Chapter 63.2

February 24thThree days until the full moon.

Tessa hunched over her desk, her nose practically buried in her notebook as she continued drawing and redrawing runes. She was running out of room in this particular notebook, already having burned through dozens of different iterations, but with each page she made more progress.

Behind her, huffing with exertion as he continued a lengthy series of calisthenics, was Nick. The last time she’d turned to check on him, sweat had only just started appearing on his brow, despite the fact he’d been working out for close to an hour by that point. His grunts of exertion were only growing louder with each passing minute, and as much as Tessa felt sorry for him, she knew he was just trying to work off the unnatural, lycanthropic energies coursing through his body due to the presence of the moon overhead.

After finishing her current set of runes, Tessa decided to take a small break and check on him again. She grabbed her desk, twisting her torso in hopes of cracking her back, and was rewarded with a series of delightful popping noises up and down her spine. Repeating the motion the other direction proved just as successful, then she finally turned around properly to look at Nick.

She caught him in the middle of a one-handed pushup, and when he finished, he hopped slightly to switch hands. Each motion seemed incredibly fluid, and she couldn’t see a trace of exhaustion anywhere in his body.

“How many are you at?” she asked.

“Fuck if I know,” Nick muttered into the carpet. “I stopped counting around two hundred, and that was a while ago.”

Hesitating slightly, Tessa struggled with what to say. “…Does it feel like it’s helping at all?”

“I think a little bit? It’s certainly a distraction, if nothing else, but it doesn’t feel like it's tiring me out at all.” He paused slightly, and Tessa caught him scowling slightly at the floor. “It’s like this kind of shit isn’t even enjoyable anymore.”

Tessa hated seeing Nick like this, but she knew there was nothing to do. Until Amara and Vee returned with the cure, all they could do was wait. Still, the urge to help was hard to ignore, and Tessa quickly turned around again to grab a small notebook from her desk. This one wasn’t for magic; it was instead a series of notes that Ruby had taken while talking to Tadghán. Early pages were mostly simple descriptions of werewolves themselves, but later notes detailed what Nick might be able to expect as his first full moon drew ever closer.

So far, everything written in these notes had come to pass. Increased energy, especially at night, heightened senses, enhanced physical strength and endurance. Pausing on one page in particular, she skimmed over a passage about increased agitation and temper that she’d read dozens of times already. Initially, she’d found it difficult to imagine Nick being anything other than calm and caring, but that had changed in recent days.

He was fantastic at holding himself together, and she suspected anyone else in his shoes would be magnitudes more unbearable, but it was still heartbreaking to see just how much he hated every little change.

“Well, I’ve hit a good point in my project,” Tessa said. “Do you want to go over some basic magic theory again?”

Nick shook his head. “I wish I could, but I’m honestly scared of stopping. There’s all this… I dunno, potential buried inside me, and keeping myself tired feels like the only thing holding it back. I took a tiny, five-minute break a few hours back and felt like I was about to begin smashing through walls.”

Pressing her fingers even harder into Ruby’s notes, Tessa did her best to hide her concern. She wanted to stay strong for Nick, just like he’d done for her so many times, but it was getting harder and harder to maintain hope that her friends would be back in time. Even that thought felt scary, as it threatened to spiral into a dozen other terrifying thoughts. Were they even okay? Had something happened to them? They had Tadghán’s assistance in navigating The Wilds, sure, but it was still an incredibly hostile alien plane. What if their absence was a sign something had gone wrong?

She thought of Vee, insisting to go with despite her fluctuating powers. Was she trying to prove something? Did she view this as some kind of holy trial? Tessa knew nothing about religion, and as much as her relationship with Vee had improved over the last few months, it was hard to empathize with her when she knew so little about religion.

