Forever and Always

CHAPTER 4: A Family's Secret

CHAPTER 4: A Family's Secret

My breathing starts to increase as the reality of his words start to slowly sink in. I close my eyes tightly as i feel my bones break and reposition as they shrink and move. I let out a sigh of relief as some of the pressure leaves my body as it takes on a much smaller shape. I open my eyes back up and look up at my dad, the look on his face is soft as he scratches the space between my ears at the top of my head.

"Oh Kitty," he says lightly, "it's not going to be too bad, having a mate is great. I mean, look at your mother," he smiles trying to make me feel better, which it did not. I just sneeze lightly and walk over to my brother and jump into his arms, he catches me and pets down my back as i start to purr and relax into him. He walks out of the lab as my dad just sits there shaking his head.

"I'm here for you, ok? you dont have to go through this alone," Jake says as we come into my room and he places me on my bed, I just nuzzle into his hand when he puts it in front of me, telling him that I'm grateful for that.

I look into the mirror that is hanging on my wall and see a bright white cat with the tips of her ears and tile colored in a deep crimson, her bright yellow eyes stare back at me as the pupils fluctuate between being round and slits as my human side and my cat side fight over control. I just end up laying my head down as the battle rages on inside my head. After a while Jake gets up and starts walking out the room, but before he walks through the doorway, he turns to look back at me and his eyes are no longer a bright green, they are a bright blue as he winks at me and then walks out the door.

Once the door closes, so do my eyes as my body starts to shift and grow once more as the fur starts to recede into me and my hair grows back out as my body shifts and changes so i am once again a 16 year old girl curled into a ball on her bed, completely naked. I get up and pull on my black robe and head back down stairs. I walk down the 2 flights and down into the basement where my dad's lab is now kept. Looking around to make sure he is no longer in here, I go over to the metal table and grab my close off it and start to put them back on.

Its not always fun being a shape shifter, especially being the only cat in a family of dogs. You see, with shape shifters, its your personality that controls what animal you are formed into. Both my dad and my brother are dogs and I'm a cat, obviously, my mom is just a human being my dad's mate and all.

Shape shifters don't usually mate with other shape shifters, we usually get pared with other mythological creatures or humans. Yes, there are other mythological creatures around, we usually like to associate with all of them. Except vampires. I have only met a vampire once, and that wasn't exactly my favorite memory. My dad says they are pretty much all terrible creatures that don't even belong on this earth, but in truth, which one of us actually does belong on this earth?

I go back up the stairs but i slip once i get to the top and fall straight onto my knee, the skin splits open as the blood seeps out and down my leg. My dad decides at that moment to show up at the bottom of the stairs. He ran up and started to look at my knee, "are you alright?" he asks concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say lightly, "you know this happens all the time, I'm such a klutz," i say with a light smile so that he will stop worrying so much. He just looks at me and lightly smiles back.

"Alright sweetie, but if you need any help, just yell, ok?" he finishes putting his hand slightly above my knee. I nod and get up gingerly and start walking towards the kitchen, hoping desperately that they already put the First Aide kit.

Going through a couple of the cabinets, i stumbled apon a bag of cookies, i grabbed them and then resumed looking for the kit. I found it on one of the top shelves, damn. I start to get up onto the counter when my brother just so happens to walk in. He takes one look at me, then my knee, then the First Aide kit, then he comes over to me. He shakes his head lightly as a smile spreads across his face.

"Can't reach it, can you shorty," he says tauntingly.

"I could," i say looking up at him, he's still taller than me, even with me on the counter.

He just laughs lightly and reaches over me to get the kit. Once it is in his hands i reach for it, but he pulls it away from me. I give him a confused look as he puts the white box on the counter beside me and opens it. "What are you doing?" I ask once he starts taking different things out of the box.

"I'm going to help you, of course," he says as if its the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?" I ask tilting my head lightly to the side.

"Because you can't do it yourself. Now just let me help you," he starts to wipe away the blood, I hiss when he gets to the cut itself and he lightly goes around it. He bandaged it up and then carefully helps me off of the counter. "There," he says with a grin, "all better," he pats my head and then walks away as if nothing happened. A smile spread across my face, maybe this is a sign of a new beginning.

####

Later that night I'm laying in my bed, just staring at my ceiling. The side of my lower lip sits comfortably in between my teeth as my mind goes over the events of the day. Questions start to flow through my mind that I really would like to keep unanswered. What if he doesn't like me? What if he was just being nice because thats just the kind of person he is? What if he does like me, but once he finds out who I am, he leaves me? What if.... What if... What if.. I reach into my pocket and pull out the little slip of paper with the 7 digits on it and just stare at it. Should I text him? Would he want to be bothered? Should I just wait until tomorrow? Would he think I'm being weird if I just text him without a certain reason? Jeez, so many questions, so many variables, this is why I didn't want a mate, its so complicated. And the really fun part is, if he doesn't except me, I die!! I laugh out loud to myself at the simplicity of it. Well, this is going to be fun.