Title: Howl at the Moon

Author's Forward Note: Not sure if I need to mention this or not, but the following chapter is a running chronology of events before the prologue.

Fanged Hell

o0o0o0o

-- 10 MONTHS BEFORE --

Orihime had been digging deep in her backyard looking for the memory box she had buried there several years ago. In a deep despair over her brother's death, she had buried all the mementos from her brother in the ground until she could one day bear the pain of his loss without bawling at the slightest mention of his name.

Unfortunately, she had been so distraught that one evening years ago that she couldn't quite pinpoint the exact location of the box. As a result, dozens of holes littered across the yard in her desperate search for the last link she had of her brother. In 3 months time her medical program would be completed and she would need to move to her new job; so retrieving the box was imperative in light of her pending departure. When her shovel finally hit a hard surface four and half hours later, Orihime squealed in tired relief. However, she would soon be disappointed as she pulled up a foreign looking box.

It was an old wooden crate, barely held together by decayed interwoven twine. Thinking she had uncovered some buried treasure, Orihime excited pried open the lid. Inside laid a pelt of animal skin wrapped protectively around a small gourd with an old cork at one end. Holding up the gourd, she experimentally shook it and noticed that it held some sort of liquid inside. It wasn't until after she lifted the gourd above her in the full sunlight that she finally noticed the old ancient writing carved on the gourd itself. The symbols had faded a great deal, but she could just barely make out some words.

Blessed be the eternal Moon.
Let her full glory be your guide.
Expand your senses.
Bring forth the inner beast to track and bind your true love.

o0o0o0o

-- 7 MONTHS BEFORE --

Everyone was in great cheer and relief as today marked the end of their medical internship and residency programs. It was already several hours into the celebration party and everyone had been imbibing freely of the available alcohol. Technically, it was their last night together before everyone got ready to go off and head to their new job destinations.

Ichigo was different in that he hadn't bothered to even interview for any positions at other hospitals. However, he wasn't planning on staying in this town either. His future plans had been happily all mapped out. He would go to Karakura and work at his father's clinic in preparation for one day taking over the practice when his father retired. Karakura was his hometown, and he would be relieved to be going back to his roots.

If nothing put a hitch in his upcoming wedding plans, he could have months off to honeymoon with the girl of his dreams as well. It was nice not have to worry about work schedules for some time to come. Having his father as his boss definitely had its ups and down, but the greatest perk would be the loose work schedules. Ichigo taking over the family clinic was a fringe benefit for his father. Begetting grandchildren ranked of the highest priority in the eyes of his old man, and Ichigo didn't mind his perverted father's machination towards that end. No man looked forward to their wedding night as much as he. Three years of abstinence had him as horny as a sailor on shore leave after being at sea so long.

While Ichigo was casually sniping at his classmate Ishida at the party, Orihime—another classmate of his—came by and interrupted their usual tête-à-tête and asked to speak to him privately.

Guiding him to an unoccupied room, Orihime gestured for him to come inside on the pretense of offering her personal congratulations and a parting thank you gift for helping her at the hospital over the years. Ichigo automatically tensed in uncertainty, after turning around and hearing a soft click behind him. She had closed the door, completely sealing them alone inside. But when she made no move other than to pull a wrapped box out from her bag to offer him, he relaxed.

Inside the wrapped box was the strangest looking cake he had ever seen, but she obviously had worked extremely hard on it . He didn't have the heart to reject her sweet offering, and it didn't appear that she would let him leave without seeing him eat it anyways. So he managed to swallow every bite of it. Oddly enough, there was something illusively addictive about the dessert and he couldn't help but rapidly stuff his mouth with each delicious bite. The entire time he ate the cake, Orihime stared unblinking at him as she eagerly watched—to his discomfort—every nuance in his expression.

When nothing but crumbs was left, he tried to walk back out of the room after a carefully worded "thanks". But to his consternation, instead of walking straight, he ended up staggering into a nearby wall for support. Studying Orihime suspiciously, Ichigo began to suspect that she hadn't been surprised at his adverse reaction at all.

