Balt
At this moment, more than ever, I regretted not chancing to be late for a cup of coffee.
I’d opted against it, thinking it would destroy my already overwrought nerves, but my nerves were shot to hell anyway. Things that never bothered me – simple, stupid things – today were wreaking havoc while the bone-deep exhaustion exacerbated it.
For example, the click-click-click-click of manicured nails on the laptop to the left of me. The clean, but the rubbery smell of the dark hallway we were sitting in. The shoes I was wearing.
The passing of each miserable minute until this miserable meeting.
A knot of pain was starting to throb in my head. And when I looked down, I noticed my fists were clenched and tremors were running along the tendons of my hands as I relaxed them.
The typing stopped and a fine-boned hand reached over to squeeze my forearm.
“Balt?” asked a soft, concerned voice.
My jaw clenched as fire and turmoil seethed within me. Everything was so close to the surface now, refusing to be buried again. It was like holding a firestorm inside of a globe of ice.
Before it had been thick enough to keep it intact. But now, layers and layers had melted away and only a paper-thin layer was holding it in check. Held me in check.
“Balt.” The voice was less concerned and more impatient now. That was better.
Taking a deep breath, I forced a smile on my face and looked up. “Sorry, what?”
Luminous blue eyes surrounded by a cloud of heavy, dark hair. High, defined cheekbones and a round, determined chin. Full lips set in a serious and skeptical line.
Piper Weslark. My ride or die. My best friend and partner. A woman I’d known since I was seven years old. A woman whose brains and brilliance held me in awe. A woman with a restless need to know everything. A woman who wanted to save the world.
“You’re not worried, are you?” Piper demanded with a flash of gold in her eyes.
A woman who was on the verge of annihilating me.
I chuckled. “Of course not. It’s you, Piper.”
A woman who was as beautiful and dangerous as a storm at sea.
“Hmph,” Piper muttered, going back to her screen. “Your body language says otherwise.”
“Not sleeping well,” I said lightly, willing Piper to leave it at that and let it go.
She ran a hand through her hair, usually up, but down today. I caught a whiff of her gardenia scented perfume and that warm, delicious note that was particular only to her. It sent my fraying nerves into a frenzy and I tried not to shift as heat rushed through me.
For if Piper was the storm, I was caught adrift in the waves and desperately pretending not to be sinking.
“It’s been almost three weeks,” she said in a low voice. “I’m over it. Why aren’t you?”
Fissures ran through my self-control, irritation, and agony pouring through. “Are you?” I asked in a far more blunt and harsh tone than I meant. “Why aren’t you sleeping either, then?”
Piper turned and looked at me in surprise. “How–?” Then she made a face.
“Yeah, it’s working now,” I said, covering her hand with mine. “You’re keeping me up.”
Her eyes flicked down to the tattoo we both shared, a beautiful weaving pattern of circles and colors across our wrists that when held together made one continuous loop. The fesootai.
It was a tattoo technique of the Samoan shifters that linked two shifters. We’d received them when we were twenty and had been working as partners in the Shifters of Anubis for two years. It had been Piper’s idea after learning her cousin knew how to do it. A somewhat reckless one at that and one she looked as though she were regretting now.
“I’m up working, that’s all,” Piper said. “Sorry.”
“I’d still like to know why the fesootai didn’t work when…” I swallowed and trailed off, my heart accelerating. I still couldn’t believe it happened.
Piper was right – I wasn’t over it.
“When I was kidnapped?” Piper finished off and I flinched.
“Yes,” I muttered. “I don’t understand it.”
“Maybe I wasn’t in any real danger and now you’re acting like a mother hen, so it’s working too well,” Piper shot at me, pulling her hand away and setting her chin.
I folded my arms and met her glare for glare. “Bullshit. If anything, you did it on purpose.”
The power of the was such that one user could amplify or dampen the power as needed. Even though she hadn’t admitted it, (or denied it) I knew Piper had focused all of her energy on keeping me in the dark. All while the Tapetum Lucidium Organization – a group posing one of the most significant threats to shifters yet – had held her hostage in a cage.
