The Kitten and the Alpha

ΠΙΙΙ

The truck was humming in his low, powerful purr. Aside the sounds of the engine, only silence was between Mel and me.

Being immersed in my thoughts about the preparations for the journey, the whole thing about Mel, I just focused on the road ahead, until I heard a hesitant throat clearing.

"Soo ... w-why di-id y-you d-do th-this?", Mel murmered, appearently being confused.

"Huh? Well ... I need your assistence, and you wouldn't be any help being punched to a pulp by that ass Hunter", I said, trying to explain the reasons for my actions, that I myself did not yet understand.

"Th-thank y-you ...", Mel stammered, while I parked the car in front of my house.

"You're welcome, Mel. Anyways, come on in.", I said, opening the door, welcoming him in.

He shyly entered taking everything in.

"You can put your things in the guest bedroom upstairs ...", I said, while I put down my coat. "Second door on the right", I added when he took the stairs.

"O-ookay, th-thank y-you", he said, hurrying upstairs.

I sighed, thinking about everything that I've caused. Now there is more on my plate that I anticipated. Running my hand through my hair, to calm myself a bit, I walked into the kitchen and put on some water in a kettle to make a tea.

Pouring the hot water over the herbs, I heard the tentative steps of Mel coming down the stairs.

"Take a seat on the couch.", I said without looking at him.

Taking two cups and the teapot, I walked to the coffeetable and took a seat opposite of Mel.

"So tell me, why was Hunter attacking you.", I asked him, pouring us some tea.

Clearly uncomfortable with the question, Mel looked down at his hands, that were folded on his legs. "I-i do-don't know, re-eall-y", he stammered. "I'm just a-an O-omega you kn-know ..."

"Still, this does not rectify his actions. Nobody, no matter the status, should be bullied on ..."

"It isn't th-that bad, you know ... other's have i-it wo-worse than me-e!", he tried to reason. "It-It's pro-probably his hor-hormones...", he took a sip from his cup, being soothed by the herbal infusion. "His eighteenth birthday is just in two weeks, so ...", he said with new found strength.

Well, that was another thing to worry about ... Hopefully this arse will find his mate soon, so that this whole troublesome story with the hormones will be over. Although there was an unexplainable pain of jealousy, that I couldn't make sense of, I had other stuff to worry about.

"Anyways ...", I said, grabbing the cigarette package from the bowl on the table, "We have a lot of work to do."

***

We spent the rest of the day in the library, which caused Mel to gasp in pure awe. I showed him some introductory works that should help him catch up with his missed education in demonic invocation. Nothing to complicated, though, just the usual beginner's stuff.

While I set him up at on the other side of my desk, I immersed myself in some literature on Spirit Journeys. Although, from a demoniac point of view, every author warned from this practise, as it is deemed to dangerous in comparison to invocations, I concluded my research with some new confidence that this will may not be a piece of cake, but nevertheless do-able. There are some possibilities of putting up defense measurements, which I will prepare tomorrow.

The Spirit world, where the demons lived, was a very peculiar place, even for supra-naturals like me. The physical laws of time and space, that govern our universe, were somehow suspended there. There were no maps, or reliable descriptions. The description of those rare cases that someone has tried such a journey ended almost always in how the soul never returned to the body or how whatever returned was everything but not from this world.