by K Matthew
Oddly, I hadn't really thought about it before. Never in my life had I killed anything bigger than an insect. I was so hungry though, I wouldn't have hesitated to kill a fish, had I caught one. It probably wouldn't be any different with other animals if I was in the same situation. Survival instincts take over. You do what you have to to survive.
“I would like for you to teach me,” I said finally, realizing that I needed to know.
“Good. There's a lot of stuff you're probably not going to like, gutting fish, skinning animals, but you'll get used to it. The first time you kill something is the hardest. It gets easier with time, like most things. Soon, it becomes second nature.”
While I knew he was right, it was hard to imagine at the moment. We sat outside in silence until it was pitch black all around. There were several times that I wanted to speak, to bombard Rex with questions about his way of life, but I knew he was tired, and I didn't want to be an annoyance.
I watched Rex through the fire light, the way it illuminated his bronze skin, making it almost shine. His eyes glittered red and green as they stared intensely into the blaze, and I couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. Rex must do a lot of thinking, out here all alone in the woods.
“Where would you like me to sleep tonight?” I asked when I saw his eyes becoming hooded. They widened at the sound of my voice, and his body straightened a bit.
“Sleep in the bed. I'll stay out here tonight.”
As selfish as it was, I didn't argue. I hated sleeping on the floor. Only exhaustion could drag me into sleep when I wasn't comfortable, and I was far from exhausted after having a nap earlier in the day. Besides, Rex was already used to roughing it. I wasn't. He probably felt right at home sleeping outside under the stars.
“Goodnight,” I whispered softly as I stood to leave him by the fire. He grunted in reply, sending me on my way.
That night I was plagued by fever dreams, wicked fantasies of Rex and I entwined together. It was reminiscent of the time he raped me, except this time, I wasn't struggling. This time, I wanted him inside of me.
I woke up in a cold sweat, a fresh blush on my cheeks, thankful that Rex wasn't anywhere in sight. Part of me wanted to be disgusted by my subconscious thoughts, but another part of me didn't mind so much. He was the only man I'd see for a very long time. It made sense that he'd occupy my thoughts in whatever direction they tried to wander.
Rex was cooking when I went outside. I stretched as I approached him, noticing that there were three eggs on the fire and greedily hoping that two of them were mine. It was not my luck though. He took two, leaving one for me and not making any offers.
“What's on the agenda today?” I asked while yawning.
“Probably skinning, if I get anything on the hunt today. That rabbit wasn't near enough food last night.”
Rabbit. Thank God it wasn't squirrel, I thought, though I wasn't quite sure why it mattered anymore. I would probably be eating a lot of things I wasn’t accustomed to now that I lived with Rex.
“I saw some deer tracks yesterday but didn't see nothing. Hopefully, I'll get lucky today. Either get a deer or a big fat hog,” he continued. “Either one will do. Then I can feed you proper. Get your strength up for things to come.”
“What do you want me to do today?”
He thought for a moment. “Tend to the garden. Pick what can be picked. Water it. Go foraging in the forest for some mushrooms or berries or something.”
“I don't think you want me foraging,” I admitted, feeling stupid.
“Why's that?”
“Because I can't tell what's poisonous and what isn't.” I wanted to cringe, knowing that a condescending remark was on its way.
“Ain't you good for nothing?” he huffed.
“City girl, remember?” my voice was soft, showing no reaction to his harshness.
“Just take care of the garden,” Rex growled before standing to gather his bow and head into the forest.
He had a good hunt that day, bringing home a boar that was large enough to provide us with a feast. Despite my initial hesitation, I found watching him clean the animal to be fascinating. It was bloody business, but somehow not as bad as I had thought it would be.
The next several days, Rex taught me everything he knew, from fishing to foraging to tracking animals. He was surprisingly patient with me, answering all of my questions and going into more detail about the things I didn't understand. It seemed that Rex's hard exterior was beginning to soften the more time we spent together.
