At first, all I could remember was the black insides of my eyelids, then I remembered the crash. I snapped upright, my eyes flying open as my breathing spiked and I looked desperately around. I was a room, a room very familiar to me. This was the place we'd taken my former pets to get spayed or... neutered. I desperately lifted my leg, pretending to all the world I was just a cat licking itself, totally normal. Certain organs were no longer there. I wish I could say I responded calmly and pondered in the lack of scarring, but that'd be a lie. Instead, I went into full on panic mode. I tried to dash away, instinctively attempting to run from my problem, but I hit a wall I couldn't see. I threw myself in every direction, but I was apparently inside a glass box.

Hooray.

I was still panicking and hitting myself against the sides of the box when the vet came in. The scent hit me, familiar but completely alien at the same time. A lot like the scent of the werewolves. I hit the glass even harder, desperately trying to get away from this strange person who had likely cut off my body parts and, at the same time, likely wanted to use me like everyone else did. I heard her chuckle, and the sound of a rolling chair scraping across the tile floor was followed by the sound of her sitting down. I kept hitting the box, hoping to at least make a crack. "Would you stop that? Geez, I thought Lunas had the most common sense of our kind; your going to give yourself a migraine. Look, they won't spay you while I'm here, I've made sure of it." I froze mid dash. Spay? Me? But they only spayed girls! I'm a guy! Why would she think that would be reassuring?

I resumed my attack on the wall, ignoring her concerned eyes watching me. "Look, I get that you aren't a part of a pack, and that likely means that you haven't been treated well, but surely you can understand that I'm trying to help you?" I turned and hissed at her, my back arching and my eyes slitting. I was confused, terrified, and this woman was unfamiliar. She smelled of forests, of the way the air moves underneath you as you run, of the way sunlight feels while it brushes against ones fur; and I didn't like not knowing what the heckfire that meant. She wore a white lab coat, which outlined the black shirt and jeans she wore underneath. Not what I thought of as typical vet attire, but I wasn't focusing on that at the time.

She sighed, leaning back and closing her eyes. Then she straightened and snapped her eyes open suddenly, giving me a stare that had me frozen in place. "Look, ma'am, if you want to pretend you're feral, go ahead and do so, but not with me. I lost a patient today because some idiot new kid couldn't understand that the rule against amputating without me present is there for a reason. Now I have a feral liger with one missing limb and a lost sense of humanity. I have no clue how I'm going to fix that! But I am not going to waste an iota of patience on you that I don't absolutely have to. Do you understand me?!" She was quiet, her voice never going higher than what one would use in a normal conversation. But her voice was deadly serious.

I didn't move a muscle. She terrified me too much for me too even twitch a whisker. "Good, now I'm going to open the box and give you a bath, okay honey? Then you are going to shift back, explain who tried to rape you, and tell me where you live. After that, I'll drive you home and we'll get you set up in a nearby pack. Okay?" I didn't even blink. For some reason she was convinced I was a girl. And she didn't have a single doubt. And what was that thing about calling me a Luna? Was that a cat species? She took my lack of motion as a yes and she reached over, pulling the box out of the counter. Apparently it slid about six inches into the counter, negating the need for an opening. Smart for them, and annoying for me.

She grabbed my still frozen form in gloves hands, then set me in a sink full of water. She scrubbed everywhere, and I mean everywhere making me more uncomfortable than I ever had been in my life. When she finally pulled me out of sink, I felt more naked than I ever had in my life, and I got the feeling she wasn't even half done. She measured me, tested my bones, and even tested my tail. Then she tried to inspect my posterior. I attempted to scramble away, desperate to keep some semblance of normality in this messed up, accursed place, but she easily caught me by the scruff of the neck and help me up; checking the last place I had that she hadn't yet inspected. I felt abused, as though someone had invaded every last piece of my privacy. But she wasn't done doing that yet.

"Hmm... you don't appear to have actually been raped, so... what made you run into a car? Seriously ma'am, what could have pressured you to do something like that? Were they trying to force a mating on you or are you just stupid?" I stiffened at the use of the word ma'am again. She had just seen my hindquarters. There was no way on earth someone could still call me ma'am after seeing the obvious lack of certain things. Unless... unless I wasn't lacking in that department. Unless what that witch Amber had done was worse than just changing me into a cat. Apparently I was a girl now too. I refocused on her as she set me on the ground, confusion my only companion as she made an impossible demand.

"Shift, now. I need to hurry and I don't have all day. If this form is unhurt, maybe they did it in your other form. Probably not other cats that tried it then..." she trailed off as I looked at her with my head tilted. Don't get me wrong, being clean was amazing, but I had no idea how to honor her request. She refocused her glare on me and I unconsciously took a step back. "Change. Now." Her terrifyingly dark brown eyes flashed a golden-amber color, as if warning me to comply. I looked around, not knowing what to do. I couldn't satisfy her, I had no idea how to figure out how to change, and I had just discovered that the most fundamentally stable part of myself was no longer true. I was terrified, confused, and completely lost. Luckily, she saw this.

