Blood pooled into his mouth, it tasted just as he expected, coppery, sweet, and better than the first bite of a roast beef sandwich. He could taste the cocktail of fear and adrenaline absorbing on his tongue.

And then, something new.

He plunged his fangs deeper.

Dee screamed louder.

Maddy's head snapped back, Dee's wrist slipping from his grasp as pain surged through his skull. Blood welled from the gash above his temple, trickling down his cheek and staining his fingertips. Unable to resist the primal urge, he instinctively licked his bloodstained fingertips, his eyes glazing over with a predatory hunger.

His gaze darted back to Dee, her pale face was etched with fear, eyes wide and unseeing, as if her brain hadn't quite registered the betrayal that had just unfolded. Her free hand clenched around a jagged rock, its surface shimmering with the remnants of a hastily cast spell. But her magic was weak, sapped by the blood seeping from the puncture wound on her arm.

Panic surged through Maddy's veins, momentarily eclipsing the guilt that gnawed at his conscience. His voice was a hoarse rasp as he shouted, "Dee, run!"

Dee's voice trembled as she responded, "You... you bit me..." Her words were slurred, her mind struggling to grasp the horrifying reality unfolding before her.

Maddy's heart split in two. Blood slid down Dee's wrist and dropped in great big globs onto her white sneakers, staining them forever. What had he done?

The pain continued to grow and spread throughout his body. It brought him to his knees. He needed to warn Dee again. The shift was taking over and whatever humanity he had left would soon be gone.

Dee remained frozen, her eyes filled with terror as she watched Maddy writhe on the ground. His bones cracked and muscles rippled as if they were waves beneath his skin, his human form morphing into that of a monstrous wolf. The wristwatch he wore shattered against a nearby tree, its fragments scattered.

Dee jolted back to reality, her mind finally processing the horrific scene unfolding before her. She raised her hands, conjuring a shimmering barrier of magic in an attempt to protect herself from the impending attack. Maddy, now fully transformed into a ravenous beast, lunged towards her, his razor-sharp claws aimed at her throat.

Dee's barrier deflected the first blow, but Maddy's ferocity was relentless. He clawed at her barrier with unwavering determination, his eyes glowing with an insatiable hunger. Dee's magic wavered, her strength waning as Maddy's assault intensified.

With a final, desperate surge of power, Dee's barrier shattered, leaving her exposed to Maddy's deadly fangs and claws. She turned and fled, her heart pounding in her chest as Maddy bounded after her. The forest echoed with the sounds of their desperate chase, the air thick with the scent of fear and primal instinct.

Maddy, consumed by the wolf's primal hunger, lost all sense of his human self. His mind was consumed by the overwhelming need to hunt, to feed, to satiate the insatiable beast within.

Maddy's eyes fluttered open. The late afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the trees and dappled his face. He sat up with a start, frantically touching his human body to make sure all of him was still in one piece. Taking notice of the sun, he realized he'd been unconscious for most of the day, the longest he'd ever shifted for. He scrambled to his feet in search of Dee and hesitated to move forward. It was as if he was walking through an unfinished painting with everything colored, but the trees, which reminded him of birch trees. The air was different here, too, fresher. He took a deep breath calming his nervousness and tasting small spects of magic on his tongue. Pop rocks of crisp air rejuvenated him, but also served as a painful reminder of what he had done to his best friend.

As the sun was dipping closer to the horizon, casting long shadows that danced across the forest floor. The air had grown noticeably cooler, but Maddy felt strangely unaffected by the chill. Eventually, he found a regular brown tree and recognized an old trail marking etched on he followed its direction until he found more and more. Soon, he reached the spot where he left Dee. Her blood now dried on a small patch of dirt and dead leaves by the tree where he bit her. Unwavering amounts of guilt washed over him as her horrified face looked over at him.

He needed to apologize until his tongue fell out of his mouth and then he needed to learn sign language and learn to apologize until his hands fell off. Over and over Maddy contemplated different ways he could say sorry, but none of them seemed to be enough.

But first, he needed to find her and make sure she was okay. His brain wouldn't register the worst. He refused to believe the monster within him could amount to perform such an atrocity. No. Dee was too clever, too athletic to let him get to her. She was shit with magic, but she had enough power to fend him off, surely.

He picked up a leaf dappled in her blood and sniffed it. He could still taste the jasmine and fear he caused her on his lips. He hated how he knew what fear tasted like now: the first flood of flavor after popping a grape or berry. He resisted the urge to crush the leaf in his hand and stood up to find his sweater to wear around his waist for propriety's sake more than anything else. He followed her scent and the drops of blood that would lead him back to her.