Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Percy Jackson series. Rick Riordan does.

Wolf In Human Skin
by GaleSynch

II

.

There were less people than I'd assumed there to be. I counted three people, two males and one female, not including me and the guy who'd led me out here. The youngest had to be me and the second youngest one was a boy around thirteen years of age.

"All of them are over thirty," supplied the man who'd introduced himself as Thomas. He pulled a wooden chair tucked in the corner and hauled it over. "They just choose to stop aging at that particular age."

Looking closer, he was around seventeen years of age, though he claimed to be seventy-one years old. "You said you'd explain everything," I hedged edgily.

"And I will," he promised. "These are my pseudo-pack; we hunt together sometimes."

"Pack?" I repeated. "Like wolf packs? You're all lycanthropes—AHHHH!" I broke into a screech, leaping into a crouch on the wooden chair. My movement was so abrupt, I nearly fell off. Thomas steadied me by seizing the chair. I stared in mild horror at the wolves that dominated the living room. "I believe you," I squeaked, mind automatically flashing to the lycanthrope that had bitten, "Please change back." They did. "Aren't you going to introduce yourselves?" I asked but they only flashed me stony faces.

"No, they're just stopping by," Thomas said brusquely. And as he spoke, the others shuffled away from the couch. The woman make a break for the door, making me wonder if she'd been forced into this mess. "I need them to make a proper demonstration, that's all, and they're willing to help."

"Why don't you transform yourself?" I queried.

"Then you'd be too scared to approach me," he said simply. This guy was smart. "And there's a lot you need to learn. The boy over there, he's new too. He was turned a couple of weeks earlier, his transformation's finally stabilizing."

"Stabilizing?" I echoed.

"Yes," said Thomas, "Transformation varies for everyone and it's usually irregular in its initial stages."

"I can't believe I'm a lycanthrope!" I cried.

"Why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Kids live in fairy-tales."

"I'm not a gullible idio—ot." I gagged. I didn't need to voice my problem: my skin was crawling. I gurgled, spitting words that did not make senses. But Thomas understood; he seized me by my rather rumpled collar and hauled me out to the hallway and tossed me into the bathroom.

"I'll lock it from outside, knock when you're awake—"

And it dissolved into streams of incomprehensible words to the wolf-brain.

.

As Thomas had promised, it took me weeks to get used to it. I shifted from wolf to human every three hours and the bathroom became my regular haunt. I'd gotten used to sleeping on the cold tiles. Thomas even gave me towels to wipe the floor and a blanket (or two, since I torn it as a mindless wolf).

Thomas had forbade me from contacting my family. Not that it mattered.

I was inclined to believe my mother was not Clear-Sighted and if I had became a monster, then she would not be able to comprehend that concept.

It would be, as Thomas had said, as if I had never existed. The bitterness in his tone implied that he had gone through the same thing. Except that it had been twice as hard to accept since he was so obviously attached to his mortal life and family.

I, at least, had an demigod as an older sister and thus, was prepared for a very weird life. Besides, I'd been reincarnated already. I was technically an adult, I didn't need them to coddle me. Though I do miss my original family, I'd had five years to get used to that delightful fact.

I might miss a peaceful life with the Chases but honestly, I had never been very close to them. I knew they would be very devastated though. And Frederick—my new dad—couldn't even grieve because his wife had never known they had a daughter.

It was a sad thought: to be unable to grief for a daughter you never really had, in more ways than one.

I hadn't considered sneaking off to visit him just to let him sleep at night without sniffling. I felt like I was stepping on thin ice around my hosts. Thomas had been nice so far, pleasant and helpful, and I didn't want to push it lest I had to sleep on the forest floor with no roof above my head.

Yeah, it was weird to be living in a stranger's house but I got to know him better (at least, I think I did?), and no harm had been done so far. Furthermore, I was a master of weird—in both lives.

The cabin in the woods was off-limits to anyone but lycanthropes and only those occasional lycanthropes dropped by for help or to rest up after an injury caused by heroes. There were only three permanent occupants in this cabin: me, Thomas and Harrison. I was too young to be left alone in the streets or allowed to roam the world so Thomas had no choice but to take care of me, really, especially since his 'friend' had been responsible for my situation.

Ulrik was a wild wolf, untamed by the years, and instead, served a malicious creature.

"It's my fault," sighed Thomas theatrically. Across the table, Harrison rolled his eyes in disbelief. "I should've known that he was Lycaon's spy."

