I'm doing this for you, you know. Now you'll be able to enjoy your final years without having to worry about the pack."

"You seem pretty confident, Breznev-san," Hiyashi replied; his growls and manners still didn't betray any kind of emotion. "And you also seem to believe I am simply going to give you the position of head alpha."

Ivan snickered. "Don't worry, I didn't expect you to."

The old wolf nodded. "Well, at least you still remember how pack hierarchy works, Breznev-san," he replied. "Do you want my position? Then show me you deserve it." He then turned around to look at the alphas surrounding them: all of them - even the three who were part of Ivan's group - were staring at him with confused (when not outright shocked) expression on their muzzles. "I will need a bit more space, if you do not mind."

"I..." Richard, Cordelia's mate, exclaimed, but his wife stopped him with a gesture of her clawed fingers.

"As you wish, head alpha," she responded; one after the other, the eighteen alphas stepped backwards, joining the ranks of their betas along the borders of the clearing.

"So, it's just the two of us now, Breznev-san," Hiyashi said in the end, glancing at his soon-to-be opponent. He knew - he had known it from the very first moment - that the fight was unavoidable; and, most of all - despite his old age, despite the fact that Ivan was stronger and bigger than he was - he knew that he could win. He just had to play his cards right. "Whenever you are ready."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" for a moment, Ivan sounds concerned, even genuinely so. "I don't want to break your back in two by mistake or something."

Hiyashi took some time to caress his white beard in a meditative way. "Do not worry, Breznev-san, this is not going to happen. We have been in the same pack for decades, which means I know how strong you are... and you know how strong I am."

A sinister glint sparkled in the eyes of the bigger wolf. "You mean you think you are stronger than me?!" he growled, letting out a powerful roar at the end. Hiyashi flicked his ears, feigning annoyance.

"You can always try to make me change your mind, Breznev-san," the old alpha said, his eyes darting towards the Moon as if he was getting bored and needed a distraction. That was more than enough to push Ivan over the edge: with a second blood-curdling scream, the colossal werewolf lunged forward, running towards his much smaller opponent like an angry rhinoceros.

It just took Hiyashi one step and a half to his right to avoid the mindless charge; his left hind paw moved fast, hitting his opponent's shin with surgical precision. With a surprised roar Ivan stumbled, his massive weight suddenly out of his own control; he landed badly on the barren, hard ground, before his head bonked against the mossy bark of the tree stump where Hiyashi had been meditating no less than half an hour prior. Ivan quickly raised back on his large feet, shaking off the dirt from his fur like an oversized mutt.

"If you want to be a head alpha, you cannot charge headfirst," Hiyashi told him. The old wolf looked completely relaxed, his tail wagging in slow, wide sweeps. "You have to think, to judge your opponent's strong and weak points and try to find a way to exploit them."

"Stop... lecturing... me..." Ivan jumped, clumsy but still deadly, his claws ready to swipe through the air. Avoiding that second assault was even easier than the first time, and Hiyashi had to force himself not to grin; it wouldn't have been particularly respectful towards his opponent, after all.

"And yet, it seems to me a lesson is exactly what you need." Hiyashi said. His left arm darted forward like a white cobra snake, and the back of his paw slapped hard across Ivan's muzzle; the juggernaut-like wolf let out a perplexed yelp, but before he could react, the head alpha had already moved away from his reach.

Ivan's third attack looked like a mirror copy of the first one, but during his seemingly mindless charge he threw a pawful of black dirt right in Hiyashi's muzzle; the head alpha, who was expecting a cheap trick like that, pretended to fall for that, squinting his eyes and shaking his head a bit... but when Ivan, his fangs bared in a killer smile, closed his right paw into a punch the size of a brick and tried to hit Hiyashi squarely in the face, the old wolf redirected the tremendous force of the blow: he grabbed his arm, taking advantage of Ivan's momentum, and before the huge lycanthrope could even realize it, his back hit the ground with a loud thud, squeezing the majority of the air out of his lungs.

Hiyashi's old bones creaked in protest, his breathing fast and uneven... but he hadn't felt that full of energy and - did he dare to say it? - young in ages! Or at least from the time when Rena was still alive.

