Change Blogfest is here!

Many thanks to Elizabeth for today's blogfest!  I love blogfests, and it'll be even more fun because this time I get to actually visit everyone's posts this time.  My entry today from my second WIP, The Paladin, takes the change literally.  My MCs, Rainee and Sen, survived a crash and took shelter for the night.  Sen has developed a strong attraction to Rainee and felt urges he didn't know what to do with.  As an alien Kindred born without the ability to bond with a lifemate, he's not supposed to have these feelings, but Rainee indulged them, unable to control her own attraction to him and unaware of the consequences.  Afterward, a frightening transformation began that would end life as he knew it.  This scene occurs a few days after the beginning.

     Sen lay motionless along his bed, but his insides churned. He stared at the ceiling overhead without really seeing. The pain of his transformation had been like nothing he’d ever suffered, but then this pain that followed… Some days he didn’t want to live anymore.

     He’d never known what it was to be alone. There were always the others. Always. Knowing their unity would never be his again hammered at him over and over, his soul caught in the abyss of aching loneliness that walked in his Kindred’s empty footsteps. The uncertainty of what he was becoming, facing it in isolation, sharpened his fear.

     He was no longer Paladin. That much was clear, and it wasn’t just his eyes and his change to full adulthood. He’d thought Rai would be afraid or disgusted when she saw how his eyes had changed. Instead, she’d been surprised and then accepted it just as quickly. If only he could. It set him apart, removed him even further from his Paladin brethren than he already was.

     Stress tightened his stomach into a great burden balled up in the center of him. What the hell was he now? What had he become? He had no Kindred but Gabe, and even Gabe no longer connected with him once the transformation was complete. But Sen understood that. Gabe was an elder of honor and loyal to Kindred decree. He would do what he could to help, the most he could get away with, but he had his limits.

     Time had passed as slowly as Sen’s adjustment to the changes inside of him. His senses and his reflexes had grown more acute. He didn’t know his own strength anymore, and his body radiated a vast energy that didn’t have a place to go. To those around him, his eyes were the easiest to notice, but what changed behind them confused even him.

     None of this would be happening to him if he’d never been dispensed to the humans. Argent knew how he felt about them and sent him anyway. He’d hated them down to the smallest part of his being. And now he had even more reason to. It didn’t matter to him that Rai wasn’t to blame for his transformation after all. If he hadn’t been in Aurora, if he hadn’t been on Team Seven, and if she hadn’t been so… Rai.

     Today she’d prepared for battle and though they hadn’t gone out on a hunt after all, he didn’t let her down. He’d made her cry. She’d been so silent, too. But his senses were even more amplified now, and he heard it in the way she drew each breath. It should have been satisfying. His vengeful nature should have danced with each blow he delivered. It changed nothing.

Poor Sen isn't handling the change very well, and he's taking it out on Rainee.  Hope you enjoyed, even if it's not your genre, and thank you for reading!