Chapter 7

When I listen to the music that I use to meditate before I write a chapter, I fall in love with this story all over again. It's nice to get it off my chest; it's been nagging at my heart for a while.

Chapter 7

 

            Ima Brunhilde is something of an anomaly to more than just her own race and I would challenge anyone who claims to having ever known anyone similar to her. Hers is a personality perfectly contradictory to nearly every other female Lycan I have ever met, but I am pleased and grateful to have her as a relation.

            She, at a young age, deviated from the usual path of Lycan females which normally guides them onto an increasingly violent path to elevate their social status in the eyes of Mother. While it more likely that direct descendants or daughters of Mother will be the one to claim her position as pack alpha when she passes, there have been enough cases of more distant relatives obtaining that position to motivate a broad spectrum of Lycan women into pursuing this goal. So begins the bloodbath and unfortunately, there really can only be one winner which leaves all other competitors in ruin. Naturally, daughters of Mother have the advantage of greater wealth, respect, influence, and strength and so they are to be regarded with a great deal more humility and fear than other members of our race. But females, ours being the matriarchal society that it is, are all generally treated with this same sort of humbled respect by males and it is something we are hardly able to question or rebel against. A male cannot so much as look a female in the eye without her permission; a sign of true subordinate behavior that is common in the canine world.

            Ima has never expected nor demanded such a reaction to her presence, especially not from myself or any of the other males in our family. She is one filled with a sort of motherly love and affectionate disposition that makes her entirely unique and ever dear to us.

            Due to the nature of her reluctance to completely fulfill her role as a Lycan female, Ima left Latibul long before I was old enough to really know her. She was, as my father described her, a free spirit that the cold walls of Latibul could not contain. She went followed the trend of what she calls “artistic fashion” and found that her great admiration for clothing design was only amplified when she became directly involved with it on a more professional level. She has never relinquished that love and remains intimate with it still, working in New York as a personal assistant to the Editor in Chief of Vogue magazine. This supplies her with an ample living set apart from the riches of Latibul which would have given her a superior living without having to work at all.

            She has never pretended not to enjoy and revel in human attention of which she is never in short supply. Her beauty and magnetic personality alone are enough to draw them in, but her artistic eye and careful consideration of detail has earned her much respect amongst her peers. It comes as no surprise that she is flamboyant in her vices; those being money, fashion, and an ever-exciting nightlife. But she remains in constant contact with the members of her family that love her dearly and works diligently at remaining ever faithful to our needs, often placing the service to those needs above her own.

 

~>*<~

 

            “You’re making far too much out of this, Uncle Randy, just calm down.”

Katia was sulking visibly, her delicate features pinched into an expression of ferocious disapproval from where she sat, perched on the edge of a lavish sofa in one of the sitting rooms. The room itself was dark, but she needed no light to see the enormous black bulk that seethed and filled the room with an echoing growl like a steady, continuous rumble of thunder.

“Surely when you found her here you realized the probability that he would be here too. How could you not have thought about that?” She pressed at him again, huffing and looking away.

“I had considered it.” A deep, throaty voice answered her laced in that same feral growl that resounded in the tall room.

“And promptly dismissed it, I can only presume.” Katia rolled her eyes, leaning back into the sofa to twirl a lock of her dark red hair around a creamy white finger. “At any rate, it makes little difference if he’s here or not. He obviously doesn’t remember you or anything that happened, just as she doesn’t, and you said yourself that she was openly hostile to him and seemed to show little consideration for him. Things are different now. Times are different. From what I’ve been able to observe, her body language is telling. She likes you. So what does it matter if he’s here or not? What is there to worry about?”

“The fact that he isn’t a Lycan, Katia, and I am. And regardless of whether either of them remember it or not, he is the one who ruined me in the first place. He has the power to do it again.” Randolf’s answer made his jaws snap as the swung his great head around, ears flattened back against his skull. His silver eyes shone like near colorless amethysts against a sea of silken black fur, much of his bulky dark shape obscured by the shadowed room. Anger prevented him from hiding himself behind a fleshy, human mask, and so kept him in his natural state.

Katia’s response was equally as hostile even while in her human state, snarling back and snapping her teeth at him from where she sat, still reclined on the sofa.

“He has only as much power as you allow him to have,” She countered sharply, “You simply lack the courage to tell her the truth. If you did, it would take that factor out of the equation completely. She would understand your predicament and you’d have no more reason to live in fear that she might figure out what you really are.”

“Or she would shun me.” He growled, but with a little less fervor.

“You don’t have any control over that. She may very well shun you when she finds out about us. And she has every right to, just knowing what we are would put her life in danger. That isn’t something you can change. Wouldn’t it be better to know sooner than later?” Katia’s tone relaxed too, seeming to take a sudden pity in her Uncle’s despair. “Please hear me when I ask you this, Uncle Randy. I know that you loved Julia. But do you really love Charlotte? Or is it just the memory of Julia you love?”

Randolf didn’t answer straight away and the growl that had filled the air with tension and fury subsided to silence. The sound of claws clicking on the floor approached the couch where Katia sat, her bright eyes following his massive, shadowed shape with intensity.

“I can’t answer that.” He replied at last, his voice hushed and yet audibly broken.

Katia released her suspenseful breath to an expression of disapproval and mild frustration. “I think you had better figure that out, before you do anything else. It is obvious to me that she is developing a deep sort of fondness for you. But if she should ever learn that your emotions are tied to a woman she never knew and to memories she doesn’t remember…I shudder to think what that might do to her poor heart.” Her face looked quite serious then, staring at him very directly to be sure that he heard every word that she spoke, “That, my dear Uncle Randy, is what you should be afraid of. Not something Whinsette, or Sam, might try to do to you. ”

Her lovely dark eyes turned sympathetic and sentimental, sweet and tender as she gazed into the sterling depths of the beast that crouched before her. She reached out a slender, pale-skinned hand to brush through ebony fur as smooth as silk across her fingertips.

“Take some time away from her. Think about things a bit. And before you decide to engage this situation further, make sure that you understand the difference between Charlotte and Julia. Time and appearance apart, they are two very different people. So you must decide which you will love; the sweet memory of Miss Julia or the mysterious Miss Charlotte. Once you choose, then you must abandon the other entirely and think no more upon it. Only then will the pages of time begin to turn in your favor.” She spoke again, twirling a lock of her long red hair about one of her fingers.

Randolf’s voice savored of a smile, “You speak with wisdom beyond your years, Katia.”

Her face lit prettily with a smile and she giggled with enthusiasm at his compliment, “I speak only of what I feel in my heart must be right, Uncle Randy. A person is more than a name and a face, I believe, and should be looked at with as much respect and delicacy as they deserve. It is what I would wish for, if I were a young woman seeking to be swept away by love. I would want to be dealt with honestly. Nothing in love can be achieved without honesty.”

Author's Note

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