“That one likes you,” Clara said, her voice cold as the tundra she hails from.A shiver goes down my spine at her words, and I reluctantly let my gaze drift up, to-wards where her pale blue eyes are fixed unblinkingly on the observation tower.A lone figure stands there, silhouetted in the dim florescence filtering from the bullet proof glass of the tower window.Tall and lanky, with a slump to his shoulders, the vampire holds a clip board, scribbling notes every few seconds, pausing to survey the enclosure, writing again. He never seems to get tired. Nor bored. He has become a fixture of the place, like the tower itself. Nothing but the weather ever changes here.Except the prisoners.They are always coming and going.They come almost exclusively from the Wilds. Werewolves who chose to stay in the vil-lages (those not overrun by the spread of humanity), and live in the old way. Were-wolves human society has no record of. Werewolves nobody but their pack would miss.I’m the exception. I left the wilds for London long ago and never looked back.Not more than a glance or two, anyway.

[Prisoners arrive, from all parts of the world, having no idea how they got here. Most of them are from broken packs; their territories overrun by humans or depopulated as youth head for the cities. Dispersed, the members had gone their different ways, Lones for the moment, until they find a new home, in a neighbor’s pack, in headquarters, or in the cities.Only none of them had made it to the end of their journey. Instead they arrived here, in ones or twos, trapped in a couple of acres of land like animals in a zoo, or game on a preserve.And then one by one they are taken away. Where we are taken, nobody knows.]

Clara turns those ice blue eyes on me, and it’s like looking into the blue of a glacier’s cravat; beautiful, but not a place you’d like to fall into.“I want you to find out why.”And to think my sister had jumped into that cravat with both feet, and mated herself to this Alpha. Harry really was quite mad. But I could understand it, even as it frightened me. Clara had a pull to her. A charisma. She unfolded her long pale limbs and stretched, straightening to her considerable height. Something about her made me want to do what she asked. Do anything she asked. because when she spoke, you just knew that what she wanted you to do was vital, even if she didn’t explain why.Somehow, Clara was going to get us out of here. Or kill a lot of vampires before they fi-nally killed us; whichever seemed most feasible. But whatever the goal, you just wanted to do it. She made you feel important, just by asking you.I’ve heard all the great Alphas are this way. Must be why pack life never suited me. The feeling of trust in her command was unnerving. That I wanted to follow it was even more so. We’d only just met on the unfortunate night of our capture, yet already I...“Do whatever he wants. Tell me when you’ve worked it out,” Clara says, even as she turns away from me again, eyes scanning the enclosure and it’s inhabitants, her snow

white hair blowing about in the autumn wind, her nose twitching with the smells it brought.I was dismissed.I stood too, limbs popping from sitting too long in the cold, pulled my ragged jacket tighter about myself, and walked over to where the old Canny was crouched, with the Kin-Wolf sitting placidly at his side, her ears perked, ever listening, never speaking. The Canny greeted me with a guttural grunt, low in his throat. “Got yer orders, then, ‘ave ya, cityling?” He said in his usual slur.Braylar could talk better than some, worst than most, but his speech was discernible af-ter you got to know him.“Seems like,” was all I said in return. Cannys weren’t one to go in for idle chatter, since language was enough of a struggle for them already without having to contend with meaningless small talk. The curse of were-gene deficiency had not blighted Braylar too much though. He could walk, in a hunched manner, supporting the bend of his back and upper body upon a hand, in an awkward, three-limbed gait. I’d certainly seen Cannys in far worse shape than him, caught, as they all were, between wolf form and human form, unable to change even with the aid of the moon. It was pure luck as to what level of the change their bodies got stuck in. Some were crippled, but most got by in their packs as skilled trackers and trappers.“Don’ be givin’ me tha’ look, yougling. M’ curse has kept me well alive in dis hell. Ain’t me they want. It be you quick-changers they’s afterrr.” The words came out slow and muttered, part growl at the end, working as they did around a wolf’s long tongue and snout-like face.“‘Only fools pity the wise’,” I said. That was what you were suppose to say to Cannys. Hobbled as they were by their bodies, they were believed to hold a wisdom lost on ordi-nary weres. And he was right about that. He’d been here nearly a year and a half, longer than anybody else except the kin-wolf. The quickest changers stayed only weeks before they were taken away.Kin-wolf, too, stuck at they were forever in full wolf form, were regarded as wise. ‘If one cannot speak, one hears every whisper,’ the saying went.I haven’t made up my mind yet if these are all parables to comfort the genetically unfor-tunate or if they hold some truth, but regardless, I liked Braylar, and his Kin-wolf com-panion. Nobody even knew her name, since she could not speak, no matter how sharp her mind might be. Braylar looked at me sidelong, skeptical of my quoting the traditional teachings, but said no more of it.“What do you know about that vampire whose always watching us?” I asked. Braylar had been in the prison longer than anyone. If anyone could help me, it’d be him.Braylar considered for a long while, scratching at an old scar above his eye, a pale knot of skin protruding from the soft gray fur covering his face and body.“He’s young. No ‘ore ‘an fifty.” Braylar rubbed at his swollen knees with a paw-like hand, grimacing. “He don’t hate us. He’s not like dem others. He’s got a curious stripe in his fangs, he does. Wants ta know ‘ow we tick.”“That all?” I ask, sighing. A curious young vampire with an entire compound full of un-willing test-subjects. Wonderful. “I’m pretty sure whatever he wants, I don’t want to give.”

