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Full moon
Ben had chosen the location.

It's a simple truth that Kansas is flat. It's a prairie state, after all. There are no deep forests here, no mountains, no true hills. To eyes unaccustomed to the view, it would seem to be a barren place, flat and empty. We who live here are resigned to the jokes, the insults, and the bewildered contempt we get from people who live in busier states. And while some Kansans agree with that attitude, and cannot wait to leave, there are also some Kansans, like myself, who listen to the insults with a smug inner certainty that other people are idiots. There is no way I could ever move to another state; the grimy canyons of city towers holds no more appeal for me than the claustrophobic closeness of mountains and forests. How in the hell could I possibly breathe in a place without the wind, the grass and the sky?

I had given up finally, and called in sick. There was no way I could have concentrated on my work, or managed to get through an entire day without snapping at someone or otherwise making everyone in my office miserable. I couldn't sit still to save my life. I had meant to spend the day in mental discipline, something I'd cobbled together from everything I'd read on lucid dreaming, spell-casting, meditations, and the like. I had no idea if it would work or not, but Ben had told me that he'd concentrated on keeping one thought in mind on the last full moon, the simple thought of finding me, which had given him a sense of purpose instead of the usual wolfish instinct of running and hunting freely. It had worked for him, and I was hoping it would work for me, especially since I was starting out with the much more simplistic thought of just not killing anyone. I hadn't expected it to be so difficult, but then, I also hadn't expected the thought of murder to ever bring me such a sense of joy and satisfaction.

It didn't help at all that I had the image of a tiny blond staked to an empty beach preying on my mind.

Ben didn't try to talk to me. He had his own battles, I supposed, and only spoke long enough to tell me where we were headed. He'd decided on a place west of Wichita: Cheney Lake, where there was something close to a forested area, and a great deal of empty land just beyond. I knew the area well. It's a favored place for campers and partiers, and I looked at him as though he were crazy, but he pointed out that it's October, most of the people had already moved to warmer, dryer ground. We arrived just as the sun was sinking into the western horizon. And somehow it shocked me to find out that someone else had arrived first. Or rather, several someone elses.

I recognized Caleb immediately, of course. From Ben's descriptions, I thought I could pick out each of the five girls: the two huddled in the back were likely Bridget and Terrie. Stephanie was the curvy one, with her hand on the little Mexican girl's shoulder - Lupe. Lisa was the leggy blonde with the sly look to her eyes. I didn't know the other two. One, however, smelled of wolf. The other reeked of dust and old blood, and when he moved his head, I caught a flash of his eyes. A vampire.

A growl began, low in my chest.

"Good job, Benjie. I never actually thought he'd follow you here, but I reckon yer scrawny ass must be better in bed than I ever knew," Caleb said, swaggering forward, and I turned my head to follow his gaze.

Ben's dark eyes were very wide in his face, and his expression was one of stark terror. "I- I didn't -" he stuttered, and shook his head.

"Oh, don't worry, pup," Caleb gloated. "He didn't tell me. He just told Lisa." He jerked his chin at the leggy blonde, confirming my guess, and I saw her smirk grow. The other four women merely looked scared. Stephanie held out her hand, and Ben dashed over to her, leaving me and letting them enfold him into their company. He whispered in their ears, keeping his back to me. I could feel a hollow sensation in my chest, but I ignored it. Now was definitely not the time.

"We don't have a lot of time," the strange werewolf said crisply. He adjusted his wire-frame glasses, and ran a hand over his thinning blond hair in a nervous, finicky gesture. "Let me make the introductions - my name is Christopher Biddle, and this is Abstinence Goodman."

I couldn't keep a bark of laughter down when I heard that name, and didn't try. The vampire glared at me, offended, but seriously, who didn't laugh at a name like that? What had his mama been thinking?

The werewolf - Biddle - continued as though I hadn't reacted. "We're here, respectively, as representatives of the Pack of the North Star and the metro-Wichita vampire coven. My alpha is most interested in meeting you, but unfortunately, as you still have unresolved issues with your blood pack, that meeting must be postponed."

I flicked my gaze over to the vampire, who grinned toothily. "Oh, we don't actually care about meeting you," he told me. "It's just that we don't often have the chance to see the birth of a new alpha. It promises to be entertaining, and the Head of the city wants all the juicy details."

Caleb made an ugly noise, and spat onto the ground. "Ain't no nigger walking out of this park an alpha," he said nastily. "Yer gonna watch me kill him."

The vampire shrugged. "If it happens, it happens," he agreed, and stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. The look on his face was one of excitement and barely-contained glee.

Biddle simply looked annoyed, and took a cellphone out of his inner coat pocket. His thumb flew over the keypad - texting a message, I presumed. "Time is being wasted," he said snootily. "I would suggest you all prepare yourselves. The moon will rise in approximately ten minutes."

I glanced up, and saw that while the strangers were talking, the sun had set. Ben had warned me that the change would begin the moment the first light of the moon shone on the earth, and in Kansas, where there are no natural obstructions and you can see the sky from one horizon to the next, there is very little time between the setting of the sun and the rise of the moon. Already stars were popping out all over the navy-blue sky.

So this was it.

