On a Hot Summers night.

“On a hot summers night would you offer your throat to the Wolf with the red roses?”
* “Would he offer me his mouth?”
“Yes.”
* “Would he offer me his teeth?”

“Yes.”
* “Would he offer me his jaws?”
“Yes.”
* “Would he offer me his hunger?”
“Yes.”
* “Again, would he offer me his hunger?”
“YES.”
* “And would he starve without me?”
“YES.”
* “And does he love me?”
“Yes….”
* “Yes…”
On a hot summers night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
* “Yes”
I bet you say that to all the boys….

(* is done in a woman’s voice.)

“It was a hot summer night and the beach was burning.”
“There was a fog crawling over the sand.”
“When I listen to your heart, I hear the whole world turning.”
“I see the shooting stars.”
“Falling through your trembling hands.”
“You were licking you lips and your lipstick shining.”
“I was dying just to as for a taste.”
“We were lying together in a silver lining.”
“By the light of the moon.”
“You know there’s not another moment.”
“Not another moment.”
“Not another moment to waste.”

I was listening to I-pod as I drove from town to my grandparent’s cottage on my mountain bike. It was a really old song but it spoke to me. Actually I like a lot of the Meatloaf guy/bands? Stuff since I discovered it in grand dads “office” on vinyl, I mean who the heck listens to stuff that way any more? Heck CD’s are starting to become obsolete. I didn’t even know hoe to use that needle thing.

I mean he lives out by the water and all and it’s a great beach with a lot of cottages and stuff but its like seven miles from his place to town. So If I bike to town the odds are I’ve built up a pretty good sweat by that time. (Hey I’m the internet, video game generation and a town kid from Chicago, all this fresh air’s gonna kill me.)

I pull into our yard and there’s some neighbors around, it’s like a trailer park here sort of more spread out and well they’re cottages.

Then I see her literally the girl next door….Katya Dawson.

Katya is from Moon Bay, a local girl born and bred and we’ve been best friends as long as I could remember. Well actually right up until like 3 years ago when puberty kicked in for her and she got taller, and devastatingly gorgeous.

Katya is at least five foot ten inches with these really long legs and perfect skin that’s set off by this platinum blonde hair. It used to be just blonde but I guess all the years in the sun have finally taken their toll on it. If anything it’s made her even more beautiful and exotic and she has these stunningly…no hauntingly silvery/grey eyes and the most perfect breasts in all of creation.

I’m a teenaged boy. I surf a lot of porn, a lot. I know perfect breasts when I see them.

Katya’s actually mowing her lawn with one of those really old mowers, she glides behind it just wearing a bikini. A really little bikini…I’m hard in milliseconds and thanking god for the hedge between our places. I wave to her. “Hey Kat, how’s it going?”
She smiles at me this big smile. If there was a girl that defined Un-bitch, it’s her.
“Hey Steven, Welcome back! I missed you!”
“You did?”
“Yes dummy I always miss you, talking online just doesn’t cut it.”
“No, plus the guys back home don’t believe I know a hot girl like you.”
“You think I’m hot?” her nostril flared a bit, I’m gonna get a blasting. Instead she smiles. “I guess so seeing the state of your shorts.”
I blush a deep red.
“It’s okay Steve, I don’t mind. I kind of get that reaction from guys that I don’t like.”
Uhm…
………
Okay, did anyone else get the subtle wording that she doesn’t mind because she likes me?
And I’m standing behind the hedgerow, how’d she know…
Then…I’m knocked out of my daydream by a hard shove.
It’s Alexi, Robert, Dmitri and Dominic her cousins.
They’re the reasons that I’m really no longer best friends/hopefully dating Katya. Ever since she got beautiful she’s been marked as off limits by these guys. Dom’s alright he’s the oldest and he if anything reminds me of like this displaced prince guy. Kind of like Nicolas from General Hospital.

Hey, Grand-dad doesn’t have cable.

Anyway he’s okay but the other three are standing over me and practically growling at me. Okay, Alexi and Robert are kind of growling at me. Alexi kicks me in the guts causing me to curl up. “Look you’ve been told before Parker to stay the hell away from Katya, I mean it! The next time I catch you within sniffing distance of her I’ll rip you’re fucking liver out!”
Robert actually sniffs and hocks a loogie on me. “You’re not and never going to be in Katya’s class. Get the fuck out of here.”
Dmitri actually pulls a knife! WTF! These guys are psycho!
Katya starts to yell at them and I can’t understand a word of it but there’s a lot of back and forth but it’s like all in Hungarian or Romanian or Russian or something.
I thought I heard growling on occasion.
Are they speaking Klinghon?

