The Unclaimed Human Luna
Chapter 54

El POV

El spent the next few days hanging out with her cousins. They were really nice, she got to help pick fruit from the orchard and nuts from the trees as well. Everyone was happy to have her here. She went swimming in the lake with all of them and watched movies in the evenings, lazed about with all of them, tried to pick up the language once more. It was going to be a good summer. Finally, things were getting back to normal for her.

Though there was a massive celebration about to happen tonight, the outside area was being all hung with lanterns of all colours and more tables were being set up in a large u-shape. She was helping like so many others were, asked what was going on and most just smiled at her, a few chuckled and told her it was some of the kid’s birthdays.

Her Aunt smiled at her, linked arms with her and said “Come for a walk with me, El, let’s have a little chat about the family traditions. Tonight is the full moon and we always celebrate it around here. Lots of wonderful things come on full moons.”

They walked along a path and sat down on a stone bench under the shade of a large pear tree. She smiled at the daffodils that were planted around the base of the tree, reached down and picked one, before sitting next to her aunt. “Your father always liked those.”

“So does grandma.” She chuckled.

“Actually, your grandma much prefers gardenia’s but because Taro loved them so much, she planted them everywhere, always with the hope that one day she’d find him just curled up amongst them in his true form.”

“True form? What do you mean?”

“Hmm, that’s a bit more difficult to understand. Could I ask you something, El? And have you be completely honest with me.”

She nodded as she smelled the daffodil and smiled at its sweet aroma. She could see why her father liked them so much.

“Did your father ever talk to you about shape shifters, or I don’t know, mythical creatures?”

“Yes, well, only Kitsunes and foxes, the man was obsessed with them.” She chuckled softly “told me they were misunderstood and not evil nasty things that are written about in books.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know…I guess it’s a really nice idea. To think there are things out there that are still hidden in the world. Mythical creatures that might still exist somewhere away from man.”

“Kept a secret from the humans. Who would likely kill them?” Her aunt nodded.

“I guess so.” She nodded “Dad always believed he was going to catch one.”

Heard her aunt laugh now. “Well, I think he did that just fine.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“It took him a long time to do so, but he did get his Kitsune. Never thought it was going to happen, having a human for a father and all.”

El frowned right at her now, didn’t understand that phrase at all, having a human for a father, that was an odd expression. “I have something for you El, look over there.” She pointed across the grass.

El turned and looked and found herself staring right at a large black and white fox. Its amber eyes looked right at her, and then it’s tail lifted and there were 5 of them. They all stood straight up. “What?”

“Relax, El, he won’t hurt you. You know him actually, have been hanging out with him the last two days you’ve been here.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have, that is your cousin Alonzo, or Al as you know him.”

Her eyes turned to look at her aunt and she smiled right at her. “Do you want to know why you feel so at home here, El? We are your people. You belong here, are one of us.”

“I..I don’t understand.” El stammered.

“You will, honey. You are about to get your own Kitsune, I believe.”

“Wh..What?” El shot to her feet. “I’m not.” She shook her head.

“Your father was half Kitsune, your grandma is full kitsune. Honey, you told Sloan you didn’t feel like yourself anymore, that were so very confused.”

“Yes, but that’s a different thing. That was…”

“Was what? Sit down, El, I’m not going to bite you.”

She turned and looked at that black fox, or Kitsune. She realised it was not a fox. It was just sitting watching her now. Wagging all its tails at her, they fanned out and swirled about before settling back on the ground behind it. She shook her head. “El, sit down, tell me what happened in that gated community.”

Her eyes moved to her aunt, they were narrowed on her. She didn’t want to tell anyone what happened there, no one needed to know about Conner. “Did you meet someone perhaps, a boy or a young man?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She snapped and ran off back towards the house. Got stopped by a rather large kitsune all Black with white tips on its tails, backed up away from it and to her shock watched it morph into her Aunt Juliana.

“Relax El, I’m not going to hurt you, none here will. You’re one of us, we just didn’t know if you would shift is all.”

She shook her head. “I’m going crazy.”

