Legally Feral After Story

Chapter 42 Pain of Mates

(Ashton prov)

It was quiet amusing watching River help Kai and Skye to relieve their pain and I felt a smile splay upon my lips as I watched him play gently with them helping them get use to their forms. River now had stopped moving and Kai and Skye sat in front of him watching him.

(River prov)

'OK, watch me as I shift.'

'Wait, explain again how you can mind link us without being in the same pack or family?'

'Quiet simply Skye, there area so few fox shifters so once a fox shifter shifts they can mind link one another. That good enough for you?'

'Very, continue.'

'First off shifting back to your human form is going to be worse. So be prepared for that. Remember a attribute about by our self that you like or remember something you can only do in your human form. Once that shift starts it won't stop till you are totally shifted to line form or another, you don't have to worry about a stuck shift from fox to human since you don't need your closest elemental emotion to shift to a human. Now watch.'

I thought of how the sun felt on my bare skin and felt my bones shifting back. It didn't hurt too much for me since this will have been my twentieth time to shifting to human since I don't do it often some pain will be felt. I felt needle prick's all over my body an icy blast of cold air hit my body and I had shifted back to my human form. I encircled my arms around me shivering since I wasn't built for weather below 79 degrees.

"One other thing as you probably have deducted, no cloths when we shift back, if you are lucky you have no torn cloths and they are laying somewhere else or in Kai's case, you need new clothes."

I began to rub my body and crouched down to try and stay warm, even with my thick hair that went to my shoulders I was still shivering. I heard a door open and saw Ashton walk in and take his jacket off and slip it over me.

"Thanks."

One thing I noticed, is the jacket stopped just above mid thigh and my hands were lost in it, on top of it, it was.warm!

"Fish shit this is warm!"

I burrowed deeper into the jacket so only the top of my head was visible. I heard fox and human laughing follow suit. Soon it was turned into totally human laughter that I heard flop to the floor as I peeked out seeing Kai and Skye balling their eyes out from the pain of the shift and how hard they were laughing.

"So glade you find this amusing."

Sarcasm laced my voice.

"River, it is kinda hard not to laugh when you are basically wearing something that you could make as a den it is so large on you."

"...I can't deny that...any who, Skye you better get some cloths on since yours didn't ripe. As for you Kai...I got nothing."

"Don't worry Kai I got you covered."

Ashton tossed Kai a pair of basketball shorts with a draw string. He put those on and made sure they weren't going to slip down.

"OK, one question why in alligator shit if you had extra shorts not give me some since I am assuming you have at least two pair, am I wrong?"

"You are not, even with drawstring they still would have come down."

Ashton leaned down close to my ear as he whispered his next sentence.

"Pluse, you look adorable in my jacket."

I felt my cheeks heat up a little as I looked at Ashton when I spoke.

"Best not to toy with me and call me adorable unless you want some punishment."

"Go ahead, I dare you."

I gave Ashton a raised brow in question.

"OK River, I can see you thinking over there. Keep those weird thought's to yourself, fantasies whatever you want to call it."

My eyes widened in shock towards what Kai had said.

"I was not thinking such thoughts!"

Skye just shook her head at her brother and mouthed 'don't listen to him' to me. Ashton ruffled my hair shortly after.

"I don't mind if you do think such thoughts, I do want to ask you something though."

I gave a skeptically look.

"Yeah, I have a few myself."

I combed my hair down and let Ashton lead me out Kai and Skye went back over to Sheki and their father while Ashton lead me somewhere that we could talk privetly. Ashton spoke first being straight forward.

"Are you gay?"

"I figure that out recently and yes."

"Define recently."

"Twenty years ago. My turn, are you gay?"

"Bi."

"Same difference your balls stills rolls in that court. How long for you?"

"Figured that out when I was fifteen."

"OK, what about your mate?"

"Haven't found him or her yet, you?"

"I won't ever find him."

"How do you know? They could still be out there."

"The part of me that says my mate is nearby even on Streams part, can't sense them and the sparks that mates feel when they touch if my mate were to ever touch me they would never feel any."

"...then how will your mate known you are mates?"

"They won't. They just will move on and assume I died before I was born and find a different mate who's mate died."

I leaned my head against the wall and looked up at the light fixtures.

"I accepted that a long time back on though so...it doesn't bother me like it use to."

In felt my eyes betray me by getting glassy. Ashton pulled me close to him to try and comfort me.

"You could be my mate."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I couldn't do that to your mate. They would be devastated. Go find your mate that was made for you."

In went to move away, but was held in place.

"If they were here I would have felt them by now. He or she isn't here."

"A hundred or even thousand years from now they may be, when that time comes and your mate is ecstatic to find you, then they find out you took me as a mate, they will feel betrayed then you will go to comfort your true mate and leave me. I don't want that. I have seen to many cases such as that although if those beings had only waited another five years then they would have found their mate and avoided all that drama. I don't want to put that person in my shoes which only I can and will wear. I do appreciate that thought, but...you need to wait for your true mate."

"I have been waiting five hundred years now. I still haven't found my true mate."

"What are a mere five hundreds compared to a millennia then in the end your mate was killed you were deceived impregnated, then were tried to be murdered by the same person who deceived you?! That is Lillie's life, then when she was reunited with her daughter after eighteen, twenty something years and only seeing her once, her daughter, her only daughter she will ever have is killed, a mere five hundred is nothing as well as a lifetime without a mate. I can't even fathom the pain she feels."

"Awww River, that is very touching of you to say."

I whipped around seeing the devil herself in flesh.