Lana entered her home, kicking her shoes off and pulling her socks off one at a time, wadded them into tiny balls, and tossed them up into the air not caring where they landed. Her whole apartment was color schemed blush pink and Yukon yellow; it was loud, to say the least, and screamed, "I'm always happy and neat!" Though it felt like someone else's home now. Someone kinder, cleaner, and more delicate. Someone who used to watch CSI and cringe; someone who cried when her boyfriend's stash was found and blamed on her, leaving her with huge fines she couldn't pay and a tainted permanent record.

Three area rugs splashed the tan carpet with color in a zig zag pattern of bright green, neon blue, and the bright yellow she'd once loved so much. She stomped on them, trotting down the hallway, making her way to the bathroom to take that shower she so desperately needed - even though she wondered why, wondered what a shower could possibly do to make her nightmare any better. She passed the pictures of all shapes and sizes that she had collected over the years of places around the world; one featured Paris, another Florence, one of her own home state, New York - it was in black and white and the only color in the photo was the piercing yellow of the stars that danced in the sky above the Statue of Liberty's head.

She stepped into the bathroom and leaned down to turn the knob to produce a hot, flowing stream of water. She looked in the mirror, not shocked at all by her appearance . Despite all the dried-up blood and dirt that had collected on her ivory skin, she looked pretty good, though she could live without the blood -shot eyes. The hot water was filling the room with steam and causing her to sweat.

Enough of these ratty ass clothes, she thought as she removed her nasty blood-crusted, torn blouse and the rest of her soiled ensemble.

Lana sunk into the steaming hot water. It was almost too hot to endure, and she made a hissing sound as she sank slowly until her ass reached the scratchy bottom - scratchy due to the cat shaped faces she had put down to prevent any possible slips.

She had always had a soft side for silly cat puns and the t-shirts with them making awkward faces, not to mention the oh, so popular poster of the little cat holding on to the rope for dear life, fearing falling to it's doom, that simply read: "hang in there". the cat's silly, yet sincere face always made her giggle.

The water felt good as she laid there, balancing the water between her lips and just below her nose. The water had begun to turn a rusty orange color from the dirt and blood that covered Lana, but she didn't mind. She only concentrated on how good the hot, steamy liquid felt surrounding her achy body, how it swallowed her in its warmth, relaxed all of her muscles, and momentarily put her mind at ease.

For the first time in a long time, she exhaled with contentment. She began to hum a little soul song she was fond of. "Who is going to be there when I have my head in my hands? Who's going to be there when I need some help to understand?" As she recalled the words, her big toe tapped the knob that displayed the blue letter C to keep the beat going.

As soon as she thought she was at her desperately wanted plateau of relaxation, her stomach began to become upset, tighting and stinging. She assumed it was due to the heat of the water, but of nowhere, she could feel the puke making its way up her throat, burning all along the way. She jumped up, and thanks to her super grip kitty stickers, she was able to get up quite quickly. Lana attempted to cover her mouth thinking that it could possibly, in the least, procrastinate the inevitable, but it wasn't good enough...

The sick spewed through her fingers - like a shook up soda - onto the toliet, wall, and floor. She tried to get closer to the toilet, but began to slip in some of the rancid, once living person now only chunky stomach bile. Struggling, losing balance, she managed to catch herself by grabbing hold the floral towel that hung on a single hook at the left side of the shower and lowered herself slowly to the floor. Kneeling in the mess, she kept throwing-up. It was a feat to keep from slipping. She grabbed the toliet seat and pulled herself, sliding right over it, finding her balance, then regurgitated what was left in her stomach into bright blue water.

The sick hit the water so fiercely, it splashed back into her face, causing her to puke even more. It seemed like an eternity with the violent huge chunks and sharp edges piercing her throat on the way up. Finally she stopped, left in a cold sweat. Chill-bumps covered her filthy naked body as she sat shivering and her teeth began to chatter. Exhaustion overtook her body. She felt too weak to move from the toilet.

As she lay there, with her head on the puke, covered porcelain throne, she peered down inside and managed to make out what looked like bones! Lana pulled her wet hair back, holding it into a ponytail with her hand, and begain to weep, naked and exposed.

Hate, fear, anger, frustration, self loathing...all these emotions were overwhelming her, so she started crying even harder, her hands falling to her thighs. She cried hard, harder than she ever had - so hard it hurt. Harder than she did when her grandfather died. Harder than when the first love of her life left her. Harder than when she had to sit in jail for three weeks because of Robby's betrayal.

