Flip (OFFICIAL WATTPAD UPLOAD)

Chapter 2

Velvet barely had time to scream. A fresh bolt of agony surged through his arm as the man—or whatever the fuck he was—tackled him into the creek, and he shrieked when a pair of ice-cold hands shoved his head underwater.

In a fit of panic, Velvet bit the creature's hand.

He screeched, his grip loosening just enough for Velvet to lurch above the surface, gasping and coughing. The creature retaliated by slamming his head against the nearby rocks.

Velvet yelped in pain, and crumpled.

Through the throbbing red haze clouding his vision, he saw the creature looming over him. He had the claws and teeth of a mountain lion now despite being human-shaped; his pupils were like razor-thin feline slits and the whispers were turning into screams and the way his joints were bending was wrong.

He wasn't a man, Velvet realized as the trees swirled nauseatingly, branches blotting out the sky, the horrible screams swelling in his ears.

He was something else.

Velvet couldn't remember ever being this weirdly horny yet completely fucking terrified at the same time in his entire life.

Ice-cold hands wrapped around his throat, claws digging into his skin as the being squeezed tight enough to cut off his air, his neck popping frighteningly.

Velvet moaned.

The creature abruptly froze, his grip loosening. Velvet gasped, coughing violently as he shoved the creature back and jolted upright, grasping his bruised neck in relief.

"Ow," he wheezed, crumpling back to his knees.

He could feel the creature's gaze boring into his back. "What kind of fucking noise was that?"

Velvet yelped in fright, scrambling away.

"I'll answer that when you tell me what the fuck you are," he hissed, grimacing and massaging his head. "Oh goddamn it. Ow. Head hurts like a bitch. What the fuck, why'd you try to kill me, asshole?"

The creature let out a guttural growl, but he looked much more human than he had a moment ago. His claws had shrunk back into dirty fingernails and the tawny fur sprouting on his shoulders had vanished, and his teeth were rounded and slightly more human-looking. His pupils too had changed, from feline slits to strange vertical ellipses.

Oh, and he looked infuriated.

"Normally they beg for their lives," the man mumbled, his eyes fluttering half-closed as he stood, pressing the heels of his palms into his temples and wandering away. "I wait, I hunt, I eat. They scream. They always scream. They scream until I tear their throats open. And then they don't have anything left to scream with."

Velvet slowly rose to his feet.

What the FUCK?

"What the fuck," he mumbled, reaching for the nearest heavy rock. "What the fuck, what the—"

The man whipped around, his pupils going slit-like again, teeth and fingernails sharpening and growing before Velvet's eyes. "DON'T THROW THAT AT ME!"

The forest seemed to scream with the creature in a single eldritch crescendo. Velvet recoiled and dropped the rock, his hands shaking violently.

"What the fuck are you?" He squeaked.

"You're different," the man murmured, his features softening. "You don't... feel like prey. You didn't scream and beg for mercy."

He moved in close, head tilted curiously, pupils still slitted.

Velvet held as still as he possibly could, his pulse hammering in his ears as he struggled to hold down an uncomfortable laugh. He'd never been more freaked out and weirdly turned on in his life, especially when the man leaned in and licked the blood off his wounded arm.