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Chapter 31 - Intruder

-W-

Realization washed over me as my human spoke. The scent I had caught last night wasn't my imagination. That I knew now.. and my human must have known too. I could see it in his eyes, smell the shift in his scent as he brought up these questions.

I had very little in the way of memories with my existence within my void.. but it almost seemed to hit me in a flash. Had I simply not been aware of it the whole time I was in my darkness? Or had I just pushed it out of my thoughts? There was more to the void I came from, to the darkness. Deeper into it, places I never wished to or even thought about going. That would have taken me further away from my human.

Why did I not remember this until now? His words had sparked a wave of different thoughts in me. It had sparked more clarity.

My purpose.

It was more than just protecting him.. I was supposed to be guarding something. I was supposed to keep watch over him for reasons beyond my affection. There could be others. That was it. Others that wished to leave, I had a duty to keep them in.

Panic set in, my heart began to thump deep within my chest. I didn't know what else could come through as I had, but I knew I wasn't supposed to let anything else through. Why? Was it a danger to Connor? To his home? Something more? My duty was impossible with our connection severed.. I couldn't keep anything out. I had failed my duty. The range of feelings hit one after another, it was difficult to process my sudden realization of duty and subsequent failure. It was unfair..

The scent. I needed to figure out what had escaped. I had to get my human to tell me.

My uninjured arm raised up, clasping his slender shoulder and squeezing gently but firmly, pulling my face in closer to his, looking him in the eyes. I let just the slightest growl slither through my throat, not in threat, but in urgency.

"I'm sorry.. I didn't know what to do, okay? Don't be upset.. You need to recover and heal up. Promise me you are not going to get angry and get yourself hurt alright?.. Then I'll tell you what happened.."

I could promise no such thing.. but I nodded to him anyway and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He let out a defeated sigh.

"So.. I think something may have gotten out while you were unconscious.. And by 'think' I mean I know something definitely did escape.. Yeah.."

He looked down between us, breaking eye contact as I couldn't help a growl escaping. I didn't want to frighten him but I couldn't control my throat and chest as my anger spoke up. I calmed it as best I could so he could continue.

"There was a big creature.. kind of like you but a cat I guess. A weird hairless cat like those.. Shoot what are they called? The Egyptian looking ones.. Doesn't matter, point is he came from wherever you came from.. and I think he got out because of me. He did, didn't he?.. It's because I broke our link isn't it...?"

He sounded more and more sullen as he spoke. More guilty. It was my turn to let out a heavy sigh, nodding my head solemnly to him. He went quiet for a short while, I could almost feel the guilt setting into him. I missed being able to actually feel it, good or bad emotions.. anything from him.

"So.. what do we have to do? Do we have to get him back in somehow? Would that fix everything?"

That caught me off guard.. would it? Would returning the escaped creature to where he came from allow me to reconnect with my human? Was there a chance? I was unsure. The need to reign in the escaped creature was solidly in my mind, it rang as strong as the duty to protect had. Whatever instincts that had bubbled up all too late were telling me to get him back. There was no instinctual answer to whether or not it would let me go back as well.

Still, I nodded to him.

"Well.. I guess we need to go get him and what.. How do we force him to go back? I'm going to have to convince him? He was not cooperative in any sense of the word, when I dealt with him yesterday.. Convincing him to give up a cushy life of licking his crotch on my bed and having food brought to him isn't happening. I don't think I'm charming enough to pull that off."

While my human rambled, as he often does, I was trying to figure out a plan. I was weak right now. If I had to fight another creature like me I might lose.. I had to get my strength back first. Then we needed to find the escaped beast. The human had numerous devices and contraptions that he had used to move me around, or strap himself to me when we had gone hunting. Perhaps we could restrain the creature and force him to meld with my human as his only escape..

"...Fucker was getting too weird. All his innuendos.. I'm not about to go trade any 'favors' with him to convince him to go back. You can if you want. Not me. He's deranged and dangerous.. Are you listening?"

I ignored him and pointed to his waist, he had that leather strap he'd used before. He gave me a look and lifted his hands up at me defensively.

"Woah now.. I just said I'm not doing anything like that.."

His face turned a shade of red and I growled again, reaching down and grabbing at that leather around his waist, fumbling with it and trying to remove it. His eyes were wide as he grabbed at my paws, grabbed at his pants and struggled with me a bit. The leather had a metal bit fastening it that I figured out pretty quickly with my claws, pulling the long strip off of him and holding it in front of his face as he stood there staring at me, looking a little caught off guard and holding his pants up.

"Uh.. my belt? That's what you wanted? There are better ways to get that. Okay, so you got my belt. What did you need it for?"

My glare did little to explain my intentions, but he was smart enough, if he babbled for a bit he'd say something I could nod to. I could see him thinking it through, trying to read my mind as I held his belt in his face. Maybe he needed some help. I draped the belt across my wrists and wrapped them together loosely. There it is, I saw the spark in his eyes as he understood.

