Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“Hold my hand,” she says. Her tone is a little curt. We have been out all day. She’s trying to find work, but she doesn’t have anywhere to leave me, so she takes me with her and makes me sit somewhere safe. I’ve sat in the reception halls of six different places today. One time I fell asleep in an umbrella stand. It was just the perfect size to tuck up in.
She has not gotten a job. I can tell because we don’t stop at any of the stores that smell so good. I know better than to ask. I know it will just make her feel bad. Even though my stomach is growling, I walk beside her without complaint, holding her hand, and trusting that she will make everything right.
“Hey, bitch!” A man’s voice rings out in the gathering night.
We turn around. My mother pushes me as far behind her as she can. There’s a man nearby. We have no choice but to walk under a dark overpass on the way home. It’s just how it is. At this time of night, there’s hardly any traffic out here in the city, so the only light to see by is the streetlight that isn’t even really close enough to illuminate the area.
“Come,” my mother mutters. We hurry on, trying to put distance between us and the yelling man. I can feel the tension in her. Where before she was just sad and worried, there’s now a kind of rage.
I can’t quite keep up with her. I am tired, and I am hungry, and it’s not easy to rush. I stumble and almost fall, but she has hold of me and swings me up onto my feet again.
“Come on, baby,” she murmurs. “We need to go.”
“Bitch!”
The man behind us seems very, very angry that we haven’t stopped. I look over my shoulder and stumble again as I see him gaining on us. A scream escapes me. I can’t help it. He is so big and he looks so terrifying. His face is twisted up with deep anger that makes every instinct in me react.
He catches up and reaches not for my mom, but for me. He grabs me by the back of my coat, ripping me out of my mother’s hand.
I let out a shriek of pure fear and burst into tears.
My mother takes her coat off.
That moment will live in my memory forever, me screaming for her, reaching for her, and seeing her simply put her bag down and take her coat off with a look on her face I never saw before that moment, or any time after it. She was so perfectly calm.
One moment she is a harried woman in a long chiffon skirt and floral blouse, and the next, there is a massive she-wolf next to me.
I am not scared. Not even a little bit. There is a scent in the air, a wolf smell that feels immediately familiar to me, almost as if I smelled it a long time ago. The smell tells me I am safe.
Right now, I am the safest creature in the entire world—but nobody else is. My mother emanates pure menace as she rounds on the man with a snarl that exposes sharp rows of supernatural teeth. I can smell something new now: his fear. It is so intense the air is thick with it. I can practically taste it.
Mom is not here to play. She is here to deal with a threat. She doesn’t give him time to scream. She leaps at him, her massive, furred form knocking him to the ground. There’s a grunt, and a gurgling sound, a rushing of air from a new hole in his throat as she bites, and bites, and bites.
Then she feeds.
I crouch by a pillar and I wait, knowing better than to move. I do not ever remember seeing my mother take this transformation before, but I am not afraid. It feels natural to me, so I tuck myself away in a safe place and wait for her to be done.
It takes a while. Long enough that I drop off to sleep again, trusting that she is able to protect me. I feel safe deep in my gut.
When she is done, she puts her coat on and she gathers me up in her arms, holding me like she hasn’t done since I was a lot smaller. She’s smiling, like she’s happy. The stress that was lining her face is gone. I don’t know where, but I think what she just did made her very happy.
“Let’s get you home, sweetheart.”
That night, I have the sweetest steak for dinner. The following days bring plenty of ground meat and sausages. I am well-fed, and I am curious as to what I saw. It takes some time for the questions to come, but when they do come, they do so in a torrent.