Starlight in the Heavens - 16. Chapter 16

Part 16 - Alex

The restaurant served up a good meal and it didn't take long for me to satisfy my stomach. Now all I wanted was to satisfy my craving for Joshua. We hadn't been really alone for three days. We'd stopped traveling and stayed in hotels each night on our journey, opting for two bedroom suites, but hadn't been comfortably on our own. Tonight, I wouldn't take any answer but yes to having Jo somewhere far enough away that we could enjoy each other with no distractions.

When the waitress asked if we wanted any dessert, Josh let me know that he was of the same opinion.

"No, thanks. We have dessert waiting for us." His eyes hadn't left mine while speaking with her. "Just the check, please."

The look he gave me spoke the words I wanted to hear. All he wanted was me. I could feel the heat of a flush as it crept up my cheeks and couldn't stop the giggles that began. I was blushing like a school boy. It had been years since I'd last done that but some reason... The heat of his skin as he leaned closer caused a tingle in my belly and an immediate stir in my groin.

"Let's get out of here, babe," he whispered in my ear. "I want my dessert."

I could have swooned just from having his hot breath along my cheek. Instead, I took a sharp breath and scrambled out of the booth.

It didn't take long to check into the motel. They had two cabins that, remarkably, were on either side of the one TJ and Sean said they were staying in. We took them both. Jo would stay one cabin removed from us.

I'd hardly had a chance to look around after dropping the bags when I found myself in Josh's crushing embrace, my mouth plundered and cock threatening to break through the zipper in my jeans.

Joshua walked me backward while simultaneously stripping me of my clothing. Before I knew it, the backs of my knees hit the bed and down I went. Joshua knelt and captured my length in his mouth.

"Mmm," he mumbled around the glans, "dessert."

He had me panting in no time, but I wanted my dessert too. I wiggled away, moving further back on the bed with Joshua following. Once we were all the way up on the bed, I flipped him onto his back and changed my direction so I could join in and enjoy the sweetness that is Joshua.

***

We heard the soft murmur of voices as we stood outside the middle cabin. Hesitating a moment, Joshua glanced at me before knocking. I knew I had to be looking nervous. It had come as a shock meeting Sean and Adrian. I could remember as a child how my mother had more than once made the comment that the color of my eyes was a rare gift in the family. She'd said that I was the first one born with them in decades, and that they made me special. I'd never met anyone else... before tonight.

Joshua's hand cupped my cheek and I looked up at him as his thumb wiped away a tear. It had been years since I'd thought of my mother without anger. But now it was with pain. If I was so special— why couldn't she accept me as I was? My father had always been distant, cold even... but my mom hadn't always been that way. When I was younger, she had been a loving, caring woman. It wasn't until my sixteenth birthday that things with her started to change. I didn't know why then; I didn't know why now— and it hurt.

The cabin door opened before we could knock. TJ's massive form filled the doorway for only a second before he moved aside and motioned for us to enter. As we came in, his hand rested gently on my shoulder. I stopped and looked up into his eyes. They regarded me with knowing compassion, slid his hand down my arm and lightly squeezed.

"We have all, everyone in this room, lost someone dear to us. It is not wrong to grieve for the ones you love."

Maybe that was it. I hadn't ever grieved over my mother. My father, there was never a reason to. That was all he ever was to me— a father in the strictest sense. But my mother at one time had been my best friend and confidante. I really wasn't sure what had changed her, and right at this moment in time, I didn't care. The fact was— she was gone. I had lost her even before the accident that took her life. And I had never grieved. I'd felt the pain of her passing, but never let myself cry. Before her death, I know I held back in defiance. I wouldn't show her or my father any weakness. After her death, I think I was more stunned than anything else. I'd thought sure they'd dropped me from their lives like a hot rock dropped from the palm of a hand. When the estate people tracked me down, no one was more shocked than I.

I took a glance around the room. Like ours, this cabin had a sitting room separate from the bedroom, and that is where we now stood. Unlike ours, I noticed a second bedroom. "Where's Jo?"

"She is outside, convening with those that sent her," Sean said.

"Oh."

Josh pulled me to him, and as I buried my face in the front of his shirt, asked, "Are you okay?"

I nodded, but then shook my head. I wasn't okay and I wasn't going to lie.

"I don't know," I choked out as tears began to spill from my eyes.

"TJ," I heard Sean say. Then there was a great calm that spread over me as TJ's arms wrapped around us both. I still cried, but my heart didn't hurt as bad as it did before. It was almost as though with every tear that spilled out, a little more weight lifted. I don't know how or why, but crying there in Joshua's arms while both of us were engulfed by TJ— it was the most warm, healing thing I'd ever felt.

