Page 12

After pulling out of the theater, Avery swings by a gas station to use the bathroom and put gas in the car. On his way out, he buys the biggest water bottle they carry. Sascha hadn’t hesitated before handing him two twenty-dollar bills to cover the errand. The trust makes Avery itch.

Sascha chugs the water like a dying man. He pulls away the bottle, now half-full, and gasps for air. The bashful smile he sends Avery, the way it communicates ‘ Okay, you were right ,’ is what finally gets Avery to unwind.

Once they’re on the road with a full gas tank, Sascha puts up the GPS to guide Avery back to Bliss, then slumps against the passenger door with his eyes closed.

No music, no conversation—nothing but Avery’s thoughts for the first leg of the drive. When he coasts to a stop in front of a red light, going easy on the brake to avoid a rough halt, Sascha breaks the silence.

“Can I ask you something?”

Avery grunts, drumming his fingers nervously on the wheel.

“Why didn’t you shift to defend yourself?”

Mouth falling open, Avery misses the green light until the car behind him honks to get his attention. Frazzled, he hits the gas a bit too hard, jerking the hatchback into motion. “Oops,” he says with a wince.

Sascha waves the mistake away, his blue eyes fixed on Avery, the gold ring visible even in the darkness.

“I…” Should he be admitting this? “I can’t.”

Clearly confused, Sascha further prods the bruise. “You can’t? How does that work?”

“I can only shift on the full moon,” Avery says around clenched teeth. “And sometimes when I’m… scared. But I try not to.” Because the only time Avery shifted in self-defense, that mugger nearly died. Had that happened, he’d have been disappeared by Parahuman Civil Compliance, not sent up north.

Sascha is quiet for a minute or two. “You can stop from shifting?”

“Not during the full moon.”

“So you can control it even when you’re scared?”

“Why is this surprising to you?” There’s a bit of edge in Avery’s voice this time, though he doesn’t know if the alpha magic he can feel in others resonates in his own words.

“I was just told…” Sascha hesitates. “Werecreatures can’t control transformations, if doing so would benefit their inner… beast. That’s what makes them so dangerous.”

“Them?”

“Shit. Is that speciesist?”

Avery barks out a laugh. “Everything about our interactions is speciesist. This whole…” He takes one hand off th e wheel to gesture broadly between Sascha and himself. “All of it. Werecreatures don’t trust or like shifters, and shifters really don’t trust or like werecreatures.”

“Because werecreatures weren’t supposed to exist, but—” Sascha cuts himself off with a gasp and claps his hand over his mouth, the reality of his words apparently biting his tongue.

“I wasn’t supposed to exist,” Avery agrees, oddly calm.

“I was bitten by a werecreature who didn’t warn me about the risks of fucking her in an altered state.

My whole family rejected me when I was confirmed to be infected, and the person who…

bit me… She promised her pack would take care of me, until their alpha realized I was also an alpha.

Whatever the fuck that means. So they ran me out of the state.

No one thinks I can control myself, which is hilarious because they’re right, just in the opposite direction. ”

At first Sascha works his jaw, no sound coming out. He hums, visibly troubled, before saying, “I’ll bet you’re sick of hearing me apologize.”

“Maybe.” No, not at all . “You gonna do it again?”

“Isn’t it implied at this point?”

Avery shrugs.

“You guys can…” Sascha hesitates, and in the corner of his eye, Avery sees Sascha’s imploring look, but he doesn’t acknowledge it for so long that Sascha turns instead toward the window. “I thought werecreatures could partial shift.”

“Those who can control their transformation, yeah. Probably.”

“Gotcha. Why, um. Why can’t you control yours?”

Avery slams on the brake, not caring that they’re in the middle of a two-lane, no-passing road with precious few working streetlights. “Because I fucking can’t, okay? I can’t, and I don’t know why, but no one is willing to help me, so I’m fucking stuck like this !”

Infuriated, overwhelmed by months of frustration and grief, Avery slams closed fists against the steering wheel, making the inner mechanics groan from his strength.

A car driving above the speed limit pulls out from a side road, swerving around the hatchback without hesitation.

