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The house was quiet now. But with their
heightened sense of smell, the mansion reeked of blood, death, and
spoiled food. As they picked their way between the bodies of the
servants, Charlotte whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," to each. So
she did care about them.

The wild werewolves had been in the kitchen.
Food lay trampled and ruined on the floor, but a good deal remained
on the counters and in the pantries. Bernard picked up a box and
began loading food into it, but Charlotte slapped his claws away
and did it herself. Even though her hands were clawed, hers were
daintier, better at handling small objects.

Bernard found a cloth sack that had once held
vegetables, and they shoved the loaded box inside. Charlotte slung
it across her back, and they hurried outdoors. The silence of the
mansion weighed on their nerves, and they expected any moment to
hear the screech of magefire, or the clicking claws of approaching
wolves.

Outdoors it smelled cool and fresh. A
particular tension relaxed inside of Bernard—his animal body
subconsciously feared being indoors, as if it were a trap. "I can
see in the dark," he said in surprise.

Charlotte turned in a circle. "I didn't
expect this. It's like twilight instead of night."

Bernard dropped to all fours. "There are
still werewolves around. Stay close." He bounded across the
grounds, and Charlotte trotted after him. It was the natural way to
run. Natural or not, they had to adjust to their new bodies or
die.

Chapter 4: Shelter

The pair crossed the creek that divided their
property from the next, and trotted uphill toward the woods behind
Halfmoon Manor. Their property sat on the edge of the Lyedyn City
limits, backed up against the Blackwood.

Charlotte lagged behind Bernard as they
crested a hill. He stopped to rest, and she did the same, tongue
hanging out. "I'm not used to this."

"Let me take the bag." Bernard held out a
paw. She pulled the strap off gratefully and handed it to him. He
slung it over his own shoulder, where it almost disappeared in the
long fur.

Charlotte's desolation knew no bounds. Had
she been human, she'd have been sobbing, but this body didn't cry
easily. Instead of her throat burning and eyes watering, she had
the impulse to whimper over and over. They were leaving their
beautiful home for--what? The dirty, cold, wet forest with its
briars and ticks. A whine rose in her throat and became the words,
"Where should we go?"

"Away from humans." Bernard's ears flicked
forward and back in time with his thoughts. "Away from werewolves.
Somewhere quiet."

"But what about shelter?" Charlotte pointed
at the semi-cloudy sky with a claw. "What about when it rains?"

"We'll find a cave." Bernard rose to all
fours and loped down the hill.

Charlotte pounded after him, hating every
step she took. She hated the fur on her arms, her long nose, and
the feel of her teeth against her tongue. She directed all of her
helpless fury at Bernard. If he hadn't have given her that elixir,
she would probably be dead now, or at least insane. Either would be
better than being stuck as a monster forever, perfect conscious of
what she was. Blast him!

The odor of filthy dog assailed Charlotte's
nose. Another werewolf! She forgot her hatred of her husband and
jostled against him. He jogged to a halt and sniffed the air with a
low growl, and Charlotte pressed her shoulder and flank against
his.

The outline of another werewolf flitted
through the trees a short distance away. Its red eyes flashed in
their direction. Bernard bared his teeth to their roots, and the
hair on his shoulders and back rose like spines on a porcupine.
"Snarl!" he hissed at Charlotte.

She bared her teeth in a pathetic imitation
of a snarl.

Fortunately it was enough to warn away the
wild werewolf. It skirted them and galloped north without a sound.
Bernard and Charlotte continued south, hearts pounding.

"You've got to learn to snarl," said Bernard.
"Canines are all about bluff."

"Unlike you, I didn't handle dogs much."
Charlotte sniffed and stepped away from him as they hurried onward.
"I spent my time among civilized company."

Bernard let his tongue roll out in a grin.
"Very little of that in the forest."

They ran on without speaking. Bernard paused
occasionally to sniff and look around. He led them roughly
southwest. When Charlotte asked where they were going, he replied,
"Grayton is a peninsula. The south end is rocky with lots of
caves."

Dawn paled the sky as they descended a gentle
hill and plunged into young, brushy forest. Charlotte pushed her
way through brambles that would have torn a dress to ribbons, but
instead they raked her fur with the pleasing sensation of a
brush.

The wolf pair drank from a stream, and crept
into a thorny cave under a raspberry hedge. Bernard opened the food
bag, and they shared pies, bread and cheese, broken into pieces
with their claws. The pair was ravenous, and the bread didn't
satisfy their animal stomachs.

But it was food, and neither of them
complained. Charlotte and Bernard curled up at opposite ends of the
hollow and fell asleep.

***

Bernard awoke hours later in fright, the fur
on his back bristling. He opened his eyes, but did not stir.
Charlotte lay pressed to the ground, ears flattened against her
skull. Humans yelled nearby, and magefire roared overhead. Werewolf
voices howled a short distance away, and the smell of burned hair
and flesh filtered through the leaves overhead.

"They're hunting them," he whispered.

Charlotte rolled one yellow eye at him.
"They're hunting us."

Neither of them dared move until the human
voices had moved off, and the wind carried away the stench of
magical burning. Bernard recognized the magical signatures of some
of the Mage Society, his old friends. "We're monsters now," he
thought with a twist in his stomach. "They'll destroy us, the way I
always thought we should."

He uncurled and nudged Charlotte with his
nose. "I think it's safe now."

She cringed away from him, and he squeezed
past her, out of the hedge. He rose on two legs, looking, listening
and sniffing. Birds had resumed their songs. The clouds obscured
the sun's position, but Bernard thought that it was around noon.
The breeze carried the smell of humans.

He dropped to all fours. "Charlotte, they're
moving west. If we run south we'll avoid them."

