After sunset I found him standing up at the tree where I'd seen him first turn. He was gorgeous in his werewolf form, his hair wildly long, his face dotted with manly hair, his chest strong and lean. He was holding the serum, staring at the antidote. He held his fate in his hands.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
"I'm not so sure," he lamented.
"It's okay," I reassured him. "I'm confident it will work like it did for Nash-and Leopold and Hunter."
"That's what I'm worried about."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"The thought of being a werewolf every night terrifies me," he said, fixated on the vial, "and the idea of never being one again makes me sad."
"Really?" I asked. "I feel the same way."
"You do?"
I nodded. "I like you both ways."
He was obviously touched and drew back my hair from my face.
"You are truly special. My dad was right-I am so lucky to have found you."
We embraced as if we were holding on to all the parts of ourselves that we'd come to know.
"So what are you going to do? Aren't you afraid of transforming again?"
"I was when it first happened. But then-I had so much power, being able to explore nature as I never can as a human."
He turned to me with sad and lonely eyes. I could see him struggling to decide who he really was now. Just as I had struggled, too, in preparing to give up some of the parts of him I loved.
"I'm not ready to give up who I am, what I can be, and how I feel once in a full moon."
I nodded my head. Truthfully it would be hard-three days out of the month hiding him away, being isolated or having to avoid making plans with friends. There would be challenges. But wasn't that what life was about anyway?
"I wouldn't want you any other way," I said genuinely.
Brandon held the serum for a moment, then chucked it with all his might far into the woods.
He drew me to him, his lycan fangs catching the moonlight. He leaned in and kissed me long and with such intensity I thought I might explode. He pulled me in to him with a powerful embrace; I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world but in his arms.
I was going to be dating a werewolf for now and for the future. I didn't know what would happen the next day, but I knew it would be exciting. And we'd always be destined for a romantic adventure every so often … .
Or at least once in a full moon.