Thorn (Werewolf) ✔

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Can you hear this?" I whisper. Even I can hardly hear it.

Thorn grins as he looks back. "Yes."

"What about this?" I whisper even quieter.

"Yes, Devon, I can hear it."

"That's so cool," I say excitedly. I cock my head up at the treetops. "What about the birds? Can you hear what they're saying to each other?"

Thorn sighs and shakes his head as I catch up to him. I think I'm annoying him but I can't help it. "I can't understand birds."

"Why not? They're animals."

He laughs. "You're an animal. Can you understand flies?"

"Hm," I mumble. "What can you understand? Can you understand dogs?"

His laughter fills the air. He runs a hand through his hair awkwardly. "Dogs generally do not like me so even if I could understand them then I think it'd be an argument. Some breeds are nicer though and others are twats."

"You know, I had a cat at home and I swear it would go out of its way to make my life hell. It would deliberately chew up my clothes and pee all over my bed sheets. No one else's, just mine."

"Maybe it sensed the wolf gene in you. Cats are known to have senses like ours."

"No, I just think he was a twat."

Thorn looks at me for a moment before grinning proudly. "Now you're speaking my language."

We climb a small hill and cut through a meadow. He's taking me somewhere but he won't tell me where or what we're doing. I'm excited. I wouldn't dare walk this far on my own but knowing that there is an actual man with superhuman senses and strength beside me is making me feel all kinds of fearless.

"Tell me about werewolves," I say.

"What do you know about them?"

I shrug. "I know that they're used as a horror figure in movies. Once bitten then you transform at the next full moon. That kind of thing."

"Slightly not the case," he says. "We are born with the gene and every single werewolf in history that I know of has transitioned—except for you."

"I'm not a werewolf," I say.

"You have the gene."

"I don't-"

"Devon, you can say that you don't have the gene a thousand times until you're blue in the face but you have it."

I clamp my mouth shut. This isn't an argument that I'm going to win so I don't press it further, even though I think that he's wrong. I don't have superhuman hearing or sense of smell. I don't have the natural predatory instincts that he has to survive. I am human.

I sigh. "What else?"

"The transition happens every night, as you know. It's excruciatingly painful, as you know. The transition back to a human is less intense though and I can usually sleep through it. If I don't sleep then I'll become very ratty and irritable."

"As I know," I mutter. "I really need to introduce you to caffeine."

He smiles for a second.

"Can I ask you something else?"

He glares at me until I'm forced to remember one of our very first conversations. He told me off for asking that.

"Do you want to be a wolf? I mean, if you had the choice between being a human or wolf, which would you choose?"