"There are so many things I have to teach you," the wild girl told him. Her hand was small and warm, and her fingers are strong enough to snap bones with ease. "How to hunt, how to survive in the wild... and most of all, how to fight." Hiyashi stumbled over an exposed root, almost falling on the ground. Rena was dragging him into the woods, as if he was a dog on a leash... and in a way, he now was one. "How... to fight?" he repeated, a bit confused. "Well... yes, of course," Rena replied. "We need strong people, you know," she added with a strange, hypnotic smile. "We?" "Yeah. We jinrou_. My pack," the wild girl replied as if everything she said was as obvious as the ABC. "But don't worry, me and the others will teach you everything you need to know, Hiyashi-kun!" Hiyashi felt a weird, bubbling sensation of hilarity in his chest: a young woman who was much stronger than any man he had ever known - and considerably attractive, too - had just freed him from the internment camp, bit him on the neck and apparently turned him into a werewolf (something that he had accepted with alarming speed, especially after Rena had shown him her tail and claws; so far, the only effects he had experienced after the bite had been a fainting fit, general dizziness and a fever that still made his legs shake)... And yet, he was feeling like that was the best day of his life. Just the mere brushing of Rena's finger against the palm of his hand was enough to drive him crazy. "I have... I only have one question. For now," he said after he had avoided another root. "Sure. Whatever you want." "Well..." Hiyashi gulped, as a colorful butterfly flapped its wings right in front of his face, his field of vision momentarily turned into a kaleidoscope. "Why me? Why did you choose me, of all the people at the camp?" For a moment, the wild girl stopped pulling Hiyashi and stared into his eyes. The young man couldn't bear looking back, and focused on the twin beauty marks on her cheek, like crystallized tears. "Because you were alone, and you needed someone," she replied in a simple voice. "We_ jinrou can't bear loneliness... but don't worry: from now on, you won't be alone. You'll have the pack." Hiyashi realized Rena had kissed him only when he felt the subtly sweet flavor of her lips on his tongue. "And you'll have me," she added, before starting to pull him once again towards the heart of the woods. "Come on, now... It's time to go, Hiyashi-kun."

It was time to go back to reality.

Hiyashi noticed the punch aiming to bash his skull half a second before it was too late. With neck-breaking speed - almost literally, as Hiyashi felt the muscles of his back and shoulders straining so much he was afraid they were going to snap like old rubber bands - the upper part of his body bent backwards, and Ivan's huge paws merely ruffled his fur. The Russian wolf painted, his eyes burning in rage... but there was something else in his expression, and it didn't take long to Hiyashi to understand that the name of that emotion was surprise.

It's almost as if he cannot believe that he is unable to hit me, the old wolf thought. Well, too bad for him. For the second time Hiyashi's paw darted, slapping his opponent hard on the muzzle. "Get a hold of yourself, Breznev-san," he said in a firm, severe tone. "If you want to fight me, at least put some effort into it."

"I TOLD YOU TO STOP FUCKING LECTURING ME!" Ivan screamed, letting out an amalgamation of wrath, frustration, confusion and helplessness in the form of a roar; Hiyashi, however, wasn't particularly impressed nor scared.

"Then you should just listen to what I say," the old head alpha replied. He could smell and hear his pack members starting to relax, at least a bit; there was no doubt that Ivan Breznev was much stronger than he was, at least on a purely physical level, but Hiyashi had been in charge of the duel from the very beginning. I guess I was wrong, the Japanese man thought. I am not too old for this. It was a weird and unexpected sensation, having fun after so much time... "It's not like you are making any progresses, Breznev-san. This is a fight, which means you are supposed to hit me."

"Are you... are you making fun of me?!" the hulking Russian wolf seemed more baffled and surprised than enraged now. His golden eyes shone round in the darkness like polished coins.

"Well, yes, that is exactly what I am doing, Breznev-san," Hiyashi replied, deadpan. Despite the adrenaline rush and the superior body of a werewolf, he was beginning to feel the toll the fight was taking on him. Keeping his breathing rhythm under control was easy for him, though, so at least he didn't look short of air. "Do you want to win this fight? Focus on being the best, instead of being the strongest."

"I..." Ivan mumbled before his words turned into yet another growl. Hiyashi sighed: he had always been quite thick-headed, after all... though it wasn't like Hiyashi could not understand how the other werewolf felt.

