Read Bite Me for Free Online Page B

to put them on her desk and moved to give Greg his, she tripped on the power cord and fell forward, knocking the big mobile over.”
Mom laughed appreciatively, maybe more than the story deserved. It was pleasant to see her cheerful though, since she had been glum for weeks now. Maybe things would get better.
Or maybe not. At that very moment Dad burst in, holding a cordless phone from downstairs in one hand, a pair of pruning shears still in the other. His eyes looked hunted. And when Dad was scared, I tended to panic.
“Selene, they want to talk to you,” he whispered, handing it to her.
Her eyes widened as she took it. “What? What is it?”
Instead of answering, he said, “Dianne, I think you should go to your room.”
“But–”
A show of fangs and a growl met my protest.
“Okay, okay.” I left, but picked up the upstairs phone in the hall. Eavesdropping: there’s nothing like it. Keeping my breathing down, I took the (also cordless) phone into my bedroom.
First it was Mom’s shaken voice. “. . . there most be some mistake.”
“No, Mrs. Anghel.” After a second, I recognized the voice as Nat Silver’s. However, this time all sign of joviality was absent. “I’ve done dozens at least of these tests every year for thirty years and it’s very clear. You should come in as soon as possible, even today if you can. It doesn’t affect him like it would a human in such an advanced stage, but he can still pass it on.”
“I don’t believe it. How on earth or the moon could have it happened?”
“There are many ways. I’m extremely sorry, but the fact remains that your husband is HIV positive, and it’s very likely that you have AIDS.”
There was more to the conversation, though I was not destined to hear it. The phone dropped to the floor, and I sank to my knees. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. Instead, I leaned my head back, arching the furred spine, and pointed my snout in the air. My paws dragged and ripped through the carpet. They say the cry of a wolf is one of the loneliest and saddest sounds in the world. All reason gone, I just howled.

Chapter Six
Transform Me
    After learning how to control the complete transformations later on, I carefully kept my brain as human as possible, so that it could both fit in my smaller skull and retain most of my intelligence. That first time around, though, my mind suddenly became simple and wordless. I had the same memories and personality. I did not think the same way. It’s hard to really express what it was like, since as humans we must use language for having and sharing ideas. For most animals, everything is broken up into blocks of essentials.
    I felt what I would later call distress. The alphas were threatened–I still remembered they were my parents, but the species difference didn’t register. Since I didn’t know what to do, I waited for instructions. The two came in and made noises that I didn’t understand. They were distressed too.
    My father spoke first. “Oh, wonderful.”
Then my mother. “Our daughter. . . look at her eyes. They’re not hers! When I change, except for one night a month, my eyes are still gray. Hers are yellow. Can you hear me, Dianne? Do you understand?”
This all perplexed me. I watched more closely, hoping to figure out some sort of pattern. It was strangely familiar, and I almost knew what those sounds were for, but it was just out of reach. It was beyond me even to realize that the words meant things. For wolves, the shape of words doesn’t matter as much as intonation and the gestures that accompany them. Don’t think that everything I put down here as having been said is something I remember. It’s always hard to imitate a foreign language accurately. This is a reconstruction based on what I caught and what the adults told me afterwards.
“No,” she said finally. “She doesn’t recognize speech.”
Father picked up the oddly shaped white object with little round dots and a single