Chapter Three
1067 Words
Black forest all around her, great woods overcome witnesses to her grief.
Her quick and agile feet weighed down, weighed down by the burden of life lived in her.
She had hunted once—work she never gave. She had been huntress, goddess and mistress of unbeatableness.
And now she missed her quarry more often than not, her body deceived by her in ways she never had before.
She'd fought against the truth for months. She was a werewolf mother.
She hadn't believed it. She'd thought she was ill, that her body would purge itself of whatever corrupted energy was draining life from it. But the months passed and with them, denial. The pregnancy simply continued. The child within grew.
There were still packs at early morning runs, still stalking small game.
And then exhaustion, her body fighting her, her gasping for rasping lungfuls of dirty air.
"What kind of thing is this?" She cursed herself when she couldn't catch a rabbit.
Aria sat at the tip of a branch, she was famished and her belly continued to make all kinds of noises that she was powerless to do anything about despite her best efforts.
Her expectant child created an odd sounds that caused her to shiver and feel somehow.
"You’re making me weak," she whispered, placing a clawed hand on her swollen belly.
The moon was suspended above her, full and bright silver light above her. She'd have run under that moon, freely wild. Now she was burdened, open.
And yet in spite of it all, there was something more—a connection. Not love, no. Aria had never loved. But it was present.
This thing inside her was real now, and fight as she might against it, she could not shake it off.
Months Later
Night was wet earth scent and wolves far away howling in the darkness. Aria sat on ground, backs to dry tree, gagging foul breath.
There was agony slicing through her flesh.
Her claws dug into the ground as she clenched her teeth, prepared to weather the burning flood of agony. She'd never experienced anything like this—never in battle, never in change.
This was different. This was beast.
She trembled, beads of sweat bursting on her skin as she struggled upwards. No one would rescue her.
No pack. No mate. Alone.
Seconds ticked by, and one was eternal. And then, in a final, throttling contraction, the pain intensified.
And then—nothing.
Aria drew in dusty air, gasping, turning to glance around at finding the tiny dead form in the dirt at her feet. A baby.
Her baby.
The tiny form convulsed in rage, the tiny fists clenched inward. It had not screamed like human babies scream, but rather produced a harsh, scraping noise—wolves cry.
Aria's pounding heart in her chest.
It. was. stunning.
But it was when she sneaked on board to get near the baby that her body had something else in mind. Something she couldn't contain inside of her erupted and flowed through her, and within a time span shorter than the length of time it takes to blink an eye twice, she was shifting.
Bones cracked, muscles torn, and then she was on hands and knees. She had coarse fur, still damp with sweat and blood.
And then she howled.
Not a mournful sadness, no, not even. More. A declaration.
A letting go. An invitation to the full moon to the one who'd lived long enough to see it all.
The puppy responded.
A yelping howling yell that was hers—temporary, but feral.
Aria bent, cheek to baby. "It smells like it," she whispered, "the woods, full, old."
She had done it.
She'd made life.
And she had someone to live for.
The night sky filled with moon was heavy with light, its sheen pouring out a radiance among the trees as Aria gazed down at her just born baby boy. So small he was, his tiny form bound tight in the afterbirth.
His warm flesh was the only comfort against the coldness of the night air, but the true shock was that he did not transform back into wolf form.
Most werewolf pups were born in their wolf form before learning to shift into their human bodies, but Alex—she had decided to name him Alex—was different.
“You’re not like me,” she murmured, brushing a clawed hand gently over his soft cheek.
He wept, his little hands shaking with no hold, and she understood that she had to wash him. Aria held him and went and paced with him and the woods, her own frame bruised by birth but inner processes in germ.
She sat on her knees in a tiny open brook where she had given birth to him.
She knelt on the water's edge, dripping some and letting it run down over Alex's excess of fat.
He whimpered a little at its cold but otherwise lay still.
"This will do," she muttered to herself.
She washed him clean of dirt and blood, as clean as could be in the woods.
He looked smaller today, fragile in a way that filled her chest with an unwanted, maternal feeling.
She spent the night sleeping on top of him, hugging him closely in her arms as she searched for a secluded clearing deep within the woods where she could pull over and catch some rest.
Night felt endless, but when morning broke, she once again woke to sleep and refuel.
She sat up, stirring power in her muscles. "Time to hunt," she told Alex, looking down at him.
He slept, his twisted form across the outcropping of rock and yielding moss bed she'd constructed.
His scent filled her nostrils, wolf and man mix.
"You must eat, little one."
Aria ripped through the woods, senses spinning.
She ran on strength she hadn't experienced in months, as if her own body wasn't a captive of pregnancy.
And out she came, and discovered that a deer entered the glade, cropping about here in the grass.
She sprang swiftly, running swiftly, tearing flesh open with claws, finishing in a s***h.
She presented raw offal flesh to her son, flesh torn open, nursing and caring for him so he might remain alive.
"Somewhere, somewhere, one day you will be different," she taunted, glancing at him. "And when so, I shall teach you."
- Writer