Braylar sniffs the wind contemplatively. “He hates the old vamp. Their alpha. The one who smells o’ mold.”I met Braylar’s yellow eyes for a moment, but didn’t ask how he knew this. “Thanks.”“You can help me mend m’ traps as thanks, cityling.”I nodded and walked away. Braylar would find me when he needed me. It wasn’t like I could go very far.When I reached my miserable little den, I crawled in, rolled onto my branch-beam and stretched- hide cot, pulled my buffalo pelt over me and fell into shivering restless sleep.Tomorrow I was going to offer this strangle vampire anything he wanted, because in the little enclosure of the outdoor prison, Clara was Alpha. Even if I wasn’t her Beta like she’d asked me to be, or even her pack (formally), I was going to do what she asked, because I trusted her and I wanted to.I didn’t want to want to.But...I don’t know if in Clara’s plan we all live or died, but... but at least that was better than the waiting.

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When I woke in the morning the sun was still below the valley walls surrounding our en-closure, so it was not the pre-dawn light that woke me, but the cold. A particularly vio-lent shiver woke me with a start.It was early November and the buckskin jacket and coveralls Braylar had provided me with (courtesy of a previous inmate, whereabouts unknown) were too big for me, and without the woven wool undergarments worn by wildweres, it wasn’t much insulation. I had to get moving.Ignoring the ache of my limbs and the goose-pimples on my flesh I crawled from under my buffalo skin pelt and got to my feet. My eyes slid about the den- a round structure, sunk 3 feet into the earth with 3 additional feet of logs lashed to the living trees growing around the depression, and above me a lattice of branches upon beams with moss and hay and peat packed in between two layers of reed mats.In the center of the ceiling was a great ceramic bowl, in which the four weres sleeping in the den-proper had made a fire. Werewolf dens were not underground structures, unlike the dug-out caves of ordinary wolves, but built 3-6 feet up in the living trees, away from forest predators, scavengers and vermin. Cellars such as where I slept were meant for livestock and Wolf-kin, or storage of non-perishable goods- not sleeping.But space was a premium in our fenced prison, and all the bunk-dens were full to ca-pacity. I had not the skill, nor the inclination to build my own. My cellar was an improve-ment on my previous sleeping arrangement- a hammock with a hide-tarp hung over it to keep the rain out- but it was a far cry from my old apartment in the suburbs of London.And to think, I’d spent so much time resenting my boring, lifeless flat.Clara’s offer of 1st Beta was tempting for it’s spot in the Alpha den alone, but I preferred to keep my distance from the others. This was not my pack, nor this prison my home. It was best not to form attachments here.

