Fade to Black-2

Chapter 2

It’s still raining out I can smell it. Even before I open my eye’s I can smell it, hear it so clearly and feel it on my face…no… those are tears.

I don’t want to move. Dom and I finally made love and we crashed soon after that and I didn’t even dream, I felt nothing and no one and just pretty much passed out. I hurt, I hurt inside in ways I didn’t know people could. It’s not from fighting or from the sex it’s just…I just hurt from everything? I know that the soldiers in my pack get it…heart sick, soul sick.

I dreamt of Katya even in the darkness that had swallowed me up with the exhaustion and the pieces of my heart that had died from the battle and losing my people and being right. I dreamt of her and she wasn’t in those bloodstained clothes that she had been wearing.

She had been in this simple white shimmering camisole and …and nothing else…she had held me and kissed me…and…

I woke up.

It’s not fair to Dom really, he’s been…well, there’s a ton of people of women that’d be nuts not to love him. I do. I’m just really not sure about being in love with him.

And that’s not fair. Not with his arm around my waist here in bed and his body pressed to mine. There’s tears pouring out of my eyes as I just stare out my window in the RV. It’s sort of matching the rain…my mood, I woke up crying.

Everything I did is just right there swirling away in my brain.

I feel like shit on about ten different levels.

I don’t want to do anything but just curl up somewhere with my tail over my face. I rub my face and get the tears out of my eyes and gently lift Dom’s arm away from me and slip out of bed and stop to stare out the window.

There’s tents everywhere but it’s grey and wet and miserable out. The fires are out we had going and there’s a few people still on guard duty moving around in the rain and the mist. I pick up a bad nostalgic moment from a pack member in his sleeping bag as we both stare out at the lonely guard on the south fence.

Just a kid a teenager in a salvaged helmet and in a poncho in the raid an M-16 in his hand…

I feel it like the one remembering his time in that south east asian hell-hole he had been sent into when he was only as young as this kid is. I feel so responsible. I feel this almost hand on my shoulder and a squeeze.

~It’s different your Highness, this, this was something real, something that was really out to kill us, to kill our families and our loved ones not some drug war or some pissing contest or some brawl over oil…you did the right thing your Highness, a hard thing but the right thing.~

I pull the feelings of that strength and loyalty and belief from him and the others that feel the same way and use it to get me going. I pass by the door to the RV and smell meat. I open the door and there’s a plastic cooler there I take it into the trailer and set it on the counter and then go and slip into the shower. I turn it on hot but step right in letting the chill of it wake me then letting it get as hot as I can stand it before adding and of the cold.

So people are bath people but I’m more of a shower girl. I like the way the water cascades down and around my body and flows down around my curves. I’m now pretty convinced that I was hiding some transgendered stuff from myself and from others. Honestly I was or had a few of those fantasies about girls where I was one too. I kind of shrugged them off as my teenaged brain thinking up lesbian stuff but no…It might be the majik but I’m way too comfortable in my own skin like the way that I am now.

Just thinking about it has me drifting away into the whole shower soapy fantasy land and I’m not in the shower alone in my mind in here with me in the steamy mists is Katya and she’s touching me. Caressing my aching for her touch breasts, the way she rolls every so gently but not my nipples between her thumb and forefingers.

The way her hand reaches around from behind me to dip into my sex and to slip into me and start to pleasure me in all the right ways. I can’t help but to ride her hand to orgasm. “Nnnnn…Kat…Katya….”
I come down from it and she’s not there and I can hear Dom’s up and he likely heard me. The running water wouldn’t conceal that much even if I was quiet…It’s a bit too much and I sink to the shower floor and pull my legs up tight and cry.

……………………..The water was cold when I got out and dried off and thankfully it wasn’t Dom but grandfather and he’s cooking. I look around and see a shimmering sigil on the door to the bedroom.

“Silence Sigil.” He says. I nod and slip into a white tee shirt and panties then throw on one of Dom’s long sleeve shirts. I stop to smell it. Grandfather looks at me. “Given what I heard that’s a little mixed isn’t it?”

