Love bytes, p.1
Love Bytes, page 1
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, products, business establishments, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
LOVE BYTES
Copyright © 2025 by W.D. Robertson
www.wdrobertsonwrites.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews—without written permission from the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.
ISBN 979-8-218-82744-1
Published by Aether Romance
First Edition: October 2025
Cover illustration and author illustration by Samuel Bujanda
Cover and title page design by GetCovers.com
Contents
Dedication
1. Warm Reboot
2. Line of Dance
3. The Road Less Traveled
4. Divide by Zero
5. Railroaded
6. Group Theory
7. Mirror Balls
8. Transformer
9. Initialization
10. Down the Rabbit Hole
11. Condiments and Confessions
12. Crypto
13. Cuban Motion
14. Heels and Hopes
15. Jobs and Jerks
16. Chips and Dips
17. Complex Plane
18. Debug Session
19. Convergence
20. Osculation
21. Salted Rims
22. Avocado Toast
23. Pencil Skirt
24. La Maison de la Bête
25. Molecular Machines
26. Rosalee
27. Canned
28. Dirty Dancing
29. Boot Scootin’ Boogie
30. Nova
31. Bricks and Bastards
32. 3141592653589793238
33. Loose Lips Sink Ships
34. Gasoline and Götterdämmerung
35. It Only Hurts When I Laugh
36. Revelation
37. Dumbbell
38. Warm Reboot 2.0
39. The Fabulous Atlanta Open
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About The Author
For all those who fought the battle and lost:
You would have been amazing werewolves.
Chapter one
Warm Reboot
Cynthia Adams sat in the big reclining chair in her hospital room, balancing a jiggling Jell-O blob on her spoon, furious she’d permanently Turned into a werewolf.
“Is there a problem?” her therapist asked, pointing to the spoon.
Cynthia squinted at the name tag pinned to the woman’s flower-print top: Marjorie Smith, Lycanth Occupational Therapist, Northwest Hospital, Atlanta, embossed in bold black letters. If Marjorie really was a lycanth expert, she would have known that being a lycanth was the entire problem.
Scowling, she held up a clawed hand, nearly spilling her Jell-O. “Um, what do you think?”
Marjorie stuck out her lower lip in a sympathetic pout. “I’m sorry. I know you’re stressed, but let’s try another bite, sweetie.”
Steadying herself, Cynthia opened her mouth, inserted the spoon, and watched the quivering green blob plunge into her lap for the fifth time in a row, dislodged by one of her fangs. Her shoulders sagged. “Dammit.”
“It’s okay, more where that came from,” Marjorie said, picking up the blob with a tissue and dropping it into the wastebasket alongside the others. “If it’s one thing hospitals have plenty of, it’s Jell-O. Remember to open your mouth wider than you’re used to and let’s try again.”
The overloaded recliner screeked as Cynthia shifted her huge body, tugging on her gown and trying to get comfortable. Her tail began to cramp and as her ears flicked back, her hand darted involuntarily to the top of her head, the spoon slipping out of her grasp and clattering to the floor. Ears that moved as if they had a mind of their own freaked her out.
Marjorie pulled another spoon off her cart and handed it to her. It looked big in her hand, but it was too small for Cynthia to hold comfortably in hers. “Let’s try again,” she said. “Doctor Simmons says you were…excuse me, are a computer programmer.”
“Computer thientist,” Cynthia corrected, clumsily scooping a Jell-O cube onto her spoon. “There’s a differenth.” Her difficulty consistently enunciating s-sounds frustrated her to no end—that and the fact her voice was now more than an octave lower—but waking up with a five-inch-long muzzle protruding from her face had left her with certain challenges, including not knowing exactly where her mouth was relative to her eyes.
“That reminds me, your speech therapy appointment will be at two o’clock this afternoon instead of three. Linda will help you get rid of that lisp in no time flat.” Marjorie pointed at the spoon. “Let’s try again, shall we?”
Cynthia huffed and slowly brought the spoon up to where she thought her mouth should be, opening wide enough to feel her lips stretch. She couldn’t see over her nose and was relying on dead reckoning. This time the spoon and the Jell-O went in. She squished the Jell-O against the roof of her mouth with her tongue. After nineteen months in a Turning coma, any and all food tasted incredible. Even Jell-O.
“There you go,” said Marjorie, patting Cynthia’s furry knee. “It won’t be long at all before you’re feeding yourself.”
“Thtill not sure where my mouth is,” she said, pointing with her spoon and accidentally jabbing her lip. “Ow. See what I mean?”
Marjorie wiped a fleck of Jell-O off Cynthia’s chin with a tissue. “I know, that must be so frustrating. It’s only been three days since you Returned, though. I promise that you’ll get used to it really fast. People are so adaptable.”
“Don’t know how I’m gonna adapt to this.” She lifted her arm and glared at the brown curve-hugging fur covering her massive bicep. She’d seen fur like it on pit bulls and it was everywhere. “How am I thupposed to take care of this thtuff?” Ugh, those damned s’s.
