Chapter 5: It’s Going to be Excruciating.

"Alfie, I want you to bite me."

"Really, are you sure? You don't have to do this for me, I am ok with you not having a true form."

"No Alfie, I want to do this. I'm not doing it for you, I'm doing it for us. You can't keep worrying about me getting hurt, and if it's like Doc said and it will heal my back, then I want to do it." I pushed my hair to the side and revealed my bare neck.

"If you want to do this, then I will, but I want to explain to you what its going to be like for you. The bite itself won't hurt much, but the next day to week after will. It's going to be excruciating. Your entire body is going to need to change inside and out, and since you have an old wound in your back, it will need to break and recorrect itself. That will be the longest and worst part. Like I said, it could take a day, or it could take a week. And this is not only going to affect your body, it will also affect Royce. In my world, if one parent does not have a true form and one does, the child will become the true form of the one that does. This also applies to parents who are bitten after giving birth. Royce will not feel anything since he is so young. This process is only activating the genes that are already in his body. He will instantaneously turn and exhibit the same true form that you will. If you are scared or in danger during your transition, you will instantly turn to your true form and speed up the process. This will be the worst pain you have ever felt, but it will be done in a second, and you will instinctively attack the danger to save yourself. Do you still want to go through with this?"

"Yes, this is what I want. I can go through a week of constant pain for a lifetime of none." I pulled my hair back once again and I heard a wet squish. I felt a slight pressure in my neck and shoulder but didn't feel any pain. I feel his fangs slide out of my flesh and I hear my skin close as if he never bit me.

Then, it came. Like a train ran me over I felt it. I opened my mouth to scream but Alfie put a shirt in my mouth. I started to clench around the shirt and contain my pain, so I didn't wake up Royce. I look over and see a pure black lion cub sleeping in Royce's bed. In a moment I hunched over a thought, 'Take me into a different part of the cave, I don't want Royce to see me like this.' With my eyes closed, I felt large arms squeeze under me and lift me up. It felt like eternity before he put me down again. He rested me onto a pile of animal furs and went to go get me some water. Sweat was pouring out of my body by the gallon, and my teeth would not release the shirt in my mouth even a bit.

When he got back, he leaned down to my level. I tore my head from between my knees and looked in his eyes. He had tears streaming down his face and his brows curled up, he whispered through a cracking voice, "I'm so sorry. I tried to warn you how painful it was. I shouldn't have listened to you; I should have said 'no'. I'm so sorry I did this to you." My brows curled to match his, I was in too much pain to think or talk so I just gave him a reassuring face to tell him not to get down on himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not sure how long it was, but Alfie came back to me in the morning to let me know that he was going to bring Royce out to teach him how to hunt and turn on demand. I let out a 'hmm' to let him know I heard him, and he was off. I couldn't even think about anything but the pain I was going through. I could hear my back snap over and over and realign itself to where it should be. I started to hear light footsteps in the cave coming towards me. These sounded different than Alfie's, whose were heavy when he was in his man form. I figured it was Alfie in his wolf form or Royce coming down to see me, until I heard the voice.

"So, you mated and allowed him to turn you. How interesting that you freaked out when I tried to bite you." It was Doc. What did he want? Is he going to hurt me? "I can't hear your thoughts since I'm not your true mate, so if you want to say something you need to talk out loud." True mate? Is that like a soul mate? Is that what Alfie is? Why didn't he tell me that? Suddenly I felt a cold, boney hand touch my shoulder. At once I felt hundreds of breaks in my spine and I transformed into a blue phoenix. Wings sprouted from my shoulders, a beak from my face, claws from my feet. I lunged towards Doc and grabbed him in my large beak. I spread my wings and hovered out of the cave and straight up into the sky. Once I reached above the clouds, I looked down to reveal that I could see clearly. I could see each person watching, I could see the hill I sat upon yesterday, I could see Doc's cave. I dove for his cave until I heard Alfie howl.

I dropped Doc from nearly 200 feet above the ground and transformed into a pure white wolf. I landed graciously and sprinted towards my true mate. I howled back to him, and as I lowered my head from the sky, I passed a puddle. I could see my bright diamond white glowing eyes. I ignored my reflection and jumped into Alfie's arms as I turned back into my normal body. I peered down and saw Royce in his normal form, standing next to Alfie with dark black eyes, similar to his eyes before. I stayed in Alfie's embrace as I thought 'Why didn't you tell me we were true mates?'. I could feel Alfie's lips spread across his cheeks as he picked me up and brought me and Royce into the cave. He set me down and covered me in my sweatshirt since I had been naked, and jumped out to retrieve his and Royce's prize, a large buffalo.

