Donnie cat woke the next morning curled up on a plush pillow on Kelly's floor. He was back behind the magical wall of the protection circle, and he hated the trapped feeling of being behind the lit candles. Cats are curious about fire but, it doesn't mean they want to sleep with it surrounding them. Knowing a cat's tail sometimes has a mind of its own, doesn't lead to a very comfortable rest when one is so close to open flame.

He stepped off the pillow languorously to step into a patch of sunlight and let the warmth permeate his fur. What a glorious morning it was. It was turning out to be a great follow-up to the best night of his life. Last night had been indescribably perfect. None of his friends had left the party till nearly four am. He'd danced nearly every dance with Kelly and he had even hunted down some chocolate faery cakes for her.

And when he says faery cakes he doesn't mean the British kind he means the real thing. He had carried over a plate full of them for her and she had been kind enough to share them with him. It was the first time he'd ever eaten fae food, and to say it had been delicious would be an understatement. They had been like sweet ambrosia. Fae fair is different than human food. It gives you a sense of euphoria unlike anything you'll ever experience. That's probably why there are so many warnings in fairytales to avoid it. You are certainly not in your right mind after consumption.

He let out a jaw cracking yawn and stretch his furry body in a wide arc. Letting his nails loop into the plush carpet to get that extra bit of resistance. The only thing that would make this morning more perfect would be if it was Saturday and he could laze about all day, but no he and Kelly would have to get ready for school soon.

With that thought he looked over at his sleeping beauty. She was curled up on her side facing in his direction and her face in repose was sublime. All the hard edges and nuance of her jagged hard core personality were gone in sleep and it made her features softer. She looked less haunted more at peace. This cruel world had let her down and Donnie longed to make her waking world as perfect as her slumber.

His childhood hadn't been idyllic either.

Donnie was born in Rome Italy to a Russian Ballerina and the mistress of an Italian Tycoon. It was plain even to him as a small boy that she had never wanted children. She made no secret that she might have had a wondrous career as a prima ballerina if he hadn't come along. She often blamed him for the loss of her perfect shape. He thought it might have more to do with the box of bon bons she ate daily, but who could tell.

He was raised by a steady stream of nannies until he was old enough to attend school and at that time he was sent to an all boy's Catholic boarding school in the heart of Rome. And even though it was only minutes away from his childhood home he never again saw his mother. And he'd never once met his father.

Essentially he was orphaned by two of the most self centered people he'd ever had the misfortune to meet or in his father's case, never meet. He stayed with the nuns and priests until the summer of his 12th year when he received a letter from distant cousins that resided in America. They would board him from that point onward.

Donnie couldn't understand why he had to leave his friends who were more like family to him especially since he had none to speak of, they were all he had and he was losing them too.

How was he to know there was no choice in the matter? There is much strife in the Cait world. There have been constant power struggles over the last hundred years, and the European Cait community had lost many in the continuing conflict and civil strife.

As an alternative many of his kind have moved to America to distance themselves from the constant power struggles and violence that ensued. His fullblood distant cousins and their family moved to San Francisco after the birth of their first litter. His cousin Achille and wife Sophia had three beautiful girls all fullbloods: Alunda, Donna, and Mia and they are the cutest calico kittens he'd ever seen. Kelly would love them. They are playful and funny and spend most of their time in cat form.

The first thing they do when they return from their studies is to throw off their backpacks and morph right into kitten form. Then they inevitably meow loudly at him until he serves them a saucer of after school milk.

Sometimes he takes on his cat form too and plays with them because they would hound him relentlessly otherwise. And secretly deep down it feels great to have a family, however distantly they are related. And the girls are too young to discriminate. They don't see the difference between them, only the similarities, and he hopes they never do.

He has asked Achille about his father, obviously he is the fullblood Cait Sith, if it had been his mother perhaps things would have been different, but that wasn't necessarily true. The majority of his halfblood friends had no fullblood parent. And he had to wonder if they were better off for it. Achille's mentioned that his father was very politically influential in their world, and as such he could never acknowledge him.

He went on to explain that his father's wife had the money and his father the connections and as of yet they had no children, so for her to find out that her husband had fathered an illegitimate son would ruin him -- Politically and financially.

It hurt sometimes that his mother had abandoned him and his father would never would never acknowledge him but the closer he got to his group of friends at school and the loving relationship he was able to witness at his cousin's house gave him all he needed in the way of family. He made a solemn vow to himself though that someday he'd be the father he never had with his offspring and he'd also do his best to make sure the woman he choose to spend the rest of his life with would be a good mother too.

But first he'd have to live long enough and that prospect wasn't looking promising for him at the moment. Today after training he was going to have to contact his cousin and find out if his contacts had anything on why the king would think he's such a danger to his rule. There had to be a reason, maybe it had to do with his father and his connections. If he could find out what it was maybe he could convince the current monarch he was a nobody from nowhere and his father might as well not even know he exists.

Donnie looked at the clock with his cat eyes that could see into dozens of spectrum to realize that it would alarm any minute so he meowed instead to wake his Demigoddess. And he wanted to laugh when she cocked on eye and gave him the stink eye as she had once called it.

He just loved the colorful way she spoke. She made language fun even though half the time he had to ask her to translate her southern expressions. He wished he spoke better English. They'd studied it in private school but he hadn't liked it. It sounded too guttural to his ear. It didn't roll off the tongue like French and Italian did. He was fluent in both languages but English unfortunately he still struggled with and until now he hadn't cared if he spoke it well, but now he had a warrior's heart to win and he wasn't going to be able to do that if he stumbled over his words.

