Broken and Bonded Ch. 15-16

Her chin shot up, and her bright blue eyes could have lit up the darkest of rooms. "You remember?" she whispered -- her voice hoarse with suppressed hope and dread.

He hesitated for a moment, and then shook his head regretfully. "Not first hand -- not completely, just bits from dreams and what others have said."

She sucked in a breath and blinked back the tears. "So, you still do not know me!"

"I should like to though -- I should very much like to get know who you are now -- who the real you, is now."

A thousand emotions flickered across her exquisite features, but she was saved from answering by the door suddenly bursting open.

"I am so sorry to disturb you." Seline said clearly agitated.

"What?" Trudy was on her feet and moving across -- but Matt was there before her.

"I don't need you to tell me -- the scent of fear is all over this house... Trouble I believe."

The front door was open and Marcie -- the robust looking housekeeper, was stood in the frame with what looked like a cricket bat in her hand.

He tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Can I get out please," he asked her politely.

She stepped forward and slightly to the side so that he could leave the house.

"They are over there -- under that tree," she told him indicating with her bat.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and clearly saw the shadowy forms, standing like ominous statues.

"Five of them," he murmured.

"Shall I come with you?" Marcie asked almost eagerly. "Or do you just want the bat?"

She had not taken her eyes off the men standing there so sinisterly, but as he touched her arm lightly, she glanced quickly up at him in surprise, and her eyes widened further at his whimsical smile, and twinkling eyes.

"That won't be necessary I'm afraid."

As Matt walked across the grassy land the almost full moon peeped out from a cloud.

'Yes, these mutts were making use of its energy -- even if they could not make the full shift just yet.'

He stopped yards away from them. "What do you want here?" he demanded.

"We come for what is ours," One of them stated firmly.

He looked to be older than the others, the father he assumed -- the pack leader, he was sure.

"There is nothing here that is yours." Matt told him in that same cold, hard tone.

The man clenched and unclenched his fist a couple of times and then stepped forward.

"We came tonight -- before the moon to try to reason one more time with those in the house who hold what is ours," he said defiantly. "But if we leave here without -- well then when the moon is at its fullest power, then we will see to what is right and what is proper." he smiled a cold malicious smile. "We will take what is ours and any who try to get in the way -- well they will be sorry... there are many females in there and perhaps they also need a lesson on male superiority -- a little training perhaps and maybe we will take them into our pack also..."

He was letting his imagination run and the young men behind him were lapping up everything he said.

Matt thought of the girls inside and what these... animals suggested. He thought of Marcie and Seline who would die to protect the girls, he thought of Trudy and what these beings might do to her, and once again a wavery image of a blue-eyed sunshine girl who always laughed... except for that one time...

He felt his fingernails turn into black claws. And his muscles turned to stone.

"You will leave this place and leave these people -- all of these people in peace never to return here!" he told them all, in a voice which was quiet but all the more sinister in its coldness, than these animals could ever achieve.

"By what right!" the leader snarled back. "By whose authority do you dare to try to interfere with me and my pack members?"

Matt stood upright and he allowed his shoulders to open up as his eyes darkened to black.

"By council authority... by my brother the chief elder's authority... I am their tool and their weapon, and their will is done by my force -- by my authority!"

They all looked at him in stunned shock for a moment.

"He's the reaper!" one of them suddenly exclaimed in fear. "I have heard of him..."

The pack leader glanced over his shoulder warningly, and then back at Matt.

"If what you say is true, then you of all people should recognise the rights of pack!"

"Rights of pack?" Matt snarled. "You have no rights -- you had responsibility and you failed, you failed your females and now you have everything you deserve -- you have oblivion to look forward to. Your pack will die with yourself and your underlings, and you will have no more descendants because you never appreciated what you had -- what future you might have had."

The colour drained from the leader, and the young men behind began to shuffle around in distress, at the fate that Matt had predicted for them.

"The moon will prove our rights, and when it is full, we will return and take back what is ours." The leader snarled back defiantly.

"Try it!" Trudy had come marching up so silently that he had not heard her, but now she invaded his senses with her scent and her physical being.

He could hear the edge in her voice and his arm shot out to stop her before she could launch at the men.

"You just try it -- you pathetic excuses for men -- you worthless cowardly mangy dogs!"

"Stay back!" Matt growled at her, and his voice was as thick as hers.

Trudy pushed at his arm, but it held her firmly back, and she sneered at the men as her eyes glinted in the moonlight.

"You seek to wait until the full moon -- to hide your crimes behind the old tales!" She scoffed. "WE won't wait though -- WE do not need to wait... if you seek animals then animals will come out for you -- but tonight not then!"

The hand on Matt's arm thickened with fur as golden as her hair, and Matt was tempted -- sorely tempted to step back and let her shift -- to see her in all her glory -- in all her fury.

"Heed me -- golden summer!" he growled again, not knowing why he used that phrase.

But it worked. Trudy looked at him with shock and wonder -- and she was fully human again once more.

He smiled down at her briefly but then his eyes hardened, and he stepped closer to the men, blocking her from them.

"You thought to come here and find only the females," he said in his dead voice. "You thought to take advantage of what you thought was a weakness.... you thought wrong on both counts."

"The moon will decide that."

"No, the moon will not decide -- I shall and have decided tonight, and you have no rights here."

He stepped closer to the leader and leaned into him a little. "You really do not want to push this with me -- I am so not in the mood to be... polite!"

Just to emphasise the point further; Matt allowed his shoulders to open up again and his eyes darkened to black.

"I have no need to wait for the moon either, and patience was never my strong point."

The leader stepped back, and his eyes filled with panic.

"I... We have no quarrel with you elder. We mean no disrespect to you nor the chiefs."

"But you are not going to let this go -- are you?" Matt realised.

He could see it in the man and his underlings, they really did think they had the right -- that... Sandra -- that was the girl's name; that she was somehow their possession, something they owned and could treat as the wanted, like nothing more than an object.

He could picture the girl now and could clearly see how she would have been when Seline had rescued her. The image of the broken young girl -- overlapped with a younger Trudy -- hurt as she had said she had been -- lost and alone and broken...

He stood taller, and the hair on his arms thickened to fur, black fur, so black it was like the emptiness of space -- an absence of any light at all.

The men stepped back and cowered in fright, as Matt the man stood on the verge of becoming something -- truly terrifying.

Trudy stepped forward and touched his arm with a feather light hand.

"Easy my love," she murmured. "Don't lose yourself to these worthless animals."

She looked across at the men with hard hatred in her eyes.

"If I was you right now, then the thing I would do, is to -- run!"

She watched with a kind of grim spiteful satisfaction as those brash and burly brutish men turned and fled like a bunch of terrified deer.

She still had her hand on Matt's arm, and she could feel his muscles relaxing and the fur receded until he was fully human once more.

"They will be back," she stated flatly. "And it will not be men that we will be dealing with next time."

"No, but I think that might work in our favour," Matt said slowly and thoughtfully.

He rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck and as Trudy reached up to take his hand, she saw a world of sorrow in his expression.

"Don't fight your memories... don't fight yourself -- let it come to you as it needs to."

He sighed at her soft gentle voice. "I shall have to do something, that I have not done in decades."

"What?"

"I shall have to meet them on a level that they can understand -- that they will bow down to a superior -- I shall have to shift."