“Tessa.” Someone pawed at her shoulder. Screwing her eyes shut Tessa coordinated her limbs to flop away like a drunken octopus. There’s a piece of straw stuck to her face and it tickles her nose with each breath but she leaves it there, removing it might imply to whomever is trying to wake her by toeing her shoulder that she is actually awake. Her back twisted something horribly, as if she fell asleep with a pillow underneath the small of her back. “Tessa, I know you are awake.” 

Demi’s breath smells of raspberries. It always did and Tessa never knew why because she’d never seen the woman eat a raspberry in her life. Cracking an eye open Tessa jerked at the close proximity of Demi’s face. Doe eyes circled with blue eyeshadow blinked at her like the wings of a butterfly. 

“We need you in the house.” 

“Bloody hell,” She stretched, the lazy stretch of a cat basking in the sun. “If you want to watch more videos of puppies on Youtube get Walter to work the laptop for you. I’m comfy.” She flopped. Limbs sagging around the weight under her back and eyes fluttering shut. 

“Tessa,” Demi’s long drawl added far too many syllables to her name. That’s another thing about Demi that was a mystery, nobody knew where she picked her drawl from. She had the soft up and downs of a Lancashire accent like the rest of the pack, but tended to add a few syllables here and there and take away others. It either made her a delight to listen to or a bloody nightmare. “I really think you should get up.”

“Why?” Her arms hit something solid. The object she’d been sleeping on. Except it wasn’t an object at all but rather a chest. A chest which if she focussed on she could feel the steady rise and fall lulling of her upwards and downwards with each breath. Bloody hell. “Please don’t tell me I fell asleep on Rye last night.” 

“What do you want me to tell you then?” This time the voice answering her had the short A’s of a Yorkshire accent. A low rumble went through the chest beneath her and Rye moved his legs, jostling her around his chest. “That instead of using my chest as a normal pillow, you decided to enact a form of medieval torture on yourself by sleeping horizonatally over me. And that your drool has stuck hay to your face.” 

Bloody hell. 

Tessa sat bolt right. Demi cackled. Rye groaned, rubbing at his breast bone. 

“I don’t think that's what she wanted to hear.” Demi’s fringe shook and she bent at the waist to scoop up Solis, the baby waving his chubby arms in the air like he wanted to take off. Tessa wants to take off too, preferably to another planet, maybe her scorching cheeks would fit in better on Mars. At least there would only be aliens to judge her there. “Serena says breakfast will be in five and if you are not there then tough titties you’ve slept so long your mum has had to call you in sick. I think she told Mrs Clare you had explosive diarrhoea from Deliah’s cooking or something.” 

“Great.” Groaning, Rye threw his arms above his head in a stretch, she heard the pop, pop, crack of his spine. Probably getting the Tessa shaped dent out of it. 

With a creak of the barn doors and a gurgle from Solis, Demi padded away into the mizzling rain. She never wore shoes either, only an ankle bracelet. 

“You made it through the night then.” Says Tessa for lack of anything else to say. A big mistake. Now his eyes are studying her and she knows her face still resembles a tomato. “Well done.” 

“It was an interesting night.”

“Interesting?” Smiling, she peeled the straw off her face. He ruffled his hair and tiny pieces fell out like leaves off a tree. “You spent the entire night in the corner growling at any wolf who came near.”

“So? I normally spend the full moon running around wild, last night was quite an adjustment. Besides, I didn’t growl at every wolf.” His eyes flickered to his chest. He hadn’t growled at her. In fact, if she strained against the fog of the full moon she could remember his wolf sniffing her, his nose nudging at her neck, her wolf curling into his as the sun rose. 

“We better go get breakfast. Aunty Serena won’t save our food, she’ll feed it to the chickens just to make a point.” Standing was a mistake. The entire world is titled. Staggering she grabbed onto a hay bale, or the remains of one at least most of it had been slashed into pieces. Her mum always described the post full moon blues as the worst hangover in history. “Jeez, I think I’m going to be sick.” Hands on knees, she tries to breathe through it. 

Her stomach is torturing her. Either be sick or stop your bellyaching, she thought. 

Rye stood. “Nope.” He collapsed into the hay cradling his head. A horrible groan escaped him. “Not doing that today.” 

“Come on. We’ll do this together.” Shuffling toward him she held her hand out. Not that she felt like she had the strength to actually pull him up at the moment. “We’ll feel better once we’ve eaten.” 

“I’ll only feel better after a brain transplant.”