The Waxing Phase

            I wanted him so bad.  If only I could voice my real problems to him, but I wasn’t even sure how he felt about me.  For all I knew, he just thought of me as his newest human friend.  I didn’t want to ruin the relationship we did have by telling him I wanted more, especially since I knew we could never have the kind of relationship I wanted.  I could never be his mate.

            “What makes you think something’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral as I sipped my steaming cup of coffee.

            He grasped my hand and brought my wrist to his nose.  “I can smell the difference in your pheromones.  It’s slight.  A human can’t perceive it, but wolves and some other animals can.  You’re upset about something.  What happened?”

            “Nothing I want to talk about,” I said.  I decided it was best not to lie and pretend I wasn’t upset.  He probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

            He gave a low growl, but unlike the kind he did to threaten others, this was meant to show unhappiness.  He had several types of growls, I’d discovered, amongst other weird sounds that normal humans never made.  “I would push you on it further, but I actually have to get up and get going.”

            I wasn’t expecting that and stared at him in surprise.  “Do you have plans today?”

            “It’s the full moon tonight,” he simply said, throwing the covers off of him and walking his over to the chair, where he’d thrown his clothes from the night before.  My thoughts escaped me a moment as I watched him dress.  He looks so damn good without clothes on.  I was a little sorry that he couldn’t stay longer.  When he was mostly covered again, my train of thought returned to me.

            Kyuhyun never stayed over on the full moon.  When I asked him about it initially, he teasingly told me it was because werewolves eat humans on the full moon.  Of course, I knew this wasn’t true.  He’d stayed a little too close to a full moon once and I could tell he was becoming a little feverish—he began to sweat and his skin grew warm—and he quickly changed into wolf form, claiming that the effect wasn’t as bad that way and quickly ran from the apartment. 

            I asked Eunhyuk and Donghae about it one day, when Kyuhyun wandered away from us to get drinks while we were walking around the zoo.  We waited for him near the primate exhibits—despite being a wolf, sometimes Eunhyuk seemed more at home there—and I asked about it then.

            “Full moons are when werewolves mate.  If they’re bonded, they’ll automatically want to have with their bond mate.  Omegas will automatically go into heat during full moons and alphas will go into a rut.  Usually this won’t happen to unmated wolves, but sometimes they’ll be a little hornier.  Everyone else around them is getting it on, after all.  There’s a bunch of mating pheromones in the air,” Eunhyuk explained, smirking as he pointed out a couple chimpanzees getting it on in the back of the habitat.

            Donghae slapped his mate’s arm.  “Behave yourself.”

            I gave Eunhyuk a confused look.  “If Kyuhyun is unmated, why would he need to leave on the night of a full moon?” I asked.

            Eunhyuk shrugged.  “Either he’s lying about being mated to someone and he’s meeting up with them or he’s in the mood and he’s found an omega to satisfy him until he does meet his mate.”

            I frowned.  Neither answer made me happy.  If that was the case, then either Kyuhyun was already taken or he was going to someone else to fulfill he ual needs.  Either way, that meant he only viewed me as a friend.

            “Or he’s going somewhere private to , like you did before we met,” Donghae quietly added, trying to be mindful of the children running around.

            Eunhyuk smirked.  “Or that, I guess.”

            I bit down on my lip, wondering which one of them might be right.  “Do you think Kyu is seeing someone?” I asked, glancing over to where Kyuhyun was ordering a couple drinks from a vendor.  He spent almost all his free time with me, aside from the day or two a month that the moon was full or an occasional night when he had a lot of work to catch up on.

            Donghae smiled and shook his head.  “The only person I know of that Kyu spends the night with is you, Wook.”

            I felt my cheeks heat up and quickly turned toward him, shaking my head.  “It isn’t like that, you know.  He just sleeps with me—I mean—in my bed.  We’re just friends!  Nothing’s going on.”

            “He talks about you all the time,” Eunhyuk pointed out.

            “Well, I—”

            “Hey!” Kyuhyun hollered, returning to the group with two drinks and handing one of them over to me.  “Why is Ryeong all red?  What have you done to him?” he demanded.

            “Calm down,” Donghae said, patting the growling alpha’s arm.  “We were just teasing him a little.  We wouldn’t dare hurt your boy.  Everyone knows you’d pounce if any harm came to him.  I can smell your scent on him from across the park!”

            Eunhyuk and Donghae ran ahead to the lion exhibit and we followed slowly behind them.  Scent.  On me.  What did they mean by that?

            “Kyu…”

            “I already know what you’re going to ask.  You want to know why I’d scent you.”

            “Um, actually, I don’t even know what Donghae means by that.”

            “Yeah, I suppose not,” he said, sipping his drink and clearing his throat.  “You know how I’m always talking about pheromones?”

            I nodded. 

            “Well, wolves can scent their territory and belongings with a pheromone that says, back off, this is mine.  When we do it to people or other wolves, it’s usually because we want to protect them from other wolves, to keep them from either attacking them or trying to mate with them.  It’s not exactly normal for a human to be around wolves as much as you are, so I’ve scented you to keep you safe.”

            “Oh…thanks, Kyu.”

            “Even if I hadn’t scented you though, my friends wouldn’t hurt you,” Kyuhyun explained, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me against him.  “It’s just unknown wolves I’m trying to keep you safe from.  You’re safe with Eunhyuk and Donghae and everyone.  Okay?”

            “Okay.”

            I thought back to my conversation with Eunhyuk and Donghae as I watched Kyuhyun get ready to leave for the day and the dark thoughts about what they had said returned to me.  Was Kyuhyun leaving to connect with a secret mate?  Did he have an omega lover on the side that he messed around with during full moons?  Was that why he was so intent on leaving me?

            “I want you to stay.”

            Kyuhyun turned to face me, still buttoning his shirt.  “I can’t stay,” he simply said.

            “I already know that you were just teasing about werewolves eating humans on the full mo