Page 164 of Drama Queen

It pained him deeply to see Charlotte stop chewing, putting her plate down on the small table beside her, and making several attempts before she swallowed what was in her mouth. He didn’t even get aroused at the thought of her swallowing other things, like his hard cock, although it was a thought he would get back to later. Too delicious to ignore forever.

“At approximately ten pm last evening, police were called to a domestic disturbance at an apartment in Branxton.” There were winces around the room as one of the more problematic towns with violence against shifters was mentioned.

Beside him, Charlotte sat straighter, turning her body slightly to better see him. All he wanted to do was kneel before her, with his head in her lap while she stroked her fingers through his mane and told him that everything would be alright. Instead, he was sitting there, about to deliver news that would devastate everyone in the room.

“Neighbours reported a woman screaming for help, banging and smashing sounds, and a child crying loudly. Police sent two squad cars to the address. When they arrived, there was no obvious sign of distress, but an elderly woman reported hearing something that sounded like gunshots and then immediate silence afterwards. She told them the family were all lethal cat shifters.”

“Oh, fuck,” Natasha murmured.

They all knew what that meant. Police would have had their weapons drawn, ready for violence before they even entered the apartment. They were primed to attack, and it wouldn’t have taken much for them to take out any threat. This wasn’t the first case of excessive and unnecessary force being used when dealingwith shifters. Humans hadn’t quite reconciled themselves to the revelation of shifters living amongst them, even after a hundred and thirty years. Prejudice and discrimination was still rife, the court ruling preventing imprisoning and experimenting on shifters earlier that day a fine example of how far they had yet to go.

“As per procedures, the police announced their presence before kicking down the door. Inside were an adult male and female, who immediately complied with instructions to get on their hands and knees and place their hands behind their heads.”

The entire room was hanging off his every word, waiting for the disaster he had primed them to expect, yet for the life of him, Leonard couldn’t force himself to utter the next few words. Once, twice, three times he opened his mouth, only for nothing to come out.

A soft touch on his clenched fist beside him, nearly made him jump out of his skin. Looking from the smaller, pale hand on his, following the limb to the shoulder, and then up to the face, he saw Charlotte gazing at him with compassion.

“Tell me your truth,” she said simply.

So he did.

Charlotte

As he spoke,Leonard’s voice had become quieter and quieter, the tone more pained than she’d ever heard him sound. Even when he’d made press conferences in the past to speak out against injustice, he’d managed to come across as regal and yet empathic.

Even with their shifter hearing, she knew others in the room were beginning to struggle to hear him as his muscles tensed and bunched, his hands curling into fists, and the agony in his very soul seemed to leach into the air. The confident, teasing male she’d spoken to in the other room was gone. Now, she beheld a man broken, desolate, and desperately trying to function. Whatever had happened, had shaken him to the bone, and wounded his very soul.

There was a wrongness in the world, and he had been chosen to begin the battle to set it right. That didn’t mean it was easy, especially at the beginning, and probably not for a long time to come. The only thing she could think of to help him, was to invoke a tradition amongst shifters, one as old as their written records.

“Tell me your truth,” she said, beginning the ritual.

Once, battles between clans of shifters had been ferocious. Violence dominated their world as they struggled to contain their wilder tendencies, especially as human populations grew, and the space to roam shrank. Many conflicts were caused by misunderstandings, something they could little afford, until the wife of a clan leader called for the leaders of the two sides to halt and hold talks. She outlined a simple procedure where each side could voice their issue, their perception of what had taken place, and their desired outcome.

In the beginning, it had been simple, and had resulted in weeks of accusations, but eventually the process had become a negotiating tool, a way to work within the confines of the world they lived in, allowing pressures to be eased without overt conflict. Something which was especially important while they were still hiding from the humans.

“The man and woman were compliant,” Leonard said in a dull tone. “There was no sign of violence in the room, no smashed furniture, no marks of physical conflict on either of them, and no sound of a crying infant or child. There was also no overt evidence of a gun, however, they couldn’t discount that initially.”

“The old woman was lying,” Charlotte said, nodding as she held his golden gaze.

“About a lot of things. There was a child,” he said, his voice breaking off into a rasp.

Which was the crux of the matter. She could see that now. Therewasa child. Her breath caught in her throat, while her owl screeched, desperate for them to shift and fly to where the pain was, to rent and tear until those who had hurt the child were no more. Quickly she brought the beast to its mental knees, chastising it for abandoning Leonard, when he was telling his truth.

Long familiar with the process, her owl quietened, waiting to hear the rest, and vowing vengeance for the child. It was dead. She knew that. Even as her heart broke, she waited for the words to confirm it.

“What happened to the child, Leonard? What do we need to act on?”

“The girl came running into the room, she was six, and terrified to see armed men pointing guns at her parents.”

“She shifted,” Charlotte said, seeing it all too clearly in her mind. The young girl would have reacted instinctively to the threat, her beast taking over and preparing to flee. She was too young to fight, but if she could remove herself from the scene, then her parents would have a better chance of overcoming the threat and finding their way back to wherever she had hidden herself. “She shifted, the police panicked, and they shot her.”

“Yes,” he rasped.

There was just one more question, one more piece she needed before Charlotte began to put together the public response for what had happened.

“What kind of shifters are they?” she asked.

“Domestic house cats,” Leonard whispered.

---