CHAPTER FOUR – WEREWOLF 101

The night Cassi met Lora and learned the truth about her new nature, reality hit her like a speeding bus. Suddenly, nothing was the same. She spent that first evening under Lora’s watch, lying awake but facing away from the other woman to hide her sleeplessness. She felt she needed that scrap of privacy to try and wrap her head around what her new life meant and what she needed to do.

Cassi had so many questions racing through her mind. What did she tell people? Her friends, her family? Would she still live in her home or did she need to be close to Lora now? How did she feel about the butch woman who claimed to have all good intentions?

Some questions were simpler. Would she crave meat now? Was she dangerous to others? How would she change on a whim? Would it hurt? Would she get ‘stuck?’

Tears began to trickle across Cassi’s cheeks and she stifled her sobs as best she could. She could feel her body trembling beneath the blankets and knew that Lora was watching her. She didn’t care. She needed this, needed to release her anxieties and fears.

Moments later Lora’s footfalls approached and the earthy tones of her scent surrounded Cassi like another thick blanket. Without a word Lora settled on the other side of the bed and pulled Cassi gently into her strong arms. As Lora began to rock the woman, what remained of Cassi’s resolve broke and she started to cry in earnest. She held nothing back.

Lora stayed with her all night, the silent and gentle companion Cassi needed more than anything in those dark hours.

THE NEXT MORNING

Cassi had been dreaming of the forest. It was different in her dreams. It was wilder and less tamed by human hands. She ran through the foliage as a wolf, watching herself over her shoulders. It was a strange third person view, but she knew the wolf was herself. For the first time she saw her wolf skin as she had pictured it in her mind. She was black like the wolf who had bitten her, but her colouring was that of the darkest night, regal and mysterious. Her fur was silky and clean. Was it a sign of being newly turned? She thought so. Her legs were long and muscled, her body lithe, her form powerful and dangerous, yet she was in complete control.

‘Cassi…’

Hearing her name, her wolf slowed to a stop. She sniffed the air, her short muzzle crinkling as a familiar smell reached her nostrils. Her wolfish grin grew, her golden eyes sharpening and focusing. The scent of earth and musk was so familiar now. It was a masculine smell coated with female pheromones. She knew this smell.

Lora.

In the next instance, Cassi was awake. With a startled yelp, she sat up fast and her forehead collided with something hard. Lora let out a curse and fell backwards onto the mattress.

Cassi realised she had headbutted her new companion and quickly reached over to grip her hand. “I’m so sorry!” she said, her own forehead throbbing.

Lora simply laughed and shook her head. She tapped her forehead with her fingers. “Its alright, no harm done. I’ve been told I’m pretty hard-headed.”

Cassi smiled back at the woman, glad to hear that laugh again. Husky and low, straight from the chest. It was so grounding when the world around her was trapped in a hurricane.

Lora squeezed Cassi’s hand gently, then released it to stand from the bed. She stretched and Cassi watched every muscle she could see in the woman’s back through her thin white tank-top. She turned away at the speed of light when Lora looked over her shoulder at her.

“So,” Lora started, cracking her knuckles and turning to Cassi. “I think today will be a theory lesson. Getting you to start changing too fast will probably be too traumatic. I think you need to know the ins and outs first. Sound okay with you?”

Cassi nodded enthusiastically, relieved. “To be honest, I was expecting you to throw me in the deep end and make me change today.” She reddened and looked away sheepishly. “Sorry, that makes you sound like a real drill-sergeant, huh?”

Lora smirked and waved her apology away. “Trust me, I’m a softy when it comes to the pups. I won’t push.”

Cassi glared playfully. “So I’m a pup now?”

Lora’s eyes twinkled. “To me, yes, but don’t worry. You’ve the strongest pup I’ve ever dealt with.”

Cassi rolled her eyes. “You don’t even know my wolf yet.”

“Actually, I do,” Lora said wistfully. “I knew her the moment I saved you. The werewolf gene takes affect immediately. As soon as you were bitten, your wolf was born. Trust me, Cassi. You are powerful. Powerful and… uhh…”

Lora trailed off, and Cassi poked her in her tight stomach. “Power and ‘uhh?’ Is that some kind of werewolf speech I don’t know about?”

Looking like a trapped animal, Lora turned away, but not fast enough to hide her burning cheeks. “Powerful and beautiful. That’s what I meant.”

Silence filled the room as the pair struggled to contain their pounding hearts.

“Oh, uh… thank you, Lora,” Cassi stammered, feeling more like a were-tomato than a werewolf. “I think you make a beautiful wolf too.”

Lora tried to shrug off the compliment, but a smile graced her face. “Okay, enough of this,” she said, clapping her hands together. She pointed to the room off to the side. “I’ve started breakfast. We’ll eat, and then I’ll teach you everything I know. Well, almost everything. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” Cassi said, stretching. She felt more at ease now after teasing Lora. She felt like she was hanging out with a friend, even a crush, rather than preparing to learn how to werewolf. She felt comfortable and her tension eased. With Lora by her side, she felt like she could really get a leash on this new reality, so to speak.

