Fall of the Shifters
By Douglas Benjamin
This is a short story set in the world of my werewolf series, Pact of the Packmates! The full Pact of the Packmates novel is now available on Amazon at http://bit.ly/PactFullNifty
"We're dangerous like this," said Mark, baring his teeth. They were sharp, and they grew sharper as his face pushed out into the muzzle of a werewolf. His nose blackened and he growled.
"Ah, knock it off," said Terry. He was lounging in casual wear on a ratty old sofa in the pack house, where he and the other werewolf shifters lived. There were an even dozen of them, and they all looked up to Terry as the oldest at 35.
"I'm serious," said Mark, his face reverting. "We're beasts. Dangerous. Violent. We don't know anything about this curse."
"It ain't a curse," said Jake. He was lying shirtless on his belly on the carpet in the middle of the living room. Timmy, the shortest of the pack, was straddling him and giving him a massage, his hands rubbing up and down over the fur on Jake's back, avoiding Jake's tail as it swayed back and forth.
"It is," said Mark. "You think you're in control. But you're not. None of us are. And it's time we stopped listening to Terry."
Terry stood suddenly and strode to the center of the room to stand over Mark. He was tall, even in his human form, and Mark seemed to shrink a bit before him. "Where the fuck did you get these ideas," said Terry. His tail was erect, a sign of trouble.
Mark stammered for a moment, and then recovered. "From -- from the -- I've been doing research," he said. "Look." He held his hands together, concentrated, and when he parted them there was a small glowing ember of flame suspended in the air. Terry backed up, surprised.
"What the hell's that?" he said. His tail switched from side to side.
Mark clapped his hands on the flame and then parted them again. His palms had a red glow to them now.
"This is a wildflame," he said. "I read about it in one of the old books that Bill and Doug left us."
"What's it do?" said Jake from down on the floor.
"I'll show you," said Mark, his face clouding with anger. "I'll demonstrate on our precious fucking leader." He pointed at Terry, there was a red glow at his finger tip, and then suddenly a bolt of energy shot from his finger and hit Terry square in the chest, knocking him back.
Jake jumped up, knocking little Timmy to the side. "What did you do!" he exclaimed.
Terry, woozy, shook his head. "It's okay," he said. "I'm okay, just a little confrrrr... confused about whrrrrr, about why you'rrrrrrre doing grrrrr woof woof! Woof!" His voice dissolved into barks and growls, and he clutched at his throat.
"You see?" said Mark standing over him. "You can't control it. Not really. And that was just one hit. Look what two does." He pointed again at Terry, and again there was the red crackle of energy that shot from his finger and hit Terry in the chest.
Terry struggled and tried to speak again. Again, it was just barks and growls -- and then he stumbled and fell to his hands. But they weren't hands. As he held them up in front of his face, they grew hair, and the palms thickened with pads. His fingers twitched and shortened, becoming paws.
Terry's feet began to swell in his white athletic socks, stretching and bulging. Claws tore through the seam at the toe, bursting through the fabric and ripping it to shreds. He threw back his head and howled. This wasn't an unfamiliar scene at the house -- the guys shifted all the time -- but never before had one of them been forced to do so.
"You have to stop," said Jake, gesturing to Terry. "Mark! Turn him back." A few of the other pack mates came hurrying into the room, alerted to trouble by Terry's desperate howl.
Mark pointed at Jake. "You want it next?" he said.
"No!" said Jake. "Don't shift anyone without their permission! Mark, this is wrong. We can talk about it. Just stop!"
"You choose," said Mark. "You or him. Who gets wilded next?"
"Neither!" Jake exclaimed.
"Fine," said Mark. "Here's another taste." He pointed down at Terry, who was straining uselessly to turn back, and fired another bolt of energy.
This time, the red crackle washed over Terry and he started to surge with muscle. Strength rippled through his shoulders, which swelled under his t-shirt and tore a seam at the neck. Next his arms bulged, growing wide and thick and ripped the sleeves. His chest barreled out and his torso thickened, finally shredding the shirt as Terry howled in desperation again. Then his legs, inflating into massive trunks of strength, shortening under his body so Terry could stand naturally on all fours. He panted in exhaustion, halfway shifted to his ware form with just a hint of hair on his quadrupedal form.
"This has to stop," Jake said. He couldn't bear to see Terry, his best friend, his pack mate, humiliated like this. He advanced towards Mark, unsure what he could do but knowing he had to do something.
