Mommy Dearest Chapter 14

[solarbaby614]

Title: Mommy Dearest
Author: Solarbaby
Disclaimer: All I own is the plot.
Words: 1488
Summary: They lost Casey but gained his mother.
Spoilers: Nope.
Notes: We finally get some more Raseyness here. Finally!
Chapter 14


oOoOoOoOoOoOo

“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”
-Dale Carnegie

Instinct raged when RJ set the wolf free. He was over run with scent and noise. The sudden desire to run and howl hit him, to chase the freedom he always wished he had.

But he couldn’t.

The wolf wanted to find the missing portion of his pack. He stood as leader (mostly), protector, and Alpha of the group. A loss of any kind, especially his tiger, was unacceptable.

The human portion of his mind told him that it wasn’t his tiger. But it was. He knew that more than anything. The tiger was his, just as much as the cheetah and the jaguar, but more so. The wolf raised this cub up to be strong and capable, an Alpha in his own right. It didn’t matter who sired him, be Bat or Scorpion, the tiger was his.

What happened before didn’t change that.

Air whisked past him as he blurred through the trees. Here he was in his element. The hunt came naturally to him, as natural as breathing and eating. All he had to do was catch the tiger’s scent.

He would not fail.

He would bring his tiger home.

oOoOoOoOoOo

The woods seemed to blend together after a while. Lily was forced to rely on her instincts to keep her from getting to terribly lost. This heightened her senses, letting her pick up on noises, sights, and smells that she would have normally been obvious to.

It was this that let Lily catch a faint coppery smell in the air.

A frown crossed her face as she tried to place where it was coming from. This brought her to a tree that she normally wouldn’t have given a second look at. On closer inspection she saw a dark spot near its base. She reached down and touched the spot seeing a dark spot on her fingers.

Blood.

It wasn’t animal, she knew that for sure. Her cheetah enhanced sense of smell made sure of that. But it wasn’t human either.

But Casey wasn’t human, was he?

She flicked her glasses open and placed them on her face. “Guys, you might want to see this.”

oOoOoOoOoOo

“That’s a lot of blood.” Theo looked as though he was going to be sick. He swayed slightly, Lily stopping him from crashing for the ground.

RJ was leaning down by the… puddle, might have been an appropriate word for the thick liquid on the ground. A hand reached out, almost as if to touch it, see if it was real, but stopped. He looked up at the two standing, his eyes still holding a yellowish tint that made Lily flinch. “We don’t know that it is Casey’s.” He pointed out before glancing over at Master Swoop, who was beside him with blood on his fingers.

Swoop brought the fingers to his nose, taking a smell. It certainly wasn’t human, but he couldn’t tell what it was. The smell was kind of familiar, under the scent of blood.

“Oh, god. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Theo!” Lily’s voice was short, snappy. “Casey is not dead. We just have to keep looking.”

“It’s definitely not human.” Swoop declared.

“See!” Lily gained an expression that looked a cross between relief and panic.

The bat master shook his head, not wanting to crush what hope the young cheetah may hold. It was Theo who spoke up, looking up into the canopy. “But Casey isn’t human, is he?”

“Theo!” She snapped his name once again, sending a nasty look his way. “This is Casey. He’s--.”

“Theo is right.”

The three turned to look at one who had spoken. Master Swoop had returned to his feet, pale. His normal calm demeanor was shaken. Clotted blood was blotched on his sleeve and edge of his black coat where he had gotten them caught trying to get up.

“Casey is not human. Not fully, anyways. I am human, but his mother was-- is a hybrid.” He brushed his hand off on a leg, trying to regain composure. “This is his.”

No one saw RJ’s eyes flash yellow again as he buried his face in his hands, suppressing a growl.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It was dark as they returned to the loft with low spirits. Other than that spot Lily had found there was no trace of their wayward tiger. A deathly silence descended over them as they came up the staircase. It was almost to the point where they missed the newcomers to the loft.

Three women were perched in the kitchen, one of which was humming and chewing on a half-eaten apple. The oldest sent a sneer their way as they were caught sight of.

Neither RJ nor Theo was in any mood to be polite by now. “Who the hell are you?!” This earned Theo a slap in the arm from Lily. RJ let out a low snarl, making a move towards them only to have an arm stop him. Taking a deep breath, he looked to see it was the bat master who had stopped him.

The oldest woman returned the glower that RJ just sent their way. Temperature in the loft seemed to drop several degrees as she caught sight of Swoop. She recognized him instantly. “I’m Casey’s mother.”

It seemed like time froze in the loft for a moment.

Then all hell broke loose.

RJ broke Swoop’s hold on him and launched himself at the woman, the threat to his pack. She had been the one who poisoned Casey, the reason he was lost to them. The two went crashing to the ground before he found himself flung back. He found himself pinned to a support beam mere seconds later.

Both Lily and Theo immediately jumped to their master’s defense.

Lily moved toward Scorpina only to find herself face to face with one of the other women, the tallest. “Do not touch my mother.” She was shoved backwards and bounced against the counter. As the woman came after her, she lashed out, catching Casey’s sister with her feet and sending her sprawling into her mother.

The two went stumbling back, Scorpina losing her grip on the wolf.

And Theo, embarrassingly, wasn’t able to take more than four steps before he found himself pinned to the floor on his stomach with a short dark-haired woman perched on his back, giggling. He felt a hand start to stroke his hair and he flushed, struggling harder now.

“Scorpina?”

That quiet whisper was enough to stop everyone mid-move. They turned to look at the man who had said it.

“Hello, Marcus.” Scorpina said, pleasantly.

Theo suddenly felt the weight be lifted off of his back. Shooting to his feet, he looked up in time to see the woman being snatched by the waist by the other two, preventing the woman from getting Swoop by mere inches.

“That is enough, Sorani.”

The woman, Sorani, still thrashed in their grasp with a murderous look on her face. “Hello, Daddy.” She hissed at him.

“Sorani?” He made a step to come forward, only to feel the blade of a knife move millimeters from his cheek.

Scorpina yanked the butcher’s knife from her youngest’s grasp, slamming it back down on the counter.

Theo and Lily scrambled past the trio, coming to stand beside RJ and Swoop, protectively.

“Look,--.”

“Dallina.”

“No, mother.” Dallina sent her mother a grim look. “Look, we didn’t come here to fight.” She took a deep breath, pushing aside second thoughts and other unfriendly ideas. “We,” She turned a glare her mother’s way, show just who this ‘we’ was, “made a mistake. And we need your help to fix it.”

“Like poisoning your son?” RJ replied, ruthlessly.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, human.” Scorpina shot back. “My decisions are my own.”

“What have you done, Scorpina?”

Scorpina turned the man she once loved. The one who tried to kill her children. For a moment, only long enough to make the other’s wonder if they imagined it, her façade failed. Pain and regret showed in her eyes along with worry and something unrecognizable. But it was gone faster than it appeared.

“I just wanted my son back.”

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The baby shower was in full swing by the time he arrived. He almost didn’t want to enter the room when he heard the group of female laughter through the door but he sucked it up.

Peaking in, he caught sight of his wife pulling what seemed like and orange baby outfit that resembled a Star Trek uniform. He cringed and pushed the door open some more, almost forgetting what it was that caused him to break his promise to his wife for some female-only time.

“Andros.”

His wife’s voice was more amused than anything. “I’m sorry for interrupting, Ashley.” Andros scanned the room before his gaze landed on a familiar blonde.

This blonde exchanged a look with his wife. “Is something wrong?”

“Karone, we need to talk.”