The Shifting Storm (Book 4)

by Jeff Hale

  She stopped her movement, looking up at me, and while her eyes weren’t as dark as they usually got when she was close to her beast, they were awfully damned close. She was breathing heavy, her chest pushing at the fabric of her blue t-shirt and I tried not to let it distract me.

  “Nothing,” she snarled, “nothing you need to worry about.”

  Once again, I got the impression she was not mad at me, but at someone or something else. “Bullshit. Don’t give me that. You come back home, pissed as hell, to the point where you’re breaking things, so, yeah, I’m going to worry about it.” I reached out to place a hand on her shoulder and she batted it away. I felt the tiniest bit of static electricity as her hand briefly connected with mine.

  “I wouldn’t do that right now, Darien,” she said evenly, still breathing hard, and I realized that she was working with some barely controlled rage.

  “What happened?” I repeated. A thought came to me. “Fuck. Nina didn’t do anything, say anything, did she? I swear I’ll—” I broke off my words as, unexpectedly, Kat shoved me, hard. I stumbled, catching myself before I ended up in the middle of the dining table.

  “Jesus Christ, Kat!” I just stared at her, utterly confused, and now just a little bit worried. Her eyes were so dark they were almost black now and I wasn’t even sure that she actually saw me. She dropped into a crouch that had her poised on the balls of her feet, ready to spring.

  “She won’t take what’s mine!” I heard Kat growl under her breath, right before she launched herself at me.

  I dodged out of the way, into the living room, heard the soft thump of her landing, and turned to see her balanced on all fours in the middle of the dining room table. It didn’t even so much as wobble.

  I thought vaguely about shutting her down, locking her out from her abilities, something I could do as her Alpha, but she hadn’t shifted yet. I opened the empathic pack channel, just enough to encompass the room, reached out to touch her mind, felt seething fury, betrayal, and behind it, almost driven out by the other two, lust. I also felt Alex and realized he was still on the couch watching television, studiously ignoring us.

  I decided against shutting her down. She was using what little control she had left to keep herself from shifting, and I didn’t want to take away what she had left to her to keep herself from getting hurt if she did something stupid.

  She dove at me again, the table barely even moving as she leapt off of it, and this time I didn’t move. We could play cat and mouse all over the damned apartment and out into the streets if I really wanted, but it wasn’t going to get whatever it was out of her system. It wasn’t like she could really hurt me anyway.

  She’d been aiming for my legs when she dove and she hit me in the knees, her momentum knocking me onto my ass on the floor as she came up to circle me, graceful in her actions even if she was using both her hands and feet to move.

  “Kat, you need to calm down, talk to me,” I said levelly, doing my best not to antagonize her further.

  She froze, and I could see a mix of pain and hatred cross her face. I felt the hair on my arms and the nape of my neck stand on end and the lights flickered for a few moments before shining bright again. She threw herself at me again, landing on my chest and sliding us into the back of the couch.

  “Hey, be careful would you!” Alex chided from the couch.

  Kat had one foot on the floor, one on my stomach, one hand on my chest, the other on the floor next to my head, her head tilted to the side as she stared at me with such agony in her eyes that it made me want to kill whoever had put it there.

  Little electric tingles coursed unpleasantly through my body, almost to the point of being painful, and there was a slight scent of ozone to the air. I remembered that she had done something to Grimm that had hurt him, if only briefly, and that she had changed into that little dragon again; remembered that I was dealing with someone who was obviously something more than shifter.

  Shit.

  “A little help here, Alex, if you could,” I asked hopefully.

  My words provoked a response out of Kat again, and she brought the hand on the floor up to rake it across my face, scoring me with her fingernails, a noise somewhere between a snarl, a growl, and a hiss coming from her.

  I grabbed her wrists, rolled her, but she managed to get her feet under her so that even though I had her pinned on the floor, she was in a little ball, knees against her chest, feet planted against my belly.