"Lycaon?" I glanced at Thomas' darkening face and guessed that this was not a bright or cheerful topic.

"You should know about him," said Thomas. "He's a dangerous lycanthrope—the first of the lycanthropes and our progenitor in a way—and his goal is to infect every human being to rule the world."

"That's crazy," I scoffed.

"He's crazy," Thomas corrected, which meant that he thought infecting the whole world with lycanthropy was a feasible plan for world domination, "and since we don't play by his rules and ideas, we're also on his hit-list. You can tell his pack easily. They're the ones who go around biting mortals and try killing us at every turn. You should also be careful of the goddess, Artemis and her ragtag group." I glanced around nervously when he evoked the name so carelessly. "They consider us preys and there's also that Roman goddess, Lupa. She hates us for being remotely related to Lycaon even though we'd never worked for him. And, of course, demigods."

We have so many enemies, it's not even funny.

"I know what they are," I said, "the demigods, I mean. My sister is one. She's not trained yet, though."

"Sister ... ?" he repeated, brows furrowing.

"Well, half-sister to be precise. She's a daughter of Athena," I explained. My eyes narrowed on his pale form. "You aren't going to eat her, are you?"

"No. Not unless I'm very hungry. Don't tell me where you live, kid," he said. "We can eat human food, not necessarily the humans. I like to think myself a vegetarian."

"Yeah, right," grumbled Harrison. "He only eats meat."

"It's called poultry," Thomas insisted stubbornly, "not cannibalism."

I frowned in confusion. "Where does cannibalism comes into this?" I asked.

"His favorite type of animal meat is wolf meat," supplied Harrison blandly. I dragged my chair further away from the teenage-looking boy. Thomas rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Isn't that cannibalism?"

"I don't eat fellow lycanthropes, just the wolves of Artemis—oh, for the love of!" he exclaimed when I fled, shrieking dramatically just to irk him. "I'm going out, don't tear this place into shreds. Harry, you're in charge of her training."

Then he left us alone.

.

Harrison was a complete slave-driver. I knew he was a pretentious brat already but I didn't think he was this bad. I rubbed my ears, now safely confined in the room Thomas had so graciously given me. Damn, that kid could nag and nag and criticize how I was not concentrating and how I would get killed by heroes like that. I was starting to believe he was not as young as he seemed.

Apparently, experienced lycanthropes could stop their human age whenever they wanted to. Basically, we were immortal.

Unable to die ...

The thought struck me stupefied. Yes, this body would continue to age, but eventually, it would stop to do as such. I could be forever in my teens if I chose so. As Thomas was obviously now. He had lived for over half a century and he still looked like he could be in high-school. That thought was scary to contemplate.

I would never die again.

Even if a demigod severed my head and banished me, I would be reborn in Tartarus, regenerating slowly and painfully, and though I had to claw out of the pit, I would still live—until this world crumbled apart at its seams. I would never reach Elysium. I would never be reincarnated again.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Five years had given me enough time to get used to this appearance: straight sandy blonde hair like Frederick's and brown eyes of my Asian mother. Except that those eyes weren't even brown anymore; they were a dark red, reminding me of dried blood on gravel. Even if I wasn't used to it by now, I still had an eternity to get used to it.

And one day, I would forget what I used to look like even.

It would look totally abnormal to mortals, which was why Thomas wore contact-lenses to hide his own red eyes. Harrison paraded his amber eyes like nobody's business. It wasn't like he went out of the cabin anyway. I couldn't imagine living the next centuries out in this cabin.

Nuh-uh. Once I mastered being a lycanthrope, I was journeying around the world, with or without Harrison and Thomas.

I wasn't counting on meeting any heroes that could help though.

Firstly, I wasn't a damsel in distress. My situation was myself. There were no monsters for heroes to slay to make it better for me.

No, because to the heroes, I was the monster to be slayed.

.

Thomas absolutely did not allow me or Harrison to leave the cabin or the woods until we could defend ourselves against him. He taught us martial arts and how to hunt as a wolf and as a lycanthrope.

Being over fifty, he learned and did a lot, I guessed.

I discovered over the course of the years that I had three forms. One as a human. The second form was that of an ordinary wolf, though I was about eight feet in length and five in height. The third form had forelegs which were more powerful than the hind legs, and I still have usable hands with opposable thumbs. In addition, my stance was more upright, making my movements somewhat ape-like, rather than entirely canine.

