#werewolf!rhett

She didn’t feel tired, not yet. That would take hours upon hours of running through the Wyoming fields and wild country men feared to venture into. But she could only go so fast and Rhett was nearly a head taller than her — in both wolf and human form. There was no way she would ever catch him, trailing him like this. So she stopped and skidded to a halt, leaving overturned dirt in her wake. Rhett kept on going. They were running along the edge of the forest that skirted the west pasture. They didn’t usually go here. The east pasture having the creek to roll and splash in, and the north having more dense forest to get lost in. 

A snort escaped her as a plan formed. Tessa trotted into the woods, the shade beneath the pines darkened as the sun tipped under the horizon. But it gave her the perfect cover as she ran west after Rhett. 

“Tess? Where’d you go?” Rhett’s question appeared in her mind. 

She could hear his giant paws stamping in the earth as he turned to look for her. But, she didn’t respond. Kept every thought and word silent as she ran through the trees. 

“Oh, com’on, tha’s not funny,” he said. 

Her lips pulled back in a snarling grin, showing sharp canines and pink gums. Suddenly she saw him, standing out in the open, turning in circles as he searched for her. Ears perked, listening. His head jerked at the sound of her breaking through the brush. There was no time to waste. Tessa charged into a sprint and broke the treeline. Head ducked down and shoulder turned, she slammed into Rhett’s unsuspecting side. He let out a surprised yelp as they tumbled to the ground together.

They rolled once, twice, and then Rhett was flat on his back — Tessa standing triumphant over him. 

“Ha! Pinned ya!” 

He huffed. “Only ‘cause ya scared me.” 

“Still counts,” she replied.

Rhett glared. Then suddenly two paws were kicked into her belly. All the air got knocked out of her lungs as she fell to the side, Rhett quickly rolling over to pin her to the ground. 

“Pinned ya,” he mocked. 

Even in his wolf face, she could see his smirk. Smug and victorious. She knew she would never get out of this the way he did. Rhett was not only bigger but stronger than her too. She had only been able to turn into a wolf for a few months, but still, she had learned tactics in order to get away from enemies even twice or three times her size. She bit his leg. Not hard enough to break skin, just play, but he still yowled and rolled off of her. 

“Ow! Tess, cut it out! Cut it out!” Through his protests, he was laughing. 

He returned her bite with one of his own, nibbling at her side and making her giggle and howl. And they continued to roll around in the long grass, laughing and biting and tussling. A soft, warm breeze blew through the fields. The sleeping sun turned the clouded sky into brilliant shades of pink and purple. Crickets began their chorus and an owl hooted as its hunt began. Two young wolves forgetting the world for a moment. 

“Well, what do we have here?” a new voice asked, their low, whispering voice cold as ice in their minds. 

Rhett and Tessa instantly sat up, dust settling around them as they searched for the source. Their hackles stood on end, the skin beneath cold and tingling despite the heat. It had to be another wolf, the voice wasn’t spoken aloud. And only wolves could talk to each other through their own thoughts. But the source wasn’t hard to find. 

Two larger wolves were approaching them slowly from the west. Each of them with coats a dirty blond and bigger than even Rhett. Nearly fully grown. Their eyes shown bright as stars in the coming darkness, white, devoid of all color. Omegas. Tessa’s heart sank into her stomach, anchored down by a fear garnered from scary stories told around bonfires. 

“Looks like new toys, t’me,” a different voice said, one of the wolves’ lips pulling back in a snarl. 

Rhett and Tessa scrambled to their feet. Tessa huddled close to Rhett’s side, ears pinned to her head as she stared down the approaching wolves. Unable to look at anything else. Out of the corner of her eye, Rhett’s ears remained upright. Pricked for any noise. She wondered if he was forcing them to be that way to appear braver than he was. 

“Tillersons,” Rhett spoke low, hoping only Tessa would be able to hear him. 

But he was wrong. “Tha’s right, kid. You’ve earned y’rself a prize.” 

“What’d he win?” 

“A warning.” One wolf stepped forward, the smaller of the two staying behind, circling the younger wolves with his head hung low. “Gettin’ too close to our land, kids. If we find ya out here again, m’gonna —”

“This ain’t your land,” Rhett spoke up, head swiveling to keep up with the stalking Tillerson wolf. “We c’n be here.”

“Rhett,” Tessa hissed, coming in closer to his side with her tail tucked between her legs — unable to hide the terror flooding her veins.

“By the moon, Billy, get over here!” the circling wolf called to the other, then he looked back with a wicked grin. “We got ourselves the spare son himself.” 

