Chapter Four
1058 Words
Years passed, and Aria learned to live like a wild mother.
Her werewolf mother had worked, but single-parenting in the wild was a different type of challenge she wasn't prepared for: that of a human child like Alex, small and delicate, under her care. She cared for him, protected him, and kept him safe.
She woke every morning to the soft whine of him, the sure sign that he needed her more than anything in the world. Her body, once numb on survival adrenalin high and rolling country, was now passionately devoted to mothering her baby.
There was a morning that the sun was rising, and Aria stretched and ran her hand through the matted hair. Aria looked at Alex who was stripping claws. He let out a wolf's howl despite the voice still being weak and began waking up.
Aria trailed after every word that he uttered and could read what he was trying to write, "I guess you must be hungry." She told him, stroking her hands over his cheeks.
She knew she needed to hunt soon, but she was reluctant to leave him alone for long. Despite his human form, his scent carried the unmistakable trace of werewolf blood, and she knew that would make him a target for both predators and rival packs.
She sighed, lifting him into her arms. "Come on, little one. We’ll have to find something together."
Aria walked silently into the forest, Alex clung tightly to her breast as she walked silently. Her senses were so acute that she could strike into action on a whisper of pain.
She watched a shaking rabbit running hysterically across an expanse of thistle and considered transforming herself into a wolf and pouncing on it but the need for Alex to stay with her for a moment dissuaded her.
She crept, not stalking, tense muscles. The rabbit trembled, flapping ears, and with a burst of fresh strength, sprang away. Her claws tore its flesh before it could spring, and she snapped its neck.
She rolled over, panting, as Alex cooed on her breast.
"This will have to do for now," she said to him, pushing him onto a bed of moss. She nipped the rabbit's neck with her teeth, ate first, then nipped little twos mouthfuls out of a piece of bark to divide with Alex.".
Though he was still too young to eat solid food, she knew she had to find a way to nourish him. She sighed, realizing this would be another challenge she had to face alone.
"You’re going to be strong," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Just like me."
Aria knew she could not keep Alex locked away in the woods forever. He was growing up, and that wasn't his life. She lived human in another life, many years ago, and would so again—only for him.
Observed secretly for a few weeks, she had wound up in a tiny village on the outskirts of a forest, far enough away not to arouse suspicion but close enough that it would have been easy to escape if needed.
She'd rented a tiny cabin on the outskirts of the town, paying for it in cash that she'd carried with her from her previous life. Their smallest cabin, and warm, with a fire blaze and hardly space enough for Alex and herself to stand.
It wasn't suddenly, though, that it was being human. She had to learn, and learning, she had to learn to eat human food. Her belly rumbled at first.
The charred meat, the scented meat—dementedly worse than she'd been surviving on all along on raw meat. But for Alex's sake, she did.
At the actual werewolf gnawings of hunger no longer to be concealed, she'd slip out into the woods at midnight.
She'd drop human clothes, have wind consecrate her body, and then shift, allowing raw wolf strength take its hold.
She stole quietly, enjoying the meat she had purchased only after dawn back to home, washing animals' scent off of her and human again.
Alex grew up in both worlds.
By day, he'd be playing outside with all the other children, in school, and laughing with all the other boys. But come night, he'd sit on the windowsill next to his mother and look out into the woods.
"Mom," he'd frown one night, fists on her arm.
"Why can't we stay in the woods forever?"
She smiled, smoothing the unruly curl at the back of his neck. "Because you have a choice, Alex. Wolf, or man. Someday you will understand."
And on his fifth birthday, the night of the full moon, everything was different.
Alex had begged to go out with her into the woods to hunt.
She had protested but consented at last, feeling uneasy this night.
They crept between the trees quietly, close but not slowly and quietly.
Aria had already shifted, the big wolf out front and Alex behind in his human shape.
He was faster than most men, the werewolf powerful in him but held back.
And then as they emerged into the clearing, Alex shouted out in pain and clutched his chest.
"Mom!" the boy cried, collapsing to his knees on the floor. His back arched away from convulsing.
Aria spun around, golden eyes blazing. She knew what was happening.
"Alex," she yelled, changing out of wolf shape, collapsing to her knees next to him, wrapping her shivering body around him. "Breathe, baby. Let it happen."
He growled, and her body complied. Bones snapped, muscles tearing, his skin rippling like water.
His howl dissolved to screams as his form shifted.
And moonlight after, a small black-furred wolf where he was.
Alex blinked at her, his shining bright eyes, his floppy floppy ears.
He moved slowly toward her, step by step, he took the first step, and the second, his wet pattering paws on the ground.
Aria's heart swelled with pride.
"You did it," she whispered, shifting back into her wolf form and nudging him gently. "You’re one of us now."
Alex let out a happy yip, his tail hashing.
He bounded ahead, relishing his new power, and Aria came after, teaching him on his first real hunt as a wolf.
That night, under the full moon, mother and son hunted as one in the wild, their howls echoing.
- Writer