"How are you doing that?" Hiyashi panted, his head resting on the cold ground, his eyes flickering between their usual black and the gold shimmer of the wolf in barely contained fury. Rena looked at him with her fists resting against her sides, a cute mischievous smile on her face; she looked so little and frail, so how could she pack all that power? "You mean how did I manage to beat you up every single time, Hiyashi-kun?" she repeated in a supremely amused tone. The young man grimaced, his eyebrows drooping. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean," he replied, surly. Rena stared back, as if she was waiting for him to get back on his feet so that she could hand his ass again. "That's odd," she said. "It's almost as if, for a moment, you were trying to imply that you can't possibly be weaker than me." "W-well..." "Maybe," Rena went on, implacable like a bulldozer. "Is it because I am a girl? Or because I am smaller than you are? Or maybe both?" Hiyashi felt his cheeks burn, as he squirmed helplessly on the ground. For some reason, he didn't feel like standing up, his legs as rigid and immobile as columns of marble. "I..." he started, but there was no point lying; after all, he could hear his own heartbeat beating against his eardrums, the rhythmic sound a concert of shame and confusion. "Y-yes... You are right, Rena-san." The girl nodded and extended a slender arm, pulling Hiyashi up with no apparent effort. "Good. Now that you acknowledged that, try and focus on being the best, instead of being the strongest."

Hiyashi avoided another blow, albeit barely. The expression on Ivan Breznev's stout muzzle was still a wide grin, but now it was less feral and blood-thirsty and more... more like he too was having fun, as if what had previously been a fight to the death had turned into nothing more than a sparring match. The atmosphere around the clearing was much more relaxed now, and Hiyashi even allowed himself to praise his opponent's move once or twice despite the fact that he still had the upper hand.

"See?" Hiyashi said after Ivan's deadly claws had just swiped the air where his head had been a second before. "Being just strong is useless, you have to be accurate and precise too. Keep trying, maybe next time you will be able to hit me."

"Y-yes!" Ivan exclaimed. The hulking Russian wolf hadn't even realized that, but his feathered tail had been wagging for a while.

The ominous feeling that had tarnished Hiyashi's soul since he had woken up that morning - since the very first morning he had woken up with nobody lying next to him on the futon - had dissipated during the fight, like a fat tick swollen with blood after it had been suffocated with a dust cloth soaked with gasoline. The black, dense goo of unhappiness and guilt and sadness had been pushed away by the sudden surge of adrenaline, and evaporated into the cool night like sweat through the skin pores. Hiyashi dodged another attack with ridiculous ease, grabbed Ivan by his dense chest fur, and thrusted him to the ground with arms that felt strangely light. "Do you want to go on, Breznev-san?" he asked, staring at his subordinate with good-natured curiosity. "After all, we have all night."

Ivan got back on his hind paws, patting on his fur with awkward movements to get rid of the dirt, his huge triangular head showing a dejected expression. "I... I'm sorry, head alpha," he blurted out. "I let my pride speak. I'll never doubt of your strength again."

Hiyashi shook his muzzle. "No, Breznev-san, never stop doubting. And the same goes for all of you," he added, looking around at his pack at large. "If there is indeed a dangerous threat approaching, we need to be at our strongest. So, should you - any of you - feel like they could be a more effective head alpha than I am, please come and challenge me anytime. I will be waiting," and having said that, Hiyashi sit back on the tree stump in the middle of the clearing, as if nothing at all had happened in the past half an hour.

The entirety of his packmates stared at him with the same emotion displayed in their golden eyes - respect, that was the word - before they silently disappeared among the trees, one after the other. Ivan Breznev was the last one to go; the huge beast stared at Hiyashi for quite the long moment, before raising his head to the clear sky and letting out a single howl that resonated through the clearing just like the last note of a song.

Once he, too, was gone, Hiyashi sat back on the stump and raised his gaze towards the moon, the tiniest smile on his black lips: the satellite up in the sky didn't seem that detached and impersonal anymore, after all... although it wasn't a benevolent goddess, either. It was just the moon, wonderful and unreachable as it always had been, shimmering over both the good and the bad at the same time, with no difference whatsoever.

"If only you were here, Rena," the old werewolf murmured, sorrowful.

And then she was. She was standing in front of him, suffused in silvery light and as young as the day Hiyashi had met her for the very first time... and at the same time she was an untamed, dark-furred creature, tall and proud and invincible; her two natures expressed perfectly and simultaneously, not even a blurred line separating them.

