Werewolf Romance Short 1- The Valley

This is the first part of a short story I wrote. I spent a long time developing the two main characters.

A dry breeze whispered in the air, rustling through green trees and rattling the dry needles that lay scattered on the ground beneath my feet. I paused, watching Alaya's ebony hair billow with the wind. She raised her water bottle to drink. As she did, her silver ring sparkled against the darker skin her left hand.

Alaya and I had fallen in love two years ago. That June, Alaya had given me a silver chain, symbolic of her burgeoning feelings for me.

Only two weeks later, I'd become a werewolf. I'd feared myself an outcast, condemned to live in secrecy or risk society's unanimous rejection.

Instead, Alaya had accepted me fully. Our mutual feelings, having simmered unaddressed for months, had finally blossomed under the revealing light of a brilliant August full moon.

Alaya's love and affection had allowed me to balance my humanity and my natural instincts. I owed Alaya a debt I could only repay by devoting myself fully to her�"and so I'd bought her a ring, a token of my devotion.

Now I was nineteen, Alaya was eighteen, and we'd both completed our first years of college. After discovering that our mutual love had persisted, even after a full year of separation, we'd decided to spend some time vacationing as a couple.

We'd gone camping, of course. Any vacation spot we chose had to be remote enough to sufficiently hide a werewolf. After a year in the city, I felt a desperate need to refresh my identity as a natural creature, a need paralleled only by my desire to reconnect with Alaya.

Alaya replaced the cap on her water bottle and we continued walking. We chatted about school, about our parents, about how much summer we had left and how quickly it had already gone by. We talked as much to hear the sound of each other's voices as we listened to what the other had to say.

The further we walked, the steeper the land became and the sparser the trees that surrounded us. The sun was high behind us as it journeyed west across the sky. We were nearing the edge of my territory.

My territory�"that's how I'd begun to consider it, to think of the mountainous where I and Alaya lived. The more I explored, the more familiar I became with both the region and my werewolf body, the more appropriate that choice of language seemed.

Kirin's Run was its official name, the name of the town nestled deep in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. Two great peaks stood in the north, flanked by rolling, forested hills in the west and a high, rocky ridge to the east. Alaya and I had begun ascending that ridge early this morning. Behind us, a deep, wooded valley opened into the lower lands to the south. Most of the residents of Kirin's Run lived in the hills that ringed that valley, though Kirin's small downtown spilled into the southern lowlands.

An hour later, we'd reached the top of the ridge. Though nowhere near as high as the northern peaks, the ridge still offered a considerable view. Several miles to the southwest lay the valley, a thick, green streak. At night, it would be peppered with tiny yellow lights, each one signifying a single, sleepy household. To the north stood the mountains, their twin peaks jutting well over a thousand feet into the crystal-blue alpine sky. We could walk to them�"my eyes followed the ridgeline north, the raggedy, rocky tightrope upon the summit of which Alaya and I now stood.  And before us, to the east�"

To the east loomed even more mountains, an endless ocean of gray and distant blue. Below us, though, was yet another valley, a natural depression where the stone legs of the ridge on which we stood dove underground before leaping up again to form the next peak, many miles away. All the while the wind blew and buffeted, colder and harsher now that there were no trees to shelter us from its gusts.

I turned my face towards Alaya's and saw that she was just as impressed as I.

"I've never been this far before," I admitted to her.

"Why not?" Alaya asked, once she'd finished absorbing the vista.

"Time," I lamented. "I've ran around the hills, and to the edge of the mountains, and sometimes I get close to this ridge, or climb one of the smaller ones; but I usually stay in the valley. There's just not enough time in one night."

"But you want to keep going, right?" She asked.

"Of course," I replied. "And if we don't find a good campsite today, we can always come back and try again."

I watched Alaya's expression as she turned her attention back to the difficult descent that awaited us. The ascent had been gentle and hilly�"this side of the ridge was more of a cliff.

I was a werewolf, though. To me, cliffs and tall mountains only invited challenge.

I smiled at her, meeting Alaya's green eyes; and beneath her furrowed brow, I saw a kind of satisfaction. Alaya was glad that I wouldn't pass up this challenge. It proved I was still in touch with my lupine side; that one year in the city, away from her, wasn't enough to change a fundamental aspect of my nature.

Alaya and I had agreed to go camping together. I wouldn't renege on that promise just because of difficult terrain.

*****
Camping equipment rattled as we skidded down gray rocks. We'd brought enough food to last for several days; a few cooking utensils; a small two-person tent; and several changes of clothes. Everything fit neatly into two large backpacks, except for the tent, which occupied its own, smaller container.

