Chasing Oleander

Prologue

Lines creased his young face as he stared at the floor, deep in thoughts more grave than he had let his lover know about. He had options, yes, but neither of them were paths he wanted to take. The sheets swished together softly as she rolled over in their bed, semi-consciously becoming aware that he was awake. He was sitting on the edge of their bed, hunched over in debate. She sat up and crawled to where he was sitting.

“Chase, baby, what’s wrong?” She asked drowsily, kissing his bare shoulder softly.

He turned to face her and smiled lovingly at her, “Nothing, sweetheart, nothing,” he said as he leaned in and kissed her lips gently.

“Are you sure? You haven’t really been sleeping the past couple of nights.”

“Just restless, I guess.”

“I can help out with that, you know.” She ran her fingertips down the inside of his thigh, the fabric of his boxers blocking her from caressing his skin.

“Don’t tempt me,” he muttered as he pushed her onto the bed and kissed her deeply, “I might just have to sin a bit, and you know I don’t like doing that.”

“The wedding isn’t that far away, we could just cheat a little bit.”

“Only a little longer, sweetheart, I promise.”

Howling from outside and far away drifted through the glass of the windows by the head of the bed. Chase pulled his mouth away from hers and stared out the windows to the right of the bed. He was searching for them, trying to judge how far away they were and how much time he had. The lawn was lit by the bluish light of the full moon, allowing him to see anything that stepped onto the grass from the trees that surrounded his backyard.

“Maybe the howling is keeping you up at night.” She suggested, noticing how entranced he was by the howls.

He smiled and kissed her like nothing was wrong, but he kept his eyes locked on what he could see of the backyard. Another howl sounded from the trees and he tensed up, the nearness of the sound reminding him of how little time he had to act. With time running out, he moved his hands to her hips and pulled her closer to him, and rolled until he hit the floor. The moonlight was only another roll away and there was another howl to encourage him to do what he had to.

“Chase, what the hell are you doing?” She asked as he rolled her onto her back and crawled back on top of her.

“Trying something new.” He said, the urgency in his voice alerting her to a problem.

“What’s going on?”

His eyes latched on to hers and he felt a pang of regret shoot through his system, “I’m so sorry that this is the only thing I can do.”

“What? Chase, you’re scaring me.”

“God, I’m sorry.” He said, kissing her neck hard on one spot.

“Ouch! Careful with the teeth, baby.”

He softened his kisses and shuddered, a sob racking his body unexpectedly, “I…I can’t do this.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck and she felt a tear slide down her back, under her shirt.

“Honey, what’s wrong? It’s ok, shhh.” She tried to comfort him as she stroked his black hair tenderly.

A howl that sounded as if it were made right outside the window rang out through the night air. Chase turned his head to face the window and could feel the cold eyes staring at him through the trees. They were waiting for his move. With his resolve set, he turned his face back to her.

“I wish there was another way,” He whispered in her ear as he slid her pajama shorts and panties down her legs, “but I don’t know what else to do,” he looked her in the eyes again and found a bizarre mix of lust and fear in them, “This is what’s best for both of us.” He finished his short explanation by kissing her lips as he slipped off his boxers.

With a force he had not intended, his pushed into her. Her scream got caught in her throat, causing her to dig her fingernails into the flesh of his shoulders. Tears came quickly to her eyes, but even these small indications of pain could not make him stop.

“Chase, please! Stop!” She cried weakly, her breathing pushing the words apart.

“Dig in harder, baby, just a little harder.” He begged, thrusting harder.

She cried out in pain and dug her nails farther into his shoulders and a trickle of blood slipped out slowly from one of her many claw marks. It ran at a snail's pace down his chest. As soon as he felt the first of the blood, he slowed his movement in her.

“I’m so sorry!” He whimpered as though he felt what she did. He kissed her cheeks where her tears were falling and held her close, “Please forgive me.”

She rested her forehead against his shoulder and pulled her fingernails out from his skin, allowing more blood to flow from the puncture marks. It flowed gently down to her forehead and some of the blood ran down her face, down one side of her nose, into the corner of her eye, and then down her cheek with her tears. Out of habit, she licked at the blood-filled tears that found their way into the corner of her mouth. He had stopped moving to hold her, and he held her until she had stopped crying. At long last, her tears dried up and she leaned her forehead away from his shoulder. She looked worn-down and her eyes had dulled since he last looked into them. Despite this and the obvious pain she was in, she kissed him.

