Relative stories- No son of mine.

It had been a long day and I was more then ready to run a bath, drink a bottle of wine and slip into bed.

First. however I had to secure my gun, and I was looking forward to having a sizable snack so I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night starving.

So I wasn’t very happy to hear a knock at my door, I was even unhappier when I smelled fear, pain, and blood from the other side of the door.

All of it coming from one of my own.

Hunger was forgotten as I whipped the door open to see one of my grandchildren. Darius, the one named for my long lost uncle.

So like his namesake, but without being a total idiot. They called the boy Dare, and he did. Always willing to take a chance, to call out a bully, to talk to the lonely and outcast.

I had not shared my husband’s faith, but this child was a true follower of his lord’s faith, not man’s book.

His head was turned from me. “I’m sorry grandma, I didn’t know where else to go.”

I reached out and took my tall boy int my arms, he nearly collapse as his knees gave out and he weeped. He head turned as I embraced him and I could see the bruising on his face.

The swelling was now gone, and the blood below his skin was already turning colors as he healed, by his strength, he must have been hurt less then an hour ago.

Who, how, and why could wait. Not forever, but the boy needed me now.

Looking over his shoulder and reaching out with the part of me that was magic, I could see no one after him or watching. So I rubbed the boys back, then pulled him up enough to let me walk him into the house, to sit at the kitchen table.

I rinsed the blood off the venison flank steak I had been getting ready for the pan, and held it up so he could what it was before I pressed a still cold cut of meat against his face. He leaned away. “Old fashioned I know, but it will help to feel something instead of the pain. Also you can eat it afterwards.”

He let out a little laugh, but took the meat and held it up against his face. “The swelling is already gone, it’s not like I need it.”

I nodded and smiled a little, glad he was talking instead of just looking dazed. “Indulge an old woman.”

He smile again for a moment, then began to breathing quickly, in short gasps. I move around the table to wrap my arms around his head and pull him against my chest.

I had not held him like this since he was a child, showing up at my back door after getting hurt climbing, or riding his bike over ramps. Not since the other boys starting teasing him for being so close to his mother and me.

Now I guess he was grown up enough to allow himself to be loved by family again.

The shaking stopped. The crying might come and go for a while. I then knew that this was not from some fight. He said he had no where else to go, he was hurting in his heart. Simple pain would not have shaken him so.

“Tell me.”

He tried to pull away. Foolish boy, they did not pick me as sheriff just because people like me. Sometimes the old ones, born to the curse, needed to be taken by the scruff and shook.

“Tell me.”

He went still for a while, then whispered. “Dad...”

I froze. Daryl? Why would my son strike his own child like that…

The boy in my arms didn’t wait for me to ask. “He was giving me a hard time about not having a girlfriend, he was telling me I had to stop dancing around and get serious about someone. So I told him about brad...”

Stupid me. It just slipped out. “But Brad is a boy’s name?”

He pulled away from me and looked me in the eyes with a look of sheer confusion, then began to slowly laugh seeing the very same in my own eyes.

Then the understanding on my part.“Oh? Ohhhhhh.”

The Kaliarda were something I had become more familiar with after I moved to America. From Television mainly. I had never had any strong beliefs about them one way or another. How could I? I didn’t know any, had never has cause to really think about them.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In short, I had been sheltered by living nearly all my life in the backwoods in the middle of nowhere. So the only opinion I had every developed was; What they are is no harm in itself, so why care?

Then more understanding, and a slowly building anger. “You father did this because you like boys?”

Dare nearly hysterical laughter came to a sudden stop. Fear and pain in his eyes as he slowly nodded

at my insistent stare.

As he nodded my breath grew quicker. He dared to strike our own. Like I had been struck by my own family for daring to volunteer at the American hospital, for questioning the priests and their book.

For telling the truth about what my cousin had tried to do to me before Uncle Dare heard me fighting back.

I stopped breathing for moment.

A single moment of clarity. I would have to do something about this.

I walked past my grandchild without a word, not until he began following calling me the name I had been so proud of “Grandma? Wait, grandma. What are you going to do?”

My bones began to heat, like irons in a furnace. Like I was about to change, not into a wolf, but what I had changed once, long before.

I could smell the curse on the young American man. I knew he would change and that, would be that, for the wounds that had kept him unconscious, barely alive.

I should have told my family, but they already hated that I was bringing in good money cleaning injured men instead of working for them at home. Even with the priest saying I was doing the work of the lord barely kept them in check.

But a strange wolf, let along one of the Americans who had plunked down their troops on part of our land. Offering money, only after settling in without permission. They would never let me help him.

I had barely escaped the house after dinner, my father felt like I needed another lecture about staying with the family even if I had so much more control then anyone else and could stay human even under the moonlight.

The American turned, and panicked as he awoke as a wolf. Bound in bandages and a hospital gown.

My family found him first, chasing sheep in the sheer joy of being alive, powerful, free.

They attacked. In their defense, they probably only meant to drive him off, but he fought back. They did not like that, and it became vicious.