If nothing else, she had Amara by her side, which was the foundation of Tessa’s faith in this expedition. Not only was she ridiculously strong, but she was probably perfectly in her element in The Wilds. How many times had she conjured bits of leaf and moss to wear when lounging around the house? Tessa had always loved the way her eclectic style accented her ever-shifting green skin, and in the past, she’d grown especially fond of grinding against those strange, leafy outfits; it was the perfect combination of rigid texture and gentle softness.

Shaking her head, Tessa pulled herself back to the present. Now wasn’t the time to get lost in idle fantasies about her friends. Besides, they were monogamous, so such thoughts were for naught anyways.

Instead, she flipped through Ruby’s notes yet again, hoping to find some small passage she’s inexplicably missed the last dozen times she’d read it cover to cover. A tiny scribble detailing a secret ingredient that might calm Nick down, or perhaps some secret method for delaying the full transformation just a little bit longer. Predictably, this didn’t happen, and she wound up fixating on a page detailing the final days before the full moon.

In his brief time on Earth, Tadghán had confirmed that the night of the full moon wasn’t the only threat; so were the night immediately before and after. This meant there was a three-night window in which Nick would be forced into a new body for hours on end, a slave to his instincts.

Before that window, however, it was possible that he would see other small changes, especially at night. These changes were the result of the curse pushing its boundaries, attempting to warp Nick’s body into one more fitting the curse of lycanthropy. Some of these had already manifested; Nick’s hair was growing much faster than usual, and as much as he tried to pretend he didn’t notice, Tessa knew he’d been growing taller during the last few nights, only reverting back to normal with the rising of the sun. These changes, although troubling, wouldn’t negate the cure if Amara and Vee made it back in time. Only the full transformation the night before the full moon was capable of fully integrating the curse into Nick’s body.

Nick jumped to his feet, briefly starting Tessa. “I need something else; I’m going for a run.”

“O-okay,” Tessa mumbled. “I’ll leave the door open, just some on back whenever you’re ready. Sydney and Riley are out for the night, so this is a safe place to come back to if, um… anything weird happens.” She tried to avoid hinting at further physical changes, but after sharing a quick glance with Nick, she knew they both understood what she meant.

With nothing else to do, Tessa returned to her project. Although nowhere near as scared and frustrated as Nick, she was thankful that she had a magical puzzle to occupy herself with as the full moon drew ever closer.

It felt like no time at all had passed before the front door opened again. Tessa was used to losing track of time when wrapped up in her magic theory notes, but she swore Nick had just left. As the door to her bedroom opened, she turned to look at him. “What, you forget something? I swear you just left.”

Huffing quietly, he closed the door behind him. His curly, light brown hair was much shaggier than normal; in fact, she swore it had grown significantly since she’d last seen him. Bits of sweat clung to his brow and his shirt, highlighting his impressive musculature that had been present even before Tadghán’s bite. His shirt also appeared to be shorter, as several inches of his midriff were now on full display. As he raised an arm to wipe a bit of sweat from his face, the shirt raised even higher, giving Tessa a perfect view of his incredibly defined abs, as well as the two defined lines that highlighted his sculpted hips.

“Not enough,” Nick said, his voice raspy from exertion. Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, he pulled it off with a single, flawless motion before tossing it in the corner. His eyes met Tessa’s, and she swore she saw his green irises flash with pale reflections of moonlight. “I need something else,” he growled.

Tessa’s eyes scanned his naked torso, appreciating each and every curve of his chiseled musculature. While she understood that his current temperament was due to a terrible curse, a deeper part of herself stirred with excitement at the thought of Nick working out his animalistic frustration on her. She’d never seen him so aggressive before, and she happily stood as he walked closer.

Ordinarily, their bouts of passion began with gentle kisses, groping, maybe a bit of teasing on Tessa’s part. Nick was always a timid guy, even in bed, though she’d been able to convince him to loosen up slightly over the last few months.

