It started out as a strangled moan, tossing and turning, a groan. Valerie twisted and turned, her eyes popping open and her mouth gaping in an effort to scream but nothing came out. Her fingers dug into the bed, her spine arched off the mattress, her skin seeming to tighten to her body, constrict her, force her bone to push out, trying to get free. Then her eyes filled, turning into a color as deep crimson as an open wound. There was the loud sound, her bones cracking, repositioning themselves, then her skin began to burn. It burned and it itched as course needle like hair sprang up out of her skin. She tried to scream again but her throat was no different than the rest of her body; it too changed. She growled, roared and sprang up off of the bed.
The petite, 5'3" brunette who often sat in the back of the library, hiding behind Shakespeare, now stood, hunched over, a hulking mass of fur and muscle. She was still distinctly female, and not just by scent. Her vision was tunneled she moved by what smells assaulted her finely tuned senses. Someone had been in her territory, only two miles away. She could smell the urine, a male's urine. Her window was open, she'd had left it that way knowing it would be a full moon. No longer Valerie Slone, she leapt through the open window. She'd find the culprit and rip out his throat.
Once again the animal she felt was her true self, Valerie bounded through the wooded area that surrounded her father's country estate. When she reached the place where the other wolf had marked her territory as his, she growled. He'd marked over hers, a deliberate attack on her position as alpha of the wolves that dwelled in the area. She snarled and sniffed at the air, there was a fresh marking, half a mile away, back in the direction she'd come from. He was going to try and mark all of her territory.
She bound off after him always seeming to be just one step behind him, he had her running circles around the area and the night was nearly over. As dawn began to break she started to change back and lost his scent. She slowly climbed into her open window as the last bit of fur receded into her skin and was imagining a long hot shower when she smelled him, then saw him, in her bed. She stood upright quickly, baring her fangs, one of the things that she had learned to control without a full moon.
"You're on dangerous ground," she growled even as her claws began grow from her nail beds. He grinned at her and sat up. He'd made sure get himself good and dirty before he got into her big white bed. He'd been chasing her for a long time and there was no way he was going to settle for a simple "hello."
"Get out of my bed." She was prepared to leap at him and his scent, the same scent that had been on the trees, was telling her he wanted to leap too, but for different reasons.
"Why don't you come get in it with me?" He asked stretching out, his long tanned body, well built, tempting her.
She took a step toward him and growled. "If I get in that bed I'll kill you."
He sat up, his face changing, looking more serious. "I'm willing to take that chance."
Pig, stinking arrogant pig. Without a thought she leapt into the bed, her muddy feet ruining her favorite Egyptian cotton sheets. "I'm going to tear you apart!" She roared lashing out at him with her claws.
"When I'm done, if you still want, I'll let you." He quickly changed positions, grabbing her wrists and pinning her underneath him. "But only after."
"What are you doing?" Valerie practically screamed at him thrashing around for a moment before she froze. Words began flashing in her head like a light show: changing, naked, bodies.
"Fully human again?" he asked lifting one of his legs and pushing it between hers. "Realizing how naked we both are?" He grinned pushing his knee up, almost touching her, feeling the heat from her body as she reacted to him. "Know what I want now?"
"Yes," She said trembling. She was in heat, he knew it. If they mated . . .
"Yes, we would surely have one or two little ones." He moved one hand to cover both wrists above her head, and then used his free hand to rub her tummy. "I'd like to think we'll have good looking children."