It’s Dom who pulls me to my feet one handed. Shit he’s strong, it must be all that country living. “Steven It’s not a good time. Perhaps you should go home, Katya has…Katya has family obligations.” He pushes me on my way but does it gently.

I look over my shoulder and he walks into the argument and he starts talking that language but he does it quietly. The three asshole cousins of hers shut the hell up in a hurry but there’s some kind of stare down between him and Katya…? What the hell is going on? I’ve seen things but Katya is breathing hard almost panting from the stare down. I’ve never seen anything like it, really weird?

***
I could give you a day by day long spiel about things. So I guess to kind of set the mood. My name’s Steven Parker and yes I heard all the crappy Spiderman stuff and I’m kinda chunky so I’ve heard all the Peter Porker ones too. I’ve got dirty blonde hair and just kind of average blue eyes and my biggest ways I stand out is. I wear old vintage rock and metal band t-shirts all the time and I’ve got long hair band hair.

I’m not even that good at much stuff. I’m out of shape, I am online a lot, I listen to music a lot and I’m saving for a car. Home dad has this set of dumpsters set up for me and I collect recyclables to buy stuff. I’ve got one for cans another for glass and another for plastic and I’ve got those divided into clear or colored sides, I collect beer bottles and even have a paper route.

See home there all these kids and people and stuff I’m invisible. I don’t want to be one of the invisible endless losers. So I’m getting a car. I’m getting a cool car and a fat roll, If I can have a nice ride and cash that puts you on the radar at home with the girls.

But like every summer I come out here to live with grandpa and live at his place. I work in his store that really is just this junk heap that he has that lets him pawn stuff off to really gullible tourists. I mean really it’s junk. But the tourists that haven’t been to Maine just eat it up. Like lobster…There’s this whole thing about Maine and lobster that’s borderline a myth. There’s other states that actually fish it, even fish more of it too but somebody had turned Maine lobster into this advertising urban legend thing.

The biggest difference is that here in a small place like Moon Bay is that I’m not a invisible loser. No no, I’m a very visible loser.

Katya is still really friendly towards me from time to time and comes and hangs with me lately in the shop. It really pisses her cousins off too. I’m not sure why but they’re all scared of grandpa. Even Katya is kind of skittish around him. I mean he is a tough SOB being like a NAM vet and all.

We watch movies a lot at the shop. She tries to be upbeat but there’s days when she’s definitely upset.

It’s weird the moods she gets into. She hated those underworld movies, but Blood and Chocolate made her quiet.
“Hey Kat, are you okay?”
“Steve have you ever…have you ever felt like your life was totally out of control?”
“Hell yeah, I think everyone does at one point or another.”
“Not…not like me…”
“What? Why what’s going on Katya?”
“I’m getting married.”
“Married when, why?” My heart’s breaking, but she’s just as upset.
“It’s an arranged marriage.”
“What?!”
“Yes, my family has…obligations.”
“Obligations?”
“Yes, it’s…it’s all really old world stuff but I’ve got to do it.”
“No.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes I do, I don’t want to but I do…”
She was going to say something else but I leaned over on the couch and I kissed her….
Katya’s eyes widened and she kissed me back. Then our hands were all over each other tearing at clothes she was strong.

We made love, had sex, made love…is it hard and passionate and desperate and still be called making love? Or is it sex? I was crying…I know really unmanly but Katya’s my first and this happening with my best friend…the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

