The next day was cold and sunny.
William drove his uncle's beaten up Subaru outback to the southside mansion. He was dressed in dark brown pants, light grey furred boots, vintage tan undershirt and waistcoat. Atop that, he wore a light grey furred coat, with wolf teeth buttons. He actually could make such a rustic look high fashion just by wearing it.
Violet swooned internally. She really wanted to run up to him and tell him she's the girl he kissed, if she weren't so afraid that it was her kiss that brought him to the edge of death at the lake.
William's eyes fell on Violet, he smiled at her in approval.
Violet is decked up in all her under armour winter hiking glory, with ash grey furred thigh high boots, two layers of thick black footed tights and violet waterproof runner shorts, grey t-shirt and a violet ski jacket atop that.
A normal human being would never be able to survive camping just with this set of clothes. After all, the temperatures are negative, and what Violet has worn was used for spring hiking where it's slightly warmer and mountainous than what it is currently.
Wynona is dressed similarly to Violet in her standard teal.
William looked at her in surprise.
Violet smiled back at William cheekily. "One more set of hands means fewer trips. My mother's free today. It's been a while since we spent time outdoors. You don't mind, Do you ? " Violet asked Willaim.
"No, of course not. The more, the merrier." William offered with his usual genuine smile, yet his eyes betrayed a flicker of something close to annoyance. He'd planned this as a solitary trip, a chance for the deep, primal energies of their burgeoning bond—whatever it was—to manifest. Wynona's presence meant chaperoning, not courting.
The trunk of the Subaru swallowed their moderate amount of gear—two backpacks, a small shovel, and a first-aid kit. William, ever the gentleman, opened the passenger door for Wynona, ensuring she sat up front, while Violet slid into the back.
The drive was slow and deliberate. William navigated the winding, snow-lined roads, heading not toward the vast, open plains of the Badlands, as initially discussed, but deeper into the silent, dense Blackwoods.
"Blackwoods?" Violet asked, leaning forward between the seats, her voice a shade too high. She knew the local legends; the Blackwoods were ancient, whispered to be cursed, and definitely not the optimal place for delicate flower bulbs.
"It's where the oldest, most resilient snowbells grow," William explained, meeting her gaze in the rearview mirror, his golden eyes steady. "They love the rich, dark soil near the old springs. We're not camping, per se. I rented a small, remote cabin near the main trail. We'll just be foraging for the bulbs and then heading back tomorrow."
Wynona, who had been uncharacteristically silent, finally spoke, her voice flat. "Keep track of the time. We are not spending the night past sundown in those woods."
Violet sank back into her seat, her mind racing. A cabin. Remote. Solitude. The windchill outside was a brutal constant, and even through the car's vents, the cold was a palpable thing. Her body, the one that had reacted so violently to the thought of William's proximity just yesterday, began its slow, inevitable internal simmer.
The werewolf in her was perpetually running hot, fueled by an internal furnace that had been kickstarted by William's first kiss. She was a biological paradox—a being that naturally generated excessive heat, now trapped in layers of synthetic fabric and a car that, while old, was doing a decent job of heating its cabin.
As they drove deeper, the trees grew taller, their branches heavy with pristine snow, blotting out the already faint afternoon sun. The silence was profound, broken only by the crunch of the tires on the snowy gravel road.
"Tell me more about the snowbells, William," Violet prompted, trying to distract herself from the warmth pooling in her core. She needed to focus on the 'nerdy' persona.
William launched into a knowledgeable discourse on Galanthus nivalis subspecies variations in the Dakotas, their adaptation to the soil mineral content, and the precise moment after the thaw they needed to be dug up—a dry, academic topic designed to impress the 'science chick.'
But Violet couldn't concentrate. The image of William's chest, lean beneath the vintage waistcoat, kept flashing in her mind. His scent—a clean, woodsy smell of pine and cold air, overlaid with something muskier and uniquely 'wolf'—was intoxicating and dangerous in the small space.
Heat. Pressure. Surge.
It started in her stomach, climbing up her throat like liquid fire, making her breath catch. Her eyes, behind the thick lenses of her glasses, were starting to sting. She knew this feeling. It was the pre-shift rush, the moment the wolf demanded dominance and release. It had been mild before, but now, sitting so close to her mate, it was a tsunami.
Cold water. Cold water stops it. Wynona's single, grudgingly given piece of information from the night before echoed in her mind. I threw you into cold water... It stopped your transformation to a cold stop.
She subtly flexed her toes in her boots, trying to ground herself, but it only made the feeling worse. Her skin felt too tight against her muscle, and a low, almost subsonic hum vibrated in her ears. She risked a glance at her reflection in the darkened window. Her eyes were definitely not their usual grey; a faint, dangerous shimmer of gold was already there.
She needed out. Now.
The car finally pulled to a stop in a small, cleared area beside a barely visible trailhead. William turned off the ignition, and the sudden silence felt deafening.
"We'll take the north trail," William announced, reaching for the door handle. "It should be about a two-mile hike to the cabin. Wynona, are you sure you're up for this?"
"I'm fine," Wynona said curtly, already stepping out and stretching.