  “Oh, bloody hell no!” I heard from the other side of the couch. “I wasn’t the one stupid enough to harass her when she was obviously in a foul temper! You can just deal with her yourself and I’ll sit back and laugh if she kicks your ass.”

  Great.

  She growled at me again, pushing at me with her feet, kicking at me, until I stood, yanking her with me, spinning us both until I had her back against the living room wall.

  “Kat! Talk to me!” I demanded. “What is wrong?”

  Her head snapped up and there were angry tears in her eyes, but I still had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t seeing me.

  “How could you?!” she wailed at me, struggling against my grip and kicking me in the shins, multiple times.

  Her back arched against the wall as she tried to break free of me, and the electric tingles I was still feeling actually began to hit my nerves painfully, making me twitch. She managed to get an arm free and she swung it wildly, hitting me in the shoulder, trying to scratch me again, her feet actually on my knees now as she tried to push me away from her.

  “How could you, how could you, how could you?!” she cried again as I recaptured her hand, the anguish in her voice tearing at me. “And with her!”

  Shit. Fuck. Damn.

  Maybe it was me she was mad at after all, maybe she had tried to be forgiving of the whole Nina thing and it had been eating at her. “I’m sorry, Kat, I am, I thought we’d gotten past that, you know I love you—”

  She stilled, her whole body going rigid, eyes wide, and something glowed in them, something that sparked. “No, you don’t,” she whispered, a strange and unnerving quality to her voice, “or you would have never left me. You both left me.”

  She convulsed against the wall and I cried out in pain as electricity poured through me, arcing from me back through her and into the wall behind her. I heard the pop and sizzle as the outlets blew, smelled the scent that only comes from fried electrical wiring, heard glass crack from the television, and the lights went out, leaving the room lit only by the late afternoon sun coming in through the kitchen and patio windows.

  She went limp with a little soft sound and I staggered backwards, bent over double as I tried to catch my breath, felt my heart trying to beat in the right sequence again. I wasn’t sure the jolt would have been enough to have been lethal, even on a regular human, but it still fucking hurt.

  I heard movement from the couch and felt a hand touch my back, quickly pulled away as Alex received a light residual shock.

  “You okay?” he asked, an odd note to his voice.

  “Not really,” I panted, my body still tingling. “Kat.” I went to move toward her, lifting my head.

  “Be careful,” Alex said at the same time, just as I heard a warning growl.

  Kat lay in a little heap at the base of the wall, not moving, although I could see her side rise and fall as she breathed.

  But the growl hadn’t come from her.

  It had come from a wolf made of black smoke that had curled itself protectively around her. It nuzzled Kat with its muzzle, a little whine coming from it before turning its head to regard me and Alex with eerie glowing blue eyes that felt like they pulled at my soul.

  “Gentlemen, I think we need to talk.”

  The voice had sounded it my head, but I knew it had come from that wolf, and by the intake of breath from Alex I knew he had heard it too.

  “Uh, before or after we call the fire department?” Alex asked nervously.

  The wolf cocked his head for a moment. �
��Not necessary. The outlets are toast, so’s your TV and your laptop there, and the lights that were plugged in. The neighbors on either side might have been affected, but there’s no fire.” He nuzzled Kat again, then stood and took her wrist in his jaw, clamping down firmly, and began to slowly drag her across the carpet by her arm, toward the couch.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” I demanded, moving towards them and wincing in pain, Alex next to me.

  He kept pulling her. “Well, neither of you two idiots seemed to be in a hurry to get her off the floor and somewhere a bit more comfortable so I took it upon myself to. Sue me if I can’t exactly pick her up.”

  I bit back a retort, not sure what exactly I was dealing with in this wolf. I scooped Kat up and took her the rest of the way to the couch, where I sat down with her cradled against me. Her skin was cool to the touch, almost clammy, which was alarming for a shifter.