“Fur care is another thing I’ll be helping you with. As soon as you feel up to it, we’ll get you showered and I’ll show you how to brush it out.”
Her long red hair slipped down into her face and she swept it to the side, but there was no ear on the side of her head to park it behind. “You theem to know lots about lycanths.”
“I do,” Marjorie said, tapping the Jell-O bowl. “Let’s keep going.” She leaned back in her chair. “My husband Bill, he Returned a couple years ago. I’m an expert now.”
“That was nice you thtayed with him after that happened.” Cynthia scooped up another jiggling cube and succeeded in getting it into her mouth. Two in a row. She was on a roll.
“A person is a person no matter what body they’re in,” Marjorie said, “and he’s my person. He inspired me to shift my career path to lycanth therapy.”
Cynthia stared at her, unable to imagine someone wanting her like Marjorie wanted her husband. She’d never been anyone’s person. Strange, nerdy, unsociable people like her didn’t get to be someone’s person. They got to watch couples be each other’s person as they walked in the park or shopped for groceries together or sat across from each other at a restaurant, their fingers laced together on the table. No, misfits like her got to work by themselves, eat by themselves, and adopt cats by themselves. She couldn’t deal with a cat, preferring dogs, but she didn’t have one of those either.
She didn’t want to be anyone’s person anyway. At least not anymore. The times she’d tried had only gone badly. Crushes had led to dates—sometimes. Dates had led to sex—rarely. And sex had led to humiliation—always. But her research had never once failed her. It was fascinating and exciting and when she discovered some new algorithm or exciting bit of mathematics, the angels sang.
“I don’t think anyone could want this thing,” she said, glancing down at her front. “I’m too big and gross now.”
“Now-now, none of that. Your reward for making it through the Turning is some pretty dangerous curves and I assure you that you’re someone’s kind of pretty, both inside and out.” Marjorie pushed her cart against the wall and heaved a welded steel walker nearly as tall as she was in front of the recliner. “How about we walk the halls a bit? I’ll show you the rehab facility where you’ll be spending a lot of time over the next month, starting this afternoon.”
Cynthia’s chest tightened. She’d be leaving the only place she’d been since regaining consciousness, and she’d be where others could see her. “Y-you think I’m ready to d-do that?” she stuttered, digging her black claws into the recliner’s upholstered arms, piercing the fabric.
“You can’t stay here forever, love,” Marjorie said, giving her a sympathetic look. “The faster you get on your feet, the sooner you can get back to living your life.”
Cynthia hesitated, then leaned forward and grasped the walker’s rubber handgrips, heaving herself up as the recliner, free of her bulk, rocked wildly behind her. The top of her therapist’s head barely came up to her stomach. “Lead the way,” she said.
Marjorie opened the door and Cynthia ducked under the doorway’s seven-foot height, her should ers and walker barely passing through. With her head near the ceiling and without her glasses—which no longer fit—standing up made her dizzy. The air was redolent of floor wax, chemical antiseptic, and the sharp metallic odor of patients frightened by their infirmities. She didn’t know how she knew it was fear, but she did, and it made her tense.
Easing down the nearly empty hallway, she looked for others like her. “Are there any other lycanths here now?”
“You’re the only one at the moment,” Marjorie said, walking beside her. “We rarely have more than one or two at a time and right now it’s only you.”
“Hmph,” she grunted, “lucky me.”
As they approached a station where two nurses sat at large monitors, one looked up with an expression of delight. “Well-well, look who’s finally up and about. Welcome back to the world, Doctor Adams.”
“Thank you,” Cynthia said as she passed, impressed that the nurse used her title. Her whole body felt stiff. Even as heavily muscled as she had become, after a year and a half in a Turning coma it was hard to move. She squinted down at Marjorie. “I’m s-still nearthighted like I was before I Turned,” she said slowly, trying hard not to lisp and failing. “When can I get new glasses?”
“That’s tomorrow,” Marjorie said. “We have an optometrist that can do the exam right in your room.”
She liked that idea. Walking down the hall made her feel horribly exposed and she wanted to go back to her room, close the door, and hide under a blanket where no one could see her.
Faint clanking sounds echoed behind double doors near the end of the hallway and Marjorie pushed one of the doors open. “Here’s our rehab facility. You’ll be coming here four times a day. You’re too big to use most of the exercise machines, but there are free weights for lycanths and our physical therapists are also certified yoga and Pilates instructors for physically challenged patients.”
Cynthia stooped and squinted through the doorway. Mirrors lined the opposite wall and she blanched when she saw her blurry reflection filling the room’s entrance. Two patients, one of them near a wheelchair, were on a broad blue mat working with a therapist on balance and range of motion. A third was bench-pressing on a weight machine.
“Will there be a lot of people in there when I go?” she asked.
Marjorie shook her head. “It’s never crowded like a commercial gym, if that’s what you’re thinking, but a few patients are usually in there.”