She’s touching me, me…intimately. I’m short and chubby and a long haired rocker geek. I’m not the girl that get’s the girl much less the beautiful one. I cried in shame when I shot my first orgasm in her hand…”Oh, fuck Katya I’m so sorry!”
“Sshh, Steve it’s okay…it’s just the first…”
“The first?”
Then she slid down my body and gave me a blowjob. I’ve read a lot of porn and she’s new at it, she’s scraped me with her teeth a few times and yet…who’s going to complain. I came again and then she got me hard a third time. With it being Katya as beautiful as she was it was not a “hard” thing to do.
She went onto her back on the couch and I took her…there was her whining…and the little pop of resistance that made her and my eyes widen….”Kat?…You’re a…”
“Not anymore…I wanted it to be you Stevie, I wanted my first time to be with the boy I’m really in love with…”
Okay…
We were making love.
God it became intense and I burned with a fever I’ve never felt before, I screamed and came inside her when Katya bit me…broke skin, I had blood running from my shoulder and It did something I became some other guy…it began slowly at first and slowly everything began to become better, more acute, her scent did…something for me.
Then we were fucking.
Yeah that wild crazy knock stuff over, fall off the sofa not give a shit sex….I came…I can’t remember but it was kinda like those Viagra stories with the boner gone wrong…I’m so hard it hurts and the only way it gets better it to be back inside her…
From the sounds and the cries and these strange whines and growls it’s something like that for her too. We had sex until we passed out exhausted on the floor.

My dreams were weird. Moons, many different moons, running through the woods, hunting a small deer with another wolf…Katya…The thrill of the speed I go just gliding through the forest, the chase, the Kill…Hot warm blood, this connection between predator and prey. Howling is like prayer…I’ve never been so at peace in a dream, within the world.

I wake up in the store with Katya. We’re both naked and there’s a scar on my shoulder were she bit me but it’s Weird shaped. I feel great, better than great and put my glasses on only to find the world go blurry on me.

I take them off, and it’s clear as before, it’s clearer actually. I go and dig some clothes to wear for us both out of the bargain bin in grandpa’s “vintage” clothing section. I get some for me and some for her, waking her up with a kiss. “Hey you.”
“Hey you back.” she smiles and kisses me.
“I got you some clothes.”
“Thanks Stevie, your so sweet.”

We kiss for a bit and she uses the bathroom which is so strange because I can smell something…Her?

We leave together and I lock up and we start walking home together me pushing my bike as we walk in the early, early light of morning. It’s nice and we’re going through town the very few up being the odd fisherman. It’s better than nice, there’s a lot of kissing and I’m in love.
I heard them coming, I heard them panting and growling as they came out of the alley and Alexi…shoves me off of my feet twenty damned feet through the air to send me crashing into a brick wall, then crashing down on top of a dumpster…Robert is coming at me his eyes aren’t human…they’re this yellow golden…Dmitri is yelling at Katya. The words are that stuff he usually babbles but the sounds get fuzzy in my ears like I’m going deaf but it’s only with what they are saying. It goes from that Hungarian crap to sounding like it was going through one of those voice disguisers.

“Why! Katya why did you do it, he’s weak, unworthy to be one of us!”
“No!, you’re wrong Dimi, I love him, he will make me happy!”
“Dammit, you stupid bitch we have an Alliance now with the Fenris, Dom will not stand for this…You are his betrothed, not some newly blooded pup!”
“I don’t care! Dom wasn’t my choice, I never had a choice in this except for now and I choose Steven!”
“We’ll see, he cannot protect you look at him! Alexi and Robert will tear him apart.”
“No!, Dimi no! You can’t!”

Both Alexi and Robert are coming for me and the way they just think that I’m some unworthy piece of shit! A growl comes out of me…my bloods pounding and I get it now. I get all of it now like there’s this instinct. Blood memory…the strength they have, those eyes…Werewolf…Katya bit me…they’re been these, this all along beating on me…It wasn’t fair well now it is…

I start to change right there, becoming a wolf man or a man wolf or whatever…My power, my wolf runs on essence, and the bigger I am depends on my emotions and the connection to the wolf. I’m very, very pissed off. I lose it and let my anger, all those years of being their whipping boy and everyone else’s and I lose it.

I remember grabbing Alexi and bashing him back and forth against the brick walls in the alley.
I remember slamming him into the side of the dumpster so hard it folded in half.
I remember gutting Robert with my claws and his insides were trying to get out or stay inside of his belly.
I remember Dmitri shifting and us fighting each as the monsters we are beating each other off the alley walls, punches that broke bricks when we missed each other…then claws and then teeth…
I remember the 4 cammo painted dodge caravans pull up and guys in army gear rushed out and shooting at us.
I remember pain, I was betting shot and hit…several times and it hurt!, it burned…like nothing I’ve ever felt.
Dmitri and I charged the and Alexi joined right behind us. We started Killing people, well them actually but I’d never hunted before, I’ve never killed anything bigger than a bug.
I remember my claws taking a man’s head clean off his shoulders.
…………
I remember…One of them stepping in behind Katya with an Uzi and her screams as he emptied his clip into the woman I love…..loved. I screamed, I howled, I killed…I think I remember police cars…I think I remember killing them too.