Whatever the cake was spiked with was starting to make him a little woozy, and for a moment the world spun dizzyingly in vertigo. A long moment later, when his vision stabilized, he began to notice something peculiar. For some reason, his eye sight had become sharper in the dim lighting, and a rhythmic thumping sound was beginning to hurt his ear drums. It took him some time to realize that the beating noise sounded very much like a heart beat. Not to mention, his sense of smell appeared to be extra sensitive.

All the surrounding smells assaulting his nose were making him queasy, and his stomach churned in protest.

Concentrating hard to settle his nausea, he noticed he could suddenly pick out each individual scent in the room and further outside the closed door. And with Orihime being so close, he was literally drowning in the nauseating scent of her. She smelled literally of curdled milk, and he struggled to prevent himself from gagging.

The most disturbing part other than her awful smell was that he thought he could pick out the emotions brimming from Orihime by her scent alone. For the first time, he noticed that she was slightly aroused and excitedly triumphant. Worst of all, the distinctive scents of slight guilt and deceit permeating her shell wafted towards his nose, inundating his senses and causing his hackles to rise instinctively. Oblivious to his new found hyper awareness, she seemed to be expectantly waiting for another reaction from him.

He'd always assumed she was a sweet girl, if a little ditzy and clumsy at times. Amazingly enough, she had always been in the top 10 of their medical classes and a fan favorite among the hospital's patients. However, he'd never paid much attention to her. Other than a slight unrequited tendre for him that he blatantly played the obtuse insensitive card to her, he assumed she had out grown that crush since their entry into college.

Any prolonged interaction with her had always made him uncomfortable, because he never had anything in common to talk to her about other than the occasional greeting and brief talk of their shared grade school days back in Karakura. Judging by his sudden hyper sensitive nose, she was obviously still extremely attracted to him.

Unexpectedly, his muscles began to cramp up spasmodic pain. "Orihime, what did you do? What have you done to me?" He gasped through the pain.

It began to feel as if his breath was being robbed from him as he unevenly panted to retrieve some oxygen into his lungs. He leaned heavily against the wall, and only the strength of his will kept him from collapsing in a heap on the floor, curled into a fetal position.

In obvious surprise, Orihime asked, "Don't you love me now, Ichigo?"

"Of course not! For gods sake, I'm already engaged to someone I love."

With tears in her eyes, she whispered, "But it was supposed to work . . . ."

Lunging towards her, Ichigo gripped her by the shoulders hard. Then he shook her as he asked, "What was supposed to work, Orihime?"

Orihime began to get frightened by the murderous gleam in his eye. She didn't understand, the Ichigo she had always dreamed about was thoughtful, kind, generous, and a veritable knight in shining armor. It wasn't supposed to be like this. This Ichigo was frightening and she panicked at not being able to see any semblance of his usual calm cool demeanor in his face.

When his hands started to tighten in a punishing grip over her shoulders, she stuttered out, "It was supposed to be a love potion recipe." And then she wailed out, "You were supposed to fall in love with me!"

Releasing her violently with a slight push in disgust, Ichigo fell to his knees clutching his stomach in agony. He felt like something was trying to tear out of his body.

Concerned about Ichigo's health for the first time, Orihime knelt down and tried to touch Ichigo. As if sensing her close proximity, his hackles raised and he gripped her outstretched wrist with bruising force while a malicious snarl escaped through gritted teeth. It wasn't until she was gasping and whimpering in pain that he looked up at her directly into her eyes. Her heart stilled and she screamed out loud in full terror.

Unfortunately for Orihime, the blaring celebratory music outside the room drowned out any noise she made.

o0o0o0o

-- 6 MONTHS & 3 WEEKS BEFORE --

They were all at the beach taking a vacation for the first time since entering college and then medical school. Ichigo, some of his classmen, and even Rukia had joined in the fun. The only person from their group of friends that didn't attend was Orihime. But her non-attendance was met with just curious shrugs. Apparently, after their last party a week ago, no one had seen her again. Most people assumed that she had already moved on to her new job.

Thankfully, ever since that incident, Orihime had avoided him like the plague. He was thankful for that at least. Whenever he caught her disgusting scent in the wind, the hairs on the back of his neck rose in anger. It took all his will power to not hunt her down and rip her throat out. It was frightening how much he wanted to kill her.

