\n The curse was getting worse. I had for a long time been able to keep it from consuming me, or at least I thought I had been controlling it. As I sat there on the hill behind my house, watching the moon rise over the trees, I realized I was still fighting for control. Luna's soft glow in the fading twilight felt like warm sunlight against the fur on my face, and as I closed my eyes, I could feel the pads of my paws tingling, wanting to run.

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\n This wasn't the fear, madness, and anger I had felt all so long ago when the change had started to take hold of me. Those days, I would fear the coming of the full moon, and what I would do that night driven by fear and rage. Now, I no longer dreaded the full moon and had started to look forward to the change. I actually enjoyed my lycanthropy now. I had thought I was gaining control of the beast, winning the war by mentally inserting myself into it's night time domain, but all that was a lie I realized now. I had instead become the wolf, and was no longer a man who was cursed to be a wolf when the moon was full in the sky. I was a wolf cursed to spend most of his days as a man.

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\n Of course, that wasn't something to feel sad about right now. The moon was bright and full, the air was crisp, and the night was calling to me. The night scents and sounds excited my nose and ears. As I slipped down the slope into the gentle rolling hills of south Georgia, I felt at ease with myself. The January night was cold and a little chilly. For a southerner used to brutally hot summers, it was down right frigid, but for a wolf, it felt refreshing.

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\n Behind my house, there is a stream, and I went down there to drink from the cold water.. Living on twenty acres of land had it's benefits, and I made full use of the land, in my four-legged form. The water was cold, but I didn't care as I lapped it up. While drinking, my nose picked up the scent of another canine. A stray coyote was my first thought, but as I started to sniff around for the scent, I realized it was something more interesting then that.

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\n The coyotes tended to avoid my territory. Wolves aren't native to these lands anymore, but the coyotes are smart and know it's best to stay away from me. No, this was the scent of another wolf who had recently passed this way. Not only that, this wolf was a female. I quickly circled around trying to figure out what my nose was telling me. There was something about her scent. Somehow it was familiar, and yet wrong.

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\n Of course, if I had been paying attention to my ears and not my nose, I probably would have heard her approach. She must have been hiding somewhere close by, because she jumped me from behind snarling, fangs flashing. My response to run was held in check by my surprise at finding another like me. She struck me on the side and rolled me. Her fangs scrapping across my back. I yelped in pain, and scrambled up to face her.

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\n Before me was another wolf, who was determined to rip my throat out. There was no animal fear in her, only the primal rage of the lycanthrope. The confusion, the fear, the desire to lash out, it was all there. She lunged at me trying to grab my throat, but I managed to dodge away from her. She must have contracted the condition recently, for only the blood rage showed in her eyes.

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\n I could feel the anger long repressed stirring in me. Who was she to challenge me in my territory? I had spent years learning to live with the beast, and it had taken a full decade before I'd finally been able to trust myself on a full moon night. When she came at me again at me, blinded by her rage, I turned to give her my flank and reached down for her soft underbelly. My fangs closed around her and I tore, opening a wound across her stomach.

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\n She yowled in pain, but she sunk her teeth that much harder into my side. My body burned. I couldn't let her win. She would show me no mercy if I tried to escape. In desperation, I reached again and grabbed for whatever part of her underbelly I could find. It took two times, but I managed to close on something and slammed as much biting forcing onto it as a could. It was only as she whined in intense pain and stumbled away from me after I let go, that I realized I'd shattered one of her forelegs. Her blood rage had been replaced by panic now. The beast's hold upon her broken, only the wolf was left now, and the wolf was in pain. She fled then, as fast as one can go on three legs.

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\n I wanted to go after her, but she'd opened up a number of good gashes on my side. She was no less dangerous now then she was when she'd attacked me; she just wouldn't be as quick. Wounded and bleeding, I dragged myself back towards the house. I had to find her, but I couldn't do it then. In the morning, I would look for her.

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\n ***

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\n The floor of my bathroom is never a comfortable thing to wake up on, in either my human, or wolf form. After crawling home, I let go of the wolf form as much as I didn't want to leave it. The slashes across my sides, burned fiercely. The bite of a werewolf is potent and painful, and even to another werewolf, it apparently hurts like hell. That was a new experience for me, and after staunching the flow of blood, I'd settled on the floor of the bathroom to rest. I had apparently passed out.

