Belle Isle
Detroit, Michigan
Monday, November 7th, 2022 - 4:48 p.m.

I couldn’t see the moon in the sky, but I knew that it was close to rising. I could feel it in my bones and with each passing beat of my heart which seemed to quicken by the moment as my anger intensified. No, not anger, this was something more primal and predatory and it made it difficult so keep still in my cage as my body wanted to move… to hunt, even before the moon was in sight.

The Fairy Godmother had told us that there were two abandoned zoos on Belle Isle, and we managed to find them easily enough after taking the bridge to the island. Both were run down, eerily quiet, and littered with old trash and graffiti, like something out of an apocalypse. It took a while before we found a cage that we felt would be large and sturdy enough to contain a werewolf, but we did find one eventually. Not a moment too soon either since it was getting close to when the moon was supposed to rise.

The cage was filthy, and I didn’t particularly relish the thought of sleeping inside of it, but it was better that I awoke dirty and uncomfortable than risk getting loose and spreading my unwanted curse to someone else. I nodded to Goldie, who somberly tightened the thick chains and fastened them in place with a hug padlock. Both items we had gotten a few days ago to make sure that whatever cage we put me in tonight would remain secure and prevent me from getting loose when I eventually changed.

“Hey, Red, just throwing this out there, but you might want to get naked,” Berry suggested as she looked me over. If her tone had been more playful than serious, I would have thought that she just wanted to see me in the buff. I still gave her a suspicious glance though and she hurriedly explained, “It’s not because I want to see you naked. Well, I do, but that’s beside the point. If you keep your clothes on, they’ll probably get damaged or destroyed when you transform, not to mention dirty in that cage. I know you brought a spare set of clothes, but those are in the van and why damage what you’re wearing if you don’t have to?”

She made a valid point so, after a moment of hesitation, I started stripping off my clothes and handing them to Goldie through the bars so the Vampire could hold on to them for me. Thankfully, Berry only leered a little, and I think that was mostly to try to make the situation less tense as the sun sank in the sky and the moment that I had been dreading for a month quickly approached. Just great, now I was cold, naked, uncomfortable, and about to turn into something from a horror movie.

“It’ll be okay, Red,” Goldie tried to reassure me. “Berry and I will be here watching over you all night.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak past the lump of terror that was now firmly lodged in my throat. Finally, I managed to squeak out, “What time is it?”

Goldie looked at her newish cell phone and reported, “It’s 5:02, Red.”

“Wait, wasn’t the moon supposed to rise at 4:58?” I asked, briefly hoping that all my worries might just be for nothing. I didn’t need to ask, though since I had made sure to memorize the times that moonrise was supposed to happen over the next three days.

“Yeah, but let’s just stay here a bit longer to be sure,” the Vampire replied, erring on the side of caution.

We silently watched the sun sink below the horizon and soon after twilight settled upon us, I felt it; a foreboding tightening sensation in my chest before my world erupted in agony. It felt like my ribs were being pried apart and my spine stretched, and I was barely aware of the sound of cracking bones as the agony intensified in my pelvis and shoulders. I could barely see through the miasma of searing pain and tears that clouded my vision, barely aware of the passage of time as the agony moved to my face and limbs and time became irrelevant along with everything else but the pain.

Goldie watched Red begin to change in equal parts horror and fascination. Her dead heart seemed to flutter in a mix of anxiety, worry, and sympathy even as she knew that this was all she could do for Red, stay close and make sure that she didn’t hurt anyone while changed. There was nothing else that she or Berry could do for the girl they were both head over heels for, not even anything to help with the pain that contorted her face and had her screaming as muscles pulsed and bones cracked and shifted beneath the skin of her naked form.

