Like Cats and... Wolves? The Werepigeon Apocalypse [FREE and COMPLETED]

Chapter 2

The bus ride was horribly monotonous, the countryside around the road was flat, filled with fields and grassy plains, an occasional small town or a farm. There were trees, yes, small patches of them, but nothing you could call a forest, not even with both eyes closed.

“It’s not so bad.” Wow, he must have felt really depressed if Adira felt the need to comfort him. “Better than that stinky city. I can imagine running around those fields, chasing… What animals even live here? Rabbits?”

“Probably. Although closer to the civilization it would more likely be some raccoons. Or squirrels.”

The wolf shuddered at the mention of raccoons. “Eww. Those things are so creepy. And squirrels are hard to catch. But I’m sure we’ll find a way to have some fun. When can we go for a run? I need to stretch my legs, I mean, we barely even shifted before the Alpha forced us to shift back. I feel weird, like this body doesn’t belong to me at all, like I’m an intruder here. I need some time to blend with it.”

The truth was that the wolf wasn’t the only one who needed to stretch their legs. They have spent almost twenty-four hours either in a bus or sitting around bus terminals and Nick’s whole body started to feel sore, especially his back and neck. He felt worse than after the Lord of the Rings movie marathon in a cinema he went to once. Over eleven hours in an uncomfortable seat, stuffing tons of popcorn into his mouth and downing one can of soda after another, watching his favorite masterpiece. His back ached for days after that but it was totally worth it.

The agonizing pain he felt during his first shift was still quite fresh in his mind but Adira promised it would quickly get better and, after the next two or three shifts, it wasn’t going to hurt at all. Nick had no reason not to believe her. Much to the wolf’s amusement, he fiddled with his phone again for a while before presenting her with a plan.

They could get off at the last stop before reaching Silver Falls, find a safe place to shift, and run towards their destination. Once they would reach the outskirts, they could shift back, and Nick would cross the remaining distance on foot, or take one of the local buses. Needless to say, Adira was more than excited. “You will have to carry my bag, though,” he warned her. “I’m not leaving all my clothes and stuff behind just because my wolf needs to stretch her precious little paws.”

Adira hummed in consent and Nick felt her jumping up and down around his head. Her joy was contagious and, for the first time since yesterday morning, he found himself actually smiling.

The bus driver didn’t seem to care that Nick was getting off one stop early, honestly, the man looked like he didn’t even care there were some people in the back of the bus he was driving. After taking a deep breath of the fresh air outside, Nick nodded. The smells here were different than what he was used to but not entirely unpleasant. Adira couldn’t wait to start exploring and forced Nick to run across the road, straight into the nearest cornfield.

The stalks were over seven feet tall and Nick easily got lost in them, weaving his way straight forward until he could no longer see the road. Carefully packing away his phone and other things from his pockets, he started to undress, not so excited about the prospect of the painful shift anymore.

“Don't worry,” Adira paced impatiently in his head, “it will be fine.”

“For you maybe.” It was almost summer and the sun was high in the sky, but Nick still felt goosebumps popping up on his naked skin as he folded his clothes and stuffed them into the big bag, leaving the strap long enough so Adira could hopefully fit her head through it and carry it around her neck. “You’re going to look like those Saint Bernard dogs with kegs of brandy,” he chuckled.

Adira growled. “Yea, hilarious. You ready?”

No, he wasn’t ready. But it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter. Whether he liked it or not, he was a werewolf and had to share his body with her now. “Just do it,” he gritted his teeth, already expecting agony. Nothing happened.

“Nick.” Adira’s presence was strong in his mind now but she didn’t try to force herself forward. “We don’t have to do this right now if you don’t want to. If you fight against it like last time, it’s going to hurt you way more.”

Fight it? He wasn’t even aware he was fighting against the shift. But, come to think of it, maybe he was. It was just so frightening to feel his body change so rapidly, his bones crack and grow, his joints shift, his heightened senses completely altering his view of the world around him. And, on top of that, the loss of control that came with it. The fact that he could see through his eyes or hear through his ears, but the body wouldn’t listen to his commands anymore, was hauntingly similar to being in some form of a coma.

