“It’s a lot more fun when I’m the one calling the shots,” you tell BTS, keeping your voice low so the rest of the table doesn’t hear you. Well, you’re less worried about the table than the people gathered around the table. Don is sitting at the other end of it, across from BTS, with R. mi on his right and Empty-head on his left. A thick rope labelled ‘Tension’ draws a line between the two hostile parties, with several poor unfortunate grunts filling the seats between the rope and the enemy leaders. The rope is definitely thick enough to cut with a knife. Good thing there are no knives at the table. None that you can see, anyway.

In the center of the table is a massive plate of cookies and several cartons of milk, and each place setting has a small plate and a glass. Nothing is more nostalgic and comforting than milk and cookies—at least, that was your thought process when you came up with Plan M. Your parrot played its part to perfection, threatening to defile Empty-head’s empty head yet again if nobody provided copious quantities of milk and cookies. Now, here you are, dunking a chocolate chip cookie in a glass of milk and rocking a milk mustache.

This has been educational. For one thing, you’ve learned that Don Ravioli’s first name is Don. You’d assumed that was his title. But no, adding the title makes him Don Don Ravioli. There’s probably a joke in that, maybe something to do with Asian cuisine, which he prefers to Italian food. Cheap, hole-in-the-wall Chinese food tops his list. He has celiac disease and claims gluten-free pasta tastes like cardboard. Thus, the cookies you’re eating are gluten-free, and you’ve all placed your orders with the nearest China 10.

You expressed concern about that at first. Little fast-order restaurants often can’t accommodate food intolerances and allergies because of the common cooking area and the frequent risk of cross-contamination. You don’t like Don, but you don’t want to inflict bodily injury on him. R. mi, maybe. Don, no. Fortunately, he owns this particular China 10, so as with his household pantry, it’s gluten- and lactose-free.

Why lactose-free? R. mi.

The R. stands for Ricotta. Ricotta mi Ravioli. It’s a wonderful irony, given her milk allergy. She is not lactose-intolerant. Oh, no. She’s allergic to milk. It’s the difference between an upset stomach and a hospital visit. So, the milk you’re all drinking is almond milk, and the chocolate chips in the cookies are Ghirardelli chocolate chips, which are milk-free. Who knew?

Oh, and she hates it when people use her real name. She only lets BTS get away with it. Now that you know that, you’ve been calling her Ricotta just to annoy her.

You glance at a west-facing window. The sun is creeping toward the horizon, and much as you want your egg foo young, you’re worried it won’t make it here before night falls and you transform.

“Let’s get down to the negotiations,” you say, dabbing your upper lip with a napkin to remove the unbusinesslike milk mustache.

“There’s nothing to negotiate,” Don replies. “If BTS doesn’t marry R. mi, a mafia war will break out, and I know he can’t live with that kind of guilt. Fate has paired Empty-head with Luna. The only problem is you, which means you have to die. I won’t spare your life to save Empty-head’s hair from your parrot.”

Empty-head frowns and runs a nervous hand through his luscious locks.

“You’re forgetting something.” You direct your gaze to Freytag, who is sitting on the table next to your plate and nibbling a cookie. She cuts such a dainty figure for a dragon, but wow, she has an appetite. She’s eaten six cookies so far. You can’t understand for the life of you why she scares a bunch of large, muscular, armed men witless.

Don’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “What are your terms?”

You look across the table at Luna. She straightens in her seat, smiling a radiant smile. “I’m going back to school for my doctorate; I’ve accepted a modelling job; and I have a part-time volunteer teaching position. There’s no room in my schedule for being barefoot and pregnant in Empty-head’s kitchen. I’m not marrying him. BTS?”

BTS clears his throat. He isn’t as confident as Luna, but he sits up straight in his chair and meets Don’s eyes. “There won’t be a mafia war. You made that up because your spies told you about Y/n and you panicked.” He eyes a grunt who bears a suspicious resemblance to his chef, sans handlebar mustache. Then he shifts his gaze to his fiancée. “I’m sorry, Ricotta, but I can’t marry you. I’m done with all of this. I want out of the mafia.”

Her eyes widen, and then they snap to you and narrow into a glare. “No! You can’t do this to me!”

