Bound

Sister In...Bite?

CLAIRE POV

After Jenny had finished assessing the lines of her newest creation, I flew down to join Xandra on the bank of the river. She was leaning against the trunk of a great old oak tree, and the shade shifted around her in a swirling blanket of patterns as the hot wind rustled leaves overhead.

She gathered me into her lap and stroked my snowy white feathers in exactly the same way that Xavier used to. It was oddly comforting, while also sending pangs of longing into lonely places. We shared snippets of our lives growing up. Avoiding any subjects that even remotely resembled current issues by unspoken agreement. Xandra spoke softly, and I linked back to her in this spontaneous sister in law bonding session. Was she my sister in law? Mating wasn't marriage. So it wasn't law that bound us. Sister in bite? Sister in goddess?

Weres often married for fun, to celebrate the unification of families, or for political reasons. Or to get recognition of the bind from the normie governments, and the marital benefits. But mating was really the important tie. A marriage contract could be dissolved; Mating was forever.

Apparently Xandra went through quite a rebellious stage, shrugging off the mantle of Princess and assuming that of spy. She never stopped really. The family just funneled her skill set into a more productive application. No more breaking into the museum and rearranging bones, creating new animals and leaving the custodians at a complete and utter loss.

Instead, she took lessons from weres that had trained with the normie CIA in streetcraft, and applied them to visiting dignitaries and unsuspecting mistresses at boarding school.

I imagined that playing hide and seek with a preteen Xandra would have been quite the exercise in futility.

I told her about the vague memories I had of being passed around through the foster system, until mum and dad formally adopted me. Feeling cherished, and chosen. Getting fat, and feeling safe enough in my new family to begin acting out. Looking up obscure medical conditions and feigning illness, just so I could watch the doctors freak out when they couldn't find a particular organ. Because I had mirror syndrome. And my organs were all on the other sides. The idle curiosity around whether there was another me gallivanting around the globe with unexpressed shifter DNA. Completely unaware of the existence of creatures and their twin existence to the reality she knew.

"Claire." Xandra said softly, with a gravitas that signified the end of our unspoken agreement. "You seemed shocked by the idea of ruling and uniting the wolves and owls when I brought it up a few days ago. Why? Surely you have considered something along those lines."

I hooted softly, and she stroked the soft feathers on my snowy neck. To be honest with you Xandra, the short answer is no. I spent most of my time with Xavier processing being an owl, and trying to get a handle on the politics of here. Following that, I was doing my best to stay alive. I have no overarching plot lines, I'm just trying to do the best I can at any given moment.

I linked her a montage of studying until my eyes drooped shut, and screaming through the night terrors -courtesy of Xavier- for the rest of the dark hours. Holding my ground with the owls by the tips of my ability to hear links. Constant attempts my life from wolves going through withdrawals. A gnawing fear of the consequences of the failure of keeping them alive, knowing that the elders would be happy to use me as an example.

"You haven't exactly had an easy go of it, have you Claire?"

I snorted, which came out as a bark with my limited avian vocabulary. The craziest thing was the stick up the derrieres of ranking members of were society, assuming that I had slept my way into the monarchy and fluked my way into my very own pack.