Transformed! Nine Magically Erotic Stories (30 page)

She watched them file out, and then looked around the cabins with a distinct sense of unease. Would she ever be able to come back here and do their good work? Who was going to call all the parents to let them know it was done?

In all, Lauren really didn't know if it was her responsibility to take care of the camp, even if she felt like it was. Hopefully, Heather could be helped out by Felicia, Caleb's stepsister. And if not, then there were still several days before the camp was supposed to begin. In the meantime, Lauren could try to figure out what to do next, and also go back home and look for a new summer job.

She found Bryce swearing up a storm in the mostly-empty parking lot—his car was missing. It was clear from the string of profanities that he blamed Maryse.

“Can I give you a ride back?” Lauren asked. “I’m sure that Maryse...I mean...I’m sure she thought she would just give the car back.”

“You know what she thinks, huh?” He laughed. “I could use some of that power, myself.”

Soon, they were on their way. The ride back was mostly silent—Lauren was an excellent driver, and did not like to take her attention off the road—even if there was a dark-haired, lantern-jawed hunk in the car with her. At one point, Bryce tried called Maryse—finally reaching her after a number of tries—and had a quick conversation in which cast a slight pallor over his face.

“Whatever,” he said at the end. “I hope that makes you happy. I also want my car back, all right? Drop it off at my house.” He paused. “I don't know, get one of your lackeys to pick you up.” He sighed. “Okay. Thank you.”

Conversation finished, he slapped the phone down on his thigh, sighing hard.

“Well,” he said. “I think we’re done, now.”

“You and Maryse?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?”

Lauren was rather surprised. Maryse seemed flighty and mercurial of mood, to say the least, but Bryce had been a constant in her life for almost all their high school careers.

He shrugged. “It’s been coming ever since she got that modeling contract. I don’t know why it happened now. It must have been something...” he looked at Lauren. “...I don’t know.”

Lauren knew the real end of that sentence— “something that happened last night,” more than likely. But he was too polite to ask. Was Lauren good enough to tell him?

With a deep breath, she realized she was.

“I don’t know if you want to hear this or not,” she said, “but maybe you should, given that bite on your body.”

“Okay.”

“Caleb is a werewolf. Do you remember him biting you?”

He breathed out slowly. “I remember.”

“Well...apparently his werewolf-ness makes him...it makes the werewolf part of him, anyway, irresistible to women. There’s some pheromone he releases, and...I can’t explain it. It made it hard to think, hard to deny...easy to enjoy. I was affected by it. A lot.”

Bryce put his hand on top of yours. “You don’t have to keep going.”

“It’s all right.” She took a breath. “It wasn’t so bad, really. I enjoyed it. And unlike Heather...I’m still myself, somehow. Not a slave like she's become.. So you’re wrapped up in this because of your bite—you almost certainly are a werewolf now.”

He nodded sadly. “I know.”

“And I’m wrapped up in it because I’m...I don’t know. More immune to whatever you type exude. Not completely, but...enough that it matters. So, we both need Felicia.”

“Felicia?”

“Caleb’s stepsister. She helped him in the past. Maybe she can help us.”

“It doesn’t sound like you need help.”

Lauren harrumphed. “If there’s something magical going on with me, that is
definitely
not part of my life plan. I want whatever help I can get.”

He sighed. “I still don’t know what the hell Maryse wants in all of this.”

Lauren had her suspicions, but she kept quiet. She didn’t want to badmouth Maryse and earn Bryce’s resentment with his wounds so fresh. Even so, it was hard to not imagine Maryse as a kind of prize mare, searching out the stud in whatever pack she was in.

Halfway home, they got the text from Caleb—
Can we talk about last night? Gazebo. Lover’s Lake. 3 PM?

Lauren, ever the responsible driver, pulled over to the side of the road to answer.

Sure. I’m bringing Bryce, too
.

Why?

Because you bit him last night!

Shit. Good idea.

So, a little over an hour later, now late in the afternoon, Bryce and Lauren arrived at the small gazebo in Lover’s Lake Park to meet with Caleb. On the horizon, a deep purple sunset was beginning to form, casting hot splashes of color across the sky.

