I was so far gone and upset, my shift wasn’t going to wilt any time soon. Perhaps I should just leave, I wondered.
“Hey,” Cliffie called, “you’re still green, baby sis.” Lifting his hand up over the partition, waiting for me, too tall to duck my head, to nod for him to enter to join me. My head dipped as I stared down at the top of my ‘bigger’ brother’s salt and pepper-haired head. Walking right up to me, craning his neck to stare up at me, he tapped his lip with his index finger thoughtfully. “I could smell you before I saw you,” he mused, ignoring my huff of disgust. He grinned at my annoyance, but then that toothpaste ad worthy smile fell. “Momma and Daddy called the other day, said you found yourself a fella. Your mate. Is that right?”
My shoulders lifted in a halfhearted shrug and I glanced over his head as opposed to at him. Embarrassment warred with the pain keeping me shifted.
Cliffie’s arms shot out, opening wide. “Bring it in,” he grumbled, his voice sounding more like a demand than an offer. He’d always been so damned bossy. It should have come as no surprise to anyone he’d ended up with a feisty shewolf for a mate.
“If you don’t, I will, and if you make this difficult I’ll get Pri in on it,” he warned. “You know how she gets.”
My eyes widened as my gaze darted towards the house. Priya was sensitive. She was some type of empath wolf. You felt it, she felt it, literally, with you. My eyes narrowed on him and a rumbling noise started to rattle my chest.
“It’s true!” Priya called from the back porch deck steps.
Grumbling under my breath, I shuffled into Cliffie’s arms. Big brother wrapped me up in a bear hug, ignoring my plant made form’s naturally moist exterior, and just hugged the shit out of me. His head came to just under the middle-ish area of my chest, but in this form my chest was more of a solid mass with vines and leaves and what not twisting across it, no worries he might mash his face into a boob. It was hard for the non Marsh to differentiate a sheMarsh from a heMarsh unless you were looking for genitalia.
“Want me to kill him?” he asked as my chest started to rise and fall rapidly, that release I’d needed slowly ekeing out. My breath began to stutter out of me, shudders wracking my frame. It was akin to sobbing in this form, limitations allowing. As if I’d answered him, he went on, “I could make it look like an accident.”
The stuttering shudder eased and a warning rumble issued from me.
Cliffie pulled back, grinning once more. His hands shot up and he waved them, palms out. “Okay. Okay. Got it, loud and clear. Just sayin’, though…”
“Come and stay for dinner!” Priya offered, giving us some space. I waited until I heard the screen door open and then close to drop my gaze to my brother.
“I wish I had cool eyes,” he muttered, jerking his finger to his baby blue eyes. “Everyone gets awesome eyes, gold, yellow, amber, orange,” he flicked a hand at me wildly, “and I get greyish blue. Pfft. I’m grey, with greyish blue eyes. I sound like drab wallpaper.”
My eyes, lime green rimmed with orange in this form, streaks of purple shot throughout, widened and I fluttered my eyelids at him.
“Show off,” he muttered, but the corner of his mouth kicked up.
Glancing at the clothes Pri had left out for me, then him, I shook my head.
“You sure?” His head cocked in that very odd, almost doglike way Werewolves did and then he crossed his arms over his wide chest.
When I let out a rumble of a noise and the mossy patches along my skin rustled as the vines wrapping around me shivered, a rattling noise issuing from his beast of a sibling, he chuckled softly, his expression sobering until he almost looked sad, and he nodded. “Alright. Pri will be disappointed. She’s been asking about you. But I get it.”
Turning to leave, we parted ways. It helped, even if I was ready to run off after a few minutes. I’d just needed that connection, that hit of family closeness. Family grounded me. I needed my other home now. It called to me so loudly my ears rang with its hypnotic song. It would be a trek from here in this form feeling depleted, but I was left with no other choice.
“Me and you, lunch, soon, no backing out,” he called after my retreating form. “We worry about you,” he hollered after me as I lifted my arm up and then promptly dropped it. “Don’t dodge my calls, neither!” he nearly bellowed. “I know where you live- Baby,” he barked at Pri suddenly as the sound of her smacking him one reached my ears, “what was that for?”
“Leave her be,” she snapped at him, “she’s upset.”
“I was just teasin’!” he insisted. No, he wasn’t. Lower, after she’d gone back inside, he whispered, “Totally wasn’t.”
“I heard that!” she called sweetly moments later from inside the house.
“Maybe you should spank me for it!” he called after her jokingly, to her peals of laughter.
Ugh. I loved them and yet wanted to run from them with equal measure. I could barely stand to be around love right this moment. I wanted it with a fierceness that consumed me.
I’d been content with my life, or so I’d thought. It all changed with one dark-green-haired Marsh bent on torturing his hooved-footed friend, pelting him with the free Hallon Farms N Nursery raisins we handed out.
Barbaric. Mutilation. That’s what he thought of my love blossom. Gren’s words from then, echoed in my head.
I was far enough out at this point, even if Cliff could catch up to me, he’d have a hell of a time finding me. I let out the mournful low I’d been holding in. Birds shot from trees and creatures scattered. It was all for the better. I wasn’t good company to be around anymore anyhow.
My mate had flat out rejected me. I had no idea what I was going to do. I knew where I was going to be, though...
Chapter 9
