The Weretiger and Werewolf

no one can hear you inside your own head

Cleo

Winter and Ruka take turns driving while I sit inside my own body and watch. The only time they stop is to put fuel into the car or to grab some food. Luckily for them one of the demons had left their wallet in the car and as Ruka had laughingly said, they wouldn't need it anymore.

If Winter thought that there was something different about me he didn't say anything and the longer Ruka was pretending to be me, the angrier and more nervous I got.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask her, hoping more than knowing that she'll answer me.

Ruka keeps her mouth closed but she sends a thought to me "I didn't want to be with those demons. They were starting to become obsessed with me."

"Why?" I ask

Ruka is silent for a moment before she responds "That demon told you how things can get complicated for the demons that live inside dark shifters if the shifter meets their mate. Well that happened to me. I lived through the forming of the bond and I fell in love with the mate of the shifter that I resided in."

Ruka doesn't speak for a few minutes and while I want to push I know that there is no point. She can tell or not tell me whatever she wants and there's nothing I can do about it.

Her voice sounds out again, continuing the private conversation between us "When they realised that I was in love with the mate they killed him, after all demons aren't meant to love. After that I was left even colder than I had been before. I made it a habit to massacre entire towns in an effort to drown my sorrow with blood lust. It didn't work, though the demons around me rejoiced in their leader abandoning all sort of restraint. They saw it as a time of sin and revelled in it."

Ruka stops probably wondering why she's even telling me but than continues "So I killed myself, making sure that I would sleep again in another shifter. Unfortunately for you, your body was the one I slept in. I wanted to feel the love that I had already felt. So instead of calling out I waited, knowing you would find your mate. Than once the bond was complete I called to my followers. I'm sure you know the rest of the story."

"But you killed them all, all your 'followers' are dead!" I say unable to believe her story.

Ruka laughs inside "I'm a demon and they stopped me from having what I wanted. What do you expect? I would burn a city down to keep Winter and as long as he think I'm you I'll have him."

I want to scream, or cry or kick something but I'm not in control so instead I say, "will you kill me than? Get me out of the way forever? Can you even kill me?"

The last part of my question is full of genuine curiosity. Ruka replies "I could kill you, but you do no harm being trapped inside though there is the possibility of someone bringing you to the surface and us swapping control again. But if I kill you than this body will become human and the mate bond will disappear as well as all the other powers I get from being a Weretiger."

If I controlled my lungs I would have breathed a sigh of relief, I have no illusions that Ruka doesn't spare me out of mercy but becuase she needs me to fulfil her twisted idea of love.