Chill (Klance Warmth series Book 2 of +4)

5: Cold Realization

A/N: I feel I should warn y'all that this series was written SEASONS before Shiro was confirmed to be gay. Thus, this series is Shallura as well as Klance. It's much too far along and too ingrained into the story at this point (I'm working on Book 4) to change it. So it's staying Shallura.

Also, things will only get darker from here. I'll put warnings in A/Ns of the specific chapters, but just FYI. It's gets worse before it gets better.
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Shiro stood on one of the many ancient bridges leading to the Castle from the mainland, observing the Arusians as they darted over the stone. He didn't see anything amiss, but something just felt off. He couldn't explain it. He didn't need to.

Over the years, he'd learned to trust his instincts. One of his professors once said if he felt something was wrong but couldn't explain it, then it probably meant he'd subconsciously witnessed something unusual that his conscious mind hadn't noticed. He couldn't remember the professor's name, but he remembered those words.

Still, no matter how hard he tried to see something out of place or hear something that that didn't belong, he came up empty. He simply couldn't find the threat even though he knew it was there. He huffed in frustration and leaned back against the low stone wall lining the bridge, preventing travelers from falling over the side.

The Castle was beautiful from this perspective. The turquoise glow was soothing and illuminated the ocean far below with a mimicry of moonlight. The stars above sparkled hopefully. Faint music filtered to Shiro's ears from the party in wafts as the land breeze blew passed, ruffling his hair as it went. It was an altogether calm night.

Too calm, his mind insisted.

Shiro heaved a sigh and leaned back on the stone ledge contemplating his mixed up senses when a beam of light startled him. He looked up the Castle's side and saw a dim, blue-white light shining out from a small hangar door. It was too small and too high up to be one of the Lions' hangars, which meant it was probably a pod hangar.

Pidge was probably preparing to leave. Shiro felt his heart ache. Ever since he'd learned his fellow crew members on the Kerberos mission were Pidge's family, he'd know Pidge was Katie Holt. But since she'd showed no sign of wanting to reveal her identity and gender to the rest of the group, Shiro had kept his knowledge a secret. It wasn't his place to out her.

But he sincerely worried about her. She was a member of Shiro's team and had wormed her way into this small, dysfunctional family that was Team Voltron. It was strange how only a few days, several life threatening situations, and giant Lions uniting to form a Gundam-like weapon could pull people together like this. Everyone was from different places and had different cultures and traditions, but they all had one thing in common: the Galra Empire had taken something from them.

Even Keith, or Keithek, had managed to endear himself to Shiro. The halfbreed worked hard, spending much of his free time in the training arena. He kept to himself, but after Coran's rather disastrous attempt at team building when everyone's wrists had been bound to each other forcing someone else to feed them, Keith had really begun to speak his mind. He'd begun to talk to Shiro instead of avoiding him like the plague. He'd begun to offer suggestions to Pidge regarding her methods of hacking the Galra technology. He and Hunk had begun to bond over their cultural culinary specialties.

Strangely, Shiro rarely saw him near Lance unless they were training. The black paladin secretly suspected the princess was behind that. Shiro got the sense Allura wasn't necessarily pleased with Keith mating her brother. From what he'd been able to wrangle out of the surprisingly tight-lipped princess and adviser, Keith had done the Earth equivalent of forcing the young prince into a marriage without any of the flirting, dating, or relationship that comes before that.