rogue shifter 05 - caught between (29 page)

This time it was the rapid beating of tiny wings that woke me up.

"I'm sorry to wake you, lady, but Charlie needs you."

"Sinlae, I can't see you. Can you light up for me, please?"

"Of course. I have forgotten." She began to glow with a pinkish wash of color, her transparent teal wings iridescent in the small circle of her light. Sinlae was seelie fae, a pixie, or demi-fey as she liked to be called. She and her three male consorts lived in a specially adapted tree on our property and had pledged by blood to guard Charlie and keep him from harm. These days, she tended to act the role of his nanny and I was grateful for her help.

"Did he eat breakfast?"

"Yes, he ate very well. Lord Liam made his favorite: scrambled eggs and pancakes." She smiled, her aura growing even brighter as her mood improved.

"That's good.
Really
good." I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Beginning just before his first birthday, Charlie's health had deteriorated. Every two months he'd experienced body aches bad enough to keep him awake at night, as well as a high fever which led to terrible chills which lasted for a few days at a time. Liam and I, both of us healers, had tried everything we could think of during his attacks, but nothing we did could stave off the next bout of illness.

During a rare visit, Isaiah, my demonic trainer, told me that it was caused by Charlie's body trying to come to terms with the differences in his inherited bloodlines. If this was true, then fae and demon DNA had warred against each other for control for four days every six to eight weeks in a battle that left his tiny body ravaged, weak, unable to sleep and barely able to keep down food.

Sometimes he'd cried for hours at a time, obviously in pain. Children's pain medication was useless, so we'd held him and fed him as much as he could stomach, then put him in a warm bath and massaged his muscles. Sometimes he still cried. In the end, we'd brought him into bed with us, where Garrett would soothe him by singing sweet ballads in French, while I rubbed my baby's trembling back and kissed his tears away. Finally, our tiny man would drift off to sleep, exhausted and spent. We'd take him back to his room and tuck him in, then sit nearby, our hands woven together in support. Often we would spend another hour simply watching him breathe.

After leaving him in the hands of one of his fae guards, Garrett and I would collapse into bed, wrapped around each other in a feeble attempt to renew our own energies, knowing that the next day might bring new tears and more pain and that somehow we'd have to find the strength to get through it. When Garrett rested, there were times when it was Liam's or Ethan's or even Rob's shoulder that I found myself leaning against. So many of our friends had shared in our distress, all of them feeling just as helpless as we did.

After searching through ancient tomes in his realm, Isaiah seemed certain that it was Charlie's healer blood, inherited from me, that stabilized his energies and kept him alive after each bout. I had another suspicion, which I kept to myself. On the mornings when our son woke up feeling well again, there was a scent in his room that reminded me of a deserted beach and a conversation with...someone, the details always eluding me. No one else noticed the scent, not even Liam, so I never spoke of it, not wanting to do anything to keep my baby's guardian angel from returning.

After four days of painful illness, he would recover enough to enjoy six or seven relatively normal weeks. I say relative because there were aftereffects. He hadn't grown at the normal rate for a child his age and he'd had trouble eating anything but the simplest of foods. Fortunately, his brain continued to develop normally, fueling a curiosity about the world that couldn't be quashed no matter what shape his body was in.

Charlie liked to play outdoors but he tired quickly, so mostly we played board games and read to him. When he began to sound out words, he read to us. Liam and Farrell sometimes spoke to him in Fae, while Garrett would often speak to him in French and he picked up both languages very quickly. I stuck with English, and made sure that all my friends did too. Learning other languages was great, but English would always be his native tongue.

So it was only in this past year that he'd begun to grow and develop into a healthy young boy, spurting up physically at an incredible rate, his young mind capable of much more than a typical almost-five-year-old, (his term) No more
almost
. Today he turned five and we were thrilled that he hadn't been ill for ten months. We were beginning to breathe normally for the first time since his initial attack.

"Where is he?" I sat up on the edge of the bed and slid my feet into my flip flops, suddenly feeling anxious to see my little male.

