Calm Before the Storm

by Cara Lake

  Tyr felt the inexplicable draw again. How ironic to feel something now when for so long he had felt only numb and desensitised, devoid of any real emotion. The thumping in his chest increased its rhythm again as he thought about her return. Would she come back or would she see him as a lost cause and hand him over to someone else? The truth was he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He couldn’t explain Sal’s death away because he didn’t understand it himself. He needed to get out of here, confront Abrasax and fight for some answers. He felt the stirrings of a plan as his brain began to puzzle out a strategy. He was only sorry that he might not get to see those beautiful amber eyes again.

  * * * * *

  “How did it go?”

  Irina jumped in her chair as Cassi’s voice encroached on dangerous thoughts that kept on resurfacing, no matter how hard she tried to push them away. “Sorry, I was just thinking about a case. How did what go?”

  Cassi entered Irina’s office her eyes narrowing. “Famous celebrity in jail for murder. Seriously do I even need to ask?”

  “Oh that.” Irina struggled to sound casual. Even now those dark eyes were hovering over her, the sheer magnetism of his gaze impossible to escape. “It was fine. He wouldn’t talk though.”

  “Odd.” Cassi was frowning at her as if searching for something in her expression. “You usually have better luck.”

  “I know, but he’s…he’s really, really…stubborn.” And infuriating. And sexy, don’t forget sexy. No! Do forget sexy. “He’s definitely hiding something but I don’t know what.”

  “Are you going back tomorrow?”

  Irina sighed. “I guess, although, if he doesn’t start talking to me soon maybe someone else should take on the case.”

  Cassi perched herself on the edge of the desk. “I could come with you tomorrow, as backup.”

  Irina snorted. “Good lawyer, bad lawyer. Which do you want to be?”

  “Oh you know me; I can be very, very bad or very, very good!” Cassi laughed. “It all depends on the situation. Now, for Tyr Bellor I might be persuaded to be very, very bad and I’ll just bet he’ll be very, very good.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Those biceps! Mmmm, imagine all that raw muscle, oh and have you noticed his lips? They are lickable!”

  “Cassi!” Irina was indignant. “He’s a client not a candy shop!” Her cheeks burned at the thought of Cassi doing very bad things with Tyr Bellor. No, no way. That would not be happening. She would need to keep Cassi away. He was hers…her client. No one else’s.

  Cassi gave her a smirk. “Oh and I suppose you haven’t thought about him in that way and your newspaper clippings were just for posterity—ouch!” A stress ball bounced off the side of her head. Cassi picked it up and quirked an eyebrow at Irina. “Nice shot. Do you know you’re blushing, glowing in fact?”

  “Cassi! Will you stop! He’s just a client. Now go, I’ve got work to do.”

  Cassi jumped off the desk. “I’ll go and leave you to your daydreaming. Who knew that you were pining over a boxer?” She ducked out of the room grinning before Irina had the chance to get another shot on target.

  * * * * *

  Cassi left Irina’s office and immediately made a beeline for Merak’s. Her grin fading to concern, she entered to find Merak concentrating on a pile of paperwork. He looked up as she came toward him, his smile disappearing as he gauged her mood. “What’s happened?”

  “Irina.” That one word was enough. “Details?” he asked.

  “Her aura is glowing, pulsing. The pale-blue color has intensified, it’s deeper, richer. Merak,” she whispered unsteadily, voicing the miracle she thought to be true. “I think Irina has met her duality.”

  Merak took the news more calmly than Cassi had expected. Irina’s aura, the signature trail that marked her as special and proclaimed the existence of the unique essence she held, could only be seen by trained eyes. For years Cassi had monitored any fluctuations waiting for change but expecting none. Now Irina’s aura was enhanced, the first sign that she had come into contact with the individual who held the opposing essence. Her duality. Her other half.

  “Is it who I think it is?” She knew Merak asked the question hoping that it wasn’t true. Cassi’s nod confirmed their worst fears. It seemed that Tyr Bellor, like Irina, potentially held an essence that made his existence of fundamental importance to her, the one man in the universe who would prove to be either a blessing or a curse. Their meeting was one Merak and Cassi had hoped for but never thought to see, because in a universe this large, the probability that two such beings would ever meet was miniscule. But when they did, there were always fireworks.