Contrary to what she had seen in many horror movies, the changes began in Red’s torso; her ribs seemed to stretch as the ribcage grew more prominent, and that only seemed to be highlighted more as her back arched in an unnatural way and she screamed. Bones shifted and cracked beneath the surface as they contorted and rearranged themselves, causing both her shoulders and hips to widen perceptibly. Muscles trembled, screams interspersed with pained whimpers as the changes started to spread to her face and limbs, though thankfully, the changes in her limbs seemed confined to a slight stretching of her hands and the bones popping and realigning to give her lower legs and feet a digitigrade appearance.

The pain must have been excruciating from the start and her screams only became more intense as her face seemed to crumple and rearrange itself. Ears shifted position and shape, her lower face stretched into a muzzle, and her nose darkened to match the emerging muzzle. By this time Red had fallen to the floor of the cage, curled up in a ball as if to escape the agony afflicting her and making it hard for Goldie to keep track of the changes any longer, save for the muscles becoming more prominent and powerful looking, the growth of fur, and the tail that sprouted from the base of her spine.

Screams faded to whimpering for only a moment before her werewolf girlfriend rose to her feet and let loose a bone-chilling howl that ruptured the too-brief silence that had followed her transformation. She hadn’t seemed to gain much size, still being just over five feet, and she had an odd curve to her spine as she stood upright and howled. Goldie might have thought her cute, like a puppy, if she hadn’t immediately lunged for the bars that separated them while growling and snapping her jaws.

Holy shit she was muscular, and those added curves provided by her broader hips and chest would put any fitness model to shame; those abs were amazing, and those thighs. She wondered what it might be like to bury her head between the latter, but quickly chided herself. “She’s not herself right now, stop thinking sexy thoughts about her.”

Over the top of all of that, her powerful muscles were covered in a light peach fuzz, barely distinguishable from the pale white skin beneath and covering most of her torso and part of her limbs while clearly displaying three extra pairs of nipples that were spaced across her abdomen with the lowest pair just above her pelvis. Her tail, wolf-like ears, back, and shoulders were more densely furry, the thick and luxurious black coat contrasting the lighter white of her fuzz-covered skin. Her forearms, the outside of her upper arms, and the backs of her hands shared that dense black fur, as did her outer thighs, lower legs, and the tops of her feet.

As expected, Red walked on the balls of her feet and they, and the underside of her toes, were likely covered in pads like those on the fingertips and palms of the clawed hand that reached through the bars to savagely swipe at her, though Goldie stayed safely out of reach. Those claws were definitely something that even she would have to be wary of, as long and sharp as they were. She had claws on her toes as well, and both fingers and toes seemed a bit thicker than normal.

She could still see a bit of the Red that she knew and loved in the wolf’s face, starting with the shoulder-length black hair with two black wolfish ears now sprouting from within. There was only a slight muzzle with a black canine nose and a mouthful of sharp teeth ready to tear her to bits, but she still had Red’s softer features. That softness was contrasted by the savage orange eyes surrounded by black spots that only made that fiery gaze more intense and almost seemed like a parody of the dark gothic makeup that Red usually favored. Her black lipstick had remained through the transformation, and that, the raven hair, dark eyebrows, and black spots around her eyes contrasted with the white peach fuzz that covered the rest of her face.

She was still trying to take in the whole picture when Berry commented, "While I like the extra tits, I can do without the whole bloodthirsty savage beast part."

Goldie let out a soft sigh, a habit of living that she prayed that she would ever shed. She feared sometimes forgetting what it was to be human, as much as Red seemed to fear becoming a monster. “Maybe she can learn to control it,” she replied hopefully, though looking at the savage look in Red’s eyes right then, she wasn’t sure whether this was something that Red could overcome on her own. This was going to be a long night.

Berry seemed to agree with that nascent thought as she sidled up beside Goldie and teased, “Do you want to fool around until she’s back to her normal self?”

The Slime-girl was an even worse flirt than she was these days and Goldie felt Berry’s warm hand squeezing her ass. “This is not the time, Slime!” she snapped as she turned to glare at the pink-hued human-shaped blob of slime for even suggesting something like that at a time like this. She was met with wiggling eyebrows and a playful grin that didn’t reach Berry’s eyes. She was worried too but trying to lighten the mood by acting like her normal sexually forward self.