  Alex took up a spot on the opposite arm of the couch, while the wolf came right up, put his paws on the edge of the couch and rested his head on her stomach. I reached out tentatively to touch him, letting him see my movement the whole time, and my fingers passed right through him.

  He snorted. “I only affect the corporeal things that I want to.”

  I stroked Kat’s cheek, felt her sigh.

  “So who—or what—are you? And what the bloody hell just happened?” Alex asked bluntly.

  “My name is Talon and I’m the kitten’s… familiar, for want of a better word.”

  “You mean, like a wizard’s familiar?” I asked.

  His ears stood up straight. “Woooeee, no! If she was a Wizard on top of being a shifter… damn, that would be… well, yeah, no.”

  Kat moved a little, her hand sliding down to rest on Talon’s head. It didn’t pass through him, stayed there as though she were petting the family dog.

  “However,” the wolf continued, “as you have just seen and she’s known about for quite some time now, she does have access to sorcerer powers—”

  “Like Aerick?” I was a bit surprised.

  “Her previous boyfriend?” Talon asked after a moment. “No, that would be rather nasty as well. He’s a Sentinel, right?”

  “That’s what Kat said.”

  “No, her powers are… weaker… than that,” the wolf said.

  “Weaker? That didn’t seem all that weak to me,” I protested. My skin felt like I was covered all over with a sunburn.

  “That was only because of her state of mind at the time. I told her earlier that she needs to get proper training...” The wolf sighed. “Honestly, it could have been worse. I think the only reason it wasn’t was because of the control you shifters have to learn so that you can keep a leash on your animal. Otherwise…” He let the thought trail off but I got the idea.

  “You mentioned training?”

  “Yes, and that’s the only reason I made my presence known to you two, so you can help steer her towards it. She mentioned this woman, a Bianca Haid, who’s a sorcerer and apparently teaches some class Kat took. Kat says she’s seen the woman a couple of times about this, but she was thinking about not going back. You need to convince her to go back, for Kat’s safety as well as everybody else’s.”

  Talon got to all fours, placed his nose briefly against Kat’s cheek then said, “She’ll be fine in a little while, she just overtaxed herself. Well, I’ll be in touch,” before disappearing in front of our eyes.

  I let out a breath, watching Kat’s face as she slept. “Well that was—”

  “Weird?” Alex finished for me.

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “A sorcerer too? I mean, I know it happens occasionally, that’s how we get our shamans after all, but I didn’t think—” I broke off.

  “Why not?” Alex asked me. “You’ve seen her turn into that dragon.”

  “But I’ve never heard of one of our shamans who could do that, and I had no clue about this.” I indicated the blown out television with my chin. “Did you?”

  He gave me a clipped nod and I felt a pang of jealousy go through me that Kat would share something that important with him and not with me. “She told you and not me? Why?”

  “I don’t know, other than I reckon she’s been trying to keep it under wraps as much as possible. Maybe she was afraid you would think there was something wrong with her.” He turned his head at the sound of his cell phone going off in his bedroom. “Be right back.” He walked off to his room.

  I stared down at Kat. Why had she kept it from me? She knew I had seen the dragon, knew I knew that wasn’t a normal shifter ability, so why hide this?

  She stirred, twitching as though she were dreaming about something, then rolled onto her side, pulling her knees up into her body and burying her face against my stomach before sighing and relaxing against me.

  Alex came out of his room, snapping his cell phone shut and sliding it into his jeans pocket and for some reason he was giving me a troubled look. He sat back down on the arm of the couch and glanced at Kat.

  “That was Nina,” he said, still looking at Kat.

  Wonderful.

  “What’d the little bitch want?” Nina was under my protection, still my responsibility, but that didn’t mean I had to like her after what she had done.

  “Believe it or not, she called to make sure Katie was okay.” He glanced up at me with only his eyes, that concerned look there again.

  “Really,” I said sarcastically. “Wait, is she the reason that Kat was so riled up?”

  “Partially.”