The overall experience from his first shift was so horrible that he was not in a rush to repeat it. But… There was no Alpha Christopher standing above him now, yelling at him to hurry the hell up and shift already. Nick knew Adira now, accepted her, was willing to trust her. Nobody was going to scorn him upon seeing his wolf, nobody was going to look away in disgust or pretend to throw up like Nick’s beloved brother. It was just the two of them here.

After taking a deep breath to calm himself, Nick nodded with newly-found determination. “I think I’m ready. Thank you for giving me space.” Now he felt almost absurdly grateful for Adira’s patience, especially after all the nasty things he told her.

“No problem,” she smiled. “Just trust me.”

This time the changes his body went through didn’t catch him by surprise and Nick found himself watching them with almost scientific curiosity. It did hurt, yes, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he was afraid of. His eyes were closed but the sounds and smells that suddenly surrounded him were overwhelming. Nick tried to cover his ears only to realize that he no longer had hands but a pair of black paws instead. And that they didn’t listen to him anyway.

Adira swiftly took control over the entire body and pushed Nick’s consciousness away into a corner. He actually welcomed it at that point, her mind seemed to be way better equipped for handling all the noises and scents. She opened their eyes and Nick was surprised that despite the color specter being very different from what he was used to, her eyesight was way sharper than his.

“Of course it is, dummy.” She could actually roll her own eyes now, causing their vision to display the top of the corn stalks for a moment before she looked back down on the ground. “I’m a hunter, I need all my senses sharp. You don’t need to see well when all you do is stare into your phone.”

“You sound like my grandma,” Nick chuckled. “Don’t forget the bag.”

It seemed way smaller from her perspective, but Adira managed to put her head through the strap, wiggling around until it was safely around her neck. “Happy?” she growled, the sound reverberating through her entire body. “It’s going to slow me down.”

“Well, I’m not walking around naked later. And I don’t think you would enjoy spending time in a police cell either.”

“Right, right. Don’t fret, little Nicolas. I will carry your precious clothes like a good mule.” Nick had to chuckle over the idea.

It was absolutely surreal to feel his body move without actually giving it any orders to do so. The first couple of times Adira spotted a bird or even a butterfly, Nick instinctively reached with his hand to touch it, only to realize he didn’t have any hands right now, he was just a tiny ball of thoughts and feelings hidden away in the mind of a huge black wolf. Eventually, he just pictured himself sitting on a couch with a big bowl of popcorn, watching an incredibly realistic movie. Not 3D or 4D but at least 10D.

Adira raised an eyebrow, no doubt seeing that image in her mind as well. “By the Goddess, you are so horribly weird.”

Stuffing his mouth with more popcorn, Nick grinned back at her. “It’s like watching Animal Planet.”

Rolling her eyes again, she continued moving east. Her pure pleasure from feeling the dirt and grass under her paws seemed to be spreading through her entire being, affecting Nick as well. When she suddenly pounced forward after some bug and erupted in a burst of cheerful laughter, Nick realized that this was the first time she had a body she could control. She was like a child that had just learned to walk and was testing what else their body can do.

“You should head north for a few miles now,” he instructed her after some time.

The wolf grumbled, it was clear she just wanted to keep running in a straight direction as fast as she could. “What does it matter?”

“Didn’t you take a look at that map on my phone?” Of course she didn’t, wolves didn’t seem to care for maps. “There’s some sort of a research facility at the western edge of Silver Falls, a huge fenced area that is right in our way. We need to go around.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “That’s what you’ve been doing with the phone? Planning our path?”

“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised? What the hell did you think I’ve been doing?”

Adira shrugged. “I don’t know. Looking at naked women? Isn’t that what people do with their phones?”

Nick just gaped at her, unable to answer, before starting to laugh uncontrollably. “Now who’s the weird one here. Just go north now until you come close to a road.”

But the Adira didn’t move, frozen in the spot, her ears turning from side to side. Nick tried to pick through the filtered sounds she was hearing to figure out what was she doing. Her paw moved up to her neck and she quickly shook Nick’s bag off, setting it under a low bush, before quietly stalking away.

