Piper

 

I’d expected Balt to come running after me when I left.

But he didn’t and it hurt. A deep, stinging blossomed in my chest and the walls seemed to close in. I had to get out of this horrible, echoing house and its blind, terrible silence. Running blindly, I somehow made my way through the house and outside.

Gasping, I inhaled the fresh, salty air. I came to myself, standing on a lonely shore, staring up at the cloud-scudded sky, where stars came and went. My heart was wrung with pure agony. How could you do that to Kai, Balt? I asked myself. To Isla?

Oh, that manipulative old crone. She’d played us both too well. I hadn’t been expecting any of that. But Balt had, I thought miserably. Now I knew why he didn’t want me there. That sickening stuff about the marriage ceremony and the Capitis Leonis.

I dug my fingernails into my palms as I tried not to throw up.

Then I heard Balt’s voice. His anguish, his anger and pain he’d buried for years.

You didn’t create some kind of boon for shifters – you created a cancer.

Staring out at the dark ocean, I watched the white caps roll in and hiss to shore. The sea was gentle tonight, but if it had matched my internal state, it would have been frothing, waves slamming and screaming their way to shore. Violent and thrashing in pain. Sucking itself rapidly out to sea as a tsunami rose, just as the pressure in my throat was.

“Piper.”

My name came out of nowhere and I jumped. Spinning around, fists up, I stopped and stared at Balt’s familiar, handsome face. Another wave rose – a surge of fury, confusion, and grief.

“I told you not to come,” he said quietly.

My lips parted as I absorbed the shock of that blow.

He wasn’t… He wasn’t apologizing. Or comforting. I recoiled. Who is this?

“This is how they are. Everything is bloodline first. The means justify the ends. Always.” He let out a bitter, non-Balt laugh and for a moment, my anger subsided. “Even with my uncle, it seems.”

“Kyros wasn’t fooled by Frost,” I said, unable to let that pass without comment. “Or maybe he was. You and I both know how manipulative Lilian is. Now we know where she learned it from.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Balt said wearily, as though he were humoring me.

“Kyros was a good man,” I said with a flash of anger. “He cared for you deeply, Balt. And he was a top-notch Shifters of Anubis agent. If he took a gamble to protect you and Isla, then it was no more than what any of us would have done to protect the people we care about.”

“Why did he bother leaving if it was all going to come full-circle?” Balt asked. “Why America? Why Shifters of Anubis?” A frustrated noise tore from his throat and I suddenly could sense the same tsunami-like frenzy inside of Balt that was drowning me. “He should have told me about our family and its messed-up history.” He paused. “I guess we know why Isla wasn’t born a shifter.”

“Maybe,” I said, unwilling to admit I was thinking that. “So, why did you mention her?”

Balt glanced away. “It wasn’t intentional, but then it seemed worthwhile.”

“You shouldn’t have done that Balt – what if they track her down?” I asked through gritted teeth. “It wouldn’t take much to dig through our immediate connections and find her.”

“They won't do anything to her,” Balt said tiredly.

“Balt, someone was willing to pay money to mate with her! Or do you not remember the very pleasant events that led us to this moment right here?” I snarled sarcastically, my temper snapping in half. “Do you not recall how the Parasite himself said someone was willing to pay for Kazan blood? Isla’s blood? Now that she’s a shifter, don’t you think maybe they’d want her more?”

He didn’t answer and I knotted my fists at my sides.

“After all that to protect Isla – everything you and I did, off-books, risking our lives and our jobs – before we even knew she was your cousin, Balt.” My voice was cracking now and I closed my eyes, thinking back on the day I put my plan into motion to spirit Isla to Maui under Kai’s care. “How could you put Isla in new danger – all without so much as a thought?”

It hadn’t been easy to get Isla out of LA. If we’d been caught by SoA or the TLO, it was all over. But Balt and I had both agreed it was the best idea we could think of. Eerily elegant and simple to execute. One of the worst parts was asking my most trusted teammates to also risk their jobs to assist us. However, it didn’t compare to asking Kai.

The blank look on his face when I asked him to come to LA. The anger and terror on his face as I explained what the TLO was up to. Promising to have him in and out in one day.

Bringing Kai to LA to extract her. The fear humming through my body every moment he was there. The mingled relief and regret when I saw them off.

Finding out who Isla really was that night in the desert. The frantic moments when we thought she was going to die. My hand, holding the needle.

A gasp escaped me and I fell to my knees on that beach in Greece.

But I was there. I was back in the desert. My vision blurred as I looked at the needle to Isla, to her blood and Kai’s shaking body. Then I looked up and met Balt’s eyes. His jaw was tight and he’d nodded. Reassuring me. My brother held Isla, with a broken, desperate look on his face.

