I paced my room, watching as Elizabeth lightly painted runes on Lord’s body with a brush dipped in a purple gel and whispered to the injured cat. It was almost ten, and while the witch had been working most of the night I’d gotten a surprising amount of sleep for it being a full moon and worried for a friend. Honestly, it was probably just that with blood on my stomach and a fight finished my body felt the need to crash into a dreamless sleep.

  At the moment I was awake, sipping coffee in one of my table’s chairs as I watched the witch work, pricking her finger and dripping a drop of blood on each of the wounds. Lord glowed for a moment, and when he stopped the woman rose to her feet and turned to me.

  “He’s probably going to sleep for several more hours, but then wake up feeling good as new,” Elizabeth told me, smiling a translucent smile as she templed her fingers in thought. “The injuries weren’t that bad, I just saved you a lot of vet bills and having to convince this little gremlin to sit still for a few weeks.”

  “Thank you,” I said, sighing as I rose to my feet and walked over to her, “you said everyone gets one spell free, can we arrange this to be that? I can pay you if you need that, might just-”

  “Mary, I have known Whisky since he was a kitten,” Elizabeth said, raising her finger to me, before reaching back to scritch the unconscious Lord’s head, “this little one gets his magic free.”

  I nodded, giving a small smile as I looked down at the cat as the witch rested a hand on my shoulder. After a few moments, I hesitantly asked, “is there anything I can do?”

  “Keep yourself busy, I’d recommend not hanging out here the whole time,” Elizabeth admitted with a shrug, even as she pulled out a book and sat at my table. “I can make sure nothing unexpected happens, but in the meantime hovering is just going to make you worry more.”

  “I’ll think of something,” I said, nodding as I gave the cat a last long look before I went up the stairs to the main part of the house.

  It was mostly sparse, Samuel’s pack was still away, Basil and Knives had to go to their jobs (Basil looking a little more frazzled from last night), and Andrew and Tara were upstairs. Only Misha remained in the living room, on his phone reading something until I walked in.

  He looked up to me, smiling for a moment, as he rose to his feet and asked me, “is Whiskey doing okay?”

  “He’ll be fine,” I said, nodding as I looked at the man with conflicted emotions. I wanted to bite him, taste his blood on my lips, take him and feel safe in his arms. He was the nicest person here to me, at least I liked to think so, and yet…arguably my best friend here didn’t like him and I wasn’t sure why. That fact gnawed at me more than a little even as I more than hoped it was just a jealous cat or misunderstanding.

  Misha nodded, stepping forward as he rested his hands on my shoulders and asked in a whisper, “is this about what we talked about? I’m not in charge of you or your parole, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, you know that. If you’re in danger, I’m here to protect you, Mary, no matter what you need.”

  “It was just a random attack,” I lied, frowning even as my arms looped around his waist and I let my chin rest on his shoulder, “some Purists followed us from the wedding probably, were just wanting to attack while I couldn’t be a big threat by myself.”

  It was a fucking horrible lie, and one that should have been extremely easy to see through. Misha however seemed to not catch on, or perhaps didn’t want to, and the fact confused me more. There were only two reasons I could think of that someone wouldn’t be able to catch onto such an obvious lie, and neither of them felt like it fit Misha or what we had going on.

  Then again, who the fuck was I to go making that judgement call, it wasn’t like I could say we’d ever had any particularly deep conversations. He rarely talked about himself, his hobbies, any of that, and all I knew was we got along. All I knew was I thought he was a good guy, that I liked him and wanted him, and Lord seemed to be convinced I shouldn’t have.

  And that part worried me more than anything.

  “I need to head up,” I said, frowning as I pushed away from the man just enough to look up at him while our arms kept around eachother, “Tara was going to help with my hair.”

  “Mary, you were almost murdered last night,” Misha said, even as I pulled away from his grip.

  “I’ve had people do a lot worse to me,” I admitted, shaking my head as I walked out of the room and up the stairs.

  Tara’s room was on the second floor, at the end of the long hall with a door that was painted bright pink. At the moment half-open, and I adjusted myself just out of view of it, a twinge of fear going through me. My hair looked horrible, it was probably fucking unsalvageable, I didn’t know why I was going to try this. It would have probably been better to just cut it all off and wear a hat for a few years.

  Tara had agreed to help though, and I loved my hair. I’d never gotten to have my hair before.

  I walked forward, straightening my back as I knocked on the door frame a few short times as I kept my eyes to the ground. There was a giggle inside, and Tara called out, “one minute!” as I stood there waiting.

