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Chapter 3

In the past, when I have been forced into admitting my ancestry, I usually got reactions like fear, hatred, denial, even fainting. It's at that point when I usually end up running from an angry mob. So I was getting ready to run for my life when Chase let out a disappointed sigh and said "Well, I lost that bet."

I just sit there and stare at him for a solid minute, frozen. I had expected any number of reactions from him, but finding out that I had been the subject of a bet was the last of them. Chase nods and says, half to himself, "I should have known Katrina would have won with a bet on delusional." That snaps me out of my frozen state.

I start shaking my head, confused and trying to figure out what he is talking about. So I ask, "What are you talking about? What bet? And what about delusional?"

He looks at me with a smile that can only be taken as one of sympathy and apology. "I'm sorry about that, but you had been unconscious for so long that we began to take bets on when you would wake up and what you would say to explain your blood and eyes being black." As he continues his explanation, I begin to understand what's going on. He thinks I'm nuts.

"So some of us bet that you had a disease of some kind and others......" I hold my right hand up to get him to stop. When he stops I let out a sigh and start my explaining.

"I am not delusional, nor do I have a disease." He nods as though he believes me, but it's the kind of nod a person gives when humoring someone. Seeing he's not going to believe me I let out an aggravated sigh, "You don't believe me."

With a grunt I throw off the last of the covers and swing my legs off the side of the bed so my back is to Chase. He gets up and starts towards me, alarm in his voice, "What are you doing!? You shouldn't be getting up yet."

I wave him back when he tries to get me to lie back down. "This is the only way you will believe me, and it will help with my wounds." With a concerned and confused look on his face, he reluctantly sits back in his chair and waits.

I take another look around the room, it's big but not really big enough for my comfort for what I'm about to do. Looking over my shoulder at Chase I tell him, "I want you to stay there for this, it will be crowded enough without unneeded movement." He just looks at me with a confused look. "Right, well, here goes." I take a deep breath and close my eyes.

For a moment nothing happens, then the familiar stretching and itching sensation starts at the base of my skull and quickly spreads down my spine. Just as I am about to go crazy, wanting to scratch, a loud crack comes from the base of my spine where my tail starts, it is quickly followed by a rapid series of cracks traveling upwards as my spine begins to lengthen. When the cracking stops I have gained over a foot in height, but I have only just begun to change.

I roll my head around my neck, getting a few pops, as I get ready for the next stage of my change. The first noticeable change is my arms; they lengthen and grow thicker with new muscle growth. The scales begin to appear at my elbows, pushing their way towards my hands as my fur is replaced with black scales that are hard as metal. When the scales reach my hands, another change takes place, as they spread over my fingers, my ring and pinky begin to fuse into a single finger, leaving me with four on each hand. The claws on each of my fingers lengthen to over three inches and become razor sharp, curved talons, able to cut through bone just as easy as paper.

As my arms are changing, so do my legs. My thighs increase in size considerably. Then at my knees the same black scales that replaced the fur on my arms begin to appear and spread downwards. My normally digitigrade hind paws begin to change to something resembling an ancient reptile. My toes begin to fuse and lengthen till I only have three on each foot, each ending in a talon just as deadly as the ones on my hands. The heels on my feet begin to lengthen back away from my foot till I have a triangular shaped foot, easily two feet long and a foot wide.

After my legs and arms finish their changes my tail begins its transformation. It rapidly thickens and grows, soon it is over six feet long, and moving in a serpentine manner. The same black scales appear a few inches from the base of my tail and spread to the tip. A ridge of black spines pushes out of the top, following the bones within my tail. Each spine ends in a needle sharp point that shines in the light from the window. When my tail has finished changing, it wraps around me, the tip flicking back and forth.

While the changes to my body are taking place, I experience an almost unbearable itching, especially where my scales form. Fortunately there is no pain during my change, just the itching and stretching sensations. Well, normally there would be no pain. This time I feel it where each of my wounds are, but it's the pain of something healing. My transformation won't heal the cuts completely, but it is making them considerably better.