“Who’s the other one?” Billy asked as he stepped closer. 

“Abernathy by that fur.”

Tessa glanced back at her wolf body, at her creamy-white coat now dulled with dust. A trait inherited from her father, passed from Abernathy to Abernathy for generations — distinct to anyone who knew better. Billy got closer, sniffed at Tessa as she cowered into Rhett’s side. She wanted to just turn tail and run. Never look back and never go to the west pasture again. But she wouldn’t dare leave Rhett behind, knowing he would stay and fight if he had to. 

Anything to prove himself. 

“Hey!” Rhett snapped his teeth at Billy’s snout, who backed off with a surprised wail. “Stay away from her!”

The other wolf laughed and jeered. “She’a bit of a soft spot for ya? Huh, Spare?” 

“Quit callin’ me that,” Rhett growled, front paws widening like he was going to pounce. 

“She’s a pretty lil’ thing. Maybe, if ya don’come near our land again, I’won’t jus’take’er for myself.”

Tessa could feel her legs shaking as she backed away from the wolf’s pale hungry gaze. Feeling only slightly comforted when Rhett put himself between them. 

“We’re not on your land,” Rhett answered, low and growling. 

“Close enough!” the wolf shouted, making them both flinch at the harsh sound only in their minds. “Y’re old enough t’turn, y’re old enough t’know our history. Honestly, we should jus’kill ya righ’now. One less Abernathy — one less Abbott to worry about.”

“Trevor,” Billy warned — but it appeared his brother didn’t want to listen. 

“One less thing standin’ in our way of runnin’ Waya Pack.”

Trevor stalked closer. Hackles raised, ears back, teeth bared to show his red gums. The air was dry and hot, the light of day gone. Replaced with the vigilant eye of the moon who seemed content to watch how this played out. Silence fell upon the world as a blanket, even the chirping of crickets had ceased in the presence of the oncoming violence. Tessa’s heart pounded in her chest, she could hear her own blood flowing in her ears, as she stared wide-eyed at the Tillerson wolf ready to kill her. Just for her name. Just for their history she barely understood. 

“Tess, run!”

Rhett swept at Trevor with his great paw. Slashing him across the face with his claws. Trevor yelped, red blood instantly flowing from the cuts and into his snarling face. 

She didn’t have to think twice. Taking off in the opposite direction, she didn’t even look back. Her legs pumped hard with real and present danger at her heels. Her heart raced, dry air like a thousand needles in her lungs. Why didn’t she remember that the Abbott’s west pasture abutted Tillerson land? Why did she let Rhett convince her to come out there in the first place? They both knew better than to go messing with a Tillerson. That werewolf family that wanted them dead. That walked around with no alpha to lead them all because their patriarch didn’t think Rhett’s father was cut out for the job — despite his right as the latest in a long line of Abbott Alphas. Who would stop at nothing to see the Abbott line ended and Waya Pack under their control. 

She didn’t want to look back. She wanted to forget. She wanted to play in the creek and bite at Rhett’s ankles and be a wolf pup. But Tessa did look back. When she heard a whimpering bark echo through the dark behind her. From a voice she knew all too well. Whose pain she felt somewhere deep within her chest.

Rhett was on the ground, covered by a blond mass of fur with a bleeding eye. They rolled around in the grass, much like he and Tessa were only minutes before, but these bites were meant to draw blood. Claws digging in and growls rumbling the very earth. 

“Rhett!” Tessa cried as she turned, fumbling over herself like a fawn on ice to get back and help him.

Even if it hurt. Even if it cost her her life.

How could she go back to being a kid after this?

She roared as her shoulder collided with Trevor, using all her momentum and all her weight to knock him off of Rhett.

“S-Stay back!” she barked, shooting for confident but hitting terrified. “We’re goin’ home. We w-won’t come back here’gain. Please, jus’leave us alone.” 

Rhett groaned on the ground behind her as she backed up over his form, covering him as best she could with her smaller frame. Her limbs shook, her fur stood on end, as Trevor got up and snarled at her. Blood poured from his face, blotching out his right eye in red. Rhett’s blood glistened on his sharp teeth as he bared them at her, stalking closer. 

“Such a pretty lil’thing,” he repeated. 

It made her sob. 

Then, a great and mighty roar echoed in the clearing. Deep and booming, a noise from a crack in the earth. An Alpha’s roar. Tessa instantly bowed her head, forced into humble submission by the call of the Alpha. Instant relief, instant calm. Her Alpha was here. Everything was going to be okay. Even Trevor, an Omega belonging to now pack, could not resist. Curling in on himself as he halted in his tracks.

