Piety drove home from work and found her eyes riveted to where the accident had been. She kept driving,trying not to think about bad TV movies the hapless main character would be drawn back to the place where it all began. Then the murderer unable to stop themselves would return to the scene of the crime also to murder the main character.

“Ha! Not me” she thought but found herself feeling like shiver that had started down her spine had gone full body. She focused on getting home .No, thinking about murders, magic or werewolves.

Once home the granny calico cat sat licking her paw making a show of ignoring Piety,while the younger fluffy feline bounded in and flopped to the floor rolling around. She glanced at their food dish empty and knocked to the floor from the buffet and said, “ My rotten husky raided your food dish huh?” she put two scoops of cat food in the dish and replaced it on the buffet where the two kitties scrambled up to eat.

She opened the fridge and pulled out a coke. Piety normally didn’t drink a lot pop but the lone can called out to her, the bottle rum on top of the fridge also looked intriguing. The idea of drinking right after work seemed rather alcoholic, yet it had been a shit week. She reached for the bottle. “C’mon Captain, time for you to punch in”. 

The two cats languidly reported to the kitchen. Head butts and leg rubbing began with plaintiff meows. "Oh really guys? You're still hungry?" Piety pulled down a pasta dish and reached for a tin or wet cat food. As soon as the can lid made the cracking sound when Piety lifted the pull tab the cat’s wails of starvation became louder and more frequent. She gave them their dinner and recoiled from the stink of canned fish. How in the hell do they eat that stuff she thought? 

Piety’s stomach rumbled. Apparently, the stink of cat food hadn’t killed her appetite. Feeling decadent she pulled out the menu for the one pizza place that delivered out to the middle of nowhere. She ordered a Hawaiian pizza extra pineapple and a two litter of coke. Piety was going to get tipsy, eat fattening pizza and watch Netflix. “Woo hoo !” she thought, “I am living the life.” 

Jack carefully parked his truck on Larobardiere Road and purposefully left it off to the side in a spot that deer hunters used to leave their vehicles. Once there had been a trailer on the space and the remains of a gravel driveway was barely visible from the overgrowth of weeds and brush. Jack loved his Dodge Ram and knew that his truck would be okay while he was in the woods.  Jack had glanced down at the well-used pull over area and smiled Its popularity evident by the condom wrappers, beer cans and cigarette butts on the ground. Yeah, whoever else passed by this spot would not be thinking about his truck parked there. They would assume it was another couple making out.

The sun had set, Jack inhaled the tang of wood smoke and moist leaf mold in the air. The pull of the moon was singing in Jacks veins. Full moon was night before last.  As Jack mused about the run on pack lands up in Pulaski he smiled it had been a good run with a large buck killed. A lot of people believed that werewolves only changed at full moon, but the truth was that they could shift whenever they chose to. The Full moon just had a magical pull that no one understood, or why it forced a change, but it did.

His wolf paced in his mind, giving him that nervous feeling of  pacing. All the wolf wanted was Jack to shed his clothes, shift to a wolf and run. “soon”, Jack thought to his wolf “We will be a lone wolf. We will stretch our legs and run.”

His wolf relaxed in anticipation of freedom. Jack knew that he would also have to remind his wolf to keep an eye on the closest thing he had to a witness in the murder. The wolf in him didn’t have a real opinion on being assigned witness protection duty. He was just happy to be out in the woods so he could run.

Jack decided that it was dark enough that he started stripping off his clothes. The air was cold on his back and he would welcome his fur coat. His rib cage was a mass of scars and reddish up raised ridges of scored flesh. Werewolves could heal from damn near anything and the mass of scares dated to when he had been turned into a wolf. A person always carried the marks of what had changed them from human to lycanthrope. After that they would forever heal from everything but silver or decapitation. The transformation was horrific. No matter how many times he changed, the process of bones realigning and muscles shifting was agony.  The sounds of bones popping and cartilage stretching and realigning was nightmarish. Jack thought he could force the change to happen quicker, but with the faster change he knew the pain would be increased. 

As the grey wolf, he panted and his human mind thought to his counterpart, “We will run and hunt but we have a job to do from our alpha , remember .”