My bleary eyes traveled over the den’s few items- a woven fishing net, a few spear shafts, a large worn stone used as an anvil and washing, a water skin in need of mend-ing, a pelt, half cut for a garment, abandoned by it’s owner before it was finished.The dirt floor was been lined by reed mats over hay, a kindness of Braylar to help keep the chill out. And in the far corner, opposite the door, the ever present blinking red eye of a wireless camera.What the vampires hoped to gain by watching us sleep was a much pondered mystery but we had all discovered upon our arrival that any attempt to tamper with the cameras resulted in everyone getting a tranquilizer dart in the ass and waking up to the camera repaired or replaced, just as it had been.A mound of hay shifted in the corner, startling me to full wakefulness, but it was only the Kin-Wolf. She gave a massive yawn, displaying her long white teeth and lolling red tongue. She was usually at Braylar’s side and the old Canny slept in the hammock and tarp set-up I used to use. He claimed he preferred the outdoors, but I suspect he had taken pity on me.The Kin shook the hay out of her modeled grey coat, stretched fore and after, before re-garding me with calm green eyes. Then she walked out of the den cellar, sliding past the buckskin slung over the door, and out into the morning chill.Curious, and knowing I needed to get my blood moving, I folllowed her, my bare feet crunching uncomfortably on the frost-hardened grass and leaves. The Kin was already halfway across the enclosure, loping towards the observation tower. I glanced up to it’s high windows, but saw no one but the usual sentry. No tall lanky figure with a clipboard was waiting up there.I followed the Kin to the base of the tower, and curiously, down the narrow steps down into the mote around its base.The Kin was sitting at the base of the stairs, waiting for me. When I reached her side, she continued, trotting around the curve of the tower to the doorway that leads into the tower itself. The door that usually bars the entrance was raised into the ceiling.No one went into that tower willingly.Weres were darted, carried into it, and never seen again.But the Kin’s eyes were calm and steady, her breathing even, puffing out in regular clouds of steam in the sharp cold air. I can sense no fear from her, even as she turns away from me and vanishes into the tower.I approached the door with caution and peered inside. It’s dark, but the dawn light re-flects one set of eye-shine from the waiting Kin.Was this what Clara wanted me to do? To walking willingly into the tiger’s mouth?I could refuse, go back to my usual morning job around the edge of the electric fence, help Braylar catch some pond-stocked fish, spend every waking second wondering when they would come, who they would take and what would happen when they did.The uncertainty and the inaction was worse than the cold, the rough wildwere ways, the cameras, the entrapment. At least, whatever, Clara had in mind was a way to finally do something.I walked into the dark.“Dr. Watson,” came a deep posh drawl.

The florescent lights flicked on and I was let blinking spots from my vision. I was in a square room about 10x10. The walls on my left and right were one-way mirrors, the wall ahead bullet proof glass with another door across from the one I’d come through.It was a set of two barred double doors, with about two feet of space in between them, firmly closed.And on it’s far side stood the lanky vampire with the clipboard. He was alone- no sen-tries with dart guns accompanied him.Only ever having seen him in silhouette, the strange planes of his face struck me. His angular, high-set cheek bones below narrow almond eyes a startlingly pale grey-green-blue. Those strange eyes and his pale, pale skin was in sharp contrast to his messy, dark uncropped curls. He had a hawk-like nose over a bowed mouth set in a narrow face to match his long narrow frame. God, but he was pale, but then, so were most vampires. He popped his collar up on his long wool coat and tightens his blue scarf about his neck, feigning cold. But there’s no puff of steam when his chest moves with each inhale and exhale, also entirely unnecessary, considering vampires didn’t breath- at least not fast enough to be perceived by the naked eye. It is all purely for effect.“She’s beautiful, don’t you think?” the vampire asks, gesturing with a flourish towards the Kin-Wolf sitting by the glass, regarding him with an inscrutable expression.“... I suppose,” I say, my eyes never leaving the vampire.“Do you? Or do you just think that’s what I’d like to hear?” he asks, his voice dripping with condescension. As if to say, you’ll never guess what I want to hear.“Fine. I-” He wanted to hear what I thought? Fine. “Beauty like her’s can’t thrive in a cage. I-um. Yep,” I replied after a long, considered pause. If the truth was he wanted, well, he could shove it up his pale arsehole.The vampire smiled, flashing only his flat, human teeth in apparent pleasure.“Do you need anything?” he enquired, nonsequeter be damned. “You can be honest. I promise whatever you require will be provided.”“My freedom,” I answered immediately. This conversation may or may not have been going the way Clara would have wanted it, but damnit, she’d chosen me to do this, so I was going to do it my way.On second thought Clara probably already knew that. All part of the plan, no doubt.The vampire’s smile broadened, showing his pointed canines this time. “Anything but that.”God even his voice smirked.“But thank you for your frankness,” he added, smirk gone.I glanced around the room, wondering what to ask for, or I should ask for anything at all. Some of the prisoners were certainty so proud that, doubtless, they’d rather burn then ask our captors for water if they were on fire. Those were wildweres for you, though.I was definitely more of a city bloke.“Have you got a pen?” I asked, half joking.To my surprise he removed a pen and pocket notebook from within his coat, and, before I could speak, he smoothly slid both pen and paper through the barred inner door.Lifting a brow at him, I approached cautiously, knelt down, and quickly grabbed the pen and notebook through the bars of the outer door from where they lay in the little two-foot bit of no-man’s land between the double doors.

