Author's Note:
In response to a review by 'Guest', I feel that maybe I should point out that I haven't actually said that Bennett imprints on anyone. As it stands she doesn't even know what imprinting is as it doesn't happen in her 'species'. I don't see why the wolves have to imprint on people, is love not enough?
Anyway, on with the story...
It had been a week since I'd kissed Brady and he'd kissed me. I knew that he'd told a couple of people but if they were upset with me then they were keeping it well hidden. Despite my polite treatment, I was still ready to leave at a moment's notice; although I was going to let things go until I had no other choice.
I had started spending my days outside again. I hadn't realised how much I disliked being cooped up until I was back in the forest, surrounded by the most familiar thing around here. The forest was incredibly similar to what I'd grown up with, some of the species were different but aesthetically it was more than effective at holding the homesickness at bay. All that the forest needed was the faint echo of a waterfall and I would never feel the sickening edge of being so far from the scenery of my childhood.
How it was that I could miss a place that was entirely my mother's and entirely off limits was beyond me but I did. Elk Falls had always and would always be my mother's land. Jesse and I were raised knowing that one day she would want us to leave but it had still stung to know that she was willing to kill me to get me to leave. I hoped that Jesse would leave before he had to feel that horrid rejection, I may have been pissed at him but I didn't want him hurt in any way and there was no chance that she'd let him stay forever. We had long ago learnt that the only way we could stay in Elk Falls was to take the land by force. And neither of us would be so stupid as to do that.
Mum was almost eighty years old; she was nineteen when she took ownership of Elk Falls in 1952. She'd lived there for sixty-one years and had never been even slightly at risk of losing her land. Shifters of our sort weren't common in North America and we tended to not be on the radar of any other Shifters, so there was never anyone to threaten Mum for her land. The only Shifter we ever saw on an even slightly regular basis was a thickset male who never hesitated in running off when Mum started to show the slightest sign of aggression. This didn't mean that there weren't more around, just that Mum knew how to keep possession of that which was dearest to her.
Jesse and I were born in one of the most secluded parts of Mum's territory, far enough from the border to avoid the neighbouring predators and far enough from roads and frequented camping and hiking areas to keep us safe from humans. As Mum had given birth to us while she was in leopard form, we had been shifting from before we could walk. Shifting was so familiar to both of us that we often forgot that other people couldn't do it. We aged at a normal rate until we were about ten, at which point we went from pre-teen to apparent sixteen-year-olds in a single year; as a result, Mum had to keep us hidden from birth until we caught up with our bodies. She was in hiding herself because she'd started to attract attention. She hadn't aged like all her friends, so she faked her death just after she conceived us.
There was one other Shifter that we'd met as children; apart from the male that didn't seem to understand that Elk Falls was Mum's land. We'd been young, very young at the time, just six years old, and were playing near the South-West boundary of Mum's territory. The Shifter had been in leopard form, just like we were, and it was clear that she knew who our mother was the moment she saw us because she made sure to keep her distance. She was a small Shifter, her shoulders measuring a good five inches shorter than mine and I was average at best. Her fur was darker than either of ours, darker even then our mother's, and her teeth were absolutely massive, larger than mine are now.
Despite her fearsome appearance she had not threatened us and Mum had not been concerned when she found us playing so close to an unknown Shifter that we'd never seen before and never saw again. It had seemed that she'd liked us and I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that she enjoyed watching us play. Then I hadn't thought much of it but now I think that it was her maternal instinct shining through.
Mum only came out of the wood works when Jesse and I were fourteen years old. We were lucky for our genetics because both of us had young looking faces, so even though our bodies looked older, our faces still looked like the average fourteen year old. With the right makeup I can still pull off fifteen. It was good for us because it meant we could go into school with people around our age.
