Hidden Lycan. (COMPLETE)

Chapter thirteen

A vicious and inhuman snarl rumbled from Eli's chest and through his lips as he aggressively shot to his feet. A startled 'eep' sound escaped me at his sudden change in mood. This was Eli, usually calm, cool and collected, at least on the surface. But the man standing in front of me was a far cry from the Eli I've come to know, even if I still didn't know him that well. 

He paced the room in quick long strides, hands balled into fists, shoulders rigid, muscles coiled. The storm in his golden gaze raged ten times stronger than usual. I admit it frightened me, it frightened me to the point my throat had closed and my breathing and heart seemed to stop in tandem. But my chest constricted at seeing him like this. He was fighting with himself, a losing battle by the looks of it. But how could I help? 

He'd stopped at this point, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, as his body trembled with rage. I sighed internally. Please don't let me regret this I thought to myself as I stood and crossed the small distance between us. I wrapped both hands around one of his clenched hands, the contact making him go rigid. "Eli?" I whispered. He didn't open his eyes, didn't respond. The only thing alerting me that he knew of my presence was the clenched hand relaxing between mine. 

I've never had to comfort anyone before, never had to calm anyone down or help anyone in anyway. So I was out of depth here, but I felt like I needed to help him. I didn't think about what I did next, I didn't have time to. My body acted before my mind as if it knew what Eli needed, or didn't before I did. But I wrapped my arms around his middle, and rested my cheek on his collar bone. I couldn't reach any higher, but it didn't matter. My movement seemed to have surprise him, causing his already rigid body to become even more tense somehow. But I stood my ground and stayed quiet, offering silent comfort. I know I feel safer, better when I wrap my arms around myself, why wouldn't it help someone else? 

I don't know how long I stood there before his body relaxed and his arms engulfed my shoulders, as he propped his chin on the top of my head. "I do not know what possessed you to approach me when I was so close to losing control, and I can not decide if it was stupid or brave of you. But." He pulled away and tilted my face up to look at him. The raging storms that were there now calm. "Thank you." He whispered, pressing a feather light kiss to my forehead. A shiver ran down my spine in response as goosebumps raised on my flesh. 

"I'm sorry my words upset you so much. I never meant to." Eli gave me a tight smile. "No. Your words did not upset me. The situation involving you did. The age at which it all started and the amount of time you had to endure it. But trust me parvulus, no one will harm you any longer." Oh, if only he knew the whole story. The slayers, my beast, what I did. He nor any of the others would want to protect me then. They wouldn't want me around. No, I don't think they'd just kick me out, but I do think they'd find somewhere else for me to go. 

Wasn't that the whole point though? To get better then leave? To not involve them anymore than they already are? If the slayers found me here they would no doubt kill all of them, and I didn't want that to happen. I liked these men. They were different, they were kind. But I also have to remember my beasts first warning of them. Not human she had said. But if they are not human what were they? 

Something in his golden gaze flashed, only for a second but I saw it. The gold had dimmed out replaced by a endless black. Memorizing and brilliant black. It tugged at a distant memory, one I had no doubt suppressed, but the intensity of it still making me stumble backward shaking my foggy mind. 

"Fallon?" Eli's voice called with concern as he grabbed my shoulders balancing me. "What happened?" He asked, pushing loosened hair from my face. I shook my head again, grasping his forearms tightly as I tried to regain my bearings. "I..I don't kn..know." I mumbled. The memory wanted to make itself known, pulling and tugging at some long lost part of myself. "My head. It feels like it's going to explode. It keeps tugging on something." I whined, squeezing his arms and grinding my teeth. 

Eli growled as he backed me up slowly to sit on the edge of the bed. "I am sorry. We should not have pushed you the way we did. Your mind is trying to remember something it is not ready to." He explained. What else could I possibly have to remember? I remember killing my parents, I remember enduring every agonizing second of twenty years of torture. What could I have been through that was worse?

"Impossible." I grit out. "I remember everything. Every..every minute." I stopped and took a deep breath. "Every second. Every cut, lash, broken bone." I heaved a deep breath. "Every experiment, test. I remember it all. What could possibly be worse?" It came out as a plea, even if I didn't mean for it to. 

"It does not have to be a bad memory Fallon. Sometimes the good are suppressed as well. To preserve them." I shook my head. I remember my childhood. The tree house, baking with my mom, going with my dad to ball games. Building chair forts, going camping...." Camping, something happened. 

I dove pressure inside my mind, pushing for the fog to clear, for the rubber band to snap. And snap it did, along with a flood of memories. Dad had taken me camping in the woods near our house. We lived in a small town surrounded by forest. A pack My dad had called it. But in the woods we ran across another camp, one my dad said should not be there. When the man appeared my dad had shoved me behind him, a growl much like Eli's rumbling through his chest. A warning. Somehow I knew. I couldn't remember the words of their conversation. But I remembered the sound of bones snapping and breaking. I remember my dad and the man fall to their hands and knees as a large wolf took their place. And I remember my dad ripping into the other wolf's throat. 

My eyes snapped open to stare into Eli's. "It's not possible." I whispered clutching the sides of my head. But then again why not? I turned into a beast much like a wolf, but much more vicious and dangerous. "What is not possible?" Eli asked pulling my hands away from my head. "Camping. My father. another man. Bones snapping. wolves. Blood, so much blood." I pulled my hands from his and threaded them through my hair grasping tightly as I shook my head. As if that would somehow shake some sense into what I saw. 

Eli's gasp told me he'd heard, but he didn't believe. Or he did and didn't think I did. "Fallon, how old were you?" My panicked gaze met his serious one. "Five maybe six, before I..before everything." Eli ran a hand over the back of his neck nervously. "Fallon, it is possible." He assured me. "You saw a shifter. Some call them werewolves if the shifter takes on wolf form, but there are other kinds of shifters. Some more rare than others." 

I gaped at him. Was he serious? "Shif..shifters?" I questioned. He nodded, keeping his eyes on mine as if judging my reaction. "Do any stand on two legs?" I ask, almost excitedly. Maybe he knew what kind of beast I was. His eyes widened. "You saw a shifter on two legs?" I nodded, not technically a lie. "It looked like a wolf, but also looked human." I told him. "Lycan's are extremely rare among wolf shifters." He told me. "None have been seen for almost two hundred years. Lycan's use to be the royalty of the shifters because they were the strongest of us, most durable and harder to kill. Until clans rose against them and took the crown exterminating the lycans." 

I heard what he said, but he also said among us was he a shifter? Was that what my beast meant by not human? "Yo..you just said among us. As in plural. Like you're a shifter." I rambled. Eli's lips formed a thin line when he realized his mistake. A slip of the tongue, that's all it took and everything was done. I knew, he said it and his reaction to when I pointed it out confirmed it. He was a shifter. But what kind? And were the other guys as well?