Page 7

Hot and Cold

A week passed with more than enough work to keep Astrid busy, giving her a reason not to leave the house. Unfortunately, it also meant she wasn’t making any progress on what brought her to the town. Just figuring out which boxes she needed to keep took up the better part of four days, in addition to having a few work-related projects.

On the fifth day, she found a storage unit not too far from the house and hired a company to come the next day to move out everything she didn’t need. Things went sideways, so the moving crew didn’t end up coming until two days after she hired them. She spent those two days working since she didn’t know that they had marked the wrong day until the end of the day they were supposed to arrive. They were fully booked the next day, so she had to wait. There were some choice words that she kept to herself because the last thing she wanted was to do something that drew attention to herself or to make enemies in the new town.

It was a mess. When it was finally over, Astrid decided she needed to escape the town to really get her mind off things. So, she packed a bag and headed to Seattle for a few days. If she encountered other shifters, it was highly unlikely they would be able to do anything in such a populated area. Between sounds and smells, it would be far harder to identify one another.

Unfortunately, she spent a good bit of her time away worrying about what would happen when she returned. What were the odds that she encountered two shifters on her first day in town? In all her time back on the East Coast, she hadn’t encountered any other shifters outside of her brother’s relatives, suggesting that this place likely had a much greater number of them. And they might not all be as willing to talk as the last two were. Since she knew little about other shifter types, Astridwasn’t comfortable encountering them. She had read stories online about the different shifter types. Granted, those stories were just as likely to be made up as real, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way that those stories were right. That made it that much harder to think about how she would deal with them when she returned.

Phoenix had even suggested as much by saying that they helped people like her. Astrid wasn’t sure whether he meant shifters like her or not, though, since he focused on talking about her abilities, something that her dad said had come from him, not from her mother. She and her brother had gotten their shifting abilities from their mothers. Hopefully, that was something that remained a secret because they clearly already knew a lot more about the shifter world than her, giving them a huge advantage.

The only reason she might consider letting them know that she was a shifter was to learn what kind of shifter the other guy was. No one had ever said anything about dragon shifters, probably because dragons weren’t real or they weren’t supposed to be real. That was something Astrid really didn’t want to think about because she had no idea what it meant in relation to his powers.

Since the other guy had stunning green eyes, Astrid couldn’t help but feel that she had the same reaction to them that other people had to hers. It was a seemingly unnatural color, but it was tied to the type of shifter she was, and she thought it was likely the same for the other shifter.

It could mean that he was also a cat shifter, and if that were the case, she might finally have someone who could tell her more about her kind. She was the only cat shifter she knew; all of the other shifters she knew were deer. Once, Evander tried to explain to her why they were different, saying they had differentmothers. This didn’t make sense to her, though – she had never met either of them.

Her father finally explained it when she was in high school when she was working on a family tree.

When she asked, then insisted on hearing, he let out a heavy sigh that she could remember quite clearly a few years later, and it still made her feel guilty for having insisted. At that point, he had mostly lost the use of his legs, so bringing up the past seemed particularly cruel.

She was about to tell him to forget it when he started speaking. “Evander’s mother was the love of my life. The sweetest woman, and she was open about what she was.” He looked out the window. “Her big doe eyes and quiet demeanor made sense, although I didn’t believe her until she actually shifted in front of me.”

“Was that when you learned about shifters?”

“Yes. But I already knew about abilities, obviously.” He gave her a half smile, and she smiled back. He had been the one to train both her and her brother, although he had not passed his ability on to them – all three of them had unique abilities, yet he was able to teach Evander and Astrid how to use what was innate. “It’s more about your gut, and that’s something that most people don’t understand. Trust what you feel, and then learn to work with it, not against it.”

“Yes, I know, Dad. You’ve done a great job training us.”

“I hope so.” He looked down at his hands and Astrid reached out and held them in her own. They were so much older and frailer in his last few years. He squeezed her hand, then continued, “She died not long after he was born. Complications from giving birth. Raising your brother, I really didn’t have time for dating. He was in high school when I finally started to look for companionship.”

“That’s why there was such a big age gap.”

“You got it. Your mother and I didn’t get married. She wasn’t big on the idea of commitment. We were only together for a few months when she fell pregnant. She had no idea about Evander’s shifting ability, and I had no idea about hers. After you were born, she just left. I never heard from her, and with a teenager and a newborn, well, I didn’t have time to track her down.”

“Then you were diagnosed with cancer.” She didn’t want him to have to relive anymore of his past. Rising, she kissed his head. “Thanks, Dad. How about something to eat?”

“What about your project?”

“You gave me everything I need, so I’ll work on it later. For now, I could really use a hearty meal.”

He smiled at her. “I would kill for a nice burger.”

“You would have to. Unfortunately, we are fresh out of cows.”

They laughed as she pushed his wheelchair into the kitchen so they could talk while she made dinner. Her father had become a vegetarian because it was easier with her brother. And consequently, she had grown up not eating meat until she was in high school. Even though he was gone, they continued to refrain, mostly because it made them feel a little closer to him. Eventually, she started to eat fish, but Astrid had never wanted to consume any other kinds of animal. There was just something about fish she couldn’t help craving, even when she was young and was told they couldn’t because of Evander.

As painful as it had been for her father, Astrid was glad that he told her because, over the years, it helped her to better understand her brother, at least as far as his relationship with her.

What she didn’t understand was why he hadn’t taken advantage of the numerous scholarships he was offered for college – some very prestigious ones that would have coveredeverything – and joined the military. He was valedictorian, held most of the school sports records, and had been student body president. There were so many things he could have done, but he chose the military. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to stay close to family because he had been shipped off to a different state for boot camp, and then sent abroad. Finally, he ended up on a base on the other coast.

Over the years, he had changed, although she hadn’t really understood it at the time. But by the last time she saw him, she had realized why Evander had such a haunting look in his eyes. Her brother was many things, but a warrior wasn’t one of them.

And that’s a large part of the reason she had moved to someplace so far from where she grew up. She needed to find out what happened to him.

Returning from Seattle was bittersweet. She was diving into something she wanted to do for years, but it also brought up a lot of pain. That sensation was further complicated by her not knowing how to deal with all of the other shifters in town. Part of her wanted to reach out to them and find out if the other one was a cat shifter. The other part of her wanted to entirely avoid them. She was much more relaxed for having escaped for a while, but her mind was no more at ease than when she had left.

As soon as she walked into her new home, Astrid tensed. Her brother had left things behind, and she had gone through them over the years, but none of it hinted toward anything. All of the boxes with his belongings were in the second bedroom, but she wasn’t yet ready to delve into them again. Astrid told herself that she needed more context for what he had left, avoiding thinking about how much it hurt to go through them. She really wasn’t ready for the emotions it would dredge up.