Living with Wolves

I wake up with my hands tangled in thick grey fur. The room smells of dog and blood. And in the next room I can hear my son crying. Once I would have been reaching for the silver knife I always keep in by bedside table if I had woken next to a wolf the size of a small pony. Now…I’ll just bitch at Sebastian later for messing up another set of good sheets. My son is screaming his lungs out in the other room demanding to be fed. If I would have known that motherhood was this hard I would have aborted him. Well, maybe not aborted him but I would have castrated Sebastian for getting me in this situation in the first place. Now almost a year later it seems pointless.
I get up groping for my robe as I try to get my hair out of my face. My mind isn’t exactly working on full capacity since last night I was overindulging on account of not being fired again.
My son looks like his father. His hair is a strange combination of pitch black and baby blond standing on end no matter what I try to do to make him presentable. His face in narrow and longish with pronounced cheekbones and slanted eyes. The first thing I asked after the anaesthetic wore off was if my son had a tail or not. The doctor seemed surprised by the question but then the doctor didn’t know about my family life. I put my son to my breast and check to clock. In about an hour my bedroom will be a mess, my son will be upset by the screaming and Sebastian will go on a post change guilt trip. I cancel every newspaper subscription just to avoid the guilt trip for as long as possible. It happens every month, Sebastian will change and go roaming about for three nights, then there will always be unexplained deaths somewhere in the neighbourhood. Some idiot jogger will turn up in the park a few miles away mauled by a stray dog. Men’s best friend doesn’t have the best rep in these parts. I have a cat who can’t stand my boyfriend but then that doesn’t really surprise me.
I hit the switch on the coffee maker and wonder how many cups of coffee it will take for me to start functioning normally, whatever that means for me, before I have to start cleaning up a real mess.
I get through two cups of coffee and manage to make my son more or less presentable before the screaming starts from the bedroom. Being what they are Sebastian’s family is longer lived then most and more cut-throat. Inside a few centuries they had managed to hoard a tidy fortune I could now profit from. If it hadn’t been for the money we wouldn’t have managed to sound-proof the house enough that no Animal Control will come looking for a wild animal every time Sebastian changes. I put my son back in his crib and close the door. Now it’s just a matter of time.
Fifteen minutes later Sebastian stumbles out of the bedroom covered in gore and shaking. He manages to make it to the kitchen table before he collapses. I could make a comment that will leave him sulking for the rest of the week…but then I would have to suffer through that as well as the guilt. Instead I chose to shove a cup of coffee under his nose and silently start breakfast. Sebastian goes through a whole plate of bacon before he finally manages to speak.
“What’s the count this time?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up.”
“I’ll get the paper later.”
“Whatever, are you going to help clean up the bedroom?”
“I made it to the back room.”
Well at least he had the presence of mind to do that. Doesn’t mean the cleaning will be any easier. But it will be concentrated. The person we buy our disinfectant from just loves us. We sit in silence for a bit thinking about…things.
“Did he chance?”
He asks me this every full moon since my son was born. Like I said my son looks like his father, more and more so every day. When he grows up he will be a feral child and a ruthless man. But for now he is just a baby and after almost a year we still don’t know if he is a werewolf or not. Sebastian started to change when he was four months old, has never missed a full moon since. My son could be normal, human but that chance is rather small. Werewolf genes are pretty dominant, I suppose it’s just a matter of time before I have two of them screaming and hunting during the full moon. With that prospect we really should move out in to the country were they will be able to hunt animals instead of people but even as guilty as he feels every morning after Sebastian loathes that idea as much as I do.
“No, he didn’t. Slept the whole night through.”
There is no expression on Sebastian’s face. Which basically means that he hasn’t made up his mind yet about something. I know he doesn’t know if he wants my son to be a werewolf or not. If it turns out that he is Sebastian will have one more guilt trip to deal with if he isn’t then Sebastian is essentially without a pack…
“I’m going out for the paper.”
“Take a shower and take your son with you. I have things to do.”
He nods and slinks off, I can just see the guilt trip starting. I clean up after breakfast listening to the shower and then to Sebastian cooing at his son. For a ferocious and from time to time homicidal werewolf he can be such a softy. I gather the cleaning supplies and shuffle off the back room to get rid of the mess. On my way passed the spare room I glance in on the two men in my life. They are on the floor two pointy faces close together curled around each other making noises resembling soft growls. When they sense that I am near two pairs of amber eyes are train on me and track me as I pass the door. The two men in my life! They will drive me in to an early grave I’m sure of it. Maybe my mother was right…I should have married a nice boring accountant.