Bonded and Bred Ch. 13-14

But maybe if they chose the time, before the need became so compulsive, maybe if they decided when, rather than waiting for the full moon...

"I thought that you would be gone by now?" James's husky voice startled her from her thoughts, and she looked up at him with dark glowing eyes.

James frowned as he closed the door behind him, and stepped closer to her.

"Are you okay?"

Her lips parted, and her canine fangs slid down and as she held up her hand, he saw the blackness of her nails.

"Iris!" James snapped as he grabbed her wrists. "Not here - not now!"

The tone of command and authority pushed through Iris's awareness, and she blinked up at him in confusion.

"What?" she stammered, as a wave of fatigue rushed through her, and she slumped against James, who held her tighter to support her.

"What happened there?" James demanded huskily. "You were right on the edge of a transition."

She shivered with cold and fatigue, and as she realised what had happened she looked up at him anxiously. "My aunt," she stammered. "She visited me today, and she said something to me, that..."

She shivered again, and James guided her to her chair, and shoved her gently into it.

"Sit down, and wait for a moment whilst I fetch you a glass of water."

He took her coat from the coat hanger in the corner and draped it across her shoulders.

"Thank you," she whispered as she wrapped it tighter around her.

She sat lost in her own thoughts and only became aware again when James pushed a cold glass into her hands.

"Here, drink this," he instructed firmly, and she obeyed wordlessly.

James perched on the edge of her desk and watched as the colour slowly came back to her cheeks.

Her dull eyes began to brighten again and he gave a little sigh of relief when she fixed him with a fully aware gaze.

"I am so sorry," she said huskily. "It was foolish of me to be so careless... if you had not come when you had..." her eyes filled with tears and she looked away from him.

"The full moon was so recent; and I know that you transformed then... so what happened today, why were you so close to changing again?"

"It was what my aunt said, she mentioned that she had never lived by the rule of the moon, she thought it had been something for us to focus on rather than a real need... I was thinking about it, and wondering if I just relaxed into it - the way that I did when the moon was full and I felt that the change was necessary..."

"And it worked - almost, had I not come along and interfered with you!"

She nodded. "It was foolish of me to experiment here, I should have known better."

"But it did almost work?" he persisted.

"Yes." she nodded again and her hair fell around her face, and so James reached out to gently brush it back.

"Like you, I have never heard of it being done without the moons influence before." his tone was gentle, as he tried to sooth her, and Iris felt her shoulders slumping.

"I promise you, James; that I will never try that again... not ever!" she vowed.

"Oh I don't think that you should make that kind of a promise, in fact I am of a mind that we really do need to test this out... I want to see if it is just something that your aunt - and you can do; or is it something that we can all do?" she heard the concern in his voice and looked at him sharply, as the realisation of what this could mean dawned on her.

It was a frightening thought, that anyone of their kind could just change species on a whim. Some of their kind, such as those who had come to test with Laurie and herself, they had been brutish men, and forceful in nature, but they had been bound by the rule of the moon, and like themselves they would have taken precautions.

"No... Surely if it was like that for all of us, then we would have heard something before now - after all these years"

"Maybe we are evolving, maybe the need for the moon is not as strong as it once was, with our ancestors now long gone. Those who had come from the old world are long dead - in fact those who had known any who had come from the old world are long dead as well, the ties the bound us to the moon, may no longer exist, it is more ceremonial than necessity now."

"But still I think that word would have gotten around?"

"This is the first time that your aunt had mentioned it to you; I wonder why she never said anything before?"

Iris hesitated before speaking her thoughts, but she knew that she could be honest with James; she could never be anything other than honest with James.

"The females of our race are not considered equal to the men," she said slowly. "My aunt is wealthy and powerful in her own right, but she never married, she lives by the protection of my father - her brother, but if word got out that she could control her transitions to that extent..."

"Then she would be seen as a very real threat," James nodded thoughtfully, but he frowned as his eyes fixed on her. "You have the protection of your father - for now, but you have the same control, and you are still young... the two of you could be in great danger - your whole family could be in danger..."

"Laurie!"

Iris sprang up from her chair, as a sense of panic rushed through her.

"Wait!" James's voice rang with authority and for the first time in her life, Iris raged a war inside herself. On one hand she needed to get to her sister, but on the other hand she needed to obey James.

She stood frozen to the spot and looked at him with tortured eyes. "Please," she begged tearfully. "I need to get to her, to see that she is okay."

"Iris, nothing has changed," James reached out and grabbed her arms, as he stared into her eyes. "Laurie was fine earlier and she will be fine now. Call her if you really need to, but don't go tearing over there and scaring the life out of her."

Her shoulders slumped as she realised that he was probably right.

"Okay," she sighed. She shrugged from his grasp and picked up her bag, to dig for her phone.

The moment she switched it on she remembered it beeping at her earlier when Aunt Trudy had paid her an unexpected visit.

Her hand was shaking as she saw that it was a message for Laurie.

"Call me," it said.

She put her finger on her sister's name, and listened as it began to dial out.

The dial tone did its thing, and then it began to ring; it rang and rang.

"She's not answering," Iris whispered tearfully. "She texted earlier and asked me to ring her, but I was distracted and so I missed her text."

She listened as the ringing cut through to the answering services, and looked up at James. "She's not answering," she said again.

James swore softly under his breath, Laurie was a gentle creature, as a human or a wolf; he had seen that in her immediately. If something had occurred - which he doubted, then he felt certain that Laurie would not be able to handle a situation.

"Get your coat on and we will go over there together, and make sure that she is okay."