Blooded Mate

Chapter 20 - First Moon

The pull of Luna yanked Ethan from sleep. With wakefulness came awareness. Ethan's nerves were on fire. His body hurt so much that he started trembling.

Every inch of his skin burned. He felt as if his bones were being ground by a slow, spiked stone and the muscles torn to shreds.

"Mom!"

He cried out but could not hear himself over the ringing in his ear. He did not try again because the effort scorched his throat. His ribs collapsed, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He was suffocating in his own bed.

He tried rolling onto his side, but something held him in place. Looking down, he found his hands tied to the bed and his arms wrapped in bandages.

Someone came running, but it was not his mother.

"Ethan!" Mrs. Bane gasped while Dr. Kim's eyes flew over him.

He was too distressed to chat. He just wanted the pain to stop.

"Help." He choked, trying to lift his hand.

The two rushed over and untied the restraints. Then they helped him sit up. He took in a lungful of air when he felt the pressure lift from his ribs.

"Ethan? How do you- Hey, stop that!" Dr. Kim commanded when he began to remove the bandages.

"Hurts... Get it off," he rasped.

They bent over him, working in tandem to relax the knots. Then Ethan let out a blood-curdling scream making them jump back. His collarbone cracked and swiveled forward, tearing through his skin. The cry ended in a deep growl.

"Goodness mercy! He is turning!" Mrs. Bane gasped, taking another step back.

"Quick! Meghan, help me get the bandages off!" The doctor started. "Cody!"

His little brother ran in, panting. "Dr. Kim?"

"Get Zyga," Dr. Kim shouted as she worked a pair of scissors over the bandages.

"But- He's fighting the vampires" Cody's eyes fell on him, and he also gasped.

"Go get him!"

"No!" Mrs. Bane interjected. "He's only a boy! He will be killed the moment he steps out of this house!"

"We can't handle a transformation alone!"

Ethan snarled, silencing the argument.

Heat flared in his left shoulder, and his groans turned to whimper. He watched as the muscles crept up and reattached to the exposed bone, covering it. A patch of rough skin grew over the new joint and thick grey fur sprouted over it.

"Go!" Dr. Kim said, prodding the other two ahead of her. "Go! Go! Go!"

They scrambled out, and Ethan hollered as his femur splintered and poked through his muscle, realigning to the hindleg of a wolf. His screams cut short. A blinding jolt pummelled through his head, fragmenting his skull.

His nose and jaw pushed up and outwards, extending to form a snout. The canines grew, dripping blood and saliva onto his belly. Ethan's upper body weight pressed uncomfortably on his hips and tailbone. Groaning, he put his hands to the side to support his torso, forgetting the awkward position of his new shoulder.

His realigned arm could not hold his weight, and he tumbled over the edge, banging his newly formed snout on the floor. The bones in his spine started popping, his hip bones shifted closer and forward. His skull condensed, squeezing his eyes out.

Unable to bear the pain, he let the darkness take over and slipped into blissful oblivion.

Sometime later, his eyes cracked open, blinked once, then flared. Disoriented, his legs felt like jellied strings attached to heavy lead pieces. He sat on his haunches, baffled by the difference in movement.

Ethan had four legs which ended in paws. His belly was covered with soft, downy, white fur, but the part over his sides and back was thick and gray.

He looked around, cocking his head to the side at what he saw.

He could have sworn that the hockey player on the poster had worn red, not brownish-gray. And hadn't those two stress balls been of different colors?

The more he observed his surroundings, the more he noted minor changes. Yellow and green objects had the same tone, and other colors had dimmed to shades of gray. But he could clearly see the hole in the ceiling where he had once thrown a dart. And there were so many scents around him that he felt someone had stuffed his nose in a perfume factory.

A wave of vertigo washed over him, and he shook his head to clear it.

This is my bedroom. But why does it feel... distorted?

He stared up at the ceiling, which stood higher than he expected. Even his chair was taller.

Then a growl came through the window.

Danger. Someone's outside.

His hackles rose, and his pointed ears swiveled forward.

Ethan stood and shook his fur, ridding himself of the leftover cramps in his muscles. from his bones. Without a second thought, he jumped onto the desk and out the window. He landed on the roof of the porch, under the torch of the full moon.

It was chaos on the ground.

The air hung heavy with the scent of blood. There were dozens of wolves tearing through the yard, and more slinked in between the shadows of the forest. Some lay unmoving, with dark patches coating their fur.

A couple of trees were cleaved in two, and their upper halves dangled uselessly on the ground.

Wild barking. Pained yelps. Threatening growls. Defiant growls.

The night echoed with them. Yet, it was one specific sound that drew his attention: a low hiss that sent the hair down his back standing on edge.

He zeroed in on the source, a blonde figure in a white shirt. A vampire.

The man flitted between the shadows of the tree line and the wolves that hemmed him in. He kicked and slashed two of his opponents before retreating into the trees when more closed in on his location.

Then he brought his elbow down on the back of one wolf and stumbled backward to avoid another. His neck narrowly escaped the jaws of a burly midnight wolf. He did not get away unscathed though, the dark wolf's teeth caught his shoulder and scored deep gashes as the man tore away.

Ethan's heart clenched, and fury erupted in him. A thin film of red coated his irises. He leaped from the roof onto a parked car with a blood-thirsty growl, then to the ground. He headed for that pale man that, in his mind, shone brighter than the moon.

A/N

Hi lovelies, thanks for reading.If you loved it don't forget to vote, comment and add to your library.

It is happening! The much awaited and prayed for first moon. Luna has finally answered.

I would love to here your feedback on the story in general and this chapter in particular.

What did you like?

And what didn't you like?

What did you think about the characters? Louie and Ivan?

Next chapter is already being edited. I will post it in a couple of days.

Ciao!