The headlights come and go, illuminating Sascha’s concerned expression before leaving them in the darkness once more.

Though his joints feel rusted in place, Avery grips the wheel and taps the gas, easing the car back into motion.

“Maybe I could help you,” Sascha says in a soft, hesitant voice, and Avery almost stomps the brake again—from surprise.

“Help me?”

“Yeah, like… Okay, shifters don’t really transform.

We just change one-hundred-percent from biped to animal.

So, I don’t know what it’s like for you, and I’ve never even seen what a werecreature looks like shifting before, which…

Whatever, it’s whatever. But I could at least give you some pointers about growing claws and dropping fangs, maybe? ”

Avery tries to swallow past his suddenly restricted throat, eyes prickling even more dangerously than before. “You’d do that? Help me?”

“You just helped me, didn’t you? Even though I scared you.”

“I guess.”

Sascha reaches across the center console, moving slow enough to give Avery time to dodge, should he want to. He doesn’t want to, so Sascha’s hand succeeds in cupping the back of his skull. “I owe you that much, seeing as I royally fucked up your night.”

Avery thinks on that. “No, I don’t think you did.

It probably would have been worse at the farm.

” Sascha murmurs acknowledgement and doesn’t remove his fingers from where they’ve twisted into Avery’s hair until the GPS announces having reached their location.

Avery parks, but scanning the surroundings reveals nothing that could be the Madison pack house.

“You guys live underground or something?”

Snorting, Sascha says, “No. I just can’t bring you close to the pack lands, or they’ll…” He leaves the statement hanging because elaboration isn’t necessary. Sascha’s pack would rip Avery to shreds in seconds if he so much as approached the pack land border.

“Are you sure you’re good to drive home?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Sascha rolls his shoulders, then hops out of the car and walks around to the driver’s side. He asks, “Will you be okay? You can get back to the farm from here?”

“I’ll figure it out.” When Sascha’s forehead creases, Avery flaps a hand to dismiss his concerns. “I have much better sense of direction and endurance now. I’ll be fine.”

Sascha catches Avery’s waving hand in both of his, his large palms smothering every one of Avery’s knuckles and squeezing.

“Do you want my number? You can call me if you need anything. Anything .” In response to Avery’s unsure expression, Sascha flattens Avery’s palm against his chest, over his rapidly beating heart.

“I want to see you again. Let me help you with your shift. Transformation. Whatever you want to call it. I can help. Please?”

Avery chews his lip. “Will you promise not to faint on me again?”

The smile that explodes across Sascha’s face is brilliant. He laughs and rakes his fingers through his hair bashfully. “I’ll do my best.” He gives Avery’s wrist a short tug. “Does this mean I get a goodnight kiss?”

Breath catching, all Avery can do is nod. He doesn’t know what to expect—will Sascha invade him, as he didn’t get a chance to do during the movie? Or will he be just as chaste and teasing as he was while driving Avery to madness?

The truth hovers somewhere in-between, with Sascha drawing Avery out of the car and clutching him close, kissing him with needy pressure and a respectful tongue.

As they pull away, he flicks the tip of his tongue over Avery’s philtrum, as Avery did to him before.

It coaxes the corners of Avery’s mouth upward into a smile he can’t fight.

Sascha drops one more quick kiss on that smile, causing it to widen.

Then his eyes shutter and he sways, a faint sound in his throat.

Avery stabilizes him, chiding, “You need to get home. Sure you can avoid crashing your car?”

“Yeah, you’re just doing this thing. Taking my breath away, or something.” Sascha’s eyes are so earnest, a spectrum of complementary color reflecting in the waxing moon’s light.

Avery has to look away. He scuffs his boot on the grass. “Just put your number in my phone already.”

They exchange texts, then Avery takes a step back before Sascha can kiss him again. “Goodnight. Get home safe and go to sleep.”

“You’re not my boss,” Sascha protests, closing the extra space.

Avery matches it, shaking his head. “We can schedule something, okay? The gibbous moon is coming, which means full moon fun-time isn’t far away.”

“My schedule is always open.”

“I’ll let you know my next day off.”

Sascha licks his lips. “Okay. Goodnight.”

