Flower Moon - Part Two

Check out all the chapters by clicking HER(fix)E

CHAPTER ONE: FLOWER MOON - PART TWO

Russ Hardwick stared out his patio window at his garden. It wasn’t really his. It was apartment property. But it felt like his. He’d been the one who’d taken the sadly neglected pond and cleaned it up. Planting clover to fill out the poorly tended grass, and thyme and basil to go with the wild mint and chamomile. He was the one who pruned the brown-eyed Susans and made sure the sharp nettle didn’t get out of hand or grow in easy-to-reach areas.

Not that anyone but him went into the garden. Most people preferred man-made, cultivated parks, filled with pretty, transplanted flowers and meticulously maintained trees and bushes.

Except her.

Dawn.

“Russ?”

From the first moment they’d met, he’d recognized her, of course. Wasn’t everyday that a hind moved into the building. She was smaller than he thought she’d be. More like a fawn than the deer the pack sometimes hunted. All slim, shaky, tawny limbs that didn’t look strong enough to hold her up and wide-set, black, white-rimmed eyes that were too big for her face. And she’d smelled like steady sunshine and quivering nerves. A strange mix. She hadn’t seemed real, even for a magical creature. When he’d seen her in his garden, he’d thought he’d been dreaming.

She wasn’t there now. He wondered if she would come back again.

“Russel.”

Russ turned to face Garrett Wright. His alpha. The term still felt awkward, even after five years as a werewolf.

“Your attention isn’t what it should be,” the man said with a disappointed tut. “Even this close to a full moon, you should have more control.”

Russ grunted. He knew that. He needed to get it together. It’d taken two years of learning how to be a werewolf — to control and contain the beast now living inside him, sharing his skin. But, as soon as he had, Russ had moved away, had moved here, to build his own way, apart from the nightmare his world had become. It’d taken him three years to create the life he had now and he would not go back.

Five years ago, his life as he’d known it had been stolen from him, when one of Garrett’s wolves had gone wild and attacked Russ, mauling him almost to death. But, instead of dying, like he should have, Russ had been turned.

Into one of them.

Into the same kind of goddamned monster that had destroyed everything.

And, even though the wolf responsible had been sentenced and locked away, there was no justice in the world that could give Russ back his old life. For months after he’d been turned, he’d felt like a raving animal forced to wear his face and walk around on two legs. The all-consuming fury inside him had made it impossible to do anything. How could he go back to work or see friends or family or lovers, when he felt like he couldn’t control himself? When, at any second, for any reason, he could lose whatever tenuous grasp he had left on his humanity and snap. While he wrestled with the very real possibility of inflicting the same nightmare onto someone he loved that that wolf had done to him.

At first, Garrett, feeling responsible, had offered to take Russ in, make him part of the pack. To dutifully teach him how to be a civilized beast in this modern world. The courts, not knowing what else to do with him, had agreed. But, after two years of living with monsters — of living as a monster — Russ had had enough. He couldn’t stay there. The moment he’d learned to control the beast inside him, he’d left the pack, never having felt part of it in the first place. 

But, by then, the human world had moved on from him. He couldn’t get his job back. His friends had all disappeared. Even his family watched him now with a distant wariness.

And he couldn’t blame any of them.

He’d never been a terribly social guy. With or without the wolf, he wasn’t like Tucker, who could chat and charm everyone. But, after the change, Russ had become harder, more terse. He’d learned control through restraint, by keeping a tight leash on the parts of himself that scared people. The parts that scared himself. If he was honest, a part of him was glad the things and people he’d loved before had left him. They deserved better than what he’d become.

So, with Garrett’s help, Russ had started over with his job here as a caretaker. And, as long as he played by the rules — played nice with the neighbors, put up with these monthly check-ins with Garrett, didn’t cause a fuss — they allowed Russ to live away from the pack and pretend he was the man he’d once been. As much as he could, anyway.

“Are you sure you won’t join us tonight?” Garrett asked, like he always did. “Preyer Service has a new location and the surrounding woods are perfect for hunting.”

Russ shook his head. While that sounded better than the hunts they used to do, locked inside a converted warehouse, Russ still wanted no part of it. He may have to change into an animal every full moon, but he didn’t want to feel like part of the zoo. Werewolves were old, ancient, wild things that had no place in this modern world and Russ had no desire to desperately try to outrun the trap society had already caught them in. No thank you.

