by Isabel Wroth
Falken took Cassie, while he knelt and ran his palms down Clary’s side, rubbing her sore muscles, remembering how much he ached for those first few hours. She shuddered and made small noises of pain and distress, “I know, my one. It hurts, but soon it will ease, breathe slowly and deeply.” He gathered up her small feline form, nearly half the size of his own, and carried her down the hallway to lay her on one of the tables Ga’rae had waiting. He was barking out orders to his staff, Ohlen was there with Andi, standing beside her with an amazed, worried, tight look on his face while he stroked her trembling black form. “Get scans, blood, full work up. Move,” Ga’rae barked to his technicians, shouldering him out of the way to give Clary a sedative to soothe any pain she was feeling. “Commander, you have barred my warriors from meeting their…mates. What in the name of the gods is this?”
Nineteen
He looked up from massaging his hands along Clary’s legs, still able to feel the muscle spasms as her body adapted to this shape, and saw the shock on Brennaugh’s face while he looked around at the four little cats on the table. “We don’t know yet. Clary, Cassie, Andi and Gwen…look at them Brennaugh.” Brennaugh ran a shaking hand down his mouth and moved closer to where his mate lie, his eyes stroking over her trembling body with awe plain on his features. He couldn’t help the possessive, threatening growl that feathered out of his lips when Brennaugh made to touch his female, and his fellow commander stopped, shaking himself as though waking from a dream. “Forgive me, this is just…she is…a miracle.” He agreed with a nod, fighting with himself to keep calm while Ga’rae ran his tests, one hand on his mate while he ran through the scans the fierce little doctor had already taken.
Ohlen was bent over Andi, rubbing his hands into the ruff at her neck, murmuring soft words into her ear that had her releasing a halfhearted little purr. Falken looked haunted, crouching beside his mate with his hands fisted at his mouth. Even exhausted and in pain, every time he tried to touch her, she snarled at him and flexed her crystalline claws in warning. It was a refusal of their bond, and as upset as all of them were, it was a tenuous time. A test that he wasn’t sure they were going to pass. He didn’t know if now, with this new development, if Clary’s trust in him was shattered beyond repair. He had made a mistake by allowing her to walk away from him earlier. A colossal mistake. And he hadn’t been with her when this had begun, when she had been frightened and in pain.
If he was being honest with himself, witnessing her transformation had been one of the proudest, thrilling, most painful moments of his long life. He was responsible for this, though he didn’t yet know how, he knew it was fact by the evidence lying before him on the table. She was a miracle, his miracle, and he had already failed to protect her. “How many of your warriors were called?” Brennaugh looked up at him, and there was a raw kind of joy in his eyes, relief, but sadness too. “Seven. One of them is mine.”
He reached out to squeeze his comrade’s shoulder, sharing in his joy, knowing the sadness was doubt that he had. Doubt that the gentle female would accept the appearance of her mate. Little did he understand yet, little had he himself understood, how strong these fragile humans were. “I have already apprised the council, they were both irritated and pleased.” Brennaugh went on stoically, “I had time to think over the request my one has made, to travel the stars at my side, and I had decided to allow it despite the strain it would cause. But if this is what comes from our mating,”
He looked around in wonder at the four small females lying sedately on their tables and shook his head slowly, “She will need room to run and become acclimated to her new shape.”
“We must identify the cause of this,” Ga’rae grunted, “They were given our blood the day of their arrival, fourteen cycles, and just today they have experienced a full shift that should be impossible.”
“Andi was extremely distressed and fearful when I tried to explain the rituals of the festival to her.” Ohlen reported tightly, and Falken stood to brace his hands on the table where Cassie lay, “I was otherwise occupied and denied my one when she demanded my presence. She was…extremely angry.”
“As was my Gwen.” Ga’rae added, his fingers flying over his tablet while he did whatever it was he was doing.
