54. Simon
It’s hard to believe that in the space of less than twelve hours, our lives have all changed irrevocably. Not just with the new bonds tethering the three of us together, and how that plays into our new “throuple” relationship, but also with the revelations Quin has imparted.
A sense of unease has dogged me ever since I woke this morning in a bed devoid of my mate.
My mate.
That’s a phrase that will take some getting used to. I’ve spent so long disbelieving I’d ever experience anything remotely close to a mating bond, and now that I have one, it’s beyond anything I could have imagined for myself.
Isobel sets herself up on the porch swing, Arina asleep in her arms. I lounge on the stairs while Quin jogs down them and to the front lawn. He strips off his shirt and shoes but leaves his sweats on.
“I’m gonna shift into my hybrid for you guys first. I don’t know if I’m able to speak in that form, but it’s probably going to be the most startling one for you to see. Just remember, though. I’m still me, no matter how scary or mutated I appear.”
With that he tenses his body, his muscles straining and bulging with the effort. No, wait, he’s not straining at all.
Quin expands, growing another foot and a half at least, his torso hulking out in a way I haven’t seen outside of a Marvel movie. However, unlike that superhero caused by a science experiment gone wrong, Quin doesn’t turn green. Instead, short, velvety fur the colors of his tiger sprouts from his skin. His chest, belly, and inside of his arms are a creamy white, with the rest turning a rich burnt orange. Black markings striae along his ribs and over his back, as well as down his arms. The changes in Quin’s hands and feet are startling, but they’re nothing compared to his face.
If I wasn’t already well-acquainted with the types of monsters that Vieux Sang like to birth, I’d think Quin’s hybrid the stuff of nightmares. His head is broad and triangular in shape, his jaw and fangs reminding me of an angler fish in how pronounced they are. His human ears have disappeared, with the rounded ones of his tiger emerging at the top of his head among the thick ruff. His eyes glow, the amber light bright and unnerving, and his nose has flattened and broadened. But the most alarming change is his skin. It too is now covered in fur, but it’s his stripes that draw the eye. The black is so dense and dark that it looks like it’s literally cutting grooves into his skin.
An eerie silence descends on the yard. None of the normal sanctuary noise can be heard, and even the few birds that are still loitering around this late in the year have gone quiet. Tálstrom is alert and wary, and that surprises me. I didn’t think that he’d be afraid of Quin or his other forms, no matter how much they’ve been altered.
Not Quin. Danger.
I jerk at Tál’s assertion, my head lifting as I draw in lungfuls of air, trying to discern if any strange scents are on the breeze.
There are, and they’re approaching.
“Quin, someone’s coming. You need to get Izzy and Arina somewhere safe. Whoever they are, they’re masking themselves somehow. I don’t really recognize their sce—”
I choke as five figures emerge from the trees lining the drive between the house and the surgery. Three are in human form, and I recognize one of them immediately. With our history, it’s impossible not to. Her appearance makes it easy for me to guess the identity of the other two people, as well as the bipedal nightmares following close behind.
“Actually, Quintas, you can bring your brat and the human who spawned her over here. You’ve caused us enough grief over the years. I think it’s about time that you paid us back for all our pain and suffering.”
I glare at the woman who dares insult my mates and daughter, observing her and the man standing arrogantly next to her. The witch must be Quin’s mother, and the man his father.
I’m not impressed.
Quin seems to have inherited his height from his father, and no doubt he’d also share the man’s build if he hadn’t spent most of his life locked up, abused, and starved. Quin can thank his mother for his dark hair, eyes, and bone structure. Apart from those physical aspects, though, there’s nothing there to denote any familial relationship between them all. No warmth, no regard or affection, nothing. It’s their loss.
Quin’s answering growl is feral, and it rouses my own thirst for blood, chaos, and vengeance.
“No!”
The words come from Quin’s mouth, but they’re not spoken in his voice. No, the words are a blend of snarl and roar, pure power and threat.
I stand slowly from my seat on the stairs, moving to block the interlopers’ access to Isobel and Arina as I open my bonds and blast alarm and urgency, as well as an image of what I’m seeing, down them. I don’t know how far away Nox and Cyril and the rest are, but I start praying to any and all gods who might be listening that they turn up sooner rather than later, before anything happens to Quin and my girls.
The aggressive sounds emanating from Quin are enough to keep everyone’s attention on him, and I use the reprieve to truly comprehend the situation at hand.
Besides Quin’s parents, only one of the other trespassers is in human form. I shouldn’t be surprised to see her here, especially not after how she, her father, and their ex-Leo set me up to be taken by Quin’s parents.
While Catherine doesn’t look horrible, she’s also looked better. Her skin is sallow and dry, and flaking underneath the layer of make-up she probably wears to bed. I’ve never known her to leave her house without a full face of it on. Her hair is styled, but even it has seen better, livelier days, and she’s lost weight.
How did we come to this? Had she always shielded her true nature from me, or did her father’s and Leo’s influences slowly but surely infiltrated her personality, twisting and corrupting it until the funny, friendly, and caring girl I remembered so fondly became a spoiled, entitled, narcissistic harpy?
Sila’s voice rings in my mind, her words scathing but true.
“Her outsides now match her insides—rotten and ugly as fuck.”