Hiyashi stared at her in marvelled quiet, trying to find a semblance of sense in what the vision shrouded in moonlight. "You... you came for me, right?" he murmured, and she nodded without a word, an enigmatic smile on her face.

Hiyashi lowered his muzzle, a yellowed canine tormenting his lower lip. "Oh. So... that's how it is." All the pieces were coming together now. "That's the reason why I was not dreaming about the future," he said, very softly.

Rena took a couple of steps forward, without leaving any kind of footprint on the ground. She extended an arm coated in tenuous light, the palm of her hand open and inviting, her head slightly bent towards her shoulder. Hiyashi was lost in contemplation of the twin beauty marks under his dead wife's eye for an interminable moment.

"I was hoping... for a little more time," he confessed. "But at least I got one last fight." A small spark of pride lit up his old eyes. "Our wolves are strong, Rena. Whatever threat is coming, they will face it and come out victorious." Hiyashi rose back on his feet, taking a step towards the wolf and the girl. He raised his right front paw, in a gesture that was almost bashful. "I... I am ready now. Take me through the woods, Rena. For this last time."

The touch of her hand was warm and tender. Rena started pulling him towards the trees, and for a moment Hiyashi felt young and full of energies again, just like he had felt during the fight against Ivan Breznev... just like he had felt when Rena had changed his life forever.

And then, nothing remained in the clearing, except maybe for the faint lingering of a howl. Just like the last note of a song.

***

The morning of the funeral was clear and warm, as if an April day had decided on a whim to travel back in time just to attend the ceremony. Ivan Breznev had insisted in carrying the coffin - which was empty, since Hiyashi's body had been cremated - by himself, crying silent tears all the way.

Wyatt and his pack were clumped in a corner of the graveyard, under the branches of an old yew tree. Patrick's eyes were swollen and puffy, and Angela was leaning next to him, trying her best to make him feel at least a bit better; Chase kept biting his lips, his fingers nervously playing with the black skinny tie he was wearing, his eyes darting every few seconds towards Kaylee, who was standing in the middle of the Murata clan, her face hardened and stoic despite her tear-stained cheeks; Wyatt kept cleaning his glasses and putting them back on with distant, mechanical gestures; Inori looked confused and at a loss, her black irises darting around as if she was trying to find a clue to what was happening hidden somewhere in the crowd.

Drake sighed for the hundredth time, his brain replaying the conversation he had had with Hiyashi Murata two nights before, when he still was alive. Less than forty-eight hours had passed, and yet it seemed so long ago, as if the words he was hearing with the ears of his mind had been pronounced by the old head alpha from an ancient era. The ceremony was almost over, the simple wooden coffin being lowered inside the freshly dug hole in the ground; the funeral itself, despite the number of people who had attended - the entirety of the three packs, all the keepers and at least half the remaining population of Cerulean Falls - had been simple, quick and straight to the point... no doubt the kind of elegy someone like Hiyashi Murata would have chosen for himself, Drake thought.

"Should we... go and try to see if we can do something for Kaylee?" he whispered when the attendees started scattering around the meadow, the majority of them waiting for their turn to offer their condolences to the Murata family.

Chance gave him a side glance, his dark eyes cold and hard. "Don't be insensitive, Drake. She needs her family now," he replied.

"Oh." Drake's cheeks blazed purple as he lowered his head. "S-sorry, I... I just thought t-that... we are kinda her family too, aren't we?" Chance diverted his gaze.

"I... y-yeah. Maybe we are. But still..." the boy sighed. "Sorry, big bro, didn't mean to sound rude. I-it's just that... I'm not sure what to do, right now."

"I know," Angela replied, her voice flat. "Mister Murata has been around forever... I still cannot believe he is not here anymore." Patrick sniffed next to her, his lips pursed and his eyes red and full of tears; Drake could feel a tiny part of the big guy's sadness inside of him, and it was almost unbearable, a sensation akin to getting hit with a steel mallet right in the soul.

"This is... my first time ever at a funeral," Inori said, her voice dream-like and a little bit appalled. "I'm not sure of what is the right thing to do."