  “Has the Taijitu appeared?” Merak asked. The Taijitu mark, the yin-yang symbol of balance would only appear on their skin to confirm their pairing after close contact of a special kind. Not the kind of contact Irina would indulge in after just one meeting.

  “No, they haven’t gotten that close yet.” Cassi laughed. “You know Irina. Little Miss Caution. She’ll need a push in that direction. I’ve been trying for years to hook her up with Luc, just in case he was the one but you know she’s never taken the bait.”

  Merak frowned. This was of vital importance. An essential aspect of their role as Irina’s protectors was to nurture the connection between duality pairs. “Any ideas on how get the ball rolling in that direction?”

  Cassi smiled. “She’s already a little proprietary. My guess is that a little jealousy will go a long way. There is something holding her back though. I’m not sure what it is. I’ll go with her tomorrow and get confirmation.”

  “Okay.” Merak sighed. They both knew that whatever decisions were made now, Irina’s fate was on a knife edge. Cassi knew he loved Irina as if she were his own child but he had to let fate run its course no matter how much he wanted to protect her. “I’ll inform the Concordia,” he said, referring to the council of elders who directed their cause. “Do what you can to keep her safe. I have to wonder why we didn’t know about Bellor before now.”

  “I think there must be a shield in place, which would mean he’s already been identified by the enemy.” Cassi voiced his fears out loud.

  “That’s a major concern,” he said. “Get back to me as soon as you can. Once the Taijitu marks are confirmed we’ll need to begin extraction procedures and get our shielding fortified because if that’s the case, it’ll only be a matter of time before they find Irina now.”

  Chapter Four

  Tyr Bellor sat silently in the interview room. Waiting. It seemed like the longest wait of his life. Then he felt it, a sudden bristling of electricity in the air, a vibration threading into the pores of his skin and entwining his gut. She was here again.

  He fixed his eyes on the door from his slouched position in the chair, his stomach churning in disappointment as an unfamiliar blonde entered the room. So Miss Columba had been defeated, and she wasn’t coming back. Crash and burn. Why should he care? She was nothing to him after all. But she could have been. And he could feel her. She was here somewhere. So close…

  Tyr examined the new lawyer warily, annoyed at her presence and at himself for the aching sense of emptiness in his chest, exacerbated by the knowledge that the little dove was near but had sent another in her place. Perhaps he should have given her something yesterday, some details of Sal’s death. He couldn’t understand why it galled him so much that he was disappointed by her lack of persistence. He had expected her to return. There had been an indescribable connection, his whole body acknowledging a sense of familiarity with her. Had she not felt it too?

  The blue-eyed blonde appraised him silently. He supposed she was attractive if you liked blonde, blue-eyed Barbie types. Tyr slumped back even further, eyes hooded, arms crossed, chin to chest. Amber eyes and chocolate curls were much more to his taste.

  The blonde finally spoke. “Good morning, Mr. Bellor, my name is Miss Shedir. I’m a colleague of Miss Columba whom you met yesterday.” He kept his expression neutral knowing he couldn’t afford to give a
nything away. He needed to stay focused and not be distracted by thoughts of pretty, petite lawyers.

  Cassi Shedir surveyed Tyr Bellor resigned to the fact that her current assignment had turned a very dangerous corner. He was throwing up a wall, a defensive barricade she would have to breach, because unfortunately the essence he radiated was exactly the kind she had been searching for. Assaulting her instantly when she entered the room, it swirled out from his muscular frame, a barrage of skirmishing waves producing a relentless volley of aggressive power that left her in little doubt he was the one.

  It was written all over him, the signature aura that proclaimed him to be a unique individual. Just like Irina, Bellor was an Esseni, and Cassi should know, having discovered many Esseni potentials during her very long existence. Unique and very rare, they could come from any race in the known galaxy and were notoriously difficult to find, but discovering Esseni was merely the first part of a very difficult journey and one that rarely led to a happy outcome.

