Curse of the Moon Goddess
Freed

We raced down the road. She would occasionally tap my shoulder to tell me which way to turn and when. It was strange having her so close to me. My heart was racing, but my mind was crystal clear. We were on a mission.

When we were a block away from her house, we parked. I told her the plan. She looked incredulous at first. It soon transformed into excitement.

“This is going to be awesome. I’m so excited to see the look on their faces,” she said in the happiest way I’ve heard since we’ve met.

“Alright. Now I need you to turn around so I can change. And no peeking!”

She giggled as she turned away, closing her eyes in the process.

I couldn’t help smiling. Despite everything she’s gone through, she’s still got an adorable innocence.

I transformed into my wolf form, then walked over to Sage, nudging her.

She turned to look at me. She was smiling as brightly as the smiling moon last night. I nudged her with my nose again and the two of us headed down her street. When we arrived at her house, she paused. I snuggled my head up to her leg in the closest thing to a hug a wolf could do.

Her smile, which had vanished by the time we arrived, came back a little. She knocked on the door.

We heard feet pounding, then the door was swung open. A pleasantly round woman opened the door. Upon seeing Sage, tears gathered in her eyes.

“Oh, Sage! You’re home.”

The woman, I presumed her aunt, then proceeded to hug Sage. She pulled her inside as she called out to her husband. To the human eye, you would think Sage lived in a loving home with a loving aunt and uncle. Once the door was closed though, there was a loud slap.

I growled aggressively at the aunt who had just slapped Sage across the face.

“Oh, shut it you stupid mut,” she spat at me.

The hairs on my back stood on edge as I snarled at her. She raised her hand to smack me but stopped short as her husband came around a corner.

The man reeked of alcohol. It was obvious he was massively drunk.

His words slurred as he tried saying, “Well, *hic* look who’s back. My little, pretty plaything. Come over here and give your uncle some sugar.”

I moved to stand in front of Sage, snarling at the man.

He squinted his eyes at me as he asked, “What is that monstrosity doing in my house? Get him out of here!”

He unnecessarily threw a bottle across the room as if emphasizing his point. I sensed Sage straighten up as she spoke confidently, “He stays with me.”

They looked a bit taken a back at her confidence.

“Where’s grandma? I’m taking her with me and leaving.”

I expected them to become angry. The last thing I expected was for them to start laughing.

“And go where, sweetheart? You have no money, we made sure of that. And with your grandma’s condition she can’t just live anywhere,” the aunt mocked.

“Besides,” the uncle roared, “even if you did have money and a place to live *hic* the old hag is dead!”

They both started rolling in laughter. I was completely disgusted. How could they laugh like that as they announced the death of someone?!

“What?” Sage whispered.

This isn’t good. I could feel the energy around Sage shifting. Her wolf was emerging, trying to break free.

“That’s right. She fell down some steps thinking she was playing hide-and-seek with you. We didn’t even notice until this morning. Apparently, she’d been dead for a good while. We’ve decided there won’t be a funeral, so don’t worry about that. However, if you think about leaving, I wouldn’t suggest it,” her aunt continued to explain emotionlessly, “Cause, if you do, we will burn everything of hers, including her body. You won’t even have a grave to visit your grandma.”

The smile the couple were both wearing was sickly. The only thing keeping me from launching at them was Sage’s fist wrapped in my fur. Normally I wouldn’t let anyone grab my fur like that, but I could feel her desperation. She was struggling as much as I was to not shift and mangle these monsters.

“I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Or saying anything else,” Sage spoke through clenched teeth.

“Oh my. It appears our plaything is wanting to fight back,” there was a deadly look in the uncle’s eyes as he approached us, “I think she needs to be taught a lesson.”

The uncle moved to grab Sage. A second later he was pushed up against the wall, my nails digging into his neck. Without thinking, I had shifted into my halft human, half wolf form. His round face was turning a bright shade of red as his access to air diminished.

“Wha…”

The aunt’s words were cut off, most likely by Sage doing the same thing to her.

Her voice rang out firmly and fiercely as she ordered, “You will give grandma a proper funeral. You will leave all of her items to me. You will not tell a soul what you are seeing right now. You will move out of this state and disappear from my sight forever. If you don’t, then I can guarantee you will never see the light of day. You see, I inserted a security system into grandma’s house. If the police saw the footage, they would know you were the ones responsible for grandma’s death. I bet one of you pushed her down the stairs. In fact, I can almost guarantee one of you did. So, should we make a bet to see which one of us will win this fight.”

I smirked at the uncle. The man was a weird combination of pale and red. I squeezed a little harder.

“Do you agree?” I asked using Duncan’s voice.

The uncle struggled to nod but did so.

I smirked again as I released my hold on him.

He fell to the ground coughing. I could hear the aunt wheezing as well.

I turned to face Sage. She had this look of anger mixed with relief. She turned to look at me with glowing eyes. Not the blue glow from before, but the glow of someone who has had a huge weight lifted off their shoulders. That glow soon disappeared as she yelled out, “Jace!”

I turned around to see the stupid uncle had picked up a bat and was preparing to hit me with it. Instead, I sucker punched him in the gut, causing him to drop the bat on his own head.

I kneeled to his level and whispered, “I wouldn’t try that again. That was me being nice.”

The uncle groaned. I stood again and faced Sage. The girl’s face was bright red, and she was refusing to look at me.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, “I didn’t mean to look.”

Confused at first, I just stood there. Then I realized how breezy it was. My face instantly turned red too as I processed the fact that I had no clothes except the ones back at the motorcycle. I quickly transformed back into a wolf and tentatively nudged Sage to tell her she could look.

She still refused to make eye contact and I honestly couldn’t blame her. She probably saw way more of me than she ever cared to. Definitely more than I had been prepared to show her.