AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first story and I'm writing it in bits and spurts (ha!) so chapter lengths will vary! It started as Non-Con and they'll still be elements of that, but I'll be categorizing as Non-Human going forward. I haven't got any ending in mind as of yet so will keep following the story of Anahid + Kaev as far as it takes me. Comments/messages are appreciated, so please let me know what you like/dislike as I move the story along!
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Kaev studied Anahid. She could tell he debated about something.
"What is it?" she asked.
They'd made their way slowly—nakedly—back to camp and now she sat curled again in the thick fur blanket. He'd pulled his clothes back on but he was officially out of spare clothes for her after she'd ripped through the shirt he'd given her the day before. And the lovely green dress he'd found her had been lost in his fight with the vampires.
"I just wish you could change at will, it would make getting back home easier," he sighed then crouched to brush her cheek affectionately.
"I can't?"
He shook his head. "I wouldn't imagine so. Most new Lycans, or rather, ones that we have to awaken from their human form, take several months, sometimes years to learn to control the change."
She frowned. "So I can only be my other self on the full moon? Why is that?
"The moon affects the flow of our blood," he shrugged as if it was obvious. "When it's full the wolf is at its highest. But other times the wolf falls lower, can only be coaxed out with practice...or when your emotions are quite high."
"Is that how you change?" she asked and reached a hand for his, bent to study his fingers. She lifted his hand, softly kissed his knuckles.
He chuckled as he watched her. "No." She looked up to him in surprise. "I've always been awake. My ancestors are Lycans back thousands of years, unlike you who was born to a human woman. You feel the wolf like a separate piece of you, I imagine you feel like there are two warring sides. For me, for those of us born to Lycan parents, our sides are never split. We are both wolf and man all the time."
She studied him now. Slightly annoyed. He didn't know how she felt. Though her body—and now mind as well—called to him she still had only known Kaev a few short days. She closed her eyes. Felt for the wolf within. The part of herself that felt strong, defiant. Yes, she felt her there. She was irritated at her mate for underestimating her. Anahid let her leap forward and felt the change ripple through her.
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Kaev stood quickly, but then remained motionless as he watched Anahid burst into her wolf form. Her shoulder now came up to his as she stalked towards him, glaring balefully with her dark green eyes.
Carefully, he reached a hand to her and though she growled low in her throat, she let him caress her muzzle. She stepped another pace forward and pushed her head into his chest and he chuckled, running his hand along her head, relishing the thick, glossy feel of her coat. It was one of the things he loved about his human form. The sensitive fingertips that could appreciate these subtleties.
"All right my love, you've proven your point," he said as he scratched behind her ears. She whined happily and nuzzled at him. "Can you change back though? Sometimes that's even harder."
She chuffed and then sent a long tongue licking up his neck. Then she was changing again. The form rippling and shrinking, the lovely bronze fur retreated until the woman stood smirking up at him. Very unexpected. He'd never heard of any human-born Lycan learning to control the change this quickly. He was missing something...Or she really was more extraordinary than he'd imagined.
"How did you do that Anahid?"
She continued to smirk at him. "Well, I just imagined all the things I'd like you to do to this body."
He threw his head back with a loud laugh. "And I will do all of them."
They lazed in the camp the rest of the day. Kaev was suddenly reluctant to return home. To share Anahid with the rest of his pack. He'd been gone over a year, leaving his serious second Variya in charge of the pack. She'd be surprised. He suspected she doubted he'd ever find Hayk's lost offspring. But he had found her. And she was his mate.
But now they raced through the forest, heading home. He glanced to Anahid, heart full as he watched her lope beside him. She really was exquisite. He still wondered though...how had she mastered the change so quickly? He knew Hayk's blood was strong. The Lycan had been even older than Kaev, though because of his strange loner personality he'd never stayed with a pack for long. Could it simply be because Anahid was the offspring of such an ancient line? His mind drifted to her mother. Who had this human woman been that Hayk put Anahid in? Kaev's mind skittered. Perhaps she wasn't altogether human? It might explain things.
They ran all night. In the morning they curled together, still in their wolf forms, to sleep a few hours. Then they would rise and run again. He watched her always. Probed at her for any sense she was losing herself to the wolf side. For someone so new to their wolf side it was an easy thing to succumb to. To let the human part of you fall away. Hayk had been one of those for a time. Kaev remembered a few hundred years he'd heard nothing of the old Lycan. When he'd shown up, bedraggled and with haunted eyes Kaev had known. Hundreds of years running in only your wolf skin changed you. Kaev loved both parts of his self equally though. He flowed between the two, enjoying and delighting in each sensation each body allowed. And of course, Anahid looked to be the same.
When they were only a day out from his pack he pulled to a stop, changing smoothly back to his human form. Anahid moved beside him, nuzzled at him. She rippled, pulling her human form back out.