“No, you’re not El. Just being crash coursed into your own world, because we think your about to get your Kitsune tonight when the moon sets. If you’d grown up here, you wouldn’t think anything of it. Just breathe honey.”

She was trying to breathe, staring at her now naked aunt before her, “Y…You, it’s so big?” she finally managed to stammer.

“All shifter creatures are bigger than normal. Wolves especially. Did you happen to meet any wolves El, in Utah?”

That whipped her head up, and she saw her aunt nod and then sigh “How big was he?”

El lifted her hand to indicate her chest height. “Am I in trouble?”

“Considering your mother is likely Mated to the Alpha Wolf of a pack, it could be a potential problem.”

That sent her brain buzzing like fire, “Mated to?”

“Hmm, we don’t call it married, only humans do that. Most shifters like us, including you, El will Mate off instead of Marry off. You were not in a gated community, El. You were inside a wolf pack.”

“What? No..” she shook her head, that couldn’t be right “I…I” her heart was starting to hammer inside her chest as her brain fired off in a thousand different directions, if she was inside a wolf pack and her mother was mated to a wolf, that meant that…her hand snapped to her mouth, as she realised Conner was likely to be wolf as well.

She took a stumbling step back and shook her head. “Breathe El, tell me what’s going on inside your mine.”

“Conner?” She gasped.

“Your stepbrother, not human, El. Likely a wolf shifter.”

Oh, that was not good, she’d been sleeping with him, stared up at her aunt nearly horrified by the thought of it. Conner had always been right there when that wolf he’d called Atlas was there. Just minutes afterwards, Conner always appeared out of nowhere, always nearly naked, only ever in a pair of shorts. Was that his wolf?

She shook her head and didn’t know if she could handle that, sleeping with a wolf. Wondered if that was why it was so primal, why he also told her she smelled so good. “El honey, were you and Conner sleeping together?” Aunt Juliana asked her as she took a slow step towards her, saw that hand reach out towards her, her eyes lifted right to her aunts, as she felt fear welling inside of her, stared right up at her aunt “It’s alright El, you can tell me.” Her hand slid along her jaw to cup her face and she could feel calmness rolling over her from just the woman’s touch. Felt like she could trust her with the truth.

She nodded slowly. “I..I don’t.”

“It’s alright.” Found herself enfolded in her aunt’s arms and just leaned on the woman.

“I couldn’t.”

“Shh, we can discuss that later.” She was rubbing El’s back gently. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. Come on, let’s go find me some clothes, and get you a glass of wine to calm your nerves.”

“I’m not old enough to drink.” El murmured.

Heard her aunt laugh softly “You are here, allowed to drink at 18.”

“Then can I have something stronger than wine?” El muttered “I think I need it.”

“Yes, I got a really nice bourbon if you like that.” She was walked back into the villa and her uncle was waiting for her aunt with a silk dressing gown. “How’d it go?” He asked casually.

“She needs a drink.” Aunt Juliana chuckled.

“I’ll get that for her, you go up and dress.”

She sat with a glass of bourbon in her hands, had drunk that first one like a shot, it burned all the way down, but at least she was somewhat calm right this minute. Her uncle Angelo, had stood by and poured her a second one, was now just sitting smiling at her. “Bit of a shock, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” She nodded “Is everyone here? Well…”

“Yes, this is our pack. You, my dear, are inside the Den. Your aunt is the Alpha here, runs the place. Took it over from her parents.”

“And you’re?” she asked quietly.

“I am not as pretty as your aunt, but yes, a Kitsune. We do just have fox shifters. Quite a few of them, not all are Kitsune. About 10 percent of the pack only. Had one settle here a couple hundred years ago, and started its own pack. Juliana’s ancestor, your Aunt, would know more about that.”

“And grandma?”

“Ah Sloan, cheeky that one is. Should be here ruling with her sister, but no, she is too curious a creature to be tied down here, has to be out there exploring the world like her brothers.”

“Does my mum know?”

