Verity

The wilderness can be as bitter as an unripe berry or as sweet as a watermelon. Our first night in, I let myself taste every bit of it—acrid pine needles, dusty earth, the rotting scent of carrion.

After a hot day, blood pumping to move my body up the mountain, the night's chill didn't bother me. There was a cyclical rhythm to life that encompassed more than darkness and light, cold and hot. Animals drew breathe to this rhythm, killed and ate and slept to it. Trees and plants swayed with it. Like Alek's compass, which I would not receive from him until the next morning, a magnetic field seemed to orientate life towards an invisible aim. I experienced this force in a way I hadn't back in the city. It didn't stop at my skin but ran right through me. Every molecule of my body buzzed with it; every sense became heightened by it.

That first night, after Alek went to bed, the invisible became visible. I buzzed and breathed and listened as my heartbeat aligned with the crickets' chirp. My body became weightless, like I was made of rice paper, insignificant and easily dissolvable.

This was a trance, and I had become awake and aware within it. My consciousness spread across the forests and foothills.

She appeared at the edge of camp: the speckled wolf of my previous trance. When she cocked her head to the side, I mirrored her. My mind spread out, intent on reaching into hers. But there was nowhere to go. No need to attempt a connect with her. The shock of this discovery should have broken the trance. Instead, there was no shock, no ending, and no beginning between us.

This wolf wasn't a curious wild creature, and it wasn't a fiction or a fantasy.

This wolf was me.

I saw through my wolf's eyes, smelled the intensity of the world around me. Nature and human smells mixing to an almost nauseating degree. I shifted under the weight of warm fur and ran a long, wet tongue over sharp fangs.

I burned with the need to feed.

My stomach—my wolf stomach, my human stomach—rumbled.

Had I come to this camp to find a meal? I looked with both sets of eyes at the silent tents with my friends, my father, and Alek asleep inside. My stomach rumbled again.

No.

I had other choices. I was a fearsome predator but not a murderer. The tough skin on the bottom of my left front paw tickled where I'd stepped on an ant mound. They crawled over me, tiny soldiers attacking an invading force. The ants and I moved to the wild's rhythm. I had thought myself above this, removed from this. But now I was a wolf speeding through the forest, shaking off ants and thoughts of eating my friends.

The hunt was on for a more morally appropriate meal.

Not far from the camp, I caught the scent of a small rodent and tracked it through scrubby brush to a burrow below a tree.

A flash of movement and I pounced.

It was fast but I was faster. I tore at its neck with my fangs, warm, coppery blood spraying into the back of my throat. I had never tasted anything so satisfying.

Before I had the chance to tear into more of its flesh, another movement caught my eye. I lifted my head, senses now alert to potential danger. The air carried a familiar smell that I was just about to place, when a large brown wolf stepped from the shadows into the moonlight.

Another wolf in a place where wolves weren't part of the natural habitat.

Another wolf; a familiar smell.

"I almost thought you wouldn't transform," the wolf said to me. Said, but in words carried by a magnetic field from one mind opened to another.

My hackles were up. I had accepted my strange reality with surprising ease. Was this my breaking point? A wolf telepathically speaking to me like I was known to him felt like a violation. When had I ever given him permission to communicate with me in this manner?

"I don't need permission," he... replied. "I'm your mate."

Back at the camp, my human body twitched. Hell no.

This was officially too much.

I ran, leaving my partially eaten rat victim for whoever or whatever the fuck that guy was. My limbs ached from the exertion, but I kept going, not back to camp, towards my human self, but away from it. It seemed safer, should he follow me.

I ran until dawn, listening to my human heartbeat in concert with the crickets. A shallow cave, dried leaves blown into it and trapped on the ground since last fall. A resting spot. Sleep.

I sat next to the firepit, waiting for the rest of camp to awaken. It had been Alek's idea to go on this trip. He'd been with me during two trances. And he acted like I had secrets. But if he knew I had them, it was only because someone within his own secretive life had told him.

Today, I would walk with him as my human self and play along with this charade.

Tonight, I would be both human and wolf. And I would force him to reveal the truth, even if it meant revealing my own too.

#

Night two. I lay in bed and waited for the changing of the guard, feeling slightly guilty at the pandemonium I was about to cause. Flora and Macy both slept turned towards the sides of the tent and I lay between them feigning sleep. I needed so little that I wondered if this body didn't benefit from the hours my wolf body rested. Or did the wolf even exist when I wasn't aware of it? There was so much more to learn, and if Alek knew even a single thing that he wasn't telling me, he needed to come out with it. Tonight.

I had to do what I had to do.

As soon as I heard the zipper open to the men's tent, I let myself out, walking on bare feet to make as little noise as possible. The earth still felt warm under my toes, the day's radiant warmth clinging to rocks and clumps of dried grass. Behind the tent, my boots awaited me, and as soon as I could get them on, I walked away into the woods, far enough where the beam from flashlights wouldn't hit me. Crouching behind a boulder, I took an object from my pocket and placed it on the rock's flat surface.

Alek's compass.