Instead, as Nick closed the distance, he grabbed the back of Tessa’s head and pulled her in for a kiss without a moment of hesitation. His intense grip also pulled her up onto her toes, confirming her suspicion that Nick had once again grown taller. Kissing him back, it only took a moment for his tongue to find hers. Hot breath cascaded over her as they made out, and soon Nick’s hands reached further down. He grabbed her ass hard, pulling their bodies together and eagerly meeting her hip thrusts with his own. Even through her pants, she felt a thick, powerful length pushing against her from inside his gym shorts.

Before she had time to process what she wanted next, Nick moved his hands to her shoulders and pushed her to her knees. She gasped with surprise as he shoved her to the ground, shocked at how rough he was being without even checking in with her, but her surprise was short lived and quickly replaced with intense excitement.

One hand moved to her head, intertwining with her hair and gripping it tight, while his other quickly removed the rest of his clothing. Tessa barely had time to appreciate the hard cock in front of her before he pushed it against her lips. She opened eagerly, sticking her tongue out to welcome his throbbing head as she happily sucked him deeper into her mouth. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation on his part, no desire to slowly ramp things up or enjoy the intimacy of the moment. With Tessa’s head firmly under his control, he began sliding his length in and out of her mouth, grunting in pleasure each time he thrust deep into her.

Tessa gagged loudly as Nick picked up the pace, his soft gasps of pleasure growing louder as she warmed up and managed to fit more of him inside her mouth. With each powerful thrust, more spit began to coat his cock and drip down her chin. Every drop that slid down her neck echoed a drop of precum that she swallowed, and in time she gave up attempting to match Nick’s frantic thrusts with her own movement, content instead to simply enjoy his current temperament.

Instead, she surrendered to the moment. The heat of Nick’s body, the force of his motions as he took what he wanted from her. It had been ages since someone had so thoroughly her like this, and she loved it.

More and more sweat appeared on Nick’s torso, highlighting his perfect body as it dripped down towards his rigid cock. The smell of sweat and sex overpowered everything else, encouraging Tess to further lose herself to this fantasy. All her focus went instead to keeping herself safe and comfortable as Nick worked out his frustrations. She was so intent on enjoying herself, in fact, that it took her nearly a minute to see that Nick’s groin, normally completely smooth and clean shaven, had vanished beneath a thick mat of grayish-brown fur.

The shock pulled her out of the moment, and she pushed her hand against his thigh as she realized her throat was getting incredibly sore. It took several more thrusts, each with more insistence from Tessa, before Nick finally got the message and pulled his throbbing, dripping cock from her mouth. She gasped loudly as she pulled away, a thick line of spit and precum falling to her chest as she looked up at Nick.

His eyes were wild. While still his usual deep green, the kindness had all but vanished, replaced with something far more animalistic. They looked at Tessa not as a partner, but perhaps something to conquer.

As she watched, his body twitched and shook briefly. A loud crack that echoed her own from earlier rang out, causing her to shiver as she saw his body grow before her eyes. She guessed he was at least six and half feet tall by this point, but there was no time to drink in the view. He reached down and wrapped his hands around her waist, something he accomplished far too easily. Her feet left the ground as he picked her up, and before she had time to ask what was next, he’d tossed her onto the bed. Her stomach dropped as she fell, inspiring a delicious mix of fear and arousal that caused her sex to burn all the brighter.

She needed him, and she had a feeling she was about to get what she wanted.

Tessa pulled her shirt off with frantic speed, and while she struggled with her bra, Nick pushed her down on the bed. He grabbed her pants, pulling them off in one swift motion, leaving her completely exposed underneath him. As she opened her legs, quickly running a finger across her sex to make sure she was ready, she was surprised to see Nick hesitate.

His hair had grown even longer, and was no longer limited to just his head and his groin. Small patches of fur sprang from the tops of his ears, his chest, his shoulders, and his entire body heaved as he took another heavy, rasping breath.

Nick grabbed her legs again and pulled her to him, then immediately wrapped a hand around her waist to flip her over. She fell onto her stomach with a quiet huff, letting Nick reposition her legs until they dangled off the side of the bed. She’d just barely touched her feet to the floor when he lined himself up and thrust, burying his entire shaft inside her with one fluid motion.