Berry attempted to keep that playful grin in place but after a moment it evaporated as if it had never been there as she winced and looked away. “Sorry, I’m… not very good at this. I don’t have much experience with tense situations like this, or much of anything, really. All I have is the memories I’ve made with the three of you, instincts, and some basic knowledge that I inherited from the Witch who cast me. I don’t think that included any social skills and, even if it did, Greta is…”

“Prickly,” Goldie finished as the other young woman trailed off. Maybe the Slime-girl really did care about Red after all. She had been sexually obsessed with her, but it was hard sometimes knowing what was going on in her head, especially since she had started extending her flirting to Goldie as well. Because she was so forward sexually, sometimes it was easy to forget that Berry was new to this world and dealing with people in general. “Is that why you’re so…forward?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s part of it,” the Slime-girl replied thoughtfully before smirking and adding, “but you’re both cute as fuck when you get all embarrassed. With Red, I think a lot of it is a mix of instinct and love at first sight… or maybe the love at first sight is instinctual itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a summoned creature, and for some reason, I’ve bonded with Red,” she replied, pausing for a moment in thought before elaborating. “She is my purpose for living and if anything happened to her… I’m afraid that I will just fade away, like any other summoned creature whose task is complete. Sure, it was infatuation and lust at first, the way the spell was phrased, and maybe a need to be close with her to ensure both of us continue to exist, but now there’s more to it…”

Another pause where the only sounds were from the Werewolf growling and straining against the bars of the cage. The Berry spoke once more, a wistful edge to her voice. “I sort of know what Red is feeling at all times due to our bond, and when you’re emotionally bonded with a person like that you can’t help but see the good and bad in them. Red is a very good person, the only bad that I can really sense in her is her own fears and insecurities, and it makes her hard not to fall in love with. Even now…”

Goldie followed her gaze toward her caged girlfriend and asked, “Even now… what?”

“She’s fighting it, I can feel it. She doesn’t want to hurt us; she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. It’s faint, but she’s in there and fighting for control,” the Slime-girl told her somberly.

“Can she win?” the Vampire asked in return, fearing the answer.

Berry shook her head sadly. “Not yet, not tonight, and maybe not ever, but maybe the Fae will know some way to help her get control someday. For now, all we can do is be here for her and support her as best we can.”

Since they had met, Goldie had never seen the Slime-girl this serious before, nor so sad. Maybe there was more to her than the overbearing flirt that she portrayed. She hadn’t truly looked beyond that role and, though it shamed her to admit it to herself, hadn’t really seen her as a real person until this moment, beyond being competition for the girl she loved.

Maybe she was wrong about her, and maybe there didn’t need to be a competition either. Maybe she should give Berry a chance and get to know her better too and if the three of them meshed well… Goldie had never been a prude, even back when she was a somewhat shy and awkward Human still, and she had had friends in poly relationships. So, if they meshed well and Red was interested in that sort of thing then why should they hold themselves back?

“We’ll find a way to help her,” she stated firmly as an unfamiliar scent carried by the evening breeze tickled her nose. “We have company coming,” she added in warning and saw Berry following her gaze past some of the larger dilapidated animal enclosures.

The scent was Human, male, but strangely there was a hint of magic as well. Some other kind of Arcane perhaps, or a Human with a magical artifact? Whatever it was, if it presented a danger to Red, Goldie would end it. A similar determination burned in Berry’s eyes as they scanned the darkness beyond the nearest cages. A moment later the scent was accompanied by faint footsteps that grew clearer by the moment. The pace was casual, and confident, not bothering to hide their approach, or perhaps sensing that trying to would be a wasted effort.

“Show yourself,” the Vampire warned as she sensed their visitor hesitating behind one of the nearby cages. He was close enough now to smell metal and gun oil with a hint of gunpowder. He was armed. She heard a heavy sigh, and then a man dressed in a dark suit stepped out from behind the cage and into the moonlight.