If this doesn’t work… I’d thought, my hand still as I plunged it into her spine.

Isla’s scream echoed in my ears and I let out a whimper of pain.

What have I done?

Someone was shaking me and I gasped as I realized I wasn’t in the desert. I was on the beach and Balt was kneeling in front of me. His hands were on my shoulders and he was asking me questions I couldn’t hear.

I flinched away. “Don’t touch me, please.”

I sensed him falling back. “You know I would never give up Isla – not even in exchange for a cure.” Balt paused and stared at me. “Did you just have a flashback? You were saying her name…”

“No, I… I know that Balty," I whispered. "There are so many strings that tie the two of us and I feel like right now I’m being strangled by them.” And by you. “It’s too much…”

My fears around him seemed to have exponentially exploded. He’d been a different person in that room with his grandmother. Suddenly, I was afraid of the darkness inside of Balt. Afraid it would swallow him whole. Balty, my best friend, who’d always risen to greet the day and any challenge with a smile.

But everything that had happened in his life was rising like a storm around us.

It’s too much for you, Balt.

It wasn’t so much doubt, no. It was wondering how much one person could take – even for someone as strong as Balt – before they broke.

For deep down in my gut, I had the sense that Kyría Kazan wasn’t done yet. Whatever else she had in store for her grandson, and perhaps me, it wouldn’t be anything we were expecting.

The image of a gold butterfly, pinned down and struggling, had kept appearing in my mind while inside of that terrible room. Kyría had given me a look like she knew it too. Knew that I was filled with a sense of utter and complete helplessness.

Me, Piper Weslark, without a plan or an idea of how to help.

A genius outsmarted by a madwoman.

It was why I had fled. And I still wanted to keep running.

For some inexplicable reason, I suddenly wished my brother was there. Kai was a genius, too – though you'd never know it sometimes – but I felt he could have easily taken her on.

Either way, I needed to be sort through my thoughts. Standing up, I didn't look at Balt as I began to back away.

“I’m sorry Balt, I need some space – some time alone,” I said quietly.

“Pipla,” he said in a soft voice, his own pain aching through and calling to mine.

Biting my lip, I looked back and saw he was rising to his feet. His arms were open, begging me to come back to him, but I took another step and shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, turning and running.

The fesootai became a band of ice on my wrist, as cold as the tears tracing down my cheeks.

 

The next morning, I stood alone in my room and tried not to think about how this was the first night since Balt and I kissed that we’d spent apart. Even though it was barely three days ago, it felt like a lifetime had passed. Looking in the mirror, I saw a wan and haggard woman staring back.

Maybe we should have talked. Running away doesn’t solve anything.

I wish he was here. I wanted him here when I woke up. I’m sorry Balty.

Picking up my phone, I brought up Kai’s number and then put it down. No need to worry my little brother. At that moment, it began to buzz and I stared in shock as Kai’s name came up. Unable to answer, I watched as it went quiet, then pinged with a voicemail alert.

Am I going to have to choose between my brother and Balt? Came the sudden ugly and unbidden question. Between Shifters of Anubis and the Kazans?

Is the latter what Kyros had to do? Or was it between Shifters of Anubis and the TLO?

Light knocking came at my door and I walked over, the borrowed blue sundress I was wearing swishing around my ankles. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself for Balt. I didn’t know whether I’d cry or yell at him.

It wasn’t Balt, but a small girl with braids and a mischievous smile. Blinking in surprise, I watched as she put a finger to her lips and gestured at me to follow her.

Slipping out, I watched as the girl shifted into a lion cub and darted down the hall. Following suit, I shifted and ran after her. The girl expertly weaved through the house, encountering no one and then raced out into the grounds. We ran through a small grove, which ended abruptly and offered a breathtaking view of the clear teal sea.

Beyond another grove was a small house. Flowers had overtaken the yard and yellow curtains billowed in the windows. The girl darted inside and I shifted back, glancing over my shoulder. The rest of the Kazan estate was lost to view. It was as though we were miles away from it and everything else.

The little girl reappeared, frowning at me and waved a hand. Warily, I followed, not sure what to expect. At the scene inside, my eyebrows rose and I gazed around.

Ten women were assembled inside at a table, with children silently sitting at their feet, standing behind them, or crowded on the counter. All of them resembled Balt in some way and one little boy even could have been his twin, down to his mop of dark curls and wide-eyed gaze.

“Hello,” I said awkwardly in Greek after too long a beat.

Angele and Athena were there, I realized, sitting on either side of a tired-looking woman with a gentle smile. Her blonde hair was streaked with gray and she had warm gray-gold eyes.

“Did you learn Greek for Baltsaros?” she asked in a musical voice.

