Lady Jace Beleren
Don't Feed the Pervert
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2014
- Location
- United States, East Coast
A week until the full moon. A full week of his skin crawling every time the sun went down. For the rest of the pack, it was worse, of course. They still saw a difference between the human and the wolf, had yet to accept that they were just two halves of the same now. Ash was years past that now.
Ash, no extra complications, was what people thought of as a werewolf. Not the same thing from the horror movies, but close enough to count. There was no changing into a half-man-half-beast and rampaging around town. No, when he changed, he was nothing but a normal wolf with an overdeveloped human mind inside fighting with animal instinct. Parts of it were true enough. The full moon made them change and caused them to give in to animal instinct, but they could control it otherwise. As far as he went, Ash could even hold on during the moon, though it felt like sitting on needles. The rest of the pack, as much as one could call it that, they basically turned into nothing but animals during those nights.
Today, though, he was embracing a little bit of his human side. Newton insisted that Ash go into town every few days to be around people. As a result, most people thought of Ash as a local weirdo. He was always underdressed for the weather, flashed a decent amount of cash, talked little, and seemed to just be distant from everyone and everything. He hated it. But, Newton made the rules for the House and, as long as he kept the pack living an easy life during their human hours, Ash would behave himself.
Newton was a madeup name just as much as Ash was. No one at the House used their real names, even if it was no big secret. Newton got his name for being the brains of the pack and Ash, well his was obvious enough. The rest picked their own and sometimes those names changed. It was just another part of the ever-shifting life of the pack. Some lived there full-time, while others came and went like it was some kind of wolf vacation home. They would party, fuck, give in to the animal inside, and on the nights where they all shed their human form, Ash led them out into the wilds around the House. It was a life and he hated very little about it, aside from his forced interaction with the normal world.
Lately, Ash had begun to feel a new itch, though. A need for something more than just fun and distraction. It might have had something to do with him being in his late twenties, the exact count of years lost to the woods. Maybe it was just boredom at the repeating cycle of things. Most likely, it was because of her.
It had started with just another one of his mandatory trips to town. Rustic as things were, the town was about ten years behind. Even by his standards, or at least the standards he had adjusted to living under Newton's Laws, the place was rather basic. There were shops and restaurants, all the things you would expect to find in a self-sufficient place like this, but major franchises had only begun to tickle the edges of the town, chipping away at family business. The only thing that could be found here that you could not find at every turn off the major highway was the zoo.
Sunrise Rescue was not the normal kind of zoo. No, animals there were treated for injuries or rescued from unsafe homes. Many of them returned to the wild or were placed for adoption at the local shelter once they were healed. The ones that could not return to a normal life were given a place to stay. It was a kindness that Ash found few places in the human world possessed. He found himself visiting often and Newton had made a sizeable donation when he found that Ash had taken a liking to the place. The real reason he returned so often was unrelated to animals, however.
She, name yet unknown, had been taking care of an injured wolf when he first spotted her. Curious, Ash had watched from a distance. The wolf had no hind legs and could only move because of a custom kart attached at the waist. He sat stoic and proud until she entered the enclosure. Then, the wolf broke character, turning and rushing to be at her side. He watched her groom the wolf, adjusting the harness and scratching with a genuine affection that made both his and the old wolf's eyes sparkle. There were no words for her, for the joy she brought the wolf, the beauty Ash saw in her face and in her heart. She was a gorgeous winter wolf in the skin of a human, just like he was, and he knew from that moment that he had to have her.
Before long, it was Ash that was making excuses to go into the town. He always checked Sunrise first, of course. Watching her take care of the animals gave him a small joy, despite the jealousy it began to provoke. When she could not he found there, he searched elsewhere. Sometimes in the little Cafe down the road, sometimes at the stores. Never at the few franchises that popped up. One evening, he had even caught her trail leading to a small apartment building. That had been when things turned.
Ash knew it was wrong, knew every human law and social construct said he was wrong, but he could not resist. Once night came, he would shift, abandoning his human form for the stealth of the wolf. Like everything else in town, the woods skirted the edge of the building. He found a perch on a rock, far enough outside the lights to keep him hidden, but close enough to watch. This was how Ash spent his time, a voyeur looking in on a woman who likely did not know he existed.
He would change that soon. He would have her for himself. For now, he just needed to wait.