Chapter Text
It had been a pretty good hunt for Owen and his pack. They’d discover a herd of wild deer which he knew belonged to no one, so they were free to hunt them. The girls had caught one each and eaten some - of course with so many there were bound to be leftovers, which Owen carried back on his bike for the girls’ meals for tomorrow and also some for him and Barry and Lowery back at home.
And then he came home to a vehicle sized hole in his garage door and three new guests at his breakfast table.
Of all three, it was the raptor that seemed familiar to him for some reason, although he was pretty sure that he’d never come across such a unique looking raptor before, with its red feathers and green eyes.
Hmm…actually the colouring reminded him of someone…hmm…who was it…?
While he was lost in thought, his girls had gone ahead to greet Barry, Delta in particular had insisted that she would carry this deer leg all by herself, which she proudly dropped at the man’s feet. Barry patted and stroked her on the head, eliciting vaguely purring sounds from the raptor’s throat.
Echo stayed by Owen’s side, alarmed as she was by the presence of strangers, especially that of the strangely scented raptor. She might look like them mostly, but she sure smelled nothing like them. She smelt more like her alpha did, a human plus raptor thing.
Charlie, ever curious and mischievous, was the first to come forward and come within arms’ reach of the newcomers. The red raptor, who strangely had her plate on the table rather than on the floor like she and her sisters did, had stepped forward too, and Charlie found it strange but it seemed like she was covering the two small humans clutching each other at the table.
Blue though, knew when she saw another raptor feel like she needed to defend her territory. That was exactly what this raptor was doing. These two are mine, the red raptor’s entire body said. Take one step closer and I will rip you apart.
But Charlie was young and naive, she had no grasp of body language, so she thoughtlessly stepped closer due to curiosity and the red raptor screeched a warning.
<Stop!>
That voice made Owen freeze. It was one he’d heard before, but it had been in normal human speak, not in raptor speak. Disbelieving, he blurted before he could think to take it back, “Claire?!” at about the same time Blue had jumped in between her youngest sister and this raptor that was impossibly but somehow was anyway, Claire Dearing, the only woman he had ever gone on a date with wherein the date failed within the first five minutes of it happening.
Blue wasn’t attacking Claire but she was definitely in threatening mode, which attracted her remaining two sisters to her side, as any alarm their beta felt concerned them too.
But Claire wasn’t backing down either, and she looked like she was about ready to die if it meant that the two boys behind her would be safe. He wondered if those two were her sons, she never mentioned that she ever had kids, but then again their date had been such a failure that they barely got to know each other except for the bad parts before they parted with no intention of meeting up again.
Owen was about to step in between the two groups before blood would spill, but then a roar broke through the hole in the garage door and a T.Rex’s head peeked through it.
This development had been so unexpected it shut everyone present up like a charm.
This new guest looked at Claire and her boys, then turned and roared at the rest of them. <Mine!> she declared.
Well. Maybe he didn’t really have to feel worried about Claire and her boys being outnumbered anymore.
Still. He went in between them anyway, adopting his signature stance when telling the girls to back off and calm down. “Girls, girls, girls!” he said in a scolding tone. “Where are your manners?! These are our guests! Honestly, I thought I taught you all better than that!”
Their alpha’s candid tone confused them at first, especially with the appearance of the apex predator (even if it was only the head) which had loudly and possessively claimed the new strangers to be hers, but his whole body posture was relaxed and he seemed to not be on guard at all even though the strange red raptor was right at his back. Reluctantly, the raptors backed off, Blue being the most reluctant, and she still kept a wary eye on the now four ‘guests’ as their alpha called them. They knew that word meant that they were not to touch them, that they were welcome into their home, at least temporarily.
When the raptors finally moved away to the other side of the room away from where all the guests were, Owen finally turned to the raptor he believed to be Claire Dearing.
“Claire, is that really you?” he asked. But the older of the two boys stepped forward protectively in front of her before she could answer.
“And who’re you?”
He raised an eyebrow at the teen. “I’m the Raptor Lord, kid. You’re in my castle. And you are…?”
“We’re her nephews!” the younger boy exclaimed proudly. “I’m Gray, this is my brother Zach.”
“I see,” he said. Would the Claire Dearing he had met up briefly for that arranged date really have let her two nephews tag along with her on a journey to cure herself from a curse that turned her into a raptor? he wondered. There was certainly more to her than the first impression he got of an uptight, stiff woman.
The red raptor sighed. <Mr. Grady> she said, and he knew immediately that it really was her just from those words alone. <I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you again if not for the circumstances>
“Circumstances indeed,” he chuckled, earning a glare that could kill from her now even scarier looking eyes and confused looks from her nephews, who Barry quickly rounded up to finish breakfast so they would leave the two alone in private to discuss things (well, alone as they could be anyway, the T.Rex - who they decided to simply go with the name Rexy just because that was easy to remember - was still peeking through the hole in the garage door. Lowery was asking if the T.Rex would want some hot water, to which Barry dryly replied, “It’ll probably react badly to that, so don’t do it.”). “What happened?”
She sighed again. If she could have crossed her arms, she would have. As it was, she settled for tapping one of her talons on the floor. <The Indominus happened>