Swapped Luna part 3

VICTORIA

My arm is on fucking fire, but so is the rest of my body that touches the man’s skin.

The wolf-man. Dog-man. Royalty canine. Whatever the fuck he is. Clearly, he’s someone. People parted for him like they were afraid to get too close.

And now I’m flush against the man. Strange tingles spark across my skin. Across the skin that isn’t mine.

I should be dead right now. For a second, I thought I was. For a second I thought this was purgatory because the weather is rather nice—not hellish at all. But this can’t be heaven either, because entering it with a broken arm is a fucked up welcome ceremony. I would expect clouds and wings, not grass up my nose and a broken arm.

But then again god has a strange sense of humor—giving me cancer and all, when I always told adults I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up.

Something went horribly wrong. This isn’t my body. It’s healthy—broken arm and all.

“Why do you mumble?” Asks the devil man. The handsome, authoritative, electrifying man.

He’s utterly massive. They don’t make men like him anymore. The starvation among humans makes sure of that.

“Sorry,” I squeak with a voice that isn’t mine.

“Just heal and stop with the antics,” he says, his tone cold. He hates me—hates whoever this woman is.

I glance around, looking for the hospital through a haze of pain. But nothing around me looks familiar. There are tall inns scattered in the distance and cabins in between. Forest as far as the eye can see. People scattered about in various states of undress. The sky clear without a hint of pollution.

No vermin, beggars, or piles of burnt trash. This isn’t Europe, and I’m starting to doubt these are humans. I’m far from home.

My brain is starting to put together a conclusion, but it seems too insane to accept. This has to be a pain-induced hallucination.

Reincarnation? The word is too fucking senile for me to even say it out loud.

I close my eyes and focus on my breathing to soothe the excruciating pain in my arm.

I’m no stranger to pain after wasting away with cancer, but this pain comes in flashing red throbs. An instant, relentless stab.

“Fuck,” I pant. “The pain…medication, please.”

The man that carries me sighs, his breath warm against my neck. Intensifying the strange electric current in my body.

“Your best option is to shift,” he says flatly. No empathy in his tone.

He keeps saying that. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what any of this means!

All I know is that I died and fell off a balcony, landing on my arm. And now I’m in the arms of a giant, muscular man that speaks to me like I’m shit beneath his shoe.

“I need morphine, please…”

“I thought you hated needles?” He asks, frowning and finally showing some emotion. “Unless you lied about that, too.”

He’s judging me—or judging the person this body belongs to. It’s of no consequence. This pain is most certainly my pain, and I want it to end.

“I’ll take it,” I grit, teetering at the edge of unconsciousness as the nauseating pain keeps coming.

Needles are nothing new to me. Nothing foreign. I’ve been pricked and prodded in hospitals a thousand times, my arteries too small to easily be found.

I look at the sky with hazy eyes. Overwhelmed. Completely drowning in an ocean of pain. The bright sun hurts my eyes. I shut them tight and groan when I try to cradle my arm and the pain only worsens.

Getting lightheaded, I feel myself slipping. I wonder if this is it. If this time, I will finally die for good and this sick joke will end.

I look at the man. The one with, narrowed, completely empty blue eyes. Unworried and unbothered by my misery. Maybe he is the devil after all. His hate is palpable, contradicting the warm, pleasurable sparks between us.

“Why do you hate her?” I whisper, disassociating from my body as I slip into a delirious state.

“You should pass out now. I reckon you’ll want to spare yourself that answer.”

My body listens to his words, which feel like a command from an undercurrent of authority that I don’t understand. Something embedded deep in my subconscious.

I embrace darkness to escape the cruel, cold and blunt male.

— —

When I awake hours later, I open my eyes and find a white ceiling and tall pillars on a four-poster bed with a canopy draped over it.

The ceiling is supposed to be cracked, the paint chipped. The delicate canopy is supposed to be a cheap, stained, plastic curtain separating me from the other patient beds.

But this is clearly not a hospital.

I sit up, noticing the bandaid in my inner arm from where they pumped me full of drugs. My arm aches, but the excruciating pain is gone.

I rise from the bed on shaky, healthy legs that aren’t mine.

God, this is so creepy. I never thought I would miss my sickly, weak body that was all bark and no bite because I didn’t have the fucking strength to do anything except talk. The fastest movement I could muster was a roll of my eyes—an essential ceremony of my character that the universe had enough mercy to let me keep.

I walk toward the vanity, shocked by my balance. I forgot this was even a thing.

“Oh, fuck!” I whisper when I finally look in the mirror and find a beautiful face.

This is definitely not my face. Not my hair. I’m even taller!

Am I such an idiot that I screwed up dying? I know it doesn’t come with a manual because it’s pretty self-explanatory, but I must have found a way to fuck it up.

Great to go, Victoria.

Where did this beautiful woman with flushed cheeks and long curly hair go? Surely, she died in my body. There was no fuel left in me. I was running on fumes.

My old body must be a corpse back in Europe. This is so screwed up. I stole someone’s body!

I need to undo this.

I glance at the balcony and run to it, my nightgown flowing at my ankles. I push the glass doors open and peer down, planning on jumping to undo this mistake.

But then I see how far the ground is and I change my mind. I’d rather die from cancer again than jump.

Maybe the hateful man will understand what black magic fuckery is going on and help me. After all, he managed to change into a wolf—but that’s a problem for another day. I’m too preoccupied with the whole skipping death ordeal to worry about the man’s cosplaying hobby.

No, this isn’t the right solution. I will sound utterly crazy if I tell him I’ve been reincarnated. He will put me in a straight jacket. And the guy hates me so much he would take advantage and tickle me just to torture me.

So I’ll have to act normal and find someone I can trust. Someone that can help me return this body to it’s rightful owner, assuming she’s still alive.

A knock comes from the door.

“Luna?”

Luna…Luna… that’s the werewolf’s Moon Goddess. But it was also the title of a high ranking member in a pack. I can’t remember which one.

“Luna?”

“Yeah, come in!”

A girl enters, keeping her head low and her fingers entwined so tightly that they’re pale.

“Would you like to bathe, Luna?” She asks softly.

Act normal. Play along with the daily routine.

I need this girl to return at a later time. When I’m calmer and my plan set straight.

“Uh, sure. Let me just…pluck my fleas first.”

Do werewolves get fleas??

She looks at me in horror, before remembering herself and lowering her face again.

“Ex…cuse me?”

“Just pulling your leg!” I laugh nervously.

“Pulling my…”

“Nevermind. I need a sec. See you in an hour?”

“Of course, my lady.”

“Sweet. ‘Preciate you.”

She cringes. “Uh…”

Fuck, I’m speaking too casually. She’s catching onto me. But how can I pretend to be a woman I’m not? I’m not anyone’s lady who gets baths drawn for her.

“You’re dismissed.”

There. That’s something some asshole high-and-mighty lady would say, right?

It works. The girl retreats.

Now I need to find out how to return to Europe and what happened to my body. I’ll need money for the trip.

Digging through the bedroom, I find a few interesting things: a journal and a necklace that may be gold.

I’ll need more money. My closest source to it is the big bad wolf man that’s so powerful he can part crowds.

Now how the hell do I get anything from that man who looks like he’s upset the balcony fall didn’t kill me?

I must befriend him somehow. Maybe we can bond over some fleas-plucking.

READ PART 4>