With so much intense sobbing, it was becoming difficult for her to breathe.

"Pull yourself together!" She yelled at the top of her lungs. "Don't you do this! You are strong. Get your ass up and get going." She chanted to herself for motivation.

She stood up, slipped a bit, caught herself, and looked once more into the now not so blue water. It reminded her of what she ate every thursday at school: beef stew - or what they called it as kids: beef stink! Brown and red chucks with little bubbles - the kind of bubbles you get when you take your straw, stick it in a glass of milk, and blow hard until your milk bubbles over like an exploding milk volcano - and, yes, definitely yes, it was bones. Her recently dead boyfriend's fucking bones in tiny shards, all that remained of them. The thought of it all made her want to vomit again, but she took a deep long breath and held it back until the moment passed.

Lana walked over to the sink and ran some cold water, using her hand as a cup to catch the water to rinse out her mouth. She spit the water out, then hesitated, watching it go down the drain. She wiped the steam that covered the mirror, managing to look through the condensation to see a blurry, even more bloodshot eyed woman.

"I think I may have looked better before, with the dirt and blood." She said aloud, pulling the bottom of her eyes down leaning in to examine them better. "Fucking Bruce! Thinks he can make me do anything he wants! Hell no. I have nothing to live for." She vowed with her head making its way into her hands, fingers rubbing tiny circles around her temples.

"That's alright, though. I got you Brucy, you dont have me...I got you!" She stood straight up and shook like a dog would to shake off excess water.

Shake it off, girl. You got this. She thought to herself, feeling angry about how she felt, how Bruce has caused her to feel, what he has done to her. She peered into the mirror and began to imagine she was looking at him instead of herself, standing straight and proud, growing angry with her tiny hands in fist, squeezing so hard that her fingernails were digging into her palms.

"You want to test my water? Go ahead, but beware of the sharks," she told him. "They are blind, ruthless, and will tear you apart!"

Before she could inhale her next breath, the foggy mirror was cracked, just bloody, tiny pieces of glass crumbling under her knuckles. She felt a smile spread accross her face and started chuckling, which turned into hysterical laughter. Lana looked like a mad woman, laughing and crying at the same time, in her puke covered bathroom, with her blood covered hands. At this point, what else is a girl to do?

A gruesome murder had obviously taken place in Raya's boss' office. She was on the verge of panic as she answered her cell phone. "What now?" Raya grumbled into the phone, turning her back to her dead boss. "I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"I know," the gruff voice of her alpha replied. "I can feel what you've done, Raya."

Her heart pounded in her chest, she could hear it. He knew. "How?"

"We are connected, you and I, as I am connected to your bitch sister. But you aren't like her, are you Raya?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"She's pissed off and bent on destroying me. But not you. That fire wasn't your idea was it?"

"Maybe," she said defiantly.

"Don't lie to me," he ordered.

"No, it wasn't," she admitted without even thinking. The strange power he had over her didn't even really have to force the information from her, at that moment, he told her to give it and so she felt as if she wanted to. It wasn't until after the words left her mouth that she regretted it. How was he over-riding her free will?

"That's better," he said.

She could hear the grin behind his words and wasn't sure if she liked it, but something stronger than the dislike for Bruce was heavy on her mind at the moment. She rolled her eyes and inhaled deeply knowing what she had to say.

"I need help," she admitted. "You're supposed to help with that, right?" She added hopefully.

It would be impossible to clean up the mess, guts, blood, the gore splattered across the filthy novels he'd shot at her, and the corpse of her tubby boss in the middle of the chaos.

"You're right. I'll help. But then, you have to do something for me," he teased.

Just as she thought: nothing ever comes without a price. No doubt he would want sex, just like all the other men she'd dealt with. She took another look around to make sure the room was bad enough for her to sleep with the asshole that did this to her. In all honestly, it really was that bad, and in this much gore, she was sure to have left traces of herself behind. Saliva for sure, which meant DNA. Studying law, she'd learned a lot about DNA, and as evidence goes, it didn't get much stronger. If the office wasn't spotless by the time Gary's secretary got back from her lunch, she could kiss her freedom goodbye. Judging by the secretary's extensive lunches, that left them roughly forty minutes.

"Fine. Whatever. Just get here fast, please," she said.