Then he felt the hands on his arms, holding him back. He glanced over his shoulder to see his packmates Harry and Carl gripping him. "Not so fast," said Carl.
"Hold him," said Mark. "Once Terry's done, he'll be next."
"No!" Timmy exclaimed, rushing towards Mark.
Without missing a beat, Mark turned and fired five bolts of energy directly towards Timmy -- five rapid red blasts that knocked him to the ground, and by the time he landed he was completely changed. Timmy collapsed, fully transformed into a snarling, growling, shaggy brown werewolf, still short but now thick with muscle, and shook himself in an attempt to change back. No luck.
Mark turned to Terry and blasted him one more time. Fur raced over Terry's body, swirling down his neck and back and over his chest, coating his ass and legs with a dark grey pelt. The fur raced over his face, darkening his expression of fear before Mark knelt down, put his finger to Terry's nose, and blasted him one more time.
Terry didn't flinch this time as his nose turned dark and pressed out into a muzzle, completing his unwilling transformation.
Timmy crept over to him, and the two forcibly-transformed weres stood together, staring up at the assembled pack. Everyone in the house was now present, some shocked, some looking smug.
"How many of you were in on this?" said Jake, furious.
"Enough of us," said Mark. "We don't all love this life, you know. We don't all want to be beasts."
"You don't have to -- nobody's forcing you!" said Jake.
"Fuck you," said Mark. "The appetites are forcing us. Every night I'm hungry to fuck. Every day I'm consumed by sex. It's time someone freed us."
"How does this help?" said Jake, pointing to Terry and Timmy. "How does this free anyone?"
"It doesn't," said Mark. "But I have some friends who can."
The front door of the pack house swung open and four men in hunting gear entered. The pack scattered to the far wall of the room, and Terry growled ominously.
"Good job," said one of the strange men. "We'll take it from here."
"Who the fuck..." Jake began.
"You can think of us as hunters," said the man. "And we've been looking for your kind. Not to hurt you. Just to learn. Experiment. Figure out what makes you... special."
One of the other hunters knelt next to Terry and Timmy, and removed a series of leather straps from a duffel bag. The other two men grabbed Terry and held him in place while he thrashed, trying to free himself. But the men were strong, and the one with the straps slipped them around his torso with a quickness.
Suddenly, Terry stopped struggling. The men released him. Terry looked up, confusion on his face, and started to whimper with his tail tucked between his legs.
"Very docile," said the lead hunter. "Excellent."
"They'll turn us back," said Mark, turning to the other members of the pack. "They can figure out what makes us weres. They can reverse it. We'll be normal again!"
"Well, let's not oversell it," said the lead hunter, and striding to Mark he wrapped his arms around him and snapped a harness into place.
"No! Wait! I helped ... youuuuu ..." Mark's voice faded away as he sunk to his knees, staring up at the man.
The hunter knelt down and ruffled Mark's hair. "You sure did, sport," he said. "That was dumb of you." He grabbed Mark's wrist, shaped his fingers into a pointer, and then turned Mark's hand to point as his own chest. "Fire."
"NoooooOOOOOO!" Mark's wail turned into a howl as he shot himself with his own bolt of wildflame, his voice disintegrating into that of a beast.
"Fire," said the man, and Mark's hand's shuddered and became paws, his feet bursting from his shoes with claws and fur. "Fire," the man said again, still holding Mark's paw to his chest, and another bolt of energy surrounded him as his body swelled with muscle, ripping through his clothing.
Around them, the pack was starting to panic. Some of the men tried to run from the room, but the hunters had wildflames of their own and shot them, sending them collapsing to the ground in a barrage of red bolts. Howls and whimpers filled the air as they all began to shift, clothes ripping and muscles surging. The hunters worked quickly to wrap harnesses around the weres, sapping their will to resist.
It was in this chaos that Jake was able to scramble to a window and throw himself out. A volley of red bolts soared just past him as he fell to the ground outside and sprinted for the nearby trees. Behind him, he heard the barks and growls of his pack, felt the pain of leaving them behind, and vowed revenge on the hunters if it took the rest of his life -- or longer.
Get the full Pact of the Packmates novel, featuring graphic gay sex scenes, werewolf transformations, knotting, paws bursting from shoes, tail growth, and clothes ripping as muscles swell with strength! It's on Amazon at http://bit.ly/PactFullNifty