Chapter 34
Sometime later found Brandon alone. Clean, exhausted beyond words, a soft throb of pain on every inch of his body, and tucked back into bed.
A good two hours had passed since the female Shifter, Glen had left him to rest and to await his second interrogation of the day and third interrogation of the week and he just wanted to get more rest. And yet try as he might to fall back asleep, he struggled to fall back into unconsciousness. He tottered on the edge of awake and darkness. His mind felt too heavy, the dreams floating there and the memories he didn't want to visit would torture him. He was too weak, and worried to fight off his subconscious, and too scared to submit to it. So he had forced himself to stay awake and this is how the Shifter with blue eyes found him.
Sleepy. Pissed. And in no mood to have a chit
Chapter 35The moment Brandon saw the precious garments he tried to snatch them away.But Ezekiel was too fast for him. He jerked them out of his grasp. "Hey Shifter...give me my gloves! I know those are mine."Ezekiel hissed at him in warning, flashing his teeth aggressively. Brandon glared at him, but he didn't make a move to take them again. The Shifter shook them as he leaned closer, holding the gloves in the space between them."My name is Ezekiel...not Shifter." The Shifter told him, his eyes nearly as long as ovals instead of round like a mortal's pupil."I don't care!" Brandon said back to him."That's fine...you don't have to tell me your name. Just stay c
Silence.The mortals head slumped in his grasp. Ezekiel smiled, his eyes still closed he let a little bit more of his impressions pour across the mortals mind, soft warmth, peace, relaxation. He impressed these thoughts in a loop of energy and suggestion until he felt it take root, like a little blanket of energy the memory would slowly play out on its own, fading from the mortals mind completely, but he hoped that the peace and warmth would remain once his memories faded from Brandon's mind. The mortal seemed to need it.This being another part of Ezekiels innate abilities he felt the power inside of his core, trickling out of him and into his entire body. A warm stream separate from his blood, but his to direct as he willed through his body.Innate abilities were very
Chapter 37Ezekiel traversed the darkness at a steady sprint behind the rest of his brothers and his father that lead the way. The supple grass pulled and tugged at his legs, snapping as he continued to move further into the Clan Lands with his family. The nearly inescapable scent of pine colored all of the soft breezes that stirred the forests around them. Cricket call and the steely moon light above, gave ambiance to the calm night but for the most part Ezekiel and his family roamed the darkness in relative silence.Ezekiel easily kept up with his brothers, at times pulling ahead or racing along Nate whose two tones eyes nearly reflected the moon in the sky as they began to glow.And as all of them tracked along the path that their father traveled, he quickly realized that instead of traveling to the west where the dead moose's
The moon sat like a bloated dot in the balmy night sky as the party of seven finally crested the steep hills located to the far west.This part of the Clan Lands was at least eight miles into the western fields, where only a few log cabins sat and the open sky hung like a diamond studded blanket over the world.The tall grasses snapped and flipped in the slight breeze and the pine trees that boarded their entire village tinged the air in crisp scent of pine and sap.Ezekiel glanced up into the sky, calculating the moons position with his internal instincts.One AM?He thought to himself as he walked beside his mostly silent and calm older brother Walter and just in front of Erin and Drin who made much
Chapter 39Two hours later Ezekiel and his brothers had to admit, even to each other that the trail had gone dead cold.Ezekiel knew that his father and his brother had in fact lost track of the mysterious attacker a half an hour into the chase, but had continued to chase shadows and sounds just a little longer before they had admitted defeat. All through the chase there had been little time for chit chat, so once Mantilo lead his sons back to the bloody rotted fields, Ezekiel tried to get some information from him.Once more they glossed over the area of dead moose, this time at the behest of their father none of the Guardians dared to touch any of the carcasses that had anything black smeared on them. The siblings continued looking for any clues as to what it was they were fighting, this time all of them remaining together, but
Chapter 40Mantilo caught sight of the house in the distance sometime later.After jogging in the night beside his sons, chasing shadows and in hailing the putrid scent of dead moose flesh for hours he was glad to be within steps of his bed. His legs and arms burned from the multitude of bite he had sustained, now that he had visited the mosses graveyard three times in the last few hours and in the back of his head he still felt the rage burning. A rage that had come over him and refused to die, when he realized that his sons were under attack, that two of them were hurt.He controlled it, but the drying blood on Nate's face, and the obvious way that his youngest son was favoring his uninjured shoulder ate at Mantilo.He should have sensed the unique threat sooner. Put the piece
Chapter 41 Mantilo returned from the horse ranch feeling decidedly heavy with possibilities and a fledgling plan of action for the coming morning. This time when he neared the house, his Mate was nowhere to be seen, until he had climbed the winding steps of their home, up past the second floor where the scent of the intruder lingers slightly on the air. A new scent and so its presence seemed like a blaring sigh to the beast inside that he needed to go and investigate, but Mantilo ignored it, he was far too tired to do anything more but climb to the third floor. The leopard embossed wooden doors that stood like wooden gates before him, the beautifully carved twin leopards in the wood laying down and mirrored in a back to back pose always managed to make him feel a pinch of pride. Not only because it was Mantilo's great grandfather who had carved the beautiful door, but because it was Mantilo himself that had restored it after a fire nearly took its magnificence from the world. The
Chapter 42And so his fourth night of sleeplessness and now empty sheets passed him by.Figuring that he wasn't doing anything worthwhile in the bed alone anyway Mantilo forced himself to his feet and made his way out of the bed room and into the dim hallways, colored by warm candle light.He followed in his wife's wake only until they both reached the stair case. He watched her brown curls and slight frame disappear up the steps toward the room where the mortal would be resting. He could scent his son Lander up there as well. Mantilo quickly guessed that his son was keeping watch. He had probably been put there by Glen herself to keep tabs on the mortals continued well-being. Knowing that no harm would come to his wife as long as Lander was with her, Mantilo turned from the steps and walked a few feet to his left until he came t