“FUCK!” Tessa gasped, grabbing the sheets around her in a frantic bid to steady herself. Nick’s powerful hands came to rest on her hips, holding her tight so that he could fuck her in earnest.

Their bodies collided powerfully, Nick’s hips pushing her harder and harder against the bed as he repeatedly bottomed out in her cunt. Grunts and moans filled the bedroom, each one louder than the last as Tessa scrambled to make sense of the intense fucking. Normally she tried to meet her partners halfway, eager to make sure the experience was equally pleasurable for them both, but today Nick was simply too aggressive for her to match.

Her first orgasm hit her quick and hard. Nick had only been fucking her for a few minutes when her body lit up. She buried her face in the bed, pulling what sheets she could find into a ball for the express purpose of stifling her orgasmic moans.

Recovering proved difficult, as Nick’s stamina seemed endless. He fucked her relentlessly, without any sign of stopping or slowing down, and without any hint that he might be close to cumming himself. This meant that the aggression which had so easily reduced her to a quivering mess never faltered, and it took all her focus just to adjust herself enough to glance back at Nick.

He somehow seemed even bigger. His muscular arms rippled with strength as he held her still, pumping his cock into her pussy as if desperate for some sort of release. His curly, light brown hair had stopped growing entirely, and now appeared to be clinging to his neck like a thick layer of fur. His face was sharper, more animalistic, and in the brief moment Tessa had to observe him, she saw another sharp crack reshape his body, forcing him to hunch forward. His fingers dug even deeper into her hips as this happened, and he quickly compensated by moving one massive hand to her shoulder.

The change forced her to look away from Nick, and as he pushed her back into the bed, she felt the familiar tingle of fur on the inside of his palm. The feeling caused her to shudder, her back arching even more as Nick’s powerful cock continued pounding her into the bed. The further changes seemed to frustrate him even more, and he redoubled his grip before beginning to fuck her even harder.

Before her second orgasm robbed her of her ability to think straight, she tried to remind herself that this transformation was incomplete; as nervous as she was for his well-being, he still wasn’t beyond saving.

The comfort of that thought paled in comparison to the mind-melting sex. Nick wasn’t just rough, he was animalistic. His grunts and gasps of pleasure sounded less human with each passing moment, and his endless stamina made Tessa feel like he’d just gotten started. As the hand on her shoulder tightened its grip, she felt him twitch and shudder. She faintly heard another crack echo out from Nick’s chest, only this time she felt additional changes elsewhere as well.

His cock, already impressively thick in its own right, began swelling to even larger sizes as he fucked her. His length reached new depths as it expanded, and the width of his shaft did the same, massaging the walls of her pussy while pushing the limits of her physical tolerance. The base of his cock continued swelling even after the rest of the changes stopped, making each thrust even more delightful as her pussy expanded to its absolute limits.

The increased size did nothing to slow him down, though it was hard to pay attention amidst the flood of orgasms currently wracking Tessa’s mind. Her body quivered and seized with pleasure as the world faded into nothingness. Rivulets of pleasure dripped from her sex, soaking both her legs and the bedsheets Nick railed her into. She’d long ago stopped trying to muffle her moans of pleasure, and her orgasmic screams bounced from wall to wall, shaking in time with Nick’s powerful, monstrous thrusts.

Tessa lost all sense of time; her world became nothing but an endless stream of pleasure. Even when her pussy grew sore, exhausted from the pulsing, swelling growth of Nick’s cock, the slight discomfort only served to further enhance the experience.

Eventually, Nick’s thrusts became erratic. He would speed up, then slow down, then adjust himself lower to fuck Tessa from a new angle, and Tessa began to hope that he was about to cum. Not because she wanted this to end, but because she desperately wanted to feel him flood her insides. That was truly the moment she’d always fantasized most when she fucked her exotic toys, and it was the one thing Amara’s tail couldn’t give her.