Wyatt stopped cleaning the lenses of his glasses for the nth time and put them back on, before staring at the grave. "He was a good person and a good wolf," he said, his voice cracking ever so slightly. "I think we should go and pay him our respect."

Nevertheless, it took the pack more than half an hour to get near the tomb: the crowd was huge, everyone was offering their condolences to all of Hiyashi's children, grand-children and great-grandchildren, and the Murata family was anything but small. Finally, however, the six young werewolves managed to stand in front of Hiyashi's final resting place; when Kaylee noticed they were there, she excused herself from her grieving family and joined her pack members in a collective hug. She only sighed a couple of times, and even if it was clear that her young heart was smashed, she didn't let herself go in front of the others.

"Thanks for coming, guys," she said in a tiny voice. Wyatt brushed her hair in a fatherly manner.

"Of course we came," he replied. "We couldn't possibly leave you alone in such a moment."

"We are terribly sorry for what happened to your great-grandfather," Angela added sympathetically. Kaylee, however, shook her head.

"He had lived his life to the fullest... I'm sure he had no regrets. And maybe now he finally reunited with my great-grandma." The black eyes of the girl lingered on the simple tombstone saying "Here lies Hiyashi Jasper Murata," no picture nor dates. "It's... probably a bit silly, b-but... do you... do you guys think there might be some kind of afterlife specifically for us werewolves? A place..." her voice started cracking, tears threatening to destroy the fragile dams of her eyes. "A place where the moon is always full, where we can be free, together and forever? 'c-cause... 'cause I'd like if there was s-such a place."

"Y-yeah..." Chase replied, timidly grabbing his best friend's hand. "I... I would like that."

"I would not, personally," another voice replied, a voice that didn't belong to anyone from Wyatt's pack. Everybody turned around: Talia was standing right behind them; the simple black dress she was wearing highlighted her pregnancy, and the expression on her face was as always aloof and inscrutable.

Wyatt clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Well, of course you wouldn't. Perish the thought that the high and mighty Talia Underhill would mingle with us mere mortals, even after her death." His older sister looked back at him without changing her expression - or lack thereof - in the least; she just seemed curious, like a child who had just found a weird bug hidden under a rock.

"That's not the reason why, Wyatt," she replied, articulating every word with perfect clarity. "In case you have forgotten, my husband is human." She nodded once, her eyes closed, in the general direction of Hiyashi's grave - A parting gesture?, Drake pondered - before leaving in complete silence, leaving behind a fuming Wyatt.

"You should excuse her," another voice, this one much gentler and sadder, intervened. The man who approached the pack was in his late twenties or early thirties, with dirty blond hair, a pair of round glasses and a completely forgettable face. His hazelnut eyes were reddened, and he clearly had cried for quite a while. "Funerals make her quite uncomfortable."

Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Yeah," he replied bluntly. "Drake, Inori, I don't think you've met Craig already, right? He's Talia's husband."

"Nice to meet you," Craig said, shaking Drake's hand. His hand, despite not being the manliest around, had a very firm grasp.

Weird, Drake thought. I've been here for months and I still hadn't met him... though he's not exactly the kind of guy who sticks in a crowd. "Nice to meet you too."

"I thought my sister admired Hiyashi-san," Wyatt was still venting. "And yet, of the two, you're the one who's crying, Craig. I mean, you barely knew him." The man shook his head, a small, serene smile on his lips.

"Well, Wyatt, you know... she is Talia," he replied in a simple tone, his eyes lovingly shifting towards his wife, who was talking with her parents. "Someone has to cry in her place." Wyatt opened his mouth as if to reply, but then just closed his lips, lowered his stare and furrowed his brow, lost in his thoughts.

The pack stood in front of the grave in silence, even after Craig had left to join his wife, until Kaylee started fidgeting with the black purse she was carrying around. "Oh, yeah... I almost forgot..." the girl took out of her bag a single sheet of paper, no doubt taken from a drawing book. "I've been working on this for a while. I guess it's too late to show it to you, great-grandpa... but I hope you'll still see it, wherever you are." Then, she turned the piece of paper around.

It was a very simple pencil sketch, and the technique was a bit amateurish... but the drawing still took Drake's breath away for a moment. Despite its simplicity, Kaylee's work had perfectly captured the stern features of his grandfather along with his inner benevolence and wisdom, a perfect expression of love if Drake had ever seen one. More than a work of art, it was a work of heart.