As we were waiting for the buffalo to cook, Alfie turned to me and said, "You're both shifters, that's why you have different colored eyes than the rest of the villagers. It means you can both change form into any animal you wish. There has not been a known case of a shifter for thousands of years, and now there are two." I was completely shocked. I couldn't even find any words to respond with, so I just sat there as I tore off a large section of leg off the buffalo and chewed it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the three of us ate an entire buffalo, we settled into our beds. After Royce was asleep, I looked at Alfie who was staring at me with envy and pride. I opened my mouth to finally say "It was all thanks to you. You turned us, and now we are shifters. If I had never met you, I wouldn't be as happy as I am right now." He interrupted me with a hard kiss, and he pulled my sweatshirt off once more. He picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

We traveled deep into the forest where he gave me a look that said, 'be as loud as you want, Royce won't hear us here'. Alfie slammed me against a mountain side and pushed against me. Our bodies were becoming one again as he kissed and bit my neck. The pain felt so good as he bit me, the blood rolling down my neck felt exhilarating. I slid my hand down his chest and abs and grabbed his penis. I slid it inside me as he pushed deep. He was much rougher this time, but I could handle it. Sweat and blood was dripping from both of our bodies as I was biting into his shoulders. I let out loud moans, letting the entire new world know how good I felt in that moment. I could feel my pussy tighten around his cock as I experienced the best orgasm I had ever had. I could feel his long claws digging into my back in ecstasy from my tight pussy wrapping around his cock. That was my cock, and this was his pussy. I started clawing his back as I started to get tighter. I could feel his warm blood drip down my fingers, and I knew it was in pleasure. Suddenly I heard him think 'Do you want me to pull out again? I am almost there.' I shook my head to let him know I wanted all of his cum deep inside me. I was ready to carry a litter for Alfie, my true mate.

All of a sudden, I no longer could see Alfie as I felt him release his white liquid deep inside my pussy. I could see a little girl running around, she looked like Royce, but smaller. She was laughing and had a cute red leaf bow in her hair. I saw her run to me and Alfie and jump into our arms. Alfie lifted her up and threw her high into the air. Just as fast as the vision came, it was gone, and I could see Alfie once again. His eyes were bright once again and I could see mine shining bright in the reflection of his; the only difference was that our eye color swapped for a few seconds, and then back again to our own. "We are pregnant and going to have a little girl in our litter. Winter is coming soon, so I need to train you and Royce quickly so we can hunt enough food for our den." I looked in Alfie's direction and noticed a blue phoenix above the clouds directly on top of his heart. I could feel the warmth growing in my entire body as I knew that this man was my true mate, my true love, my soul mate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time we made it back to our den, the sun was peeking over the choosing tournament hill, but I wasn't tired in the slightest. I think my body was sleeping too much each night since the days are much shorter in this world. Alfie realized I was not going to bed anytime soon and forced himself to stay away and train me and the now awake lion cub. I turned to my pure white wolf form and grabbed Royce in my mouth. Alfie followed suit and turned as we ran out the cave opening. As we were walking through the village, it was impossible to miss the crowd forming outside of each cave. For the first time, I had seen another female. They were the complete opposite of me and made me realize why there was such a large turnout at my choosing tournament.

The females had many facial blemishes, many were scabbed over or bleeding. I could see their unkempt eyebrows and extremely wide cheeks, making their faces look too small for their heads. Their teeth were either brown and rotten, or completely missing from their mouths. While the men had beautiful hair, the females had knotted, snarled, and some even falling out from their heads. Their heads were just the tip of the iceberg; the bodies these women had were larger than the tens of mates they each had combined. They had rolls on their stomachs falling below their knees. All over their bodies I noticed the mating Each woman was being carried by a SINGLE man in his true form followed by her many mates behind her. How could these women have so many mates, and how could she let herself go like that when she has so many men to please?

I hurried my feet to get to the forest as quickly as I could. I could feel my back burning with stares, and once I reached the forest wall, my back healed as if aloe were applied. We ran for miles before finally stopping at a forest clearing. I dropped Royce and we all turned back in sync. "We will be hunting and training around here for a few days. There is an abundance of soft grass here so we will be comfortable sleeping." He started to yawn so big that he is lucky a fly didn't land in it, "If we do not leave here with at least a thousand pounds of meat, we will not survive the winter. If we don't leave here with at least 1,500 pounds of meat, the new cubs won't survive either. When we are not hunting or sleeping, we need to be training. You two need to know how to properly turn into a multitude of different animals and how to fight in each form."

"Wait, Royce is still a child, you can't expect him to understand fighting or turning the fluently."

"I understand that, but he is a mature male, meaning his regular and normal form is human. Being a mature male, he needs to know how to fight in case of emergency. Intruders will not have mercy for a mature male."

"Intruders? What do you mean 'intruders'?"

"Winter is the time when wild men intrude caves. Since you only have one mate, we will most likely be a major target."

"Why do they intrude caves in the winter? For our food?"

"No." There was a long pause. Alfie looked down at his feet and his eyes started to brighten, "They intrude caves to take females. In my world, females are very rare, and when they are born, they are the most likely to die before growing up. Males are born in their true forms and stay that way until they mature, which is when they can turn on demand. Females are born in their human form and cannot turn until they mature. Being a human baby, females are hard to keep warm in winter, when the most litters are born. Once the villagers sense that you are pregnant with a female in your litter, word will spread, and we will have a huge target on our cave." I couldn't get my mouth to form the words racing in my mind. My anxiety was quickly raised, and my heart felt like it was trying to break through my chest. I could feel my eyesight go dark, the world disappeared from my vision and all I could see was the vision of my baby girl running through the field at me. My entire body lost all the strength I had and started to hobble. A hot hand caught my upper back and slowly lowered me to the ground.