Prologue: Retribution
I sip my whiskey, wincing as its bitter heat scorches the back of my throat, blazing a path down to my stomach. The door squeals, drawing my attention away from my drink and onto the man across the room, quietly shuffling to the bar.
He drags out a stool and slumps his withered frame onto its battered red cushion. After wetting his lips, he orders a drink, desperate for the liquid salvation. The bartender slams a beer bottle down in front of him, and he seizes it in a white-knuckled grip. He takes one long pull, draining half the bottle before setting it back on the bar’s scarred surface.
Shadows carve out his hollow features as he hunches over his drink, his shoulders rising and falling with a heavy sigh. This is it. All he has left. A ghost of his former self. He haunts this place every night, lost in the dark corners of his mind.
I hide my smirk behind my glass, watching the man drink himself into a stupor. Hours pass before he finally calls it a night, and fishes his wallet out of his baggy brown slacks. After settling his tab, he staggers to the door, and the bar’s chill trails out after him into the late-summer night.
The door swings shut, and I drain my whiskey. The liquor is still burning as I follow in his steps, leaving this dump for the last time. No one watches either of us go. No one cares. Not in this shithole town at least.
The man is nowhere to be seen along the empty streets when I step outside. I inhale deeply, letting the familiar mix of body odor and cheap cologne lead the way. The humidity weighs heavily on my lungs with each breath, while his scent grows stronger with every step.
It’s no surprise when I find him staggering toward a condemned apartment building nearby. He’s been squatting here since he ran away from our sleepy little town two weeks ago.
He places a foot on the bottom step of the building’s short staircase and stops. Instincts kicking in, he turns around slowly, his glassy eyes scanning his surroundings. They slide right over my hulking figure across the street before snapping back. I tilt my head, staring, wondering if he’ll finally realize who I am. What I’ve done.
Recognition soon flickers across his face, and he takes off down the narrow passageway beside the building. With a smirk, I sprint after him.
He’s already halfway to the parking lot by the time I enter the courtyard. But instead of following him, I remain rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on the place where he disappeared from view. My wolf paces restlessly beneath my skin, urging me to move, but I grip his leash tight. It’s all about control.
I kick off my shoes and peel off my sweat-soaked clothes. After carefully folding each item, I place it in a neat pile off to the side. With my heart hammering in my chest, I stash my belongings under an overgrown shrub, teetering on the cusp of transformation. Satisfied, I unleash my wolf, and he gladly lunges to the front of my consciousness, hungry to take over.
A grotesque symphony rings out, forcing me to my knees as he breaks my body and devours my humanity, one bone at a time. A guttural scream rips from my throat as my skin splits, and my blood sprays the grass. Muscles tear and reform, sending shockwaves of pain through every nerve.
The agony stretches on for an eternity before my skin finally begins to knit itself together, soothing the throbbing ache. A thick, dark-brown coat emerges, blanketing me in warmth as I regain control, holding my wolf in place.
Standing on digitigrade legs, I’m something new. Something different. Suspended between my wolf’s image and my own. Unlike our werewolf counterparts, we lycans have total control over our shift, allowing us to take on a hybrid, bipedal form.
My ears perk, listening for the sound of his feet slapping against the wet pavement. A breeze carries his scent to me, beckoning me closer. A low rumble builds in my chest, swelling into a sharp howl that bursts into the starry sky.
Ready or not…
His footsteps falter, and a shiver ripples through me, every muscle coiling tight. My fangs glisten in the moonlight as my tail lashes sharply behind me, anticipation thrumming through my veins.
Run, rabbit. Run.
The thrill of the hunt heats my blood, and I race through the streets, clinging to the shadows while listening for the patter of his hurried footsteps. The stifling air forces me to pant, and my tongue lolls from my mouth in an undignified manner. My claws scrape the concrete with every long stride as I close in on my prey.
Rounding a corner, I spot the man sprinting toward an abandoned warehouse. The closer he gets, the faster he runs, with a clear destination in mind. He skids to a stop near its entrance and grabs a crowbar that just happens to be lying in the grass.
It’s no coincidence.
I slow to a crawl, sniffing the air.
But we’re all alone.
He wedges the crowbar beneath a board, prying it loose from the door before flinging the tool off to the side. My shadow falls over him as he wrenches the board away, and it slips from his grasp. The board hits the concrete with a deep, resonant thud as he stands frozen in place, his pulse hammering in his neck. Eleven heartbeats later, he turns to face me at last.
His eyes widen, frantically running over me as his brain scrambles to process the horror before him. A violent tremor tears through his body, and he stumbles, losing his footing. His ass hits the concrete so hard his teeth clack together. And that’s where he remains. Afraid to move. Afraid to blink. Afraid to breathe. He stays put, right where he belongs—beneath me.
It’s the usual response. I’m quite an intimidating sight, if I do say so myself. Judging by his reaction, I’m also the first shifter he’s seen in a shifted form, but that’s to be expected. There’s an unspoken rule among our kind to keep a low profile around humans. After all, we’d prefer to avoid mobs with pitchforks, thank you very much.
A dark spot blooms across his pants, spreading down his thighs, accompanied by a sharp, pungent stench that burns my nostrils. I sneer, wrinkling my snout.
Gross.
“Wha-what are you?! What do you want?!” he stammers, his voice rising.