I don't know how long we stayed like that before I felt myself being lifted and gently laid on the sofa. I could smell Joshua as he slid beneath my head. It was perfect, so I snuggled in close to my lover. I didn't sleep, though I was very relaxed. Instead, I opened my eyes and watched as TJ, Sean and Adrian all took places at the end of the bed, watching me in return.

After several minutes of silence, Sean began.

"You look so much like her."

"Who?"

"Our mother," Adrian answered. "You look more like her than either of us. We have too much of the monster in our blood." He said this last part with such fury I cringed.

"Calm yourself, Adrian." Sean laid a hand on Adrian's arm. "The blood does not make who we are."

"And just who are you?" Joshua asked. "You didn't want to answer many questions while out in the park. Jo intimated that you weren't human."

"We are in part," Sean said.

"Yeah, you said that before TJ warned us about speaking in a public place."

Sean didn't answer Joshua right away. I watched his face as he sat across from us. The pain I'd seen earlier flickered across his features a couple times so I knew he was trying to sort out what to say. TJ moved behind him and pulled Sean into his lap. I grinned as complete relaxation took the place of discomfort. But it was also the sight of them— Sean, so small, and TJ, such a large hulk of a man.

"You have her smile."

Adrian's voice startled me, and I shifted my gaze to his face. One thing about Adrian I noticed right from the start was his penetrating stare. From the moment he set his eyes on me, he hadn't let go. While at the park, he'd watched every move I made and never wavered in his attempts to touch me. And since moving into the room, he watched me— following my movements with his eyes.

It was unnerving. I almost felt like a mouse caught in a cat's hypnotic gaze. I sat up and cocked my head as I studied him. He and Sean looked very much like brothers— in their eyes, the shapes of their faces, their hair color and skin tone— all but their sizes. Where Sean was small— I guessed maybe five foot six or seven— Adrian was closer to Joshua's size.

"Do you have the same father?" I asked, wondering if maybe that was the reason for the size difference.

Adrian's face clouded with fury. It was a frightening transformation and I felt Joshua's arms tighten around me as I was pulled back to his chest. The heat of Adrian's rage pushed out from his body even as his face contorted into something closer to animalistic paranoia.

He hissed. "We have no father."

I watched the look melt from his expression with Sean's words. "He is no more."

Adrian stared with growing intensity into my eyes and said, "I killed the monster."

I flinched. It didn't surprise me that Adrian could kill another person. He seemed unbalanced, going from relaxed to wound up tighter than a watch, first pacing then standing perfectly still and loose, muscles twitching in angst then almost so calm you'd think he was asleep— all of these things within the span of a minute. And all the while, his eyes never leaving me.

"It was a joint effort," TJ said, "but because of the evils taken against Adrian, he was given the final strike. It was hoped that he would find peace with himself in that final act."

Adrian closed his eyes and turned away from me for the first time. Something loosened inside when he did that. His whole posture had taken the form of a broken child. I knew deep within that this man had done terrible things, but also that possibly worse things had been done to him. Shame, fear, pain and... loneliness enveloped him as he curled into a fetal position on the floor.

I pulled away from Joshua and went to Adrian. When I sat beside him and rested a hand gently on his shoulder, he moved with lightning speed— not away, but into my lap. I found his arms wrapped around my shoulders in a crushing embrace as his face burrowed into the cleft between my shoulder and throat. Adrian's body shuddered as he sobbed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The words kept repeating as I held him and stroked his hair.

Eventually, he wore himself out and fell asleep. TJ moved in and gently lifted Adrian away, laying him on the floor with a pillow under his head.

He sighed before standing and offering his hand to help me up.

"It's been over a year since that day and we continue to wonder if he will make it another day. Sometimes, I think he's lost too much."

"We all have," Sean said. "But there is help coming for Adrian."

I sat next to Joshua and turned to Sean.

"What did he mean when he kept saying he was sorry?"

"You look like our mother," he said with a small sad smile, "Other than having short hair, and of course that you are not a woman. I believe he was speaking to her."

"What does he have to be sorry for?"

"Not being there to save her." Sean sat on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees. "It's silly when you think about it. He was only five the last time he saw her, and I was three when she was killed. I don't know how much a child of eight could do to a group of shifters. But he blames himself even though he was not of age to shift himself."

Wait a minute. Shifters? As in... werewolves?

