Brilliance

Chapter 2

I woke to the sound of yelling.

"Wha...?" I asked loudly in my groggy state, looking around the unfamiliar guest room to find where the yelling was coming from.

"Shh," Hunter hissed, from the corner of the room.

She was crouching in front of the door, her ear pressed against the wood – as though it would help her any more than her already amazing werewolf hearing.

"You're not going to find anything out that way," I told her in a weirdly confident voice – something that came out of me whenever I was extremely sleep deprived.

Hunter shot me an unimpressed look before getting up and opening the door. She walked backwards out of the room, keeping her eyes trained on me as she did, "Happy now?"

I shrugged lazily and followed her path out of the room. Outside in the hallway the yelling was louder and I peered over Hunter's shoulder – which I had to stand on my tip toes to do, that freaking giant. I discerned that the yelling was coming from Alpha Kurt's office, which was just across from our room.

"Look, I need the help –" someone said behind the door.

"Well, you can't have it!" I picked up Alpha Kurt's voice as well, which sounded like it was at the brink of hysteria.

"Kurt, we need their help," the other person said in a stern voice, raising it to overpower Kurt's wobbling voice, "And you just need to show me to them,"

"I won't," Alpha Kurt shot back, "You think it's that easy to just get a healer, huh? I had to wait months for her to come! My life is on the line if I let her go with you,"

A surprised look came over my face as I looked over at Hunter, who had a stone cold expression, almost like it was carved out of marble. Her normal deep red spirit was flaring around the edges, something that I knew meant she was in her protective state.

"Get back in the room," she ordered me, still staring at the Alpha's office door.

I obeyed her right away, backing into the room and closing the door, but left a sliver of it opened so I could hear what was going on.

It was a natural reaction for me to listen to Hunter, like a reflex. I trusted Hunter more than I even trusted myself. She had been my guard since we were children, always there to take care of me, to always be a friend, and a shoulder to lean on. She was like a sister to me, since we both were born days apart, and had been inseparable since then.

Her family – the Mori family – and mine went back centuries, and somehow through fate and the Goddess there was always a match for each Neilson family member for each Mori member. The children in both families grew up knowing that they were there for the other. Hunter was there to keep me safe, and I was there to make sure that Hunter was always healthy and happy. And also there to be her best friend.

"Kurt," the other person boomed, "Our pack is in desperate need right now, and you have what we need right now... do I have to remind you of your debt to our pack?" he asked menacingly.

"I can't..." Alpha Kurt said in a lower voice, "I can't Kian, you don't understand, I can't take you to them,"

I didn't think the other person knew how healers worked, which wasn't really that surprising since most people didn't, all people knew was that we were very important. There were many different forms of defense mechanisms that healers had to protect themselves, from undiscernible scents that could never be picked up, to the physical inability of other people being able to reveal them location of any healers. It was one of the reasons that no one could find my own pack.