Gold flashed in her eyes, a light that signified our heritage as shifters, humans with the ability to shift into animals at will as well as communicate with them.
Along with that gift came increased strength, speed, and stamina in both forms. It was considered a mystic art, one held in great and serious reverence.
But some days, like today, I wished that Piper and I were normal. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about her as much. Nor would I have to keep the feelings continuously building up inside of me locked up and suppressed. I wouldn’t have lost my cousin Isla for so many years. And Piper’s brother Kai wouldn’t be living in Maui with Isla, hidden from both our world and the TLO.
We wouldn’t be sitting in this dark hallway of the Shifters of Anubis Headquarters – the secret organization inside of our secret world – and waiting for the Heads to come to a verdict about us and the TLO. We wouldn’t constantly be risking our lives.
No one would be after the Weslarks or my cousin.
And no dark portents would mar my future as a Kazan male.
Piper seemed to be struggling to come up with a response to that and finally blurted out, as though she’d been holding it in for too long, “So what if I did?” she asked in an icy tone.
My jaw grit so hard I thought I was going to crack it in half. “I knew it.”
She looked away. “It worked out in the end.”
“Barely!” I snapped. “And only because Isla decided to be as reckless as Kai on a good day. She threw herself into the maw of the TLO and almost died, Piper.” I tried to keep my voice low, but I heard “Piper” echo back at me, raw and full of anger. “Do you understand that?”
Her shoulders fell and she closed her laptop, causing the shadows to leap forward. “Of course. Don’t you think I haven’t been torturing myself about that?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “When I saw Kai’s face–” Piper swallowed. “I thought I was about to lose him entirely.”
“If you hadn’t done that – I could have found you,” I said, staring her down.
She rolled her eyes and my temper flared hotter. “Whatever. I had my reasons, okay?”
“Care to share?” I asked icily. “Or no, let me guess, Piper Weslark wanted to handle it all on her own, didn’t she? Can’t ask for help. God forbid that.”
“What is your problem, Balt?” Piper asked in a tight voice as she stood up and stared me down. “What do you want me to say? I’ve already apologized like a million times.”
“I want you to tell me why you did it,” I said, standing up and staring her down now. I knew she hated that, so I rarely used the nine inches I had on her like this. But today was an exception.
“No,” Piper said, tossing her head.
“Why the hell not?” I demanded.
“You’re being an ass, that’s why!” Piper snapped. “I’d like the old Balt back, please.”
My temper broke and I started to snarl, “You’re going to–”
“Are you two bickering?” interrupted a strong male voice with a curl of North Atlantic ice in his words. “What, is there a blue moon tonight?”
To my surprise, Piper’s cheeks went faintly pink as she whipped around to the speaker. “Dad. Hi. No, not at all.” She gave me an apologetic look and my temper vanished as swiftly as it had come, leaving me feeling hollowed out. “Just some prep.”
“Yelling at them will not do you any credit,” Elias Weslark said, although he was looking at me and I felt a twist of shame. He’d been my guardian since I was a teenager and had helped me enter the Order of the Shifters of Anubis, which did not look kindly on Kazans. And here he’d found me yelling at his eldest daughter before an important meeting with our bosses.
I went to apologize to Piper, but she was already sweeping in and I sighed.
“Sorry, Elias,” I muttered. “Neither of us are sleeping well.”
“I understand,” Elias said, surveying me as we walked in,
The room was set up with a long table along the far wall, benches along the side and several tables leading up to it. One single table was set in the center, right in front of the head table, waiting for Piper who was walking with an unconcerned air of absolute confidence.
“Piper’s never kept something like this from me,” I said in an undertone as we sat down along on a bench on the wall. “I don’t understand it. She’s driving me insane.”
Elias gave me a sidelong glance. “Give it time.”
Nodding, I kept my eyes on Piper and wrapped a hand around the fesootai tattoo – as though I could use it to protect her from the evils of this world.
Even though I couldn’t.
I had been tested.
And I’d failed.