  A few seconds later, the woman walked up, wearing a pink bathrobe over a matching nightgown that came to her knees. She smiled at me, pulling her blonde hair into a bun, and giggled as she asked, “still wanting to do your hair today?”

  “Yeah, I think I’d like that,” I admitted, reaching up to run my fingers halfway through my hair, “if you think it’s salvageable. I just have this thing I need to go to on Monday, and I want to look good.”

  “Your hair is some of the most matted I have ever seen,” the woman admitted, nodding as she reached out and touched it. “This should be a fun challenge though, important to be able to do this sort of thing.”

  “I take it that’s my cue to leave then,” Andrew laughed, surprising me as he walked up wearing just a pair of sweatpants. I looked him over a moment before realizing I was staring at the few scars he had on his torso, wondering how he’d gotten them, and immediately pried my eyes back to Tara. I had the slight fear Lord was starting to rub off on me, and shook my head at the thought even as the man asked, “you still up for tonight? Know that we all had a rough time last night.”

  “I’ve had a lot worse,” I said, shrugging before specifying, “I’d love to.”

  “Alright, tonight at seven then,” the man told me, slapping me on the shoulder and kissing his girlfriend’s forehead before leaving.

  “Alright, take a seat at the vanity,” Tara told me, gripping my hand as she led me into the room and closed the door behind us. “No guarantee I’ll be able to get it all done today, before I need to start preparing for this party, but who knows how that’ll go. At the very least I think I could do it in two or three days at most.”

  “That long?” I asked, even as I looked around the room in slight awe.

  Everything about Tara’s room looked like the opposite of what I’d have expected from a werewolf. The walls and ceiling had been painted bright pink, with the trim painted a light purple. There was a four poster bed with curtains, a vanity, trunk, and cushioned chair that were all deep pinks and purples. The doors to the bathroom and closet were half open, revealing both to be filled with as much pink as the main room and maybe a splash of purple. I looked beside me, at the wall that faced into the house, and saw that there were piles of paint cans in front of it, and a large mural painted of a grassy green field with a rainbow above it and several horses and unicorns running wild.

  It was the sort of room I would have thought a princess would have had when I was younger. Honestly, I was a little jealous, and it was surprisingly pretty even if I would have gone with a bit more diversity.

  “Oh, this is very…pink,” I muttered in surprise, watching as Tara pulled out the pink wooden chair from her vanity and gestured for me to sit. I followed her order, sitting down, and she pushed me into place before her hands started testing my hair.

  “I like pink,” Tara said, tugging at a mat in my hair, “do you ever brush this?”

  “I run my hands through it in the morning,” I shrugged, wondering what the fuck else I was supposed to do.

  “Alright, it’s not quite as bad as you would think,” she said, surprising me slightly as she took a bottle off her vanity and began to squirt and rub it into my hair, “it’s bordering on being one solid mass, but I think it reached a point where it couldn’t get any worse. I’m going to put a fuck ton of this into your hair, and we’re going to let it soak for about thirty minutes. Then I’m going to start the first of the plucking, try to get a section out, things will go faster from there…hopefully.”

  “Doesn’t sound too bad,” I admitted, shrugging at the thought.

  “Oh no it’ll be pretty painful and annoying,” the woman admitted, adding even more of the bottle as my auburn hair began to be stained white. “I’ll also need to trim up your hair a little, but that’ll be more to give it some shaping and cut off any dead ends. If you trust me, I might be able to speed things along if you don’t mind sacrificing sections for a style. Undercuts look really good with a leather jacket, you know? Maybe give you something on one side, or keep it long all around and get you some curtain bangs…”

  “Just, keep as much length as you can?” I asked hesitantly, wincing at the thought, “my dad never let me have long hair, he said it was too easy to grab. It was always a buzz cut every few months.”

  Tara paused for a moment, frowning in the mirror as she hesitantly asked me, “when was the last time you cut your hair?”

  “Couple months before I became a werewolf?” I offered hesitantly, worried I’d done something wrong, “it was barely grown out then.”

  “Oh this is going to be interesting,” the woman giggled, pulling out a plastic cap she put over my hair. “It’s going to be pretty long then, so maybe if I’m lucky gravity will be an ally once I start making sections. I’ll also avoid the undercut in that case, let you choose a style once you’ve gotten to play with it some, maybe just toss in some layers depending on how your hairs built.”

  I nodded, hesitantly touching the wrapped plastic on my head as I asked, “now we just wait?”

