He could smell ham. Ham and coffee and wood smoke. His stomach gurgled and he rolled over with a groan, pulling the blanket tighter around him. Something was poking into his  tailbone, so he rolled over again, but found that something was poking into his ribs, so he rolled a third time. He didn’t remember the bed being this lumpy the last time he’d been visiting Tessa. Maybe he needed to get her a new mattress. He’d ask her over breakfast, which smelled incredible.

“Tess…”

She always made breakfast when he was over. It was one of the many things he loved about her. No husband-to-be could ask for more than the simple pleasure of waking up to the smell of roasting pig-flesh. The coffee was new, though. Tessa hated the smell and the taste, and Charlie only liked it on occasion himself. Usually Tessa only made it if Charlie had to leave before the sun was up and needed the little boost it gave him.

His brow furrowed. Tessa wouldn’t make coffee. He had no reason to leave early today. Today was… What was today? What was he supposed to be doing? He was… visiting Tess, right? But no, he remembered riding past the Heyman’s farm and little Myrie running up to give Fickle a pat, his mother’s roast that night when he’d gotten home, heading out to find the cows that had strayed the evening after.

The cows. He’d found the cows, but not alive. Something else had been there. Something with eyes that shone in the day’s dying light and sharp-toothed jaws that dripped slaver and blood. A shiver ran down his back, so strong he swore he could feel it travelling down past his tailbone, like his spine had grown another foot of length just to accommodate it. That thing… His father had said there’d been something in the area killing cattle, a rogue wolf or a freak coyote. But that had been no wolf, and definitely not a coyote. It had been too huge, too vicious; his arm twinged when he remembered its teeth tearing into the flesh, ripping through his thick work shirt like it had been made of paper.

The memory of the days that followed was hazy, but there. Chills and fever that came and went in turns, his stomach twisting like it had been full of snakes. He didn’t feel sick anymore, but every muscle ached like he’d been wrestling calves for a week straight. The lumpiness under him didn’t help at all.

The lumpiness also brought his mind back to the present. If he wasn’t on a lumpy mattress (he knew his at home wasn’t anything like this), what was he lying on? His eyelids felt heavy, like he hadn’t slept at all, but he forced them open, blinking away the blurriness and the crust of sleep at the corners of his eyes. He could see the sun, too bright to his eyes but only a hand’s-breadth higher than the horizon, and not through a window. It almost looked as if he was seeing it through the mouth of a cave.

He sat bolt upright, his stomach plummeting. He was in a cave. He looked around, saw the rough stone walls to three sides and the rugged roof over his head; it was only just larger than his bedroom at home. There were four, no five, sets of saddlebags resting against one wall and as many tied bedrolls resting against another. And he wasn’t alone.

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Another shiver ran down his spine and he turned a little so he could fully see the man seated on a rock a few feet away. He looked to be about Charlie’s father’s age, maybe a touch younger since his bright auburn hair didn’t hold so much as a hint of grey. He had one leg crossed over the other and was writing in a small book bound in red leather. His clothes were plain and travel-marked, but they were better made than anything Charlie had ever owned. Belted at his waist was a sheathed sword, its intricate hilt rising out of a scabbard with tight spiralling patterns burned into the leather. From where Charlie was sitting, he could see that the man also had-

Charlie stared. Sticking out of the seat of the man’s pants, plain as day, was a tail. A furry, canine tail. Charlie leaned a little so he could see better, trying to see how it was attached (it had to be fake, it had to be), but it just went up into a hole cut in the seat of the man’s trousers. As he watched, it shifted a little, curling to rest along the man’s leg. Charlie choked, feeling fear and confusion and disbelief warring in his head.

“It’s real.”

Charlie’s eyes snapped to the man’s face, feeling his stomach tighten into a nervous knot at the small, friendly smile he wore. His mind raced, searching for something to say, but all he managed was a weak, questioning whine. The man chuckled, placing his pencil between the pages of his book and closing it before he set it aside.

“The tail,” he said. As if he needed to clarify what he was talking about. “It’s real. Attached, even. Had it most of my life.” He held out a hand. “I’m Luke.”

Charlie leaned forward to accept the handshake without even thinking, and said, “I- I’m Charlie. Charlie Bell.” He paused. “That can’t be real.”

“A pleasure, Charlie,” Luke said, his smile growing but somehow still remaining soft and reassuring, even when he chuckled again, “and I assure you it is very real.” The tail wagged a little and Charlie couldn’t keep himself from staring again. “It doesn’t bite, don’t worry. It’s just a little side-effect of a condition I have. The same one that you’ve recently been afflicted with, unfortunately.”

“Afflict…” Charlie frowned. “I was sick. I… I got bit by something, and I got sick…”

“Yes, for about three days if I don’t miss my guess?” Charlie nodded dumbly, his stomach twisting tighter, and Luke continued, “That’s how the disease spreads. You’re bitten, you get sick for a few days, and then- Well, how much do you remember?”

“Remem-” Charlie blinked, his frown deepening. He’d gone to bed during dinner when he’d started feeling really sick—it had been on the third night after he’d been attacked—and then… He wiped his mouth, a sour taste rising in his throat. He could almost hear the terrified mooing, feel skin breaking under his fangs, taste the hot blood on his tongue. He shook his head, swallowing to fight the bile wanting to rise in his throat. He felt another shiver, running down the full length of his spine and beyond again. It almost felt like hair stirring.

Charlie finally felt a chill to accompany his shudders. He turned to look over his shoulder, hesitating with every inch, and he twitched at what he saw. A tail. A furry, canine tail. He reached back to touch it, unthinking, and flinched when he felt it, in both his fingers and the tail itself. It twitched, and he felt it move just as if he’d moved his arm or leg.

He turned back to Luke, wide-eyed and shaking, and saw that the man’s smile had faded, with a look of sympathy rising to take its place. For a long moment, he was silent, looking torn on how to say what needed to be said. He licked his lips, took a deep breath, and met Charlie’s eyes with his own. The wind went out of Charlie’s lungs when he saw that they were more yellow than brown.

“Charlie, do you know anything about werewolves?”