Backing up several feet, I flip open the notebook. It’s blank.I click the pen open and write a short list, just to test his word.

Hooded water proof down coatsleeping bag and pillowthermal tops and bottomsflannel-lined denimsWool jumper and socksboxer-breifst-shirtsleather hiking boots

And for good measure, I added,a bar of chocolate

Minus the chocolate, the list was precisly what I had when I was captured, out camping with Harry and her new mate Clara on the eve of the full moon.Daringly, I tore out the page I wrote the list on and pocketed the notebook and pen. I slid the list back through the bars.The corner of lips quirked, but he said nothing, just stooped to retrieve the paper once I had backed away.He turned to go, switching off the lights, and I found myself saying, “Wait! I, uh. What’s your name?”It’s an absurd question. it’s answer of no consequence to Clara’s plans or my freedom, but I ask it anyway. There’s something different about this one. Something strangely compelling.“Sherlock,” is the quiet, surprise answer. He lets an unnecessary breath in a half-laugh and walks away, through another door and out of sight or hearing.I glance around for the Kin-Wolf, but she has already gone. I didn’t even hear her go.

That evening Clara approaches me at the pack’s hearth- a big ceramic-lined pit in the earth, which, if this had been a real pack with a real territory, would have the bones of our ancestors buried under it. Everyone gathered around it in the evenings to warm themselves and roast their dinners before going to sleep. Clara carried a paper parcel in her arms.“John, the Kin found this just outside the tower.” She deposited it at my feet. “Braylar as-sures me it’s for you,” she smiles as she takes her seat beside me, and it’s almost a warm expression.I rip open the parcel to find each item from the list I gave the vampire- none of the items are the ones I was kidnapped in, but they’re damn close- even the brands are the same.the others regard me with suspicion, but Clara quells them with a single glance. I half wanted to ask them if they’d got any requests, just to geode them, but decided against it. Wildweres... I rolled my eyes internally.That night when I put my new cloths on I can’t help but curl my toes in pleasure at the clean, warmth surrounding me.God, what I wouldn’t do for a shower.

I slept until late afternoon, safe from the cold of the past several weeks.I was more exhausted than I realized and the rest had done me good.When I emerged from the cellar the Kin-Wolf was waiting for me, and she started off to-wards the tower.

