A Short Spurt Of Inspiration.

Emma watched the sun rise from her window. In the distance it looked beautiful and harmless. In reality, it was a blazing ball of gas. A fine example of deception at its best.
The breeze picked Emma's hair from her shoulders and beckoned it towards the open window. Emma shut it with her palm and resumed her vigilant post, watching the fingers of light stretch across the sky.
A new scent invaded Emma's privacy; she snapped her neck to the left sharply, eyes fixed on a spot to the end of the corridor adjoining her rooms.
Footsteps. The creak of a door. The sound of hesitation.
'Alec, you're loitering. Was there something you wanted?' Emma called, knowing full well who her interrupter was.
A tall boy appeared in the very spot Emma had been watching. His hair stuck in tufts about his face, his cheeks flushed a healthy rosy colour. The expression on his face was one of disbelief. Emma couldn't help but chuckle at his surprise.
'How do you do that, Em? It's not fair! I can never sneak up on you any more!' He flung his hands in the air and moved to slump on the ottoman by Emma's bedside.
'Lucky guess, I suppose,' Emma returned, moving gracefully from the window to the bed.
For a moment, brother and sister sat in companionable silence. Predictably, Alec was the one to break it.
'There was a reason for my being here, Em. Not just to experience your scintillating conversation,' he smirked. 'Father wants you. Something about it bring urgent.'
'Alec!' Emma admonished, hitting him lightly on the arm and ushering him from her suite.
'Sorry, Sis. Guess I didn't think it through. Have fun with father!' Alec sped off, face alight with mischief, leaving Emma shaking her head with amused tolerance.
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Jonah Emerson, Emma's father stood with his back to the door Emma entered through. His broad back had a tension to it that immediately set Emma on edge.
He had the tallness Alec had inherited, yet was different in every other way. Where Emma's brother was slim, her father was bulky - not fat at all, but muscled enough to not look slim. Emma had inherited his mousey brown hair, and the thick richness to it.
'Father,' Emma said quietly after standing quietly for a long moment watching the taut muscles play under her father's pressed suit jacket.
'Do you not understand the term 'urgent', Emma?'
Emma gulped and opened her mouth to explain, inwardly listing all the ways she would repay Alec later, but her father cut across.
'Nonetheless. You're here now. I have news for you. You're leaving Rooke.'
Emma spluttered and stammered for a moment, the prospect of leaving her childhood home completely preposterous to her.
Oblivious to Emma's struggle, Jonah continued: 'Lord Arran of the Lyon Arms has proposed an arranged marriage to his son, James. You will accept graciously, and will be a good wife to him-' on this note, Emma found herself eye to eye with her fierce father. 'Understood?'
Emma nodded, too afraid to do anything but.
'Father... The Lyons... Are they... Like us?' Emma gestured to herself.
'You mean shifters?'
Emma still found it hard to say it out loud. It had been two full moon cycles since Emma had changed. Changed in so many ways.
'James is unknown territory. His father isn't, his mother can shift into a lynx. Rather beautiful creature, striped on her forelegs but brown otherwise.'
Emma balked at the idea of having Lady Lyon as her hunting companion. They'd only met twice, and each time the woman had been less than civil, looking down her nose at Emma's family. It was a wonder Emma would be marrying James, her son.
'Father. Please don't send me to the north. Please let me stay here in Rooke. I'll be good. Marry me to someone here... What about Sir Robert? Or late Mrs Conway's son? Jasper, I think his name is. Or can't you-'
'Emma Jane Emerson!' Jonah roared, grasping his daughter by the shoulders and shaking her as he talked in his low, menacing tone which brooked no argument.
'You WILL travel north. You WILL wed James Lyon. You WILL befriend that witch Mrs Conway if needs be. And you WILL ally our lands to theirs. Do you hear me? Am I quite clear?'
Emma felt a traitorous year running its way down her cheek and turned her chin to the ground, ashamed to show such vulnerability.
Sighing, Jonah released her shoulders and took her face gently in his hands. 'So much like your mother was,' he muttered. Emma sniffed and smiled a watery smile, knowing a compliment when she saw one.
'Go child, pack your bags. I'm sorry. There really is no other way. Bid your brothers farewell. I'll have Octa fetched from the stables for you. You can at least have your own horse in Lyon country.'
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Emma sat astride Octa, in between a pair of guards. Before her, her six brothers and father stood quietly, having said their goodbyes.
Emma nudged Octa into a trot, and with one last weak smile to her old family, she accepted her entourage's forward movement and moved into the direction of the sun's rising that very morning.
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-Should I continue this?!