Over our four years of government education it became clear that I was more leopard than Jesse was. Jesse was overly trusting and made friends as easy as breathing. He didn't need to try to fit in with the other students and they all loved him. I envied him for it but now I was glad that I didn't have the friends he had. It would have made leaving a lot harder. Although, now that I'd had a taste of what friendship was, I couldn't help but feel that I had missed out.
I couldn't help but feel that La Push might be the place that I would settle down in, as my mother had in Elk Falls, although I knew that I shouldn't be thinking this way about a place already occupied by wolves. Ideally I would have had a territory that shared a border with my mother's but all that land was taken and the only place for me to go was off Vancouver Island. I'd figured that if I had to leave then I may as well make the best of it and find somewhere well away from my mother.
La Push fit that to the T. It reminded me of home, even though it certainly wasn't. There were no other feline Shifters in the area and with a little schmoozing I should be able to convince the wolves to let me stay. That was when I finally got around to telling them what I was.
My thoughts of settling down interrupted, I froze on the spot. I'd been hopping my way along one of the paths when I came across something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Someone unfamiliar was around. It wasn't one of the wolves and it wasn't a vampire. But the smell was still bone chilling.
It was a Shifter. A female Shifter. A female feline Shifter.
Before long she was standing before me, her ears laid flat back against her neck as she examined me. The first thing that I noticed about her was that she was substantially lighter than I was, being a washed out sandy colour under her large black and grey rosettes. Inside her rosettes she showed greying of her coat but no additional little spots like I had. She was a Clouded Leopard but she was in no way related to me.
Hanging from her mouth was a bag filled with what looked like scraps of cloth, but I assumed they were clothes. She let out a low warning growl around the bag, but I knew it was not a threat. Still, I stared her down, my heart thumping hard in my chest. My natural distrust in everyone meant that I couldn't let my guard down around her and while my guard was up, I couldn't possibly figure out why she was here. It wasn't easy to think about intentions when you're so focused on the actions.
After a few long moments she phased and changed into some very revealing day clothes. Showing herself to be a very beautiful woman of Chinese descent. She had flawless, creamy skin and startlingly dark eyes that shone from her pale face. She was taller than me but at least one size smaller, it was almost as if someone had grabbed her feet and shoulders and stretched her out. She had the sort of beauty that I could only dream of and I instantly envied her for it.
"Bennett?" she asked with a distinctive Southern accent, it was a strange combination, her exotic appearance and her hillbilly accent. I nodded carefully and waited for her response, "I'm so sorry for what happened. I never meant to hurt you."
I'd never met this woman before, so why would she be sorry for hurting me? I'd have remembered meeting someone like this woman, how could anyone forget someone so gorgeous?
She frowned at me, "It's me, Pippa. Do you not remember me?"
I recoiled from her. What the hell was going on? Pippa wasn't real, she was a figment of my imagination. She couldn't possibly be standing in front of me, talking to me like she was her own being. She wasn't real.
Someone came rushing towards me and I flinched away from them. It was Brady, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. He was breathing hard and his muscles were twitching from use, he'd either been chasing 'Pippa' or he'd caught her scent and freaked out. He put himself between me and the stranger, his arm stretched out behind him in a protective gesture.
"Who are you?" Brady demanded and I found myself wanting to know exactly the same.
The attractive stranger flashed a fleeting smile before answering, "Phillipa Kam, I'm Bennett's girlfriend."
Brady scoffed, "I don't think you deserve to call yourself that."
She seemed to get rather angry at this and stepped forward with stiff shoulders, "Who are you to talk to me like that? You pathetic little mutt."
So my disdain for Brady and his fellow Shifters seemed to be universal amongst my kind. I had started to get used to it, although I was far from liking that part of them. In a strange way, I liked the wolf pack of La Push more than I liked my family at the moment. And I definitely liked them better than this stranger, who meant less than nothing to me.
I wondered if she had been informed of everything by whoever it was that had sent her. That was my biggest question. I no longer cared who she was, she was insignificant to me. The person who sent her was the one that I wanted to talk to.