  The potential of Esseni to house the essence of one of the necessary yin-yang dualities such as, Love and Hate, Life and Death, and Cassi’s current mission, War and Peace, made them extremely valuable. If not held in check, they could inflict immense damage to the delicate nature of The Balance, their essences needing to be aligned, reset and bonded in equal measures, a process that occurred every eight hundred years during the time of Realignment. And that time was now.

  As an elite warrior of the Eunomi Alliance, Cassi was charged with fighting for The Balance in a continual effort to maintain order in the fabric of the universe. For nearly three thousand millennia she had defended Esseni potentials from their adversaries, the Discordants, who also sought to use them, but for the exact opposite reasons. In the battle between the Eunomi and the Discordants, Esseni played a major role, and as Cassi knew only too well, an Esseni such as Tyr Bellor in Discordant hands would be a catastrophe.

  Cassi appraised Tyr Bellor with a shrewd eye. Her mission this time had just gotten harder if the look he was now giving her was anything to go by. Not for the first time she wondered despairingly why the Esseni were always so complicated. They invariably had issues. Was it too much to ask that just for once they were normal, ordinary, stable people? Not a hope in hell as evidenced by the scowling individual now giving her the evil eye.

  All Eunomi warriors were trained in wiccani light magick, and over time, Cassi had honed her ability to read Esseni signatures. Ignoring the hostile vibrations rolling in her direction, Cassi focused her energy on Bellor’s aura. Concentrating hard, she traced the faint glow of light oscillating around his body. Radiating a dark red that fluctuated and hummed with a powerful dominant energy, it was enough to indeed confirm that he was absolutely Irina’s partner yin-yang duality. Her complete opposite. Now if she could just instigate the Taijitu yin-yang symbol to appear on their skin by getting them to kiss she would have irrefutable proof of the pairing!

  Panic flared through her as realization struck. Oh my god! How in hell was this going to work? Parked in front of her was two hundred and forty pounds of raw, masculine muscle. Hard and uncompromising. He could crush Irina with one fist if he wanted to. And Irina…Irina was so…innocent! How could she push her dearest friend, her sister in all but blood toward this beast of a male? Cassi swallowed. Some days she hated her job.

  Cassi sighed out loud as she sat down on the chair. Looking at Tyr Bellor’s belligerently militant expression, she wondered again if it was possible for such opposites to attract. She only knew that they had to, because if they did not then the whole universe was going to suffer. Just like last time.

  “Miss Columba will be joining us in a moment. She is just taking a call relating to Mrs. Black. I believe you wanted to speak to her?” Cassi thought she caught a flicker of interest in his eyes at the mention of Irina’s name. But he remained immobile, dark eyes glaring frostily ahead. “We need to go over some of the details with you, like why your prints are on the murder weapon.”

  At that moment, Tyr sat up straight, his muscles tightening like a coiled spring. Cassi waited expecting him to reply. He didn’t speak. Instead the door opened and Irina walked in. Tyr immediately stood. Interesting. He appears to have sensed Irina’s presence.

  A sudden buzz of static engulfed the space around her, and Cassi realized she was holding her breath as the tension between her friend and the boxer, emanated in ripples, slicing through the air and bouncing back from the walls. Yep. Targets confirmed. A definite Esseni pairing. And some very encouraging vibes! Now, how to resolve the situation and bring them together when the big man was for all intents and purposes, jailbound.

  Irina and her boxer still had not spoken, remaining frozen as Cassi felt something spark between them. A throaty interruption as she coughed and the sizzling dissipated to a low buzz. She broke the ice, turning to Irina. “Did you speak to Merak?”

  “Ahh…he a…he asked if you could you call him back,” Irina stammered. Her cheeks were flushed and she wobbled slightly. “There are some forensic details he wants to run by you.”

  “Sure, I’ll take it outside while you two catch up.” Cassi came to her feet, glancing at Tyr as she left. “Make the most of your time together,” she said and winked at him.