There were moments of terror where I couldn't change back and I had to remain in such a terrible form.

Worse thing still?

Thomas forced us to hunt for our own food as lycanthropes once or twice every month or when he felt like it. I usually finished things quickly. I seized a rabbit and gulped it down—bones, fur, meat and all—rather than chew or properly savor it. I retched into the toilet every time.

Harrison would also be having the same problem in the second bathroom in the ground floor.

And on the occasion we couldn't catch our own food, Thomas let us suffer in our hunger. He wasn't the most caring of caretakers but I understood that he wanted us to prepare for hardships, to endure hunger in case we devoured demigods and humans; he was training our self-control.

Thomas was a jerk at times, but he never ate humans or demigods. In fact, Thomas stayed out of everyone's way if possible.

Ignoring all the cons ... it was, sort of, maybe, fun.

I could lose myself in the woods for hours on end, galloping and leaping as a nimble wolf, my senses sharper than any human's.

As an immortal, time just ... well, it flew by. I lost track of it pretty quickly and Thomas didn't keep a calendar in his house. He claimed it to be virtually useless since we didn't have anything important planned outside the cabin. I had a feeling he just didn't want to tell time and compare how long it'd been since he was human.

Yeah, I was intuitive and perceptive like that.

I measured time by looking at myself in the mirror. I was maybe nine or ten ... then I would automatically recall Annabeth. She was two years older which meant she was either eleven or twelve ... the Master Bolt was about to be stolen ...

I tried to summon any urgency or panic, but felt none. After all, business of the demigods and gods weren't my business ... they could fight their own war but Thomas would definitely forbid us from taking sides ... he might even order us to pack up and leave the country for our own safety.

Thomas was not a coward, he disliked unnecessary confrontations and any battles though I knew he could kick ass (he certainly kicked me and Harrison around a lot).

I had been six years old before Thomas had agreed to take me out. It'd been nearly a year since I last saw human civilization that I gaped at something as simple as a lamppost. Since then, I'd often tagged along with Thomas and left Harrison to brood in our cabin.

Once I was older and taller, I started running errands for him in the human cities.

New York City wasn't too far away.

And I really wanted to see Annabeth.

.

I gave my siblings a thought everyday. I imagined Bobby and Matthew wouldn't remember me at all so they missed no one. I wasn't sure how well they got along with Annabeth but I imagined their childlike minds would not pause to ponder about Annabeth for long.

My mother certainly wouldn't care about me, like, she forgot about me thanks to the Mist.

I pitied Frederick the most though because he had now lost both daughters. I figured Thomas would break every bone in my body if I booked a flight for San Francisco.

After much wheedling and begging and clinging, Thomas had allowed me to go, but only under his direct supervision. Which meant Harrison had to tag along to ensure I did not do anything stupid. I knew Harrison sneaked off once awhile in the night to do who-knows-what, but I didn't think he'd visited a bustling city as large or as busy as New York before.

Harrison looked completely nonplussed by what he was seeing.

"This is what people would call a city," I hissed lowly into his ear.

He flinched and shied away, glaring murderously at me for invading his personal space. Harrison had chosen thirteen as his lucky number; he hadn't aged a day since I last saw him. Even Thomas had looked perplexed occasionally, when he shuffled into the living room and saw that I'd grown older than a few years back. Occasionally, he'd ask when I would stop growing because I was taking up too much space ("Are you insinuating that I'm FAT?! I'll kill you!"). Like being stuck as a five-year-old was an awesome experience. Everyday, I longed to grow taller and stronger in human form.

"What do you plan to do here anyway?" asked Harrison grumpily.

I looked around, sniffing the air. Demigods were easy to smell out. Thomas had shown me an example earlier. His sense of smell was so good he could sniff out a demigod baby in her stroller. The mother had even smiled at us, completely unaware that these were two monsters with potential to kill her baby.

Demigods smelled like our favorite scent. To us lycanthropes anyway, they reminded us of our favorite scents as humans. I didn't know what other monsters would smell since some of them had never been human and some monsters had forgotten how it was to be human.

I imagined the honey-almond scented shampoo Annabeth had always favored using. I'd also liked using it and so did every member of the Chase family ... so, if anything that would help me find Annabeth, it was that scent that I could remember as if it was just yesterday I lived in the Chase household.