The spines that formed along my tail begin to appear along my spine as well, each just a little longer than the one below it, till they reach my shoulder blades where they stop. A few inches above and to the sides of the top one, two mounds begin to form in a matter of seconds, they are the size of basket ball's and still growing. A few seconds later a tear forms on each mound and a black leathery wing unfolds from each side. I let out a sigh of relief as the pressure is released and my wings unfold and stretch, growing rapidly till I have a wingspan that is easily over twenty feet, but the size of the room forces me to keep them folded up.

As my body finishes changing from the neck down, I can hear the chair where Chase is sitting grind against the floor as he moves closer to the wall. I can hear his breathing and pulse rapidly increase as fear begins to take hold of him. I can even smell his fear as it begins to roll of him, filling the room. I just close my eyes and hide my head from his view as the changes there begin.

First my ears grow narrower and come to a sharp leathery point, losing the fur on the top half. Next my muzzle broadens and lengthens as my teeth all grow longer ,causing my canines to grow out from under my lips shinning white in sharp contrast to my fur. Patches of scales form above each of my eyes and travel back towards my ears, at the same time scales form under my chin and travel down my throat with twin strips also forming along the sides of my muzzle, starting at my nostrils and ending just below my eyes.

The final step of my transformation begins as two pairs of black bumps form by my ears, on in front and one behind each ear. The bumps in front of my ears form a pair of horns that grow straight out then curve back over my head ending in sharp, deadly points. The bumps behind my ears form curling, ram-like horns with the points coming to an end a couple inches to either side of my muzzle, even with the corners of my mouth.

Once my change is finished, a deep crimson shimmer passes over my scales and vanishes. After the final shimmer, I am easily over fifteen feet tall, not counting my tail, with a proportionate increase in muscle mass.

With a shuddering sigh I remain motionless on the side of the bed, listening to Chase as he sits in his chair, pressed hard into it, on the verge of hyperventilating from the fear he is experiencing at seeing me change into a creature from his darkest nightmares, and he still hasn't even seen my face. I decide it's better to wait for him calm down before I move again, so I just sit and wait.

Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen minutes before I hear Chase's heartbeat begin to slow and his breathing return to normal. I fight back a single tear at having nearly scared him to death, after he had showed such kindness in saving my life at that. But its better the truth be told now than wait till later. As the minutes had been passing, I felt a little blood running from the cut on my arm, the rest had healed enough during my change that they would no longer bleed, but the one on my arm had been the deepest and so will still take time to heal.

As more time passes, I get lost in thought, thinking about where I will go next now that I won't be staying here. I got so lost in thought that I never noticed when Chase got up from his chair until he was using a soft cloth to wipe up the blood that had traced a path down my arm. I turned my head just enough to see him when he began to speak in a somewhat shaky voice. "Ok, I.... guess you're not delusional." After a few moments he has my arm cleaned and a temporary bandage over the wound.

I just sit there and watch him, trying to make sense of his reaction to me. Despite the fear he is feeling, he is still caring for my wounds. As he checks the other bandages, most of which came loose during my change, the smell of fear from him lessens until it is all but gone. Eventually he speaks up, "If I had been told a week ago that I would be working to heal a demon, I would have laughed and called them crazy...."

I look down at my claws and give a short gravelly chuckle and respond in a deep voice that sounds more like an avalanche than speech, "Well, if it helps, I'm only a quarter demon, my mother was a wolf like you and my dad is half wolf."

Chase lets out a light chuckle, "Well, that's a new one for me." he turns his head to look me in the eyes when he finishes the last bandage. I turn my face away from him when he does. "You don't want to see." He puts a hand on my shoulder, "I understand, Eb, but I want you to know I'm not afraid anymore." When I say nothing, he continues. "We all have our secrets and you have shown me yours, if you want, I will keep quiet about it to the rest till you're ready." I just nod my thanks.

