My heart was thudding in my chest, just at the thought of seeing him again. It had been a long time.
But he had never been far from my mind.
We had both been changed into werewolves at the same time. Together. We were eighteen, hanging out in the woods. The crush I had on him then had been almost painful – an all-consuming adoration. But I never acted on it. I was just his friend, curvy and self-conscious, and the idea that he might have reciprocated the attraction never even occurred to me. But nearly every night, in my dreams, we were together. Only in those nightly fantasies did Heatherer's hands find my body, and his lips meet my own.
The werewolves had attacked us when we mistakenly encroached on their territory, that night in the forest. We were both bitten.
Heatherer and I suffered through the changes together – the terror and the exhilaration of transforming into a powerful, majestic beast. The way that our animal instincts had consumed us at first, and then the gradual learning of control. We had shared all of that. A new world had opened up to us – a world where the night was a living, pulsing thing, of which we were a part. Running together in wolf form, through the beautiful pine forests, with the luminous moon shining down upon us, were some of my favorite memories.
And then I had moved away.
My family had taken me across the state – a world away, at eighteen – and I hadn't seen him since. Now I was twenty-two, and my wolf transformations were more solitary. I occasionally ran with the local wolf pack in my new town, but I wasn't close with any of them. My excursions beneath the full moon were still wonderful – loping through the forest, guided by the stars, but they weren't the same without Heatherer. Sometimes I still felt his touch in my dreams. But I always woke alone, my skin tingling with the fading impressions of his hands.
We had maintained contact at first, but with the distance between us, and our lives intervening, our communication had dried up.
But now, Heatherer had invited me back to my hometown. And here I was.
I was going to see him again.
A ceremony was to take place that night. Every few years, a new alpha male is chosen for the wolf-pack of a particular region, and the previous alpha retires. This ceremony coincides with a lunar event called a "super-moon", which means that the moon is closest in its orbit to the earth, at the same time as a full moon. It can be a tempestuous time for us werewolves, because the full moon exerts its influence on us even more powerfully than usual. Emotions run high. It's considered a sacred time, which is why the crowning ceremony takes place during it.
I received a letter from Heatherer asking me to come. I had instantly recognized his handwriting on the letter, and all the old emotions had come flooding back.
It's been far too long, Heatherer's letter had read. I'm going to be chosen as the new alpha for the region, and it would be great to have you there. I miss you.
I caught the next flight. I couldn't resist.
But now that I was here in town, nerves were beginning to take over. The impending meeting with Heatherer was causing old anxieties to stir deep within me, bringing up all the old fears that I had learned to push away in my new life. I was sitting on my motel bed, opposite the mirror. Taking in my own reflection.
I was still curvy. Still plus-sized. Far from the media's idea of "perfection". When I had moved away, I'd always planned, in the back of my mind, to slim down before I ever saw Heatherer again. He was always so fit – a bronzed, muscular athlete. I wanted him to look at me the way I had looked at him. I wanted him to hunger for me the way I had for him.
But I hadn't changed much at all. I had become a woman, and my curves suited my frame a lot more now. But I wasn't the typical scarecrow supermodel you see on television. I rarely experienced much attention from guys. I'd heard snide comments about my size.
But even worse than that was being ignored. I felt invisible sometimes. I'd find myself walking down the street, crossing paths with an attractive guy, and while I'd be checking him out, his eyes would slide over me as if I didn't exist. It wasn't exactly a self-esteem booster.
I was too nervous to call Heatherer and see him before the festival. I decided to just take a walk down the main street, and do some reminiscing until nightfall.
It was strange, wandering along the boulevard that I used to frequent as a teenager. It seemed as if it hadn't changed. I realized suddenly, as I reached the end of the main street, how small the town really was. Aside from the rows of little shops along the main street, and the mall behind it, there was very little else to see. The main street was surrounded by the residential estate, where most of the population lived, and then the estate was surrounded by farms, which ended at the national forest. The forest through which Heatherer and I used to run in wolf form. Where the ceremony would take place that night.
I missed this place, I realized.
The simplicity. And the nearness to nature. In the city that I'd moved to, I had to drive for an hour to reach the forest that I explored each full moon.
With all this mulling in my mind, I turned and decided to walk back along the main street, to absorb it all over again.
And what I saw, as I turned, nearly made my heart stop.