The name of the park was from an old local legend, in which two colonial lovers—cursed by their respective families and forbidden to see each other—dived off the waterfall at the north end of the park. Their bodies were never found, and they were rumored ever since to have transformed into eagles as they jumped.

Of course, Lauren had always dismissed the legend as a silly little tale to add some mystique to the place. But, now that she knew for a fact that werewolves were real, she had a little more trouble not taking the legend seriously. Was that kind of transformation something that was possible? Could true love like that change two people? Could the power of that love, hardened by denial and made furious and flaming by ostracization, alter someone completely in that way?

A question for another time.

It was a beautiful day out; the kind of cool summer day that made you forget all about how hot and sweltering the summers could get in their part of the country. They were sitting at a picnic table, trying to joke and flirt with each other and forget the intensity of the last day.

Caleb approached, looking withdrawn, hands in his pockets. The tattoos—or runes—on his arms looked almost like they were glowing in the sunlight.

“Hey guys,” he said, his face all twisted up.

“Hey man,” said Bryce.

Lauren waved friendlily—trying to let him know that there were no hard feelings. Probably Caleb didn't believe her—she found it hard to believe herself.

“Mind if I sit down?” said Caleb.

They both nodded, sure, go ahead.

“Look, Bryce” said Caleb, sliding across from them. “I really want to apologize to you. I know you’ve gotten a raw deal. I didn’t even know that you got bit...that I bit you, I mean...that it bit you...any of it, I mean. Until Lauren told me.”

Bryce shrugged. “Can’t change it now.”

Lauren shook her head. He was so casual about everything. It was maddeningly attractive.

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” said Bryce. “What do you got?”

“Next week is the Summer Solstice Festival,” said Caleb.

“That weird thing with the renaissance fair and all of that?”

“Right. But it’s a huge day for the magical community.”

Bryce chuckled. “The magical community?”

“I don’t know, man. You give it a name. I’m going to call it that.”

“All right.” Bryce shrugged.

“All right. So, it’s a day of power. It’s way before the next full moon—which is when you’ll be in trouble of becoming a werewolf. Both of us will, I guess. Basically, the long and short of it is that she’s petitioning to set up a ceremony to help me a little more, and to cure you before you ever even turn.”

“That’s great,” said Bryce, nodding, a smile on his face. “That’s really super.”

Even with as relaxed as he had looked before, it seemed now as though a great weight had fled Bryce. Again, Lauren was envious...and attracted. She wanted to know how it was so easy for him to just let things slide off.

“Good lord, but I’m stressed out.” Lauren shook her head. “This is
not
how I wanted my summer to go.”

Bryce grabbed her hand. “It hasn’t been all bad.”

Lauren glanced up at Caleb and blushed. “Maybe not.”

Caleb rose an eyebrow. “Are you two...” He shook his head. “Nevermind. Not my business.”

“Okay,” Lauren and Bryce said, at the same time.

Caleb started flushing furiously. “Bryce, also, about Maryse...”

“Yeah?”

Caleb started to clear his throat, coughing, tugging at the edges of the picnic table.

“She um...me and her...” Caleb cleared his throat. He turned away. “She came back with me, I guess, is what I’m saying. And she wants to talk to Felicia. I’m not totally sure why. She told Lauren and me it was about staying safe.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Bryce, shrugging. “Good for her.”

“They’re not together anymore,” Lauren whispered—not really knowing why she whispered.

Caleb's face lit up. “Oh, really? Oh, no. That’s too bad, man.” Caleb ventured an affirming clap on Bryce’s arm. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Bryce shrugged. “S’okay. It’s been coming for a while.”

For several moments, they just stared at each other awkwardly. Then, Bryce's phone—placed on the table between them all—began to buzz. Curious, Bryce took a look.

“So, hey,” said Bryce. “That was from Danny Sanderson. He says there’s a party tonight—all of us are invited for losing our jobs. Drinks are on him.”

“Word travels fast,” said Caleb. “I didn't even know we had lost our jobs.”

“Well, unless Heather fixes everything in the next few days...”

Caleb nodded. “Yeah, okay. Who knows. She might need a stay at a hospital or something.”

Lauren didn't want to think about that. So, she changed the subject.

