Edi felt the weight of Damien’s arm across her chest. He let out a slow breath and she opened her eyes to see him sleeping. That was good. He needed to rest. She reached over to her bracer sitting on their nightstand and tapped the crystal embedded within. The holographic display flared to life a couple of inches above the Void Rock. The display showed that the time was 10:32 in the morning and that the weather was supposed to get very cold with possible rain today.
Edi snuggled back beneath the warmth of the covers. She had reports to drop off with Detective Morchon, but this was the first time she had Damien to herself in the last couple of weeks. She appreciated the gravity of the work he did, but it was nice to have him here again. With where his arm lay across her body, she could see the thin lines of scars that crisscrossed over the knuckles on the back of his hand and up his arm. She knew he got a lot of these from when he was a child growing up in Windcrest. Kids can be so cruel. Others like the thick jagged scars across his chest and back he got during his time as a soldier. He never talked about those. He just said he lost a lot of people. She closed her eyes and tried to match her breathing to his.
After a minute or two she found herself getting lightheaded and sucked in a deep breath. Gods! she thought, it’s like he doesn’t have to breathe! She chuckled softly to herself and finally relented. She could get them some breakfast and be back when he wakes up. She slowly slid Damien’s arm off of her chest and moved gingerly from beneath the blankets. She stood and looked back down at Damien. His hair was too long and came down in waves across his face. She knew he hated that. Every time it got this length he complained about it. She gently pushed some of the waves away from his face. His features were a bit too gaunt, but cute in a skeletal sort of way. That always happened when he spent too long bonded to a spirit like Fred. Weeks or months of not eating food of course did not help.
She let out another sigh and watched as Damien shifted beneath the covers and rolled over. She pulled the blankets up over his back and kissed his head. Edi grabbed Damien’s shirt from the ground pulling it over her body. She was engulfed as the shirt hung down nearly to her knees. She usually felt more comfortable without clothes. When Edi was younger, they always got in the way during her transformations. She learned as she grew up that in polite society people wore clothes to make others feel less uncomfortable. She grabbed her Void Rock bracer and picked up the rest of their clothes from the previous night, dropping the clothes into the hamper next to the door as she made her way out into their apartment. Fred had not returned from his excursion otherwise the smell of tea would be permeating the apartment. Their morning talks were something that she looked forward to.
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She made her way into their bathroom and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was a disheveled mess of curls sticking out in every direction and the bit of makeup she had not taken off before sleeping had smeared down her cheeks. Gods, she thought, what a mess. She shook her head and turned the handle in the shower and water began to spray from the nozzle above her. She then tapped the Red Void rock crystal next to the shower handle and watched as red energy zig zagged across the wall and over the shower head. After a moment, the water began to steam as it heated up.
Edi pulled Damien’s shirt up over her head and felt the shirt snag on the sapphire dangling from the collar around her neck. She looked back into the mirror and saw the glistening sapphire reflected back at her. It was easy for her to forget about the collar most of the time. It was times like this she was reminded of the pain it could cause. Detective Morchon’s words the previous night swam through her mind. Wolves.
She had grown accustomed to being mistreated in the city. People often abused things they did not understand. Especially things that were better than them. Edi smiled into the mirror, bearing her teeth. The canines were sharp as was typical of her particular breed of Were. The blue of the sapphire around her neck signified the blood of the canine that ran through her veins. Power. She was pure blooded as both her father and mother were Werewolves as well. She could feel the itching under her skin. The compulsion to transform. The Call to hunt, to run, to be amongst the animals of the forest once again. Her body vibrated.
The sapphire around her neck flared and the collar tightened immediately. She coughed as she was choked and instantly lost the Call. She shook her head and sucked in oxygen as the collar loosened once more. It would be another couple of weeks before she would be allowed to transform. Stupid humans, she thought as steam fogged the mirror. Edi knew it was a bit of a misnomer to claim it was just humans. Over a thousand years ago it had been a council of Dwarves, Elves, Humans, and even a Dragon that developed the system of tracking and collaring Weres. She climbed into the warmth of the shower and washed the thought away with last night’s makeup.