I caught it.

In fact, I caught the scent of a whole swarm of them. The date of the winter solstice was not hard to place; we'd came at the right place at the right time. I scampered after the scent. Thomas and Harrison followed, rather warily. I could sense that Harrison was growing edgier and edgier now that the scent of demigods were just round the bend.

Thomas seized my shoulder before I could turn. "Stop," he commanded imperiously. I did it instinctively, stiffening in my upright stance. "What're you doing? There are demigods and don't kid me with petty reasons."

"I just ... I want to see my sister," I confessed. I wriggled out of his grip and crept round the corner. I exhaled wistfully. "I saw her. There ... that one with the blonde hair beside the scarred blonde guy."

I gave myself a minute to revel in how odd yet amazing it was to be in the presence of fictional characters before stepping away from my hiding place. Annabeth was talking animatedly to the scarred teenager, but the angle her eyes were set in caught sight of me perfectly well.

She froze, as I'd expected.

My superhuman hearing heard her fellow campers asking her if she was alright. "Vel ... Velvela?" she whispered, gray eyes wide. "VELVELA! WAIT!"

Huh? But I'm not going any— "Thomas!" I protested, trying to rip my hand out of his grip but he was far stronger than me. I saw Annabeth sprinting towards us. A car horned when she crossed the street when it was red light for pedestrians like nobody's business. "Let go! Please! Just once—!"

"Are you insane?" snarled Thomas harshly. "That's Chiron and a group of armed demigods! They'd kill us!"

Harrison had already bolted; I didn't see him anywhere.

A red sports car zoomed across the street, cutting off Annabeth's path as Thomas dragged me round the corner. I could not see her anymore.

.

For the first time ever, Thomas grounded me. He locked me in the bathroom and promised me a week of starvation and white walls. Yeah, for a human it would seem like overkill but it wouldn't kill a lycanthrope. I could still satisfy my thirst by drinking water (I hadn't fallen sick in years and it was great!) from the tap.

He was seriously angry. He hadn't even allowed me an encyclopedia (which he knew would kill me).

Thomas never answered when I asked what he used to do before he became a werewolf, but maybe he was a scholar or something similar.

The pros of being a lycanthrope was to not study! How awesome was that? So Harrison and I had became seriously depressed when Thomas showed us his library and expected us to spend at least three hours studying.

"I don't want you two to be idiots," he explained at our devastated faces. He'd brought us a computer and several gaming consoles once he realized the danger of two bored kids bouncing off the walls. We'd been having so much fun until he came in and killed the mood.

"Can you read?" I asked Harrison.

"I should be asking you that," Harrison shot back as he wandered over to the novel section.

Everything about Thomas was neat, orderly and immaculate—so it was expected that the books were arranged accordingly. I hadn't yet had a reason to search for pencils but I expected to find Thomas' pencils sharpened to the same length—what an OCD freak. "I can read," I defended myself sullenly.

It was pretty obvious that Thomas was lonely. And very, very intelligent. He was a good teacher and even though I insisted I knew everything, he would reteach everything I'd learned in pre-school to me. The good thing about this education system was that I could ask to skip grades.

When we weren't forced to study (or pretend we were reading intently), Thomas would ... play with us occasionally. But his type of play consisted of dropping one of us into holes and have the other find a way to save the trapped kid. Then he would take great joy in watching us fail.

Point was, I had gotten pretty adapt at spotting things that used to be obscure to my eyes and I could usually escape traps myself.

I was stuck in a bathroom.

I raised my gaze to the flickering bulb then to the moonlight streaming in from the window. Well, well, it would take Thomas a week before he realized I was missing. Maybe sooner. Our sense of smell was sharp, yes, but since we'd lived together for so long, Thomas could easily mistook my scent imprinted into the wooden walls as me—that I was still there when I wasn't.

But in a way, I still was; memories of me lingered in the cabin.

I was tempted to turn on the shower to mask the sounds I might make but I couldn't off it once I was outside ...

Too bad I had no pen or paper, or I would've left a note.

Something like Bye, won't be back for dinner would probably be written on it.

I landed on the soils of the forest ground then I took off running.

Now, for the apology letter ...

.

(AN):

I'd appreciated it if you could suggest ideas. Or choose: either she joins the questers later or she escorts (terrify Grover and) Percy there. I have too many ideas buzzing to properly place them so I'd write the popular choice.

Review!