They were near a small patch of trees, a thin line separating two big grassy fields. But there was something else as well, Adira heard and smelled it. Water? A small pond of still, not very clean water. And near that water… “Ducks,” she commented dryly, picking out the right sounds from the cacophony that was constantly playing through her mind and pointing them out to Nick.

“Right. Wait, why are you sneaking after ducks?” She better not be doing what Nick thought she was doing.

Her lips rolled back into a quiet snarl, she stalked closer to the unsuspecting prey, a small brown duck standing a few feet away from the pond. Nick tried to tell her to stop but she shut him out, her hunter instincts taking over. The poor bird stood no chance, she pounced forward and in the next second, her sharp teeth were already tearing the animal apart.

“Eww. Don’t eat that. Bad wolf!” Nick almost felt like throwing up upon actually feeling the taste of the duck’s blood and flesh on Adira’s tongue. The cracking sound the bones made as she pressed her powerful jaws together made him shudder. The wolf ignored him and continued to devour its prey. “But… What about the bones? The feathers? That’s just disgusting!”

He sensed her shrug. “It’s food. A little snack for the road. And some fun. You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?” she spat the word out as if it was the worst insult.

“No.” But he actually considered becoming one after experiencing this first-hand. “It’s just…” He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say.

“Natural? I’m a predator, little Nick. And I know for a fact that a part of you enjoyed it well.”

Damn, having someone literally in your head, seeing and hearing most of your thoughts, was beyond annoying. There was no way to keep a secret from her. And she was right, there was a tiny primitive part that seemed to like the thrill of the hunt. “Caveman instincts,” he murmured. “Humans have evolved beyond that, you know.”

“Well, wolves haven’t. Deal with it. Just wait till we find a deer - the fresh, warm entrails are just yummy,” Adira teased him.

Nick was slightly worried that if he started to argue with her, she might want to run around until she actually hunted a deer down. “Sure, whatever makes you happy, my dear wolf. But it’s afternoon already, we should get to the town and find someplace to spend the night.”

Adira sighed, not thrilled over the idea of giving up control over the body, but she did return for Nick’s bag and then kept running until they reached the outskirts of Silver Falls. “I don’t smell any other wolves around here,” she noted while entering a small group of bushes just off the road.

“That’s good,” Nick sighed. It was good, it meant they were safe from other packs. But it also meant they were truly alone out here.

“Perhaps…” Adira used her paw to scratch her neck, setting Nick’s bag on the ground. “Perhaps in time, we could find some other pack. I mean, they can’t all hate rogues, right?”

Wolves were pack animals, they didn’t exactly fare well on their own. Nick was used to being left out and ignored but Adira longed for company, acceptance, understanding. A thing she was never going to have. “Right. Perhaps one day we can.” The probability was greater than zero. Not much greater though.

“I know, I know. I just got a bit carried away. But as long as we stick together, we are never truly alone. Let’s shift back so we can finally see the town.”

Nick wished he could say or do more to comfort her, but they both realized the hopelessness of their situation too well. Shifting back into human form wasn’t as bad as he was afraid. Once he had gotten used to the idea of his bones, muscles, and organs being rearranged, he stopped fighting it and trusted that his wolf knew what she was doing. The moment he felt her slip from the front of their mind, he stepped forward, assuming control of his own body again. There were still occasional pops and cracks when he stretched his arms out. It felt almost weird that his limbs were obeying his commands once more.

He tried hard not to think about the duck Adira ate and whether its remains were now inside his stomach. The truth was he didn’t feel hungry, so they probably were.

“You are welcome.” The damn animal actually had the audacity to stick her tongue out at him! When he frowned, she quickly continued, “What? You were the one claiming we have to save money. Now you don’t have to pay for dinner. Say thank you, Adira.”

Goddess, she was so annoying. “Thank you, Adira,” he grumbled while putting his clothes on and heading back to the road. A quick check of the map on his phone revealed that there was a local line bus stop nearby and that a bus to the town center should be leaving soon. Nick rushed towards the spot, surprised by how tired his legs felt. How fair was that? It was Adira who was running and he had to deal with the exhaustion afterward?

“It’s the same body, dummy. Same energy supply. You need to eat more when we run.”