Breakfast had been… interesting. In all her life, Cassi couldn’t remember a time when she had endulged in so much meat. She had always been a carnivore at heart, but six sausages, two breakfast steaks and seven rashers of bacon? She felt like a pig, not a wolf.

Lora’s plate had looked much the same, yet the larger woman had managed to eat with some decorum, unlike Cassi who had practically inhaled her food. At one point the new werewolf had started to choke and a startled Lora had to pound on her back for several seconds before the meat worked its way down her throat. They had laughed about it, but Cassi realised this was another new aspect of her life she would need to control. Suddenly her anxiety began to spike again.

Lora’s kind words and seeking hands that clasped Cassi’s tightly brought her back down to earth. “It’s okay, Cass. Just breathe through it. We’ll take this one experience at a time.” She grinned. “You’ll be the perfect dinner guest before I’m done with you, trust me.”

Cassi did trust her, too, with her whole heart.

After breakfast, Lora retrieved a pad of paper and a pen and laid them before her on the table. Cracking her knuckles, which Cassi was beginning to see was a habit, Lora began her lesson.

“So basically, werewolves are known as shape changers,” Lora explained. “You have feline changers, ursine changers, equine changers, and so on. We are the canine changers, or rather dog changers. Again, you can categorise it further as lupine changers, which is specific for wolves, and then werewolves, which is what we tend to prefer as a whole.”

Cassi nodded her head. “Makes sense. Equines are horses, right? And ursine are…”

“Bears.”

“Right.”

“They’re big. Really big. Best to avoid them when you catch their scent.”

“So… how did this all start?” Cassi asked. “Every bloodline begins somewhere, doesn’t it?”

Lora nodded and smiled. “That’s a great question, and you’re right, out kind didn’t just appear one day. The Shape changer infection began with the witches.”

“Witches?”

Lora’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah. You see, we aren’t the only supernatural beings out there. You have vampires; they mainly keep to themselves in the darkest corners of the world. There are also elves; they’re usually found in forests and woods, but they have wards up to make sure they stay hidden. A bit like the vamps, they don’t mingle.”

Cassi nodded along. “Makes sense. Who else is out there that goes bump in the night?”

Lora smirked. “You have fairies, who live with the elves. There are ghosts. Yeah, they’re real, by the way. They do the typical thing; haunt people and places. There are sirens, obviously in the sea. You have demons; pray you never run onto one of them.”

Lora stopped to think for a moment, counting off on her fingers silently. “That’s all of the main ones covered. There are smaller species but they aren’t too important. You’ll likely never run into them.”

“Right. So, the werewolf infection?”

“Started in the 1700s due to the witches, like I said.” Lora have a distasteful look  on her face when she mentioned witches, Cassi noticed.

“The witches started the infection with a nasty spell back in the day to punish villagers who wanted them burned. It was one particular village and three particular witches who started it all, but the name of the village and the witches has been lost for a long time,” Lora explained. “Basically this village had a huge hate-on for witches and suspected these three women, sisters I think, of being witches. They were right, of course, and threatened to burn them at the next full moon. The villagers figured the full moon would seal the witche’s souls away or some crap like that. The witches struck back by casting a spell that caused an infection to spread through the village.”

“The werewolf virus,” Cassi concluded.

Lora nodded grimly. “Right. Most of the villagers didn’t survive their first change, but some did. They went mad in the wolf form and spread the infraction through bites to other people. For a while, things were grim. Most would die once they had the infection, but more and more were surviving and changing others. Finally, after a few months, humans started to hunt the werewolves, forcing them to hide away. This controlled the changes because the werewolves, who were no longer suffering from madness, didn’t want to risk turning more innocent people who would just be lead to the slaughter. It was kind of a silent agreement. The humans would stop the hunts if the werewolves stopped spreading the infection.”

Cassi nodded solemnly, but looked a little confused. “What about other shape changers, though? The other animals?”

“The infection mutated,” Lora said simply. “Most werewolves were on their best behaviour at this point and even started to live in secrecy among the humans, but some other werewolves had trouble controlling their wolf counterparts. They continued to spread the infection, though in much smaller numbers. As they did, people began to change into other animals when infected. It’s like when a baby is being formed in a woman’s body. It starts as basically nothing, but it’s gender if formed with the x and y chromosome. Whichever is more dominant is the one that wins. Think of the different animal types as the chromosomes when the infection hits a human’s bloodstream.”

The two women sat back in their chairs, Lora taking a break and Cassi absorbing the information. After a few minutes, Lora looked at Cassi worriedly. “It’s a lot, huh? Is it… too much information?”

Cassi shook her head quickly, a wry smile crossing her face. “More like, not enough. This is my reality now. I want to know everything.”

Lora sat forward, her chin on her hands. She watched Cassi for a moment, taking her her squared shoulders and fiery eyes. She was the very look of determination.

“Okay,” Lora said, sitting back. She grinned, baring her teeth and making sure to show off her canines. “But remember… you asked for it.”