“We don’t share a mate bond,” BTS tells her, patient in the face of her fury. “There’s probably a guy out there who’s perfect for you, if you’ll just—”

She slams her fist on the table and stands up, jabbing an accusing finger in your direction. “She’s your mate, isn’t she? Well, I can fix that. Somebody give me a gun.”

“No! She’s my mate, but I rejected her the moment we met! Ricotta, don’t—”

Ricotta takes a gun from her father, and time seems to slow down. She aims the barrel at your heart. BTS jumps to his feet and throws himself in front of you, shouting “No!” in that long, drawn-out way typical of slow-motion scenes, his pitch an octave lower than normal. She pulls the trigger. The door bursts open, and a security guard flies backward into her chair, which hits the backs of her legs and makes her stumble. An exaggerated ‘bang’ announces the bullet—

Wait. That isn’t a bullet. It’s a little stick. As it travels through the air at an agonizing speed, a flag unfurls from the stick that says ‘Bang!’ And its altered trajectory is taking it straight toward the cookies and milk at the center of the table.

“Get down!” you shout, grabbing BTS and yanking him to the floor. The slow motion doesn't affect you, so you have plenty of time to jump up and drag Luna under the table, then retrieve Freytag, the parrot’s cage, and the basket of kittens. You take cover with them. The flag hits the cookies. An explosion rocks the table above you and restores time to normal speed. Shouts and screams fill the room, and then, silence.

Almond milk drips over the edge of the table.

You peek out at the disaster zone. Crumbs cover Don, Ricotta, Empty-head, and their dazed underlings. Larger chunks of cookies and chocolate chips splatter the walls, along with splashes of almond milk. What a waste of empty calories. You haven’t even reached the part of the discussion where you’ll lay out the concessions you’re willing to make, but since Ricotta is not in the mood for talking, you don’t see a point in staying. This is the perfect opportunity. You gesture toward BTS and Luna and bolt out of the room, gaining a good head start before everybody else regains their senses.

“Wait! Stop!”

You see a flash of silver on your left and ignore it. Freytag has taken flight and is now leading the way toward the exit, or so you assume. There’s no time to ask. But your assumption is correct, and in less than a minute, you’re all bursting through the front door and onto a manicured lawn, just as the sun drops below the horizon.

You look up at the sky and see the full moon.

The cage and basket fall from your hands. Your inner wolf bounds to the forefront of your mind, howling within you as the moon holds your gaze captive. It’s haloed in silver. Your eyesight sharpens, allowing you to identify every gray crater on the white surface. It’s calling to you, stretching its moonbeams down to you, and your heart thuds against your ribcage. Relaxation floods your being, along with a paradoxical tightening of your muscles. A sigh slips from your lips. You could stand there forever, stare at the moon forever, relishing in these nonsensical sensations.

“Y/n!” A hand grabs your shoulder and shakes you. “Y/n, wake up!”

The spell breaks. You turn toward BTS. Your head feels fuzzy, and you have to stare at him for a minute before your mind catches up to reality. He’s a… child? No, not quite, but he’s tiny. The hem of his blue flannel shirt drags on the ground, and his sleeves fall far past his wrists, but his head is enormous. It’s as wide as his shoulders, and his charcoal eyes are much larger and rounder than anybody’s eyes should be. Two pricked, slate-gray ears, also of disproportionate size to his body, poke through his hair.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “The first transformation is always rough.”

“Why are you a chibi?” you blurt out.

“This is what we look like in our werewolf form.”

You look past him to see Luna in miniature, with deep gray ears tail tipped in silver, creating a blue effect. Past her, Ricotta has golden ears, and Empty-head’s are a muddy brown. You reach up to feel your own ears and wonder what color they are. All of you are swimming in your oversized clothes. Ricotta shouts something, and servants hurry out of the mansion to set up a changing tent for her.

“No fair,” you mutter.

“Oh, author? We need some adorable outfits to match our adorable selves!” Luna sings out.

You sure do. Let’s see… Luna is now wearing a form-fitting black leather bodysuit, although she has no form to speak of, but she can show off her tail this way. It’s the same silver-tipped gray as her ears. Y/n gets red leather, of course. Look at your gorgeous tail! Your fur is a glossy red, reminiscent of an Irish Setter. Now… What color should we go with for BTS?