"Farrell is with him and young Jason on the grass near the patio. I believe they are throwing a ball." Sinlae sometimes had trouble understanding the normal activities of children in our mostly magic-less world. In Faerie, there would be no reason to throw a ball around, when anyone could throw it as far as they wanted and anyone else could catch it no matter how fast it flew. It was impossible in Faerie for a fae not to use magic, even a child not yet come into his full powers had a basic level of energy.

"What did Charlie say, exactly?" I asked while pulling on a robe then running fingers through my bed hair.

Sinlae imitated his voice perfectly. "Please tell Mommy that I need her to come and give me my birthday present before Daddy wakes up. Now would be best."

I laughed as I disappeared into the ley lines and reappeared outside, still wearing my robe and pajamas and squinting in the 9 AM sunshine.

"Mommy!"

Charlie dropped the ball and ran to me, throwing himself into my arms with so much force that I fell backwards and landed awkwardly on my butt with him still clutched in my arms. Our momentum continued to carry us completely down to the ground, so in the end I was sprawled on my back in the dewy grass with my enthusiastic son straddling my waist. Fortunately, Farrell had broken my fall with his hand behind my head, so I wouldn't be nursing a lumpy skull along with my bruised behind.

"Can we do that again?" Charlie asked, giggling.

"C'mon sport, let your mom get up." Farrell was doing his best not to laugh as he took hold of Charlie by the waist and lifted him high over his head then down on top of his shoulders. Charlie rewarded him with a loud belly laugh that had me smiling widely as I got up and brushed myself off.

Meanwhile Kyle was laughing so hard he was bent over at the waist, his hands on his thighs.

"Here I come, Dad!" This time it was Jay who wanted in on the game as he charged at Kyle, his seven year old body more the size of a ten year old. Jason was the adopted son of Peter, our lawyer friend and his mate, Kyle, a member of our Rogues, Inc. team. Peter's friend had worked a case five years ago where a young child of two bear shifters had been abandoned by his drug-addicted parents. They'd gone out to score and then crashed their car and died on the way back home. Luckily a neighbor had heard the two year old crying when they didn't return. Since there were no other relatives, he and Kyle had decided to adopt the young boy.

Kyle, not really the stay-home-alone-with-the-kid type, tended to bring him over quite a bit, which was fine with all of us. Jason was a typical bear, loud and quite large for his age. However, he had a sweet nature and seemed to get along well with Charlie even though he was two years older.

"Ha. Now you'll get yours..." I started to say more, only Kyle, in a very graceful move, scooped his son up, swung him around with no effort at all and then placed him gently on his shoulders.

He smirked at me, still wiping off a tear from his bout of hysterics, "You were saying?"

Jay was giggling so I called out to him, making a motion for Jay to mess up Kyle's hair, which the little monkey did without hesitation. Kyle had always been kind of obsessed about his spiky blonde "do", so this was my revenge for his mocking me.

"Hey, don't listen to her. I'm your dad." He laughed, which made Jay rub his hands around even faster.

"Watch out, Jay. Your dad uses so much gel your hands'll stick to anything you touch."

"S'okay, Aunt Jackie. Daddy and I are used to it." Peter was Daddy and Kyle was Dad.

Charlie whispered something to Farrell in the musical language of the fae and Farrell answered. "Please speak English when you're with people who don't speak Fae," He followed that up with, "If it's something private between us, you can always tell me later when we're alone." He gave Charlie a wink.

I watched my son nod thoughtfully, his lavender eyes a little bit lighter than Farrell's, a ninety year old fae warrior. Charlie was himself half fae, his birth the result of a rape by his birth father, Kennet, the youngest half brother of the Queen of Faerie. The rest of his ancestry was a crazy mix of my cheetah shapeshifter, which gifted him with his healing abilities, a great-grandmother archdemon and even a grandfather who was a full blood sorcerer. The sorcerer part got cancelled out by the shapeshifter, but there were still three powerful bloodlines residing within his small body.

"Will you please put me down, Sir Farrell?" He liked to speak of the fae warriors as if they were Knights of the Round Table, even the females, and they got a real kick out of it. When he'd been ill, his favorite books for us to read out loud were adventure stories, and lately we were astonished to see he was reading them completely on his own.

