When my eyes opened again, my room was empty, and the spot on my bed where the wolf had been slaying was warm. I sat up, trying to ignore the ringing in my ears as I looked around my bedroom. It looked... cleaner? My desk was cleared off, and the clothes on my floor had been picked up. Speaking of clothes, someone had removed my blood-soaked shirt and pants and I was wearing a pair of baggy pajama pants. Gray bottoms with white stripes and zigzags on them, and a plain gray shirt. Did Mom change me? I looked down at my arm, and saw that the bite was now a circle of scarred dashes. Damn. It had healed much too quickly to make sense, but nothing had been making sense anyways.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon now. At least, that's what my alarm clock read. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and stood. My knees wobbled beneath my weight, but I was standing without the support of anything. I groaned loudly. There was something wrong with my nose, and my ears. I could hear someone shuffling around outside the door, but it sounded loud enough to be right next to me. I could smell the wolf now, too, the strong musk of outdoors. He smelled... powerful? It didn't make any sense, but it made my stomach feel anxious.
I staggered over to my door and hung onto the handle for a few moments, screwing my eyes shut as I tried to gather my thoughts. "Ow..." I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. I was sore, and nauseous, but for some reason my arm felt completely fine. Maybe a little stiff, but it didn't hurt anymore. I could still feel the searing pain of the wolf's fangs sinking into me, and the feeling of sticky blood washing over me. I lifted up my shirt to reveal streaks of blood on my stomach. I'd have to shower to get it off of me.
I turned the doorknob and poked my head out into the hallway. "Mom?!" I called. Nothing. I shuffled out into the hallway, my bare feet creaking on the floor. "Mom?!" I tried again. I turned the corner, and nearly fell backwards when I saw a strange boy standing in front of the window, holding one of my sweatshirts. He turned his head when my foot creaked loudly on a loose board, and I ducked behind the counter.
"I thought I made it clear I wanted you to stay in bed-" he sighed. He folded the sweatshirt on his chest and set it down on the table in the hallway. I fell to the floor, pressing my hand against my chest as I tried to calm my racing heart. There was a man in my house. First the wolf, now a strange boy? What the fuck was going on. The boy poked his head around the corner. He looked to be around my age, maybe nineteen or twenty, and had a mop of dark brown hair and olive skin. There was a big scar on his neck and two on his right shoulder just barely visible beneath the sleeve of his tight gray T-shirt. He was wearing dark black plants and his feet were bare as well, and they looked filthy. He crossed his arms and stared at me grumpily. "I told you to stay in your bed-" he broke off. "Well, not told exactly, but the message was still clear," he added.
I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. He smelled. But not in a bad way. I could smell everything about him. The soft sheen of sweat on his body, the musk of the forest, and the scent of other... people? I could make out like six different beings just off of him. I touched my nose with my fingers, moving it around. Why did it feel like that?
The boy took a step towards me. "Alright, come on, back to bed-"
I held up my hand. "Hey, no, how the fuck did you get in your house?"
"If you mean in a literal sense, your mom let me in last night. I've been here since, watching your stupid ass after I found you in the woods," he said simply, as if it were a completely normal thing to wander into somebody's house.
"Why- who-?" I broke off immediately. I had been staring at the man for a solid twenty seconds, and now I realized why he seemed so familiar. His eyes were the same gold shade as the wolf that had attacked me and then somehow dragged me home. "Are you the dog?"
He went rigid. "Wolf. Not dog," he spat in a cold tone.
"R-Right, sorry. So... are you then?"
"No shit. Did you think I was a real wolf?"
I shook my head. "No, I thought that I was on some sort of weed trip with Adam, got lost in the woods, and a magical shape-shifting nymph dragged me home covered in blood and cuddled me while I slept."
He blinked. "It was not cuddling. I was keeping you warm."
"I had a blanket."
"Well I got that dirty. So I laid you on top of it."