Surprised, I didn’t answer for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, as a child,” I said, a little stiffly. I didn’t like all these Kazan women eyeing me. If they were all shifters and decided to attack, I wasn’t sure I could fend them off. Lioness packs were notorious fighters.

“Please sit. You are in no danger. We only wish to speak with you,” Angele said.

Sitting down at the empty seat at the end of the table, I glanced around again. The little girl who’d brought me here was standing by my side and regarding me with frank curiosity. At that moment, I saw a black tattoo, just like Balt’s, covering her forearm. Unlike his, however, which was about an inch long, her mark wrapped up around her arm. Something about it sent a faint chill through me – it looked like a poisonous vine – and I looked back up.

“My name is Kalliope,” said the blonde woman at the head of the table. “Auntie Kali, to Baltsaros. So please, call me Kali. I am his father’s older sister.” A smile tugged onto her face. “I hear you are the eldest in your family, so you know what is like to look out for siblings.”

“Well, yes, I have Kai,” I said. “But Soraya, my cousin, she’s technically the oldest.”

“Yes. We’ve heard how fiercely you’ve protected Kai,” Kali said.

Sitting up straight, I stared around. “And what exactly, have you heard?”

The women exchanged indulgent smiles. “Oh, I like her,” murmured one of the older women.

A white-haired woman, tall and bony, smiled. “We are the Decem of the Kazan Lionesses. Ten women who are dedicated to restoring honor to our family name.”

“And we would have your help, Piper,” said another woman, her dark hair bound by a fillet of gold around her head. “In return, we will do anything for you.”

“We made it our business to keep tabs on Baltsaros, Shifters of Anubis and you, Piper. As well as the Frost family,” Kali explained lightly. “You see, there is a history there – one my mother has twisted in her mind to justify the continued use of the Capitis Leonis talisman.” She paused. “But if we were to have it our way – Electra would be the last. And her story would not be a warning.”

“It will be, don’t worry. I’m not afraid, grandmother,” the girl by my side piped up, holding her head up high. “You know that. Right, mom?”

Angele closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, darling, I know that.”

“Piper, I wish I could say the Kazan name was unfairly tarnished, but it wasn’t.” Kali’s face grew somber. “Let me tell you the whole story, then perhaps you will understand.”

Kali began to speak and everyone went still, hanging onto every syllable. She told of a time, four hundred years ago, when the Kazan family went into abrupt decline. Fortunes fell off as inexplicably, fewer and fewer lion shifters were being born. In terror and desperation, to both hide and fix this tragedy, they reached out a well-known historian and alchemist, a man of science whose work often went unappreciated by Shifters of Anubis.

Igor Frost.

I gasped out loud at that, my heart drumming in my chest. Of course, I thought.

By all accounts, Igor was a good man. He agreed to investigate it with them and even look into the rituals of the Kazan ancestors to try to strengthen the bloodline.

Ensuring a babe was born a shifter or turning an inanis into a shifter was never the plan. Yet, Igor accidentally stumbled upon it and reluctantly told the Kazan family.

The head, Nilos Kazan, seized upon it and persuaded his pregnant wife to let him attempt it. A shifter was born to them, with a mark of gold upon his arm. Igor was hailed a hero, though he was horrified. In the next few years, the relationship between the Frosts and the Kazans grew tenuous and strained. Igor warned that this ritual was never meant for this purpose, that they were tampering with powers and lives.

And to do so was sure to curse their own kin.

At first, it was used sparingly, but then demand in the family went up. Kazan shifters were of high repute and many wanted to join the order of Shifters of Anubis.

During that time, the Kazan family had never been more honored or admired. Stories of their prowess spread and the Kazan women were in high demand. Some were even bartered off by their father’s. The family’s lion lineage was growing like a massive tree.

But they were Greeks. And they should have known pride goes before a fall.

Igor died and his work seemed to vanish. Only the story was passed down. But then, some three hundred years later, one Lukas Frost, who was a far shrewder and calculating man than Igor, came up with an idea. He began to demand the Kazan family pay the Frost’s far more, including an annual salary for their work.

After all, only the Kazans were reaping the benefits. Not the Frosts, who’d become a somewhat off-color name in the shifter world. Few were in Shifters of Anubis.

“It was blackmail,” the oldest and grimmest woman at the table said. “And our foolish great-grandfathers gave into it like dogs rolling over.”

“Yes, Ritsa,” Kali agreed, looking amused.

It was around this time that Shifters of Anubis began to grow suspicious as well. From all accounts, it seemed Lukas wasn’t careful in who he told what. Pieces got back to Shifters of Anubis.

When they investigated and found there were sums of money being given to the Frost lineage from the Kazan, with no on-the-book recorded exchange of goods – there was an uproar and a scandal. And the Kazan family tumbled from its high pedestal.