He was happy enough here, maintaining the building, its tenants, and his garden. It somehow soothed all his newfound animal instincts to belong, to be part of something bigger than himself. To care for and protect something that needed him, and without the constant reminder of the monster he’d become. He felt safe here. This place made him safe.

So he grunted before turning to Garrett, his eyes respectfully lowered in deference. “We good here?”

Garrett studied him for a long moment. Russ fought the urge to squirm or growl under his alpha’s ruthlessly observant gaze. But whatever he saw must have suited him, because Garrett finally nodded. “Next month then. Remember to call, if you need anything.” It wasn’t an offer. It was an order.

Russ nodded. He would. He’d seen what an undisciplined wolf could do and, scratching the scars on his neck, he wished that nightmare on no one.

Garrett narrowed his gaze at Russ. “Are you eating enough? You look thin. Willem brought enough barbecued meat to feed the pack for a week, so I left some in your fridge. Make sure you eat it.”

Yes, Mom. Russ bit back the words, as well as the accompanying, insolent eye roll that reminded him too much of his teenage years, and simply nodded.

After Garrett left, Russ sat in his dim living room and waited. He stared out the window, watching the sunset stretch and twist the shadows. He watched as the blue sky burst into pinks and oranges before bleeding into a deep, unforgiving purple. It was a cloudy night, the regal sky streaked with almost inky gray and swirls of brown pollution. Though he couldn’t see the moon, he could feel it tug at his body. Felt its beams seep into his bones, forcing them to crack and shift. Before he couldn’t anymore, he stripped his clothes and let the process — painful and unwilling — happen. 

When he’d first turned, he’d tried to fight the change. Tried to hold on to his humanity like the precious treasure it was. But he never could. No matter how hard he fought, the change would take him. It pulled him down, reached deep inside him, and tore all the darkness inside him out. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Because he wasn’t human. Not ever. Not anymore. He might look like one, act like one — sometimes — but, inside, he knew. 

He was a monster.

And, every full moon, his body made damned sure he remembered that.

The last thing he did before his arms became legs, his hands morphing into thumbless, less mobile paws, was yank open the patio’s sliding door. The last time he’d forgotten, his beast had smashed through the glass. It was best to just leave the door open, so he could crawl back in, naked and weak under the rising sun. 

After all, his place smelled like a werewolf; there wasn’t a creature in the area who would dare enter his den. Even humans avoided it, if they could, some far away, not-yet-lost-to-evolution instinct keeping them away.

Which was fine by him. Russ found it easier to pretend everything was normal when he wasn’t constantly reminded of what he wasn’t and would never be again.

As his now fur-covered body settled into its new form, he padded out into the night, the smell of his garden hitting him like a lovely wave as his paws flexed over the soft grass. For a moment, contentment washed over him as the animal in him felt at home in this small corner of nature he’d carved out for himself. His tongue lolling out happily as a puppy’s, he bounded around the pond, running over the muddy bank. He let out a giddy yip as the air — as fresh as it got in the city — rushed through him, ruffling his fur and filling his lungs.

But, suddenly, he stilled, his instincts stopping him before his senses could tell him why. He looked around, the beginning of a growl rumbling through his throat.

Then, he saw her.

Dawn.

In the middle of his moonlit sanctuary. 

Fuck.

She stood, frozen, among the primrose, their blooming scent not strong enough to cover the terror emanating from her. Her wide eyes stared, unblinking, at him, the fear drowning in those dark depths making his own legs weak. Her pretty lips were parted as if in a small, silent gasp or scream.

His own body seemed stuck as well, as if stunned to stone by her presence. But the longer he stared, the more his body seemed to react to her. His eyes narrowed, following the quivering quake that ran through her dainty frame, making her breasts, her hips, her tail, shake in ways his mind shouldn’t dwell on. The delicate, fresh scent that was undeniably her, even hidden under the sharp tang of her fear, seemed to call to him, making his limbs tense in eager readiness. Ready for what, he didn’t know, but his mouth watered and his paws itched to run, to pounce, to take.

Shocked by that, he shook his head, snapping his still gaping jaws shut. Stop it. He might not be a man anymore, but he would not be any more a fucking beast than he had to be. And scaring residents was not the kind of caretaker he wanted to be. So, with only one last look at her quivering form — one last, long inhale of her scent — he turned and ran, hurrying to the opposite side of the pond, as fast and as far away from her as he could get in this eden he’d made for himself.

READ PART THRE(fix)E 

WANTMORE?

FIND MORE STORIES HERE