Whatever was in that cocktail that she gave him, looked like it was permanently staying in his system. At least his killer instinct wasn't as aroused as long as Orihime stayed away. Although, he had to revise that judgment once he was able to meet Rukia again after not being in each other's company for several weeks due to their busy schedules.

Rukia. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent deeply. She smelled utterly divine. It was like a virtual paradise of the senses. A scent unlike anything he had ever come across, it was combination of sakura flowers, fresh snow, and . . . innocence. It drove him crazed with desire. Want, need, and will battled for supremacy in his head; clouding his thoughts so that he could only see Rukia, hear Rukia, and feel Rukia.

After she was adopted, Rukia had been sent to a female boarding school. When it was time for college, she attended an all girl's preppy college for the upper echelon. As a result, she had always been naively ignorant of men because of her isolated and sheltered lifestyle. The men in her life boiled down to servants, body guards, her brother, Ichigo, and her childhood orphan best friend, Renji. Even Ichigo had to battle Byakuya and Renji hard to be included in that inner circle. However, contrary to them he didn't want to keep her so closely under wraps and delighted in showing her about the real world.

Unlike Rukia's unquestionable innocence, Ichigo on the other hand was at the other end of the spectrum. Without modesty, he was aware of his masculine appeal. His scowling countenance, muscular build, and orange hair attracted boatloads of lusting girls. Like any normal good looking guy with a healthy set of hormones—when he had an itch, he agreed to an occasional one-night stand to scratch that itch.

However, his bachelor days were numbered as soon as he had met Rukia. His itch now revolved around his physical, mental, and spiritual craving of her, and for her alone only. She was his moon, who anchored the world around him to give it more meaning. Rukia meant more to him than anything in the world. And he wanted her to have the whole 9 yards: the ring, the wedding, the flowers, and their first time making love on their wedding night.

He was thankful that she was so naïve when it came to passion, and that they had a long distance relationship. Because of that distance, Ichigo had been able to uphold his promise to wait before partaking of the passion that he knew lurked beneath her untried body. So many times, he had been on the precipice of tossing out his ideals and promises of waiting out the window. But somehow, he always managed to bank the fires in time before she got wind of it. She was oblivious to the amount of times he needed a cold shower to cool his ardor, or the countless times he had dreamed of her naked and in his arms.

Unfortunately, ever since seeing Rukia in person again—after what Orihime had done to him—was like seeing her for the first time in his life. Ichigo was standing upon a razor edge of self control in keeping his lust reigned in. His eyes cataloged every single detail about her, and her scent was so amazingly heavenly he just wanted to purr and nuzzle her gorgeous neck.

Seeing the hungry intent look Ichigo was giving her bikini clad body, Rukia blushed. After showing up, he had been very uncharacteristically abrupt in his dialogue. Regardless of his sharp words though, his eyes told another story. He seemed incapable of taking his eyes off her.

In addition, Ichigo had never been the touchy feely type, but suddenly he couldn't stop feeling her up and down. A stroke here, a caress there, a long nuzzle at her shoulder, a carefully hidden pat or squeeze to her bottom, and a brush of his arm against hers. Inwardly puzzled by his uncharacteristic behavior, nevertheless Rukia chose not to question his actions and instead unabashedly basked in the obvious appreciation of his attention instead.

His absolute absorption of her was making her a little giddy, hot, and nervously achy. So she dragged him into the water with her to play some water games to break up the heavy tension that was growing by leaps and bounds between them. When another attempt at dunking him didn't work, she leaped onto his waist trying to knock him over. The results by far were completely opposite of what she expected. Rather than continue on their water warfare, he kept her legs locked around his waist and quickly headed around a bend in the rocks along the beach hidden from the eyes of the other beach goers.

Puzzled, she would have questioned him on his attentions. But before she could open her mouth, she found she couldn't talk much less breathe as Ichigo suddenly ravaged her mouth voraciously unlike any kiss he had given before. Rukia was instantly swimming on the overpowering raw passion and arousal that he was forcing on her untutored body. However unexpected his actions were, she soon became a very willing recipient. Happily following his lead, she relaxed fully into his arms and mouth as he coaxed her tongue into his mouth and suckled seductively.