We were getting used to each other, and sometimes we were even able to make each other smile. While he still hadn't taught me how to hunt, we had gotten down a routine where I would either fish or forage during the day, carrying the microchip on me while he hunted, and at night when Rex came home, I would clean the kill, and he would cook it. It was a surprisingly happy balance, and he even confessed that he hadn't eaten better in a long time. Rex was beginning to appreciate having me around, and that filled me with a sense of accomplishment and self-worth.
A week and a half before the full moon, he fell horribly ill. Like most men, Rex tried to play it off for as long as he could, brushing me away whenever I showed concern. Then one day, I went outside to find him by the fire, groaning in a restless sleep with his forehead covered in a sheen of sweat.
Desperation filled me as I tried to think of what to do. My only option seemed to be to go to the base of the reservation to get help, but I wondered if it would even be worth the effort, not to mention whether Rex would be able to hang on that long without me. Even if I ran, it would probably take me more than a day to make the journey.
Feeling confused and hopeless, I finally settled on staying by Rex's side. From what I could tell, the reservation didn't give a shit about the werewolves. Maybe they would come. Maybe they wouldn't. It didn't seem worth the risk of letting Rex die alone.
It took everything in me to help him inside to the cot. He was so weak that he could barely walk, caught between consciousness and dreaming.
I tended to Rex the best I could by placing a wet cloth on his brow, wiping away his sweat, and trying to keep him hydrated. In Rex's delirious state, it was hard to get him to drink water during his bouts of consciousness. Rex would fight me the whole way, and I wasn't strong enough to hold him down and force him to drink. Still, every swallow was a small victory, despite what I had to go through to make it happen.
All night, I stayed awake, alert, listening to Rex's breathing, making sure he was still with me. There wasn't much else I could do, and I was too afraid that he would die on me to fall asleep.
After two days of staying by Rex's side, I was beginning to lose hope. He wasn't getting any better, but he also wasn't getting worse.
I sat in the darkness at night, leaning against the cot, holding Rex's hand in mine. In the beginning, it would tremble. Now, thanks to lack of nourishment and sleep, I couldn't tell which of us was shaking the other.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I must have fallen asleep. All I could remember was running through a field. Tall grass rushed by my face, licking at it as I sailed on all fours, chasing a wolf in front of me with the strangest colored coat I had ever seen. All bronze.
“Rex,” my voice hissed, sounding venomous, though I wasn't sure why. Something was pulling me back into consciousness. My eyes opened, and the green of the grass faded into the brown hues of the cabin. Rex was laying on the cot, propped up on his elbow with a queer look on his face. “You're alright?” I asked, my voice full of relief.
“Of course I'm alright,” he replied incredulously, looking around the cabin. “Why am I on the bed, and you're on the floor?”
I blinked at him. “You were sick. You've been out for days.”
“I don't get sick,” Rex insisted, but when he tried to pull himself into a sitting position, he quickly rethought that, grabbing the sides of his head and settling back down on the cot.
“Don't . . . try so hard,” I chastised Rex soft
ly, crawling to his side.
“Hell, I guess I really was sick,” he sounded surprised.
“You were.” I went to moisten a cloth and wipe his sweat, but Rex batted my hand away.
“Water,” he ordered, and I was more than happy to give it to him. Watching Rex gulp down a full bottle was a relief. I had worried that if the sickness didn't kill him, dehydration would. When he was finished drinking, Rex haphazardly tossed the bottle aside, looking up at me. “I'm guessing you probably don't have any food ready?”
“I can get some.” I scrambled to my feet, taking three cherry tomatoes from the cabinet and handing them to him. Rex popped one into his mouth, then hesitated before he added a second, his stomach gurgling its defiance.
“I'm going to need something more than this,” Rex told me, trying to pull himself into a sitting position again. This time he succeeded, though he still winced from the effort, his body now sore from being bedridden for so long.