"Your wish," he said, then he slipped in through the office window, lowered his phone and spoke directly to her, "is my command." He smirked.

The bastard had been spying on her this whole time, he'd probably been spying on them since they woke up in her car, she realized. Did he watch her exchange with Gary? Did he see her being rebuked and pelted with smut? Did he just stand out there and watch her go wolfy and maim her boss? What a creep!

Still, he was a creep who knew his shit. A creep who'd been a werewolf for who knows how long, and apparently in complete control of what he was. He was able to hide there, watching her without tipping her new, sensitive wolf hearing off with a single sound, for Christ's sake! She could tell he knew tons, and frankly, she needed him if she wanted to be any type of decent werewolf - if that was possible.

They would start with proper disposal of a body, and move on from there.

When he realized she wasn't impressed with his speedy entrance, Bruce got straight to business. He inspected Gary's limp, bloody body.

"This will be much easier if there's less to get rid of," he pointed out. Raya nodded, and she was about to say that it was too bad, that they had to work with what they had, but Bruce had other plans.

He stripped off his shirt, revealing a magnificently chiseled torso that made Raya flush. She was too taken by surprise to wonder what he was doing as he continued to undress until finally he was standing there completely nude and proud of it.

He smirked at her, knowing the havoc he was reeking on her new werewolf libido, and closed the distance between them in a few long strides.

"You like what you see?" he asked her with his tight chest pressed against her, his hot, wild breath on her face. A ripple ran through her - the wolf wanting to come out.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. Do not let him get to you! She warned herself. He was a beast, dangerous and unpredictable. She needed him as her alpha, yes, but she didn't have to feed his ego or let him toy with her more than he already had. Her wolf side calmed, which she assumed was a good sign; she was already learning to control it. If only she was able to control anger.

Bruce gave her enough time to gather herself before he chuckled, stepped back, and let the wolf come out to play.

Watching Bruce shift from human to the wolf-man was almost as terrifying to Raya as it had been the first time she'd witnessed it. The hairs on his chest thickened and spread along the rest of his body, his nose and mouth grew into a short version of a wolf's muzzle, his fingers grew longer with thick, sharp nails, and his ears grew larger and pointed. The only things that stayed the same were his ice-blue eyes, which were already wild and predator-like, and his genitalia.

When the change was done - which took all of a few moments - he went to Gary's body and began to scarf it.

The noises were disgusting: the slurp of blood, the crack of bones, the goopy sound - like a kid was playing in a mud hole. It should have turned her off, made her look away, but the wolf in her would have none of that. Seeing another feeding sent her into a frenzy.

In no time, she'd ripped off what was left of her torn dress and became the wolf-woman, kneeled beside her maker, dug into her dead boss, and was enjoying it.

When they'd consumed more than half of Gary, Bruce stopped and snarled at Raya, then huffed a large gust of breath in her face to warn her to back off. She did without hesitation.

They stood and faced each other as their wolves melted away until they looked completely human again. Bruce looked proud of what he'd done. He stared at Raya with the hunger still clouding his vision. She was trying hard to remember that she should hate him, that what she'd done was despicable, but all she could think about was the blood that trailed from Bruce's mouth, down his strong chin, and onto his chest. Without any shame at all, she began to lap him clean, and he returned the favor.

"Lucky I ran into you," Bruce said, admiring Raya's nudity.

"Ran into me? You called us to meet you. Call girls, remember?" she replied.

"No, I didn't. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Do you think I would need to call a call girl?"

"So you aren't Holiday Inn Bruce?" Raya asked, putting back on her torn dress.

"Nope."

Raya was flabbergasted to think if she'd just waited, if they hadn't approached him, and met the real customer, she wouldn't be in the crazy mess she was in now. The mess that they, she and Lana, were in.

"I'll take care of this," he said finally snapping Raya out of her epiphany. "You go. I need you to change your co-workers."

Raya was more shocked than she should have been. For some reason, the moment they'd just shared had made her temporarily forget their situation. He was a cruel monster and she his servant. Now he was ordering her to curse her friends?

"W-why?" she managed, knowing the order was spoken, and she would have no choice.

"Call it a business move." He shrugged. "Only you, though. I can't trust Lana to be in control of anyone."

Was that his messed up way of trying to make her feel special?

"Go," he ordered. "I'll clean this up and get rid of the body. You have four days. Change them. I have plans."