“That was nice of Danny,” said Lauren. “Inviting us all.”

“It’s his sister’s birthday,” said Bryce. You know Deborah, right? She's turning eighteen.”

Lauren did. She was one of Maryse’s friends—one of the other most beautiful girls in school. Redheaded, tall—easily “most gorgeous girl in town” quality, with the problem being that their town already had Maryse. Lauren had more fantasies about Deborah than she cared to readily admit—even in this company, among men whom she was desperately attracted to.

“He’s got money, and he likes to spend it,” said Bryce. “If it wasn’t us he was inviting, it’d be someone else.” He clapped Caleb on the shoulder. “How about it? Want to go?”

“Sure, yeah.” Caleb nodded. “I could use a distraction right now. I think we all could.”

* * * * *

A
lone in her large room for a few moments more, Felicia took a deep breath. The room smelled of old things—old tomes, old totems, old shelves and bedding and robes.

Felicia’s mission was to be young and beautiful forever, so she thought it rather fitting to be surrounded by older things, to give her motivation; to act as reminders of what never to allow herself to become.

It was a large room—taking up more than half the second-floor of the house. Once upon a time, it had taken up rather less space, but then Felicia kicked her parents out (more or less) and was able to have the walls torn down and more space for herself created.

It was more than a year since she had seen her parents—and Caleb had not seen them in that time, either. It was a simple thing for her to convince them both that they wanted to use their savings by traveling the world for a while. They each carried a special traveler’s totem that Felicia had bewitched, which ensured that every time they thought of coming home, they would instead have insanely hot sex and forget all about the desire to return.

It was a bit odd for Felicia, encouraging her own mother to have sex, but she got over it quickly—the same way that she had gotten over the amount of pain she had caused her mother by draining out all of the older woman’s magical knowledge and memory.

Admiring her disastrously beautiful reflection in the tall mirror in the corner, Felicia allowed herself an indulgent smile at the memory of that particularly delightful night, a few years back—tying her mother down, sprinkling all those crushed devil’s tongue herbs over her body, marking her in that animal blood...such powerful magics required a powerful sacrifice.

Her mother had tossed curses at her for hours while Felicia performed the ceremony, but afterward, the very next day, remembered none of it.

She actually had become a much better wife as a result, more doting and attentive of her husband’s needs. Felicia was sure the draining of the ceremony had limited her mother’s intelligence as well, transforming her into a bit of a bimbo. It hardly mattered—only Felicia’s needs were really important in this life.

So now, Felicia had over forty years of magical experience and knowledge at the young age of twenty-five—a veritable master (or mistress) of her craft with almost none of all that bothersome business of working for it.

Without that knowledge, none of what she planned for the Summer Solstice Festival would be possible. Caleb would probably have something of a normal, isolated life, instead of now being a sex god to three beautiful women.

Oh, Caleb. Felicia had enchantment after enchantment layered on that poor boy. She
liked
Caleb, truly—he was steadfast and honest, and funny, and quite intelligent. He was a good man to have in her corner, unwittingly carrying out her fun evil little will.

He was just so
easy
to manipulate. Take today, for instance. All that business about “ending his friends' suffering at the Summer Solstice festival.” She hadn't even had to really hide the truth, he was so desperate to help! She barely had to tug at the enchantments she had placed on him at all to get him to tell Lauren and Bryce.

A soft whimper in the corner reminded her that she actually wasn’t
truly
alone. Felicia turned the mirror, eyeing the transformed beauty in the corner. This Heather—beautiful soft-featured creature though she was—certainly wasn’t any kind of real company.

“I have a guest coming, slave,” said Felicia, foreboding in her voice. “You won’t be touching yourself while she is here?”

“N-no, Mistress. I promise.”

“Good girl. Stay quiet, and I promise I’ll give you a good picture of your Master later on, all right?”

Another example of how easy Caleb was to manipulate. Felicia had run through the motions with Heather in front of him earlier in the day—making big complicated gestures over her body, chanting mostly nonsense words with an intense virulence. All she was really doing was a simple examination spell, letting her eyes see the enchantment that her step-brother’s wolf form had placed on the poor woman.