Speaking of words if he wanted to speak he'd have to change shape so he thought about his human form and morphed back into a teenage boy. All of a sudden the space he stood in seemed all the more cramped.

He struggled to regain his balance in the much larger form before saying, "Good morning Cara did you sleep well?"

"Like a kitten Sugah, "Kelly yawned loudly.

He could tell she was still tired by the dark circles that ringed her eyes. And judging by the way he felt and the way she looked, he imagined there were going be quite a few halfbloods slacking off today.

"Sugar that food last night made me feel fatter than a tick. Never let me eat that much again."

Kelly cupped her hands around a nonexistent belly which made him want to laugh, but he drew his brows together to say seriously," Si, I never let you be a tick, again Cara." This made her laugh, which in turn made him intend to look up the word 'tick' as soon as he could get near his Italian to English dictionary.

Kelly disappeared into her adjacent bathroom to get ready for the day while he waited for Lauren to come and get him. He could step out of the ring and port to Lauren's himself but that would leave her house vulnerable to attack. The Cait Sith, as far as he knew, were still after him and now it would seem as though Liam and his crew were as well.

No he'd just have to wait for his Fae friend to come through and port him over to the school. He'd grab his duffle and get changed and showered in the boy's locker room. As a plan it had worked perfectly for the last couple of months or so, but he hoped it would come to an end soon. He missed his home, his bed, his cousins. He loved spending time with Kelly, but if they kept this up she would become sick of him before long and their relationship would be over before it even began.

She would probably have his head if she knew he thought of their friendship as something more than that, but he didn't care. If he kept wearing away at her stone exterior someday it might start to show some cracks and she'd finally admit she has feeling for him too.

And he knew she did; he could see it in her eyes when he made her smile or laugh. He made her happy even if she wouldn't admit it to herself.

Lauren came through the port door while Kelly was still getting ready so he called," Goodbye Cara I will see you at school and leapt across the divide in cat form. Once in the port door he took human shape again and asked Lauren politely, "Would you mind grabbing my duffle bag?"

She grabbed it and they were off. She dropped him in front of the school a half an hour early for class which didn't leave him a lot of time to shower and do his hair. He rushed to the gym and the adjacent changing room. He dove into the stall and closed the plastic curtain behind him. Feeling thankful that none of the teachers had discovered this daily ritual or if they did they thankfully chose not to questions him about his constant early arrivals.

When he exited the shower he went straight to work sculpting his hair. Donnie felt firmly that a guy should spend as much time as a girl does trying to look their best.

In fact, he probably spent twice as much time on his hair than Kelly did and he wasn't embarrassed about that in the least. He had grown up around lots of guys and he knew they cared about their appearance too, at least his European friends had. But he didn't know if his desire to show his best side was down to be an Italian boy or a Cait Sith. He knew cats did a lot of preening. So maybe that was it.

It was good of his cousin to support his expensive clothing habit. Both his cousins dressed for success on a daily basis and would never allow him to leave the house looking like he wasn't ready to take on the world himself. It would be an affront to them, he often thought.

Achilles and Sophia ran a successful marketing firm. They dealt primarily with foreign clients trying to break into the American market. Each one spoke several languages and their home was a testament to their success. Their children were perfect little cultured girls and taking in a distant cousin with no family to speak of showed off their charitable side. They had a persona to live up to and allowing their ward to walk around looking like a slovenly teen wouldn't match their overall world view.

He wasn't disparaging them. He knew the reality of the situation. He loved them for what they had done for him. He loved them all the more for allowing him to experience family life even if it was from the periphery of their idyllic family unit, but he had no illusion to his importance to them. Once he graduated and finished his five year conscription, he wasn't likely to be coming to their home for Christmases. Maybe the occasional business party or dinner, but they owed him nothing.

It was disheartening to think at times that if Liam and his crew managed to start a World War III in the magical world and he didn't make it out alive, who would even miss him when he was gone? It was as morose a thought as any he had had, and he tried to push it from his head, but still the threat of being separated from the family he'd created in a strange American high school was daunting.

His friends were all he had in the world. And there was a very real possibility that he would be conscripted in Europe because he was originally from Italy while they continued to serve here state side. And as a result he'd have to start all over again in a new place. Building relationships with people who he would leave again in a few years.

Sometimes he felt like a rootless tree that just went wherever the wind took him, rudderless and adrift on an open sea. He knew that was one of the reasons why he had no aspirations for the future. So many of his friends knew what they wanted to do after they served but he still had no clue.

And maybe that had to do with having the rug pulled out from under him one too many times. When he was four being shipped off to boarding school, then when he was twelve being sent to America, then when he was thirteen to wake up as a cat and being told by a council that his future belonged to them, lord knew what would happen after conscription, he didn't want to be disappointed again.

So he had adopted an attitude of letting expectations go.

The Italians have a saying it is: Ciò che deve essere, sarà. Which simply means: What is to be will be.

Well Donnie is back with Kelly something they both seem pretty happy about.

But Donnie can't sleep on her floor forever. He has to try and figure this mess out, but how?

His cousin sounds like his best bet. 

Could there be something he's not telling him?

Tune in tomorrow to find out.