Sean's eyes flitted between Josh and me. I know I must have shown open confusion, but judging from Sean's expression, Joshua must have been showing a different emotion.

"You've seen shifters?"

I felt Joshua shake his head. "No. But my brother used to tell me stories, and recently I've been lead to believe his stories held more truth than fantasy."

"Ahh, yes. Jo would have told you. How much do you know?"

"Not much. Only that elves, shifters, witches... they are not fictional creatures."

"Oh, there are so many others. Have you ever noticed the flicker at the periphery of your vision? You think maybe you saw someone, or something, but when you turn and look— there's nothing there?"

I found myself looking down to where Adrian lay. Shifter. What did that mean exactly? I thought about the way Adrian moved— more like how they all moved. They were all so smooth, almost gliding as they walked. And they were so quiet.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. It used to happen a lot when I was listening to Jeremy. He would laugh when I'd start to look around. I always had a feeling he knew what I was looking for."

"After speaking with Jo, I have no doubt he knew quite a bit. It sounds as though he was a special, and rare, individual."

"Yeah, he was that," Joshua whispered. "He meant a lot to me. I was lost for a long time after he was killed. I think he was the one that kept the family together."

From the corner of my eye, I watched TJ leave the room. His exit was silent— surprising for such a large man. He had to weigh at least 250, yet there was no sound to his movements. He returned barely a minute later with a blanket which he proceeded to cover Adrian with. He moved with fluid grace... and it struck me.

"Cats!"

Joshua jumped, and Sean smiled. It reached all the way to his eyes, making him look like I had guessed the most wonderful secret.

"That's what you are, isn't it? All of you." I frowned as I thought more. What kind of cats would they be with such major differences in their size? I'd never been one to read a lot of fantasy, but I figured they probably didn't gain or lose a lot of weight or size when they weren't in human form. Going with that, TJ would have to be a really big cat, and Sean something a lot smaller. Adrian, though he looked a lot like Sean, was somewhere in between.

"Don't over think it," TJ said.

I looked up at him. Was that what I was doing? More than likely, but then, didn't I always?

I glanced over at Adrian and was startled to see dark blue eyes staring back at me. He was still curled up on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket and his head resting on the pillow, but he was no longer facing away. It took me a moment but then I noticed his clothes folded neatly just on the other side of his body. Sometime during my thoughts while Josh and Sean were talking, Adrian had woken, stripped, and crawled back under the blanket without my ever knowing.

While I looked from Adrian to his clothes and back to his eyes, I saw a ripple in the air surrounding him and a brilliant glimmer of light. In the blink of an eye, Adrian went from a man to a large, black leopard. His transformation was completed before I ever knew it was happening.

I think I was too stunned to react to the cat curled up on the floor. I just froze. Even breathing seemed foreign for a bit. I'd felt Joshua's arms tense when he saw what had happened. I'd heard his gasp and TJ's chuckle, but it only registered in the fringes of my mind. All I could see was Adrian's dark, midnight blue eyes. They hadn't changed in the slightest.

I started to get light-headed so I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Wow."

It was the only word I had. Just... wow. It was so surreal— absolutely nothing like what I would have expected. In the movies, you always saw this creaking, popping, bones made over, garish transformation. But what I'd just witnessed was nothing like that. It had been so smooth— one minute a man, and the next... not. The glimmer of light had been so bright; there was no way the human eye could see beyond it. There was no way to see the actual shift.

I cleared my throat and looked over at Sean. "Did that hurt?"

Not— is he safe like that? For some reason, I knew that Adrian was no more a threat than when he was a man. Blood thicker than water? I didn't know why I knew— I just did.

Sean smiled as he gazed at his brother. "No. Once you pass the first shift, it's natural. You feel warm, but that's about it."

"You feel free," TJ added. "To move about, roaming the wild lands, is very liberating."

"I bet," Joshua said. "Will he let us touch him?"

Sean snickered and looked up at us. "He's right there. Why don't you ask him?"

"Ask..." I started and flinched when my brain activated. Of course. I turned back to Adrian. "Sorry, Adrian, may I touch you? I've never been so close to a cat as large as you. Is your fur as soft as a house-cat's?"

Adrian got up and shook off the blanket. He walked slowly over to us, glancing back and forth between our eyes. As he did, I realized that he was more frightened of our reactions than we were of his change. I wasn't sure what it was at first. But as I looked in his eyes, I could see that he feared we would reject him.

As if. I knew far too much about rejection to deal it out to someone undeserving. And these three, my family, did not.