Page 50 of My Boyfriend Marks Trees
Athena shook her head. “No fighting. Ares said for us to get into the shelter.”
“You ladies can. I’m thinking I’d like a wolf coat for Christmas,” Grams’ feral reply.
Charly felt faint. They knew. Knew the terrible secret she’d been trying to hide. The one that haunted her and made her think she was crazy. After all, people didn’t turn into animals. Only, Barry and his gang did, not that she knew when she’d been with him. He’d only revealed himself her last night at the cabin. It had been the catalyst for her escape.
“Come outside with me,” Barry demanded in the doorway to her prison room.
Charlotte knew better than to argue. Her lip remained swollen from her last supposed failure to obey.
She rose, but when Greta would have followed, a silent and pale shadow since their capture, Barry snapped, “Not you. This is for your mother’s eyes only.”
Charlotte hated leaving Greta alone, but better that than her baby having to see whatever torment Barry had planned.
To her surprise, he had her head outside where all of his gang stood forming a circle around two people kneeling on the ground. The posse parted as Barry arrived.
“I’m about to show you why Greta belongs with me even if she’s not showing signs yet.”
Showing signs of what? Charlotte wondered but didn’t ask, couldn’t, not with fear paralyzing her.
The man kneeling on the ground had a bruised and bloodied face. He whimpered, “It was just a wrong turn.”
“Sure, it was,” drawled Barry.
“The GPS guided us wrong,” insisted the woman by his side, her features pale with fear.
“Wrong for you, but you’ll make a nice start to our evening,” Barry replied. “Right, boys?” A misnomer, which the two women of the gang didn’t take offense with.
“Moon’s coming,” informed Kyle, the youngest of the group. He’d joined the gang with his dad, a big brute of a man who leered at Charlotte when Barry wasn’t watching.
“Get ready,” Barry stated, which apparently meant strip.
Everyone, man and woman, with the exception of Barry, removed their clothes until they stood naked.
A discomfited Charlotte hugged herself, but it didn’t stem the shaking. Why get in the buff? Given a few men sported semi-erections, she feared the worst.
Orgy. Rape. Didn’t matter. She wanted no part.
When she would have fled inside the cabin, Barry gripped her arm tight. “Oh no you don’t. Time for you to see the truth.”
Kyle changed first, one minute a skinny, pimply-faced teen, the next, a mottled brown wolf. One by one, the others swapped skin for fur until only Barry remained dressed, but his eyes had a wild glint to them. His voice emerged in a deeper octave as he barked, “Show my bitch what we do to those who would betray us.”
It was beyond savage. Beyond bloody. Beyond horrifying.
The wolves pounced on the couple who’d taken a wrong turn. She closed her eyes at the first scream but couldn’t unhear the noises. The growls. The wet munching. The crunching.
The wolves savaged the poor man and his girlfriend, killing them and then desecrating the bodies by tearing them open to chew on the insides.
Charlotte didn’t resist when Barry dragged her back inside. As he marched her to her room, he muttered, “Now you understand why Greta belongs with me.”
“Greta isn’t a werewolf,” her faint reply.
“Not yet. I thought my blessing skipped her, but she carries the gene, according to the sample I had tested.”
“What sample?” she asked, rather than address the horror she’d just witnessed.
“Turns out there’s a way to check if someone inherited lycanthropy. I had Martha volunteer at her school and collect some spit and hair. Turns out, she does take after me.” Martha being the petite blonde who’d hated Charlotte on sight.
“Your test was wrong. She’s not a werewolf.”