Nothing wipes off a smile from one’s face faster than the hostile glare of a mother. Kai and his brothers might be the most dangerous predators around, but in front of Lei’s mother, Mey Wong, they were puppies. Even the unrepentant Colin who was their school's champion prankster wilted in front of her dark stare. It wasn’t that they were afraid of her or that she’s particularly scary, she just has a way about her that made a person feel small.
Teachers have a way of doing that.
Not they ever spent time in her classroom, she teaches primary school, but Mey worked the “I know that you’re up to something, young man” vibe like a pro.
“Mom.” Lei greeted her, him and his brothers forming a silent, polite wall behind her at the back door that opened to the kitchen. The scent of eggs and buttered bread filled up the air. “You’re still here.” From the guilty note in her voice, Kai could tell that Mey made her daughter feel the same way. Like she had done something wrong. Which she hadn’t. Much.
“I start late today.” Mey’s dark eyes scrutinized her daughter from head to toe and it didn’t matter that he knew that Lei looked fine, healthy and none the worse for her night in the woods, they always made sure of that, but none of that mattered. Lei could have a hang nail and her mother would probably blame it on them. The wolf inside him admired the ferocity in which Mey protected her daughter, but even it knew that being overprotective was one of the reasons why Lei took it to her heart to subtly defy her mother at every turn. And he couldn’t blame her.
On cue, he and his brothers did their usual shuffle feet and mumble greeting, “Morning, Mrs. Wong.”
And she answered them like she always did; a raised eyebrow, a jerky nod and a firm, “Boys.”
After a full minute of staring, Mey finally stepped back, taking her seat at the kitchen island where, judging from the half-eaten breakfast and opened newspaper, she was having breakfast…and waiting for her daughter. She picked up her cup of coffee and sat down. “You boys should hurry home and get ready for school.”
The message was clear.
Red streaked Lei’s face and temper sparked her eyes but before she could open her mouth and say something that she would regret, Kai tapped his foot against her ankle. She shut her mouth with a click.
“We just came from our house, Mrs. Wong. We’re just here to wait for Lei.”
Mey passed a sharp look to Lei who stared back, mother and daughter exchanging a silent communication with each other; a clash of will.
Gritting her teeth, Lei turned to the boys with a bright smile, “I won’t be long. Why don’t you guys wait in the car?”
Kai dug his elbow into Colin’s side when the older boy couldn’t help but snicker at Lei’s obvious plot to get on her mother’s nerves. “Sure. Take your time.”
All three boys did the shuffle again and mumble ‘bye, Mrs. Wong’ before heading back to the all terrain car they shared, not even waiting for a reply from her.
“Man, I think I got frostbite.” Colin shuddered as he slipped into the passenger side.
Channing took his place behind the wheel. “Well, we did keep her daughter out all night. Most parents would never let us do that.”
“It’s not like we’re taking her out for a night of sex and drugs. We’re out camping for God sakes.” Colin sulked into his chair, his face wrinkled into a frown. To his and Channing's amusement, Mey’s obvious disapproval of them always bothered Colin more, which was a surprise since he usually never cared about what other people think about him. It was probably because Mey was Lei’s mother and the fact that he considered it to be unfair for Mey to dislike them when they have been nothing but kind and respectful. Colin usually earned any disapproval he received from people, and he was quite proud of it too.
“Yeah.” Kai agreed, a dry tone in his voice. “All we did was take her daughter to an isolated location in the woods then turn into dangerous monsters with teeth and claws the size of steak knives. No big.”
Colin snorted. “It's not like she knows.”
Kai rubbed his hand against his nape, rolling his shoulders and cracked his neck. His skin always felt hypersensitive after a Change. “She doesn't like Lei going to the woods, you know she has her reasons.”
“Because you took a chunk out of her baby girl not so long ago?”
Kai felt his wolf pressing to the surface as guilt and anger roiled inside him but he shoved it down and swallowed bile. “Yeah, like that.”