  “Yep, can gossip if you want, or I can throw on a podcast or tv show in the background,” Tara giggled, clicking something on her phone as she walked over and pulled a chair near me. “So, Purists sleep cuddled up like puppies, huh?”

  “One way to phrase it,” I admitted, laughing nervously at the description, “just traditional way to sleep, Werewolves have done it for thousands of years.”

  “Yeah, Andrew and I tried it,” Tara admitted, seeming to think about the fact a moment, “was a little weird at first, not gonna lie, but I didn’t feel the need to curl under two comforters for once which was nice. I don’t know how you’re supposed to actually relax while you’re a wolf though, I kept feeling like my weight was laying out wrong.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “It was a little weird with Andrew too,” I said, feeling my face flush as I rested my chin in my hand. “I guess I should be glad you apparently saw that coming.”

  “Oh, I saw nothing coming,” the woman admitted, looking confused for a moment before something clicked with her, “I just gave him a generic talk about you.”

  Well, that sounded almost disappointed, but I was also curious as I asked her, “what sort of talk is that?”

  Tara giggled for a moment, continuing to add to my confusion, and with a smile she leaned on her vanity with one elbow as she explained, “Andrew and I are poly, I actually just broke up with this girl from work a couple months ago. Andrew, despite being a relentless flirt once you get him going, is absolutely horrid with getting there. I didn’t think you’d be going at it on the trip, but I figured you two seemed to have a lot in common. Basically, it was just a talk where we reiterated the rules we have for each other, and I made it clear to him to not go for you unless he was certain he wouldn’t lose interest.”

  That…

  That was confusing.

  She wasn’t going to rip my throat out of a misplaced jealousy, but it still felt weird she thought it was a chance. I’d known Misha had had similar relationships in the past, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t curious about the idea, but I didn’t think I’d come across like I’d be interested in the man.

  I took a moment to think about it, before nodding as I asked, “you want me to date Andrew?”

  “I think you’d be cute, but no, I just knew you two had a lot in common and thought one of you might get interested if you hung out enough,” Tara said, shrugging as she reached out and adjusted my cap. “Basically rules are just to not go for you unless he’s certain he won’t lose interest, you don’t deserve heartbreak from him just trying to flirt for fun. I’m pretty much good with you two doing whatever, as long as Andrew tells me if you two do anything couple-like. Other than that, the only real rule is I told him I’m not comfortable with him dating you if you were with… well, certain people.”

  Lord had told me to ask Tara about Misha, and I was having a distinct feeling that was who she meant there. On one hand, it was a horrible place to ask, we’d be stuck in awkward silence together if something went wrong or I’d be sent to my room with this shit still in my hair.

  On the other hand, I needed to satisfy that small amount of fear the idea brought.

  “Can I ask you,” I started hesitantly, gulping as I looked down at the floor, “you and Misha. I…you’re not going to really believe me if I tell the details, but I was told by someone to ask you about him. We almost had sex the other night, before Lord interrupted us, and just…I need to know. He seems so…nice, he’s always there for me, and I think I like him, but I keep feeling like something’s going on or happened. Did something happen that I don't know about?”

  Tara’s expression shifted to something conflicted and she looked away from me, hesitantly shifting in her seat. I was about to tell her to ignore the question, when she told me, “I…I don’t know. He might be better, he might not, but I know he doesn’t really act well…sometimes it feels like an act.”

  My heart dropped at the words, and I was ready to jump and defend him before I asked, “can I ask what happened?”

  “It was…I don’t remember how long ago, but it was a few weeks before my sister died,” Tara started, leaning back in the chair as she kept her eyes on the ground, “I was starting to learn cosmetology in school, working full time at this restaurant as a waitress. One day some fucking bitch threw a drink in my face, was yelling at me, saying I ruined her dinner. I got home late, everyone was at Dante’s Inferno except for Misha and he found me crying in the kitchen and we started talking. He told me if I needed anything I could ask him, fucking offered to see if The Lady couldn’t get me a better job until I completed school, and…I asked him if we could watch something together,’

  “I had the biggest crush on him back then, was fucking done with everything, we just put on a dumb action movie in his room. By the time we’re getting past the opening credits I’m half in his lap getting held, he’s telling me how wonderful I am no matter what some bitch said, so more caring than Annie, how I don’t need to cry, his arms around my fucking waist. I…It was the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t fucking know what was going through my head, but next thing I know we’re making out grabbing at eachother, and….”

