Don’t Fear the Monster

CONNOR

The woods were breathing.

A slow, ancient rhythm that moved beneath the moss and curled between the roots. Pines stood guard above us, filtering golden light through their outstretched limbs. Birdsong drifted through the air.

Willow stood beside me, her arms folded across her chest like armor. I could smell her nervousness—sharp and bitter, layered under the wild sweetness that was hers alone.

My wolf tracked it with hungry reverence.

“This is where we belong,” I said, “not behind walls and sterile light. The forest is our home, so shifting here is easier.”

My wolf relaxed as he sensed peace wash over Willow’s wolf.

She stared at the trees, nodding, but then her brow furrowed. “I don’t even know if I can shift,” she admitted, barely a whisper.

“You’ve done it before.”

“Yeah.” Her jaw tensed. “My first time, we were training, and it just happened.” She kicked at the dirt. “I killed the boy I was sparring against.” She stared at the ground, clearly still haunted by the memory. “It didn’t end well for me either.

“After that, it was nonstop tests. They’d try to draw the monster out—different situations, different triggers. Sometimes it came out. Sometimes it didn’t. But the full moon”—her voice cracked—“it always came then. Until they found a way to stop that too.”

~Gods.~ I wanted to rip them all apart. My hands curled, my claws itching to break out. My wolf growled low in my chest.

I stood in front of her, softening my tone as I said, “It’s a she, and she’s not a monster. She’s you. A part of you. And if you let me, I’ll help you meet her properly. Without fear.”

Willow swallowed before giving me a trembling nod.

Slowly and deliberately, I stepped closer. “Close your eyes,” I said, dropping my voice to alpha deep. “Feel the earth beneath your feet. Breathe in. Let the forest in.”

She obeyed, but her lashes fluttered and shoulders braced in anticipation of pain.

“She’s not a monster,” I murmured. “She’s your shadow in sunlight. She’s your fire in the cold. Call to her, Willow. Not like you’re yanking her from a cage. Call to her like you’d call a friend home.”

Willow took a breath, then another.

“Say it in your head if you have to: ‘Come home.’”

She tried. I could see that she really tried. But after some minutes of silence, her frustration snapped. “Damn! Why won’t she come?” she snarled, raking her hands through her hair.

I thought about using my alpha command, only for a second. But I’d used it on her once too many times; I needed her trust more than her wolf. Besides, her wolf might not obey, being my mate and so strong-willed—alpha-willed. “Let me show you,” I said.

“Okay.” She nodded, her breath shaky.

Stepping back, I turned around and undressed. When I was done, I gave in and let the beast take me.

Bones broke like brittle twigs, tendons snapped in a wet cacophony, and skin bubbled as pitch-black fur erupted through it. Agony rode me hard and fast, but I welcomed it, embraced the chaos.

The shift wasn’t poetry; it was a riot inside my skeleton. And when it was done, I was on four legs, twice the size of any natural wolf.

I turned to her, and it took a moment to understand what I was seeing.

She was kneeling, curled up in a ball. Her head pressed tight against her knees, her hands clawed at the earth, and her body convulsed. My heart hammered against my ribs, wild and frantic, as she started screaming.

WILLOW

I watched him step back, and I prepared for what was coming.

My stomach clenched. “Okay,” I whispered, even though everything inside me screamed, ~Not okay. Not safe.~ I had only a moment to admire his naked, muscled back, to blush as he took his pants off.

Before it happened.

Too quickly.

With the sickening cracks of bones and rippling shadows, Connor disappeared. His body tore itself apart and reassembled in the space of heartbeats—fluid and violent and impossible to look away from.

One moment he was a man, the next, a beast. And he was massive, pitch-black, with eyes of cracked sapphires.

The forest went silent around him, the trees seeming to lean back.

Suddenly, every cell in my body remembered, caught in a relentless loop of recall.

~A silver cage slamming shut. Tranquilizer darts hissing out of the dark, burning like acid. My body folding into origami. The coming mist, thick and chemical, flooding my lungs and stealing my soul. Heels clicking on tiles and voices laughing like demons in white coats.~

I hit the ground like a broken marionette, my limbs locking on instinct while my brain flashed warnings in every language I’d ever heard: ~Curl, scream, play dead. The monster is coming.~

No.

The lab was coming—wires and restraints and full moons I couldn’t disobey.

Unable to breathe, I choked on air, buried in fear and dirt. A scream tore out of me, raw and instinctive and old. My body was already shutting down, bracing for impact, for electricity, for chemical fire to hit my veins.

“Shift back!” I sobbed. “Connor! Please! Please shift back! I can’t…I can’t do this… I…”

But there was no answer.

“Connor!”

Still nothing, but then a hot, wet ~something~ dragged against the side of my head.

It was a nose—the wolf’s nose.

I flinched before a whimper leaked from my throat as I imagined those razor-sharp teeth so close to my face.

It nudged me, seemingly trying to knock me onto my side. I resisted, fisting the dirt for purchase, but the creature was strong. Too strong. It shoved me, and my shoulder met the earth before another push got me onto my back.

And then it licked me—licked me! Wet and warm and unapologetically canine. It was a hot mop assaulting my ear.

A second later, I was again being nudged and shoved, poked and pawed at. With my eyes clamped shut, all I could do was yelp, twitch, swat at the damn creature, and beg it to stop. “What the f… Get… Stop it!” I snapped. “I swear I’m going to—”

It licked me again, right up the center of my face this time.

Only at that moment did I understand: It was playing with me.

And dammit if I didn’t laugh.

I released a cracked, broken giggle that clawed its way up through the panic. I uncurled slowly, my eyes still clenched tight and pulse thundering in my ears.

Everything inside me screamed that I couldn’t trust it. But I breathed until the voices quieted. In. Out. In again. My fingers uncurled in the damp moss. My skin prickled. I could feel him watching, waiting.

~Just look~, I told myself, slowly getting to my feet. Even more slowly, I opened my eyes, immediately reeling back two steps.

He was ~huge~. Looming. Closer than I’d expected and bigger than anything I could ever imagine. His sapphire eyes locked onto me, not wild, not savage, but... something else. Curious. Kind, even.

Until his muscles coiled like a spring, and he reared back. The air suddenly shifted, and my breath caught in the back of my throat, lodged between terror and awe.

As he lunged.

Right at me.