My first water bottle was nearly empty by the time we reached the valley floor. Alaya was halfway through her second. Above us, the sun dipped low in the west, its golden light obscured by yet another sea of pines. Before us, the land continued to slope downwards, though not nearly as steeply as the cliffs we'd just descended.

"We've finished more than half our water," Alaya announced as the light was growing dim. "We should camp here and turn around tomorrow."

I held up my hand and gestured for her to stop. Then I pricked my ears and listened.

"Justin, I'm exhausted." She repeated.

I listened to her, but I also heard something else�"the distant splashing of water.

Alaya began to shake off her pack.

"Wait," I interrupted, and she paused. "If you take it off now, you won't want to put it on again. Follow me."

"Justin�"" Alaya groaned, but I was already off.

I went north for several minutes, half-running into more rugged terrain. I scrambled up a pile of small boulders, heedless of both the weight on my back and Alaya's exasperated complaints. But the rushing noise grew louder; soon, Alaya had heard it too, and she hurried to reach my side. We continued hiking, tired, but driven by purpose�"and suddenly, there it was.

Clear water rushed quickly, no more than a few feet deep, yet too wide and swift to safely wade across. Fascinated, Alaya and I kept walking.

In some places it eddied; in others, it undercut the flat, white stone that formed its banks. The water rushed in the center, forming small peaks before collapsing back into the swirling mass.

Eventually, the stream led us to a pool, wide and shallow. Water cascaded from above, splashing across the boulders that formed the body of the waterfall. I stepped forwards, to the edge, and placed my hand under the hissing spray. The stream was snowmelt, biting and icy cold�"a perfect place to escape on a blistering summer day.

I cupped the water in my hand and flicked some of it into Alaya's face.

"Thirsty?"

"Lucky for you you're still wearing your pack," Alaya warned in jest, "otherwise I'd push you in."

We refilled our bottles and made camp on the leading edge of the woods. On one side of our tent stood the woods�"dark and mysterious, now that the sun had disappeared; inviting, and sometimes foreboding. I thought I'd understood my forest, and yet here was a part of it I still had not explored. The thought excited me. On the other side of our tent, the stream hissed its ever-changing song.

I wished to explore the woods now, to fall forwards and land on paws instead of hands and run the breadth of this valley as a wolf. But the dull ache in my legs reminded me that I'd already hiked far enough today. I turned away from the rapidly blackening woods and crawled inside the tent.

Alaya was waiting for me, dressed in a long t-shirt with a few blankets wrapped around her middle and her black hair cascading about her shoulders. I zipped up the flap of the tent, leaving the mesh screen open so we wouldn't be completely cut off from the outside. Then I stripped off my outer layers of clothes, the sweaty garments I'd worn on the hike out to this site, and piled them in a corner of the tent.

Alaya rolled back some of her blankets and scooted aside to make room, revealing one of her coffee-brown thighs as she did. I clambered under the blankets beside her, and there was a brief moment of scuffling when our legs tangled together and the sheets seemed to be wrapping around each of us at once. Then we were settled, each of us leaning back against the thin foam mattresses and gazing into the canvas ceiling above us. The only light in the tent came from the nearly-full moon outside, its white glow filtered by the tent's thin, plasticy material.

"I'm glad we're doing this," Alaya said quietly.

I faced her in the darkness. Her green eyes glittered like jewels in the night.

"So am I," I told her. "I think my parents are okay with it, too. We're adults now�"they trust us, and they know we need our privacy."

Alaya smiled, but I saw that her emerald eyes were now downcast, and I silently cursed myself for mentioning my parents. Alaya had only one parent�"I recalled the chronic instability se had experienced ever since her parents had divorced, the many incapable and abusive boyfriends her mother had since adopted. Alaya's mother participated rarely in her daughter's personal life, if at all.

"My parents… my mom, I mean… she doesn't care what I do."

"I'm sorry for mentioning that," I apologized.

"No, don't be," Alaya said, turning back to me. "You've been here for me. And it's not your fault my family's so screwed up."

"We'll do some more hiking tomorrow," she promised, her fingertips tracing lines across my face. "We'll relax. We'll spend a few days together, just us. You can even be a werewolf again, now that nobody's around to hide from"

I felt the metal band of her ring, cool against my warm face. I felt the lupine instincts, rising with the moon and stoked by Alaya's gentle touch. I accepted them now, as I had come to accept myself, as Alaya had accepted me one August night two years ago.

