Mating Moon

Ashlynn

I sat in our Ford F350 truck, pulling a horse trailer behind it, my cheek against the cool window of the truck. Mom was driving now, giving me a break, humming along to some old country song. I wasn't even paying attention to what it was at this point. We had been on the road for three days now. Three long days. I couldn't wait to get there.

I let out a loud audible sigh and turned to my mother, "How much further till we stop? I've gotta pee."

She looked down at the gas gauge and over to the GPS that was on the dash console. She shrugged her shoulders, "I'd say another twenty minutes till we hit the next gas station. Can you wait that long? Or you want me to pull over and you can find a bush." She smiled, knowing I did not want to "find a bush". Especially not in unfamiliar territory.

"I can wait." I sat up straighter and reached over to the radio, pushing the eject button for the CD she had playing.

"Hey," she looked pissed. "I was listening to that."

I shrugged. "It's making me sleepy. We need something more upbeat. I don't know how you can stand to listen to that for hours on end."

"The point dear daughter, IS for you to sleep." She smiled but it didn't go to her eyes. I stared at Mom for a few minutes. She looked tired. She looked tense. She kept looking in the mirrors, I'm guessing she thought someone would follow us. She had her long hair thrown up in a pony tail, little wisps of her brown curls falling out around her face. My mother was beautiful. She always had been. The bruise on her cheek was now a faded yellow, almost gone. I sighed and looked away, rubbing my sore thigh. We just have to get there, and we would be safe.

Three Days Prior

I had just graduated Veterinary School. I was home with my mother during the day, a rarity since I was typically at school. But now I was finished. I was Dr. Ashlyn Cane. I was working on my resume and looking over some near by postings for Vets. Mom leaning over my shoulder giving her opinion now and then. She knew more about these places than I did. She had been here most of her life.

My father wasn't home. I was glad. He was drunk most of the time. He was loud and over bearing. He spent a lot of time at the bar, hitting on the waitresses and tossing back whiskey like it was water. It took a lot of liquor to get our kind drunk. Werewolves had a high tolerance, since our metabolisms were so fast, it burned off quickly. If I had to guess, I'd say Grady Cane (that was my father, but I rarely called him Dad), drank about two gallons of whiskey a day. His stupor generally lasted long enough for him to fuck some floozy at the bar, and then come home and knock my Mom around a bit. He'd sleep it off and then get up and go to work the night shift at the lumber mill. My opinion of my father, he was a piece of crap. But Mom was mated to him, so she felt the pull that made her stay. She also felt it every time he was cheating on her, pain in her stomach. I would hear her sometimes, laying in her room, crying. I hated him.

Mom was just pulling dinner out of the oven, as I was packing up my laptop and papers to go put them away. Grady stumbled in the kitchen door, his eyes instantly on me. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he growled out.