Omega Blues (Gay Romance)

Chapter Three: The Crying Wolf

Matt

I stood in the living room of Bren's house and tried not to freak out. Something... Something was happening. And Bren didn't want me there. Okay, so he wanted me to give him space. That was something I could deal with.

Except... Actually, I couldn't. Bren looked like he was in trouble. I trusted that he wouldn't ever hurt me. But he was a werewolf, and apparently that came with a whole lot of baggage I didn't understand. I'd never seen Will shaking like that.

But that didn't mean that Bren could just sweep me under the rug. I was a human and he was a werewolf, but that didn't mean I couldn't help him.

Bren was still in the kitchen, struggling with his shirt. He'd gotten it unbuttoned and off his shoulders, but his arms were catching in the sleeves. There was something... not right about his arms. They bent in too many places and the length didn't make sense. Somehow I'd stepped from a teen werewolf drama to a horror movie. I'd rather be anywhere else, but I couldn't ditch—not when Bren was making tiny huffing groans of pain.

"Let me help." I moved slowly, not wanting to surprise him when he had his back to me. I carefully gripped one sleeve of his shirt and eased it off his hand. His whole body was trembling. When I wriggled the sleeve off his other hand, I brushed against his arm and felt how his muscles were pulled tight. It was like he was made of rock, so tense and stiff.

"Look away!" His words came out garbled.

I kept my voice low and steady, like I was talking to an injured animal. "Just let me help."

I didn't know what was going on, but I could see that Bren needed help. With his back to me, he was fumbling at the fly of his jeans. I edged around so I could get in front of him, and nudged his hands out of the way. His face was screwed up in pain or concentration, and it was moving oddly. His skin didn't seem to fit quite right anymore.

I'd watched Will shift plenty of times. It was smooth and elegant, his body easily growing from a goat into a wolf or back again. It definitely looked painless. But whatever was happening to Bren looked like it hurt... a lot. Odd bulges kept appearing on his chest and belly, like something was moving under his skin.

"Just let me help," I said again, quietly. My hands shook as I started undoing the buttons on Bren's jeans. He wasn't wearing a belt, and his jeans were the kinds with three buttons instead of a zip fly. When I eased open the second button, Bren let out an agonized huff.

"Don't want you to see me like this."

Like what? As a wolf? What I'd seen of him as a human was pretty much perfect. I'd love to see Bren's wolf shape, or anything in between. And besides, a werewolf was the thing I most wanted to be. He knew that. Why would he not want me to see him as the thing which I most wanted to become?

Or did he mean he didn't want me to see him naked?

I'd worked the buttons of his fly open. And now I knew something which I hadn't known before—Bren didn't wear any underwear. Or at least he wasn't wearing any now. All I saw was the stretch of bare tanned skin then, as I dragged his jeans down over his hips, his dark pubic hair came into view.

I looked away so quickly that dark spots popped at the sides of my eyes. I fumbled to keep helping him out of his jeans, without looking at him at all.

I thought I'd fantasized of every possible way that I'd end up undressing with Bren, but this scenario had never come up.

Bren made a whining groan, his hips jerking convulsively like he was being electrified. I lost my grip on his jeans and, head tilted away, fumbled until I could find them at his knees.

"I'm not looking, I promise." I wasn't sure if it was me Bren was worried about, though—at the corner of my eyes I saw his body twisting into strange shapes and a gristly noise was coming off him.

His legs were definitely not the right shape, but I was still able to drag his jeans down. His boots fell off easily as he stumbled back against the cupboards, his feet making a clicking sound on the kitchen floor.

I stood up and backed off quickly, to give him space. Bren was crouched with his back against the cupboard, his bulk squished down small like I'd seen him do at the vet's.

And then there was the part I recognized, the werewolf transformation I'd seen Will go through: The cool part, not the scary-shaking part. Bren's arms pulled up into his body and his face squished down and out, hair sprouting all over. His spine curved forward until he wasn't crouching anymore, he was standing on four paws.

A wolf looked up at me. Charcoal gray with a dark face. There was a pale marking on his left cheek, a curve of white fur like a teardrop caught just below his golden eye.

"You're huge," I breathed. Bren's wolf was way bigger than Will's. Standing in the kitchen with him was like finding a lion in the backseat of my car—he was just so big and out of place, and seeming to suck up all the available space.

I'd been scared before, not knowing what was going on and how I could help Bren. But now I was scared for a whole other reason—there was a giant wolf in front of me, and even though I knew it was Bren, that didn't stop my monkey brain freaking out. Sure wolves were cool, but they'd be way cooler if I was one too. Right now they were still terrifying, and this was the most terrifying one I'd seen yet.

But when the wolf looked up at me, there was something about him... Something Bren. His eyes were golden-yellow instead of brown, but something in the expression was sweetly familiar. There was a basic Brenness about the giant wolf. Maybe it was the way he held his head, or his shoulders—like he was trying to make himself smaller, trying to duck down and stay out of sight until he was given an order.

"It is you," I breathed. "I can see you in there!"

I held out a hand. It was shaking a little, but I hoped Bren wouldn't notice. I wanted to touch his head, see if his fur was as soft as it looked.

I took a step closer. But before I could touch him, Bren ducked his head. He quivered his wide shoulders like a dog shaking off water, and then he bounded out of the kitchen and straight through the door.

Before I could even process what was happening, Bren had disappeared.

And I was alone, in his quiet house at the foot of the mountains in the middle of nowhere. Trying not to be jealous that all the friends I had in the world were now up in those hills having werewolf adventures while I was left here, alone and human.