  “Partially?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He blew out a breath. “Apparently, Aerick is back in town and Katie saw him.”

  I felt as though someone had hit me. With a truck.

  Of course, with being in Vegas, and knowing it was Aerick’s stomping grounds, it was only inevitable that he would eventually return. I had just hoped we would be long gone before then.

  “There’s more,” Alex offered up, grimacing slightly.

  I tensed. “Do I really want to know?” She had been gone for a while, she was a cat shifter, and I knew she still had feelings for him. So help me, if Aerick slept with Kat I will kill him… slowly.

  “Maybe, might help things make more sense.”

  I braced myself and nodded at him to continue.

  He coughed lightly. “Turns out not only did Katie see Aerick, but she walked in on him fucking Nina.”

  I’ll kill him. I’ll peel his flesh from his body while he’s still alive and I’ll… “Wait. You said he was fucking Nina?”

  “Yeah.”

  I brushed hair back from Kat’s face, sighed again as I looked at her. I understood, or at least I thought I did. I remembered how enraged I had been, knowing that Kat was sleeping with Aerick, how every kiss, every hug, every touch they shared had hurt so bad I wanted to destroy things. If I had actually seen them in the act of having sex, had watched her touching him that way, I’m not sure what I would have done, but I was pretty sure it would have ended up in either myself or Aerick dead.

  “Can’t that little trollop keep her knees together?” I asked angrily, loudly, my voice disturbing Kat.

  “I don’t think so,” Alex said ruefully.

  I pulled Kat into a tight hug and murmured, “I’m sorry, baby,” against her hair.

  She made a muffled noise against my shirt and I let her go. “Oh, uck, your shirt smells like someone left a hot iron on it.” Her voice was soft, a bit breathy, as though she didn’t have all her strength back yet.

  She was right about the shirt, although I hadn’t noticed until now that the cloth was a little on the singed side. She gave me a tired smile, which suddenly faded and she turned her face away from me, trying to roll off the couch.

  “No, stay,” I said softly, holding her there, but willing to let her go if she fought me. “I know what happened, I know you saw Aerick and Nina.”

  She froze, then her whole body started to shake as she began to cry, big gulping sobs that wracked her whole frame. Alex got up, starte
d to leave, but I shook my head, gesturing that he should slide in next to me on the couch. He looked surprised, but did as I asked, settling Kat’s legs across his lap and stroking her shins through the denim. She needed more support than just me right now; she needed her pack.

  Alex mouthed the word ‘Kris’ at me and I nodded. He carefully dug his cell phone out of his pocket and sent an awkward one handed text. A minute later the phone chimed an incoming text, he read it, and gave me a nod, dropping the phone somewhere on the couch cushions.

  Kat was still crying, noisy, heart wrenching sounds that let me know that no matter how much I might hate the man, no matter how much I’d love to see him bloody and torn at my feet, the life fading out of him, I would never be able to actually kill him, if I even could, because I would never cause her the pain that his death would bring.

  She had quieted down by the time Kris got there, still lying cradled across myself and Alex. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t tried to move again, had just cried until she was hoarse and lain there.

  We heard the light knock on the door, the handle turn as Kris let herself in. She stood there, staring at the three of us on the couch for a moment before her eyes darted around the rest of the room, seeing the television screen and the ruin of my laptop.

  “What the hell happened here?” she asked, dropping her purse on the floor and coming to kneel on the carpet in front of Kat.

  “She blew a fuse… literally,” Alex joked half-heartedly.

  Kris sighed, peering into Kat’s face. “But she said she was training with Ms. Haid.”

  “Did everybody but me know?” I asked sullenly. “Alex knew, you knew, some damned ghost wolf showed up—”

  “Talon let you see him?”

  I bit back a response.

  Alex answered her instead. “Yeah, he said she has sorcerer abilities, which is not unheard of in shifters, just rare, and that since she wasn’t trained, and something had her really upset, she kinda went boom.”