He kneaded his hands deep into Clary’s scruff, along her spine and felt her weakly arch into the touch, so he did it again and again, stroking, kneading and rubbing until her tremors began to subside. It dawned on him then, Clary’s words returning to him. “They were afraid, and what their kind fear, they fight, however they must to survive.” Clary opened one eye to look up at him, her cat having retained her glorious green eyes, “Our beast is summoned by our loss of control, or an overwhelming emotion. It manifests in our cubs when they reach their majority, at the time when their emotions are the most erratic. Our females were upset, frightened, overwhelmed and the blood we have given them must have caused more changes than first recorded.”
Ga’rae nodded, a smile twitching at his lips when his little mate slapped at him with a delicate paw, little grunts and growls leaving her muzzle as she tried to communicate something to him. He stroked his hand over the sleek fur between her ears, “Until you are able to return to your two legged shape, my heart, I must stumble along without you.” Her lips peeled back from her teeth and she growled, struggling to roll to her belly. “This is not the time to be stubborn, Gwen. It is not possible for you to shift back so soon, your beast will not allow it. It takes time, and an emotional control you are not capable of at this stage.” Ga’rae spoke the truth, but if anything it just made her angrier, her grey ears flattening to her skull, her prismatic white talons curling into the table edge as she hissed her displeasure. Ga’rae spoke, but did not take his eyes off of his mate. “I advise that we remain here in the med bay, until our females can return to their human form. It is imperative for any others that we record each moment of this process.”
Gwen got to her belly and gave a coughing little bark of sound that made Clary turn her head to acknowledge her. Andi looked at her, Cassie looked at her, and he felt some kind of electric charge travel across the air among the four females. Clary awkwardly rolled to her belly, turned to look at him, then at Andi and after a heartbeat her ears flattened to her head with a huff. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath into her lungs, then another, and another, tucking her chin down while she stretched, rolled her shoulders, flexed her paws on the table top and got comfortable on her belly while her tail lashed back and forth. He knew instantly what she was trying to do, and tried to stop her. “Clary, it is not possible to shift back this soon, your beast has control now. She will not relinquish it until she is forced, and you are not capable to change because you do not know how yet. Our cubs, sometimes it takes them days to master their…instincts.”
She forced herself not to listen to Tarek’s gruff words, telling her how impossible this was. But seeing as she was furry, had paws and was seeing the world around her in streams of heat and color, smelling their scents, hearing the beating of their hearts, impossible was relative. Overwhelmed by it all. Overwhelmed, but calmer than she expected she should be, feeling that animal now a part of her, trying to calm and soothe her. She was irritated, feeling vulnerable yet safe surrounded by her own kind. She understood, somewhat, the challenge in Gwen’s little bark. The anger the other woman had at being told she couldn’t do something. The challenge made, her beast now felt obligated to meet and overcome it.
She closed her eyes against the sights flaring before her eyes, ignored Tarek telling her she wasn’t capable of being calm enough to change back so soon, and tried to find the other being he told her was inside her. It wasn’t difficult, she was right there, moving alongside her, rubbing her furred body around her legs, You’re me. Tarek told me that even in his beast form, it was still him. I’m still me. She told her cat, and the animal purred,
Of course.
I want to change back so I can yell at him.
Then do it.
Such a simple answer, do it. Calm. She was calm, and she wanted to change back. Tarek had helped her change by telling her what to do, how to respond to the sensations of the other creature inside her. So logically, the reverse was true. She needed to visualize the beast, her beast, retreating, and her human form taking shape. She felt her paws flex, the muscles in her legs twitch, and forced herself to focus on making her fur recede and her human fingers replace her claws. Forced herself to visualize returning to herself, finger by finger, toe by toe, until she noticed that where she’d been warm before, now she was cold. Goosebumps prickling over her body, and heard several indrawn breaths being sucked in with surprise. She could still scent them, and her cat identified the scents for her. Shock. Awe. Disbelief.
