The Bind

BeWere

CLAIRE POV

This had to be the biggest, roundest table I had ever seen.

It held representatives from every shifter faction. Each seat was complete with a glass filled with water and bobbing slices of lemon to the right, a legal sized notepad in the middle, and black, red and blue pens lined up on the left. I linked Ben to ask what this was all about as we took our seats. There was a starched formality radiating through the space that I was unaccustomed to.

It appears that we are about to get some answers about the situation with BeWere. Came the reply. A few linkages I caught flying around the room confirmed that. My seat was sandwiched between Ben and some other owls on my lemon water side, and wolves on the pen side. As if the community didn't know where to place me.

That was fair. I didn't really know where to place myself either. Ben had been right to be skeptical about my time sharing, I was adrift in the swirl of winds tugging at my time and attention. Between night terrors, my pack and the owls I could only focus on diffusing one breeze at a time before it had the chance to swirl into a tornado. Only to scan the horizon and find another in the next breath.

The only reference I had for the passing of time was the weekly court sessions on Tuesdays. For all other things owl related Ben usually picked me up and briefed me en route. This morning I had met Ben here, requiring more time to collect myself than usual.

Last night Xavier had presented me with the snippet of a few seconds on heart breaking replay. The dark hours of the rest of the night had been occupied by flying over the woods and shrieking to the Moon Goddess with an untamable fury.

Annabelle, my lover. Annabelle, my friend. Annabelle, the feisty bear that had fought by Xavier's side in the hell of their reality. Annabelle, the sole comfort and tangible connection to me that Xavier had possessed after the world tore us apart. Annabelle. Falling bonelessly to the ground in a dry cloud of summer dust. Scarlet lifeblood flowing to the sunburnt ground from the rent a cleaver tore in her graceful neck. Cutting the strings of her life, just like that. Annabelle. Sliding from present tense to past from one swift second to the next. Annabelle.

I looked to the roof to stop another round of tears from flowing. Once broken, the damn was unsealable. I put the memory in a box and placed it atop the ever growing pile of horrors gifted to me from Xavier, turning my divided attention back to the biggest, roundest table I had ever seen. Naming real, tangible things in front of my face to cement myself in the reality presented to me.

This was a technique Lucy had given me to aid with cementing myself in the tangible reality I was required to be focusing on.

She had diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I agreed with the assessment to an extent, there was nothing post about it. Yesterday I had dropped to the village geen and rolled under the lunch table when one of Pablo's engineering experiments backfired. The triplets looked on with what I could almost guess was sympathy. The triplets looked on with what I could almost guess was sympathy while Seline laughed at what she assumed were theatrics to entertain the children at the table.

Lemon water. Clear windows. Bamboo trees. Four, no, five burgundy ties. Red pen. Blue pen. Frustrated Ben. Frustrated Ben? Oh. I realised he had been attempting to link me.

Sorry, could you please repeat that? I linked back. Ben all but rolled his eyes and repeated some background information about creatures at the round table I had not had the opportunity to meet before.

My heart started to pick up and dance a staccato jig as more delegates shuffled in.

You are in a room full of creatures that respect power. Ben hissed over our link. Any weakness is going to bite you in the ass Claire. And they can all hear your heartbeat. Calm. Down.

I looked at Ben in shock. Ben had just said ass. He must be on a tighter, higher wire than I was. I gave myself a command filled with power to calm down. It was as simple as remembering that my heart could only ever have needed to maintain a relaxed cadence. Then I wrestled with a giggle clawing its way from my solar plexus to pull at the corners of my lips.

Ben just said ass.

At the head of the table - a section of round edge with a blank screen behind it - a soldier type was preparing to give a presentation. His ramrod posture was covered in olive green. Black steel toe boots laced over his calves and an empty gun holster poked out underneath a crisp military jacket. The solid, unwavering stance and bright red hair in a buzzcut gave him the unfortunate appearance of a matchstick.

Mr Military Matchstick cleared his throat. "Before I begin, no interruptions will be tolerated." He intoned with a sharp command that brokered no discussion. "We will open for dialogue and questions at the conclusion of the presentation, for as long as necessary. Until that time, any interruptions will be escorted from the conference room." His words were clipped, each sentence stopped as abruptly as the sound of a snapping twig in the woods.

From around the table on the pen side, a short fat man started to say something, and was promptly escorted from the room. He looked like the humanisation of Winnie the Pooh in a business suit.

An outraged Winnie the Pooh.

The seat next to him chuckled very quietly from behind steepled hands. My eyes passed over the figure, completed a double take, and caught on the steeple of fingers. I knew those hands. Why did I know those hands? My heart attempted to thump a little harder, but my command to myself held it in its appropriate pace. Barely.

The creature was on the border between the wolves and the bears. He felt like a wolf but was big enough to fit the size profile of a bear. I placed sweaty hands firmly in front of me, tethering myself to the giant round table as a wave of need to close the distance between me and him attempted to pull me to my feet.

After the night on the balcony two weeks ago, my little minx had woken with a vengeance and the drive of my desire set me to climbing the walls. Now that reality had shifted to one where the only sincere death threats I received were in my dreams, there was nothing to corral it back into the cupboard under the sink. That was where fear for my life had stuffed the useless instinct, along with excess cleaning supplies Tina would neither use nor throw away, and the mouse traps of other self indulgent emotions.

Xavier and I had a rule not to play with creatures that invited unnecessary drama. The only people I spent any time with anymore were political rivals, previously drug-addled nightmare children and the straight-as-an-arrow Becky who felt far too much like a sister to play with. In other words classic drama, inappropriate drama, and insest.

I bit my tongue and tore my eyes from the man whose pheromones had called to mine. Biting the fault line gave a visceral reminder of the trauma it had undergone, and aided my ability to focus on the necessary issue at hand.

Mr Military turned to the screen with a sharp, efficient movement, lifted a straight arm to aim his remote, and pushed a button. The digital screen zapped to life showing a distressed town riddled with bullet holes. I stared intently at the screen along with everyone else, studying slightly different details.

This was the first glimpse of the familiar scape outside crazed flashes of horror. At least one building was reduced to smouldering remains, and I remembered a flash of flying bricks while diving for cover. Smoke across the sky indicated more, and I recalled a bear busting open a fire hydrant with a powerful roar.

A pre-recorded message delivered by another soldier that looked shockingly familiar began to roll.

Is that David?! I shot the question to Ben.

** A/N Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it! There is a piece of my soul in everything I write, and would really appreciate a vote or a comment about something that stood out to you, or made you smile :) **