“Would fish be alright?” I asked as I went to find my string and hook.
“Any type of protein would be good. Hand me some jerky, would you?”
I gave Rex a handful of strips before heading out the door and down to the river, confident enough in his health to leave him alone. Now more than ever, I was glad that Rex hadn't hesitated to teach me how to provide for us.
It took me about an hour to catch four small perch. Gutting them and cooking them on wooden spits over the fire took an additional hour. When I brought the fish back inside to feed Rex, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking to the floor as if he might vomit at any moment, his bronze face a few shades paler than normal.
“Are you still hungry?” I asked, hoping that the smell of the fish wasn't offending Rex's senses.
“I couldn't even—” Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, Rex was coughing and hacking, the tomatoes and jerky from earlier threatening to come back up.
Lightning fast, I dropped the fish on the cabinet to grab a small wooden bowl, holding it in front of his face, though I knew he would easily overfill it. With surprising strength, Rex pushed me out of the way to get to the door. Once he was a few feet outside, he let loose, and I could see from the spot that he had chosen that it wasn't the first time. While I was amazed that I had missed it when I came back into the cabin, I was glad that I had. Seeing tomato chunk bile on the ground was enough to make my stomach turn, and I had to look away to keep from joining Rex in his vomiting.
When he was finished, I helped him back inside, setting him on the cot before wiping his face with a wet cloth. This time, Rex didn't push me away, simply sitting there in misery while I tended to him.
The entire day was touch and go, and it wasn't until the late afternoon that he could keep some food down. While I wanted to get Rex something fresh to eat, he insisted that the leftover fish would be fine. I watched him eat it with weary eyes, remembering all the warnings I had ever learned about eating cooked fish that had been left out. Luckily, nothing came of my fear.
“I think I can go back to sleeping on the floor now,” Rex told me when we were getting ready to settle in for the night.
“No. Stay on the cot. I'm going to have to air out those furs before I can sleep on them again anyway, just in case you were contagious,” I replied.
“If I was contagious, I'd think you would have gotten whatever I had. Good thing you didn't, or we both would have been up shit creek without a paddle.”
It sounded like a thank you, but I didn't want to press my luck. “You need a good night's sleep. One more and you'll be back sleeping outside,” I teased.
“Sounds fair,” there was the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.
As I took to the floor for sleep, a warm feeling crept over me. Rex may have saved me from Emmett, but I had saved him from possibly dying. Now, things finally felt even.
By the time I awoke the next morning, he was already gone, out hunting as usual. The man certainly wasn't one to sit idly by, even when it was in his best interest.
Rex stayed around the cabin more than usual in the days leading up to the full moon. Usually, when I'd come home from foraging and fishing, he would still be away, hunting until the early hours of the night, passing up small game for bigger fare. Lately though, he'd had us eating lots of rabbits and birds. I'd even finally been forced to try a bite of squirrel, even though it was with much reluctance. I probably wouldn't have done it if not for Rex becoming visibly upset about my stubbornness.
Finally, the night of the full moon was upon us. Nervousness welled up inside of me in remembrance of my last shift. It had been so terrifying, waiting for the moon like it was my executioner. There was no stopping the change, and for as long as I lived, I would have to face that same overwhelming fear every full moon.
The last time I had shifted, I had been contained, locked inside of the shifting room at the compound. All through the night, I had rampaged, destroying everything around me. This time, I would be free to roam the reservation. That thought scared me even more. With no consciousness during the change, who could tell what I would do or where I would end up. It was every bit as unnerving as my first shift, just with a new twist.
Despite not feeling like doing anything but sulking in overwhelming depression, Rex insisted that we go about our business just like it was any other day. He said that focusing on the shift only made things worse, and while I knew he was right, I couldn't help but obsess over it. How could I not think about it? It would only be my second time to shift.