“Yeah, very actually. I hate it Gramps.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Talking won’t bring Katya back…God-dammit Gramps, why? Why did it have to be me? Why did I have to fall in love with someone and have them taken from me?”

“Stevie, you’re not the only one this has happened to. There’s a whole bunch of them just outside who just won’t get it but are going through it too.”

“I know, it’s just so damned unfair.”

“Life’s not fair Stevie, it never was and it never will be. Fair’s something that mankind came up with.”

“So there’s no Why?”

“I’ve no Idea, you could try to ask the Greek goddess of wisdom out there or the elf or the earthbound angel but they kind of all look like they’re still looking for answers too. Okay…maybe not the elf.”

“Heh, sounds like you’re not a fan.”

“I’ve had encounters with the Fae over the years. The fact they’re part of a species that regards us as vermin or food or just about as significant as fish.”

“Are they a species?”

“As much as the Were are there’s many types of the Were-Gene, there’s who knows how many kinds of fae.”

I sit and Grandfather tosses chopped onions into the pan and then once they were sizzling he tosses in little chunks of bacon and a bit after that some chunks of venison along with bits of liver and whole chicken livers, gizzard and hearts he cooks them just enough to change colors and sets it in front of me with coffee and toast and dumps the yolks of three eggs ontop of them.

It sounds gross and normally it’d be grossing Steven out but this has me drooling, that oniony-bacony thing going on with the sear of pretty much raw meat all slathered in the richness of raw egg yolk…its food porn to my carnivore brain.

Dark roast coffee and blood go together. I’m sopping up the liquids with my toast and dammit if my mood isn’t getting better. Or as someone would say I’m starting to feel more human.

“You’re looking better.”

“I feel a bit better at least in body I guess.”

“Stevie you went through a serious fight and did serious magic the last two day and you haven’t really stopped since this started kid you’re running pretty close to empty. Even the way you heal in combat takes a lot out of you and you’re feeling fatigue from that and the pack too.”

“Yeah I’m getting that….Grandpa?”

“Yeah Sweetie.” Okay that made me blink and get all girly trembly lipped. He’s never called me this before and there’s something well Grand-dad with grand-daughter about it that suddenly means something.

“I’m scared.”

He comes over and he hugs me and I bury my face into him and shake, I don’t cry I am sort of getting better but I think I was like five or six when my Grandpa hugged me last and…..

“I know Stevie….here...”

He’s hugging me but he holds his hand up and in all those old man work scars he has on his hands I see lines of mana interconnecting like constellations only their sigils and amazing looking…I reach up and place my palm on his and there’s this flash of power in my head, blue-white and like a burst of stars and I feel him…and I can tell he’s feeling me and I’m getting images and feelings, how much he loves me, even before the changes, how proud he is of me…he’s been to war, he’s fought things that go bump in the night and those that abused their magic and to really feel that and see/hear him talking to my parents who talked about the same things…what others in the pack, the family have said…

It’s like he’s baptizing me in the truth. Just stuff that most people never get to see or feel…someone else’s perspective. It’s casting light and love on my dark places and washing those mental and emotional wounds clear. I know how big this is too, I can feel how potent a sharing is and can be and I let him just control it…show me and pick me up inside.

I blink as it breaks and there’s tears shining running down my face again but their good tears. Dad and Mom are coming inside with others Athena/Andrea and Miranda plus their fostered daughter and Shadira and Dorian as well. It’s strange really getting a look at “The Elf” as grandpa would call him.

I move and make room for everyone and they start to take seats and Mom starts to pour coffee. Dorian gets this look on his face and takes the cup and adds nine sugars to it. Yes definitely a fae, but he does it with almost royal dignity. Shadira’s staring at him and says something to him in what I’m going to say was Arabic or something. He sips his coffee then kisses her and she makes a face after licking her lips and she looks at us and turns an embarrassed shade of red. She’s really quite beautiful when she does that with her complexion and those big fall into eyes of hers.

