Without waiting for me, Robert turned and left, leaving me to hastily follow in his wake.
Declan strode beside me, clearly as curious as I was to see whatever was going on. This was the first time I’d ever been sought out by a Clan Alpha.
We’d just cleared the end of the hallway and started to head down the staircase when raised voices reached my ears.
“What —” I started but was cut off.
“You’ll see.” Was Roberts vague response.
Reaching the third level, I came to a stop. Shifters stood wild-eyed, their gazes aimed toward the door I knew led to the infirmary where Inarus was resting and recovering.
Robert didn’t bother stopping. He brushed passed the men in the hallway and stepped into Inarus’ room.
Almost instantly, he was shoved right back out, crashing into me.
“What the hell—” I nearly fell, but Declan’s firm grip held me upright as Robert righted himself and I sucked in a lungful of breath.
Robert indicated the doorway. “No one can get close to him. It’s like there’s an invisible force field surrounding him and he shoves away anyone who gets too close.”
“When did this start?” I stared at the empty doorway. It looked perfectly normal but…
Declan strode into the room next, only to slide back out, barely managing to maintain his footing.
Robert ran a hand through his close-cropped blonde hair. “Annabeth noticed only a few minutes ago. Dia tried to get in and had the same results.”
As though hearing her name, Dia descended the steps behind me. Her jet black hair fanned around her face as she jogged closer. “Good. You found her. Can you get through to him?
Dia was Inarus’ sister. She’d tried to kill me. Then helped me, and now she was working to train me. It was a strange relationship. One I tried not to look too closely at.
She and Robert had developed some sort of something between the two of them so I no longer stared wide-eyed whenever I noticed their hands touch briefly or their shoulders brush up against one another—like they did just now.
Their contact was always brief, careful. But I wasn’t stupid. Something was brewing between these two and I didn’t want to know about it.
Judging by the scowl on Declan’s face, he didn’t either.
It was frowned upon to date a non shifter. One of the many reasons mine and Declan’s mating was so surprising. As Alpha to the Pacific Northwest Pack, he’d been expected to mate with a nice shifter girl. Instead, his beast took matters into its own hands and claimed me.
Before that, shifter and non shifter couplings were virtually unheard of. It made Dia and Robert’s attraction to one another all the more intriguing.
Robert had definitely not been team Aria in the beginning. He’d come around. But he wouldn’t have minded one bit if Declan had replaced me with a a shifter.
Maybe Dia was the reason he’d suddenly embraced my presence? Not that she would vouch for me. We weren’t exactly friends. But it was something to think about later.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, getting back to the task at hand.
Dia waved toward the open doorway. “Inarus is protecting himself. He’s created a telekinetic net that keeps intruders away while his body heals. Think of it like a shield. On some level, he doesn’t feel safe. You need to reassure him he isn’t in any danger.”
“Me? Why me?” I turned a wide-eyed look toward Declan, who only shrugged.
“I don’t know how any of this psyker stuff works.”
Some help he was.
“Why can’t you do it?” I asked.
Dia lifted her arm, displaying the spell-worked cuff that locked her telekinetic powers. “Until this comes off, I’m a dud. You’re the only one who can get through to him when he’s like this.”
I looked skeptically to the doorway and then back to Dia. “Have you at least tried?”
She rolled her grey-blue eyes. “Repeatedly. I can’t get even a spark of my abilities to manifest thanks to this. And I have you to thank for that, by the way.” Her smile was far from friendly.
I couldn’t blame her for her hostility. If someone had locked up my abilities I’d be pissed too. But it’d been necessary at the time. Dia had been our enemy. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was now but it would have been easier had she been able to help.
“Telekinesis and I aren’t great friends—” You’d think today’s earlier demonstration would have reaffirmed that.
“I know. You suck at using your abilities but you’re all we’ve got. Annabeth and Frankie need to be able to monitor him and the extra strain he’s putting on himself by erecting this shield is going to stymie his healing. He could kill himself if you don’t hurry up and do something.”
I swallowed. Great. No pressure.
Exhaustion pulled at the corners of my subconscious. I would have liked to recover from todays training activities before using my abilities but I wasn’t about to let Inarus hurt himself. He’d been through enough.
“Okay. Tell me what to do.”
3
“Hurry up!” Dia shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time.
I turned, looked over my shoulder, flipped her off, and then had to grit my teeth as Inarus battered into the thin shield I’d managed to erect around myself.
That alone took nearly thirty minutes to figure out how to do.
“Dammit. Ow. Fuck!” Rubbing a hand over my face did nothing to ease the throb in my skull. I was reaching my mental limits.
“This is too m—” Declan cut himself off.
That’s right. You can’t say I can’t handle this when we had a hallway full of shifters watching. I was his mate. That made me second in the Pack hierarchy and someone that close to the top couldn’t afford to be weak.
He turned in my direction, probably feeling my flash of irritation through the mate bond since I didn’t bother even trying to hide it.
We had an audience. It would be helpful if