Colin’s face turned dark in embarrassment, especially when his twin punched him in the shoulder, hard. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Kai nodded, he knew that although Colin has a tendency to shoot his mouth off, he was never cruel. And he wasn’t exactly wrong but the words still stung.
He remembered the look on Lei’s face when he found her walking in the snow, her smaller than average nine year old body seemed to be taken over by the length of her wavy black hair, her cheeks—still plump with baby fat—was pink by the chilled air. Her dark eyes were bright against the blood red of her coat. She had looked at him—at his wolf—in wonder. Like she had somehow found an unexpected treasure, and not a newly changed wolf, drunk and wild on his First Change.
The smile turned into fear soon enough.
He could still taste the sharpness of her blood in his mouth, against his tongue when his teeth sliced the flesh of her left arm. He could still hear the piercing scream, ripped from her throat as he dragged her across the snow, dislocating her shoulder. Drops of blood turned into a dark pool, staining the snow around them like fast blooming flowers.
Kai rubbed a hand on his left side, a scar left by Lei pushing a sharp stick through his skin, spilling enough of his blood to mingle with hers in the snow. The pain was awful enough to jolt his mind that had gone completely wolf and back to his nine year old self, enough to make him realize what he had done.
He remembered looking into her pain glazed eyes, recognizing the girl who often played by herself in the corner, crayons in her hands. The girl who liked to look at them with big curious eyes.
Deep in thought as he was, Kai wasn’t surprised when Lei opened the door--he heard her footsteps rushing from inside the house--and tried to climb up into the car. He couldn't help but smile as she gamely scrabbled in and slammed the door.
“Maybe we’ll get a special stoop for you to climb in, Lei.” Colin joked. “Customized for your dainty feet.”
“Bite me.”
“Careful now. You know I will.”
Lei kicked her dainty feet at the back of Colin’s chair then reached to pull at his hair and started a slap fight.
“Children.” Channing chided. “Don’t make me pull over.”
Both Lei and Colin made mocking scared noises that made Channing grin. “You both are bad influences on each other.”
Lei spent a couple of minutes bickering with Colin before sitting back, her eyes on him. “You’re quiet.”
Kai slid his eyes to her. “I’m always quiet.”
“True.” She kept looking at him but he kept his mouth shut; her stare was a pulsing heat on his skin. Then she shrugged, returning to mock fight with Colin and Channing, but her left hand, the one she had placed on his leg to keep her balance as she slid forward, stayed. If she was someone else, he would’ve misinterpreted the gesture, but he knew it for what it was; she was petting him. As she would if he was in his wolf form, trying to comfort him.
And Kai couldn’t help but relax into his seat at her touch, even as the sun glanced off the shiny scars on her arm, the perfect imprint of his teeth.
****
“There’s Sierra and Natasha.” Lei pointed out her two best friends and though it was clear that she was eager to join them, she waited for them to give her the okay before she opened the door. She wasn’t asking for permission to go out and play, no, she was waiting for them to get their super senses out of the way. When every single sigh sounded like a scream to your sensitive ears, you need to take a minute to manage things. The trick was to shift your focus and concentrate on something trivial and bland, like the slow tick tick of a clock, or the drip from the loose faucet in the boys bathroom, or the sound of the steady breathing of the person next to you.
When Kai nodded, Lei opened the door and wiggled out of the seat before jumping out.
“Use us and leave us, why don't you?” Colin yelled at her back. She turned slightly to laugh at them and waved before joining her friends.
Right on schedule, his wolf scratched the inside of his skin, uneasy with her leaving but he ruthless squelched it down.
“You okay?” Channing asked him, walking on his right as his twin took Kai’s left side. He figured it as appropriate because Channing had always been the angel by his side by Colin was the devil on his shoulder.
“I’m fine. Why?”
Channing’s eyes looked at his face before shaking his head. “You got to deal with that, man, she wouldn’t appreciate you hovering over her.”
“Do you see me hovering?”
“No, but your wolf is too close to the surface.”
Kai gave him a look. “It always is.”
“Exactly.” Colin added with an oblique look.
“Leave it alone, guys.”
Colin shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
