My skin melted off my body, the tawny fur forcing its way to the surface, the mop of my hair blossoming out into a full blown lion's mane. My bones stretched out, breaking and reknitting themselves to new shapes that didn't exist in the human body. I stumbled as my center of gravity had to readjust itself to the sudden gain of twice my bodyweight in muscle. I barely felt the punch across my chest through the burning pain that tore through my body. If I'd had the luxury of a slow transformation, the pain would've been negligible. Rushing it always hurts like hell.

  The pain finally receded, and I crouched on all fours. The tattered remains of my sneakers pooled around my wide paws, and I dug my claws into the carpet. I was in full blown werelion mode—my senses were sharper than my claws, my eyes showed me the world in full-blown high definition mode, my ears could hear a mouse fart.

  So why couldn't I find Manny? The way he had been screaming and stinking up the place with that weird-ass rotten egg smell, I should've been able to track him down no matter where he was hiding. There wasn't any cover in the weight room, and the doors leading to the lockers and bathroom were still closed. So why couldn't I find him? It was like I was in a freaking monster movie, and for once I wasn't the monster.

  I crept forward on all fours, because although I could (and preferred to) move on my two legs, I could track easier the closer to the ground I got. So I was really frustrated when I sniffed the air around me and found zilch. Not even a faint whiff of him. Ditto with the listening—no matter how much I'd swivel my ears around, I couldn't hear anything but the soft, quiet slaps of my paw pads to the floor. How did he pull that one off? What the hell happened to him? When did he become a poster child for red-faced anger management?

  Then it hit me, and I realized what was going on. I smelled him just perfectly, but he was doing some kind of voodoo to keep the signals from reaching my brain. Of course, I figured it out way too late—when I said it hit me, I was talking literally. The punch to my ribs sent me flying across the room again, but I had a better reaction time when I was in lion mode, so I landed against the wall hindpaws first, then launched myself like a furry bullet to where I hoped Manny was still lurking. I couldn't see him, but I sure as hell hit something. I reacted on pure instinct, raking my claws down what I thought was his back, my legs wrapping around his invisible body. When I chomped down on what felt like an arm, my nostrils got a sudden flood of that God-awful stink and I got an earful of his profanity-laden voice. I had his shoulder, all right, because he was screaming those obscenities down my ear canal. It's times like that when I really hate having sensitive hearing, but I ignored the pain and kept a grip on his body and shoulder, slicing my claws down his back for another bloody round.

  "Killyouripyoutoshreds!" I was really wishing he'd do the tune out bit again—that screaming was both hurting my ears and pissing me off—since now I had a death grip on him and no way was I going to let him go. His arms were pinned, but I could feel those biceps straining to break free. I could feel the heat radiating from him in waves, each one increasing in heat. I wasn't exactly a cool cat myself, but at the rate he was putting out the heat he was going to boil his brain inside that thick skull of his. I didn't want Manny dead, but I did want him out of commission. Problem was, the more heated I got, the worse my chances of me ending this without him winding up deceased. Being a werelion was awesome, but sometimes the bestial instincts would take over. Then things would get really bloody real quick.

  He lost his footing, and we both crashed to the ground. I managed to keep my grip on him, but he managed to get an arm free and started punching my head. I tried to maneuver myself so that he couldn't fling that fist against my skull too well—if it weren't for my thick mane, I'd have been stunned with that first punch—but he kept on connecting his fist to my noggin. So I finally managed to grab his wrist, and headbutted him. By the way he shrieked, it hurt him more than it hurt me, and I thought I might've broken his nose, but all that red on his face made it hard to tell if he was bleeding. I could smell it, though, and it was like the best candy to my senses. The predator inside me uncurled from the dark part of my brain, the part that wanted meat. I pinned his arms to the ground with my legs and started punching him over and over again. I didn't notice he had stopped struggling a while back as that inner predator in the back of my skull had taken the driver's seat, and I had to fight my way back.

  Manny now had a face that nobody would love—or recognize. I turned those chiseled looks of his into a bloody pile of broken bone and meat. I looked away from it, not because it was sick, but because the predator in me was wanting to consume the kill. Dammit. I didn't want him dead, but what's done was done. I'd feel worse if I had actually liked him as a human being. I crawled away from him, shaking off the scent of rotten eggs and strawberries.

  I stopped dead in my tracks when my brain finally clicked onto the origin of that unknown scent. It was the same scent I smelled in Joshua's bag. What the hell was Manny's corpse doing with it on his body? It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, and in the mood I was in, Joshua had better be able to give me a good reason for what was happening to my night.

  I took the time to revert back to human form, and was grateful for the fact I was wearing workout pants that could stretch to fit my lion form. There were still some bad stretch marks on the fabric, but at least I wouldn't have to go home for some new clothes. I gathered up the remains of my shoes—the less evidence, the better, and I got out of the school yard like it was the final class of the day. Only faster.

  The drive helped calm me down a bit—sure, I was feeling angry, but I didn't know who to direct that anger towards. The lights were on at Joshua's place, so at least I wouldn't have to break in. I walked right up to the door and knocked on it, praying that I wouldn't have to direct my anger at Joshua. Someone was dead, and I was the one responsible.