Actually, that made sense. Nick was a huge fan of science and he was aware of the laws of thermodynamics. Being a werewolf and regularly transforming his human body into a body of a big wolf was not exactly scientific. But the law of conservation of energy was apparently valid even in the world of magic. Nick’s body had a limited supply of energy that didn’t miraculously grow bigger when he turned into a wolf. That's why right now he felt like after an exhausting training session even though, from his point of view, all he has been doing for the past few hours was sitting on a couch and eating popcorn.

As he exited the bus at a large square in the center of the town, Nick had to admit that Silver Falls probably wasn’t the worst place to live in. The town looked tidy, the buildings around the center were all nicely fixed up, the stores proudly offered a variety of goods. There were people moving over the sidewalks, cars slowly passing around. No graffiti or broken benches, the law enforcement seemed to have things under control around here. An absolutely normal town, probably one of dozens in this part of the country.

Nick spotted a drugstore and headed towards it, determined to buy at least a toothbrush before looking for some cheap motel. Somehow he forgot to pack such a basic thing. But he did pack right after being kicked out of the house by his own father, so, understandably, he was a bit emotional and not in his right mind.

A black and gray tabby cat was curiously watching Nick from a back alley entrance as he walked past it and he stopped to admire her. “Well, hello there,” he said with a smile, crouching and extending his hand towards the animal. “You are not a stray like me, are you?” The cat looked well-fed and healthy, her fur was clean and shiny. “No, no,” Nick chuckled, letting the animal sniff him, “you definitely have a home, you little beauty. Lucky you.”

The cat suddenly hissed violently, bristling up and jumping away from him. “Huh, odd.” The animals usually liked him, cats, dogs, birds, it didn’t really matter. Maybe they sensed that he was partly an animal as well, maybe he just gave off a good vibe, but there was not a dog that didn’t lick his hand and a cat that at least didn’t rub itself against his ankles. Except for this one. Or maybe it was because he was a rogue now? “Alright, alright. You don’t want to be friends, I respect that,” he smiled at the cat who only hissed again and jumped on a fence.

Nick had a ton of other things he needed to take care of so he ignored the hostile animal and crossed the road to the drugstore. A few minutes later he was passing by the same back alley again, heading towards a motel a very friendly clerk recommended to him. The cat was still there, this time she came closer to him, her head softly bumping into his leg before she moved away, disappearing behind a couple of trash cans.

Cats were seriously weird. Nick shrugged and was ready to continue on his way when he heard the animal cry out in pain. Damn, what happened? Did she get stuck somewhere? Cut herself over some broken glass or a sharp edge? He rushed into the back alley to take a look, feeling Adira roll her eyes over his selflessness.

The cat was nowhere to be found. Nick moved further in, leaning behind the trash cans where he saw her last. Suddenly, Adira jumped up and growled. Before he could ask what was wrong, she yelled at him. “RUN!”

Nick wasn’t going to argue with her and turned to flee, but it was too late. Two pairs of strong hands grabbed his arms and he felt a sharp pinch in his shoulder. As the world around him was quickly turning black, he saw the damn cat sitting on a dumpster, looking at him with her head tilted to the side.

***

Hello there! I'm glad you picked up my new book and I hope you will enjoy it! It will be a bit of a different take on the classic werewolf romance, but no worries, it will still be sweet and steamy. It also touches on some dark and serious topics. Like the danger of the werepigeons taking control over the world! Jk, there are some actual things debated in the book, especially along the lines of dealing with trauma and guilt and being accepted for what you are.

It is fully written (around 170k words, 63 chapter + 2 part epilogue) and will be on updates every other day until the end. If you want to know more information about the book, be sure to visit my F.acebook page - @AuthorAnnaSvoboda

While you are waiting for the updates on this book, why not check out my other stories? I have a free romance series with two completed books (the third one is in the works right now). No werewolves there, sorry about that, but the attraction between the main characters is easily compared to the pull of the mate bond. Despite being enemies, they can't seem to stay away from each other! All my books are and will remain free, so there is no harm in giving them a go :) Search for "Whatever It Takes: The Royal Romance" and see for yourself!