The world changed in many small and unexpected ways with the rising of the moon.

The tide stayed a few seconds longer in one place and the undercurrent dragged a man off in to the ocean.

A butterfly frees itself early from their cocoon in a field and took flight along with its kin into the night sky which radically affected the weather heading towards a certain country in the Caribbean.

A groundhog turned over and went back to sleep not even bothering to bat an eye or leave it's den.

All of these things mattered not to the man who was running like the hounds of hell were chasing him, Jamal's weary body soon found itself in the park he had chosen to make his line in the sand, which in turn startled butterflies and sent them into the night sky.

He ran past football fields and cricket pitches, lungs burning with every step.

He ran past the kids play park where some homeless encamp themselves in the expansive tree house but none noted his passing.

They were many people still outside even with the warnings of the old emergency air raid sirens going off in the distance and his intervention, he worried about what would happen if his friends ran across any interlopers but his plan was already set and the only change he could make was to try to hide their presence with a quickly thrown charm in the area they resided.

That action almost cost Jamal the time he needed as he made his way to the oldest tree in the park.

Finally skiding to a halt there was the sound of a fleshy impact behind him, like someone had fallen from a great hight onto the concrete ground.

It was only then, that he allowed himself to turn and look. Three wolves stood pressed against a barrier of magic trying fervently to break it down. One of the wolves had stunned itself from the impact on the barrier, the side of its face had twisted into a bloody mess but was healing horrifically faster than anything should.

Normal female wolves would be around a hundred and thirty pounds at best but these were very far from normal. The women in their human form were around six feet tall and their leader was one inch over the tallest of them, with that much hight and mass changed into their beastly forms they were larger and more powerful than any normal wolf would be.

The tree behind him was an old oak tree and the protection it offered was strong, just not strong enough to keep up the protection if the three wolves kept throwing themselves at the barrier with no regard.

Jamal was still a member of their pack but he also wasn't, which is why they were so focused on him. He wasn't a wolf or anything exotic like a shape changer, so they felt the instinctive need to convert him, even if it killed him.

This wasn't the first time he had to deal with this problem but this time was a bit more, intense, than the last, it had also happened the second time he met them, which was a long time ago.

It was simply the nature of some magical creatures that could not naturally procreate to find other ways, someyimes very violent ways.

A bite or cut from them in their wolf form would be quite dangerous but the same bite or cut from them while under the full moon would infect or kill most people.

Jamal however, wasn't most people.

Island magic was for a large part almost always about preparation, ingredients and timing also mattered along with intent. Jamal didn't have the ingredients he needed, nor did he have the time to get himself ready for a fight, not with the moon now supercharging his packmates.

Looking up at the moon, he could feel the heavy pulse of chaos and magic it was giving off.

A particularly hard impact made him look back at the barrier that was now starting to falter. The tree that sustained it was starting to show its age as cracks formed and branches shattered and fell.

The protection spell was breaking and time was running out.

Jamal forced himself to breathe slowly, as he took one deep breath after another, if he gave into panic he would more than likely survive but the three women he had unexpectedly grown to care for, would meet their end here despite his best efforts and by his very own hand.

As he looked around the tree he saw many things from flowers to plants that would make great drinks, passable potions and hallucinogenic concoctions but nothing that would help them all survive this situation intact.

One of the largest branches cracked before falling to the ground, while the bloody mess of the of the wolves pulled themselves away from the barrier already healing the broken bones, muscle and skin from the latest impact.

Jamal realized his time was up, with choices limited he felt himself go back to the cold place that had made him a horror story that scared monsters.

Then out of the corner of his eye he spotted them escaping the ruins of the fallen tree branches, born earlier than they should but seemingly helped by the effect of a chaotic full moon....a host of silver butterflies took to the air.

Jamal smiled, the coldness within him didn't ease but shifted he had a way to save himself that wouldn't require three friends deaths.

Then everything happened at once, he withdrew a golden pocket watch from his jacket as the barrier retracted, the three wolves had once again rounded for another charge as a soft whisper left his lips, unnaturally the silver winged butterflies now born launched themselves on fluttering wings all across the field, then died, just as the tree a moment before also cracked and broke into an mangled shell as its last few leaves fell.

The moon hid nothing of their savagery as the wolves before him all closed ground faster than he thought possible.

He could make out details that he had missed hiding in the shadow of the tree but with the moon now unblocked everything was a stark vision before him.

Jamal looked on as the three wolves leaped at him, two high one low aiming to hamstring him and pull him to the ground in a seemingly practiced motion.

The moon grew brighter for a moment as the whisper stopped.

Then he burned a part of his life, the watch, the swarm of butterflies and the remnants of the tree behind him in an instant to make the moonlight change, becoming a solid force but as soon as it did, it again altered to almost liquid flowing to both Jamal and the wolves.

In that moment the wolves changed, deathly sharp fangs became dulled,

claws became fingers and toes, fur dropped away into skin.

Jamal barely had a chance to widen his eyes before the three young women and the wave of liquid moonlight ripped him off his feet slamming him onto the hard ground.

Air left his lungs like an expended balloon.

His vision went black and for a moment another curse was on his lips and in his heart as he was trained to take his death's cause with him.

But he silenced himself as the realization that his spell succeeded hit him.

The return of feeling in his body came a few moments later along with the feeling of excess weight on top of him.

The hostility in the air had vanished completely along with the reagents he used.

The three women no longer wolves crashed into him and were now sleeping naked using him as a pillow.

He didn't need to see to know that he was now the focus of something that was looking down on him from a very high place.

He had used the tree as a medium, the moon, an old family heirloom and the surrounding life to dirty magyver, a way for them all to live but he had done something more, the loose bond he had always felt for the three women was now almost a physical string that bound them tighter now than ever before. It wasn't the only thing that had changed, three women sleeping under a full moon was a testimonial to what happened.

Not that it mattered to Jamal as he started to drift off to sleep.

Leaving only the moon watching from on high as he lay in a field now devoid of life..

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《Young one, you need to wake up. Someone is breaking into the den.》