When I woke up, E.B. was gone. I was alone again. I almost started to wonder if that had been just another embarrassing fantasy until I sat up and saw the puddle of dried semen - and I could smell, with my twitching, sensitive nose, that it was his cum as well as mine. In fact, I was still just as much of a rabbit as I'd been before, which meant he probably wasn't any further from human. So where had he gone? And what time was it, anyway? The warm daylight that had been streaming through the window during our love-making session was gone now, and my bedroom window showed only darkness outside.
I crawled over to the bedside table and reached for my phone, which now looked more like a tablet in my shrunken arms. It was just past midnight, the clock told me, Friday, April 18. How long was I out? I wasn't sure how long we'd been at it, but I figured it must have still been Thursday morning, maybe getting close to noon, by the time we finished. I guess I couldn't be surprised that getting changed like this would fuck up my sleep schedule. Didn't normal rabbits sleep during the day? I realized I should probably read some "care and feeding" stuff on the Internet, if it would help me better understand what exactly I was now.
I figured E.B. would come back before long, but each hour that passed made me a little more worried. The whole idea, which he'd been so enthusiastic about from the get-go, was that we would stay right here until the danger had passed. But he wasn't anywhere in my house - and I checked, everywhere, several times. As I searched each room, everything seemed so huge and unfamiliar that I couldn't help but start to think of my own belongings from his foreign perspective. Maybe he was in the kitchen, enjoying the wonderful world of processed foods for the first time? Nope, although a few boxes had clearly been spilled over in the cupboard. Surely he would be fascinated by the giant glowing image-box in the living room? Not there, either - how would he know to turn it on, anyway?
Most importantly, I hopped down the stairs and went to the one room of the house I most associated with him - the unfinished bathroom in the basement where we'd first met. And that was where I started to piece it together. The window to the outside was wide open, and I was certain I'd made sure to close it when we came in. I feared the worst. Could those wolves really have gotten in here and snatched him while I was fast asleep? I doubted their large, muscled bodies would even fit through the narrow opening - normally, even mine wouldn't. And even if they had, why would they have spared me? The three of them could have easily had both of us for dinner with room left over for dessert.
So... had E.B. just gotten up and left me? Was that the type of rabbit he was, to just have a one-night stand and skip out? I had trusted him with every fiber of my being, but I barely knew him. We'd only met a couple of days ago, and he'd spent most of that time explaining what was going on. And I believed him, because there was no way I could really question him. I groaned and rubbed my furry forehead at the thought. More women than I could count had given me the same treatment. I didn't want to accept that it was happening again, but I found it sadly all too easy to believe that I'd just been used.
No... no. How could I say that? How could I even think that? E.B. had shown me more genuine kindness in just a couple days than I'd had in months beforehand. Whatever it was that made him take off like that, I knew it had to be for a good reason. He was a mythical creature with responsibilities I was only beginning to understand. He'd be back. I told myself that again and again with every hour that passed all day, with less and less confidence in that thought each time. He'll be back... right?
I didn't know what to do with myself as I waited. The idea of watching TV or trying to play some video games seemed too weird and awkward when I was still a three-foot-tall rabbit-creature. And using masturbation to pass the time again was out of the question for me now. Anything I could do to myself would pale in comparison to the real thing - now that I'd gone were-rabbit, I wasn't sure I could ever bear to go back, emotionally or physically. Plus, who (or what) would I even think about? The memory of him had me more worried than aroused now, and as long as I was in this fuzzy form, I wasn't sure I was even attracted to humans anymore.
From my bedroom window, I lazily watched the sun climb into the sky, reach its peak, and start to come back down to the horizon. I dozed off several times, after googling it and learning that rabbits do in fact sleep through the middle of the day, being more active around dawn and at dusk. The same times of day, E.B. had told me, when the were-creature magic was at its most powerful, along with midnight. It was all starting to make a little more sense to me now. The middle of the day was sort of useless for a were-rabbit, even when they were fully transformed. Why not sleep those hours away?
Of course, every time I shut my eyes, it was with the hope that he'd be at my side, in my arms, nuzzling my cheek, when I opened them again. And every time my eyelids fluttered open... he still wasn't there. The little indentation he'd left in the pillow was still empty.