“You don’t have to—” Chase started to say, but was interrupted by her lips pressing against his.

“The damage has already been done, might as well finish up.” She replied coldly.

“I can’t. Not when I did what I did. I want to when you want to.”

“I want…” Her body fell limp in his arms.

He pushed himself off of her, clothed her again, and picked her up from off the floor and set her in bed. He looked out the window at the furious eyes hiding in the shadows. Pounding erupted from outside the front door, followed by the crunching of wood as it was being kicked in. Claws scratched against the wood floor of the stairs, along with the muddy footsteps of someone in boots.

“Was it really necessary to kick in my front door?” Chase demanded as the claws, their owner, and the owner of the boots rounded the corner into the bedroom.

“You know why we’re here, I think the door is the least of your concerns.” The owner of the boots answered.

Chase turned to see a man in camouflage clothing, a grunt man, who held a leash in his hands. Attached to the other end of that leash was a large, wolf-like dog with gray fur, whose back legs were long enough for it to stand on with little problems, and whose claws clicked against the floor in human-like agitation.

“That’s an awful lot of blood on the floor, what happened?” The grunt man asked.

“Why not ask him?” Chase replied, pointing to the wolf at the end of the leash.

The wolf began sniffing the air in the room. It dragged the grunt man to the blood in the middle of the moonbeam, then to the sleeping figure of the woman they were after. It turned to Chase and glared as it sat back and took off its collar with its humanoid hands. It growled angrily at him and stalked into the hallway.

“What the hell? Where’s the tearing and the shredding?” The grunt man exclaimed unhappily.

“She’s mine now. And what’s mine is the Clan’s.” Chase answered quietly.

“What?”

“Werewolves won’t attack other werebeings, no matter how little they seem to be werebeings. You go back and tell them that they better just leave her alone, because she’s mine. Mine.”

Chapter 1

Amber flipped her hair out of her face before bending over to get the bucket of dark gray water she had been using to clean the floors. At last, they were clean to her satisfaction, and she was able to get off her hands and knees. Her lower back was screaming at her to sit down and relax; it had been for over an hour.

“This isn’t even my house.” She grumbled as she took the bucket back to the kitchen.

She watched the dark water clog the sink momentarily before it swirled into a watery oblivion. As she stared at the whirling murk and washed her hands, she was reminded of the morning Chase told her of his horrendous deed.

Her eyes were hesitant to open, afraid that the daylight might somehow burn them to hollowed sockets. Already she felt sore and barked in pain as she sat up in her bed. Chase was nowhere to be seen and the room smelled sterile. The window was open, allowing fresh air to waft through the filmy curtains. With the fresh air came the smells of the outside world. An overwhelming scent of dirt and grass attacked her nose viciously and she buried her nose in the barrier-creating satin sheets. It was then that she noticed that her white sheets had been stained a deep reddish brown, and her nose reacted sweetly to it. It was metallic and wonderful, sending her mind to a peaceful, yet longing state. This state was shattered when she checked under the sheets for more and realized that it was her own blood.

Practically falling off the edge of the bed, she pulled at the tainted sheets until they let go of their hold on the mattress. She hurled them across the room, towards the door, and then rushed to the bathroom, whose portal lay six feet from the foot of the mahogany bed. She wrenched her clothes off as quickly as she could and twisted the knobs to turn on the shower. She stepped into the steam bath but quickly noticed what a bad idea that was on her newest wound and jumped back to one of the glass walls of the shower. Sticking it out and telling herself that it was good for healing, she inched her way back into the spray of the showerhead.

She had to borrow Chase’s unscented shampoo when the smell of vanilla was unbearably strong and was left with no conditioner to use because its smell matched her shampoo. When she got out, she stood naked in front of the mirror, her hair a tangled mess, and asked herself what was going on now. Something was unmistakably and irreversibly wrong in her, something she had never felt before in her entire life. With a hopeless look in her eyes, she wrapped her towel around her body and walked back into her bedroom. She sifted through her dresser drawers for clothes and turned around when she found the ones she wanted. Sitting on the bed quietly was Chase.

“Hey.” He greeted after a moment of silence.

“Hi.” She answered, leaning against the dresser.

“How are you—”

“Doing? Fine, I guess.” She paused, and neither of them knew what to say, “Chase, what happened last night? Everything feels so…out of balance.”