  I nodded as she trailed off, the implication of it all sitting in as I sat back in my chair and thought it over. Everything I’d heard about Misha, everything he did, and I asked, “I mean, I guess…I’m sorry I’m missing something, but Annabelle was dating him and Knives right? Isn’t that kinda just the same?”

  “Neither of us talked to her about that, and you usually don’t date family in poly relationships even if I’d thought there’d be a chance of that. I don’t even think he was interested in me more than I was just an unexpected bit of fun,” Tara said, a bit of spite in her voice at the memory. She rose to her feet, walking over to a dresser to fetch a few tissues and wipe her eyes. I watched her, ready to call it off and say I shouldn’t have asked before she went on, “I don’t know if he was sleeping with other women without telling her, if I caught him at a wrong time, but it was still wrong, I still helped him fucking cheat on her, I still betrayed her.” and she paused for a long moment, refusing to look towards me as she slowly continued, “I…I wanted to tell her, she deserved to know, but I couldn’t think of how I was supposed to tell her? She was my fucking sister, I didn’t want to lose her, but Misha made it fucking impossible to just try and ignore it. Fucking… even a week before she died he was trying to talk about going to dinner or something so we could talk about what happened.”

  I didn’t know what to say, and only could sit there until I told her the only thing that came to mind. Not even able to look up at the woman, I told her, “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t even sure what I was sorry for, and honestly I wasn’t sure it would have mattered if I knew. Maybe it was the fact it’d happened to her, I had brought it up, or just that I wasn’t even sure how to fucking feel about him at the moment. No matter what I told her those words, and she nodded even as I rose to my feet and she stepped forward.

  Her arms wrapped around me, and for a brief moment I feared she was trying to crush my body or kill me. Instead, she hugged me, and it almost confused me even more as I hesitantly raised my arms up and half-heartedly hugged the woman back. She held onto me, squeezing me close, and I felt her chin rest on my shoulder and I held tight onto her.

  “I never told anyone that,” she admitted, not moving away from me even as I resisted the urge to push her off. “Even Andrew, I just never wanted anyone to know the truth. I didn’t want Knives or Annie to hate me for what I did, and she died not knowing the truth.”

  “Isn’t that good?” I asked, hesitantly patting her back as I wondered when she’d release me. “She died seeing you like any other time.”

  “She found out, she didn’t know I regretted it,” Tara told me, suddenly making me regret asking with how much information she was sharing. I had no experience with humans talking like this, let alone werewolves, and wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. “I read her journal after she died. We were trying to find a password to her phone, so we could call some people she knew. I volunteered to look. She…she overheard Misha talking about it and got the wrong idea, wasn’t sure what happened just it did. She was going to confront me when she got back from investigating some Purists nearby, get my side of the story and try to figure out what happened, she didn’t know what to do. I never got to tell her that it was a mistake.”

  “I’m sure she knew,” I told her, frowning as I held the woman, “why else would she want to talk to you first? She probably was trying to comfort you about it instead of getting mad at both of you immediately.”

  I had no fucking idea if I was right, but this was honestly too far out of my comfort zone to do anything but comfort. Tara had told me exactly what I needed to know, and I needed to try and figure out how to react. It was bad, but…it was years ago, right? I’d gotten better in that time, people could get better in that time, maybe there was something happening, maybe he had a change of heart, maybe this wasn't as bad as it sounded.

  A part of me still felt crushed by the thought, and I wasn’t sure why.

  After what felt like an eternity Tara shifted in my arms, and almost weakly the woman asked me, “can I ask who told you to talk to me? Did…Does Knives know? I don’t want them to hate me.”

  “If they do, I don't know about it,” I admitted, hesitating for a long moment as I decided what to do. I needed to answer her, not let her stew in the question, and as scared as I was to do so, telling the truth might have been the best here. My secrets were already coming out, and a secret for a secret seemed fair. Besides, let her know no werewolf knew, “Lord told me to ask you, after he stopped me and Misha sleeping together.”

  Tara didn’t answer, and the woman slowly pushed away as she looked over me with a stare of utter confusion. The woman furrowed her brow, tilted her head, and looked ready to speak ten times before asking, “Lord…as in, Lord Whiskerton the First? As in, my sister’s cat, did all that?”

  “I can talk to animals,” I admitted with a nod of confirmation, seeing that it made no more sense to the woman. “I just, I realized no werewolf here could and was trying to look normal so I kinda hid it. It’s why Lord and I get along so well.”

  “I…what?” Tara asked, not letting me restate it as she continued, “what the fuck? You two are like genuine friends? Like, you two talk about your days and shit, and no one has caught on this whole time?”