She crawled out of the hedge, dragging the
food bag in her teeth. She slung it over her shoulders and sighed.
The pair drank from the stream again, then Bernard led the way
through the brush, keeping low and stopping often to listen for
enemies.

They traveled several miles this way,
following the rise and fall of the land and keeping to the lowest
areas where the brush was thickest. They happened across the
charred corpses of three werewolves. There was little left of them,
and Bernard and Charlotte gave them a wide berth. The blackened
meat made Bernard's mouth water. He wasn't sure that he liked the
appetites of this new body.

As the gloomy, overcast afternoon faded into
gray evening, they entered rocky, broken country. Rock outcroppings
burst from the ground like the shattered bones of ancient monsters,
and here grew scrubby trees and little brush. Bernard left
Charlotte resting among the rocks, and scrambled among the
outcroppings, sniffing and listening. The fresh, salt smell of the
sea filled the air now, and the forest reared up in a dark wall a
few hundred yards away.

After a while the rock outcroppings drew
together in a cracked limestone ridge. Bernard loped along this,
nosing into crannies, and found a handful of small, shallow caves.
None deep enough to provide any sort of shelter. He followed the
ridge as it curved west, and finally found a cave that delved deep
into the rock.

He stepped cautiously inside and sniffed.
Gravel covered the floor, along with leaves and the occasional dry
bone. Twenty feet in, the cave ended in a smooth wall. Here was a
deep nest of sticks and leaves, and plucked hair from a bear.
Bernard examined it with his nose, but the scent was old and
fading. It had been abandoned for at least a season.

Footsteps crunched on the rocks outside.

Bernard scrunched himself into the nest and
stared out the cave mouth, hair bristling down his spine.

A human voice said, "Doesn't look like
they've made it this far. They're hanging around Lyedyn City.
Better hunting."

"Wait," said a second voice. "I see one down
there, in the rocks. Looks white."

Bernard's heart stopped and his muscles
coiled. Charlotte!

The mages crept off, trying to move
stealthily on the rocks, but their boots still crunched in gravel.
Bernard slunk out of the cave on all fours. Outside the world was
drenched in the onion-like smell of man. He could have followed
their trail blind.

They followed the limestone ridge, so Bernard
climbed the it and galloped along its far side. The other side of
the ridge was a gradual slope, covered in deep grass that concealed
rabbit burrows. He'd examine it later--right now panic held him in
its choking grip. Charlotte had no warning! What if she'd left her
post and followed him, and walked into the mages?

Was he willing to attack his former friends
to protect his wife?

The choice tortured him. He leaped down the
low cliff and plunged into the rocks, panting and sniffing. He'd
outrun the mages, who were now a few hundred feet behind him, out
of sight, but tainting the breeze. And Charlotte--where was
she?

A fireball burst against the limestone cliff
with a boom.

Bernard moaned and ran toward the fireball's
source. It hadn't been aimed at him, and there was but one more
wolf here.

"Charlotte!" he bellowed.

"Bernard!" her voice floated over the
rocks.

He sprang up on an immense boulder, hoping to
divert the mages' attention, and reared up on his hind legs.
Charlotte zig-zagged through the boulders, jaws wide as she panted,
ears flattened in terror. Twenty feet away, the mages stood atop
another boulder. One man held out both hands with a fireball
growing in it, while the other mage pointed his staff at it,
contributing power.

"Two of them!" the staff mage exclaimed.

The fireball mage hurled his bomb.

Bernard watched it curve through the sky like
an orange comet. It had been thrown to reach the spot where
Charlotte would be in a few seconds--

He leaped off the rock and flung himself into
her, knocking her off her feet and tumbling with her sideways,
behind the sheltering rocks.

The missile exploded, blasting his fur with
heat. Charlotte screamed.

They rolled to their feet, and Bernard
panted, "Climb the cliff and run for it. I'll draw them off." Then
he saw the black scorch mark across her back, the fur melted into
stiff clumps.

The world froze in place. Nothing existed
except Charlotte and the black trail of horror across her. His nose
caught a whiff of burned flesh. They'd hurt his wife.

Animal rage erupted inside him. Lips writhed
backward to bare fangs, fur stood on end, adrenaline flooded
muscles. He bounded through the rocks toward the mages, every
breath exhaling in a hideous snorting growl.

Another fireball roared toward him, but
Bernard leaped sideways and kept running. Fire splashed behind him.
Beneath the rage swirled a terrible question--should he attack the
men? If he did, what separated him from the rest of the beasts?

Raging and yet trembling with indecision, he
bounded on a rock near the mages, who were frantically building
another fireball. He could leap for their throats--

Or talk them down.

Panting, slavering, snarling, Bernard roared,
"Leave us alone!"

The mages stared at him and their jaws
dropped open. The fireball, unnoticed, smoked and began to fizzle
out.

Bernard held out both clawed hands
entreatingly. "Please, just go!"

The second mage raised his staff and worked a
teleportation spell. They disappeared in a flash of light.

Bernard exhaled and dropped to all fours.
Crisis averted. Maybe they'd tell someone about the talking
werewolves and someone would put two and two together.

He padded back to Charlotte, who crouched
where he'd left her, whining. Her ears flicked forward as he
approached, and for a second she seemed glad to see him. Then her
ears flattened again and she lowered her head. "I believe I'm going
to die."

Bernard sniffed her burn thoroughly. "It's
not deep. I wish I had some salve, and then--" But why finish that
thought? Their mansion was abandoned, his workshop inaccessible,
and everyone thought they were monsters.

"Come this way," he murmured. "I found a
cave." He almost nuzzled her face, but didn't quite dare.

Charlotte limped behind him, head down, every
hair drooping. He feared she'd drop behind and lie down, but she
followed him all the way to the cave. She went inside without a
word, sniffed the nest once, then stepped into it and curled
up.