Catherine hovers just beyond Quin’s parents and the two hybrids, as though she’s waiting for something. Or someone. Movement from the two hybrids garners my attention, and it takes me a moment to figure out which one is which.
Chadwick Corbin’s lion—when he still had one, that is—had been large, on par with my father’s lion in size. Unlike my father’s lion, though, his coat had been unmarred by battle scars. Looking at Corbin now, he’s a completely different beast.
I’m almost impressed at the fact that O’Hare has managed to resurrect a semblance of Corbin’s and L?nnberg’s lost lions, horrific and corrupted as they may be.
I once heard the color of Corbin’s yellowish-red fur described as that of an oozing, bloodied, and purulent sore. The hide of the hybrid lurking to one side not only matches that description perfectly, but it’s also dotted with crusted-over wounds. They don’t look like scratches or bites, more like his skin had split open and hasn’t healed properly. The mane haloing his head is thick and dark, just like Corbin’s was, so this is undoubtedly a bastardized version of his lion.
L?nnberg’s hide, on the other hand, echoes the golden-blond of his now-stripped lion. His body also bears signs of recent trauma, and his mane is more ginger than blond. Both men’s manes are knotted, matted, and clotted with something that could be mud, blood, or something even more unpleasant and disgusting.
Physically, both hybrids are a similar height and size to Quin’s, but while his is a formidable and fearsome physique, theirs is downright terrifying. Quin still retains some semblance of humanity in both his stance and some of his facial features.
There’s nothing human left of Corbin and L?nnberg.
While maintaining the same bipedal form as Quin, Corbin and L?nnberg look as though someone has grafted oversize lion paws onto their limbs in place of hands and feet. Their legs are a mish-mash, with humanoid thighs but feline from the knees down, and I have no idea how they can actually walk. Especially as they both appear to be lacking a tail, which won’t help when it comes to their sense of balance.
Yet it’s their faces that will give me nightmares for years to come.
While Quin’s hybrid facial features are definitely not human, neither are they fully feline. His brow, cheekbones, and jawline remain human-ish, with the main alterations being the overall shape of his head, his ears, nose, and mouth. Even his eyes, while glowing with his tiger, retain an intelligence and reason that leans toward human.
In contrast, Corbin and L?nnberg’s heads have lengthened, their cheekbones are starkly delineated beneath their eyes, and their jawlines have completely disappeared. Their ears aren’t rounded like a lion’s, instead elongated and pointed like those of a house cat. Their noses and mouths protrude in an exaggerated muzzle, unable to close due to the misshapen contours and the sheer number and size of the fangs filling their maws.
Most eerily of all are their eyes. I’ve never seen such a color on a healthy, whole felidae shifter in my life. Blood-red and filled with hatred, they are the eyes of pure evil.
“Enough is enough!” Caleb Bassatne barks out, and both Quin and I bristle at the animosity in his tone. I subtly shift my stance, readying myself to defend Isobel and Arina from any and all contenders as Tálstrom prepares to take over. They’ll have to go through both Quin and me to get to either of our girls.
“Quintas, if you won’t bring the girl and the child over, we’ll just have to come and get them. But mark my words, son. We won’t be leaving here without them. We’ve come too far and waited for too long to turn away empty handed. Besides, we need the girl to trial the serum after we tweak it somewhat. We’ve discovered some… flaws in the one we gave Chadwick and Brantley.” Caleb waves a hand in the direction of the two hybrid lions, both acknowledging and dismissing them in a single gesture.
“Catherine here will be the stunning showpiece of our work, and she deserves nothing but perfection. The human, while ultimately expendable, will at least provide us with some use before we no longer require her. O’Hare will be grateful to have the spawn to study.”
The savage snarl that rips its way from my throat is drowned out by Quin’s own enraged roar at his father’s careless and callous words. I have no doubt that Caleb Bassatne is deliberately trying to provoke his son into attacking, but we need to not be seen as the aggressors in this situation. The corruption within the ranks of the Shifter Council hasn’t been fully cauterized yet, so any claims or actions that could be twisted to suit our enemies and their sympathizers needs to have solid proof behind them. Thank the gods for the security cameras recording every second of this interaction, and for Caleb and Lori being so smug and self-involved that they haven’t even considered they’re being recorded.
“So be it. Corbin, L?nnberg, fetch the girl and child and bring them to us.”
With that single utterance, Caleb and Lori Bassatne shift into their tigers, their disdainful glares focused solely on Quin. Their shift acts as the spark that ignites the entire powder-keg of this stand-off.
Quin reacts accordingly.
His body seamlessly flows from his hybrid form into that of his tiger. I don’t know what it was that O’Hare did to them, but Quin’s tiger is a beast that would give Goliath a run for his money in size. He’s so massive that he reaches his parents in a single leap, immediately crowding them and backing them away from the house. Their own tigers tear from them to defend themselves from his attack. While I hope he is able to wipe them from the face of the earth, part of me doubts he’ll have the mental fortitude to commit fratricide and matricide. His innate sense of compassion toward others will work against him in that respect.
Corbin and L?nnberg spring forward, intent on carrying out Caleb’s orders. They’re so focused on gaining the stairs that they pay no heed to me. Such blind obedience will be their downfall.
I let go, releasing the iron-grip of my control, willingly giving it over to Tálstrom. He can do so much more damage than I can, and he has built-in weaponry and skills that I lack.
I let slip the lion of war.