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When I arrived in the room inside the tower, Sherlock was waiting for me, dressed in the same grey wool coat and blue scarf, his clipboard under his arm. He leaned his weight on the barred inner door, close enough to grab, if I stretched my arm through the outer door bars and over the two feet of space to his door.I wondered if I he knew that, and when I met his pale eyes, I was sure that he did, be-cause they narrowed just a bit, and the sides of his lips turned up in amusement.I didn’t approach the door, and he didn’t move off of it.I stood before him, saying nothing.Silence.The Kin wolf turned to leave, licked the back of my hand on the way out, and was gone.Still the vampire didn’t speak.“What do you want?” I was always one for a direct approach.“To learn,” came the answer, soft, almost a whisper.My eyes narrowed and I sucked in a lung full of air and slowly let it out. My blood pounded, my vision blurred for a moment, and then cleared. To learn? Was that all? Was that all we were being kept like animals in a zoo for?Later. There would be time for that later.“You’re angry, but you don’t attack. Why?”“You’d just move out of reach,” I said honestly. Also, I’m not trying to get shot here, I’m trying to escape, I add silently.“Have you ever killed anyone?” Sherlock asked, much the same way a person might ask ‘Have you ever been to New York?’“Yes. Have you?” Of course he has. They all have.“Why did you kill?” He continued, as if inquiring about the weather in Essex, ignoring my question.“I was a soldier.”“Yes, I already knew that. But why did you kill?” He sounded impatient. Bored.My eyes narrowed, the anger pounding through my veins again. The war isn’t some-thing I really talked about. And most people have the sense not to ask. This time I counted down from ten as I turned away from him and began walking towards the door out of the tower.“I haven’t, you know,” came the quiet words.“Haven’t what?” I grate out, my back still turned, but my retreat halted.“I haven’t killed anyone,” Sherlock said, sounding rather shame-faced about it.I laughed, a dark, cynical sound, half turning to get a look at his face, ready to see the lie there. He stared at those nice leather shoes of his, and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Squaring my shoulders, I walked back towards him and reach though the 2-door lock set-up to grab a fistful of his dark grey coat and yank it hard, pulling Sherlock up against the bars of the outer door where I can get a good look at his face.For a moment he looked almost child-like, a kid caught red-handed, but then his eyes narrow to slits and he stared into my eyes, as if daring me to think less of him. “Yes, you see, Dr. Watson, you have quite the advantage of me.”I could grab his neck. I could kill him. I know I could. I’m not as strong as Clara, but I’m no pup either. I could end this vampire. His eyes bored into mine and he stayed still as stone, not even feigning breathing anymore. “So, Dr. Watson, are you going to kill me?” He asks, his voice betraying only mild curiosity on the subject.I released him with a shove and he stumbles back a few feet, straightening his coat. He didn’t approach the door again, but stayed where he is.“What are you playing at?” I spat. “Why aren’t there five different tranquilizing darts be-ing shot into my arse as we speak?”“Dr. Watson, if they had seen that, you’d have had several semi-automatic clips emptied into your head about 1 minutes and 30 seconds ago.”I took a moment to digest that. His statement told me several things. One, the cameras were off and no one was watching us behind the one-way mirrors on my right and left, and two, this vampire was important, if he is worth killing a test subject over. Prisoners had attacked guards and even doctors before, and nothing more had come of it than a dart in the back and a headache when you woke up. We rarely managed to kill one be-fore the darts started flying, but that didn’t stop some people from trying when they got the chance.“I’ll tell you what, Sherlock,” I said, an idea coming to me. His eyes lit up at the sound of his name on my lips. “You say you want to learn. Well, so do I. So I’ll trade you. Ques-tion for question. Answer for answer. No lying. No evasion. Just the truth.”A full fanged grin adorned Sherlock’s face now. “How many questions do I get?”“As many as I feel like answering,” I said coldly.“I go first,” Sherlock demands. “I ask first. And you answer before you get to ask yours.”“Deal. But if you ever refuse to answer my question after I’ve answered yours, I’m done here. You can get some other bloke to play your games.”“Deal.” He stepped forward and extended his hand through the bars, into the space be-tween the two doors. Slowly I extended my own hand.With striking speed he grabed my hand in a bruicing grip and yanks me forwards until my shoulder slams into the bars painfully, my face far too close to his, even with the two feet of space between us.“I know you want to escape. I know that’s why you’re here,” Sherlock whispered to me, his fangs fully visible. “I know your Alpha told you to use me- that I’m part of her plan.” My heart was thudding in my chest, this time from fear. This vampire was too unpre-dictable. It was impossible to tell his intention from one moment to the next. Talking to him felt exactly like being in this prison. Every moment filled with uncertainty.“But I don’t care,” he continued. “Go right ahead. It’s of no consequence to me whether you succeed or fail. Are imprisoned or free. Live or die. Just don’t lie to me, and you may proceed with your Alpha’s plan unencumbered by me.”

My nails were digging into Sherlock’s wrist, with it’s eerily still pulse, but I didn’t try to pull away from him. I just breathed in evenly through my nose, out through my mouth, mastering my emotion as I’d learned living long years as a city Were.“Did you get all that?” Sherlock asked, releasing my hand and moving back a pace.I nodded.“Good. Make sure you tell your Alpha. I wouldn’t want her to think I’d betray her to my brother.”He turned and walked away, flicks the light switch off, leaving me in the dark.“We start tomorrow.”And he was gone.I rubbed at my wrist, at the five reddened marks there where his nails bit into my skin. It was already healing, the bruising fading. We were close to the full moon, and my abili-ties were getting stronger. I gave myself a good shake, trying to let the creepiness of that encounter fall from me like a dog shaking water, and walked out of the tower and into the evening light.That night I reported to Clara, and told her everything just as it happened. She didn’t say much. Just asked a few questions here and there, to clarify. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. When I’m done, all she said is, “Make sure you ask him who his brother is. Even though I think I already know.”“Anything else?” I asked, hoping for some small clue as to what the plan was.“Don’t lie to him,” she answered with a shrug.

