Romance, Raze-Style

I feel badly about abusing my hypothetical readers with poor quality, emotionally disturbed writing from my teenage years earlier today. So I have a treat for you: pure, unfiltered sap with two of the novel's cutest couples. For those who don't know them: Trent is a hybrid therianthrope, while his girlfriend Sreya is the matriarch of a werehyena clan. And Gabe the werebear has his heart set on the vampiress Evelyn, a former fighting animal he helped rescue from an illegal preternatural pit-fighting operation.

1. Gabriel and Evelyn
Evelyn turned to walk away and Gabe reached out, grasping her wrist gently but firmly. Her skin was clammy against the heat of his palm.

"Don't do this, Evelyn," he pleaded, dark brown eyes scanning her face in hurt confusion. She stared back cooly, the black voids of her large pupils unrevealing.

"We're just kidding ourselves, Gabe. This can't work. I'm not human." She choked out a pained laugh. "I can't even take a walk in the park with you during the day time."

Gabe snorted.

"For the record, I hate the park. Nothing but pigeon shit and and homeless people." he grinned. "Besides, I'm not human either. Or did you forget the whole "turns into a ravening bear on the full moon" part of our relationship?"

"It's not the same thing," she replied with a scowl, jerking her pale, slender wrist free of his grip with ease. "I'll outlive you, probably by a hundred years. You'll grow old and die, and I won't age a day."

"So I've got a few more years of being the lucky dude with the experienced older woman, and when I'm 80 I get to be the dirty old man with the hot young girlfriend?" He wriggled his brow, silver hoops dancing up and down. "Sounds good to me."

"Is everything a goddamn joke to you?" she replied with disgust, aggressively pulling the door open. Gabe countered, slamming his palm against the wood. It closed so forcefully that it shuddered on its hinges. Evelyn turned around with an exhasperated sigh and was surprised to find a great intensity of raw emotion in his young eyes.

"You are not a joke to me." He reached out brushed the pale, cool skin of her cheek with the back of his dark, hairy knuckles. "Evelyn... I want to watch the sun set behind the Bitterroot with you. I want to walk along the creek in the moonlight, see the stars shining in those beautiful black eyes of yours like a reflection of the night sky. I want to hunt with you, hear the rush of your wings above me." He cradled her chin with his other hand. "I don't want a human, or another therian, or anything else. I want you."

He pulled away, straightening out his posture, folding his muscular arms over his chest stubbornly, and gave a sly smile.

"And because you just made me say something that fucking lame, you're stuck with my until I'm a toothless old pervert."

2. Trent and Sreya
Although it was sufficiently warm this late in the summer for my t-shirt to cling to my back with sweat, the breeze coming off of the lake was crisp and cool. It smelled like freshly melted snow, sharp and pure. The mid-day sun sparkled on the water's surface, choppy from the wind. It made reflections of the mountains looming high above distort and ripple, like their vast, craggy peaks were melting away. A few well-worn tree trunks and pitted glacial erratics broke the surface at staggared intervals by a shore of smooth cobbles. I could hear the water softly lapping at the stones.

Sreya had abandoned her backpack, jettisoned her hiking boots, discarded her socks in a crumpled heap by the water's edge. The tan flesh of her smooth, muscular calves prickled into goosebumps as she waded out ankle deep. She grinned over her shoulder, raven-black hair falling over her face strand by strand in the wind.

"It's so cold!" she remarked, sounding pleasantly surprised.

"It's fed by run-off from the glaciers." I pointed to the network of narrow streams and waterfalls cascading down the steep, rocky prominences all around us. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand, face a mask of wonderment as she scrutinized the towering walls of granite and the scruffy little trees clinging desperately to the rock.

"This is fantastic. I can't believe I've lived in Montana this long and never came here!"

She planted her hands on her hips as if readying to scold herself for such a transgression, then looked back to me. Her khaki shorts were smeared with dirt, her dark green shirt damp with sweat where the backpack's straps had crossed her shoulders. Her hair was billowing in a wild, unruly tangle around her face, cheeks still flush from the strenuous climb. ...And damned if she wasn't still positively breathtaking.

"Will you take my photo? I want to remember today," she asked with a beaming smile. I was rummaging through my pack for the camera before she could finish the sentence; I wanted to remember today as well.