The Cursed Biker of Ifni: My Wolf Harem

I never thought I'd see Kael Amrani again. Not in this lifetime. Not after what he did to me on that stupid hot night in August, ten years ago. He was 19, I was 17. He had just bought his first real bike, a broken down Yamaha he fixed with his own hands in his dad's garage here in Sidi Ifni. He promised me. He looked me right in my eyes and said, "Layla, one day I'm going to fix this bike and take you all the way to America on it. Just you and me." Liar. I woke up the next morning and he was gone. Bike gone. Jacket gone. Just a piece of paper ripped from my math notebook: "Sorry, Lay. I need more than this beach. - K" More than this beach. More than me. I hated him for ten years. I really tried. I worked at my aunt Fatima's fish grill near Legzira beach, I learned how to clean sardines without crying, I said no to every boy in Ifni who tried to talk to me because none of them were him. And every night I looked at the road to Tiznit and thought, maybe today he will come back. He never did. Until tonight. It was almost midnight. The full moon was huge, making the ocean look like silver. I was closing the stall alone. I heard it before I saw it. That sound. BRAAAAP. Low, angry, expensive. Not a little mobylette like the boys here have. A real monster Harley. My hands froze on the grill. Slowly, I turned around. And there he was. My heart didn't just stop. It exploded, then stopped. It was Kael. But it wasn't the Kael I knew. This Kael was... God. He was huge. His shoulders were twice as wide. He had a full beard now, tattoos crawling up his neck - a wolf's head on one side, "IRON WOLVES" on the other. He wore a black leather vest with patches. On the back, big white letters: IRON WOLVES MC. LOS ANGELES. And on the front, a small patch that said PRESIDENT. President. Of course he became president. He always had to be the leader. He took off his helmet and our eyes met. His eyes were golden. Not brown like before. Glowing golden yellow, like a cat's in the dark. Inhuman. "Kael?" My voice came out like a whisper. I hated how small I sounded. He stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. His fists clenched. "Layla," he said. His voice was so deep now. Rough like he smoked 100 cigarettes a day. "Is that you?" "What do you think?" I snapped, because suddenly all the hate came back. "Who else sells fish here at midnight? Wow, look, the great Kael Amrani came back. Did America get boring?" He didn't answer like I expected. He fell to his knees. Right there on the sand, next to his $30,000 bike, this giant biker president fell to his knees and grabbed his head. "Argh!" He growled. It wasn't a human sound. "Not now. Not in front of her!" "Kael? What's wrong with you?" I stepped forward without thinking. Old habits. "STAY BACK!" he screamed at me, and when he looked up, I screamed too. His teeth were sharp. Like fangs. His nails were long and black. Hair was growing on his arms, thick dark hair. He was shaking, sweating, changing. I should have run. Any smart girl would have run and called the police, or called my uncle, or just run. But I'm from Ifni. My grandma told us stories every night. About men who run with wolves in the Anti-Atlas mountains. About curses. About Aisha Kandisha who comes when the moon is full. "Your eyes..." I whispered. "What happened to you in America?" He was breathing hard, fighting it