Long breath stealing moments later when he withdrew his tongue from her mouth, he ran the edge of his teeth along her neck and shoulder. Her body tingled at the unfamiliar feeling. Before she knew his intentions, he had covertly slid one bikini top aside revealing one plump breast for the first time to his gaze.

She would have covered herself immediately in maidenly protest if he hadn't launched a full scale attack upon her uncovered breast. The only sound that escaped her was a slight squeak, and then a long drawn out moan as he suckled on her nipple like he was desperate for nurturing. Feeling as if she might faint, her vision blurring, she fell limp against his chest. After some time, she snapped out of her daze and hissed in a slight sound of pain when he nibbled too hard around her breast. He stiffened immediately at the telltale sound, and that was the signal for Ichigo to withdraw in belated concern.

Gulping hard, Rukia tried to find her voice. When she was finally able to gather her wits again, Ichigo had pulled her bikini top up to conceal her breast. It barely covered all the love marks he had left, but at least she was decently covered.

Staring wide eyed at him in disappointment, she naively asked, "Why did you stop?"

Chuckling at her endearing reply and her willingness to continue, he kissed her deeply again. Unable to control himself, he lowered his swimming trunks slightly and reached behind her to grip his cock. As he kissed her out of her senses once again, he pumped sight unseen below the salty waters.

Clueless as to what Ichigo was doing to himself; Rukia returned all the passion with complete abandon. A short time later and without any warning, Ichigo pulled away briefly to bury his head in her shoulder as he moaned her name. Surprised by the shudders racking his frame, Rukia tried to pull away and look into Ichigo's eyes, but he resisted until she could hear his panting breaths level out.

As if it was ripped unwillingly from him, he emphatically exclaimed, "God, Rukia, I love you so much."

He wanted to bury his face in the curve of her neck and hold on to her forever.

Her skin was warm, and she smelled so alive. When Ichigo could hear the vein pulse in her neck, he captured her flesh between his teeth in a rough nibble. Blood flowed beneath the surface, calling him.

All at once he jerked his mouth away, as he became deeply afraid of hurting her. When he had come hard in the water just moments ago, he had to grit his teeth hard because everything in him was screaming at him to bite Rukia. His jaw ached to puncture that beautiful flawless skin and taste her blood, and his mouth positively watered at the imagined texture. Ichigo could still taste her skin, smell it too.

Little did she know how close she came to dying by his hands that day.

o0o0o0o

-- 6 MONTHS BEFORE --

Each day that had passed since Orihime had tricked him into her poisonous cocktail had him growing ever more edgy and aggressive as the end of the month drew near. Until all hell broke loose one night and he tore into a male that had dared lay a hand his girl. With an instinctive growl he had jumped at the man and beat the tar out of him. It took 5 other male guests to pull him off of the unfortunate player.

Ichigo could see the concern on Rukia's face, but her noble upbringing withheld her from voicing any questions or comments in such a public setting. Grabbing her wrists he hurried her out to the lobby and waited impatiently while their evening coats were retrieved. Outside, while they waited for the valet bring around Ichigo's car, Ichigo turned to Rukia and clutched her tightly to his chest.

His skin felt so tight, and now that they were out in the open air again he could breath in the fresh air. The scents and emotions brimming at the part assaulted all his senses until he could barely understand any of the spoken conversations inside. All he could think about was throwing Rukia over his shoulder and running outside where he could see the full moon. He didn't understand what was going on, but his mind and thoughts were swimming with the need for something and someone.

The only reason he lasted an hour into the party was because Rukia had been near. With her by his side, he could smell and drown in her essence enough to ignore everything else around him to degree. That was until that lack witted idiot had attempted to brush a hand supposedly on accident along the curvature of her breasts.

While Ichigo eyed Rukia's unconscious form, his mating instincts remained undiminished. Although he liked the feeling of her clawing his back in unrestrained passionate abandon, he felt the uncontrollable drive to take her now lest someone steal her away from him.

