Unlikely Bonds

Chapter 1: Change

"Rose! Will you please come down here and help me with this damn box?" My mother's voice echoed from below me. When I looked down I met her green eyes that had been genetically passed down to me from her. As was my mostly human form, which I loathed. 

I was half human and half Yautja. My mother, Zena, was human and my father was Xai'an, a massive Yautja that no one ever fucked with because he was a mean mother fucker. The only beings alive that he ever showed affection for was my mother and me. Not even my brothers got much affection after they hit a few years old. I knew it had to do with me being the only one of his children that came out looking more like my mother than him. Which shouldn't have been possible, yet here I was. 

Human women had started to become popular mate choices because they could produce more full Yautja than the female Yautja who were having troubles conceiving. Don't ask me to fully explain it because I barely understood it. Something about expanding the gene pools because Yautja all had human DNA. I was the first hybrid that came out looking like a human, possibly because I was also the first female born from a Yautja and human couple...EVER. Lucky me...

Though my hair was dreaded like my father's and I had long claws, that's about the end of my similarity with him. Everything else looked strictly human. Even my teeth, though I had fangs sharper than my mother's canines, were mostly human. I did stand a good foot and a half taller than her, but I was still small by female standards. My father was unusually tall, standing at 8'6 which put him just over the average for Yautja females. I barely touched 7ft. With boots. I was very small by Yautja standards as a female.

My unusual birth led to no one knowing what to do with me. Did they treat me as human or did they treat me as Yautja? If left to my father, I'd be treated as human. Weak and in need of protecting. And he did. My mother, however, was on my side. She felt that even though I was unusually small(despite being larger than her), I was more than capable of taking care of myself.

Now that I was approaching matable age, pressure from Anak, the clan leader, was coming down hard on my father. Since my mother was human, my fate had to be decided by him and he chose to keep me as human for the most part. He went as far as keeping me away from the other females my age, fearing my differences would make me easy prey for them. Though that had proved to be a baseless worry. 

Against his will, my mother brought me to the female’s clan leader who not only welcomed me, but introduced me to several Yautja females. All of them had been fascinated with me and even more impressed with my combat skills that my mother had taught me from her time on Earth. We learned through several sparring matches that though I was not as physically strong as my full blooded sisters, I was much faster due to my size. That easily made up for my lack of strength. Still, my father couldn't quite let his baby girl out of the nest. 

"I'm coming!" I finally yelled down to my mother. 

I turned away from the two moons on the horizon and stepped off the roof of our home. I landed effortlessly next to her and laughed when she let out a small startled gasp. 

"Damn it all, Rosalene!" She punched me in the arm, knowing it would hurt her more than it would me. "Can't you stop doing that so fucking close to me?"

"But then I wouldn't get my daily dose of mom love." I smiled and grabbed the massive box she had been having issues with using only one hand. She might have been able to get it on her own if she wasn't heavily pregnant with another baby brother. 

"Well, daughter mine, all you gotta do is ask nicely!" She punched me again with a massive grin. 

"Does dad know you've been moving stuff around again when you're so ready to pop?" I teased.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him, so keep your damn trap shut! Besides, it's all his shit anyway. I swear if he comes home from this hunt with another Kiande Amedha head I'll put his head in that damn trophy room!" She waved her hand toward the room in question which was easily the largest in the house. 

I didn't blame her. He was easily the most decorated male in our clan and he could have achieved Elder status years ago, but he simply didn't want that responsibility. He preferred being Anak's Enforcer which normally dealt in hunting down Bad Bloods that were causing too much of a scene. I always felt it was strange, because the reason my father was so damn big was because he was half Bad Blood. And although being a Bad Blood didn't automatically make you large, because being a Bad Blood simply meant you were excommunicated from the clan for not having any honor, there was a clan of Bad Bloods out there that was abnormally larger than the rest of us. Almost as if bred that way. The leader of that clan was my father's sire.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'd tell him shit when he won't even let me go on a hunt with him." Even Vagouti, the females clan leader had advised my father to let me go so I could at least have a Blooded title. Being Blooded would give me more of a say on who could approach me when it came to mating. Otherwise, I'd belong to the strongest Yautja who claimed me, which pissed me off. Even my mother, who was human, had more of a choice than that. Granted it was because she fell in love with my father before leaving Earth and no one would dare challenge him for her. 

"Speaking of that. I've been talking to him about taking you hunting." She sighed tiredly and took the first chair at the table that she could. 

"And how did that go?" I wasn't hopeful. She had done this talk with him numerous times before. They always failed. 

"He agreed."

I nearly dropped the box as I whirled around to look at her. "What?"

She laughed a little, her hands on her large belly. "Yep. I finally told him that he needed to protect you with a title because for all we know, Uathen could be the male who claims you."

I growled at that. Uathen was a brute and on his way to being banned as a Bad Blood due to his bad temper. The only reason he still lives is because he was Anak's son, which made him a sort of uncle to me since Anak adopted and raised my father. "I'd slit his throat in his sleep."

My mother laughed. "Oh, I know. Which I also pointed out to him. Killing the clan leader's son would be a death sentence for you since you're only half. So, he agreed to take you once he got back so you could get the title of Blooded and have the right to tell a male no without any punishments."

This time I did drop the box because I rushed her, enveloping my arms around her small frame. I loved her so much. She always understood me in ways my father never would be able to. Don't get me wrong, I loved him too. He only wanted to protect me because the Yautja ways weren't always kind to the different. He knew from personal experience being a half Bad Blood.

"I can't believe you actually convinced him!" 

She hugged me back as well as she could with our angle and her belly. "Don't thank me yet. He's going to be the one to take you, remember? Your daddy isn't feared for nothing and if he takes the lead, he's going to push you harder than anyone else to prove you can take care of yourself."

I smiled, barring fang at that. "Oh, I fucking hope so! I expect no less! I don't want respect out of some backwards fear of dad. I want to earn it."

"That's my girl-oh!" Her eyes went wide and she looked down at her stomach. "Little fucker rolled like he was doing somersaults! That was unpleasant!"

I laughed and went back to the box, hoping I didn't break anything.