Under the moonlight with a shifter

Twenty Six

Cass had excused herself to give the couple time for the news to sit in, they stared at both the screen and then at each other. "It's surreal isn't it?" Petunia asked looking over at Uriah, wondering if he felt the pang that she had as well. He didn't say anything as he watched the monitor with a still shot of the baby and his mouth was suddenly dry. Suddenly, he moved off the makeshift exam table and got onto his knees in front of her, ignoring the pain in his side.

Petunia was sputtering her words with wide eyes as she asked, "What- what are you doing?"

Uriah was kneeling in front of her as he grabbed her hands and looked deep into her eyes as he said, "I may have done shady things and walked out on you before but I vow to you, I won't do it again. I vow to protect you with everything that I can and I want to be there for you." He said and Petunia watched him and they stared at each other in silence.

A minute passed by before he gave her a questioning look. She glared at him then, as she said, "Are you in pain?" Uriah was, but he wouldn't admit it to her. If she wanted him to stay kneeled all night just to get her forgiveness he would. "If I lied and told you I wasn't, would you have me here all night?" He asked her with a grin.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she said, "Fine." Uriah got up, ignoring the sting in his side as he looked down at her into her eyes. "Let bygones be bygones?" He asked her and she nodded her head. "Okay, now let me go." She told him and he laughed. "I thought we were going to leave the past behind us?"

"And we are." She smiled sweetly at him as she turned away from him. There had felt like a small weight had been lifted off her chest and she felt elated for some odd reason. It was her who decided to put the distance between them and she couldn't fault him for trying to break the walls between them. Hell, he was the reason she put them up in the first place but in order for them to move on and team up together, she couldn't continue dwelling on the past.

Taking another deep breath before leaving, she took a step before he called out to her. "Wait," he said as he grabbed her hand before she was fully out the door. "Are you happy?" He asked her and she gave him a questioning look. "I mean are you okay...with having my spawn in you and all. It's not like we both agreed to procreating." He said not sure what he was really asking her. "Look, this is still all to take in. In the past six months my whole world just changed and I got the shitty spark notes of it all. You have to give me time. Before we both know it this baby will be kicking and screaming in the world. In the meantime, I just have to make sure him and I will love through to see the end of it." She said bringing them both back to reality.

She was right. There was no way for them to reconcile until the threat was eliminated. And lucky for all of them, Petunia had handed him to them with an almost perfect bow on top.

***
Uriah watched with Kanin as Trent 'questioned' Samuel. But it was more of a beat down than it was an interrogation. After Petunia had become nauseous from the amount of blood present, Cass had left to help her get fluids back into her body.

"I almost feel bad for the guy." Uriah said as he watched Trent land another blow to an already reopened wound. His nose was broken, lip busted and eye swollen shut. The guy didn't look like himself but he laughed with every blow given to him as he taunted the other man. "Yeah, and then you remember what he did." Kanin said, his hands folded over the other as he watched in silence.

He looked over to the other man who didn't say much and wondered what his story was. He sensed he was human yet felt a Lion presence within him. It was as if someone was hiding a scent under the guise of another scent and he would have thought it to be the work of a witch but there was no magic resonance to him. "I was human." Kanin said looking through the glass to the other side not looking at Uriah as he spoke.

"Not too long ago, I was chosen to be part of the government's "super secret" Project Alpha. I was one of the first ones to be given a strain of 'Animal DNA' to be a super soldier. Except, I broke out and that DNA was actually the thing that that guy there," he said pointing towards Samuel, "was selling to the highest bidder. I was injected with a Shifter's soul if you want and became what you guys refer to as a artificial Source member. A host to the shifter inside me." He said now playing with the chain of dog tags that he wore around his neck.

"That's a thing?" Uriah asked incredulously trying to figure out the man in front of him and it explained why he was getting that feeling from him. "That's what he's being doing for the last few years. He kidnaps any Source member that he can, to use a dark/forbidden magic on them in which he strips them from their Source Soul. He then kills the physical host body and throws them out like they were trash." Kanin said as he finally looked away and when he looked over to Uriah, his eyes looked as if they were glowing amber gold. It didn't sit well with him hearing to the extent of what Samuel had done and why everyone wanted him.

"You're a finished by product?" Uriah asked and he nodded at him. "Can you shift?"

Kanin shook his head at Uriah as he said, "No. not unless I hypothetically met his mate but I don't care to find out. I already promised to look out for his siblings and that what keeps me tied to this clan." Kanin said looking back through the glass over to the gruesome interrogation.

Uriah's eyes followed back into the makeshift cell and landed on Trent as he was rubbing his bloody knuckles over a towel and he glanced back at them. "Shit, you mean that inside this den, one of the Shifter's is a sibling of the Lion inside of you?"

Kanin nodded his head not looking away from Trent. "Yeah you're looking at one of them and there's a sister. They may have lost a brother because of that pathetic excuse of a Warlock but they accepted me when the Enforcers came." He explained and Uriah understood why the man felt so off.

He was taken from his human world and thrown into their world. And on top of that, to not be able to shift, he knew what it was like to not have his mate, not be able to shift, and most of all the pain that came with it. If the same thing had been happening to this guy, he gave him props for possibly hiding it all very well or still staying sane after all of it. His respect for the man had just grew and he understood the haunted look in his eyes. "We'll get our revenge soon enough." Uriah said as Trent took a break and came to greet them with a somewhat satisfied smug on his face as he continued rubbing the new and old blood off his knuckles.