The wolf made a sound close to a “harrumph” sound in his throat. He didn’t get the freedom he wanted often, and these rules chafed him. Wolves hunted, took a mate and ran. None of these happened enough to suit him. “Mate” the word stuck him as the wolf thought it with longing. Jack and his wolf were normally in sync on the living of their joined lives and it surprised him just how much lounging the wolf had infused with the thought. Jack didn’t get the feeling that this was based solely on the physical implications of the word mate. He asked his wolf “Are you that lonely? We have the pack isn’t that enough?”

The wolf gave a sigh, it was long and his breath puffed out in the cold night air. The wolf didn’t think in sentences, he simply willed feelings and images to Jack. He gave a feeling of pride, contentment and caring looking onto a wolf bitch with puppies. A fat rabbit gently laid next to her awaiting her to eat it. The den was small and snug, dry and held in the body heat to keep the scrambling pups from getting cold. The image shifted to a lone wolf, its ribs stuck out and it’s fur dull and brittle looking. Jack had to admit that image was pathetic. To his wolf it was a terrible fate.

“No wolf is meant to forever be alone” was Jacks interpretation, he let his wolf’s emotion go. He had been married once and it ended horribly. Jack had dated on and off but being a werewolf and a cop tended to make relationships difficult at best. “C’mon mister wolf lets hunt something; you can be in the driver’s seat for a bit then we have to check in on that witch who isn’t a witch.”

In the distance a coyote yipped, and the wolf thought maliciously, “I bet if we run now, we can run up on the dog/wolf and make him wet himself. “Jack who was the mental passenger replied with a smile in his voice, “ Gittum.”

Finnigan’s head popped up. Was that the sound of the food man? Soon the scent of pizza wafted to him.  Piety looked at her dog smiling as she ate a warm slice of pizza. She remembered the pup she had picked out  at the humane society years ago and he had been loosely defined as a husky. Finnegan was the biggest damn Husky she had ever seen. A few people thought maybe he was part Alaskan Malamute, but his coloring, a cinnamon, sable and mahogany brown only just conformed to the markings of a husky. Finnegan’s tail did have the tight curl of a sled dog, but his head was large with a muzzle containing very large white fangs. Whereas other people were given pause at his size and ability to intimidate based on his size she hugged and in a girlish voice would say, “You’re my puppy baby.” The dog tap danced and made a soft woof.

 Anxiously Finnegan waited for Piety to toss the crusts to him. Each time she tosses a crust he leaps and snatches it mid air. Soon,Finnegan's human falls asleep and the dog catches a slight sound. Something was in his yard. Now the slightest scent tickled his nose. He glanced at the vapid felines sleeping next to his human. "Thoroughly useless creatures!", he expressed with a chuff. There is some interloper on their territory and the litter box poopers could care less. Well enough about them. If they hadn’t the decency to defend the human, he would just have to go do it. After all she had pitiful defenses and her sense of smell was abysmal. Maybe his door had been left open to use. He went to the laundry room and pushed the door. It was locked. Ever since his human had smelled that skunk she had been locking him in. As if he was still a puppy who didn’t know what a skunk was.

Piety woke up to the cold wet nose bumping her hand, “ whhattt”

“Booff” the dog replied insistent.

“You gotta go out, boy?” she stood up stretching as Finnegan doggy danced around her his nails clicking on the tile of the kitchen/dining area. She slid the glass sliding door open and Finnegan was out like a rocket his howl echoing off the trees. More awake now she said tersely, “ WTF you better not be going out to tangle with a coyote.”

Piety swore, this was not Finnegan’s normal pattern. When the dog went out to pee it was slow run, sniff about and mark a few areas and come back. This howling and dead run meant he was about to tell something to get out of his area. Piety didn’t want a vet bill and her dog tangling with a coyote or another porcupine. She went to the hall closet, got her coat flashlight and 22. Her feet went into the wellie boots. Piety knew her rotten dog , she would have to go get him . He never recalled when he had to evict a trespasser. She had been muzzy from sleep and had not thought it through. Finnegan had been to insistent, too eager.

Jack , after letting his wolf hunt and kill a raccoon had resumed full control. Not every wolf and human came to an agreement with its new partnership in life. Some werewolves had a more adversarial relationship with their wolf fighting it day and night treating it like a demonic possession. Jack was lucky that the first werewolf he met shortly after being infected with the virus was born a werewolf. Both of his mentors parents were Lycanthropes and they believed the wolf was not an infection or a curse. It was an acquisition of a second form and consciousness and that it took its cues from the human. Yes, the wolf had instincts, but it was the human who ran the show, if the human was a dominating bad person, his wolf would reflect that.