Violet didn't wait. The moment her door opened, the brutal, negative-degree air hit her, and it was the most glorious relief she had ever felt. It was like plunging a white-hot knife into a bucket of ice water.
"I'll take the lead!" Violet called out, her voice a strange mix of cheerfulness and raw urgency. She hiked up her backpack strap and, instead of walking toward the trail, she started running.
She wasn't running on the trail; she was running through the woods, past the trees, leaping over fallen logs and patches of deep, untouched snow.
"Violet! Wait up! The trail is this way!" William shouted behind her, the sound distant.
She heard William transform, the sickening crack of bones reshaping, followed by the soft padding of four paws on the snow—a larger, faster animal joining the pursuit. Wynona's voice, a panicked yell, was the last human sound she registered.
Violet ran like a broken arrow, her speed astonishing even herself. Her under-armour gear was already completely useless, the cold not registering past the ferocious internal heat. William, even in his magnificent wolf form, would never have been able to find her had she run when he was looking elsewhere. But William was already on her scent, a primal radar fixed solely on her.
She flew for what felt like miles, guided by an instinct she didn't know she possessed. She heard the gurgling sound before she saw it—a natural stream.
Ice melt from the mountains had formed a stream, and soon, it would join the main river. The cold of the air was a lie; this was the true, life-saving cold she needed.
She stopped running all of a sudden, skidding to a halt on the bank. She ripped off her coat, her gloves, her boots, tossing them haphazardly into the snow. The runner shorts followed, and the thick tights. In seconds, she was standing on the stream bank, wearing only her violet sports bra and matching bikini-cut underwear, her teeth chattering with an exquisite mix of relief and freezing cold.
For one second, she scanned the perimeter. No one. Only the sound of William's wolf-paws rapidly approaching.
She jumped in to the stream.
The water was a shock, a sudden, brutal, bone-numbing blast that clamped down on the volcanic heat raging inside her. It was cold enough to kill a normal person in minutes, but for Violet, it was salvation. The gold shimmer faded from her eyes, and the aggressive pressure in her chest eased.
Violet swam but one circle, pushing the cold into her core, before William arrived at the place.
He stopped at the bank, his powerful grey-and-black wolf form steaming in the frigid air. He hadn't bothered to transform back to human; the urgency of his mate-scent was too strong, too demanding. He had chased her down like a feral predator, driven by an instinct he hadn't known he possessed.
William had seen her running away in her human form, but what he saw now was a goddess rising from a frozen, mist-shrouded spring.
Her human form, slick with water, seemed ethereal, impossibly beautiful against the stark white and grey of the woods. The water streamed from her violet jacket-colored hair, plastered against her neck, pooling briefly on the smooth, pale skin of her shoulders. The effect was immediate and dizzying on the great wolf.
He had been dreaming about this girl since the day he first met her at the lake. Sometimes she told him she loved him, they lived happily ever after in a small house by the side of an interesting forest.
"The fairy!" William decided, a single, deep, choked noise escaping his throat, a sound halfway between a human gasp and a wolf's whine.
"Angel! Angel!" William called her imploringly, chasing after her in his mind, though he was physically frozen by the scene and the scent of raw, wet mate.
Violet had her back to him, otherwise, she would have been found out by now. She was still in her human form, but the cold water had calmed the wolf-frenzy, leaving her mind clear.
'What to do' .. 'What to do' …
Any minute now, William will reach her and turn her around, then know it is her. The dowdy, bespectacled nerd from school. She does not want that to happen. She's not yet willing to be with William publicly as of yet. She loved the chase, the mystery, the sense of power she held over him as the unattainable fantasy.
The tension strung the nerves of Violet, and froze her in place. Her mind went blank, except for a single, desperate, instinctive command: Hide. Do not be seen as yourself.
William, impatient and driven by his mate-lust, took a decisive step forward, transforming mid-stride into his human self. He was still wearing the clothes, having mastered a partial shift that preserved his attire—a neat trick Violet had yet to learn. The fur coat now hung slightly open, the wolf-teeth buttons gleaming, revealing his broad, defined chest, mist rising off his clothes from the sudden temperature change.
He put his hand on her shoulder, about to turn her around, his voice a low, breathy baritone. "My Angel, why did you run?"
At that moment, the raw, unthinking need for secrecy, triggered by the unexpected human touch, overruled everything. The wolf surged, cold water be damned, forcing the shift.
Her spine elongated, her limbs thickened, and her clothes—the only evidence of her true identity—were instantly shredded and absorbed by the sudden, violent mass of fur and muscle. The thick tights, the bra, the panties—all of it vanished, leaving nothing but the glistening wet form of a sleek, dark-furred wolf.
Just as William touched Violet's shoulder to turn her around, the wolf in her surged.
In that moment, a light bulb went off 'Ting' in Violet's head.
She immediately transformed into a wolf, and Willam lost his balance a little, but righted himself immediately.
Violet consoled herself. It doesn't matter if he has seen her leftover clothes, nor does it matter if he has seen her reflection in the water, all the same, she will not change back unless he clearly asks.