Ichigo was beyond any feelings of remorse, driven by a higher power and the instinct to claim his mate. Abruptly, he flipped Rukia's oblivious form over, and then kneeled in between her legs. With a clawed hand, he absently ran his nails lightly down her flawless pale back—leaving long scratch marks, and then kneaded her luscious buttocks. She was perfect in every way, shape, or form.

Unable to hold back any longer, he tore off his shirt and ripped open his pants. After dropping both his pants and drawers, he lifted Rukia's hips up with one arm wrapped under her hips. Then with one his other hand gripping his cock, he ran the tip along her feminine folds up and down to distribute some of the lingering moistness from her earlier orgasms. Just when he was about to forcibly thrust himself home within . . . something drew his attention out of the corner of his eye. He paused and turned his head fully to look in the dresser mirror facing him from the side of the bed.

For a span of a second, shock shook him down to his marrow as he observed any resemblance to his normal appearance had completely changed. His eyes were glowing a beastial yellow, and his body was fast transitioning into some sort of half man, half beast.

When he looked away from the horrific image of himself, he looked down his body and realized how far he had gone as he saw his cock pressing tightly against the unchartered gates of Rukia's womanhood. Completely aghast at his beastly intentions, he jerked away.

The room . . . it began to feel too stifling and claustrophobia set in. So Ichigo ran to the balcony doors, half crazed at the urgency that was pounding him to either rip into Rukia's exposed neck or to claw down the walls for open space. Without warning, his mouth started to pool as he imagined the taste of Rukia's flesh and blood in his mouth. When he pushed both balcony doors opened he tilted his head back and inhaled deeply of the night air. As his eyes opened, his gaze met the unclouded full moon hanging directly above. Before he could take another breath, pain shot through his body and he collapsed to his knees. His joints started to pop and his body began to knot up. It was pain unlike any he could imagine. Every shred of his being felt like it was being ripped apart, and he lay panting on the cool floor struggling to just breathe.

He would fight this . . . thing. More than anything else, he wanted to be with Rukia. And he wanted to be whole for her. He wouldn't be able to handle it if he hurt her.

o0o0o0o

A/N:

Hmm, not quite 5k words, but close.

Sorry about the delay. Back injuries, carpal tunnel, tendonitis, a sick munchkin, Halloween, elections, meetings, loopy hormonal drugs, project deadlines, a fever, and etc kept me pretty busy. I know this chapter wasn't quite up to par, and I'm not happy with it. So I apologize for loosing the writing mojo. It's not quite back yet, but hopefully all the upcoming smut will bring it back slowly as my hacking coughs hopefully disappear sometime in the near future.

By the way, I don't hate Orihime. I may have been cheering for Ulquiora to rip out her heart in the manga, but that's beside the point. Really, I don't hate her. It's my belief she serves a higher purpose in Bleach. There's always one dimwit that furthers the villains evil plans unintentionally, and she'll be the one.

Please review and let me know what you thought of the latest chapter. I hope you enjoyed learning about Ichigo's furry origins. Surprised? Originally, I had just had a couple lines about Ichigo getting attacked on a camping trip, but it would have been too cliché so I decided on this explanation. I know a couple of readers mentioned the implausibility of Rukia being so innocent in this story. So this chapter was to explain the reason for that as well.

This horror story pays homage to the old gothic romances where the heroine was always completely naïve and innocent. The stories where there was always a level of uncertainty on whether the main male was good or not. Anyways, even though this time period is placed in contemporary times, this story harkens back to that ambivalent type of tone. Light vs dark, sweet vs violent, and naiveté vs cunning mastery. How far can the heroine trust blindly in the hero?

Next Chapter: Continuation of where we left off after Rukia . . . er . . . got impaled in more ways than one.

Expect some delays for the next release; I'm going to work on my next "Dream of Me" chapter for a while. My shoulders are starting to tense from the invisible pitchforks prodding at my back from all the Dream readers out there.

As always, a special thanks goes out to all the reviewers. Your support is particularly encouraging in light of my current injuries and illness. My DH is forever trying to get me to quit writing, so it's been a difficult road to continue.