That night I’m was plagued by strange dreams. In one dream I was in the dessert again, my body armor strapped tight and my riffle aimed forwards. I lay on my belly down in a ditch in the sand and rocks and dust, and nobody could see me. I was waiting for some-thing. And when I saw it, I knew I was going to shoot it, because otherwise, it was going to kill me. And then across the dry flood plain I lay in ambush in, cames a Saluki. The sight hound was running full out, each great stride more of a leap, taking six feet in ev-ery bound. It’s strangely colored for a desert dog. It’s long silky fur was pure white, like Clara’s hair, and its eyes are pale grey-green-blue like Sherlock’s, its nose an inky black. It was chasing a hare. The hare was also white, but not the like the hound. The hare was an albino, its pigmentless fur and skin almost pink with the veins flowing be-neath, its eyes a shocking red.The hound was closing on the hare now, the small animal losing speed in the punishing heat, the dog’s endurance outlasting the faster hare. It wouldn’t be long now.Suddenly the hare stopped, taking shelter under a scrub bush and the dog stopped too, frozen, as the saluki’s of afaganistan are trained to do, staring at the hare, which was standing stock still. But the hare wasn’t staring at the hound. it’s staring at me, with my sight trained on it. It knew I was there. Knew I was supposed to shoot it.The hound turned to look at me too, waiting, as Saluki’s do, for their owner to make the kill.I hesitated. An albino hare is such a rare creature. Quite beautiful, in an alien way. I thought to myself that it would be a shame to kill such a creature.Then hare smiled at me. It smiled. I could see it’s jagged rodent’s teeth bared at me in a grin. And then I was sinking, the sand beneath me shifting, and even as I opened my

mouth to scream, to call for help, sand poured into my mouth and nose and I was drowning.“You should have shot it” the Saluki said in Clara’s merciless voice, and I started awake, flailing wildly, but there’s no sand in my den-cellar, only my buffalo pelt over me, my new sleeping bag, and the cold beyond that. The kin wolf licked my face and whined. I take in a deep breath full of cold air and wipe the sweat from my brow.“It’s alright,” I said. “I’m alright.”The Kin whined again and looked up at me, existing the cellar, nosing aside the buck-skin door, loping out into the night.It’s almost dawn. I got up reluctantly, because I didn’t think I could go back to sleep after a dream where I drowned in sand. The hare’s grin haunted the back of my eyelids. It looked... it looked mad.The moon was still up in the sky. It’s more than 3/4 full. The Kin was stretching with her rear in the air, tail waving, front paws out in front of her. Then she bounded away, yip-ping in excitement. I followed her at a jog, but it was hard to keep up in this form. She was far faster on four legs than I was on two. I sighed, glancing up at the moon again. It’s been a long time since I tried a change without the aid of the full moon. But as I gaze at the glowing disk in the sky, it looked large enough to me. I could do it.I picked a spot in the leaf litter, and got down on my hands and knees, breathing deeply, trying to stop my teeth from chattering, and tried even harder not to think about the fact that I’d have to get naked in this weather.. It was probably best if I changed a bit more often if I was going to be dealing with Sherlock. The vampire got my blood up, stirred up emotions I worked hard to keep in check. Any werewolf who didn’t deal with his emo-tions would find his emotions dealing with him. We felt things more keenly than most. And it was best if we kept calm when we were outside the pack, unless we wanted to hurt somebody. And to keep calm, you had to let the change come now and then. There was no stopping it, after all, but you could at least determine when and where you changed, if you were careful. You had to let it out.

“Union between man and wolfFor a sound mind and a strong body.”

So the saying went. Those who kept the wolf inside them cordoned off in some back corner of their mind courted madness.I let my defenses drop completely, the night air prickling my skin as I began to strip out of my new cloths until I was completely naked, shivering in the late fall wind. I breathed in, letting my senses expand, smelling the rotting leaves, the pond, the dew-wet grass, the bark on the trees, the pine pollen, the metal and concrete of the tower and the o-zone smell of the electric fence. I let my ears twitch, felt something inside them begin to move, felt the ends prick and grow pointed.I could hear the water lapping, the buzz of the electricity in the fence, the leaves moving in the wind, the small creatures moving underground and in the treetops. I could hear the electric hum of the various cameras and the clink of the sentry’s keys on his belt at the top of the tower. I could hear deep sounds, underground, where we all suspected a compound was located beneath our feet. Rumblings and buzzings and hummings from beneath, and even muffled voices.I wiggled my toes into the chill earth, digging them in, and twisted my fingers into clumps of grass, holding on.