As if responding to her wish, Nick pushed her onto the bed with one last burst of vigor. His powerful, furry hands wrapped around her waist and neck, squeezing hard as his entire body vibrated with a deep, animalistic growl. He made one final thrust, burying his heavy, throbbing cock to its swollen base inside her cunt, where it immediately twitched and released a veritable torrent of cum. Tessa, her voice practically gone after endless orgasmic moaning, managed another climax of her own as Nick finally released inside of her.

The first load was powerful, heavy, and made her feel as full as she’d always dreamt she could be. The second proved to be too much for her body to handle, and a heavy torrent of cum swelled at the base of Nick’s cock before a shift in position let it flood out, soaking the insides of her thighs. Her own powerful climax left her shaking in ecstasy, and when Nick pulled out of her cunt, she fell to the floor in an attempt to steady herself.

Still barely aware of her surroundings, she felt Nick immediately grab her hair and pull her mouth to his cock, now thick enough that she barely managed to fit the head. In her cum-drunk stupor, she happily massaged his tip with her tongue, but only had a second to pleasure him when his cock jumped once more, shooting a third load deep into her mouth. Surprised, she reached up to wrap her hands around his shaft, still slick with both of their cum, hoping she could coax even more out of him.

His fourth load proved to be too much to swallow, and it slid out her mouth before sliding down her neck. There was one, final twitch that proved to be the last of Nick’s orgasms, and his uncontrolled thrusting pulled his cock from her mouth as it happened. The last burst of cum covered her tits, slowly dripping downward with tingling delight as her body arched for one, final climax.

Tessa collapsed backward against her bed, her voice hoarse as she gasped for air. Her legs were numb, her pussy ached from the incredibly rough fucking, and she was fairly sure Nick’s intense grasp would linger as bruises for several days. Wave after wave of orgasmic tremors cascaded through her body; not proper climaxes in and of themselves, but echoes of the intense fucking she’d just been lucky enough to experience for herself. The room around her slowly came back into focus, reforming from a collection of colorful blurs to proper images as her mind gradually returned to her.

In front of her, Nick fell to his knees. He shook violently as a series of cracks raced through his body, reshaping him once more, only this time in reverse. Each unnatural sound reverted part of him to normal; his hulking shoulders, his powerful hands, and in time even the multiple tufts of fur.

It wasn’t long before he was entirely himself again. He fell backwards, barely managing to catch himself as he landed on the floor. After propping himself against Tessa’s closet, his chest heaving from exhaustion, he quickly ran his hands up and down his body to check for any remaining alterations. Eyes wide, body tense, Tessa was incredibly familiar with this behavior; he was in the early stages of a panic attack.

Despite every bone in her body wanting desperately to scream about the fucking she’d just received, how she’d just been plowed senseless by the hottest thing on campus, she knew Nick needed something else, something softer. Instead, she grabbed her sex towel from under the bed, quickly wiped herself clean, and crawled over to Nick.

Even in his human form he was much taller than Tessa, but that didn’t stop him from crumpling in her presence. As soon as she settled beside him, he curled into himself and laid his head in her lap. She softly placed a hand on the side of his face, then quietly whispered gentle words of encouragement to him. In all the time she’d known him, she’d never seen anything shake him quite this much. Even in the face of everything they’d gone through together, he’d never managed to lose control of himself, and Tessa’s heart grew heavy as she watched him struggle against this transformation.

In time, he managed to piece himself together again. He sat up, settled himself side-by-side with Tessa, and finally found the strength to speak up.

“What if they don’t make it?” Nick whispered, the fear in his voice palpable.

“They still have two more days, Nick,” she replied. “They’ve got Tadghán as a guide, Amara can keep them safe, and Vee is smart enough to talk them out of any fae bullshit they might run into. We can’t give up hope yet.”

Nick nodded slowly, doing so more out of obligation than genuine belief in Tessa’s words. For the time being, at least, they had each other.