  “Well, we mostly do it when we’re hanging out in my room or before bed, and people think I’m just rambling to the cat the other times,” I said, not sure what else she was expecting.

  “What the fuck is he even like?” the woman said, rubbing her forehead as she looked to the ground. “Oh my fucking God, that’s why he went out of his way to save your life. He’s a cat, what do you even have to talk about, the quality of scratching poles?”

  “He’s kind of a pervert,” I admitted with a bit of hesitance, knowing it’d probably affect how she acted around him, “Kinda thinks everyone except Misha is hot, really likes watching your pack working out because of it. He’s like, polyamorous and pansexual as fuck — reminds me he said to ask about a podcast annabelle did — he has a bunch of cats and dogs and a rabbit he’s dating, hits on me constantly. I mean, I have to kick him out of the room every time I’m trying to get changed or shower while he's awake.”

  Tara nodded, blinked twice, and slowly declared, “you’re fucking with me.”

  “No, I can talk to most animals,” I said, not sure how to really convince her, “not bugs or spiders weirdly, but like most things. Mammals, birds, reptiles, I think fish? Hard to tell that last one sometimes.”

  “That’s so fucking gross,” Tara declared, making me think she must have finally processed the part about Lord being a pervert. “Wait, but like, you two sleep together right? Okay no I hope not, but you let him stay in your room and stuff at night?”

  “Well, yeah, he’s a cat,” I said, not sure what the big deal was.

  Tara frowned, seemed to think for a long moment, and started to ask, “are you two, like, you know?...”

  “What?”

  “Nevermind,” the woman brushed off, shaking her head a moment. She let out a small laugh, and with a half smile asked, “okay, so, you got like a formal event on Monday right? Help keep my mind distracted, what are you going to wear?”

  “I figured just wear my nice purple dress,” I told her, thankful for the change of pace.

  “The one that looks like my mom’s prom dress?” Tara asked, sitting me down in the chair once more as she walked around me. She seemed to observe me in confusion, and hesitantly squeezed the top of my head as she asked, “do you have a favorite color?”

  I did, and as strangely embarrassing it could be I admitted, “pink, don’t really get anything in it for convenience's sake though. I mean, werewolf, having nice clothes isn’t really an option for me.”

  “Sure it is, just need to take care of them,” the woman chuckled, smiling sadly as she told me, “you and Annie are about the same size if I had to guess, maybe she was a bit bigger even. She had this really cute pink dress I think would fit you rather well. It’s not really my style, but I think it’s still tucked away in a bit and it looks cute enough. You should consider wearing it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I muttered hesitantly, squirming in my seat even as the woman picked up a hair dryer and started to plug it in. “I don’t want to risk ruining something like that, I mean, werewolf you know?”

  “It’s a dress that hasn’t been worn in years, and won’t be if you don’t use it,” Tara told me, patting my cheek as she started to blow hot air on my wrapped hair. “Besides, everyone deserves to wear something cute for a party. You want I’ll help you go all out if we have some time. I can style your hair, do your make up, we can even go get you something for yourself if you really want.”

  I nodded, frowning at the thought but more than a little tempted by the idea of getting to go all out. In the Purists we could steal cute clothes and things we liked, but there wasn’t a lot of room for exploring it. Even among my pack fights could break out regularly, and it was no guarantee any pair of clothes I wore would last longer than a week.

  My clothes lasted longer now, but I still felt more than a little hesitant about the idea of wearing something nice. Sometimes I worried my boots were a commodity I shouldn’t have been granting myself, let alone the idea of a dress that I could go to parties in.

  All the same, I wanted to, and I hesitantly nodded as I told her, “I’d like to try that out if we have time.”

  “Well, we’ll just need to see how this goes,” the woman told me, muttering softly as she took up a comb with a needle on it. “This is going to take a long time, hurt, and I’m going to need to repeat processes a few times to get it right.”

  “I’m a little used to pain,” I admitted, nodding as I looked into the mirror, watching myself even as the woman started on my hair.

  It did hurt, the pulling and tugging, and feeling of mattes being plucked at and slowly worked. All the same, I had to dislocate and break bones regularly to transform and I was more than a little comfortable with this level of pain. I’d experienced worse, and I’d one day survive worse, and this was not even a prickle compared to some of the damage I’d suffered.

  It was something I had to live with, and I smiled sadly even as I watched myself and wondered if I was actually going to get that unadulterated happiness I craved in what was left for me.