In my head I had been through the options, there was my mother and my brother, no one else knew or cared that I was here. My mother didn't know about the details of my lies, namely the fact that Phillip had become Phillipa, but there was the slight chance that Jesse had brought it up and Mum had found it in herself to try to help me. The more likely culprit was Jesse but he didn't know this woman, I was sure of that.
Brady growled low in his throat, "You're not welcome here."
"I'd love to leave, it's disgusting that you could tolerate those leeches. Unfortunately, they don't want me to leave and I'm not going without Bennett." the stranger snarled, I refused to call her Pippa because she wasn't Pippa. Pippa was an imaginary woman and there was no way that she was standing in front of me now.
I felt Brady's large warm hand wrap around my shoulder and my attention flashed back to him. He looked scared, at least that's what I thought he was portraying. His shoulders were tense but they shook as his hand gripped me a little too firmly for a human to withstand.
I reached up to pry at his fingers, "Brady, you're hurting me." He turned towards me, eyes wide and frantically searching my face and body for bruises or marks. He was definitely scared and it confused me, "I'm fine. I promise."
"This is all really sweet but I would like to have a word with my girlfriend. In private."
Brady was shaking his head but he wasn't the one that answered, "After what you did last time, why would we let you?"
It was Sam and he was backed by almost the entire pack. Although none were in wolf form, they were clearly trying to threaten the stranger but I got the feeling that she didn't intimidate easily. Even with eight large, muscular men bearing down on her, she didn't flinch. I would have flinched, at least I would have if my two feet were planted on the ground; get me in the trees and out of their reach and I would happily stare them down.
"Because it's not your choice." she snapped before turning to me, "Please, Bennett. Let me explain."
Every head turned to me and I felt a sudden pressure to make the right decision. It was so heavy and strong that it was almost like a physical entity had taken refuge on my shoulders and wasn't going to move until I said something. I wanted to tell the stranger to go away, to get rid of 'Pippa' once and for all but I couldn't. My curiosity and desire to know who had sent her was too much. I couldn't not find out.
I nodded my head, "But you only get this one chance, afterwards you leave me alone."
"Very well then. I've got an ATV stashed around here, but I don't want anyone following me." I nodded my agreement with this and the stranger bowed her head.
She turned and made her way into the forest. I was motionless for a moment, wondering if I should actually go with her. She was supposed to be my long term girlfriend; I should want to trust her. I took a deep breath and followed her to the ATV that was hidden amongst a thick stand of trees; how anyone had gotten it in here I had no idea.
After a few minutes we were out of the La Push territory. It was liberating to know that I was free of the forest that I'd been trapped in for the last few weeks, but there was a pang of uneasiness that came with not knowing where I was. This strange Shifter could be leading me to my death and I had no way to stop her now that we were so far from the safety of the La Push wolves.
Finally we came to a stop and I stepped awkwardly off the vehicle. It was always awkward trying to manoeuvre myself when I had a cast around half my leg. I'd never thought that it would be this cumbersome but it seemed that the plasters only use was to make me look even more human that I actually was.
A noise caught my attention and I spun around to meet the gaze of a scrawny Malaysian man. His short hair was ruffled and dirty; his large eyes were a bright hazel. He wore an old white suit that was littered with holes and stained by mud, if I hadn't known better I would have thought him homeless. But I did know better and I knew better because of how familiar he was.
He was the man that came around again and again to fight with my mother; the Shifter that hadn't been able to get it through his thick skull that Mum wasn't going to give him anything that she owned. Everything was starting to fall into place and put a face to the man that we'd always spoken of but never known. Mum had never once let him stay but he always came back and always at around this time every year. I could see my brother in the set of his eyes and shape of his brow. I saw myself in the wide flare of his flat nostrils. It was strange to think that I'd never noticed it before, in all the times that we'd seen him in leopard form; strange that I'd never put two and two together and got the answer I got now.
This was my 'useless' father.