When I returned to the cabin with my daily bounty, I was surprised to find Rex sitting on his log, absent a fire or a kill. I approached him with a confused look on my face, and he simply stared at me deadpan.
“Where's yours?” I asked, holding up the two perch I had managed to catch and a sackful of wild mushrooms.
“Well I'm glad you didn't bring home a whole stringful,” he replied with an amused huff.
“What's so funny?” Now I was annoyed. How could he sit on his ass the entire day while I went out to work? If this was some joke, then it wasn't funny.
“You know, we're probably going to hunt tonight? Well, probably isn't the right word. It's a given. Wolves always hunt. Hunt and fuck. That's what we do.”
Rex's words were so blunt that they sent a blush straight to my cheeks. Would we really . . . have sex? Would I have sex with him or another one of the werewolves? This lack of free will thing seemed worse all the time.
“I really wish you hadn't told my that,” I said with a scowl. “And if you knew we were going to hunt tonight then why did you have me go fishing?”
“To keep you out of my hair.”
I growled, dropping the fish to the floor. Rex must have known that I was really angry because he threw his hands up in surrender before reaching behind himself and pulling out a bow.
“Calm down. It ain't like I was doin' nothin'. I was finishing up your present.” He tossed the bow at my feet, his harsh tone indicating that he already felt I didn't appreciate the gift.
My eyes fell down to the weapon, handmade and every bit as nice as the one that Rex used. I knelt to pick it up, running my fingers over the smooth wooden surface, mesmerized by the craftsmanship. It was beautiful, and just for me.
“T-Thank you,” I hesitated. “It's lovely.”
“Well, now I don't have to worry about you strangling critters with your bare hands.” He smirked up at me, and I knew we were okay again.
Despite his insistence that we would be hunting that night, I built up a fire to cook my fish. There was no point in letting it go to waste. We shared the meal, even though Rex was reluctant at first, not wanting to spoil his hunt. I could tell that he liked being a wolf, and it made me think of his brother. Maybe some people really were meant to be werewolves. I certainly wasn't one of them though.
As the time for our shift approached, Rex pulled me outside. His eyes were ever on the moon as we walked out into the darkness. My nervousness was so strong that I was nauseou
s, knowing that it would only be a matter of minutes before I was lurching in pain, the wolf taking over, devouring the woman.
When we were several yards away from the cabin, Rex stopped, facing me. I watched him curiously as he pulled off his shirt, the light of the moon hitting his bronze skin, making him look more desirable than ever. Would Rex be the one I mated with tonight? A pathetic part of me hoped so.
“Take off your clothes,” he told me when he noticed me staring.
“What?” I was shocked by the absurd request.
“If you don't, you'll be spending all afternoon tomorrow sewing them back together. I don't think you want that.”
“Oh.” Rex made a good point. Reluctantly, I grabbed the hem of my shirt. “Turn around,” I told him, though he was obviously not paying any attention to me, too busy taking off his shoes and socks.
Rex paused for a moment, giving me an incredulous look. “It ain't like I've never seen a naked woman before. I'd advise you to drop the modesty. By tomorrow morning, there ain't gonna be a single set of eyes on this reservation that hasn't seen you naked.”
“I don't care,” I said firmly, disturbed by the thought. “I don't want you seeing me now.”
“Less talking, more stripping. The moon ain't gonna wait for you.”
It was obvious he had no intentions of turning around, so I did instead, working to get my clothes off as quickly as possible, having already wasted too much time arguing with him. The forest was eerily quiet once the rustling of our clothing stopped. There were insects chirping, but beyond that, all I could hear was Rex's breathing. I knew he was looking at me, and that thought sent tiny tremors throughout my body, secretly wondering if he liked what he saw.
“It's almost time,” Rex's voice was soft, almost comforting.
I kept my eyes to the moon. It looked full already, but it must not be if the pain wasn't raging through me yet.
“Trust me,” I heard him say, and then I felt his hand on my shoulder, gently pulling me around to face him.