  Returning a few minutes later, Cassi couldn’t help but wonder what she had missed. Sexual tension spiraled through the air, its energy practically supernova and the visual proof of this Esseni pairing was even stronger now, the distinct colors of their auras intensifying right before her eyes. Tyr’s aura burned a deep red, denoting strength, power, survival and competitiveness; Irina’s, in contrast, was a haze of soft blue, peace and tranquility.

  This could be much less difficult than it had initially appeared. Maybe they had already kissed. If so the Taijitu marks would soon appear. They were obviously attracted to each other so how to keep them together, create a bond? Cassi’s brain began to turn over possible scenarios.

  Irina was grateful for Cassi’s return. She still couldn’t believe what had just happened. The moment she walked into the room her skin had felt aflame. The tingling sensation that had been with her since she entered the police station had increased to a crescendo, as if millions of tiny volts of electricity were playing across her body in joyous expectation. She knew Cassi was in the room somewhere but she had dissolved into nothingness and Irina could only register the broad shape of the man with black eyes, his ebony hair curling to kiss the caramel skin of his neck. A couple of loose strands fell across his brow as he stood, and Irina’s only thought at that moment was that she was face to face with a beautiful, primal being of pure masculinity. Under the nondescript gray vest his muscles flexed with all the grace of a predator and she was completely ensnared, prey to a stalking marauder. Beguiled and bewitched. Oh my god…I am roadkill!

  She had watched Cassi wink at Tyr when she left but had little time to wonder what that meant. Her gaze was drawn immediately back to his face.

  “I’m afraid we have been unable to contact Mrs. Black,” Irina forced herself to say as she walked toward him. “Mr. Abrasax, the owner of your gym, has been helping us try to locate her and her family, but no one has seen them since last week.”

  As she drew level with him beside the desk, her mind was in a trance. She knew what she was saying was important but she couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything other than his face, his lips. Ripples of calm swept a caress across her bare flesh as she turned her face upward waiting for his response. His response when it came was unexpected.

  He kissed her.

  Soft, so soft! Irina felt the featherlight brush of his lips against hers, too shocked at the time to do anything other than acquiesce. The moment had lasted a bare second, the warmth gone in an instant and Irina could only mourn its passing. Tyr had stood so close to her, not touching but all the while she could feel the indelible imprint where his mouth had branded hers.

  Her head barely reached his chest and she reeled back slightly as a wave of lighthead
edness swept over her. Tyr’s hand made contact with her arm as he steadied her slight form, drawing her forward toward his heat. Irina began to sink in, but then drew back quickly, suddenly aghast at her reaction as the awareness of just who and what he was, flashed into her brain. Criminal. Murderer. Thug. She had forced herself away, wrenching her body around behind the safety of the desk.

  Magnet. Repel. Attract.

  “What was that?” she almost squeaked, trying to sound indignant, and when she brought her eyes back to his face she was surprised to see that Tyr appeared almost as horrified as she was. The look was fleeting. His black eyes burned even darker, if that were possible. “The beginning.” The deep growl of his voice had thrummed through her veins, a vibration of intent.

  Irina swallowed. He was just too much.

  Too intense. Too strong. Too overwhelming.

  She knew she needed to get away before this weird compulsion she was experiencing toward him caused her to do something she would later regret. Her eyes drank in the broad width of his shoulders, the smooth tan skin stretched over hard muscle that caused somersaults in her chest every time they flexed. But he’s so gorgeous, beautiful… No! No! No! Mustn’t think that!

  Instead she’d replied unsteadily, “I think it’s the end.”

  “Is the dove going to fly away again?”

  “Mr. Bellor.” She paused, took a breath trying to be professional, controlled. “We’re not getting anywhere with your case. I really think it would be better if I hand it over to someone else. Miss Shedir can handle it.” Irina eyed him warily, the desk a protection she was profoundly grateful for.

  “But can she handle me?” he queried, “and do you want her to?” There was a distinct teasing note in his voice.

  “I…” But Irina had no chance to gather her disordered thoughts as Cassi had chosen that moment to walk back into the room. It was her chance to escape.