Standing above them. In the shape of a wolf, but on two legs. Claws stretched out into weapons to tear into flesh rather then dig into the ground for running. Snarling with guttural words, commanding them to stop.

It certainly impressed my future husband. My family. It terrified.

But for once they listened.

Unlike my dear grandchild. “Stay!”

I was already changing as I commanded him at my door. Limbs growing longer, and my shoes falling from my feet as I bowed down to step outside my home. My face growing heavier as it turned into something that was not between man and wolf, but something made to best kill in this other form.

I was no heavier. My limbs and body, even my neck were longer, but thinner. Shaped for reach and speed. My joints appeared swollen compared to the rest of me, better made to anchor the wiry muscles stretched out on my long limbs.

I could hear the boy chasing behind me, calling out as I raced down the deserted late night streets, but even in wolf form he would not have been able to keep up with me.

Cars, hedges, fences hardly broke my stride as I more or less skipped over them. Tree limbs and roof tops tore under my claws as I used them to pull my self forward, faster and faster.

Towards my youngest sons house.

Natural he felt me coming, and knew who it was. It was after all his land, he had enough of my blood in her veins to have that much power.

He meet me at the back door, a look of shook and fear on his face as he saw his mother standing in his back yard like he has never seen her before.

My son was no coward. He signed up to serve in the Korean war. Physical danger was not something that he feared. Besides, I was his mother, whatever I looked like, why would he fear any harm from me?

He stood defiant. “I did what I had too. He’s not natural and he’s no son of mine!”

I began to slowly walk across his yard toward him. My anger growing with each step. I’m not sure if he even understood my words, but my intent was clear.”Unnatural, now much more unnatural to spill the blood of your own son! To strike down my grandchild.”

He slammed the door shut as I began to sprint toward him. Oh my foolish boy, we’re not the ones who need invitations to enter.

My foot left a indentation in the metal of the door as it tore it from it’s hinges. Flying to slam into my dear sweet boy as he fumbled with the locks. I tore the wreckage away and took hold of the front of his shirt, my claws catching at his flesh before they curled in, lifting him up in the air.

It had been a long time since he had peed himself as I held him.

For a moment I was ready to sink my other hands into his bowls, he had hurt my grandson, beaten him like he was nothing. No one. Like he would not have to answer to me for anything he did to my family.

Then I felt Darius pulling at my arm, begging. “Please don’t! Please don’t kill my dad! Grandma!”

Oh. That’s right. He may had lost any right to call Dare his son. But for his son, you don’t just throw away love that easily. Not when you had never been abused before. When your family were the ones who protected you. Gave you shelter, and love. When your love and trust had never been betrayed.

I looked, and saw my daughter in law, and my other two grandchildren standing in the entrance to the kitchen, looking at me in terror.

Yes children, look and remember. Even your funny old grandmother can be a danger.

I changed.

“You live because your son still loves you. But you are no longer my son.”

I was still was holding him up in the air, a little old woman holding up a large, fat middle aged man, his toes dangling above the ground.

“Care for your woman and your remaining children, because they are still my family. But I will not trust you to make more and risk them to you.”

I held my hand in front of his man parts, and slowly closed my fist, before sharply twisting my fist to the side and yanking my hand away. “Make yourself incapable or I will.”

Then I dropped him. His wife held back her children and showed no interest herself in rushing over to man.

I looked over to my boy. “Pack your things. You don’t live here anymore.”

The man had pushed himself back against a wall, looking up at me, dazed. “I don’t truly want to end you. So I hope you listen. No one hurts my family.”

His wife stayed with him. He tried to talk her in moving away, but we talked at the family gathering he was no longer welcome at. She made it clear that if he wanted to leave, he could, but that she and her children would not be going with him. She made him understand that if he had a problem with that, he could talk to me.

He didn’t.

The boy moved into one of the guest rooms and I put him in charge of his great aunt’s used book store. He didn’t care much about the job, but updated it into more of an “On line” business. I didn’t understand everything when he explained it, but it made more money and I let him keep the extra profit.

His father and he talked. The man leaves the house when Dare goes to visit his family, by their arrangement. I don’t get involved. As long as the man is not a danger, it is between them.

I encouraged Dare to move into one of my rental homes when my new deputy signed up and needed a place to live. The house was too large for a single person, even one with a child, and they could split the rent so that when Dare find out what he does want to do with his life, he’ll have some more extra cash save up.

Plus a man, even a gay man, still needs a woman in his life other then a grandmother. I also think he should have the chance to help raise a child, I think he would make a good father.

Also, word got a round. I didn’t have to stare down or shake around the old wolves anymore.

At least not until this new one moved into town. I’m not sure if he’s playing a some game, but I don’t think I want try to stare this one down. He feels strong.

Very strong. Also fit, clean, nice, and cares about his family. The money doesn't hurt either.

Maybe I will shake this old wolf’s around a bit. A woman, even an old woman, needs a man in her life too.