The wind picked up, and Axel closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the way the wind ruffled his fur. Right here, right now, he could imagine that life was perfect.
Then the wind died down again, and Axel opened his eyes, coming back to reality. He and Whisper should get going. Yes, they had found the fairytassle sage ahead of schedule, but there was still a lot to do. The poison needed to be made, and Axel and Whisper needed to figure out how to best get that poison across the tunnel and to the Gilt Hollow resistance shifters without being caught.
With a low growl, he caught Whisper’s attention. She nodded at him, understanding that it was time for their little side trip to be over. She followed him as he started running back down the hill, this time at a slower, easier pace. He didn’t feel like rushing the time he had left out here any more than necessary.
Even after he and Whisper were back in human form, once again dressed in hiking clothes and trudging along with their backpacks, the two of them didn’t say much. It’s as though they were both holding onto the magic of their time in the forest as long as possible, and they worried that saying anything would break the magic spell.
They took their time, and stopped for lunch. It was late afternoon by the time they reached town again, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before they both would be due at the bar to work, but Axel reluctantly bid goodbye to Whisper in the meantime. He hated the thought of being away from her even for an hour or two, which he knew was ridiculous. If he was smart, he would go home and take a nap while he could. It was a long, long time before bedtime still, and he was once again starting to feel the fatigue of staying up nearly the entire night.
Still, he watched Whisper walk away until she disappeared around the corner of a small hut. Only then did he turn to start walking toward his own home. But he didn’t get very far.
He had only taken a few steps when a familiar figure suddenly jumped in front of him, arms crossed in anger.
“Violet?” he stammered out in surprise. She’d cut him off so unexpectedly that he nearly ran smack into her.
“Well, hello, Axel. I’ve been wondering where you were all day, but now I see quite clearly.”
Axel frowned, his confusion only growing. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you coming out of the forest with her.”
“With Whisper?”
“Yes, with Whisper. You two spend an awful lot of time together.”
“Well of course we do. We’re friends. And coworkers. And now we’re working on a resistance mission together.”
Violet’s eyes widened. “A resistance mission?”
“Yes. We both volunteered to help with the first project that the resistance shifters in Bear Hollow are working on.” Axel almost began explaining the fairytassel sage project to Violet, but then thought better of it. Violet already seemed so agitated that he decided the less he spoke the better. He didn’t want to drag this conversation out. He just wanted to get home and sleep. Violet was upset again, although he didn’t quite understand why. But Whisper’s admonitions still rang in his ears. He didn’t want to inadvertently lead Violet on again, when all he was really trying to do was be a good friend. Besides, good friend or not, he really did need to get some sleep. He couldn’t be a complete zombie at the bar tonight.
But Violet didn’t look like she was going to let him off easy. “The resistance is a bad idea. All we’re doing is stirring up trouble unnecessarily.”
Axel let out an exasperated sigh. “I know you feel that way, Violet, but you also know that I disagree. And I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to sit by and let Gilt Hollow continue to terrorize our people so horribly.”
Violet stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “Apparently, you don’t care what I think about anything.”
Axel blinked in confusion. What in the world was wrong with Violet right now? “Huh?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I worry about the problems the resistance is going to cause, and you completely brush me off. Not only that, but you go off into the woods and leave me alone after I had a horrible night dealing with grief over the loss of my parents. As if that’s not enough, you went off into the woods with her.”
Axel frowned. “I’m assuming ‘her’ means Whisper?”
“Don’t get smart with me. Of course it means Whisper. You have to make a choice, Axel. It’s Whisper or me.”
Axel could only stare at Violet in shock for a moment as all of the pieces slowly came together in his foggy, sleep-deprived brain. When he finally realized what Violet was implying, anger filled him like a red hot blaze. “I don’t have to make any such choice, because I’m not interested in either you or Whisper in that way.”
Okay, so maybe that was a bit of a lie. He was starting to be sort of interested in Whisper in “that way.” But whether or not there was any future between him and Whisper didn’t change the fact that there was definitely not a future between him and Violet.
Violet’s eyes darkened with anger. “I knew it. You’re dumping me for her, aren’t you? You might say you’re not interested, but no one spends the entire morning running around with someone they don’t care about. How could you treat me this way, after spending all night with me last night?”
Axel took a step back from Violet. He had to put some space between them or he might literally go up in flames from his anger. “I’m not dumping you, because we were never an item. I spent all night talking to you because you were upset, and that’s what friends do. And yes, I care about Whisper. She’s a good friend, and has been for decades. But aside from that, we were out in the forest together because we had work to do for the resistance. I know you don’t agree with what the resistance is doing, and you don’t have to. That’s your right. But I also have the right to fight Gilt Hollow how I see fit.”
“But you—”
“I never promised you anything other than friendship. I’m sorry if you misunderstood my actions, but I told you that there was nothing between us other than friendship. And right now even that is questionable. You’re abusing my friendship, Violet. I’m exhausted. I barely slept last night, and I have to be up late tonight again working at the bar. I don’t have time to spend standing here defending myself against these ridiculous accusations. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home and catch a quick nap before it’s time to open the bar.”