"Ohh... you want to be tied up?" I stared at him, dumbfounded and snarling out a bit in my frustration, though he immediately raised his hand again.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Sorry.. It's a joke. Chill. I know what you meant, you think we can tie the cat thing up. But then what? I mean even if you can grab him and I could hogtie him.. what do we do after that? That doesn't convince him to get back inside my body."

That part would be harder for me to gesture and explain to him. I returned his belt to him and wrapped my arms gently around him, holding him firmly to me and not letting go. He wiggled a bit, mumbling out a half hearted protest.

"Hey hey.. okay, I like you too bud but.. uhh.. what are you doing?"

Dense human, he'd figure it out. He knew I was trying to explain something to him, he had the context to put the pieces together. I remained silent and held him, not letting go even as he tried to pull away. Once more I saw him running through things in his head as he tried to figure me out.

"..you gonna let me go now?.. I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me, big guy. Agh.. I can barely breathe here." He'd figure it out. I hoped. My faith was wanting a little however. It became awkwardly quiet as he seemed clueless to my intentions. My frustrations with my own inability to speak grew all the more agitating.

".. We're going to hold him.. Capture him and hold him. Hold him against us? Against me?" Finally! He was getting it! I could lick his face! That would likely be a dumb mistake, I imagined he would assume my lick to be a piece of the puzzle I was trying to explain, so I just nodded and waited for things to fall into place.

"..Right. Hold him against me and just hope he goes back inside? Not really a great move.. Why would he go back? He'd probably just try to wait us out. I guess eventually he might concede and try to escape into me.."

Now I licked his face, one big, broad tongued lash from his chin to his ear as I let him free. He'd gotten it, though he doubted it's effectiveness.

"Agghh.. you drooled in my ear!.. Ugh. I take it I got it right. Still that's not a great plan, sorry but I don't think I can just pin him down for hours or days or however long it took to get him to go back in. What if he just refuses entirely? I guess I don't have a better plan but there needs to be more to yours. Convince him or trick him to go in."

Raising my paw up in front of his face and mine, I exposed my claws, flexing them. He crinkled his nose at me, shaking his head.

"What, hurt him? Torture him till he has only one way out?.. No way.. that's inhumane.. We can't do that."

He couldn't, but I could if it was needed. I waited until he came up with a better plan, but he stood there in silence. Nothing better came to his mind. I nudged him a little and he groaned out in his own frustrations.

"I'm not doing that. We can figure something out, but first we gotta at least try to give him the option to go back willingly okay? Let's just go talk to him.." He began walking towards his room. He didn't know the beast was gone, out the open window I now realized.

I followed behind him, waiting for him to figure it out for himself as he opened the door to his empty room.

"Shit.. he's gone. Where is he? Did you see him at all?"

My throat rumbled in an annoyed growl as my human played catch up, shaking my head and nodding towards the open window. That got him panicking.

"No no no no.. he did not go outside. Tell me he didn't go outside. Shit. Shit. He could be literally anywhere then, how would we even begin to look for him? I can't take you around to sniff him out, people would notice a massive werewolf roaming the streets. I can't exactly convince them you're just my very big body builder of a dog. ~Oh yes ma'am, he's just a regular dog. A husky I think. Why yes he does have abs.~"

My human was babbling again. I patted his back lightly to comfort him. I would hunt the creature at night if I needed to. Or we would catch him when he came back. He'd left the window open, he may have wanted to be able to slip back inside whenever he returned. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, but I could not imagine the escaped creature not returning to keep an eye on us. He must know I would hunt him. If I were being hunted, I would keep a close eye on the one hunting me.

"..he wanted to be pampered and fed while he was here. Maybe he'll come back for food? I'll grab more cat food from the cupboard. He's just some big house cat, maybe he'll roam around outside all day and come back for dinner. I just have to hope no one sees him. Then again, it's not like he's connected to me in any way. They aren't going to catch him and blame me. ~Oh yeah, that's Connor's cat. He's the guy that has monsters coming out of him every other day. That'll be a $500 fine. Come pick up your weird cat man at the pound. We cleaned and neutered him for you~"

I did not know what he was talking about. He said a lot of strange things when he was upset.

"Or they are just going to catch him and lock him up in some lab for medical experiments. Then we'd never be able to get to him and put things back to normal.." That caught my attention.. he was right. what if something else caught him out in the world. There'd go my chance at linking with my human again.

We looked at eachother, his worry was contagious and now doubts filled my head. I looked around the room, towards the window, trying to figure out a plan. My nose twitched and my ears swiveled as something moved behind us. A purr filled voice spoke.

"Well aren't you a dramatic little thing.. I'm right here."

A snarl left my lips as I spun to face the furless creature, growling out at him.

Demoncat.