Tales of a Shifter (P6) - Child of Sun & Moon

Chapter 48 - NEVER RETURN

(A Week Ago)

Standing there in the sheets of hard rain....Brandon and Ezekiel's battered bloody bodies burning like gasoline in his mind and as much as he knew he couldn't afford to care, his rage for his brother and his mate still created undeniable ripples in the emptiness of his internal sea. Try as he always would but the plight of those close to his spirit always managed to unbalance him.

The moment was high stress. The power of the Shift burned on the air, as tensions mounted for the attack The Brotherhood stood before them in the storm. A hellish being with fangs the size of daggers, claws the size of swords and a maw like the gate of underworld, sneered at them from the visage of a Ghoul three sizes the length of a single man....

Balder, Mantilo and Glen. Hovel & The Bane.

Death had been all over the air.... flames like that which erupted from a volcano split the world ending the conflict...and at the end of it all....there Walter stood, with the limp and strangely fragile body of the stranger who had fallen into their lands, wrapped in Ezekiel's embrace. A woman. At first glance, ugly, battered, draped in ill-fitting robes, torn and shredded, dashed with splotches of blood, dirt and grass....

Eventually he would learn her name, learn that she had saved the life of a man, one of his brothers, that he loved more then he could describe, despite that fact that Walter wanted to care about and to love nothing.

He remembered the sheer electric horror that had nearly driven him to absolute panic...damn near insanity when he interacted with her after Ezkeiel and Brandon were safely put aside to heal in the Mansion.

No one knew anything about her, but the robes named her an enemy...except that the nearly half dead Reaver had obviously wanted her to be treated with care.

A Alchemist, one of mortals that had beaten him, poisoned him, and almost stolen the life of his Mate....but Ezkeiel had wanted her safe?

At the Time Walter was confused, but he dutifully agreed to place the woman into the basement holding cells in their home, built to contain any that would break the rule of the Clan Lands. Silver bars that would hold any Clans man until their transgressions were forgiven by the Clan Head...or the victims.

Walter.... walked gingerly with the burden of the Alchemist in his arms....and placed her gently against the swallow cot....he felt nothing...and yet despite his anger at the brother hood...he did not want to cause the woman more harm.

From the ragged nature of her he knew she would be in pain when she awakened....

How deeply it shocked him when she did just that.... the moment he was bent over her.

Drenched in old sweat, ghouls' blood....and death.... She had black eyes like cages, trying to imprison him in their depth. They opened and locked onto him as she flinched hard in the bed, as if a nightmare had ripped her into the waking world. Her gaze danced, pupils out of focus locked on him....and in seconds they light aflame with emotions, backed by a passion that...stole his breath. The graphic nature of her mind, the strength of it slammed into him, his heightened intuition making it impossible for him not to sense it.

Derision. Malice....feral fear.

Here eyes fluttered, then popped open wide in sheer confused panic, as Walter continued to draw aside.

There was the hiss of breath over teeth, anger and pain as she scrambled, her expression a mask, but the fear gleamed bright in her frown and glare.