Not a moment later, Royal Abbott lept over Tessa and Rhett, who still lay on the ground. He growled low in his throat as he landed with a thud, his wolf form as big as a truck. Brown fur spotted with grey glittering in the moonlight. Trevor could do nothing but cower in the face of such power — even though he claimed not to submit to it. 

“Get lost before I rip out y’r throat,” Royal sneered.

Trevor scrambled to his feet and ran off whimpering. Billy followed quickly behind.

As soon as he was gone, Tessa turned to Rhett. She could feel her muscle and bone shifting, fur receding — the wolf retreating back inside her human form. The calm brought on by her Alpha’s presence and the oncoming exhaustion forced her to change. Just as Rhett seemed to have done as he lay there just a boy, twitching and bleeding. 

“Rhett,” she sighed as she dropped to her knees beside him. “Oh god.” 

There were claw marks on his neck and collarbone. An indent of teeth and canines torn through his t-shirt at his side, blood still weeping to the surface. He clutched at his stomach, where the bleeding was the worst, fingers digging in as he tried to make it stop.

“M’gonna be fine, Tess,” he rasped out, his free hand curling around her wrist. “Don’cry.” 

She didn’t even realize she was. But she could feel it now. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks and blurred her vision to vague shapes as she clutched at his torn shirt. Put her hand over the cuts on his neck to somehow make the healing go faster. Imbue him with some of her own power just to make it stop.

She had never seen so much crimson in her life.

“What the hell d’you think y’were doin’?” Royal bellowed suddenly, rounding Rhett’s prone form to stare his youngest pack members down — eyes still burning red even in his human state.

Beyond her control, Tessa felt her mouth open and words begin to fall out, “We-We were just playin’. Horsin’ around. Th-They came outta nowhere.” 

Royal put his hands on his hips. “You cross the fence line?”

“No!” she shouted, tears making her throat burn. “Couldn’t even — see it.” 

“Dad, let off’er,” Rhett croaked, trying to sit up. “We weren’t doin’ nothin’. Swear.”

Royal was silent for a moment. His shoulders heaving and nostrils flaring as he stared down at the two of them. His youngest betas, freshly turned born wolves only fifteen years old. So much to learn. So much they didn’t know. So must he wanted to keep from them just to preserve them as they were when they left the ranch house an hour ago. Laughing together. Playing together. As young pups should.

But now his son lay bleeding. The girl who would follow him anywhere by his side, blood all over her hands and clothes. Fear in both their eyes. In the tremble of their hands. In the way they looked to him for answers he didn’t possess.

They couldn’t go back to being those children now.

“Com’on,” he spoke simply, quietly. 

In a moment, Royal was overcome by his wolf once more. Standing tall and proud before lowering his belly to the ground. Tessa helped Rhett to his feet, then with her arm around his waist — careful of his injury despite it no longer hurting him — she assisted him over to his father. The exhaustion was really starting to set in now. Deep in her bones. Not only from the horror with the Tillersons but merely from the transformation. Girl to wolf and back to girl again. She wouldn’t be able to get back to her wolf form until she was rested even if she tried. 

Rhett climbed up onto his father’s back first. Smearing blood into his fur. Then Tessa followed, settling in front with her fingers tangled in the long coarse hairs.

“Hang on,” Royal’s nearly imperceptible rumble sounded in her thoughts. 

And then they were off at a trot. She squeezed her legs around Royal’s middle, much like she did when she rode her horse. Rhett slumped against her back, hands bracing himself against her thigh and waist. He groaned as they bounced along, forehead coming to rest against her shoulder. 

“They hurt you?” he asked quietly.

The crickets were chirping again. An owl hooted somewhere — mouse in its talons.

“No,” she replied, looking over at his sweaty hair drenched in moonlight. “M’okay.” 

He only grunted in reply. A confirmation. A sound she had heard so many times before but this time it made her smile. A relieved sort of thing as she leaned back against him just a little more. It was a sound she could have never heard again. The thought scared her. Made her blood run cold as she looked back at the west pasture one final time. A line of trees and swaying grass disappearing as they turned north. Never to return. Her Alpha didn’t even have to say it for her to know.

When they arrived back at the Abbott ranch house, her parents were standing outside waiting for her. Her father with his hands on his hips, her mother holding a shawl around her shoulders, hand pressed anxiously to her neck. Rhett’s older brother, Perry, stood on the porch with his mate under his arm. Rebecca, turned by the bite only a year ago, her hand resting on her rounded belly. Rhett was no longer leaning on her as much, hands retreating from her as his strength returned. He didn’t even need help getting down from Royal’s back — sliding off first as soon as his father came to a stop.