“I doubt it, though Sloan would know the answer to that. Your dad is another thing altogether. Has a human father, like you have a human mother.”

“So, I’m human.”

She saw his eyes move to the door behind her and her Aunt Juliana walked in. “Part human,” she nodded. “We had you brought here as a child, to see if we could sense out any shifter in you. Dormant it is.”

“Dormant.”

“Mm, she’s in there. I can sense her now. Likely being inside that wolf pack, perhaps that young man brought that side of you out. Or nearly did anyway.”

El’s eyes dropped away from her. “There is no one there of importance.”

“Hmm, if you say so. Now come on, let’s go and join dinner. We have a few new foxes to shift tonight.”

“What?”

“Yes, come on, don’t you want to see your cousins shift for the first time? It’s a special treat, you only get to see a first shift once. We celebrate every one of them. Some will get theirs tonight, others not. A fox will come when a fox is ready.”

“So…, I have a fox?”

“Honey, you have a Kitsune in there. She’s shy and probably scared. Living with wolves and not knowing what they were, might have frightened her, likely accounts for your need to run away and hide. We can be solitary creatures and with you, not knowing what you are. More difficult, being here with us should help her.”

It was a real lot to take in, though when she sat and looked around her, her cousin Alonzo smiled right at her. He didn’t seem scary at all. “Akon said to say hi, he was happy to be the first of us you saw.”

“Akon?”

“My Kitsune, when you get yours, she’ll have her own name too, and you want the real weird stuff. She can talk to you anytime she likes. Kind of like talking to yourself, but your Kitsune will have her own mind, her own thoughts.”

“That is weird.” She muttered.

“You’ll get used to it pretty quick, Akon never shuts up, a chatty beast he is, very opinionated.”

She just nodded to him “I don’t have that.”

“You will at some point.”

El looked around her at all the people who lived there, at her extended family, they all seemed so nice, no one here made her feel threatened and she didn’t fear any of them, she realised. She also still felt like she belonged here, no one treated her any differently. Wondered if that’s why everyone back in Utah treated her differently. Could they tell she wasn’t human but was a shifter that didn’t belong inside their pack?

As she sat there eating dinner with them all, she realised she had grown up with tales from her father all her life, tales that made for happy memories with him, all of foxes and kitsune’s. Obviously, his way of trying to get her to think they were real, perhaps he thought that one day she would get one and that was all he could do, talk about them with her, as a way of easing her into it.

Looked to her Aunt, she’d said he had found his Kitsune, wondered what that meant. She was going to have to question her about that. Did it just mean her? That her father knew she would get one or had he finally shifted himself. She didn’t know, had no idea how it worked.

But tonight, she was going to witness people shifting for the first time in their lives, wondered when it would happen to her? Would she even know when it was going to happen? It could take years from what she’d gleaned. A fox will come when it wants to come, rubbed her chest absently. That bloody ache was back, and she didn’t know why. It was much stronger than before.

El sat and watched on with all the others as three teens between 16 and 18 walked into the middle of all the tables. All of them were wearing a simple but long tee-shirt, they all looked excited at the prospect of getting their foxes, she realised. Not one of them was afraid, saw as three teenagers shifted into their foxes, heard their bones c***k and saw fur sprout along their bodies as they morphed into their foxes, two red and one brown. She stared wide-eyed at them. They were all larger than normal foxes.

But her attention didn’t stay on them for very long, for she herself was suddenly hot all over, and her chest hurt to blazes, was clutching at it gasping as pain radiated through her body, heard a massive whining noise and squeezed her eyes shut, struggled to breath and fell off her chair to the ground, tears of pain burned out of her as she lay there on the ground.

She had no idea what was wrong with her, found her aunt and uncle right there in front of her, “What’s wrong with me?” She managed to ask.

“You want to shift but can’t. Something is stopping you.” her Aunt rolled her onto her back and looked down at her. “Don’t fight it El, breathe and try to let it happen.”

“It hurts”, both her hands clutched at her chest, as pain ripped through her like nothing she’d ever felt before, then there was just nothing, darkness claimed her.