Dipping his head, a smile revisiting lips that remember too well the ridges of Sascha’s, Avery says, “Goodnight, Sascha. I’ll see you soon.

” He turns and breaks into a run, hoping his internal compass is correct.

Even if it’s not, getting away from the man who doesn’t want to stop kissing him is more important.

Avery counts the days several times, cross-referencing the photo he snapped of his schedule from the operations room to ensure he doesn’t make any mistakes.

The full moon is in exactly a week. Everyone has that day off, for obvious reasons, making it the only day every lunar cycle where the shifter employees actually have to work.

Avery’s only day off before then is in three days, on a Wednesday.

It’s hardly enough time to prepare physically, nowhere near enough time to prepare mentally, and he has no choice.

Sascha, whom Avery still has not fucked, is going to see him shift.

Going to coax him into doing it partway, somehow, stopping before the seven-foot-tall (and then some) mutant ursine comes fully out to play.

What if Avery can’t control it? What if he hurts Sascha, or—god for-fucking-bid—fucks up so bad he seriously harms or kills him?

It would be a death sentence for Avery, one he’d accept willingly.

There’d be no option other than to return Sascha’s body to the Madison alpha and request a quick execution.

But that’s catastrophizing. It won’t happen that way. Sascha is an experienced shifter who’d be able to evade a clumsy half-transformed monstrosity with ease. Even with that spinning sickness he’d mentioned.

Avery scrubs his hands through his curls. No, no, no. He can’t think like this. It’s going to be fine .

Three days until Wednesday. Then four more until Sunday’s full moon.

Maybe practicing with Sascha will make that one go more smoothly because Avery has no idea where he can safely spend the night.

Not having control of his giant transformed body is dangerous for any nearby living thing, but here, with dozens of other werecreatures competing for land to ride out the shift on, the risk of sustaining his own bodily harm is high.

Avery doesn’t know which scares him more.

Before leaving his bunk, Avery texts the details to Sascha. He receives a reply before making it out of the housing block, and can’t help the smile that blooms across his face.

Sascha

What time? I’ll meet you by the farm and take you somewhere safe for us to practice. I know a place.

Avery can barely smother his laugh. ‘ I know a place. ’ Like this is a cheesy teen romance film, not the summer vacation horror flick that’s turned into his autobiography. He goes to text a reply, but while his head is ducked, he misses the shadow approaching him until it’s too late.

Even with the muscle Avery has built from increased physical activity, he’s still short and trim, which means he goes flying way too easily when suddenly hip-checked against the wall. Avery’s phone clatters to the floor, coming to a stop under the boot of a total stranger.

Except, wait. No. Avery recognizes them, gasping when the recollection hits.

The werecreature enforcer from the Wilderness Wolf pack. Avery doesn’t remember their name, but he remembers the viciousness with which they demanded respect for their alpha. What the fuck are they doing here, if they have a pack?

Yellow eyes flash in warning, the werecreature staring Avery down while he tries to steady himself without acknowledging the pain in his shoulder.

It’ll heal. He won’t even feel it in ten minutes—something that can’t be said for his phone, its newly cracked screen visible beneath the aggressor’s boot.

“Can I fucking help you?” Avery demands, an unfamiliar growl rumbling in his throat. He’s not used to making sounds like that, so it startles him more than it intimidates his harasser.

In fact, they laugh , before kicking his broken phone back toward him. Avery stoops to catch it before it hits the wall, potentially doing even more damage. He nearly collides with another worker who keeps their eyes straight ahead while weaving around him.

Avery flushes, now angry enough to step into the Wilderness enforcer’s space. “Why are you here? You aren’t packless.”

“Good to know you remember me, considering I didn’t introduce myself directly,” they say, casually removing a piece of gum from their pocket and tossing it between their sharp teeth. “My name’s Beryl, and I’m here because I want to be. The why isn’t any of your business.”

“Stay out of my way, then,” he snaps.

Beryl’s lips turn up, but their eyes reflect no amusement. “Make me, ursine. I’ll be ready if you try, but I won’t hold my breath.”

Not bothering to let the sentiment linger, they turn to shove through the door, bumping into more than one other person on their way out.