Her eyes turned back to the mirrors and the monstrosity standing in the doorway. Memories of her Turning surged forward again—the raging incandescent fever; the convulsions; the skin-searing bone-splintering pain; the emergency room; her father’s frightened face as he brandished his Bible and wooden crucifix, praying at the top of his lungs for the evil demon to flee her body. Then nothingness. Then now.
Her chest tightened and her pulse pounded in her ears. She turned away from the door, her walker thudding on the floor. “I want to go back to my room now,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Marjorie asked, placing a hand on Cynthia’s arm.
“I don’t—” Adrenaline spiked and her ears flattened to the sides. She sagged onto her walker, sobs heaving from her chest. “I’m—I’m—I’m tho thcared.” Her hands slipped from the walker’s frame and she sat hard on the cold blue tile floor, tears tracing dark wet paths through her muzzle’s brown fur.
“Patient down,” Marjorie called down the hall. “I need assistance here.” She stooped in front of Cynthia and held her face in her hands, placing her forehead on Cynthia’s. “I know you’re frightened. I can’t possibly imagine what it’s like to wake up so different.”
Footsteps pounded toward her. “I…don’t want…to be like this,” she hiccupped. The thought of spending the rest of her life in a body that wasn’t hers, yet somehow was, pressed down on her like a lead weight.
Marjorie massaged her cheeks and kissed her on her forehead. “I wish I could undo it, but I can’t. No one knows why the Turning happens. What I can do is to help you move forward like all the others who Turned before you.” She gave Cynthia’s head a gentle shake and looked straight into her eyes. “With everything you’ve already been through, please don’t give up now.”
Cynthia nodded, sniffling, wrapping her arm behind Marjorie’s back and pulling her close. “I nee-need my phone. If I’m going to do this, I gotta make some calls.”
Chapter two
Line of Dance
Three years later...
“Can’t we get a little closer in third contact?” Allison Myers slid her crotch up Alex Rogers’ thigh a few inches, pressing into him with vigor. “I mean, it’s Tango and you’ve said our hips should be locked together. After all, Tango’s all about sex, don’t you think?”
Alex backed away. “Well, there are limits, you know,” he said, measuring his words carefully. “We have to be able to change patterns smoothly. Too close and we’re immobile. We can’t maneuver. You know that.”
“I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather maneuver than you, Alex.” She winked at him and came at him again, sliding her right leg between his legs, reaching for his left hand and placing her other hand on his shoulder.
He sighed, exasperated, staring up at the exposed roof trusses and the darkened spotlights hanging from them. Allison was the highest-spending customer at Rogers DanceSport Studio. She took twenty private lessons each week at his ballroom, spending fifteen hundred bucks, week in and week out, minimum, and Alex was her favorite dance instructor. She was sixty years old, twice his age, and rich as hell. And the woman was horny all the time.
“Shall we resume?” she asked lustily, sliding up his thigh again.
The clock at the far end of the dance floor mercifully showed it was five minutes before the hour. “I’d love to Allison, but unfortunately our time is up. It’s almost two o’clock and I’ve got a meeting with my instructors in twenty minutes.” He hated staff meetings, but he was suddenly thankful for this one.
“Oh, poo. And we were just beginning to have fun.” She looped her arm around his and let him escort her to the table where her dance student notebook and his phone with its lesson planner lay.
Alex pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit with him. The planner organized his business life and reminded him how non-existent his personal life had become. He scanned the week’s entries. For the first time in a long time he wasn’t spending three hours straight each day with Allison. She had scheduled sessions with Michael Barnetti, a travelling coach and champion competitor in the Smooth dances, and that was taking up most of her time that week. “No changes to your schedule this week besides Barnetti, right?”
“No.” She sighed and pouted. “You don’t have time for me and I’m with Michael most of this week. He’s good, but he’s not as good looking as you and not as much fun.” She put a hand on his knee and ran it up his thigh. “You should make it up to me by letting me take you to dinner tonight.”
Alex smiled at her, but the smile didn’t extend to his eyes. “Now Allison, you know we have a no-fraternization policy with students. Besides, I have a guest party to run tonight and I’ll be working until eleven. I appreciate the invitation, though.”
She slipped off her dance heels and dropped them into her bag. “If you say so. But dinner might encourage me to spend a little more at your studio, you know.” She eyed the worn dance floor and ran a finger over the chipped wooden tabletop. “Lord knows it could use the money.”
He cringed inside. RDS could definitely use the money, but he had to hold firm and he changed the subject. “Coming to the party tonight?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t have any more guests I can bring, so I’ll just curl up at home with a glass of wine and dream about Tangoing with you.”
“We’ll miss you. But thanks for dancing with me today. And enjoy your wine. Have a glass for me.”
“Think about my dinner offer,” she said, shrugging on her white knee-length puffer coat. She picked up her dance shoe bag and turned toward the lobby area at the front of the studio. “I’m always ready.”