Next to it, I placed a pebble. This was the only clue I would give to him. Tonight, he wouldn't have the luxury of being able to track me with technology. If he was really the well-researched, experienced treasure hunter he claimed to be, this clue was all he needed.

Noise broke out in the direction of the camp. My absence had been discovered. I hurried away, letting the moonlight guide me, and soon enough, I came to be as a wolf. I saw through my wolf eyes and those eyes guided both bodies over rough terrain.

I took my time, reveling in nocturnal sensations. Just as had happened in Sacramento, I let those senses tell me if Alek was nearby. A whiff of cedar, richer and earthier than the trees of this mountain. The snap of a twig made from a booted foot, the swish of sagebrush as he walked between them. I wove through the forest—my wolf, my human—I rode the magnetic field like I was a surfer and it was a wave. I let him track me, staying just ahead.

At a clearing where forest met cliff, Chip waited for me.

Long brown hair, broad shoulders. He was attractive in a generic sort of way, like someone had filled out a survey of what a man should be and he had been 3D printed based on the survey's findings.

Maybe I'd been the one to fill out that survey. But I'd changed my mind since then. I wanted a more complicated brand of man now. One that was less transparent, and apparently, more infuriating.

Chip spotted my wolf form.

"There you are," he said. "I thought maybe you'd wait so we could transform together."

Not knowing what he was talking about, I remained silent. Once he showed me what he meant, however, I gasped in horror.

Chip, my cute one-night stand, cracked the bones in his neck. And then cracked every other bone in his body. He looked like an organic Transformer action figure, first a tall, upright human, and then, a bunch of clicks and warped body parts later, a quadrupedal canine, fur the same color as his human locks had been.

"Oh my God," I spoke out loud from my trembling human lips. My wolf and my human took a step back from Chip.

Chip, eyes no longer a soulful hazel but a piercing neon green, whipped his head in my direction. "What's going on here?" he thought spoke. "How are you still human but also a..."

"You're asking me questions? You're a... Are you a fucking werewolf!?"

"Why are you surprised? So are—"

I screamed and yipped as a shot rang out.

Alek barreled out from the woods, gun in hand, and took in the situation. "Verity, get back!" Eyes wide, he aimed the gun back and forth between Chip and my wolf form, then fired a second shot up in the air. That was enough to send Chip scrambling.

I stood there, human Verity not listening to Alek as he continued to scream instructions; Wolf Verity, standing in front, a low growl warning him off. This was the wrong thing to do and would only provoke him, but I couldn't help myself. The fear of him hurting either of my forms made me bare my teeth.

He aimed the gun at my wolf head.

"Alek, stop! It's not what you think!"

"No," he answered. "It's not at all what I think. So, what the hell is this, Verity? Chip, I get. He's a werewolf."

"You get that? You knew?" I couldn't believe this. Chip's body warps into that of a large predator, Verity. No big deal. "How long have you known about him?"

"How long have you known?"

"Stop answering my questions with questions!" I stomped my foot and my front paw to show my frustration. "I've known for five minutes. You going to claim you've only known for four?"

Confusion, anger, fear. I felt it, human and wolf alike. I snarled at him, and he cocked the gun. "I'm going to shoot that thing unless you can tell me what's going on."

"No!" I raised a hand, palm out and maneuvered in front of my wolf. "I'm not dangerous."

"You are most certainly dangerous." Eyes as dark as the night, Alek broke my gaze to center them on my wolf form. "But I'm talking about the werewolf, not you. Who is that?"

"It's not a werewolf, it's just a wolf. A regular wolf."

"Like hell. I know a damn werewolf when I see one."

"I'm telling you, Alek. That's not a werewolf. It's me!"

He kept his gun steady, his mouth tightening into a scowl. "Impossible. That's not how werewolves work."

I inched forward until I was within reach of Alek's gun. "It's how I work." Reaching out, hand on top of the revolver, I lowered it. "Watch."

I willed my wolf self, not away into the forest or back to the daytime sleeping cave but to join with my human. Sure, I'd never done this before, but why not? Both sets of eyes focused on Alek's shocked face until four eyes became two.

I ran my hands up and down my arms feeling human bones covered in human skin, and within me, the spirit of a sleeping wolf, ready to awaken whenever I wished.

"Holy fuck. How in the hell?" Gun at his side, Alek backed himself away from me until he hit the trunk of a tree. "Verity, what are you?"

____

Author's Note: So... now we know that Alek was expecting Verity to be a typical werewolf just as Chip appears to be. Chip expected it too! But "typical" is NOT what she is. We end this chapter (and the first act of THE TRUE ONE) with the question, "Verity, what are you?" 

That's a question that's going to take us forward into the next act, and there is still a LOT for Verity to uncover and explore. What is she? And will Alek help her seek her answers, or remain a potentially dangerous opponent?

This chapter is dedicated to one of Wattpad's most unique writers, talkingflowers. I have been following Christy's writing for years and I am a huge fan! I dedicated this chapter to her in particular because of her deep appreciation and understanding of the natural world, which is so often interwoven into her stories. Check out her profile and her work!