Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Twenty - Twisting Truths (REN)

~REN~

My real name is Renard.

My mother called me Renard because from the moment I was born she knew what I’d look like when I shifted. My hair had been bright orange and even though fur colour wasn’t always associated with people’s hair colour, my mother believed that there was no way that my fur was not going to be also ginger. She called me Renard because that was the French word for ‘fox’. That was exactly what I looked like when I shifted. Like a big, dopey fox. People didn’t usually associate wolves with ginger fur. But people also didn’t usually associate wolves with being people by the day and wolves at night. Luckily my hair had faded and darkened over time to suit me better. However, my fur never did.

I preferred to go by Ren because it sounded better. Less dorky. People weren’t going to take the boy in a motorcycle jacket name Renard seriously. It was also something that my mother had called me; her little ‘Ren-fox’. I hadn’t heard the term ‘Ren-fox’ in a long time, but the Ren part stuck around.

And now my mothers little ‘Ren-fox’ was sitting on Evie’s bed, resembling a fox more than a human in my wolf body.

The first girl that I ever slept with had called me a dog in bed.

But she hadn’t meant it this literally.

I woke up long before Evie did and I sat on the edge of her bed next to my clothes, watching her curtains sway in the breeze and waiting for the moment that I shifted back so that I could get back into my clothes.

When Evie had found me in this form during the night she hadn’t seemed confused or even mad at me. She just knew it was me and accepted it. It didn’t seem possible.

I’d considered the idea of getting a girlfriend a few times in the past few years, but the idea was too complicated. I was going to have to explain my curse to them eventually and I couldn’t imagine it going down any other way than having them screaming down the house as they ran from me at full speed. Besides, I was going to be a full time wolf soon. What was the point of dragging a girl into it? I’d had my fair share of fleeting, mostly sexual relationships with girls, but I’d never had a girlfriend so to speak.

Evie was safe, at least. Being a Delaney, she couldn’t be dragged into this god awful spell. She was part of a condition that could break a curse, so couldn’t be affected by the curse itself. Unlike the relationships of other Chevalier’s, where people like my mother were turned to wolves, too.

While the sun slowly rose outside the windows, my body quivered all over and in no time I was returned to my body with hands and feet, rather than paws and fur. I pulled my clothes back on quickly. Technically Evie had already seen me naked dozens of times, but in my wolf form. I was more worried about her being embarrassed than embarrassing myself.

She liked me, but I didn’t think she was ready for that.

I glanced over at Evie, but she was still fast asleep and it was one of the most unglamorous things I'd ever witnessed. Her hair was everywhere, like a cartoon character who had been comically electrocuted, and her mouth hung open with a heavy breath, that wasn't quite a snore, drool leaking out the edge.
I was sure she'd be mortified if she saw herself like this, but it seemed stupid. After all, I was the one who turned into a literal beast at night.
This was merely seeing Evie from a less flattering angle. As she lay sleeping she almost smelt like cotton candy. I think that’s what good dreams smelt like. I couldn’t say for sure though, as most people I had been around sleeping didn’t have good dreams.

Evie’s room was decent sized and despite there being trails of her clothes left everywhere, there was still plenty of room to roam. I tiptoed around her room to take it all in. It was nice to be in a home that was being occupied by living, changing, non-static humans, instead of the hollow, torn apart house that I lived in. I imagined her room hadn’t changed much from when she was younger, but had rather grown around her. Her walls were covered in an off-white wallpaper, laced with pale floral patterns, it was worn and ripped away in areas that looked like they’d once held picture frames and posters.