Maybe he was planning to come back at sunset, just like he did yesterday. I waited for the daylight to slip away with bated breath, nervously tapping my paws against the mattress. My long ears strained to hear the tiniest sound that could be him hopping through the grass outside my window. But there was nothing except the rustling of the wind through the trees.
It was around the same time the sun finally disappeared below the horizon that I finally remembered my nose. With a little bit of concentration, I could still pick up the trail of his scent - covered in more than a little bit of mine that he had tracked with him - as it hopped down off the bed, out of the room, and down the hallway. I got down on all fours and sniffed at the floor until I was almost licking up the droplets of my own cum that he'd left behind. I followed the smell, which took me exactly where I would have guessed - into the basement and out of that bathroom window.
I was about to climb right through that window and follow the scent into the grass when I stopped myself. If something terrible had happened to him, I was charging into that very same danger. If something terrible hadn't happened to him... well, either way, I suspected I was about to have my heart broken by what I found. But I had to know. Even if it ended up killing me, figuratively or literally, I needed to know what happened. So I squeezed my way through the window frame and stepped into the grass.
Out here, his scent was harder to pick up - there were just so many more smells in every corner of the yard. But I felt it just enough to keep following. And the trail told a story all by itself. It went over to one particularly lush, green patch of grass, which had been shaved down to a lower height than the rest of the lawn, and had what I guessed were some bite marks on it. A little further down, the scent suddenly got a lot stronger. I could smell the emotion in it - fear. And then, just as suddenly as the trail got easier to spot, it disappeared altogether. I sniffed around a little, but to no avail. A dead end. So where could he have possibly gone?
I looked up from the grass, feeling like these clues were trying to tell me something, but still not understanding what to do next. That was when I saw it, steadily coming toward me in a slow prowl. One of the werewolves! I had to get out of here, and fast. I turned tail and ran, with all the stamina that my new body could provide - only to see another wolf approaching from the other direction. I darted to the left, thinking that maybe I could outrun them both if I got enough of a head start, and nearly ran right into the last of the three predators as it closed in. And in the only remaining direction - the backyard fence. They had me completely cornered. My heart was racing. I cowered in the grass, not daring to look up into the jaws of doom as they drew closer and closer.
"Wow, that was easy!", I heard a voice say, clearly one of the Beta wolves I had seen before. "How should we deal with him, Alpha? I wanna tear him limb from limb!"
"No, you dolt!", the other Beta said. "He's an Easter Bunny! We gotta tie him up and wait for the right moment to kill him, like we did with that other one! To gain his powers - that's what Alpha said!"
I knew that Dirk's confidently cruel voice was coming any second. I braced for it, certain it would be the last sound I'd ever hear. "Not so fast, Betas. This one... hmmm. I can smell it on him. He's never done this before. The transformation magic doesn't have its hooks all the way in him yet. It's not too late for him to change his mind about being a pitiful little hunk of rabbit meat."
I peeled myself out of my cowering position and looked up in confusion. I was immediately met by those sharp, bright blue eyes, which were now staring straight through me. They were set in what was otherwise indistinguishable from any other wolf's face, his fangs bared in a predatory smile. "Yes, there we go," Dirk said, reaching out a paw-hand and cupping it under my chin, forcibly preventing me from looking away again. I felt those sharp claws delicately pressing against my throat, ready to dig in at a moment's notice. And it couldn't be lost on me that he was huge - easily twice my size, that one paw large and thick enough to cradle my whole head.
"As I was saying, bunny, the choice is still in your hands. Until this first full moon of yours is over, you get to decide what type of were-creature you want to be. And our pack could use another hunter. If you stay with us from now until Sunday morning, I'm sure that would be enough to flush all the terrified prey out of your system and make you into a strong, powerful wolf. You can join us, and together this whole stupid holiday will be ours! Or, I suppose, you can keep putting up your pathetic resistance, and I'm sure you and that lover of yours will make a delicious Easter feast once we've drained all your magic out of you. The choice is yours... Josh."
Shit. He knew who I was. I was frozen to the spot where I stood, not moving a muscle. He kept saying that word "choice", but I knew I didn't have a choice at all. When the options were to betray the creature I'd just fallen deeply in love with, or to face down certain death - what else could I possibly have done? I knew what I had to say.