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Esmé walked out of her bedroom. She was wearing the tight black dress she used for waitressing. "Who was that?" she asked casually as she put in an earring.
"A boy from school."
Esmé paused. "Oh?"
"He asked me to a concert."
"One of them asked you out?" Her mother's expression combined repulsion and surprise. "I won't allow it."
Vivian bristled. "You can't tell me who to date."
Esmé put her hands on her hips. " 'Don't date if you can't mate,' the saying goes." Human and wolf-kind were biologically incapable of breeding.
"I'm going to a concert, not having his baby," Vivian snapped. "And don't tell me wolf-kind only start relationships when they want children. I know better."
"You've got a smart mouth, girl," Esmé called as she walked off.
Now Vivian was sure she was going.
He had phoned, and she wasn't an outsider anymore - untouchable and strange, perhaps invisible. But why should she care so much? He was a human after all: a meat-boy scantily furred, an incomplete creature who had only one form.
How sad, she thought, and suddenly she craved the change.
Like all her people, at the full moon she had to change whether she wanted to or not, the urge was too strong to refuse. Other times she could change at will, either partway or fully. Right now the moon swelled like a seven-month belly, and she wanted to change because it was possible. She wanted to run for the joy of it.
She stalked through the backyard dusk, across the bat-grazed clearing in the narrow ribbon of woods out back, over the stream, up the embankment, and down into the wide grassy valley that held the river.
The grass was already high. Here and there might be nests made by kids making out or getting high, but she sniffed the air and smelled no human flesh.
Down by the river was a giant tumble of rocks that screened the riverbank. Behind the rocks, amid the shoulder-high weeds, she slowly slid off her clothes. Already her skin prickled with the sprouting pelt. A trickle of breeze curled around her buttocks, and her nipples tightened in the cool air off the river. She laughed and threw her panties down.
Her laugh turned to a moan at the first ripple in her bones. She tensed her thighs and abdomen to will the change on, and clutched the night air like a lover as her fingers lengthened and her nails sprouted. Her blood churned with heat like desire. The night, she thought, the sweet night. The exciting smells of rabbit, damp earth, and urine drenched the air.
The flesh of her arms bubbled and her legs buckled to a new shape. She doubled over as the muscles of her abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as her teeth sharpened and her jaw extended. She felt the momentary pain of the spine's crunch and then the sweet release.
She was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. Her toes and legs were too long, her ears too big, and her eyes held fire. Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older - some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.
Vivian stretched and pawed at the ground, she sniffed the glorious air. She felt as if her tail could sweep the stars from the sky.
I will howl for you, human boy, she thought. I will hunt you in my girl skin but I'll celebrate as wolf.
And she ran the length of the river to the edge of the city slums and back, under the hopeful early-summer moon.
Chapter 4
4
By eight o'clock the large parlor of Vivian's home was full. The pack spread around the room on couches, chairs, and the floor in a rough semicircle that faced the fireplace - except Astrid, who lounged apart on the seat set into the bay window at the front of the house, and the Five, who loitered to the side of the window, bantering and exchanging playful blows.
Among the crowd were strays who had gravitated to the pack when it came to the suburbs, and others Vivian didn't know well who had worked at the inn when she was much younger. Many of those who had gone to join relatives when the trouble started hadn't come back.
Vivian felt a pang of loneliness. This is all that's left of us, she thought. And no one I feel close to. Not even Mom anymore. She curled up smaller in her armchair.
Astrid laughed at the boys' antics. When she tossed her head, her red hair flamed against the green curtains.
With her sharp features and plump rear, she reminded Vivian more of a fox than a wolf.
Gabriel paced restlessly in front of the fireplace. Astrid glanced over at him repeatedly until she finally caught his eye; then she winked. His grin was slow and smoldering; she sat back with a satisfied smirk.