“You obviously know a little bit of what happened last night and I,” it was his turn to pause, “I’m sorry.”

“The only reason I know even a little bit of what happened is because I’m sore and the sheets are covered in my blood. Everything else is just beyond normal! I can smell things I couldn’t smell before; it’s overwhelming the way my shampoo smells, it never used to smell like that. What happened, Chase?”

With a sigh, Chase began to tell her what he did, “I want you to know that I love you, Amber, and that’s why I did it. I never meant to hurt you, ever. In fact, that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to bite you because it would have made life more difficult for you.”

“Whoa, time out, bite me? As in Dracula type biting?”

Chase laughed bitterly, “More like Wolfman.”

“What the hell, Chase?”

“Have you ever noticed how I go missing late at night for three days every month? Have you ever noticed how you can’t surprise me or scare me, no matter how quietly you walk? Have you ever really made a connection between my not being allergic to anything and my hypoallergenic, scent-free shampoo?”

“So you’re a werewolf?”

“Yes. Before you decide to run out of here in nothing but your towel, you need to know that I did it for you.”

“Did what for me, Chase? Proving to me that you’re insane so you don’t have to marry me or what?”

“No, of course not. I love you, Amber, and last night was a night where I had to do whatever it took to keep you safe. They were going to come here and kill you because you weren’t one of us. I couldn’t let that happen to you, so I found a ritual in one of the books in the library that would turn you into a part werewolf creature, but it wouldn’t turn you completely. It would do enough for you that it would keep them from killing you and it would give you some of the hyper-senses that we have. It called for moonlight, my blood, and—”

“My virginity? That sounds sort of crazy to me.”

“I know, but could you smell everything outside before? Could you even smell anything that was coming in on the breeze before?”

She gazed at him and shook her head disbelievingly, “Chase, you need help.”

“Fine!” He growled, losing his temper, “If you won’t believe me, believe yourself!”

He lunged at her, his eyes going from a russet brown to yellow in an instant, his hands sprouted hair and long claws. Amber shrieked, closed her eyes, and held out her hands to stop him, not having enough time to run. As soon as she felt contact on the palms of her hands, she clenched down and his momentum stopped.

“Open your eyes, Amber.” He said calmly.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. He was standing in front of her, his eyes were back to normal and he was watching her concernedly. He touched her forearms gently, and glanced down at her hands. Her eyes followed his to his biceps where her hands were clamped down tightly. She looked on for a moment, convinced that she was not looking at her own hands. Her hands were normally smooth and covered in freckles, not in hair.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but could you please pull those out? They’re really starting to hurt.” He requested as delicately as he could.

She pulled her claws out of his arms and stared at them in horror. They extended half an inch further than her fingernails did and they were covered in blood to the cuticle. Blood pounded in her ears.

“This can’t be real.” She announced.

“It’s as real as the blood pouring out of my arms. Just relax, they’ll change back when you don’t feel like you’re in danger. Breathe slowly, deep breaths. Close your eyes and visualize something calming.” He instructed.

Behind her eyelids, she could not tell that Chase had changed the shape of his arms to patch the holes left by her claws. When she opened her eyes again, her hands were back to human and Chase was no longer bleeding. He brushed her matted hair out of her face, his fingertips brushed against her forehead in the process. She pulled him closer and hid in his embrace.

“What do we do now?” She asked, her voice wavering and soft, “What do we do?”

The last of the water had gone down the drain and Amber lifted her head up and looked around the kitchen. She could hear the soft beating of young wings behind her, in the pantry. She picked up the bucket as though she had not heard the wings and walked to the kitchen doors. Giggling erupted from the pantry once she opened and closed the door, but the gigglers did not know she was still in the room. She crept as stealthily as she could to the pantry door and spotted three young werebirds trying to reach the sugary cereal on the top shelf, their wings flapping madly to make it up that high.

“Breakfast was over six hours ago, chicks.” She greeted, catching them off guard.

The two werebirds that were flying towards their sickly sweet treats faltered and began to fall. As if by reflex, Amber caught them in her arms and delivered them to the safety of the floor. The three werebird babies glared up at her.

“You aren’t even one of us, you can’t tell us what we can and can’t do, freak.” The blonde haired one spat, pushing Amber out of the way as it huffed to the exit.

The other two werebirds followed quickly, clearly showing her which one was the leader. On her way out the door, she kicked the bucket into the corner of the room.

“Like I don’t get that enough.” She snarled.