Acknowledge the wolfs needs and allow it time to be dominate in safe places and you wouldn’t need to fight it for control. Jack saw that this was the correct attitude his wolf never tried to wrest control or flood Jack with blood lust he simply was there watching and making his feelings known.

Jack sat at the edge of piety’s yard in the shadows of the pole barn. He was watching the house and trying for unobtrusive. Thankfully her dog was not out in the run. It was just a day past full moon and his wolf was still edgy and restless. Jack knew his job was to make sure no rouge lycanthrope tracked Piety down and killed what it thought was a potential witness to their misdeed. The glass sider on the deck slid open and out raced the husky mutt.

“Fuck” thought Jack as the dog made a bee line to him.

“False wolf!" thought his wolf with a note of disgust. His wolf was not in favor of being friendly to hybrids.

“Fuck me it’s a wolf “said Piety bringing the flashlight around and then the wolf smelled the gun oil and turned to run. Jack clamped down on the creatures instinct , “Hey calm down” he thought , then felt the bite of the husky dog on his tail.

Piety fumbled the bullets into her aunt’s old riffle she got two of them into the magazine tube and took careful aim. Finnegan was in pursuit, worrying the wolf with bites and darting in and out. Piety screamed at her dog to come back, the husky mutt ignored her and pursued, she didn’t want her dog to become a wolf snack. The air had a bit of a bite too it and she saw wisps of steam from where she breathed. Snow was going to happen soon.

The wolf was perturbed and after the second bite to his hindleg he fought Jack for control to spin and kill this nuisance. Jack regained the iron grip on his warring psyche and said, “You smelled the gun oil, stop to kill the dog and we get killed.”

“Kill the woman then. With her dead no reason to watch her or get bit or killed by this dog/wolf. I am fast and she is slow and clumsy.” Was said in images of them knocking her down and tearing her throat.

“NO!” Jack clamped down on that thought and a whistling sound caught his ear and the tree near his shoulder cracked sending a piece a bark sailing by. “Shit!” He thought, “I’m lucky she isn’t Annie Oakley with that thing.

Finnigan used that hesitation to clamp down hard on the wolfs metacarpals bones bringing them both hard into the dirt and pine needle litter. Finnigan was considerably smaller in size but was diving in to issue more bites, the wolf rolled then snapped its jaws on the side of the dog’s neck shaking. Blood and fur were in the wolf’s mouth as it spun, jaws snapping at the dog, ignoring the pain of the bite on its leg. The second bullet found its way into Jacks shoulder and a yip of surprise exited the toothy muzzle of the wolf. Jack swore, it was a survivable wound but one that would need time to heal. Finnegan harried the wolf darting in and out snapping and yipping at the bigger canid. Soon Finnegan was rewarded with another bite to the neck resulting to a large bare patch of fur and a tear that bled.

Piety groped for another bullet in her coat pocket and found none. Why hadn’t she loaded more into the riffle? She saw her dogs neck bleeding and heard his low growl as he paced with his hackles raised.

Jack took a risk, if this was any other night, he would have shifted back to his man form, but he was bleeding, and Piety had never see a werewolf’s transitional form. Last thing he needed was her to catch him in that vulnerable part of the change and shoot him or crack his head with a rock. Jack laid and assumed a submissive low head, his wolf full of black rage to submit to an almost wolf and human. Piety was shaking not expecting this, she tried to call Finnegan and her voice came out high and quivering. The dog for once obeyed. She backed away, resisting the urge to run. She thought she had read someplace that running just invited a predator to chase.

The wolf head low followed, slowly and limping. When she stopped the wolf would stop and lay down. Finnegan would struggle to run at the wolf and Piety had him by his collar pulling him back. “Stop being and asshole , Finnegan.” The wolf didn’t move still submissive.

Piety thought back to the insanity of the morning and meeting the officer who could turn his eyes and teeth to those of a wolf. She said “Are you that police officer…Riley? The werewolf.”

Jack nodded his massive head up and down for yes.

“Well shit, ummm sorry.” She said noting that her apology bordered on lame.