We spent a few minutes touching, whispering quiet things, until she finally slipped off her ring and placed it in a pocket of her backpack. Then we embraced, lost in each other's warmth�"and some time later, arms and legs still intertwined, we slept.

*****
            I awoke in a tangle of bedding, still in my human shape, my arms still wrapped around Alaya's middle. Birds twittered quietly outside. The clear stream, still splashing endlessly, seemed somehow softer in the gray dawn light.

The sounds were calming, refreshing, almost meditative; so much more comforting than the permanent traffic noise that permeated the city. Even in Kirin's Run, I could sometimes hear trucks go barreling down the highway.

I lay my head in the crook between her shoulder and her neck and dozed, let my mind drift back to comforting things�"the smell of her thick, ebony hair; the soft rush of her breath; the warm smoothness of Alaya's firm belly as it rose and fell beneath my hands. Tonight would be the night of the full moon.

Alaya stirred; she turned her head upwards to face mine, and we shared a kiss. Our lips remained together for a long, lingering moment.

We cuddled in the tent for many more minutes, murmuring and touching each other sleepily; not quite making love, yet still unwilling to separate for the time it would take to dress and greet the morning. The blankets grew stale from the time we spent beneath them. Alaya's skin, like mine, felt damp and sweaty; the air, oppressively hot.

Hunger, eventually, drove me from the tent�"that and Alaya's insistences that we both finally breathe fresh air. I stood and stretched my bare arms as the mountain wind cooled my hot skin. Alaya stepped out behind me with a set of fresh clothes bundled against her chest.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked her, feeling groggy and blinking in the light. I couldn't guess the time; I knew only that the sun was bright and already high in the sky. Alaya and I had purposefully left our watches and cell phones at home.

Alaya clicked her tongue as if to scold me. "Take something from my backpack. All the food is in there."

"Where are you going?" I asked as she started away.

"I'm taking a dip in the river."

I thought of following as I watched her alluring body disappear upstream, but decided to let Alaya have her private moment. I instead turned my attention to the tent, first removing our bedding and airing it on the tent's canvas roof. Next, I dressed, pulling on denim shorts and a white shirt, and then opened Alaya's red backpack to take inventory of our food supplies.

When Alaya returned, her black hair slick and wet, I'd lit a small fire and begun boiling a pot of oatmeal on top of it.

"Have a nice bath?" I asked her.

"The water is frigid. The rocks near the edges are slippery because of the waterfall, and the pool is too deep in the center for me to wade across."

She drew her ring from her back pocket and twisted it back onto her finger.

"It was great," Alaya finished finally, beaming behind a wide smile. "The place is like a swimming pool. I swam to the bottom three times."

"Awesome." I dipped a spoon into the oatmeal and blew the steam off the top, then handed the morsel to her. "Gruel?"

She swallowed the spoonful greedily. "Don't belittle yourself. This is delicious."

She passed the spoon back to me, and I tried a bite for myself.

"It's bland. It needs something to go with it."

"Like?" She folded her arms across her green tank top.

"Meat," I responded, after eating another bite.

"Wow," Alaya said, feigning exasperation. "The werewolf wants meat to go with his breakfast. How could I ever have guessed?"

"Meat is good," I protested.

"Meat also spoils after a few hours at room temperature," Alaya reminded me. "That's why I brought packaged foods, things we can store easily. Like oatmeal."

Alaya squatted down, and we passed the small pot back and forth across the fire.

"I can get some meat," I said after a moment of thought.

"Yeah, you've told me about the stuff you eat on full moons. Possum? Raccoon? Thanks, but I'll stick with this." She waved the spoon in the air.

I squinted in the direction of the stream. "It doesn't have to be possum."

"Well, what else are you thinking of that wolves eat?" Alaya scrutinized my face. "I don't want you bringing down a deer to impress me, Justin. It's too dangerous to do by yourself, and I wouldn't know how to cook one anyway."

"Fish," I suggested.

Alaya twisted her head around to face the stream. Then she turned to me again, a bemused expression playing across her lips.

"And how are you going to catch this fish?"

"I'll just grab it out of the water, maybe," I replied. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."

"Like a grizzly bear?" She asked.

"Like a werewolf," I corrected. "A rugged and handsome werewolf."

Alaya handed the pot back to me, shaking her head to stifle her laughter. I scraped the last of the oatmeal off of the bottom, holding my own serious expression all the while.

"Tell you what," she challenged me. "If you catch a fish, I promise to cook it up for you, no complaints. Deal?"

"It's on," I agreed. Already, I could taste the tender flesh dissolving in my mouth.