I feel the bed shift a little as he sits beside me. When I turned my face from him, it wasn't to hide my looks, which I'm sure are bad enough, but it was to hide the tears of relief at not having to run for my life again. I may me a werewolf with a demonic side, but I do have feelings under all the fur.

After a few minutes of a comfortable silence Chase asks, "So - how long do you have to stay like that?"

Not fully understanding what he means I ask back, "Stay like what?"

He waves a hand at my legs and tail. "How long do you stay scaly?"

I let out a small chuckle finally getting his meaning. "Actually, this is my natural form. And I can change forms at will."

At that point I begin shifting back to my wolf form. It only takes me a moment of feeling like I'm being pressed on from all sides, and the same itching as before, till I am back to being a ten foot, nude, black wolf.

Chase looks at me a bit surprised. "You did that a lot faster than before didn't you?"

At that I can't help but smile. "Well, I did slow my change down a bit for show, that and it didn't hurt my cuts as much. Speaking of..." I begin taking the bandages off of my wounds, revealing scabbed over cuts that look like they're at least a week old, if not more. I'm a bit disappointed in that they didn't heal completely. Then I get to the cut on my arm, it has healed a bit more, but it will still need several days under wraps. Chase watches all this with an impressed look on his face. "I guess you weren't in as much danger of dying as I thought if you can heal yourself like that."

I look over at him; a little surprised he thinks that. "Just because I can heal myself now doesn't mean I wasn't in danger. If not for you I would have died. And I can't thank you enough." I see a smile and a bit of pride and embarrassment creep back to his face with my words.

After a few more minutes of sitting in silence, I ask Chase, "So, where is my stuff exactly?"

He jumps as though given an electrical shock. "Sorry, I forgot you didn't know." He walks over to the dresser and pulls open a drawer. Inside are my pack, my traveling cloak and a set of clean clothes. The scabbard and belt for my sword are also there, but the blade is absent.

I slowly get dressed so as not to aggravate my arm any more than needed. Chase helps me get my arm through the sleeve on the shirt. Even though the cut is not as bad as it was, it still hurts and is limiting how much I can move my arm. After getting publicly decent again, I pick up my belt and scabbard and rub my fingers over the old leather for a moment, then look over at Chase. "I take it my sword wasn't found?"

Chase scratches the back of his head as he replies. "No, we found it. It's just that..... well.... it's kind of stuck in a tree." I raise an eyebrow in question. He quickly starts explaining. "After we got you back here, me and Reese, she was with me when we found you, we went back to get your stuff from your camp. Only we weren't able to pull your sword out of the tree, it got stuck. So we cut the tree down and cut out around your sword, but it's still stuck in a fair size piece of wood. Sorry." He has a guilty look on his face and I can't help but chuckle. This only serves to confuse him. "I thought you would be upset your sword is stuck?"

I just shake my head. "Quite the opposite actually, I am again gratefully in your debt that you were able to keep it safe. In fact, I would have been very surprised if you had managed to free it." Now Chase is so confused that he can't help but cock his head to the side like our four legged cousins. I just pat him on the shoulder. "I will explain later." At that moment my stomach lets a loud rumble. "For now though I think a search for food would be most welcome."

Laughing he leads me to the door. "I think we can find you something, but I will warn you, once you step out that door, you become free game for questions from the others. They have been threatening to break in these last few days. Most only got a peek at the stranger with strange blood, as we had no name to call you that is." I let out a sigh of mock disappointment. "Well I guess if that's to be my fate, let it come." A thought strikes me at that moment that causes me to laugh. "At least no one has won the bet." At that Chase lets out a loud bark of laughter. "That's true."

As we walk out of the room together laughing, I can't help but notice that not only do I feel more comfortable around Chase than I have ever felt around anyone save my closest family, but I also notice an odd attraction has developed towards him. Perhaps this is just a side effect of me sharing one of my darker secrets with him. Or it could be I feel indebted to him for saving my life. Or maybe...... no, I don't think it would be that. But then again, he is a rather attractive wolf in his own way.