Page 3 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

Elustrian, more intoxicated than Kánnérd had ever seen him, throws up his arms. "Take him out into the courtyard. Let him see what he's been missing all these years. I'm feeling generous!"

Colossal-sized doors stand open at the balcony which lead into gardens. A cool breeze sweeps by him and he shivers violently, teeth beginning to chatter. Not from the temperature, but from the loss of blood. Hours of this party had begun to drain him. He didn't know how long he could stand for.

They trudge him outside. His feet waddling in a stiff-legged, awkward manner. His body hurts all over, blood covers him, and he struggles to recall all that they'd done to him. And of all the things to pop into his head, an old memory surfaces: If I'd never hit the baker's boy, none of this would ever have happened.

He doesn't feel the stone beneath his feet as they shuffle him outside. Merely unconsciously recognizes the brittle chill they retain from the night air. This was the first time he'd been outside in twenty-five years. He gasps at the midnight expanse filling his vision—and locks eyes on the moon.

A full moon. Like a giant, brilliant white ball in the sky. It was the biggest he'd ever seen it, mayhap bigger. For a long moment his eyes devour the shimmer sight, stunned at the brilliant beauty of it. Something unusual happens then. Something he'd never experienced in all his life.

The beast within him moves.

He gasps as he actually feels fur shoving through his skin, growing inch by inch.

"No, it can't be!" someone shouted.

"He's too weak to change! They can't change when they're weak!"

A werewolf didn't turn into its Beast form until a very specific time. When the Beast chose to under the light of a full moon, and only when the man was healthy and strong enough to survive the change. Kánnérd shouldn't be able to survive the change. Not with his neck ravaged and body leaking blood in so many places, yet . . . .

A werewolf couldn't incite his Beast to surface the first time. It wasn't his decision. It was the Beast's. And Kánnérd's had just been summoned. His screams overtake the night. The rest of the party, all other sounds, grow silent as he metamorphosis from man to creature.

Panting, his face shifts, bones cracking and muscle lengthening, growing into a snout, and into wolfish, pointed ears. His already superior hearing suddenly picks up the stirring of wind against leaves—the sound hurt his eardrums—as if he's using his ears for the first time.

"Get the guards!" Elustrian shouts.

His body lengthens, nearing seven feet tall in Beast form; a terrifying sight indeed for a puny vampire. The binds around his wrists now felt minuscule. Like a length of twine held them and not enchanted metal. He lifts his hands—now gigantic paws with deadly talons—and pulls his hands apart without a struggle.

Tink.

The metal bindings snap like a thin, aged thread.

His heart rages a violent tempo. A fresh wave of shouts rip from his throat as more body parts continue to transform; the first time like agony and so very slow. Blood dribbles into his eyes, burning pupils, it leaks out his nose, and from his fingertips where black claws arc and lengthen. Strong enough to gut an elk or gore a grizzly.

What must be only two minutes pass agonizingly slow. Then, it stops. The Beast in control now.

Kánnérd feels like he is sitting backseat in a carriage as someone else held the reins of a wild bucking stallion up front. He was safe back here. And excited. Scents flood his nostrils as if he was breathing for the very first time.

Blood, sex, and fear… so much fear drowned him, spiking his guttural instincts with visceral hunger.

Staggering onto his two hind legs, Kánnérd stands to his grand, lumbering height. So much greater than the puny vampires. With a flick of his snout to the Great Mother Moon, he releases the song of longing in his heart and bays at the moon for the very first time.

Elustrian flees like the coward he is. A cloud of terror follow his every movement. Kánnérd's Beast tracks him like an eagle might a mouse in an open field: easily.

AHWOO, he cries out, excitement pumping blood and adrenalin through his long hairy limbs.

He tears past guards, smashing them away using his paws like great heavy clubs. Heads lob off as his talons tear through flesh like he was ripping through bread.

Primitive satisfaction fills him. Yes, more!

"Kill it! Kill it!" another vampire shouts. They flee like frightened ants from a drowned home.

His smile was deadly and filled with teeth. They'd never make it. And they knew it.

A sword suddenly protrudes from his gut. He stops momentarily, stunned as he looks down at it. It looks like a slender twig sticking out from him. Tickling him. He swipes the blade away and glared at the vampire who held it. He shakes, begging, pleading for his life.

Kánnérd snatches him close with his claws in his arms and crunches down on his throat—severing his head completely using only his teeth.

Elustrian trips in his rush. His brother has stumbled to his feet, naked and used, blood covering his body. He tackles Elustrian, and Kánnérd snatches the man who had ruined his life and by the back of his scrawny neck and lifts him high into the air. His small feet dangle in the air, kicking at nothing.

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