Return of the wolf ....only i'm not alone ON HOLD

Return of the wolf....only i'm not alonepart21

I stood in my doorway for a second, using my enhanced werewolf hearing to listen to what my mom was doing, trying to gage her mood.

If I hear clashing pans I know not to go down.

But what I could hear was laughter between two people, my moms and a familiar deep, rich chuckle I’d recognise anywhere and had filled my childhood.

I frowned in confusion as I padded down the stairs, I could hear my mum was placing plates on the table from the dull clank of china against wood.

I walked into the kitchen, clear morning light streaming through the windows.

My mum was leaning over a pile of pancakes to place a plate down on the table, and in the chair beside her he was sipping coffee. His chocolate brown hair had grown out since I last saw him, before I left for boarding school, to just below his ears but I knew his hazel brown eyes would hold the same kindness.

“  Uncle Eric?” I asked from the doorway, feeling my face turn into a shocked smile.

He looked up to the doorway, putting down his mug and breaking into a huge grin, the skin around his warm eyes crinkled slightly at the sides.

“Marli! It’s good to finally have you home kiddo” he stood up, held his arms open and walked to wards me, pulling me into a big hug, lifting my slightly as he did. Uncle Eric was in his early thirties, tall at 6’2 and powerfully built like a line backer. After my dad died when I was two, my uncle; his younger brother, became a huge part of my life and the closest thing I have to a father.

He was at every school recital, every birthday; he took me camping in the summer and taught me how to ride a bike. I’d actually really missed him in the year I’d been in boarding school and wrote him a few emails about how school life was throughout the year.

He pulled away and looked at me smiling “ looks like my favourite niece did some growing up” he said

“I’m your only niece, of course I’m your favourite” I quipped with a smile.

“ Ahh, always a stickler for the details. I’ve come visit my niece after she comes back from a year away in a stuffy boarding school?”

I glanced at the clock and I could see the hospital beeper on his jeans, which told me he’d been on duty last night. “ It’s ten thirty five am, and don’t you pull night shifts?”

Eric is a surgeon in his local hospital; he regularly takes shifts in the emergency room and takes the night shift operations so he has odd sleeping patterns, sometimes sleeping through the day. Him getting up before 12:00pm when he has done a night shift is pretty much unheard of. Doctors usually have weird erratic sleep patterns – when he was a resident, he once took me to the cinema for a day out and fell asleep standing up in the queue for popcorn – needless to say he slept through the film.

“ So mum must have bribed you with pancakes to get you here this early”

Eric laughed and led me over to the free chair at the table by my shoulder

“ Ye of little faith. Nice to know you think I’m so easily brought”