And then it began to happen. I was not a quick-changer, and it was a slow and painful process for me. Some, like Clara, almost made it look beautiful, but not so for me.My jaws and gums always managed to outpace my skin as they grew, pushing out-wards, elongating my nose and face, slitting my lips grotesquely. My flat teeth narrowed and lengthened, the shifting bones aching like nothing else I’d ever experienced outside of the change. Then my skin caught up with the rest of my face and my lips were whole again, healed even as they were split. The rest of me was changing too, my legs short-ening, my arms lengthening, my tailbone popping as extra vertebra grew a tail out of my naked flesh. My shoulders shifted up and back, my breast bone down, my ribs elongat-ing to form a deep narrow chest. My nails dug into the dirt and clawed at the grass as they grew longer, thicker, rounder, my skin growing over the tops of them, my fingers fusing together and rough pads growing on my fingertips.And then the itching started. It began on my head, where my hair shortened just a bit, and then crawled down my neck and spine, spreading across my back, my ribs, my belly, working down to my ankles and toes, wrists and hands and finally my face. It is the insatiable itch of growing fur springing from every pore. It used to be the worst thing about the change for me, but I suppose I got used to it.I blacked out for a minute or two, while my organs shifted. The pain just gets so unbear-able that I usually just check out for a bit. That’s usually the last thing I remember feel-ing before I come to. But at least I know that in the end, I’ll be alright. In the end, I got to be this.When I regained consciousness, I was on the ground, panting, and I felt slightly nau-seous. I opened my eyes slowly, braced for the flood of light in the night. The color had partially drained out of the world, but it’s much brighter than before, the shadows seemed to have retreated to only the darkest corners.A ripple went through my body, a shiver of muscle and skin and fur. I stretched cau-tiously, getting the kinks out and then slowly rose to my feet. All four of them.I’m lower to the ground as a wolf, but not by much. Werewolves are bigger than ordinary wolves. We are, in fact, exactly the weight we are in human form. Matter being neither created nor destroyed and all that.I gave a great shake of my modeled sandy coat and snort the lingering air out of my nostrils, taking in a fresh lungful with my black wet nose.The Kin was waiting for me, staring at me from the shadow of the trees. I thought I knew her name now, the way wolves would say it. It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even a sound. It was a concept. A cold wind blowing over a frozen river, sluggish unattainably tasty fish swimming beneath the surface, the yearling pups skidding over the slippery ice fruit-lessly chasing the fish below as an older brother watches from beneath a willow on the bank. The Kin is all of those things; the river, the ice, the wind and the willow tree, and the ungainly pups and their patient brother. Her pack remembered that scene and named her for it. It’s difficult to explain how I knew this just from looking at her, but these things are usually clearer when you’re a wolf.The human side of me, the part that demands language, wants a word to call her, something simple. “Winter” I think to myself. The Kin was named for Winter. For a wolf, winter is beautiful. The prey grow weak from cold and hunger and are easy to kill. The pack is together for the big hunts. There is plenty to eat and scavenge. The snow makes a great quiet into which songs can be sung.

Winter approached me, sniffed me all over while I stand still for her. Then she licked my snout and took off running, calling for me to follow.I did, blood pumping and muscles working, and this time I catch up to her and outpaced her in my enthusiasm at the feeling of freedom running through me.It isn’t long before we reach the fence though, and I’m reminded of where I am. I turn in a tight circle in frustration, growling and pawing the ground.Winter leaned sympathetically into my body, whining in agreement.Then I saw the others, emerging from the woods. There we were, all 10 of us, in wolf form, excepting Braylar, who couldn’t change. Clara stood at the head of them all, mag-nificent in her white coat and glacial blue eyes. She is by far the largest of us. She’s de-scended from arctic wolves, who are a few stone bigger than the grey wolves that the rest of us hail from. Even the red wolves, tall as they are, are no comparison to Clara. Behind her stood her 1st Betas, Eve and Ronald, both of them sleek back wolves, Eve with yellow eyes, Ron with blue ones. The others were of various lower ranks and sport coats anything from modeled gray to pie-bald to blond. Werewolves aren’t limited to the usual wolf colors. Braylar was behind them, limbing along on a two-legged gate sup-ported by an out thrown hand, unable to change at all.Clara looked at me and nodded.She wanted me to begin. The human part of me didn’t want to. Bucked at the idea of obeying her, of being her Beta, of accepting this pack as mine. But the human part of me was very small now, far away, and its voice, with its human words, sounds far off and hard to understand, like trying to hear someone speaking underwater.I raised my head, sit back on my haunches and let a sound escape my throat. It’s rough at first, ragged and raw. My howl wavers and then gains strength, sounding out over the treetops and into the night.God, but it’s been ages since I did this. Since I just... did this.I poured into it all my anger and my fear, all the things I keep so tightly wound inside of me. I sung out the death and killing and camaraderie of the desert war, sung out the long slow days of life back in London, where things are so mundane I felt like I was dy-ing cell by cell from sheer boredom. I sung out the kidnapping of me and Clara and my sister and the uncertainty of not knowing, never knowing where Harry is or if she’s even alive.Clara joined in then, adding to my solemn notes her own fierce angry ones, her fright-ened ones, her doubt and her determination to get out, out of this prison, even if it meant dying. Even if she never saw Harry again.The others came in, winding their voices with ours in long notes. When one wolf stops for breath, another takes his place, and our voices clamor and jostle until we are one pack, singing for one thing: freedom. We longed for it. We’d die for it.Then the circle began. 10 wolves plus Braylar sit or stand in a loose circle, and Ron steps forward, his back feet kicking up dirt as he pawed the ground, lowering his head at me and staring me in the eyes- a challenge.No, I thought. I don’t want this.Except that I did. I always have. And Clara’s known it since we got here.I faced him. His hackles stood up and he lets out a low growl. Ron wasn’t that serious though. I could see it in the slump of his haunches, the tilt of his ears. This was more for