She opened her eyes and her sight was back to normal. A glance down confirmed that she had in fact changed back, and relief made her body sag a little, despite the fact that she was stark naked and kneeling on the cold surface of the exam table. She felt dizzy, a ringing in her ears she’d experienced before and knew what it meant. Knowing she only had a few seconds to say something, she looked at Tarek, rather proud to have put the look of bald shock on his handsome face, “You were saying?” She said a little breathlessly, and promptly fainted.
Twenty
“Clary, can you hear me?” She felt warm again, her body hurt like she’d just been flung into the zero grav room and tossed around like a ping pong ball, slapping up against every flat surface. Bruised, sore, aching from head to toe. “Clary,” She moaned softly at the gentle stroke of a warm hand down her spine, moaned, because even that kind of hurt. “I need you to wake now, my one.”
“Hurts,” She managed to force out from her dry, scratchy feeling throat. “What does?” She flinched at the hand that stroked her hair, “Everything,”
“Come, we will go to the regeneration chamber. You are weak, I must carry you.”
“No,”
“Clary,”
“Hurts,”
“I know, it will be over soon. You have not the strength to walk yet, and in this, you will not fight with me.”
She felt him flinch when she cried out, the pressure of his arms around her almost too painful to bear, and she felt unconsciousness looming over her again, threatening to take her back under. “No, Clary. Stay awake now, just for a little bit longer. You can rest soon, but not yet.” Her eyes rolled back, tears sliding down her cheeks and every step he took jolted another spear of pain through her body. But then her feet touched something…squishy. It was warm and gelatinous, and Tarek was sitting her in a big vat of the stuff. The pressure of it was gentle, but it still hurt, but then the heat began to seep into her skin, into her bones and the throbbing in her body began to ease. “Better?” Tarek murmured, and she was able to open her eyes to see that she was sitting in a big tub of pink goop, up to her chin in it, while Tarek’s arm stayed around her shoulders to keep her from sliding down underneath the surface. “What is this?”
He scooped a handful of it up to smear over her shoulder, her throat, the back of her neck, again and again until the tension and the pain began to ease. “It is a gel, derived from some of the plants I put onto your tablet. When heated and positively charged, it causes rapid regeneration of cells and tissue, penetrating deeply to soothe any internal injuries. Such as overly taxed muscles. You need to submerge yourself for as long as you can hold your breath. It will feel strange, but it is necessary. I will keep my hand here,” He slid his palm around her nape, nodding to her firmly when she swallowed nervously. “I will not hold you under, you may surface at any point, but the longer you are able to submerge, the more the gel will be able to ease your pain.” She took a deep breath and went under without question. And he was right, it felt very, strange.
It was like nothing she’d ever experienced. Surrounded by warmth, but a pressure that was both slimy and uncomfortable, and she could feel it, the gel, pushing at her nostrils like it would slide up there, and when she blew air out her nose to try and force it back, the bubbles made little headway and gave her no relief. Tarek was stroking her with his free hand, up and down her arm in long soothing motions, still supporting her with his other hand curled around her neck. But she began to feel suffocated, and the second she started to struggle, he pulled her up to a sitting position and soothed her softly, “Good girl,” She kept her eyes squeezed shut, shuddering in revulsion at the slimy feel of the gel sliding down her face, but before she could get too grossed out, he was wiping her nose and mouth with a moist cloth, “Breathe, my one.”
Tentatively she parted her lips and drew in a sip of air, then another, feeling how her face was tingling and the pounding in her head was easing. She kept her eyes closed and tried to scoop more of the gel off her face, but when she rubbed at it, the warm tingling increased to a comfortable level. So she scooped her hands back into her hair, and soon instead of tired and sore, she felt energized and refreshed. Tarek used the cloth to wipe her face free of the gel, and murmured to her to open her eyes. His handsome face came into view, his golden eyes stroking over her face for signs of discomfort. “Better,” She murmured, and got a tight nod. “Gwen?”
