The Werewolf's Redemption

"I'm leaving," she said, as tears streamed down her face. "You don't have to say the words before I actually know what you are thinking."

"How much of a disgrace I am, and how it would be better if I didn't accept the invitations to every event you had to attend. How it would have been better if I hadn't been born!"

"Eva, no," her mother said as Eva stumbled back, her back wet from the pouring rain that had also found its way into the house.

"It's true, and you know it. I haven't turned, even though I'm twenty-one. We get the questions every single time someone comes over or we leave this house. And I see the look on your faces-" she looked from her mother to her father. "The look of pity and irritation.

Sometimes annoyance and rage. I know you wish it was me who had been killed on that hunt instead of my brother. Well, you know what they say-" she laughed bitterly. "It's never too late for a werewolf to replace an offspring. Let me not stop you from having more children that you can be proud of."

"Eva. We love you. Yes, it's hard on us but it doesn't mean we want you to go," her mother begged.

But she could see that it was only pity. Her mother-the woman who once told her that unformed werewolves had no place in their society.

Her father, face hardened. He never said a kind word to her again, after her fifteenth birthday passed and she didn't wolf out. He never once defended his daughter when her mates and even juniors mocked her.

Eva knew he hated her existence.

She took one last look at them - at the family she once knew, the place she had called home for the last two decades, and the community that never once opened its arms to her.

It would be the last time she would ever see any of their faces.

"For what is worth, I wish you happiness. Even though I know I might never be happy, I still wish you happiness."

With that, she faced the pouring rain, falling with a vengeance that seemed to denounce the ostracized child, and walked away.

•••

Adrian bolted upright from his bed, chest heaving. The light in his room came on the next second, and he shielded his eyes from it.

"Fabian, how many times have I told you that I absolutely abhor light?"

"Sorry Master, but you had a bad dream again."

"And I am not ten. You can stop running into my room anytime you hear me breathing like a stuck pig. I'm sure I can handle waking up and eventually going back to sleep."

Fabian, a middle aged man with a man bun, smiled.

"Sure, but what would be my use then?"

"Tending to the house? You are my butler, aren't you?"

"And your only friend. Which is why I should be by your side, when you have nightmares about your mother."

"That's why she's my mother," Adrian replied, but there was a small smile on his face. "Also, she has been haunting my dreams since I was ten. I am a twenty three year old man."

"Still not as old as I am," Fabian refuted. "I will make you some tea. As you like it," he added and left the room.

Adrian sighed and fell back on the bed, rubbing his face. He could play off the nightmares as much as he wanted when he was awake, but sleeping was a whole other thing.

He had the nightmares - twice every month, at the start and at the end. The settings were always different but one thing remained constant. His witch of a mother. After his father had burnt her alive, she began hunting his dreams.

At first, Adrian was adamant that his mother was still alive. He would not go to sleep for fear that she would kill him in his dream, until his father took him to where the burnt body was locked and forced him to look at it.

Adrian never said a word after that day. He forced himself to go back to sleep each night, and on the nights she came- he woke up screaming, drenched in sweat.

Eventually, his father could not stand his cowardly son and moved out of the house, straight into the arms of another woman who already had a daughter. His last duties as a father was to set up a fund for his son and hire Fabian.

Adrian tried to avoid running into his father at events, even though it was hard to do sometimes, since werewolves had a wicked sense of humor. For a juicy article, they would send invitations to both father and son, pitting them against each other.

Over time, he began rejecting the invites and confined his activities to work and staying at home. So Fabian was right- he had no friends. But he also did not need any.

Humans were fickle, and werewolves were no better. Besides, nobody wanted to be friends with a werewolf who couldn't control how often he turned and when, or what happened when he wolfed out.

It was as though his mother placed a curse on him before she died- probably out of spite- because his whole life consisted of one misfortune after another. The only perk was...well, he could afford anything he wanted.

Fabian came back with the tea, a black jug on a silver tray. He placed it on the bedside table.

"Here. You should drink some."

"Of course. You're going to keep nagging until I do," Adrian rolled his eyes.

"It is good for you."

It was, actually. Somehow, the earl grey tea prepared by Fabian was the only thing that helped him go back to sleep easily.

Adrian wasn't too sure that his butler kept it strictly tea, as he never drank alcohol and couldn't know if that was the secret ingredient, but he had been hooked on it since he turned twelve.

He took a sip, and downed the entire contents in one go before realizing that it was, in fact, scalding hot.

"Fuck! Fuck!" Adrian scratched his tongue, "are you trying to make me mute?"