Her eyes softened, becoming confused. "Don't you know how? They couldn't have mistreated you so badly that you'd forget how, could they?" She looked almost horrified, and I looked at her with my ears pinned against my head as I crouched and crawled backwards slightly. I was very much out of my element, and I desperately needed to get to Cassia. She would make everything better. She always did. The woman, Alex her name-badge read, took a shaky breath, raising her hand to her mouth. "That... how did they..." she shook her head. "Well okay then. Let's do something about it, shall we? Umm... I know a werewolf pack nearby, they take in were's that are roaming and need help. I can take you to them and have them help you. They'll make you part of their pack until you get the hang of it, alright?" She either didn't see or didn't know what my frozen form meant. She probably thought I was hopeful. Instead, I was horrified.

Werewolves were the last thing I wanted to be around, but I couldn't make a sound. I just stared in front of myself, my body feeling oddly disconnected from my brain as she picked me up and put me in a kennel; "procedure" she called it. I heard her speaking on the phone with someone named Fen, and I knew that he'd be here to pick me up sometime tomorrow. I saw her grin at me and heard her tell me it'd be alright. But I couldn't deal with the reality. I would be stuck in a pack of werewolves, all of whom would think I was an available, mute, unmated girl. My brain couldn't process it. I watched the room as she stayed for another hour then turned out the lights and left, presumably to help her feral patient. I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I was being placed in the backseat of a car that smelled uncomfortably familiar. Then I heard a voice outside that made my blood run cold. "Thanks Alex, I'll make sure to take good care of her."

It was Fen, the werewolf she'd called the previous day. And the man who'd chased me into the road. The werewolf who'd thrown rocks at me. Who'd climbed a tree to try and get me. I managed to let out a loud, terrified yowl just before he shut the car door, but Alex didn't try to take me back. She simply nodded and went inside. I began to pant heavily in panic as Fen climbed into the drivers seat and started up his truck. It was old, and it smelled faintly of leather. I say faintly because the smell of the pack that had hunted me was all over the car. "So, kitty. You can't shift? Is that why you ran away from me?" I turned my attention to him, almost snapping my neck with how quickly my body jerked into a defensive stance, my eyes trained on him.

He chuckled at the sound, his voice deep and soft and rich; the voice of a leader. "Well, you'll figure it out. Then we'll have all the time in the world to discuss your... behavior." I heard his fingers tighten their grip more than saw it. He he had a slightly feral grin on his face as he started the truck, the noise scaring me out of my wits and making me yowl in fright before my head caught up to the rest of me. He chuckled throatily, making me shiver in fear. He spoke to me throughout the drive, continually saying things that made me deeply afraid or laughing suddenly and loudly. I knew from prior talks with my cousins that he was probably trying to be attractive, and he probably thought he was succeeding with how quiet I'd gotten. He never once looked back, a fact for which I was both grateful, and annoyed. It meant he never took his eyes off the road, but also that my obvious displays of fear were missed entirely.

By the time we pulled up at his home, I was ready to try clawing out his eyes. I was so scared a didn't even jump at his too-loud declaration of "welcome home!", I simply huddled in the farthest corner of the kennel from him. He pulled the kennel out of the car in time for three enormous wolves, almost as high as his stomach, to bound down the steps towards him. He held the kennel at his head night to keep me out of reach, so I was about six feet off the ground. I wanted to go home, I wanted to die, I wanted to run away screaming; but since I was stuck, I stayed quiet. He told them in a weird sounding voice to calm down, and they all slowed before they actually reached us. They sniffed about him glancing up at the kennel now and then, and whines on curiosity.

He simply laughed before speaking to them. "Later! Now shoo! Your terrifying her! And I don't want our guest to be scared before she even meets her new pack." They whined, pinning their ears back as they walked back to the house. In my head, I almost laughed at Fen's statement. Not scared? It was far, FAR to late for that. He carried me into the house, the smell of dogs and the werewolves becoming almost suffocating. "Welcome home, sweetheart. By the time we're through, you won't want to leave." I shivered, knowing exactly what that would imply. No, I would be leaving. I would be leaving sooner than they thought. I didn't want to become some wolfs bed toy, and Cassia needed me.

The moment they gave me a chance, I would be in Texas before they knew what had happened, or they would be limping away from my dead body, nursing wounds that would take decades to heal.

They would regret slowing me down.

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(A/N) hey guys! Two in one day! Aaah! I know, but I really get inspired with this book. The next two chapters are gonna focus on Shade as he is forced to interact with the werewolf pack, and especially on the lengths he goes to to avoid being made a pack member. It'll get worse, trust me. And now, the questions! Do you have any? I'll answer them if you ask, that's all you gotta do. I'll answer any questions about lore, history, or plot(up to this point) that I get asked. So go ahead and have at me!

Till next time!

Your Poet and Scribe,
~ShadeFinder<(0^0)>