Farrell lowered him to the ground in another fast swoop that had him laughing all over again.

He ran to me but stopped a few feet away, looking worried when he saw me rubbing my behind. I'd probably have an ugly bruise if I didn't use some of my healing energy. "Sorry I made you fall. Do you hurt?"

"I'm sure she's cool. She's got plenty of padding." Kyle was still giggling.

I ignored him, crouching down and holding out my arms. Looking relieved, Charlie smiled his beautiful smile and walked into them, giggling again. I stoked his shoulder length light blonde hair and kissed his head as I hugged him close to me. "I'm fine, sweetheart. Perfect." He preferred to keep his hair long, because he wanted to look like Farrell and Liam, who'd both become heroes to the little guy. I tried to get him to tie it back, but he liked to have it flying out behind him when he ran around.

Taking him by the shoulders, I held him at arms length to get a better view. "I think you grew overnight. Is that possible?" I looked at Farrell for answers.

He nodded. "One day my shoes fit and the next day they were way too small." He patted Charlie on the head. "He'll be tall like his..." He stopped himself before he mentioned Kennet, wincing at me in apology.

I shook my head and smiled so Farrell wouldn't feel badly. "Yes, tall and strong."

Jay laughed and walked closer, Kyle having placed him on the ground. "Not as tall or strong as me. Dad's teaching me mortal arts now."

"Martial arts," Kyle corrected him with a smile. "We're starting with Tai Chi." he explained, mussing Jay's hair in affectionate revenge.

Jay was a single-minded kind of kid, paying no attention to his messy hair. "Aw c'mon, can't we do Kung Fu or something cool? This kind is like dancing really slow."

"It helps with balance and strength and teaches you to focus, something you need to learn. I was taught Tai Chi by my father before any other discipline."

"I want to do that kicking ninja stuff." He demonstrated by trying to kick Charlie, not out of malice, but just to show him what he meant. Unfortunately for Jay, my son saw it coming and moved to the side just in time to make Jay completely lose his balance and fall backwards. He winced when he hit the ground, wrinkling up his brow in pain. Kyle went to him instantly and examined the wrist that Jay seemed to have strained when he put out his hand as he hit the grass.

Farrell tried to distract the boy who was looking more and more like he might cry. "That was very smart to put your hand out like you did. You could have hit your head if you hadn't stopped your fall. You'll make a good fighter. Fighters think on their feet."

"Yeah. I'm gonna be—be awesome." He bit his lip and wrinkled his forehead, but the brave little guy didn't allow any tears to fall. Kyle looked pretty proud.

Liam, Garrett's closest fae friend and personal bodyguard, came out of the house with a bag of ice, passing it to Farrell. "This will help keep the swelling down. Bring him inside and I'll..."

"I'll do it, Uncle Liam." Charlie had moved to take Jay's injured hand in his, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath through his mouth. By the time he'd expelled it, Jason was laughing, relief etched across Charlie's features.

"Cool. It doesn't hurt now." He looked at Liam. "Daddy always gives me ice, too, but this worked faster." He gave Charlie another grin. "You could be a hand doctor."

Charlie shook his head. "I'm gonna be a guitar player and a pirate."

Liam sent to me mentally, "
Did you see his aura
?"

I nodded, still too shocked to speak. His golden aura had turned emerald and orange as he'd healed his friend with his magic. Green was a healer's aura, a rare occurrence in the supernatural community. Liam and I were the only other known healers on the west coast, although there could be others we hadn't heard about. Sinlae had predicted before he was born that Charlie would become a healer when he came into his powers, but none of us imagined that it would happen at this incredibly young age. What other powers might show up early? I hid my worry behind a smile so I wouldn't upset him.

"What did you do to take the pain away from Jay?" Liam had crouched next to him so they could be on eye level.

He was beaming with pride, his lavender eyes sparkling with gold. "I ate the hurt. It went to my belly."

"You took it inside yourself?" He nodded. "Did it hurt you when it was there?" He shook his head, starting to look worried.

"It's okay, baby. Liam's just curious." I rubbed his back to ease his mind.

"Then what happened to it?"

"It dissolves in my tummy. It's cold like...like ice cream."