Once on solid ground, her parents rushed her. Her mother squeezed up and down her arms, looking all over for any sort of wounds or marks. Her father cupped the back of her head and gently forced her to look up at him. His face was stern but his eyes swam with a fear she had never seen before. 

“M’okay. M’not hurt,” she assured, even as her mother continued to fuss. “S’Rhett that needs tendin’ to.” 

She looked over her mother’s shoulder to her friend as he lowered himself down onto the porch steps with a grimace, clutching his side. It was true that his wounds were already beginning to heal. What would have still been bleeding and most likely killed an average person, was already clotted. But precautions still had to be taken, wounds bandaged and sealed together to help the healing along. 

Tessa’s mother, as Waya Pack’s healer, turned to the young boy. But stopped when Royal growled. 

“In his room, June,” he gruffed out as he walked past, blood stains on his jacket. “I wan’both of’em inside and kept tha’way till mornin’. Burn their clothes.”

He pounded up the steps past his son, barely sparing him a glance. Then he disappeared inside the house, the screen door slamming shut behind him. Perry and his bride followed suit. Only Rebecca looked back at Rhett with a kind of sympathy Tessa had never seen an Abbott display before, pretty blonde hair flicking over her shoulder.

Her father came to collect her clothes an hour later. T-shirt and jeans covered in dirt and blood and darkness and glowing white eyes. He wouldn’t meet her eye and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to. Tessa’s hair hung damp around her shoulders as she passed off the bundle through the small crack she had made in the door.

“Y’alright, bug?” he asked softly, clothes held at his side.

No she wanted to say. She wanted to burst into tears like a child and have him hold her in his lap like he would back then. Put on cartoons and give her a treat to help her forget. But those days were over and done. Her friend almost died. She almost died. The Tillersons were still out there. Watching them from only a few miles away. Waiting to strike. 

She just nodded instead. “S’Rhett okay?”

Her father sighed and smiled, a small knowing thing. “He’s jus’fine. Should be all better come mornin’.” 

Tessa nodded again and he shut the door with a goodnight. But how could she possibly go to sleep? When she still heard Trevor’s cold whisper in her mind like an icy wind and saw the tearing of flesh from bone? She lay in her bed, quilt pulled up to her chin, and stared at the popcorn texture of the ceiling. It made sense why they didn’t return to the Abernathy home across town. The pack needed to stay together after such an event. But so much like the child she felt she could no longer be, she craved her own bed. Her own quilted blanket her mother made while pregnant with her. Her own popcorn-textured ceiling. For her and her friend never to have gone into the west pasture in the first place.

After what felt like several hours of trying, Tessa threw back her blankets and got out of bed. The floorboards creaked and groaned as she crossed the room to the window. The world was a black void. Only illuminated by the bright, shining disc of the moon. Almost full. She could feel its power tingling in her chest, in the tips of her fingers.

Cecelia Abbott, before she passed on from this life, used to say that the Moon Goddess had cursed Waya Pack. Abandoned them to a world set against them. Why else would the Tillerson family turn away from the pack and their numbers shrink to barely seven? Waya was a pack the Goddess wanted dead — for what sins Cecelia could never say. But Tessa did not think, as she looked up into the pale moon’s comforting face, that the Goddess could be so cruel. She was of blessings and curses, but she cared for her children. Even in the bleakest of hours. 

Opening the window, knowing the whole house could hear her, she climbed out onto the roof. The shingles were rough beneath her bare feet, but she didn’t mind. With the night came cooler air, still dry, but somehow more tolerable.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” a voice asked. 

She jumped and turned, only to see Rhett sitting there in his pajama bottoms, hugging his knees. Shoulder and side held together with crimson-stained bandages. His blue eyes looked swollen from crying in the moonlight, but she didn’t comment on it. 

“No,” she said as she crawled over to sit next to him.

Rhett took a shaky breath. “M’sorry. We shoulda…Shoulda jus’gone t’the creek.” 

“S’not y’r fault.” 

He didn’t say anything to that. Only sniffed and leaned back on the heels of his hands, legs outstretched. “Waddaya think’s gonna happen now?”

“I don’ know,” she said with a shrug, looking up at the stars spattered across the sky like spilled salt. “Now tha’we’re full wolves, I guess we’ll find out.”

Now that we’ve seen blood. Now that we’re not kids anymore. 

Rhett grunted that familiar low noise and Tessa looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Not yet boy and not yet man. His hair was cut short like his mother preferred but Tessa knows he hates. A lone curl brushed his forehead. Blue eyes like stormy skies turned towards the moon. To the goddess who felt so far above. 

