Cat Got Your Tongue?
Chapter 9
As I draw closer to the forest line, I could start to make out a tall female figure.
"What took you so long?" Alexis grins and I only have to wait briefly for the punch line that I know is coming. "Kitten got stuck in a tree? Did the fireman have to come get you down?"
I roll my eyes, brushing right past her as I start scratching my arms that have become increasingly itchy. Tilting my head back, my eyes search the sky for the moon that I know is there.
"I thought that you didn't have to change every night except for the full moon."
She turns, following me deeper into the woods.
"And how come you're not itching?" I snap, irritated, turning to her. I notice something significant about her and pause curiously. The green ring that surrounds all our pupils, take up all the color in them. They are now a glowing earthly jade and the pupils are slit into thin lines.
"Technically, you don't have to change, but your body will automatically want to. Especially the month following the first transformation. It gets easier to ignore after that."
"What about your eyes?" I marvel.
Her white smile is easy to see even in the dark. "Yours are like that, too. They turn that way when the cat is the closest to the surface."
"Alright, lets do this already." I ground out, moving my itching to my back where I can barely scratch. "It's driving me crazy and this kitty want's to play."
She laughs at me as I bend down to scratch my leg, and looking back at her, I fall stunned to my butt.
"What are you doing?!" I screech embarrassedly as she tugs off her pants, shirt, and bra already in a heap beside her. I quickly turn away as my face flushes a deep red.
Again, she laughs at me. "Well I don't want to shred my clothes so unless that's your plan, I suggest you do the same."
She kicks off her underwear and starts strutting towards me unashamedly and I struggle to keep my wide eyes on her face.
"Come on." She says tugging at my shirt. "There is no such thing as modesty in being a werecat; you'll get used to it soon enough."
Sputtering and blushing painfully, I quickly strip my clothes and set them into a neater pile than Alexis's are. She laughs at me as I attempt to keep myself covered somewhat, and follow her lead as she plops down into the grass.
"So what am I supposed to do?" I ask, avoiding her eyes.
Becoming more serious, she stills except for the slight trembling in her hands.
"Close your eyes." She directs, causing me to immediately listen. "Focus on the sounds and smells around you; find that wild instinct."
Doing as she says, I stretch my senses. Taking a deep breath through my mouth, I taste the damp forest on my tongue. I can smell something warm and musty, something alive, and I stretch my hearing into that direction as a twig snaps. A steady heart pulses and begins to race as the deer senses danger.
I breathe in again, taking in the scent of something wilder, more feral. Racing paws take off after the spooked deer and more join in on the hunt.
A grin breaks my lips. Wolves.
"Search deep in yourself and find that cage that has locked up your cat, and reach into it. Bring it to the surface," she speaks softly. "Focus on the itch, the pull of the moon, and let it explode."
The itching becomes intense but I ignore it, focusing on where I had always felt my cat whenever it's tail twitched or purred in my ear. My gut clenches as I hook onto that slight flicker, and my eyes flash open with a gasp. My body convulses and Alexis's voice seems distant as she rises to her feet encouraging me.
"Good, don't stop." She demands. "Don't let go, focus on the animal, your anger."
My heart clenches and there is a war drum pounding in my head again. My gut twists and it feels like I'm exploding out of my skin.
Just like before, everything is calm when it's over. I find myself getting to my feet, standing tall and shaking out my dark pelt.
I can feel something shift in the air, and I almost jump as a voice speaks into my head.
"That was pretty good for the first intentional shift. Relatively painless."
"Whoa." I think back. "You weren't kidding about the mind link thing."
"No." She says sounding amused, if you could sound amused in your thoughts. "We weren't 'kidding about the mind link thing'."
I turn to look at her curiously. The only time I had seen her in cat form was during my first change, and even then I didn't get a good look; it was hard to see through the tears of pain.
She winces at where my thoughts had drifted.
"Sorry." I think at her.
She looks like a giant lynx, only with a little longer fur and a long tail that brushes the leaves. Her fur is a dark brown like her hair had been, only with a small circular white patch taking up her chest. Like when we were human, she is still slightly taller than me.
"What do I look like?" I ask eagerly in my head, jumping up and down slightly and making the ground shake.
"Like a kitten wanting to play." She teases, her tail flicking playfully.
"Seriously, how do I look?" I ask, trying to careen my neck around to look at myself. A mental image pops up into my mind, but it's odd because I can still see what's going on around me even as I study the giant cat in the picture.
It's fur and shape look exactly like Alexis, but the color is completely black instead of brown- the color of midnight.
"That's me?" I gasp. "Cool!"
She chuckles and turns slightly in the direction to head deeper into the foliage. "Ready to play, Kitten?"
Despite the slightly offending nickname, I bound after her excitedly, only to trip over my own paws.
Her cat rumbles in a laugh as it also echoes in my mind. I feel the heat of a blush but I know that it won't show through my dark coat, and I shove her shoulder roughly.
Her chortling dies as her eyes narrow dangerously. Then she lunges, tackling me right into a tree where it snaps in half with my weight.
I let out a sound of joy as I wrestle with her, struggling to keep my claws sheathed so as not to accidentally scratch her, but she has no qualms about slamming me into the dirt too hard, and I find myself enjoying doing the same.
I've never played rough before, but it is really fun. I head butt her in the chest, sending her back a few feet, before turning tail and running deeper into the trees as fast as I can.
My feet catch on so many branches and roots, but I'm so big that it has little to no effect on me, and I find myself marveling at the speed I'm able to reach.
I have to be going faster than Edward!
My mind is racing so fast that I don't even notice when someone else enters my head until I hear a loud startling, "Heads up!" being shouted at me, and I have time to turn wide eyes to a black and white blur before something big pounces onto my back.
The force throws me sideways and careening into two trees, and I'm left gasping on my side with a nose full of moss and a pelt full of twigs.
"Ow." I groan heaving myself to my feet and swiping a paw at who I know to be Elliot as he picks himself up as well, shaking out all the debris from his black fur. Only his paws and tuffs on his stomach are white.
His wide sparkling green eyes shine at me, and his mouth twists into a threatening show of teeth that I know is supposed to be a grin.
"Ass." I grumble, and his chest rumbles in a laugh.
"Reflexes, kitten." He teases, and I groan again in just as much in pain as I had taken from the jet speed tackle.
"Not you too." I guess it's too late to discourage that nickname, I think wistfully.
"You got that right." Ivy says, thinks, coming into the newly made clearing with Alexis chuckling at her heals.
Ivy looks similar to her brother except more slender, build for speed rather than strength, and of course smaller too. Her socks go up a little higher as well, I notice.
"Is everyone else coming out?" I ask curiously, and get three head shakes.
"Aurora didn't want everyone out here at once, it brings a little too much attention to ourselves from the wolves."
"The wolves?" I ask. Alexis shakes her head.
"I'll explain tomorrow." She says crouching low to the floor. "For now, lets play." She grins wolfishly (excuse my insult to us cats) at me, tail flicking playfully, and lunges.
I rear up to meet her and a crack like thunder echoes through the tree, and I grin as I'm easily overwhelmed by the superior fighter.
But I don't seem to care, and the new competitiveness inside me has me leaping to my feet again to tackle the next body closest to me.
A/N: So the kitties come out to play. The Cullens are coming soon, but not next chapter. I think. I'll have to check.
Thanks so much for reading and please review!
~Silver~
