Chapter 11

I stayed in front of Aldahir’s cell, watching in agony as the bones in his body changed places and started breaking while he whimpered and tried not to scream in pain, he could do nothing but toss around in the floor in an useless attempt to stop the transformation from being so painful, after about five excruciating minutes the bones in his body finally got back together finishing his transformation into a wolf.

Once Aldahir had fully transformed into his white-grey-ish wolf form he came up to the bars and leaned the top of his head against the bars while whimpering.

-It’s okay – I said petting him between the ears – I can stay here if you want, I can give you some moral support until the sun comes back up

Aldahir moved his head hitting my hand with his nose as if he were trying to make me leave, but I pushed his head down softly and made myself comfortable on the floor putting my back against the cell bars.

-I’m not going anywhere, if you could avoid biting me I would appreciate it – I said laughing

Aldahir’s reaction to my words was to put his nose through the bars and pushing me, when I turned to him he growled at me, I simply laughed and leaned against the bars again.

The full moons for us had always been… Interesting? Complicated? I’m not sure how to describe them. Unlike what most of the information you could find out there about werewolves, not all of us were involuntarily transformed into wolves every full moon, the ones who were born with the werewolf gene – like me - only had that forced transformation during their first ten full moons, those first ten full moons were honestly the worst, we started feeling off, almost as if we were getting sick since the morning because we were far more sensitive to the full moon than anyone else.

When the moon reached its peak we would transform, which was incredibly painful because our bodies had to change from humans to wolves, which meant all of our bones had to move around, brake to fuse with others and eventually come back together forming the skeleton of a wolf, and we felt every single one of those movements or fractures, fortunately for us we only had to deal with this intense level of pain for our first ten transformations forced by the full moon, it had something to do with a rite of passage.

We had to suffer like that to understand and appreciate the pain our ancestors went through – they really seemed to hate us – once we survived it, we were allowed to have full access to our abilities and the benefits of being born with the gene. Just like transforming without pain, not being force by the full moon to transform and being able to keep our human reasoning as wolves.

Now, when it comes to the ones who were bitten, things were different. They would always be forced to transform by the full moon because – seemingly – they would never have the same control over themselves, their bodies, their minds and therefore their transformation, besides they usually end up having to suffer through a lot more than ten painful transformations because, sadly for them, in most of the cases they didn’t ask to be turned into a werewolf so they don’t like, want or accept what’s happening to them, that made it harder for them to have painless transformation because their minds kept reminding them of how painful it would be and the body just, listened to the mind.

They would eventually stop feeling the pain of the transformation, when they accepted they had been bitten and they were werewolves. Essentially, they had to accept and almost embrace the pain, which had never been easy. In Aldahir’s case, even though he had been a werewolf for years and he had learnt to enjoy certain aspects of it, he absolutely hated the full moon so he was still having problems with that and honestly, who could blame him? I hated those first then transformations with all of my heart.

That night was really complicated for me because I hated nothing more than seeing people I cared about having to go through those forced transformations. Even though Aldahir had managed to learn to keep his mind intact while he was a wolf, meaning he had all his reasoning and therefore he wouldn’t try to escape from the cell by hurting himself, it was awful to watch him wander around inside the cell whimpering over and over again, clearly wishing he could not be a wolf at the moment.

Ever since Aldahir was no longer a treat to the rest of the pack or people in general, we used to spend the full moons out in the woods, he would transform inside the cell for safety reasons because a person in extreme pain is unpredictable, then I would let him out, transform into a wolf too and go with him to wander about in the woods, it was honestly really fun and liberating because we would just run around messing with each other as if we were kids, or actual wolves playing with one another.

Usually those nights would end up with us having sex on our special – kind of secret – place, under a really big and old tree very deep in the forest. That was the time we managed to spend together without anyone knowing, it was pretty normal for the other members of the pack to return to their homes way past sunrise, some of them would to the same as Aldahir and I and take advantage of the time alone, others would stay as wolves for a little longer and hunt the food for the day and others were simply to tired to return right away and would fall asleep in the woods after transforming back into humans, so it wasn’t suspicious for us to return later.

The emotional state of the person when the full moon came had a lot to do with how their transformation would be that night, the whole reason why Aldahir decided to spend that full moon locked up instead of going to the woods by himself was because he was not mentally okay, he had just witness the Choosing Ceremony, which hurt him because – just like he said – he saw me being happy with somebody else, he was beyond mad about everything, especially because of my letter, that made him feel like I didn’t care about him enough to take time out of my day and talk to him in person.

To make things simple, he didn’t not have a clear and calm mind, so his transformation was going to be rough, which could make him not be in complete control of the wolves’ natural impulses and could end up hurting someone. Obviously, all that changed a bit when I showed up, but he still wasn’t good enough to be let out of there.

The hours went by slowly and when the sun finally came back up I opened the cell’s door and rushed to his side where he contorted in pain again as his skeleton return to his human form, once he was human again I tossed a blanket over him and kissed his forehead.

-I have to get out of here before my parents show up – I said quickly – I will sell as many of my paintings today, if you go hunting and take the animals to the local butcher you will get some money from that…

-Tomorrow – he said with difficulty – we leave tomorrow before sunrise, no one is awake that early

-Perfect, I’ll see you then, don’t forget to pack all you need… I love you

-I love you too – he said and then kissed

I kissed him back and event thought I didn’t want to let him to I pulled away and ran back to the cabin, just in time not to me seen by my parents who were going to check on everyone. I went into the cabin and jumped back in bed with Alisha while my mind and my heart were racing thinking about what I was going to do with Aldahir.