The girls were stripping off their clothes slowly, a great deal of jiggling flesh on display; I probably wouldn't have taken note of it, if I hadn't caught the vampire sneaking lascivious glances in their direction. Ben, in their midst, was already bare, his smooth golden-white skin gleaming pale in the starlight. Caleb was circling around them, snapping and snarling, and I could hear the level of his growls rising. On the other side of the clearing, Biddle was also taking his clothes off, folding them neatly one-by-one and laying them aside onto a plastic tarp. Goodman stood near him, his careful gaze taking in everything, that smirk of expectant delight still contorting his face.

I walked around to the back of my car, popped the trunk, and started peeling off my own clothes.

It hurt. Jesus Christ, it hurt. The first sliver of moonlight peeked up from the horizon just as I was unbuckling my belt, catching me unaware and sending me down to my knees as the first waves of heat and pain lanced through every nerve in my body. I fought it, frantically tugging at my belt and the button of my pants, kicking them off and trying to keep my mediation thoughts on the forefront of my mind, but it wasn't working. The pain was driving out all rational thought, and I felt a whine sneaking out of my throat.

"Does it hurt, little alpha puppy?" I heard the vampire say, and rage shot through me to mingle with the pain and the bloodlust that I'd been feeling like a nagging toothache all damned day. Before I lost all capacity for true thought, before I could stop myself, I'd formed the intention of murdering that jackass before the night was through.

I don't recall the night very clearly. I'm aware that I had paused a moment, just after changing, trying to find my balance, when I was hit as though by a cannonball from behind. And the fight was on. Flashes of memory give me scenes of myself biting, snapping, snarling, moving on unsteady feet in and out of the fight. I'd ripped and tore into Caleb's body, but he'd ripped into me at least as often. He may have been a prejudiced, dumb-as-a-rock redneck, but there was a reason he was an alpha, even if only to a pack of scared little girls. I was bigger than him, stronger, and I was also hampered by the fact that I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. Nevertheless, at some point, I had managed to sneak behind his defenses and grabbed one of his hind legs in my jaws. Bone cracked, blood filled my mouth, and I felt a rush of satisfaction at his agonized yelp. I'd let go, intending to go for his throat while he was crippled, but then the scent of dust and old blood caught me, and distracted me from the kill. I turned at the last moment and lunged.

The vampire went down much more easily than I could have expected, my teeth tearing out at least half of his throat before he could scream. A second bite, a third, a little twist, and his head was off, rolling to the side with its mouth still open on a scream. My jaws had snapped through gristle and bone as though biting through butter. It was easy. It was thrilling. I wanted to do it again.

The girls, Biddle, and Ben all worked together to stop me. Time after time, I went after one of them, always knocked off course when another of them would slam into my side only to dodge away before I could turn and strike at them. I tried to run free, to find new prey, and they'd distract me with their damned knock-and-cringe tactics. I had no idea where Caleb had snuck off to, and I didn't particularly care, which was probably what they'd intended. At some point, halfway into the night, the euphoric belief in my own invincibility was worn down by exhaustion, and I must have faltered. The girls still gathered around me, licking at my muzzle and whining, their tails wagging, and I could recognize Ben in the group, but I snapped at him, driving him away. Biddle held himself mostly aloof, flattening himself down in submission if I so much as glanced in his direction, but refraining from the licking and wagging.

There was howling involved, a great deal of sniffing, pouncing, running, and exploration, and some play. I was largest, strongest, boldest, quite the king of all I surveyed. And then the moon set, the sky in the east began to lighten, and once more, I was on fire with pain.

Ben didn't try to approach me; he herded the girls back into their clothes and into their battered old car, although even he couldn't stop little Lupe from turning her head to flash me a grin. I absently noted that one of them was missing, and it took me a moment to identify the missing presence as Lisa. Even as I thought it, I recalled that she also hadn't been one of the girls surrounding me all night. I had no idea when she'd disappeared. Maybe she'd gone after Caleb, maybe she'd just left. I put her out of my mind.

Biddle approached me while I was dragging my battered carcass into my clothes, limping a little, still bleeding sluggishly from the wounds Caleb had inflicted. He was already neatly dressed, although a little the worse for wear. He cleared his throat.

"I'll take care of Abstinence," he told me, and I growled. Almost he flinched away, but caught himself just in time. He ran a hand over the mess of his hair. "You'll have to answer for it eventually, you know," he added.

I grabbed him by the throat, slamming him into the side of my car. "You go back and tell them," I growled. "Leave me the fuck alone, leave those girls alone, or they'll all wind up like that. I'm not fucking around. I don't care if I have to kill every last one of them. You hear me?"

He nodded, and I released his throat. He choked a bit, coughed, and his hand came up to cover the place where my grip had been. "You may be an alpha," he wheezed, "but you're not my alpha."

"Don't make me kill you, too," I shot back, still growling. He watched me get into my own car, and I could see him in my rear-view mirror as I drove away.



Ben is gone. I don't know, and don't care, where he went, or what's happening to him. That fucking treacherous little bastard had best not show his face here again. I meant what I told Biddle; I'm not playing games with the rest of the city's monsters, and I'm not jumping to Ben's tune any longer. I'm done with him, and with them.