Tales of a Shifter (P1) - The Meeting

Chapter 10 - This is Bad

Chapter 10 - This is BadRealizing that it was almost three am Ezekiel allowed her the necessary time to emerge from her sleep before he spoke.

"Ezekiel?" His mother gorged, raising her head, curls tumbling over her shoulder she pulled herself up on to her seat and stretched leisurely. Bright green eyes glowed in the dim lights. Slit like a big cat they contacted sharply as her eyes opened, and as she opened her small mouth to yawn, tiny fangs flashed in the candle light. Reminding Ezekiel that for all Shifters, sleep allowed the beast much closer to the surface then was possibly safe.

"Ezekiel? What time is it? Is something wrong?' his mother hissed softly, drawing her arms up into the air to crack her back, closing her eyes and rubbing them she slouched on the bed. When she opened her eyes again they were suddenly no different than a mortals, no glowing green or slits. And when she once more was overcome with a yawn Ezekiel didn't glimpse any Leopard fangs before she had smothered her mouth with a hand.

"It's just a few hours before dawn. Sorry to wake you, something serious came up." Ezekiel yawned then chuckled as he pulled back. "I need you to come see this."

"Hmm. What is it? " Glen mused, she put out her hand toward him. Ezekiel took it and helped her slide across the mattress and steep down to the carpet. "Something must be wrong if you have to come and get me so early Ezekiel." His mother mused dropping his hand as she turned and walked over towards her bedside table.

With a practiced flick of her hand she lit a candle. Flame illuminated the room even more and took the shadows from between them. With a slight frown Glen took in Ezekiels damp appearance, with sharp narrowed eyes that zeroed in on his blood spattered throat, and hands. With a carless flick of her wrist his other tossed down the matches and crossed over to him faster than he could put his hands out to forestall her.

"Oh sweet heart." His mother sighed, putting her hand to his throat and following the blood back to the hole in his upper chest that had mostly clotted over and had mostly healed over in the last fifteen minutes. "Did you get snagged by another moose again!?" His mother fretted, she pulled him down by his shoulder and Ezekiel let her.

He refrained from telling her the truth just yet. He let her position him to her height, then once his chest wound was more level to the light she pulled down the hem of his clothes gingerly and winced at the blood leaking lazily from a deep incision in his upper shoulder, trailing into his lower collarbone.

"Mom..." Ezekiel began, but stopped as his mother growled at him in irritation.

"Honestly Ezekiel you should have come gotten me sooner....Hmm...I think it needs a few stitches to stall the blood flow, but by the morning it should be fully healed without any attention from me." Glen ignored him and poked the edges of the cut with her finger then released him.

Ezekiel straitened and winced as his shirt pulled at the blood that had dried over the wound.

"Strange wound to leave if it was a moose...." Glen mused looking at him. "That puncture is oddly precise Ezekiel. Are you sure it was a moose that hit you?"

"Mom...I never said it was a moose. But there is something I need you to see before..." Ezekiel tried to say only for his mother to startle him with a strangled hiss. Suddenly round green eyes began to glow, canines peeking out as they grew longer, she snatched up Ezekiels hands and sniffed at them.

"Mortal!?" Glen shook her head looking at his shoulder, her green eyes going from just glowing to slit and narrow like a cats in seconds. "Did mortals attack you!?" Glen growled so hard and so beastly that the hairs on Ezekiels arms rose at the pure protective aggression he could read there.

Hoping to calm the situation as well as get Glen to listen to him, Ezekiel took his hands back and covered her small ones. "Its okay." he said softly and slowly. "Mom listen to me. Some thing....huge happened. I need your help and I will tell you everything, but first you have to promise me something." Ezekiel took a deep breath and waited.

"Whatever it is..." His mother began. She looked so worried that Ezekiel felt like an ass for what he was about to say, but he said it anyway.

"Mom, I need you to promise me that you won't tell Dad about it." Ezekiel rushed to get it all out and wasn't surprised when a moment later his mother rolled her glowing eyes and snatched her small hands away from him.

"Ezekiel..." Glen hissed at him with a glare. Her eyes colored just then not just with worry, but with a little bit of fire. "What did you do....?"

"Im serious! Someone could die." Ezekiel cut her off. As much as he hated to involve her; the stranger would die without her help and her promise. "Dad can't be told about any of this, nothing that I show you or tell you. He just won't be able to accept this....Hell be too furious to listen to reason. You know how he gets!"

His mother's lips thinned slightly, but she didn't say anything. She searched his gaze and she must have felt sorry for him or she must have guessed that he was in a lot of trouble because she sighed, took up his blood stained hands and nodded.