"That is... beautiful," Angela said. Next to her, Patrick made a couple of gestures. "And Patrick agrees with me."

"And to think you were adamant about the fact that we werewolves cannot create art!" Drake exclaimed, looking at Wyatt. "And yet, look at this..." The words died in Drake's mouth, as he gazed at his mate with perplexed eyes.

There was something weird on Wyatt's face... or maybe "something wrong" was a better description for what Drake was seeing. His lips were trembling a bit, his pupils were narrow and pinprick-like and his breathing was slightly steadier than before; even his heartbeat sounded wrong, too strong and rapid. "Is everything okay, Wyatt?" Drake asked. The sudden shift in his mate's expression was sending unpleasant shivers down his spine.

Wyatt shook his head, and his face went back to normal, for the most part. "Y-yeah..." he murmured, still a bit hazed. "Sorry, I was just..." he gulped. "You did a great job, Kaylee. He... he would be proud of you. I'm sure of it."

"Thanks, alpha," the girl replied in a simple, humble voice, before she placed the drawing next to the tombstone. "Don't worry, guys, this is just a copy I had laminated... I have the original at home," she explained, even though no one had asked her anything. "Goodbye, great-grandpa. I'm sure I'll see you again, someday..." she added, before bowing in respect and affection. Chance stepped next to her and grabbed her hand again.

"Why don't we go somewhere? The seven of us. I'm sure it will make you feel better," he proposed. Kaylee nodded.

"To be honest, I think a walk around the woods would help me a lot..." she said; her eyes wandered toward the edge of the forest, where up from the cold California ground rose lofty the godlike Redwoods. The two of them started walking towards the trees, followed by Inori, Angela and Patrick.

"Aren't you two coming?" Inori asked when he realized Wyatt and Drake were still standing next to Hiyashi's grave.

"Just... just a minute," Drake replied, waving his hand.

"You know... Angela is right," Wyatt said in a low tone. "We were so used to having him around, he was a fixed point in our lives, even though we didn't interact that much... and now he's gone forever. And none of us can do jack shit about it."

"Well, from what Kaylee told us, he lived a full life, and..." Drake tried to comfort his mate, but Wyatt interrupted him.

"Yeah, but how can we be sure that what Kaylee said was true? We can't," the alpha replied. "What if I die tomorrow, Drake? What if I leave everyone behind? What if I leave... you behind?"

Drake shook his head vehemently. "Oh, come on, that's not gonna happen!"

"And how do you know that, Drake? How can you be so sure?" Wyatt lowered his stare again. "I'm feeling like my life is a game of domino and all the tiles are falling one after the other... first the head alpha dies, and then..." He stopped talking, but Drake knew where Wyatt's train of thoughts was going.

"And then Kaylee's drawing? Why does something like this upsets you so much?"

Wyatt grimaced. "Because I was convinced that we werewolves could just imitate art, instead of creating it like humans do. And yet..."

"So, what's wrong? You should be happy for Kaylee, then!" Drake was at a loss: the problem that seemed to plague his alpha looked so trivial to him!

"I told you, Drake... two of the things I considered to be fixed points in my life aren't true anymore. So what if happens again? And this time with something that is even more important to me?" Wyatt sighed. "Change is scary to me, Drake. Those changing that are outside my control, at least."

"I see, but..." Drake started, when an explosion coming from the forest made a flock of infuriated sparrows take flight from a tree, countless beaks voicing their disappointment in the clear February air. Drake raised his head, confused, trying to understand what had just happened; that was the moment when the pain stabbed through his left arm like a jagged knife.

A broken noise escaped from his lips as he turned around; blood was pouring out of a cut, drenching his black jacket in dense, sticky dark crimson. It shouldn't hurt like that, he thought in disbelief. He barely realized that Wyatt was shouting something, but the pain was travelling upwards through his body, and his ears felt like they were muffled with cotton balls. Why does it hurt like that? His legs suddenly stopped working, and he collapsed on Hiyashi's grave, the fresh dirt staining his beard and invading his half-opened mouth.

The last thing Drake thought was Shit, Richard lent me this suit... Cordelia will kill me..., before his eyes closed, and only an ocean of red, pulsing inexplicable pain remained.

(next chapter: Il ragazzo col fucile (e poca felicita'))