| The Change

The bite mark on Jack's neck was itching him so bad It felt like someone had sewn up a live moth inside it.

'Come on, Jack.' Jack heard Wesley grunt, trying to sound reasonable. 'You've thrown your fit. Now let's quit fooling around, and start to party.'

Jack turned to the window and felt the moonlight on his skin. It wasn't burning him now. It was soothing him. Taking away the confusion, the questions, and even the pain. All he felt now was his loss and his anger, cold and clear as the dead reflected light from the moon's barren surface.

'Face it, Jack,' Wes whispered. 'You're in this for keeps. Ava's gonna marry you, so Mom can have some nice respectable 'wolf grandkids to keep up our nice respectable family line. She needs them, see? The time's coming when werewolves won't need to hide in the shadows.'

Jack stared in horror. 'There are more of you?'

'Thousands of us,' smiled Wesley. 'All over the world. When Wolf Time comes it'll be humans hiding out in the dark, not us. That's when the Old Names are gonna count, see? When it comes to thrashing out the biting order in our new world.' Saliva frothed at the corners of Wesley's mouth. 'You're damned lucky I bit you, Jack. Now you've got a big stake in this family. Come Wolf Time, you and I are gonna lord it over the rest.'

'You did this to me,' Jack whispered.

'What are friends for?' Wesley smiled smugly. 'Now how about we go on the hunt, huh?'

Jack stared down at his feet. He could feel his heart start to pound. 'Hunt?'

'Sure. We're supposed to stay in but screw that. Mom and Dad are out on the hunt, they'll be gone till dawn. So what say we-'

Jack lashed out. His fist smashed into Wesley's jaw, sending him sprawling over the kitchen table.

'So you wanna play it this way, huh?' Wesley growled.

'Turn me back,' Jack panted.

'No can do.' Wesley wiped the blood from his mouth and sucked it back off his knuckles. 'And even if I could, why the hell- '

'Turn me back!' Jack yelled. He hefted a vase from the fireplace and threw it at Wesley's head.

Wesley threw himself aside and the vase shattered on the floorboards beside him. 'It's started,' he said in a hushed voice. He looked at Jack almost reverently, like he was seeing a baby take its first steps. 'Man, I envy you, feeling all that shit for the first time.'

'Shut up!' Jack shouted. His breathing was getting ragged, his clothes were drenched with sweat.

Wesley was nodding, totally focused, like he was suddenly Jack's trainer or something. 'That's it. Keep your anger, that helps push it on.' He paused, smiling craftily. 'Y' know, just to make things final, maybe we should go kill your family.'

Jack felt like he was burning. 'I'm warning you ... '

'Yeah, it'd be real easy,' Wesley smirked. 'Once we offed your parents, we could, like, string up your brother and take turns to bite chunks outta him.'

As Wesley laughed, Jack rushed for him wildly. But Wesley sidestepped him and punched him in the stomach. Jack doubled over, winded, and then gasped as Wesley twisted his arm behind his back.

The moon burned like a spotlight through the window. It seemed to shine on Jack as Wesley threw him across the room, lighting every move.

'What's the matter?' Wesley cooed. He kicked Jack in the head. 'Gonna cry, were-pussy? Come on! I wanna see it happen!' Wesley kicked him again.

Jack's body smashed against the display case, and its glass front cracked in two under the impact. If Jack knew one thing for certain, he knew that he was about to die.

Jack saw duplicate moons reflected on the broken pieces of glass and gasped when he also saw white eyes staring at him. He tried to speak, but only guttural grunts came. His body twisted in pain. He couldn't breathe. Vivid colors broke across his vision.

'Come on!' screamed Wesley. He sounded desperate like he was the one running out of time.

Jack felt like every bone in his body was starting to crack and splinter, like some invisible vice, was crushing them from the inside.

Then something broke inside his head, and the pain fell away, replaced with a warm, reckless ecstasy. A part of him knew instinctively that it was wrong to feel this way. That feeling so good could only come with some terrible price attached.

It was like all his life he'd been peering out at the world through the dirty glass, and only now could he see it clearly – be fully a part of it. Sounds and scents sharpened and spun dizzily through his senses. Every nerve in his body seemed to buzz with a life of its own. He heard a strange sound, half-laughing, half-roaring. Then realized he was making the noise himself.

Wesley had fallen away. Jack rose to his knees and saw his opponent slumped in a corner, shaking like he was having some kind of fit. Jack tried to rise further from the floor to see more, but his body didn't want to turn that way. It wanted to stay on all fours. Jack stared as the hideous creature, half-man, half-wolf, kicked itself free from the remains of Wesley's clothing. And then the dwindling, terrified part of Jack truly took the situation in.

'You think you're all wolf people or something,' he had said. At the time he'd believed the Danes were deluded. But not now. The werewolf staring him down from across the room, yellow eyes flaring with malice, sinewy body tensed to attack, was no mythical beast.

Wesley Dane was a werewolf.

And Jack was now one too.

The old Jack Rivers was dead, washed away by the rapids all those weeks ago, to some lonely burial far out at sea. A new creature that wore his skin had crept in to replace him; something from the dark pits of a nightmare, a bestial force of hideous strength.

The two of them would run like the wind together. They would hunt and they would kill, side by side like his dreams, had been trying to tell him these last weeks. That was the way it was meant to be …

Screw that.

Jack shook his head as anger surged through him. Jaws snapping, Jack threw himself toward the slavering creature that had once been a boy like him.