TWISTED MATES

Episode 13

He has to. It has been tormenting him ever since his attack in the woods. He needs to completely transform once more so that he can heal.

It was a disadvantage for Dante because he hadn't bonded with his mate. If he had claimed her, his shorter side would be balanced.

Isn't it funny? When you think that you've it all and find out that fate has been silently laughing at your pride all along. Because, never for once, did Dante think that he would need a fragile, irrelevant slave and daughter of the enemy pack. Now, he needed her more than she needed him.

He had been fighting it all night and was going to lose at the end. His battle was as futile as a woman feeling the first pangs of menstruation and deciding it was an inconvenient time to begin the process. Nature wins out. It always does.

It was nearly two a.m., too late for that foolishness, and he needed to make his way back to his pack. His skin was still torn, especially his knees and elbows, to the extent that the left tingling pain had begun to burn.

Dante tried to let them be by ignoring the sensation, but it was overwhelming him. Before now, he healed fast whether he was in his human or wolf state. But ever since it got to him assuming the throne, it took a long time when he was in his human state for his injuries to heal.

He felt like he was suffocating. He needed air. His heartbeat going crazy.

His temples began to throb. The burning sensation in his skin spread down his arms and legs. The rage formed a tight ball in his gut and threatened to explode. His legs itching as well as hurt, and he curled his toes to see if the itching would stop. It didn't.

The itching became intensified into a sharp burn as he dragged his body away from the crowd. He strode onto the streets, looking for a dark corner to Change back.

He had initially left the woods with the presumption of finding a safer route back to his pack. He wanted to be meticulous, leaving no traces and making sure that he was not drawing the attention of the enemy back to his people.

Since the era of his forefathers, they've been meticulous in not confirming the myth that shifters were real. Truly, aside been an Alpha, they were charged with the secrecy of their existence. Only a few people had knowledge about that. And those few, were under their unwavering radar in case they wanted to go against them and betray what they stand for. They were also people who had one thing or the other with them, to the extent that their weaknesses were used as leverage by the shifters. That has been the only thing keeping them safe and away from the peering eyes of the human world. Once they expose their secrecy, all eyes would be on them and some of them would be subjected to lab rats. They couldn't afford to make that mistake again. It was made before, and it only ended recently after years of bloodshed.

Dante strode and continued his search for a perfect place to embrace his wolf beckoning to him. He monitored the sensation in his legs, tracing its passage to his arms and the back of his neck. Soon. Soon. When his scalp started tingling, He knew that he had walked as far as he could, so, he searched for an alley. The first one he found had been claimed by a family, laying on a tattered blanket barely covering anything.

The next alley was empty. He hurried to the end and undressed quickly behind a barricade of trash bins, hiding his clothes beside the bins because it was difficult for him to even find the ones he was putting on. After he was attacked in the woods, he only managed to gather those unfortunate pieces that covered his nakedness before he almost ruined it again by transferring.

The sensation got the best of him, and he started to change.

His skin stretched. The sensation deepened, and he attempted to block the pain. Pain. What a trivial word-agony was better. Although Dante was very much used to his wolf, the transformation process was always new to him at all times. It is one thing that he would never get used to. One doesn't call the sensation of being flayed alive "painful."

He inhaled deeply and focused his attention on the Change, dropping to the ground before he got forced down with the decreasing weight. It was easy because he was still human. His mind was intact and not yet overwhelmed by animalistic instinct.

In the struggle to keep his thoughts straight, he tried to anticipate each phase and move his body into position- head down, on all fours, arms and legs straight, feet and hands flexed, and back arched. His leg muscles knotted and convulsed.

He gasped and strained to relax.

Sweat broke out, pouring off him in streams, but the muscles finally relented and untwisted themselves. Next came the ten seconds of hell that used to make him curse and wish desperately for death than the experience. It was the part that he hated about being a wolf.

Seconds later, it was over. He had completely transformed.

Dante stretched and blinked. When he looked around, the world has mutated into an array of colors unknown to the human eye, blacks, browns and grays with subtle shadings that his brain still converted to blues and greens and reds.

He lifted his nose and inhaled. With the Change, he was already keen, and his senses sharpened even more. He picked up scents of fresh asphalt and flowers and smoke from different corners and day-old sweat and a million other things, mixing in an odor so overwhelming it forbidding for his nose, and it made him shake his head, endeavoring to get it off the air it clung onto.

As Dante turned, he caught a reflection of what he looked like on the dented trash can. More than the purpose of healing himself completely, something had triggered his transformation. Being in his wolf, he sensed the danger linking and braced himself for what was to come.