Page 2 of Virtually Guarded

Not that I was much of a threat as I lay here gasping for air, blood staining my fur, in so much pain I wanted to scream. Fortunately, that didn’t seem possible while I was a wolf.

I’m going to shift, he said, mercifully breaking the silence before panic took me over. You do the same. Back to human.

Covering my eyes with one paw, I whined softly. Even if I dared show him my human body, I wasn’t completely sure how. The Alpha had done something to make me shift back to human in that concrete-floored room. He’d spoken, even though I hadn’t understood all of the words, and he’d used some kind of power, too. Something like the pressure I’d felt when the Anax ordered me to show myself.

I didn’t want to show him my human body, because then he would see what the pack had seen. The body that didn’t match. He would see that I was “wrong,” as they had put it. What would he do to me then?

You don’t want me to see your human form? he asked, almost like he’d read my mind. Maybe he had.

No, I said. No point in lying. If he could read my mind, he already knew he was right.

I will shift back, he said. I want to talk to you. Hear who did this to you. Let me shift. Then we’ll see.

I didn’t answer, because there was nothing for me to say. He would do what he wanted. I had to do what he said.

He lowered himself to the ground, and my eyes ached trying to see his form as it began to change. He was wolf. He was human. My mind couldn’t make sense of the input through my eyes, and my vision was still blurry anyway. Exhaustion and pain made it hard to comprehend much of anything.

Finally, a man with tanned skin and dark wavy hair lay on the ground where the white wolf had been. He was naked, because of course he was. Clothes didn’t shift when the body did. I’d been naked too. That was one of the things that had upset the pack members who had assaulted me.

Seeing the Anax’s body, I cringed. I’d seen plenty of naked guys before. I didn’t know why the Anax being nude bothered me. But I couldn’t look.

“Hey.” He sat up, his hands covering his lap. “I’m Tobias Rogan. You know I’m the Anax, but right now, I only want to help you. You can call me by name.” He paused, studying me.

I wrinkled my forehead. Something was wrong here. The Anax was in charge. Call him by name? I couldn’t even speak.

“Do you understand me, Ren?” he asked.

Anax. It was the only word I could manage.

“Call me Tobias,” he said gently. “We are equal in this moment.”

Anax, I said again, wishing I had the words to explain why that was the only thing I could call him. It was beyond explanation. A sense of his power and his role in the werewolf world. I could no more call him by name than I could have called God “Chuck.”

Clenching his teeth, he took a slow breath. I cringed. Had I angered him? I couldn’t make him angry. Not yet. Things would get bad enough when I shifted into human form.

“Shift back. Please.” He held up his hands. “No fear. You are safe.”

Again I whined and covered my eyes. Safe. I didn’t remember the last time that word had had anything to do with my reality. Even before the wolf’s attack, I’d had no safety anywhere. Now, especially after what the pack had done, I couldn’t trust “safe.”

But the Anax wanted me to shift back, and even though I didn’t feel power pressing on me like before, I couldn’t ignore the command. Without conscious thought, I reached for the human side of myself, buried somewhere in my mind. When that side had control, the body would change.

It would change into a body the Anax would see as a woman’s. Then the best thing that would happen was that he would have a hell of a lot of questions. Hopefully that was all that would happen.

Shifting was more painful than any of the injuries the pack had inflicted. My body had to contract and compact. Forelegs changing to arms. The genitals that were the only good thing about being a wolf, because they matched my true gender and not my assigned-at-birth sex, shrank into my body, becoming the factory-issued slit, clit, and vagina.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t make any sound at all. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign.

Finally, it was done. Not the pain. Not the bleeding, either, though at least that had slowed. The shifting was over, though. I was in human form, the form I had a tolerance-hate relationship with. I wished to hell I had my binder, because the chest was the worst part of this form, and I wanted to squash it down so the Anax wouldn’t see. At least I could hide what was between my legs, and I did, rolling onto my side with my legs tight together.

The Anax stared at me, and I curled myself smaller, petrified of how he would react. If my wolf form had had the same set of genitals—or an equivalent set, anyway—as my human form, it wouldn’t have been so bad. I was used to people staring at the trans dude who didn’t look quite dudish enough. But I’d already seen that not everyone reacted benignly to a wolf with a penis and balls transforming into what appeared to be a human woman. And I didn’t know if the Anax would give me a chance to explain.

I looked up at him. He didn’t appear angry. Or disgusted like the pack members had. He gave me a tiny smile. “Hello,” he said softly. “Ren. It’s all right. You’re safe, I promise you. I’m Tobias. I’d like you to call me Tobias. Not Anax. You understand?”

“You’re…” For a second, words eluded me as a wave of relief washed through me. He wasn’t angry. Didn’t care that I was trans. He wasn’t going to hurt me. I felt it. He was kind, and he wouldn’t hurt me. Thank God.

I hitched in a breath and blurted, “They said I should be destroyed.”

“Who said?” He hesitated. “Ren, your wolf form is male.”