show than anything else. Ron had never wanted to be 1st Beta. He’d simply fallen into the rank for lank of any other takers.I lowered my head, put my ears back and snarled.Ron could have backed down right then, but he didn’t. He could feel the tension in the circle. Everyone was itching for a good fight. Frustrations were running high in the prison and everybody wanted fur to fly tonight, even if the outcome was pre-determined. Anything to get the blood running.Ron came at me low, and fainted to the left, but I barreled into him with my shoulder, my larger frame staggering him. He nipped at my flank and I reared up, trying to tip him onto his back to win the fight.Ron darted away, under me, kicking my stomach on his way out and swung a sharp turn, facing me again. He lunged for my neck and I let him. Once he’d gotten some teeth into the thick fur of my ruff I rolled a foreleg over him and leveraged my weight down.Ron fell under me with a yelp, surprised I’d let him at my neck just for chance to pin him.He scrambled under me, trying to wriggle free, letting go his grip on my neck. I turned and snapped my jaw almost closed over his snout, my teeth poised over his delicate nose and lips.Ron froze under me. He wined.I slowly, slowly removed my jaws from his face, and lifted my weight off him. He’d rolled unto his back, flashing the white patch of fur on his chest and belly.I had won.Yips and barks filled the enclosure and the pack surged forward to the rub faces with me, covering me with their smell, congratulating me on my new rank, deferring to my dominance. A few wolves spared Ron a lick or two in comfort, but nobody had thought he would retain the position when he had no desire to keep it. Ron licked at my face with the others, crouching low to the ground in his defeat.A single sharp bark from Clara and all bodies stilled, all ears, pricked. I approached her slowly, my tail tucked and ears down, my body low, and licked at her face as the others had done to me. She returned the gesture by rubbing her jaw glad along my neck, her muzzle firmly held above my own.The others would have doubtless followed my example and affirmed rank until the dawn, but Clara called them to order and began and run about the edge of the fence, ordering everyone out into hunting formation.We scoured the enclosure for weakness, for cameras, for breaks in the fence, for any-thing we might have missed. When every camera had been accounted for and every rusted chain link inspected, we were called back to the clearing I had changed in.Clara stood before us as the sun rose and looked deep into the eyes of each wolf there.She made no sound, but her message was clear to us: be ready. It would be soon.Then as the sun warmed our bodies, Clara began to change back. With her it was like watching a butterfly turn back into a caterpillar. A bit sad, but still a wonder to see.The others went about it a big slower, more painfully.I was last. I always regretted having to go back. Not just because of the pain, but be-cause it meant I had to be in control again.Reluctantly I ushered that wild part of myself away and ended the night as I had begun it, unconscious and naked in the grass, my body aching.

When I woke I was surrounded by warm naked bodies sleeping in the late evening sun. Naked werewolves don’t bother me. I’d grown up in the wilds with weres like this. I’d wo-ken up this way often enough as a boy. It was only when I moved to the city that I learned shame and restraint.

Winter was the only wolf who remained in the clearing now, unable as she was to ever change into a human. She met my eyes and I groaned softly, not wanting to wake the others, and rose to find my cloths before heading after Winter into the tower and a wait-ing Sherlock.

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