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\n It was thankfully a Sunday, and there wasn't anyplace I needed to be at. After a simple breakfast of toast and granola, I went and got my rifle. After making sure it was fully loaded, I slipped some clothing on top of my bandages and went back to the scene of the attack.

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\n Even in the morning light, it was pretty obvious something had happened there. There was a trail of blood from me heading towards my house, and a trail of blood for her heading deeper into the woods on the other side of the stream. I followed the trail into the woods.

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\n The path cut straight through the woods, and was easy to follow, even in my human form. About a half mile from the stream, I found a small pool of dried blood, where it appeared she's stopped to rest. From there, the path became more leisurely, and it seems she'd wandered, and just kept moving. It was over two and a half miles, through thickets of oak and pine, across rolling hills, before I finally found her lying under a magnolia tree.

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\n She was lying on her side, panting. She hadn't changed back to her human form. Instead, there was a she wolf with a bloodied stomach and one paw curled up gingerly lying there. I studied her from a distance before I approached her. I think she was aware of my presence before I got close, but she didn't betray it.

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\n I kept the gun pointed at her chest as I approached her. She must have recognized me, cause she growled a little, but the blood loss had left her weak. Our immune systems are strong, but there is only so much they can do for you.

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\n "You shouldn't be here," I say to the wolf. "This is my territory."

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\n She just looked at me. I'm not sure if she had enough of her human mind left to understand speech, or what mental state she was in. She growled at me though. Up close, the wounds on her stomach appeared to be largely superficial. It was her forepaw, where I had shattered the bone completely through above the wrist, that had stopped her from fleeing further away. It was limp, and I could see the bone sticking out of the bloody mess of her fur.

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\n "Why haven't you changed back?" I mused to myself. "It took me forever before I could hold the form during the day."

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\n I was close enough to her at this point that she could easily strike out at me. Part of me said I should put her out of her misery. The curse had her, and she had obviously not learned how to think in the canine form. The blood-rage probably still ruled her. I'd hurt her though, and her eyes looking up at me suggested that the pain had put the beast at bay. This might be the first time she had ever had clear thoughts while in the canine form.

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\n I thought that maybe I could teach her to control it like I learned. It had taken me years, but I've finally mastered how to walk between the forms, how to think in both forms, and how to not let the moon drive me mad. It had taken me a long time, but if I could teach her, I could help save her. Whoever she was, she had to have family and if the curse can be controlled, she could lead a better life.

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\n I lowered the gun. "I can help you," I said. "Please, let me teach you how to control it. It doesn't have to be a death sentence." I started to kneel in front of her, and it's then that the beast struck.

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\n She lunged at me, teeth gnarling, eyes flashing rage. I scrambled back , holding up my arm to block her attack. Her fangs raked my arm and the gun went flying across the ground. She latched on to me, and starting to try and rip my arm off. I reach for anything I could find to get her off me.

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\n "No!" I screamed. "Fight the beast. Fight it," I yelled at her. But that didn't stop her. Finally I was able to grab onto the barrel of the gun, and with all my force I swung it wide, hitting her across the the flank with the stock. She didn't let go though, and I had to swing it two more times, before she finally lets go of me and her canine instinct forced her to try and flee

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\n She started running away from me, The broken paw didn't make it easy, but she's was moving at a good clip. I couldn't let her get away though. She was too dangerous. The beast held too much sway over her. It would drive her until she eventually destroyed herself. I took the gun and fumbled with it. I managed to get the stock in my good hand. I was bleeding all over my pants as I shouldered the weapon and braced it across my torn arm. She was almost out of sight as I steadied myself and fired the rifle.

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\n The shot flew true and struck her in the side near the shoulder of her good front leg. She went down then, and when I checked on her, she was no longer moving.

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\n ***

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\n I cried for a week after that. It was only the second encounter I've ever had with my one of own kind and after this last one, I'm not sure I ever want to meet another werewolf. The initial attack that gave me this condition was savage, and the attacks by the she wolf were brutal. I fear now, I may be the only one able to walk the realm of the wolf and the man and not go mad. All this control I've spent years building up, what good is it?

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\n I can't save those like me. I can't help them. I've spent my life moving from place to place, trying to avoid suspicion for my night time rovings that I couldn't control. I have finally overcome the rage, and gotten a more normal life back together. The next werewolf I meet, I kill after she tries to rip my throat out. As much as I feel like I've mastered the curse, it's still winning.

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