“BTS, what’s your favorite color?” Luna asks him.

“Purple.”

Bam. Done. He looks good in purple, doesn’t he?

Your inner wolf is baying at the moon, drool dripping from her lolling tongue. Your face feels warm. You try to think about something other than how the tight purple leather makes his skin seem paler and his fur seem darker, and how his tail wags when he looks at you, and how his lips—

You clear your throat. “What happens if someone doesn’t have a prepared outfit?”

“You make do with what you have until you can find something better,” BTS tells you. “Although some purists like to run around in the nude, which is why most packs live in remote wilderness areas. There’s always at least one weirdo in the bunch.”

“Wee!” Empty-head shouts, streaking past you toward the forest. “I’m free!”

You squeeze your eyes shut and cover them with your hands for good measure. There’s no unseeing that.

“Alright, Y/n, you and me! Let’s go!” Ricotta declares.

You turn one hundred and eight degrees before opening your eyes. She’s wearing a bubblegum pink Shirley Temple dress with a matching bow in her hair.

“And do what?” you ask her. “Play hopscotch?”

“No, fight! While we still can!”

You glance at BTS. “What does that mean?”

“We’ll gradually lose control of ourselves the closer it gets to midnight,” he explains. “At midnight, we’ll black out, and in the morning, we’ll wake up to find out what damage we did. Also another reason for werewolf packs living in remote wilderness areas.”

“‘What damage we did’? How can any of us do any damage when we’re like this?”

“Punch a tree and find out. We’re a lot stronger in this form than we are in human form.”

“Forget the tree! I’m gonna beat you into the ground!” Ricotta shouts.

She scratches at you with fake pink fingernails. You dodge her pitiful attempt at an offensive strike and throw a right uppercut into her jaw, sending her flying across the lawn. She hits the mansion wall and slumps down to the ground. You look at your tiny fist. “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”

“Rrawk! Playground bully! Playground bully! Rrawk!” The parrot’s cage popped open when you dropped it, and now it’s flapping around you, trying to bite your ears. It won't stay in one place long enough for you to swat it away.

“She started it!”

“And deserved it,” Luna adds, smirking. “I guess you get extra strength from being a vampire, too.”

“Okay, vengeance is sweet, but we need to get out of here!” Freytag roars. “He’s here!”

“The knight?” You look toward the mansion. The rest of Empty-head’s pack has been running through the front doors and toward the forest like a horde of five-year-olds escaping bath time—mostly clothed, thank goodness—and now, the mafia men are exiting the building. You don’t see the knight yet, but you trust Freytag. And also, you don’t trust every mafia man to load his gun with Looney Tunes-style ‘bang’ flags.

“Wait! I need to get the kittens!” Luna exclaims. She squats down and grabs the basket, calling to the frightened little fluff-balls.

“Rrawk! What are you, a Catwoman wannabe? Couldn’t cut it as a werewolf? Is your head full of hairballs? You—”

“Cats eat birds, you know.” She levels the parrot with a glare that sends it flying away.

Freytag lands on your shoulder and dives under your hair. “Please! We need to go!”

“You’ll have to catch up to us, Luna. BTS, c’mon!” You grab his hand and follow the rest of the chibi werewolves into the forest. Yes, the risk of seeing unnecessary nudity is higher this way, but it’s too dark under the trees for regular humans to see, and most of the werewolves have fur in shades of brown and gray. Luna will blend in well enough. Your red fur and suit and BTS’ purple suit will stick out like a sore thumb, though.

“What’s the plan?” BTS asks you.

“Run and hide!”

“That’s it? What about Plan N?”

“I don’t have one!”

“Nunchucks! Nerf guns! Nair! Nutella!”

“Does it look like I have any of those on me right now?”

“Ask the author to give you something!”

“Where is the vile creature?” a voice booms behind you amidst the clanking of armor. “I will smite all crippling, restrictive, unhelpful writing techniques from the literary world!”

“Now would be a great time for that plan, Y/n,” Freytag urges you.

“I’m thinking! I’m thinking!”

“Cats do not need saving! Monkeys should not jump on the bed!” The knight is getting closer. How can he run this fast in a full suit of armor? It doesn’t matter. Now is the time for action, not questions, and you're out of time.

“Deploy Plan N!” you shout.