***
Then I was me again and holding Katya. She was shaking, and bloody froth was coming from her mouth and her blood was spurts from so many wounds….
“St..Stev..Stevie?”
“It’s me…I’m here baby…” My voice is cracking and tears are streaming from my eyes…I can…I can feel my heart dying….with her.
“Do…Do you love me?”
“Oh…Oh…god yes…”
“No…not…god…they…they did this to me…”
“Who?, who…?”
“They’ll tell you.”
“What?”
“Stevie…Wi…Will you love them…my people?”
“Yes, Anything Kat, anything…just don’t leave me.” I’m whining like the sad wolf I’ve become.
“T..t..t..take my gift, Take it…save us, our kind pl..please…”
“Okay..okay..Katya, where is it? What do I look for?”
“Kiss me…Please kiss me Stevie…”

I kiss her and she grips my head with more strength than a dying girl should have. It’s a French kiss full of her blood and she holds me there until I’m drinking it down and it…it’s like swallowing a taser.

Then she shiver’s one more time and I see the light fade from her eyes and she’s gone…The girl next door, the girl I’ve been in love with for more years than I …Gone…Katya’s gone…I scream at god, I howl as the sunrises and the worst pain hits me so hard…ripping my guts out…I remember staring at that sun as it burned at…through me, then darkness.

***
I wake up and it’s dark out again.
I remember…
I lose it and start bawling…I lose it. I roll over and bury my head into the big pillows and start bawling and…laying face down isn’t that comfortable on my breasts.
My breasts…
WTF!
I sit up with a near scream and I’m naked in silk sheets and furs. Dom is there with a cup of coffee.
“Good evening Stephanie.”
“Huh?” oh, shit my voice , I…oh crap I just flashed him.
“Stephanie, this is you.”
“Uhm, no.”
“No?”
“No, I’m…I…I’m Stevie.” it’s girly and the last thing that Katya called me.
“Stevie…” The way he says it, he hates it. I bet you he picked Stephanie out.
“Yes, Dom it’s my name. What happened?, What happened to me?”
“Katya and you were ambushed by Templar murderers.”
“Templars, like the knights.”
“They were once so but they come from deeper origins too. They are a cult of the one god or so they say but they hold a deep, deep, hatred for everything that isn’t of man. Us, those of the others, of the Elde…nothing that isn’t human or normal is their enemies.”
“So they’re fundamentalists.”
“Yes. But the ones you think of are their pawns.”
“So they hate us and …why?”
“Because we are not like them, we are different and we are more powerful than them.”
“And this…” I kind of gesture at my body.
“Katya…she was dying and she passed her power, her legacy to you.”
“And…I remember something… but...this? I’m a girl..”
“Yes…you accepted her gift, you became her heir.”
“Heir to what?”
“You are Alpha of her tribe now.?”
“Alpha?”
“Alpha female…Queen.”
“Queen?” oh fuck…
“Yes.” he passes me the coffee and stares at me.
I get up gathering the blankets around me remembering what Dmitri and her were arguing about Dom about. I’m getting out of here, backing out of the room and he’s following me like the predator he is. “Uhm…I…I never signed on for this.”
“Yes you did.”
“When?”
“When you agreed, promised Katya you’d take care of her people. You became Alpha, you inherited her responsibilities.”
“Including that deal with you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not, I can’t do you know what…who I was this morning!”
I leave, dropping the coffee. I’m trying for a way out. I’m looking and finally come out into this living room, or like the lobby of a lodge.
I see Alexi, Robert, Dmitri and half the “Cool” kids from town. All lounging, all looking as hot as the usually do and feral, there’s a sea of golden eyes and fangs, They get up when they see me. They growl and get up and move towards me.

Then they all drop to a knee and bow.
Dominick comes up from behind and wraps an arm around me.
“Stevie, this morning you became Queen.”