“Both the Frost and Kazan families were exiled from Shifters of Anubis unless they confessed. For our family,” Kali sighed and shook her head. “It was a matter of pride so they agreed to exile, although not everyone was happy with that. But to admit they’d paid an alchemist and his family to ensure the lion-born Kazan legacy continued – that would have destroyed them, apparently.”

“Foolish men,” snorted Ritsa. “My mother told them to confess and come clean. But between the shame and the greed, those men refused.” Her eyes grew sad. “Not that I should speak ill of the dead. One would say they paid their debts.”

“For the Frost family, they cared little of exile,” Kali said. “Their numbers had been dwindling and the family had strange ideas about shifting. I think it was more the fact they thought we should be rulers of the inanis that got them exiled than the money. But it's hard to tell – all of this came out at around the same time.”

I digested this, shaking my head. “And that’s where the rumors of the curse came from?”

Kali’s smile became sad. “No. I’m afraid the curse is all too real. It was as Igor had said.”

“It was difficult to ascertain at first, you must understand, young Piper. Modern medicine has changed the shifter world as it has changed the inanis. And it was also forbidden to be spoken of.” Ritsa rubbed her forehead. “But the black mark tells no lies.”

Angele and Athena both put their arms on the table. Angele’s wrist had a gold mark, twining like a bright splash of sunlight across her skin. But Athena’s was dark and starting to creep to spread, same as Electra's. My stomach knotted with horror.

“None of us knew until it was too late,” Angele said, looking at her daughter.

“We’ve been fighting within the family for the last hundred years about this,” Ritsa said dryly. “Trust me. Some, like my sister-in-law, refuse to acknowledge it. But my mother was one of the first to realize we’d tampered with something we shouldn’t have.”

“So, you’ve stopped?” I asked, glancing between Angele and Athena.

“Yes,” Kali’s face fell. “For now. But for us, it was still too late. Angele was the last bride who used the amulet. You must understand too, the mark tricked us in a way – the gold vine has been in our family since antiquity. According to legend, it appeared when we took up guardianship of Mycenae – a Kazan sacrificed himself. Later, his son, who’d been born an inanis, was granted the honor of going through the ritual. He became a shifter after many trials.

“By some accounts, he may have been the first inanis to become a shifter. After that, the gold tattoo appeared on every shifter, in varying hues from silver to dark, dark gold. When it was black, some were uneasy, but no one thought anything of it.” Kali heaved a sigh. “Not until my brother, Nilos, that is. But he ran out of time before he could discover he was right.”

“After he died, Kyros went to America with Balt.” Ritsa was gazing at me steadily. “With the blessing of the women in this room, we told him to tell Shifters of Anubis the truth. And so, he did, granting him and Balt positions within the Order. Restoring some honor to our name.”

“Our family is in fractions over this, Piper, you must understand,” Kali explained. “It has been a long time. And whoever is Kyría wields a lot of power and influence. My two brothers tried to be devoted sons. But once Nilos realized what his ancestors had done, he set out to find a cure and it put them at odds. Kyros was often in the middle until Nilos died. It changed him.”

Sitting up straight, I asked, “Was he sent to infiltrate the beginnings of the TLO?” It was perfect – I could how Shifters of Anubis would have used Kyros. He was already connected to the Frost family and estranged from his own. With his charm, he could have easily persuaded Lilith Frost to let him help her. And brought in Maria as insurance they were both in.

"Yes," Kali said. "For a long time, he and his wife played the expert double-agent. But once Maria got pregnant, he began to get worried. You must understand – we always kept in contact – but after that, we heard from him less and less. From what I know, the TLO realized that they were double-agents and…” Her throat worked and she bowed her head. “My poor baby brother.”

Heart squeezing, I clenched my hands. “What can I do? What do you want me to do?” I paused. “And why are you telling me this and not Balt?”

“If Balt knew, I’m afraid he might do something reckless,” Kali said. “The Frost family killed his uncle, aunt, and little cousin. Your father wrote me of his pain and how he overcame it. But I see my brother in him and Nilos was single-minded in protecting the family, as Kyros was.”

“It is a lot, girl, what we are going to ask you,” Ritsa said suddenly. “But we know how much you care for Balt. How we are alike when it comes to our family and those we love.”

“We lionesses have our contacts around the world. Spies and friends alike,” Athena said. “From America to England and even France. We know things about the TLO because of old connections and old money. Things Shifters of Anubis may not.”

Silence fell for a moment, then Kali spoke, her voice shaking somewhat. “The last words Kyros ever sent me was that he’d found a way to break the curse.”

I gasped, my heart leaping one moment, then falling the next.

I knew what the Decem would ask of me.

Frost’s voice was an icy whisper at my neck.

Don’t be late – you’re already running out time. And you’d do anything for Balt, wouldn’t you?