As I sat fuming under the tree, the feminist in my riled to the core, Xander came to me. I glared at him openly as he approached, snow crunching beneath his feet. My lips pursed thin at the sight of him. Or rather the unwarranted reaction I had at the way he looked in his new clothes -he’d torn the ones he’d worn before to shreds when he’d shifted to fight Jackson. 

I could never scrub the image of him standing buck-naked in the middle of a clearing surrounded by his people from my mind. It was now forever engrained there, and I blushed at it still. 

He came to stand in front of me. 

“I didn’t fight him because I was fighting over you like some plot of land. I fought him because he lost control and was going to hurt you. He needed to be taught a lesson.” Xander’s eyes flashed. 

“I thought you’d loosen up by dancing with Monica, maybe see that we’re not the complete monsters you think we are. I didn’t expect that idiot to come along and bungle it up. He’d shifted on you, the fool, and so he had to learn the hard way that he could never lay a hand on you, even if you laid a hand on him.” 

“He started it!” I quickly said.

“And I finished it,” he said evenly, his face darkening like stormy clouds. “If you weren’t standing there watching us, Jackson would have emerged from this fight very differently.” 

At that, I shuddered as the menacing implications of his words rolled over me. 

“I will never force you to do anything against your well,” he promised vehemently. He sounded sincere enough. 

I was angry, hurt and afraid, but I still considered his explanation. After a moment’s hesitation, I asked, a note of fear slipping into my voice, “Are all you werewolves so easily riled? You can dish it but you can’t take it?”  

However, would I be able to live among these werewolves if all of them were such firecrackers who could explode in my face at any given moment? 

Xander’s hard eyes softened as he looked down on me. “Not all of us. And we don’t tolerate loss of control. A werewolf must always be in control.” 

“So you say. I didn’t see much control in Jackson.”

“Jackson is young. He’ll learn.” 

“He’s our age.” I said dryly. 

“He’s… different. He’s not a born werewolf. He’s new at this.” 

I blinked at him as I considered the meaning behind his words, and what he wasn’t explicitly telling me. The cogs turned in my head as I put two and two together. “Oh, my God.” I breathed when it finally clicked.

“Oh, my God.” I repeated. I thought I was going to be sick. A flicker of fear in my pounding heart. A rush of breath out of my lungs. A pang of alarm in my chest. 

“Are you saying…” My throat abruptly dried. I swallowed to wet it. “Are you saying-” I fell silent. I couldn’t find the words nor the courage to speak my terrifying suspicions. 

Oh, my God. 

“He’s newly bitten, newly changed.” 

I must have gone so pale that the hard look on Xander’s face was promptly replaced by one of concern. “Are you okay?” 

No, I’m not okay. None of this is okay.

What had my parents gotten me into? 

“Right.” 

He said nothing else, allowing me the time to process this new bomb he’d just dropped on me. Still, he stood over me, as if standing watch. 

So, werewolves could make more werewolves. It wasn’t a myth. The werewolf bite was a thing.  

I finally found my voice to ask, “Are you going to bite me?” Never had I heard myself sound so small as I was sounded in that moment. I was the little girl whose parents had left her sitting in front of the big, bad wolf. I was terrified. 

“The choice is yours.” 

I met his gaze and searched his eyes for the lie. I found no traces of it. He was being honest -or he was the world’s best actor. 

That only eased some of my fears. 

“Did Jackson have a choice?” 

“In a way, yes.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“I’ll tell you about it one day-”

“Tell me now.” I demanded, wanting -no, needing to know more. I couldn’t constantly be crippled by fear of the unknown. And this particular fear may very well outweigh the rest. Not only was I afraid for myself, now I feared for my very humanity.  

“We have to go,” he said sternly. 

“Go? Go where-” I looked around the clearing and saw that, while I’d been fuming under the tree, lost in my anger, the party had died down. The speakers and beer kegs were all packed. The previous merriment of the party and excitement of the fight was all but gone, now merely a strange memory. 

“We’re going home.”  

My heart stuttered as I realized what that meant. We were leaving to wherever it is these people -these werewolves had come from, and they were taking me right along with them. 

There was no escape.

He reached out a hand for me to take. 

I didn’t. 

I got up off the ground on my own and was surprised that my legs didn’t buckle from underneath me; they were shaking like twigs. 

I pretended I was shivering from the cold. 

“Is it a long journey?”

“On human legs, yes. That’s why we’re shifting.” 

“I can’t-”

“You’ll ride me.” 

My mouth gaped. 

Xander winked at me. 

“You’re out of your mind if you think that I’ll get on top of you,” I practically shrieked. 

The telltale sounds of breaking and reshaping bone filled the clearing. I nearly covered my ears; it was horrendous, like a million people cracking their knuckles all at once. 

“Can’t we take your car?” I almost sounded pleading.  

“You know we can’t. We’re going into Evergreen Forest.” 

“Then I’ll walk. You walk with me, let the rest of them run,” I argued. 

“We run together with the pack as one.” 

“I… I don’t know what that means.” 

Xander’s mouth stretched into a small smile “You will soon. Now hop on.”

Before I could say another word of protest, Xander’s mouth stretched into a muzzle and his cheeks sprouted black hair. 

I took a few steps back, keeping well away from him while he shifted.

Glassy amber eyes full of intelligence stared at me expectantly. 

Get on. 

I crossed my arms over my chest and firmly denied, “No.” 

I swore I saw Xander smirk.