Mom passes me a plate pretty much like the one I had but piled higher. “Go wake Dom, he’s likely hungry.” I nod and pad down to the bedroom. I’m going to need to get some clothes on anyway. I’m not sure if it’ll do for me to be traipsing around in my panties.

I slip into the room popping the sigil of silence that grandfather had placed on the door and I look at him while he’s sleeping. There’s honestly part of me that loves Dom very much and I feel like shit that I can’t seem to get there, to keep my promise to him.

I set the food down and give him a shake and his eyes snap open green but wolf like and wild and I fall into them for a minute before they fade back into the man. I give him a small smile. “Hey…Morning….Mom made you some breakfast…Thanks…thanks for last night.” I lean down and I kiss him.

He reaches up and he kisses me back and there’s a lingering and a longing there in him I can almost smell. I go with it a bit before pulling away. “I need to get dressed, there’s a command meeting brewing along with breakfast.”

He nods. “You’re welcome…He get’s up and walks over and takes the tray of food and holds it in one hand while he’s naked and leaning against the dresser and he quarter shifts. That’s my preferred state…pointed ears, sharper teeth, the eyes and the senses and a shift in strength from human to more than but I’ve still got control of all of me without getting too feral and stuff.

He eats using his claws and fingers literally scarfing the food down occasionally chewing but dammit this form makes him look good. Tall and dark to begin with he puts on about twenty pounds of muscle in this for and there those feral exotic eyes. And the way that he smells. I can’t help but look as I’m getting dressed the dark hair and eyes and I’ll say this Dom in this or full human state has the most thick eyelashes I’ve ever seen on a guy and makes him smoky and mysterious.

He’s staring at me. I can’t read him unless he lets me like the rest of the pack and right now he’s not letting me. He finishes the food and grabs a pair of black combat fatigue and walks out before putting them on making all the girls raise eyebrows and take looks save Shadira who covers her eyes and Mom doe’s a little squeak of “Oh!”

Yeah…Dom’s very put together, more than human right…yeah…there’s some people who’d call me a lucky girl. I mean he’s not huge or something stupid but he’s definitely yay in that department.

He gives my mom the plate. “Thank you that was wonderful.” But he still kind of stalks angry and hurt into the bathroom and shuts the door.

I sigh and go to sit with the others.

“Alright, so does anyone have an idea what to do next?”

Andrea sips her coffee after we share a glance. “I spoke to the director and he’s on his way.”

“Officially?”

“No, he’s coming as himself.”

“Au-naturelle then?”

“Such as it is anymore yes.”

“Anyone have word of the shamans of the local tribes and the local packs?”

Grandpa nods. “The Shaman’s at least, they’re sending some help and escorts maybe, they want a meeting first.”

“Okay, I guess it’s us waiting.”

Things kind of go into small talk mode and I get up and head to the front where there’s the big bucket seats and I can take out my laptop. I power it up and set the scrambles and plug it into the mobile uplink.

I take a sip of my third cup of coffee for the day and start sending out e-mails and messages telling the bad news and the worse news to the people I’ve got out in the field and check the messages from them as well.

I read one very recent from Erica Price.

[I made contact with the Temp agency, they’re hiring local kids and really need to modify their human resources policies they’re very non inclusive. Lot’s of wonderful hardware here at the trade show.]

Lovely, Templars are recruiting from local kids…I’m guessing gangs and stuff they did that here with the bikers. The human resources I’m thinking that it’s business as usual with them and that there’s weapons involved….

I stare at the screen and I hate doing this, I hate sending news like this in just a message but they need to know. I actually debate not sending this because she’s in the field and I’ve no idea how this might effect her there.

[Erica, we were right and the tour turned out badly, a bunch of people got Lost…Kelly was one of them. I’m sorry but the office still needs you there working on the project. I’m sorry….]

I wipe a few tears away and click to the next report.