She knew they weren’t mated. If they were, they would know by now. Her mother having long before told her the signs. That unexplainable draw to them, that connection. She knew she didn’t have that with Rhett, but it didn’t stop her from feeling something for him. It didn’t stop her heart from racing anytime they shared looks across rooms or tables, secrets and jokes and promises to laugh later. It didn’t stop her stomach from filling with butterflies anytime he touched her. It didn’t stop her from dreaming about one day, maybe, them being together. Taking residence in the little cottage on her parents' land and filling it with pups of their own. It was a fool's dream, but a good dream. 

It didn’t stop her from wondering if his actions today were some evidence that he felt the same.

“Can I ask you somethin’?” she asked, he just turned his head to look at her, eyebrows raised expectantly, so she went on. “Why’d you…Defend me like that to the Tillersons?”

Her hand inched across the shingles towards his own, grating against her palm like sandpaper. A fool’s hope. What if…?

The corner of his mouth ticked up before he said, “‘Cause y’re my best friend. Couldn’t stand’em talkin’bout you like that.”

Heart no longer racing. Butterflies put to rest. Of course. They were friends. Nothing more. Always would be. Tessa drew back her hand. Turned her face towards the moon, the Goddess’ eye hung so high, high up in the sky, and said nothing more.

Two years later, Rhett and Tessa were still just pups in everyone else’s eyes. Though Rhett was now nearly as big as his father in wolf form and even taller than him as a boy. Strong and powerful — ready for a fight. Tessa remained the smallest member of the pack, but she was stealthy, quick and quiet — her eyes keen.

The two of them grew even closer. Sticking together both in and out of school. Tessa never brought up her feelings for Rhett, no matter how much they grew as they grew too. They were friends, best friends, and always would be. Wolves in the same pack. Together until the end.

And nothing further had happened with the Tillersons. That Omega clan. But Waya Pack remained ready, vigilant, cautious.

Until one day Rebecca went on a walk to left off some steam after a fight with Perry. 

She never came back home.

They searched for three days on their own, wolf noses turned to the earth, following her scent. Eventually, they crossed the west pasture and the smell of death. Perry howled, a sorrowful sound that rattled the trees, ready and willing to go onto Tillerson land and kill them all. But they were too many, and Waya was too few. Even more so now that Rebecca was gone.

So Royal turned to the law. Hoped they could find something to lock Wayne and the rest of his spawn away forever. But the sheriff couldn’t find a shred of evidence, going so far as to turn the blame back on Perry after hearing about the fight they had. 

They searched for a year, but eventually, the police just stopped looking.

Their little daughter, Amy, was only two years old. Eyes as big and blue as the sky and bright blonde hair down to her ears. The spitting image of her turned-wolf mother. Tessa held the toddler on her lap as the sheriff delivered the news that Rebecca was gone — and there was nothing to be done.

Waya Pack, settled in Wabang and ruled by Abbott blood for over 200 years, was down to six fighting wolves. Dying — on the brink of extinction. Cursed. For what sins Tessa still didn’t know, but she tried to repent of them regardless. To save her family, her friends, her way of life. 

Her everything.

Seven days after the police gave up on their search for Rebecca, three days after Tessa’s eighteenth birthday, Royal asked the Abernathy clan to come to dinner. 

Not an unusual occurrence. In fact, the families had dinner together multiple times a week in those days. When the world seemed to be caving in around them and their only hope was each other. But the air felt…Off as they sat around the cramped kitchen table and ate their chicken and potatoes. Gone was the usual quiet calm, the strength that comes with being together as a pack. It was replaced by a tense silence, parents sharing sidelong glances, and the uneasy scraping of cutlery against China. 

She glanced at Rhett to see if he was feeling the same and he gave her a look back. He was. He felt it too. They wondered if the storm would break during or after their meal.

After, it seemed it would be. As Royal led everyone into the living room and her parents decidedly sat in the armchairs on either side of the couch, Royal choosing to stand by the fireplace. Rhett and Tessa shared another look. Eyebrows furrowed, lips turned down in frowns. What is going on? They sat down on the couch together slowly, looking around at everyone with shifting eyes — noticing that Perry did not join them. The storm clouds were dark, ready to burst at any moment. Their parents kept looking at them anxiously, almost with pity. 

Rhett opened his mouth to tell them to just be out with it. 

But Royal beat him to the punch: 

“The Abernathy’s’n I’ve been talkin’. You two’re goin’t’get married.” 

The storm had only just begun.