Hey all.
I've been wanting to write a short story involving Lycans for a while now, and last night, everything just came together in the perfect order for me to churn this one out. I think I'm more proud of this piece than I am of anything else I've written, simply because there is nothing I want to change here.
So without further ado,
The Lycan Unleashed!
The minute I saw his teeth pierce her shoulder, I lost it.
I threw myself at him, still struggling to keep the wolf within contained inside my human form. I knew that if I could pry him off of her fast enough, the change wouldn’t take. But the next thing I was aware of, Caleb’s arm lashed out of nowhere and smashed into the side of my head. The force of the blow sent me flying sideways until I crashed head first into a tree twenty feet away. Had I been a human, the blow itself would’ve killed me, snapping my neck like a twig. As it was, the blow and subsequent collision with the tree scrambled me pretty good, and it was a quite a few seconds before I knew what was up and what was down again.
Damn my brother. He’s always been stronger than me.
By the time the world felt right again, I knew I was too late to stop it. Too much time had passed. It only takes 3 – 5 seconds for the Lycan gene to take hold after a bite, and I’d been out of commission for at least twice that. Sure enough, when I looked up at my brother again, he had let Jenna fall to the ground, his grinning lips stained with her blood.
That was all it took.
I cut loose. A deafening howl ripped from my throat as I finally transformed. Anger, rage, was the catalyst. It broke through the barrier down at the core of my heart where I had kept my wolf imprisoned during my short life in the human world. Now he… now
I flew through my own body as the power of my natural form exploded from within my chest. My ribs expanded, my spine extended, popping uncomfortably. Then my arms and legs elongated, the bones in my feet and ankles cracking loudly as their structure changed from plantigrade to digitigrade. My face was next, teeth sharpening, shifting, and extending as my jaws lengthened. The final wave of the change brought out my muscles and fur as the shifting of my skull came to an end, and I felt my paw pads inflate as my claws sprouted from my finger tips.
The whole process was completed in seconds and after it was done, my whole body sang with the desire to fight. I was already lost to Jenna. The word love doesn’t even begin to describe the truth of what a Lycan feels when they find their mate. But she was human; she deserved a choice as to whether or not she would join me in this life.
And now my older brother had taken that away from her.
I growled with rage and tore the night air apart with another furious howl even as Caleb laughed at me.
“Well done brother,” he said. “You’ve finally let yourself out of that foolish cage of yours. But you are sadly out of practice!”
I growled again as my brother transformed himself, his human form morphing almost instantly into his true, Werewolf form. Unlike my own coat, which was blended from black on my back, gray on my sides, and white on my front and muzzle, Caleb’s coat was a solid, inky black. He might have been pure shadow, had it not been for the evil yellow eyes and pearly teeth that gleamed in the darkness.
I couldn’t wait anymore.
Digging my claws into the earth, I sprinted headlong for my brother. He may have always been the stronger of the two of us, but I had always been faster.
I was also the better fighter. I’d proven it eight years ago.
When I was less than ten feet from Caleb, I threw myself at his chest like a javelin, claws first. I was too close for him to dodge and so the impact was solid, my claws digging into his flesh. We fell into the ground and he rolled on top of me, trying for the advantage. However, the momentum was on my side and I rolled again, kicking out with my feet to throw him against a nearby tree. He hit it back first with a pained yelp, but managed to regain his feet just as I began another charge. He was crouched low, counting on me leaping at him again so he could hit me in my exposed belly.
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
Even meeting him head on, he could still gain the upper hand by virtue of his superior strength. So I used a more human move. Another bound put me in range, and rather than jump or grab, I swung myself around and kicked him claws first in the face, following up with a second kick to his chest as he recoiled from the first. My foot impacted right above where I’d clawed him before and he howled in pain. He reared up as he howled and I sprang backwards, both to get back onto my own feet and put some distance between the two of us. Caleb snarled viciously at me and I snarled back, baring my teeth. He was going to pay for what he’d done to Jenna!
This time he came at me, but I was ready. He opened with a wide slash at my face, which I easily blocked. Before he could follow up, I ducked under his arm and slashed deep into his back with my left hand, ripping four long gashes into his back down to the bone. But the even slightly extra effort that took cost me time, and my indulgence earned me a brutal backfisted swing that hit me in the ribs and sent me sprawling on the ground ten feet away. I righted myself as quickly as I could, but Caleb’s blow had winded me, slowing me down. It also forced out some of the fury clouding my mind and made me think critically about where this fight was going.
There was no doubt that I could win it. There was even less doubt that I
wanted to win it. So long as I could continue avoiding or countering the majority of Caleb’s attacks, I could very easily pick him apart piece by piece. For whatever reason, he wasn’t fighting me with his full abilities and I could make him pay dearly for that mistake. I could make him pay for it with his life if I so chose. But that thought brought me up short.
Was I actually prepared to kill my own brother?
I chanced a glance at Jenna and my heart instantly fell to the ground. She was looking right up at me, her beautiful light blue eyes wide with wonder, but also fear and confusion.
‘Chase him off,’ I thought.
‘Chase him off so I can help her through the transformation. It doesn’t look like I have much time!’ I sank my claws back into the earth, preparing for another strike at my brother, who was still hissing and growling in pain from the claw marks I’d put into his back. My eyes scanned his entire body in less than a second, searching for any weakness that I could exploit that would force him to abandon the fight and leave us alone. If I could claw him across the left or right hip, come at him from the sides, the adverse effect on his mobility would do wonders for ending the fight quickly. But just as I prepared to act on this plan, a sharp groan came from Jenna! Faster than a human could blink, I was by her side with my hand on her shoulder. I sniffed at the wound on her shoulder and shuddered. Her once human scent was starting to change into that of a Lycan. Her transformation was only moments away.
Caleb must’ve realized this too, because I heard him start chuckling in between his grunts of pain.
“Won’t be long now,” he said. “She’s gonna turn any second now and when she does, we’ll see just how well your beloved human accepts what you really are.”
Caleb’s chuckles turned into outright laughter and he started to walk away. I wanted to chase after him and pound his skull into the nearest tree trunk, but Jenna cried out in both shock and pain and I instantly refocused all my senses on her. She looked up at me again, and the fear was plain in her eyes.
“Eric,” she moaned. “What’s happening to me?”
Topic: The Lycan Unleashed! (Read 1120 times)