Page 18 of Auditing the Alpha

A chorus of greetings answered him, friendly but with an undercurrent of curiosity. I recognized Theo, who winked at me, and Klaus’s mother, who approached with a warm smile.

“Jordan,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “I’m Lucy. We didn’t get properly introduced at dinner.”

“Nice to meet you,” I replied automatically.

She studied me with eyes identical to Klaus’s. “You’ve accepted my son’s nature,” she observed. “Not everyone can.”

“It was… surprising,” I admitted. “But not a deal-breaker.”

Her smile widened. “Good answer.” She glanced at the darkening sky. “Almost time. Klaus will show you to the observation platform.”

The platform was a sturdy wooden structure at the edge of the clearing, about ten feet off the ground with a ladder for access. It had a railing and even a small bench.

“You’ll be safe up here,” Klaus assured me. “It’s tradition—humans stay elevated during the shift and the beginning of the run. It can be… intense to witness up close the first time.”

I nodded, suddenly nervous. “And after?”

“After, when we’ve run off the initial energy, some will shift back. Others will stay in wolf form. We’ll have a bonfire, food.” He touched my face gently. “If at any point you want to leave, just tell someone. Anyone in the pack will make sure you get back safely.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, though my heart was racing.

He studied me for a moment, then pulled me into a deep, claiming kiss that left me breathless. “For luck,” he murmured. “Now up you go.”

I climbed the ladder and settled on the bench as Klaus returned to the gathering. The sky was darkening rapidly, the full moon just visible above the treeline. The pack had formed a loose circle around the fire pit, talking quietly among themselves.

As the moon rose fully, a hush fell over the gathering. Klaus stepped into the center of the circle, and without preamble, began to undress. Others followed suit, removing clothing with practiced efficiency and without an ounce of self-consciousness.

I watched, mesmerized, as Klaus stripped down to bare skin, his powerful body silvered in the moonlight. Around him, the rest of the pack did the same—men, women, and children of allages, standing naked in the winter night as if the cold didn’t touch them.

Klaus looked up at me, our eyes meeting across the distance, and then—

The shift happened faster than I’d imagined possible. One moment, he was a man standing in the snow; the next, his body was changing, flowing into a new shape with a fluidity that defied physics. In seconds, where Klaus had stood was now an enormous wolf—silver-gray with distinctive amber eyes that locked immediately on mine.

Around him, the rest of the pack was shifting as well, their bodies transforming in a symphony of movement that was both terrifying and beautiful. Within a minute, the clearing was filled with wolves of various colors and sizes, all larger than natural wolves but unmistakably lupine.

The silver-gray wolf that was Klaus threw his head back and howled—a sound that vibrated in my chest and raised goosebumps on my arms. The others joined in, creating a chorus that echoed through the trees. It should have been frightening, but instead, I found it oddly moving—a song of family, of belonging.

Then they were running, streaming past the platform and into the woods, a river of fur and muscle and wild joy. Klaus lingered briefly, looking up at me with those familiar amber eyes, and then he too was gone, following his pack into the forest.

I sat alone on the platform, heart pounding, trying to process what I’d just witnessed. It was one thing to intellectually accept that Klaus was a werewolf; it was quite another to see him transform into an actual wolf before my eyes.

Yet strangely, I wasn’t afraid. Overwhelmed, yes. Awestruck, certainly. But not afraid.

I’m not sure how long I sat there, listening to the distant howls of the running pack, before I noticed movement at the edge of the clearing. Wolves were returning—first a few, then more, some breaking off to run in smaller groups, others heading toward the fire pit where, I now noticed, several figures remained in human form, tending the flames.

A large silver-gray wolf separated from the others and approached the platform. Klaus. Even in this form, I recognized him immediately—something about the way he moved, the intelligence in those familiar eyes.

He sat at the base of the ladder, looking up at me with an expression that somehow conveyed a question despite his wolf features.

“I’m okay,” I called down to him. “It was… incredible, actually.”

His tail swept once across the snow, and then he was moving away, toward a pile of clothing near the fire. As I watched, his form began to shift again, the transition back to human just as fluid as the change to wolf. Within moments, Klaus stood on two legs again, quickly pulling on his discarded clothes.

He approached the platform, and I climbed down to meet him, legs slightly shaky from sitting in the cold.

“That was…” I trailed off, unable to find adequate words.

“A lot to take in,” he finished, searching my face. “You’re not running away screaming, so that’s promising.”