Violet opened her mouth to say something else, but Axel pushed past her before she had time to speak. His head was starting to pound from the combination of lack of sleep and the stress of dealing with Violet.
“Stop! You can’t just walk away from me like that!”
“I can, and I am,” Axel called out through clenched teeth. He never slowed down or turned around in the slightest. “We’re done here.”
Violet tried to run after him, grabbing his upper arm to pull him back. Axel kept moving. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry at another shifter, and if he stopped walking he was going to say things to Violet that he would regret.
Whisper had been right. He had done something to lead Violet on in the wrong way. But his intentions had never been to do that, and if Violet couldn’t figure out how to be grown up and reasonable about this whole situation, that was her problem. Axel had bigger things to worry about right now then placating one angry shifter woman.
The first thing he needed to worry about was sleep. He was growing so tired that his vision was literally turning blurry. Without another word or look at Violet, he broke into a run and headed for his home. Time to lose himself to sleep for a few hours and forget about all of this madness.
Chapter Seven
Whisper tapped her foot impatiently and took another long sip of coffee. Across the table from her, her brother Oskar glanced at his watch.
“Where the hell is he?” Oskar asked.
Whisper shrugged. She wanted to make a sarcastic comment about the fact that maybe they should check Violet’s house, since
odds were good that Axel had spent the night there. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to be that mean. She knew that one of the last things Axel would want to do was explain Violet to Oskar, so she kept her mouth shut. But with every minute that passed, her own anger grew more and more.
It was one thing for Axel to have a girlfriend. He had every right to date whomever he wanted, of course. But he needed to get his shit together and stop missing planned meetings if he wanted to take the lead on this whole resistance mission.
“Should I go check his house?” Oskar asked, glancing at his watch again as though he hadn’t already looked at it a dozen times in the last two minutes. The watch-checking was pretty much compulsive at this point. The two of them had been sitting in Axel’s bar nearly an hour, waiting for Axel to show up to help make the fairytassel sage poison.
“Maybe. Or maybe we should just start without him. I’m sure we can handle making the poison without his being here. The instructions Danny gave us are pretty clear.”
“Yeah but Danny wanted an extra person double-checking to make sure the work is done right. Of course, I’m supposed to be that extra person, not Axel. But in any case, we can’t just sit here for another hour waiting to see if he’ll show up. We should either go check on him or see if there’s another shifter available to help double-check things.”
“I think that—”
Whisper’s words died in her throat, cut off by the front door to the bar opening. A moment later Axel stumbled in, his hair mussed up and his clothes horribly wrinkled. Whisper wasn’t entirely sure, but she had a feeling those were the same clothes that he’d worn to bartend last night.
“Jesus. You look like shit. Are you sick or something?” Oskar asked.
Whisper knew better. Axel wasn’t sick, unless you counted lovesickness as an illness. She narrowed her eyes at him, and even though she didn’t say a word out loud, she knew he understood the accusation she was making perfectly well. Violet?
“It’s not what you think,” he insisted, holding Whisper’s gaze.
Whisper only glared back at him, and Oskar looked back and forth between them, clearly realizing that he was missing something.
“Um, anyone care to fill me in on what’s going on here?”
“No,” Whisper and Axel said in unison.
“Well then,” Oskar said. “Maybe we should just get down to business and start working on this poison?”
“Sounds like an excellent idea to me,” Axel said in a tired voice. Whisper kept glaring at him, but didn’t say anything. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind right then and there, but she was afraid that if her brother saw her so upset about Axel dating another woman, he would guess Whisper’s true feelings. And Whisper didn’t want to admit her true feelings to anyone, not even herself.
And so she settled angrily into the poison-making project. Axel seemed sullen as well, and didn’t say much. It fell to Oskar to lead the work, even though he was only supposed to be there as the extra set of eyes.
Whisper couldn’t bring herself to look at her brother or Axel. She focused as much as she could on making the poison, doing her best not to lose her temper. She just had to make it through the next few hours, and then she could go home and have time to cool off before she had to be back at the bar for work.
Making the poison turned out to be much easier than they had all thought, just like the search for fairytassel sage itself had gone much easier than planned. Whisper couldn’t help but think that everything had gone a little too well. The pessimistic part of her kept telling her that there was trouble ahead, but she didn’t voice her concerns aloud. Her brother and Axel would both just tell her that she was being silly and superstitious. Besides, she was so angry at Axel right now that she didn’t want to talk to him any more than absolutely necessary.
Mercifully, they finished making the poison ahead of schedule, despite the fact that they’d gotten a late start thanks to Axel’s tardiness.
“Well, good work team!” Oskar said in a little bit too jovial of a voice. “Who’s up for a celebratory beer? Don’t worry Axel, I’ll pay you for the round. I’m not trying to take advantage of the fact that we’re meeting in your bar.”