I rubbed my eyes. "I'm so confused..." I glanced at him. "Did you have to get dirt everywhere though? Your filthy paws scratched my floor, too. My mom's going to throw a fit when she sees it. Probably when she sees you, too."
He shrugged. "She's the one that opened the door when I brought you home."
"She saw you?"
"Well I was in this form, dumbass," he snapped. "I wrapped you up in a sweatshirt so she wouldn't see all the blood and told her you fell asleep under the stars so that she wasn't suspicious."
I frowned. "Shouldn't you have brought me to the hospital?"
"You won't have to go there for a long time."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Doesn't matter. You're going to need rest," he said, bending down and slipping his arms underneath my armpits and hoisting me to my feet. I liked the way his warm hands felt on my skin as he pulled me up. I let him lead me back to my bedroom as I craned my neck over my shoulder to try and see behind me. His hand tightly gripped my shoulder as he marched me into the bedroom and pushed me back to the bad. "There, now be a good boy and sit there. Don't get up again."
I pouted. "But-"
"Don't be a brat. You're acting like the pups."
I crossed my arms. "That's not fair. You attacked me." I froze. My head shot upwards. "Wait- if you're a werewolf, and you bit me, does that mean that I'm going to turn into a werewolf-"
He held up his hand. "Not now. You need to sleep."
"You can't just- I mean what if- what if I turn into a werewolf and bite my parents or something?!"
He looked troubled, like he didn't want the responsibility or something of explaining his own consequences. "Not now," he repeated. "You might as well get some sleep now. It gets harder to sleep at night as time goes on." He sat down on the end of my bed and crossed his legs. "You may ask me three questions, but then I want you to sleep some more."
I opened and closed my mouth, glaring at him. How was I supposed to pick three out of the million questions I had? "Okay... well what's your name?" That was as good a starter as any, and if he wouldn't tell me anything about myself than I would find out as much as possible as my strange enemy/savior.
"Aster. Next question."
"Isn't that star in Latin?"
"Greek. That counts as your second question. Next."
I frowned. "Hey, that's not fair."
Aster narrowed his eyes. "Next. Question."
My stomach started churning, like if I didn't do what he said I was going to throw up. I pulled a sick face for a second, and then the feeling began to subside. "Uhm... why are there werewolves in the forest?"
"That's where we live."
"Yeah but why this forest specifically?"
"That's an extra question."
I crossed my arms and huffed, but I didn't want the nausea to return so I held my tongue. He was being incredibly unfair. Aster had bit me, now I was probably going to turn into a werewolf. Did his kind just normally attack humans? That didn't seem very ethical, and if they were running around biting people left and right then how come no one had ever seen a werewolf around the forest before? Especially me, out there every night when they were supposed to be awake. It seems unusual that no one would spot one of these giant, three-foot tall wolves roaming the forest. There had to be more of them, since I had found pups. The pups.
"Are the pups okay?" I asked earnestly.
Aster opened his mouth, probably about to tell me that was too many questions, but then his gaze softened. "Yes, they're fine. They were never in any danger. They're back in the burrow, being watched by their mother. I was the one keeping an eye on them when you found them. I ran off to find Suki, she snuck off when my back was turned. I didn't want her running around with all that construction, she could get hurt."
"Construction? You mean all those machines in the forest?"
Aster nodded. "Yeah. It was a total bitch to get all those machines and scaffolding out there. But it's almost over, and then the pups can stop being out in the middle of the woods. I hate when someone has to leave the pups by themselves. There are owls, and coyotes. Most of them stay away from the sound of all the engines and when they smell our markers."
I wrinkled my nose. "Markers?"
Aster grimaced. "Look, it makes sense to me but when you try explaining it to someone that doesn't instantly understand it gets a little difficult." Aster waved his hands. "Look, it doesn't matter. You'll- you'll use your ears and your nose when you get there."
"Get where?"
Aster stood up. "Alright, look, I'm going to take you somewhere. I want you to follow me." Aster started walking towards the door, then he turned around. "Be a good boy and don't ask me too many questions on the way. Got it?"
I nodded. "Got it."