Page 29

“How am I gonna find that damn lake while you can’t talk, Sascha?”

The cougar wiggles in his seat, adjusting so he can paw at the window, leaving giant bean-prints on the glass as he indicates the direction in which Avery should turn. Avery dissolves into damn near hysterical laughter.

“Taking driving instructions from a cat. Alright, let’s go.” He laughs even more when Sascha nips at his sleeve, then puts the car in drive and eases onto the road.

Not too long later, the thatch of growth concealing the path to Forgotten Lake appears in the distance. When Avery gets close, Sascha jumps out of the car and guides him toward the obscured area into which he jams the little hatchback. Avery climbs the fence, but Sascha goes several meters down to dig under the base of it. He kicks dirt back into the divot once he’s on the other side.

As they walk, Avery strokes Sascha’s obscenely soft ears, enjoying the way he chirrups and purrs before nudging him to hurry. The full moon is almost out, and there’s no time left to waste.

Sascha plunges into the cool lake water without hesitation. Avery looks at his phone and its splintered screen, then takes off his boots and carefully slides it inside one of them. He tucks the boots between two of the boulders where he and Sascha first fucked, only four days ago. Avery spares just a second to smile, brushing his fingers over the smooth surface. He cannotbelieve they had sex on a rock. The peacefulmemory dissolves as he turns, following Sascha into the water.

Sodden denim, heavy on Avery’s legs, makes it hard to swim, but he manages. It’s not terribly far before they make it to the mouth of a cave, so narrow they both have to crawl. Avery makes it inside without issue, but Sascha’s cougar form is easily twice his size, so he has to maneuver with much more care.

Within the cave, Avery can stand. The ceiling is high, extending several feet above his head. It’ll be tall enough, but there’s no way his fully transformed ursine body will be able to exit the small opening. There will be just enough width for Avery to irritably pace the night away, trapped inside thick walls of rock and earth.

He doesn’t actually know how smart he is when the ursine takes over, as his memories are always blurry when he wakes up after a full moon. He’s undergone the full transformation only ten times, plus one half if the partial transformation counts. Eight full moons, tonight’s being the ninth. Twice on accident, the second being when he nearly killed the mugger in Pontiac.

“You should leave now,” Avery says, fighting his way out of the soaked t-shirt sucking itself to his skin. He kicks off the wet jeans next, dismissing both to the side of the cave. He keeps his boxer-briefs on only because he doesn’t want to sit his bare ass on the cave floor. When Sascha approaches, agony from the farewell visible even on the face of an animal, Avery drops to his knees, ignoring the grit stinging his skin. “Thank you for your help. I’ll be fine. You promised I’d be safe here.”

Sascha nods, then presses his cold nose to Avery’s cheek, licking with a large, rough tongue. Avery hugs him around the neck, then gestures toward the cave’s waiting mouth, swatting him playfully on the flank when he hesitates for toolong. With an irritable yowl of displeasure, Sascha departs—and not a moment too soon.

Avery sprawls on his stomach to watch Sascha swim to the other side of the lake, warmth blooming in his chest when he realizes Sascha plans on watching over him. Then again, maybe the sensation is from the sharp rocks pressing into his vulnerable torso.

The discomfort becomes inconsequential when a different flavor of pain starts at the top of his spine, then creeps downward. Avery gags, only barely able to keep the contents of his stomach. The first two shifts, he wasn’t so lucky.

Bones begin to crack and shift underneath his skin, lengthening until Avery feels like he might burst.

And then, hedoes.

Avery screams when his skin tears, the bloody gaps making space for new mutant tissue to burst in its place, knitting Avery back together as his body convulses and grows. His mind is the only thing that doesn’t swell; in fact, it feels like it gets smaller and smaller, pulling his consciousness under the surface, away from the agony of being torn apart. By the time thick black hair begins to sprout from Avery’s screaming follicles, numbness takes over. It stings, but the deeper his mind sinks, the calmer Avery becomes.

The last thing he thinks about is Sascha, keeping watch on the other side of the lake.

When Avery staggers out of the cave the next morning, nearly knocking himself unconscious on the low rock, it’s to find a bright-eyed cougar sitting on the bank waiting for him. Avery’s clothes are still wet, the humid cave air not having allowed them to dry completely, but they’ll have to swim back anyway. He gives Sascha a quick hug and drops a kisson his satiny forehead, then plunges into the lake, shivering from the cooler morning temperature.

They swim silently. This trip, the denim is even heavier on Avery’s tired legs, but his underwear was ripped to shreds during the transformation, and the jeans are all he has. Should’ve brought a change of clothes, but he didn’t know they’d be swimming. He’s exhausted when he crawls up on the shore, barely regaining his balance so he can fetch his boots and phone. The device has died, but at least it’s still there. Avery ties the shoelaces together and throws them over his shoulder, staggering to the ivy-woven fence and climbing it barefoot. As he navigates to the other side, his foot catches on one of the prongs, worn down by weather but still sharp enough to scrape the skin to bleeding.

Hissing, Avery loses his grip on the fence. His other foot fails to find purchase, damp skin tangling in the foliage. Avery claws for the chain link as he falls, expecting to break something one way or another, but instead of hard ground, he hits a warm body that makes anoof!when his weight settles.

Sprawling onto the grass, Avery ends up tangled in a pair of very human arms. Sascha, once again biped, wheezes with laughter.

“Are you okay?” they ask at the same time.

Neither of them reply, as their laughing mouths become occupied with each other.

Avery’s wet clothes drip on Sascha’s naked skin, fresh and dry after his shift. Envious, wishing he could look so handsome and bright-eyed after a transformation, Avery delivers a punishing bite to Sascha’s clavicle, then drops his fangs to threaten Sascha’s left nipple.

Sascha yelps and covers his chest with one arm, shoving Avery away but only so he can roll him onto his back on the grass and suck hard on his neck, leaving strawberry blotches and swollen red rings of teeth imprints. Caught in the thrill,the pleasure of the moment, Avery fails to think of any downside to allowing Sascha to mark him.

“I want to get you out of these clothes,” Sascha grumbles. “I want to suck on every part of you.” He tugs the belt loop on Avery’s shorts, fingers going right for his wildly sensitive hipbone, but Avery bats his hand away.

“I don’t know what time it is,” he says, putting a finger over Sascha’s pursed lips. “But I have to get back to the farm so I can shower and get new clothes. Breakfast after a full moon is later in the morning, but I’m not gonna push my luck.” Especially not with Beryl around.

Sascha lets out a miserable whine, its similarity to his cougar noises so pointed Avery can’t help but laugh. He smothers the sound with kisses, tonguing shamelessly into Sascha’s mouth so he can swallow every desperate gasp and groan. Lying under Sascha at last, after wanting it so badly last night, feels like coming home.

Finally they withdraw, both panting, one smiling (Avery), and one pouting (Sascha).

Sascha mutters curses against Farmer Dennings as he helps Avery up from the grass, then insists on wiping leaves and dirt off his wet clothes. It mostly smears them even worse, but Avery kisses him in gratitude regardless, before telling Sascha to put on his own clothing.