"And what would that achieve?" Fabian slightly raised a brow. "As much as I like silence, I don't think I can bear spending an eternity without hearing any other voice apart from mine."

"You do realize I have a cook and a cleaner?" Adrian reminded him.

"You do realize none of your employees speak unless spoken to?"

"Oh?" Adrian hadn't noticed; because he wasn't interested in their personal affairs either. He compensated them generously for the work they did, and they retired to their homes at the end of the day.

And he only had to see them twice a week. It felt very rude to ask them questions when they didn't have any other relationships outside of work.

"It's because of you," Fabian said. "Anyone coming here for the first time would think this house is owned by a vampire."

Adrian clicked his tongue, the burn from the scalding tea finally cooling. "It seems we have switched roles, Fabian. What do you say? You become the master of this house?"

Fabian grinned, showing fangs. "I would love nothing more than to have an erratic werewolf, who might turn and kill me in less than two hours, be my butler."

"Turn?" Adrian was puzzled for a second, before he glanced at the drawn curtains and through the windows to see the moon slowly rising. "Oh shit. I forgot to mark the calendar.

"Quick, Fabian-" He pressed a button at the side of his bed, and a pair of chains fell out. "Make sure I'm secured."

Fabian took the pair of chains, but he didn't do anything with them. Instead, his eyes held all the irony.

"You know these chains won't do anything. I'll put up a barrier around the house and leave clothes at certain places, so you can find your way back in the morning, without doing the walk of shame."

Adrian snapped his fingers.

"You got it. You'd better go now. Heaven knows what I'm going to break this time around."

"Already leaving," Fabian said, already heading to the door.

Adrian got up from the bed and walked to the window, sighing.

Werewolves loved the moon. All the ones he knew. It gave them the unbridled chance to be their true selves, to hunt without consequences; to howl without worrying about curious humans.

They bragged about the hunts once the sun came back up, and the very few times Adrian had been in a gathering after the full moon, he was fed an earful of tales.

But, maybe not all werewolves loved the madness. Maybe because the ones that did, didn't understand what madness meant.

What it felt like to feel your flesh tearing and your mind slipping. Each time he changed, it was torture. From having all furs to losing his mind and getting trapped in a state of endless hunger and thirst.

•••

Eva stumbled through the bushes, coming out on a lonely, deserted road. Her legs were bruised from thorns catching her pants, and her head hurt for miles.

But she could not stop. She had to get as far away from home as possible, and staying in a motel wouldn't cut it when she knew that there was a large chance that she wouldn't wake up.

Because, as it turned out, werewolves didn't like other wolves abandoning their packs. They were immediately labeled outcasts and rogues, likely to reveal their secret or return to kill their kind.

Her mother and father hadn't done anything to stop the pack of wolves they set on her hind. Escaping them had taken a lot of hiding and a guess that something like would happen once she tried to leave.

But, her throat was terribly parched, and Eva wasn't sure if her legs would keep her up for much longer. Finding some place that didn't have the scent of werewolves was imperative and very urgent, especially since she didn't want to pass out and get eaten by a pack of wild animals either.

As she kept on dragging her feet, she sighted something in the distance. It looked like a house, but a haunted one. A structure from books that she read in libraries, where ghosts made their dwelling place.

Ghosts didn't hate werewolves, did they? And if they were ghosts, they wouldn't be able to touch her body. She would put up with the eerie sounds until morning.

Eva kept her eyes trained on the house in the distance, begging her legs to keep on moving. Relief wasn't far anymore, she thought, feeding her mind with an illusion of optimism.

Once she got settled down for the night, she would get a decent night's sleep. Then tomorrow, she would see about changing her name and her appearance. A wig, some eye contacts, a new sense of fashion, and a fake accent should do it.

She also had the address of someone who could give her a fake driving license burned into herto memory. Something she used to impress her friends before they all found she wasn't like them and wanted nothing to do with the "unturned."

She would get a job at some place where greasy hands exchanged bucks-since werewolves thought of themselves too highly to frequent places like that-and work her ass off so she could afford a room.

Then... who knows what would happen. Maybe she'd wolf out and join a pack in another country.

All of it was just wishful thinking that could only happen if she was able to survive tonight.

The house was protected by a weirdly structured fence, but she didn't take too much notice of it. Eva caught a few holes, placed her wobbly legs through and jumped in.

To her death.

There was no way on earth she would survive the creature whose eyes shone with madness as it stared at her, before it began charging in her direction.

Killed by the same kind she spent hours running from.

How comedic.