*****
We relaxed for most of the day, sometimes talking about our potential future together, other times simply enjoying a day with no commitments, no schedule to follow, nobody to tell us what to do or when to have it done.

Alaya wanted to become an artist. She'd bought a new sketchbook, a black, leather-bound volume, and spent the morning filling it with pencil-gray depictions of trees, or of the two high peaks to the east and west that formed the valley we camped in, or of the icy pool and the short, gray-and-white cliffs that surrounded it. She laughed when I suggested she draw me posing in my lupine shape, but the glimmer in her emerald eyes hinted that she'd already considered it.

Many times that day, I considered transforming. The forest called to me, and I wanted nothing more than to throw myself into it entirely. But the full moon was only hours away, and I wanted to save my strength for a night of exploration. I'd change then�"the full moon's silver light compelled me to do so; and aside from my first two transformations, those that had occurred before I fully understood myself, I could not remember a single full moon under which I had not wanted to change. Until that hour, I would rest, and eat, and share my thoughts with Alaya.

As twilight set in, I became restless. I wandered the perimeter of our campsite. Only a few hundred feet to the west, the ground jumped sharply upwards and became covered with thick, green bushes. I imagined the same thing happened on the other side of the stream as well. I then wandered south, following the base of the slope, and then walked back to the stream and followed it north until I reached our campsite, noting how the southward-flowing stream mimicked the general shape of the valley. I considered swimming in the pool, both to clean my body and calm myself before the change, but I examined the sky and saw that the first stars were ready to come out. I didn't want the change to set in while I was underwater; and any dirt I rinsed from my body would only be replaced tonight, anyway.

I returned to the tent and found Alaya sitting next to it, leaning against a tree and examining her sketchbook in the half-light that remained.

"It's tonight?" She asked as I approached.

I nodded, and again examined the sky. The rim of the valley prevented me from actually seeing the moon, low as it was to the horizon; but the dark sky above was already filling with silver.

"Do you mind?" I asked her, as I began unlacing my shoes.

"Not at all."

I removed all of my clothes except my chain and stepped towards the river, out from beneath the trees and into the growing light. Though the trees behind me were dark, this small clearing, exposed to the sky, seemed brighter. Already, the water glittered.

I knelt by the water's edge, seeking my human reflection, finding it and imagining it to have the features of a wolf. I closed my eyes, felt the cold water lap at my fingers, felt the damp, grainy rock beneath them, and let all of my human anxieties drain away. There was only me, and Alaya beside me; the forest, and the full moon rising above the forest.

The change enveloped me quickly, and I welcomed it. My face stretched, mouth and nose fusing to become a snout, as my spine stretched behind me, pushing out the first bony knobs of my tail. Claws burst forth from my fingers and toes, as a pair of sharp fangs erupted from my gums. My muscles, though I had never been ashamed of them, became more firm and tone; meanwhile, I flexed my legs as my feet lengthened and my ankles traveled higher up my calves. As my bones and muscles shifted and snapped, my skin became blanketed in a coat of silver and black fur�"darker on my back, its shade lightened until it formed a white patch that spanned my neck, chest, and belly.

My pointy ears twitched. On my left, Alaya had tried to stifle her gasp. From her perspective, I must have approached the river, knelt, and transformed in a sudden flurry of claws and fur and teeth, everything morphing at once.

Then I stood on two legs and faced her, holding out my hands. Though I appeared as a wolf, I retained certain human characteristics. I could run and balance as easily on two legs as on four; and my hands, though padded and clawed as a wolf's paws are, retained their dexterous human flexibility.

Though Alaya had seen me in my werewolf shape before, she rarely saw my actual transformation�"and after the nine months we'd spent apart, my form must have appeared truly formidable. Despite this, she approached and clasped my hands, never once flinching from the contact, and peered directly into my glowing, amber eyes. When she did, I smelled her face and licked her on the cheek.

Alaya laughed; our moment of nervous transition was over. Then I threw my head into the air and let out a howl, clutching Alaya's head to my chest as I did. She wrapped her arms around me, gripping the space below my shoulder blades; and the pining note lingered on, dropping lower in pitch but hardly in intensity.

I drank readily from the stream the moment my song was done. Alaya laughed at the way I lapped the crystal water. While I lowered my head, she rubbed her fingers behind my ears and along the thick sides of my neck.

My thirst sated, I galloped towards the trees and turned around, motioning for Alaya to follow.

*****

Reviews

[WolvenRoseFlame]

Love the idea

[FlameWolf]

I love this!!!! more please