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  Joshua answered the door, wearing the same outfit I had seen him in when I took him home. "Izzy? What are you—"

  "Joshua, something really weird happened to me, so shut up and listen, okay?" I stepped inside, Joshua moving out of my way instinctively. I was in full blown asshole mode, and if he had stayed in my way I would've treated him like a punching bag. "I was at the school gym, and guess who paid me a visit? Manny. Only there was something wrong with him. He was all red faced and getting redder, and he wanted to rip my skin off and eat it."

  Joshua's eyes widened only slightly; I swear that kid has an icicle for a spine. "He wanted to eat you?"

  I turned to face him, looming over him as he seemed to shrink into himself. I was giving off angry vibes, and he was picking up on them. He tried to look away from me but I grabbed his chin and forced him to keep his eyes on mine. "No, he wanted to eat my skin, Joshua. Then he tried to attack me. Tossed me around like a rag doll." I let the words sink in, then repeated them. "Tossed me around like a rag doll, Joshua. He wasn't himself, and if I hadn't killed him—"

  Joshua's icicle finally melted back into his spine, and his eyes grew wide. "You killed him?"

  "It was either him or me, Joshua, and I'm partial to myself." I waited for the information to sink into his skull, then continued: "Now what I want to know is what you did to make all that shit come down on me."

  "I… I don't know what you're talking about." It was a lie, and a pretty bad one. Joshua was a terrible liar, at least when he was trying to lie to me. His heartbeat was fluttering hummingbird style, and he was sweating rivers.

  "Bullshit you don't. I smelled the stuff you got from Candleworks. What did you summon, Joshua? How long have you been doing magic?" There it was, I told him what I knew, and I still kept him in the dark about what I was. I hated to keep him ignorant, but the less he knew about the secret world that shadowed the normal world, the longer he'd live.

  "I...I was trying to teach Manny a lesson. I thought it was a spell that would make him impotent. He's always bragging about the girls he has sex with; I thought that would be ironic justice. I...don't know what went wrong."

  I did, though. I had a hunch that Joshua made Manny impotent, but it was in the form of a rage with nowhere to go. So Manny tried to find a place for it to go, and lucky me had humiliated him that morning. "How long have you been practicing magic?" I asked again, my mood darkening by the second. I knew how this was going to end, but it wasn't to my liking.

  "A couple of months now," Joshua answered, his features twisted up with confusion and regret. "The spell was translated perfectly, I don't know what I did wrong."

  "Magic is dangerous, Joshua. If I knew you had the aptitude for it, I would've had to..." Did I want to cross the line? Did I want to let him in on my family secret? "...to stop you." No wonder I itched so much at the magic shop. It was from all the magic energy in there. I would have to deal with the Candleworks place as well, except that one was a lot easier. I wouldn't be killing anything except for someone's livelihood. A quiet word to Mom about the place, and she'd make sure the place was bought out or razed to the ground.

  Joshua grew quiet, the silence stretching out until it was uncomfortable for us both to be staring at each other. He seemed so far away, both physically and emotionally. I guess he felt the same way about me. I was showing a side of myself I kept hidden, but fair's fair. He was hiding something from me, but in plain sight. I saw the hints, but I didn't think that damned hobby of his, that study of magic, was anything to worry about. I was wrong, and I was paying for it, and the currency was going to be in blood.

  I finally broke the silence; I had to, it was painful to watch him standing there, all quiet and distant. "I'm not going to hurt you, Joshua."

  "How do I know you're telling me the truth?"

  "Because I've been your best friend for a couple of years. Have I ever hurt you?"

  "There's always a first."

  He had me there, but if I lapsed back into silence I might hurt him worse than physically. Bones and flesh can heal; the mind is harder to put back together if the damage is intense enough. "If I was going to hurt you I wouldn't have confronted you like this. I was angry when I got here, sure, but I'm calm now. Calm enough to trust you."

  "So now what? Are you still going to try and stop me?" He had his eyes locked onto mine, and I had to suppress my instincts. It wasn't a good idea to lock eyes with a lion, much less the were-version.

  "Yes. Maybe. Oh, hell, I don't know. If I told you to be more careful and responsible with the voodoo, would you promise me that?" I was grasping at straws, but the only other choice was the golden rule of Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live, and it wasn't a choice for me at all.

  Joshua dipped his head, breaking the dangerous eye contact with me, and I felt myself relaxing muscles I didn't know were tensed up. "I think I've got a long way to go before I can cast some more of those advanced spells. I'll be more careful." He then looked up, and shocked the hell out of me. "So how long have you been one of them?"

  "One of… them?" He knew. He knew my secret. Dammit, it's one thing for him to know magic exists, it's also another to be able to have the gift to use magic, but to know I was a werelion? Humans are best to live in ignorance, and if too many of them know we exist...that's just bad news for everyone.

  Joshua nodded, his eyes once again meeting mine. "A werewolf."

  I was so stunned, I didn't feel anything. Joshua's misconception of me numbed me solid. But then I started laughing—it started off as silent chuckles, then gradually exploded into full blown laughter. "A werewolf? You think I'm one of those dorks?" Werewolves were the low tier on the totem pole of the were-family, but don't tell them that. They don't like to be reminded of their hierarchy.

  "But...your aura. It matches the ones I've seen out in the woods. I saw them change. If you're not a werewolf, then what are you and your family?"

  That's when I decided enough with the secrets. Joshua was the love of my life, even if he didn't feel the same way about me. As I stripped off my shirt, I said "You might want to sit down," and began the slow, gradual change, both physical and social—I'd be less alone now, which was fine by me.