I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I was starting to suspect that whatever it was, it was very serious.

We shifted and went for a short run. I thought it would settle me down, but it didn’t. It made me feel strangely dysphoric, too. I felt too human to be wild and too wild to be human. I was distracted by the scents and sounds around me, and I couldn’t tune any of them out. None of them at all, especially not the smell of Jules. The smell of him wafted through the air and found me no matter where I was. I could almost see it; a purple haze emanating off him, winding its way through the air, finding me, and sinking its claws into me.

I headed home before long, and he followed. We walked the last part of the way in human form. I was careful to walk ahead of him. I was so hard I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself.

“I’m going to go for a quick walk,” I said.

He cocked his head at me. “Isn’t that what we’ve just done?”

“No, I need to, you know . . . I just need to do a quick lap of the place.”

“I get it.” He laughed as he went into the cabin, humming the theme tune of the kids’ program Paw Patrol to himself.

I knew he was trying to make a joke, but I didn’t find it funny. I found it irritating, but at the same time, the sound of his voice was having a similar effect on me as his smell. I rushed into the woods, scraping my legs on brambles, and stumbling over tree roots until I was far away enough from the house that I was positive Jules wouldn’t be able to pick up the scent of my seed in the morning. I wrapped my hand around my cock and fisted it desperately, thrusting my hips in time with my hand until I spasmed and shot my load onto the ground.

My little excursion the night before had left me slightly more Zen, but the effect didn’t last long. I woke up in the morning and was immediately hit by Jules’s scent. It hit me like a brick wall. It was everywhere. All over the cabin, all over the sheets. We’d slept so close together, I could smell it on myself. I jumped out of bed and opened the windows and the front door. Jules eyed me suspiciously but didn’t say anything. I ate the omelet he made in silence and drank several cups of coffee in quick succession.

“‘Thanks’ would be nice,” he said when I got up from the table.

I mumbled a halfhearted apology. I knew I was in the wrong, but I was in no mood to deal with nagging.