“She is well, as are Andi and Cassie. They are receiving the same treatment as you. You need food a rest now, my one.”
“I could eat.”
In fact, she was starving. Her stomach was snarling at her viciously, bubbling with hunger actually, and Tarek gave a soft chuff of amusement, reaching back for a clean sheet not far away, encouraging her to slowly stand, wrapping her up to carry her, dripping goop into an enzyme wash to clean them both of the pink gel. When it was done, he took her out of what she saw was the med bay and into a smaller chamber beyond that held only a bed and a comfortable chair. “We must remain close to the medical lab for now, Ga’rae is monitoring all of your vitals, and should anything else change, we need to be close by.” She just nodded, because what else could she do?
She was sleeping now, curled in a ball on the cot in the med bay, huddled under the blankets like she was cold. He lay another blanket over her and she gave a sleepy little purr, snuggling deeper, until all there was to be seen of her was her bright hair, her lips, and her nose where it peeked out from under the sheet. “Commander,” He looked up, shifting his body to shield the sight of his mate from the warrior who intruded, but the male kept his eyes respectfully focused on him and nowhere else. “Ga’rae and his mate have made progress in determining the stressors for the human female’s…transformation.” The warrior said the word with such reverence, he knew the other male was imagining a mate of his own from the human race, and the hope such a thing brought. “Is that all?”
“No, Commander. He requests a final scan, now that they are at rest, after which they may return to your quarters.”
“Very good.”
He moved to the cot where Clary lay, murmuring her name softly before he tugged the edge of the blankets down to reveal her face. He touched her cheek, and her eyes snapped open, pupils slit vertical to reveal her cat, but after a blink, her beautiful eyes returned to normal and she shoved a hand through her hair, looking, smelling confused and wary. “What happened now?” She asked, her voice a sleep roughened purr. “Nothing, my one. Ga’rae and Gwen have made progress enough to allow us to return to our quarters, after one last scan.” She blinked again, licking her dry lips as she sat up farther, holding the sheet tucked up under her armpits. “I’d rather be in the crew quarters with my people.”
It was on his tongue to immediately deny her request, deny that she would be anywhere but with him, but he forced back that desire to command her, fearing he would provoke her beast and make it rise. Instead he took a deep breath, “Given the current situation, do you think that wise?”
“Wise?”
“If something angers or upsets you, do you feel comfortable knowing you may shift shape and react instinctually to the scent of their fear, or the need to chase them if they run?”
“Right. Scan, you said?”
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nbsp; It cut deep, how she declined the hand he held out to her and climbed off the cot herself, wrapping the sheet securely around her, twisting her hair over one shoulder nervously. His jaw hurt from how tightly he clenched his teeth together, curling his fingers into a frustrated fist when he went to set his hand on her waist, and she took a step to the side to avoid it. Gwen was just climbing off the scanner table when they got to Ga’rae’s lab, and the little female gave Clary a supportive nod. “Is this curable?” Clary asked, and both he and Ga’rae froze, immediate insult taken, denial that she would wish to not see this miracle for what it was, filling his mouth. He looked at his medic, and Ga’rae looked at him, his expression clearly confused, both of them not knowing why Clary would ask that. “No. I already ran those tests,” Gwen said with a sigh, a sad sigh, furthering the negative reaction, the surprise of her mate. “Maybe if we hadn’t shifted fully, but the mutation is as of now, for the four of us, permanent. Come, look at the scans.”
Clary moved to join the other female at the computer bay, the two of them discussing the changes to their physical bodies, the differences in their initial scans versus the ones now. Ga’rae moved to stand just to one side of him, facing him, his back on their females. “My mate refuses to speak to me of anything concerning our bond. She asked to return to the crew quarters with her own people, so too has Falken’s mate. Ohlen is the only one of us whose mate is still speaking to him. I do not understand this,”