Whisper could tell that her brother was trying to smooth over the tension in the air. She appreciated his efforts, but she didn’t feel like sticking around and drinking with Axel right now. In a few hours, this bar would be full of shifters and Whisper would have to be here again, working beside Axel as though nothing had happened between them. She wanted some time to herself, away from him, before her work shift started tonight.
“I’m out,” Whisper said, already standing and gathering her things. “I’m exhausted and want to take a nap. You two boys enjoy your beer.”
Before Oskar or Axel could respond, Whisper darted toward the door. Unexpectedly, hot tears began filling her eyes. She cursed herself for being so emotional, and broke into a run as soon as the bar door had shut behind her. She was in such a rush to get away that she didn’t realize that the door opened again just a few moments after she left. So it caught her by surprise a moment later when a strong, familiar hand grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.
“Whisper, wait.”
She struggled to get away, but Axel wasn’t letting her go. He forced her to turn around and even though she tried her best to look down and hide the tears spilling down her cheeks, it was no use. He could clearly see how upset she was.
“Shit. Whisper, what’s wrong? I’m really sorry that I showed up late to the meeting, but this is an overreaction.”
“Is it?” Whisper gave free reign to her anger, raising her voice as she stuck her chin out defiantly. Better to appear angry than to let him see her continuing to cry. “Tell me it didn’t have something to do with her. Tell me.”
She crossed her arms as she waited for his reply. He shook his head, looking confused.
“I’ve told you a dozen times already that I don’t have any feelings for Violet. And quite honestly, even if I did, what’s the big deal? I’m a grown adult. Am I not allowed to have feelings for a woman?”
Whisper swallowed hard. He was right. She was being completely unreasonable. The only real explanation for her overreaction was that she herself had feelings for Axel and was hopelessly, helplessly jealous of any time he spent with Violet. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him that. If she did, he would probably look at her with pity and give her some speech about how he valued her as a friend but that was all. Whisper couldn’t stand to hear that type of rejection, so she laid into him about being late instead.
“Of course you can have feelings for another woman! But you shouldn’t let that get in the way of our resistance mission. We’re supposed to be a team, and you’re not holding up your end of the rope. This is twice now that you’ve all but blown off a planned meeting. Nothing is more important right now than stopping Gilt Hollow. Nothing. Especially not some stupid fling you decided to start in the middle of all this mess.”
Axel held her gaze for several long seconds without saying anything. In his serious gray eyes, Whisper could see so much. She saw the boy who had been her friend, the snow leopard she had run with through the forest so many times, and the man she had suddenly, almost inexplicably realized she was in love with. She also saw deep concern, and that concern made her heart tighten up in her chest. She tried to lower her gaze, confused and unable to look him in the eye any longer. But he was having none of that. He reached for her chin and lifted it up so she was looking at him again.
“You’re wrong, Whis. There is something more important than stopping Gilt Hollow. And that’s my friendship with you.”
Whisper furrowed her brow. “What…what do you mean by that?”
Axel shrugged, letting his hand drop from her chin but still holding her gaze. “What good would it do me to defeat Gilt Hollow but to lose my best friend?”
Whisper snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oskar is your best friend.”
“He was. And
I still consider him one of the people in this world I’m closest to. But if I’m really honest, you’ve eclipsed even him in my heart.”
Whisper found herself trembling, and she put her hands behind her back in hopes that Axel wouldn’t notice. “Oh, come on. Don’t be so dramatic.”
He let out a long sigh and looked heavenward before answering. “I’m not being dramatic. I’m just telling it the way it is. Look…now’s not the best time to be going crazy or starting new relationships, but…”
He trailed off, and Whisper’s heart pounded against her ribcage. The world around her seemed to blur as she looked at Axel with wide eyes. Was he really about to suggest that they start a relationship? No, that couldn’t possibly be. He had some weird thing going on with Violet, and besides, she’d always just been his “little sister” of sorts. But the way he was looking at her right now was anything but sisterly.
“But what?” she prompted.
He chewed his lip for a moment, then shook his head. “But nothing, really. I just…just wanted to say that I promise you, there’s nothing going on between Violet and me. She wishes there was. And she seems hell-bent on taking up as much of my time as possible, mostly with sob stories about her parents which I’m beginning to feel she’s exaggerated purely because she knows I have a soft spot in my heart for people who have lost their parents. But in any case, whatever she might want, I don’t want a relationship with her.”
Whisper let out a sigh as the blurry edges of the world around her slowly came back into focus. Axel wasn’t going to say he cared about her. Not today, and possibly not ever. But at least he seemed sincere about not caring for Violet either. At least she could take some comfort in that. Not that it should have mattered to her, but she could no longer deny that it did matter. The hard truth of it was that she was falling hard and fast for Axel, and even if she couldn’t have him right now, she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else having him. As long as he was single, there was still time. She could still fix this mess between them. She could still find a way to get them on the same page and show him that they could figure out a way to have a future together.
The Warrior and the Snow Leopard (The Shifter Games Book 4) Page 6