Speech is impossible in a shifted form, so I do the next best thing—I smile. I bare my teeth in a snarl resembling a grin. I’m confident it doesn’t look friendly. It certainly doesn’t sound friendly.
His eyes lock onto my muzzle, and a whimper escapes his trembling lips.
It looks like speech is impossible for him at the moment, too.
He searches for an escape, eyes darting everywhere while I watch, head tilted with my teeth bared. He begins inching backwards, toward the warehouse entrance. The movement is painfully slow until, finally, the back of his head bumps into the door.
With surprising agility, he leaps to his feet, twists his body, and shoves inside. By the time I process what just happened, he’s already gone, the door slamming shut behind him.
The hinges shriek as I push in after him, the sound echoing through the vast, lonely space. Dust motes hang in the stagnant air, sparkling in the moonlight filtering in through the grimy windows. I listen for the patter of feet, but hear nothing besides my own claws clicking against the concrete floor. It doesn’t really matter, though.
I follow the man’s scent to the left, past rusted machinery, to a door partially hidden by shelving. Trembling with the urge to pounce, I grip the handle.
Knock, knock…
I pull hard, expecting resistance, but the door swings open with ease. The force of my pull sends it slamming into the adjacent wall with a resounding boom, shaking loose chunks of concrete that clatter to the floor. The door’s rusted top hinge snaps, and a high-pitched crack whips through the air. The door teeters and groans before coming to a rest halfway on the floor. The silence is deafening.
Oops…
Moonlight floods into the tiny room, casting my shadow across the man’s pale, sweaty face. He’s standing in the center with his hands wrapped around a steel pipe, ready to swing.
I flex my claws at my sides.
This has been months in the making, and it all ends here. Tonight.
He straightens, meeting my gaze, his pupils blown wide. With sweat running in rivulets down his face, he raises the pipe higher, testing the weight.
Ears flattening, I bare my teeth as my throat vibrates with a low, rumbling growl.
“D-don’t come any closer!” he yells, refusing to look away. “I’m warning you!” He swings the pipe in the space between us.
Ignoring his threat, I step over the threshold, closing the distance. His eyes flicker to my claws, and he releases a broken breath. Squeezing his eyes shut, he starts swinging the pipe wildly, striking my forearms several times in his blind attack. But none of it hurts. At all.
I’m a little disappointed.
After the seventh strike, I yank the pipe from his slick grip and hurl it against the far wall. It falls to the floor with a high-pitched clang, making him flinch, but he doesn’t dare open his eyes. He doesn’t even make a move to recover his weapon. Instead, he raises his arms to his face, cowering and waiting for something to happen.
…but nothing does.
A mixture of impatience and curiosity gets the best of him. His eyes find mine through a squint, and I growl a thunderous warning. His gaze immediately drops to my clawed feet, and my lips peel back over my fangs.
Good boy.
He clasps his shaking hands together as tears streak down his face. “P-please, don’t hurt me! I-I’ll do anything! Please!” he sobs, choking on each word. “I have a family!” he adds, risking a glance at my face.
Pathetic.
I haul him to his feet by his hair, while my other clawed hand closes around his throat. His scream ricochets off the walls as I slowly rake his cheek, the scent of rust and salt flooding the room. He pulls at my wrist, desperately trying to free himself from my grasp. But I won’t let him get away. Not this time.
My claws slash his flesh over and over while he thrashes, his screams raw and broken, pleading for mercy. But he won’t get any tonight. Not from me.
The assault continues until he slumps in my grasp. I release his throat, and his body drops to the floor with a satisfying, meaty thud.
Nonsense spills from his lips as a gruesome halo forms around his head. Looming over him, I admire my work, watching the light fade from his eyes. His mumbling fills the room until it doesn’t, and the space falls into a sinister silence. But it’s not over yet.
I can still hear his heart beating.
Kneeling, I drag an obsidian tip across his throat. His hands fly over the gaping wound, gurgling as he clutches it tight, prolonging his fate. He loses his grip, and his life quickly pools on the filthy floor. Then his hand just falls away, limp. The room falls into a cold hush. The only heart left beating is my own.
Justice served by a monster.
Turning away from his lifeless form, I slink through the waning shadows and go back to the courtyard to retrieve my belongings. There’s been too much activity here for one night, so I need to find a new place to shift back.
A parking lot a few blocks away serves my needs. I don’t care much for how open it is, but no scents linger here, and it appears to be free from prying eyes, so it’ll have to do.
Gripping my wolf’s leash, I pull hard, demanding he return. His response is instant. Brutal.
Pain seizes me, bringing me to my knees once more. A ragged howl bleeds into the sky as my bones break and reset, their unwanted fragments quickly getting reabsorbed into my body. Lightning rips through my muscles, every fiber convulsing and shrinking to fit my new frame. Skin sags, sloughing off onto the asphalt as new, smooth skin takes its place.
Before long, I’m left standing in the center of my discarded wolfskin, completely naked. Completely human.
The sun is creeping over the horizon as I drag my shed skin across the asphalt. I toss it into a dumpster, strike a match, and drop it inside. The fire catches fast, flames roaring to life, eagerly licking the blood-matted fur, burning away the evidence. I bask in their comforting heat as I slowly put my clothes back on.
A new day. Another life.