"Fine. Ezekiel I promise I won't tell him...." Glen said, then shot him a hiss. "But only for tonight. " His mother patted his bicep. "I will speak to him if I must. I can't... I won't promise you anything more than that, until you show me what this is all about..." She smiled at him softly. "So are you going to let me help you...or not?"

"Ok..." Ezekiel sighed.

I guess that's all I'm getting. 

He thought to himself.

Anyway I can't afford to drag this out any longer. That mortals' bleeding out as we speak.

So Ezekiel had lead his mother from her quiet bed room, down to the second floor and as they neared the mortals' door, Ezekiel got more and more nervous. He continued to talk to steel his nerves. He absolutely didn't know what would happen once he revealed the mortal to her.

Stooping in front of the room. Ezekiel took a deep breath.

"I promise I didn't know what else to do. " He started, thinking to explain before he shocked her too badly.

Glen swallowed visibly. She looked at his bloody hands, then back at the door, he could see her straining to hear beyond the wood. "Just show me what's behind the door first before I have a heart attack...then I'll let you explain. Ok?" She asserted taking a step closer.

"But..." Ezekiel touched her arm to stall her.

Glen grabbed the door knob, trying to push, but Ezekiel held it closed.

"Open the door." his mother commanded, cutting him a small hiss of expiration.

"Just let me tell you...." Ezekiel tried again, but she wasn't to be put off.

"Show me already or I'm going back to bed!" Glen snapped at him. She tossed her curly brown hair with her small fingers seemingly indifferent, but Ezekiel knew from the way that her eyes shinned with curiosity that he had her. But for how long would he be able to get her to play along? There really was no way to know.

Until he gave her what she asked for.

Ezekiel pushed open the door. He let his mother enter the room ahead of him, then Ezekiel walked in and closed it behind him.

***

Ezekiel knew that the first thing that hit him mother was the smell of blood. Strange blood.

Why? Because that was the first thing that hit him.

That damn, burning, warm, alluring scent of blood. But Ezekiel was begging to wonder if he was the only one who found the smell even mildly appealing. From the look on his mother's face and the way that her hand came up to rub at watering eyes, the smell was too strong for her.

And his brothers? From Lander all the way to Walter his siblings all rubbed at their noses in quiet signs of irritation with the mortals scent. But ignoring theses things for the moment Ezkeiel just waited for his mother to make a move.

Ezekiel knew that the first thing that his mother saw was the fact that all of his brothers were indeed in that room.

Shirtless, shoeless, and obviously fresh from patrol. And then her eyes settled on the third and final surprise of the night. The small cot pushed up against the wall far from the door was sporting a hidden body. A thick black sheet pulled up over the mortals entire body hid his face, but not his smell.

"Mom..." Nate began steeping towards her, but Glen...staring at the body hidden beneath the sheets put up a stiff hand to silence him. Turning sharp green eyes on Ezekiel she whispered. "What's that...." she pointed at the shape on the bed.

When Ezekiel didn't answer she glared at each of her sons, demanding answers none of them wanted to utter yet, each of them looking down and away.

"Please tell me what's going on..." Glen pleaded in a whisper at him. "There's so much blood. Mortal blood. Did you kill....?" she wrinkled her nose. "God, I've never smelled so much before."

"No!" Ezekiel said guessing at her train of thought. "We didn't do anything to anyone. There was an intruder and I apprehended him." Ezekiel told her walking past her towards the bed. "In fact Walter and Lander and Nate don't have anything to do with this. It was all me. I...well...This is what happened to my shoulder. This guy cut me and...."

Ezekiel finished with a shrug. Then he stepped back, grabbed a handful of the black sheet that they had draped over the unconscious mortal to smother his scent and slowly pulled it up and back bringing the mortals pale, thin, dirty face into view.

Instantly Ezekiels mother moved gracefully towards the bed. Her skirts flaring around her bare ankles and small feet as she rushed over to the stranger beside him. Ezekiel took a step back to let her get closer. Her big green eyes full of worry, she approached the man, dropped down on her knees beside the bed and touched his cheek ignoring the blood and layer of dirt smeared there.

Her right hand had barely brushed the mortals flesh before she was pulling it back and frowning.

"My god...he's burning up." She peered at the mortal then turned confused, then suspicious eyes on her four sons.

 Slowly she began to put the pieces together. "Shifters don't get fevers....So this is a....You brought a mortal here!? That's his blood on you isn't it Ezekiel?" Glen trailed off, her eyes widening in shock then closing in acceptance, she whispered. "Oh god this is bad..."