Infinite Harmony by Tammy Blackwell Page A

person within a hundred mile radius?
    “Remind me again why we’re doing this and not Makya?” he asked, referring to the Omega whose job it was to serve the Alpha Pack. Normally, he handled all the less glamorous aspects of being part of the ruling body of the Shifters and Seers, like standing in line for an hour to pick up food for an important meeting between the Alphas and some of the more powerful Pack Leaders from around the world.
    Talley pushed her Jackie O sunglasses up onto the top of her head. “Makya is playing chauffeur to both the Perov Pack and Mancuso Pack today.” The breeze blew a swath of long black hair across her face. The sun seemed drawn to the wedding set on her left hand as she brushed it away. “And if I’m not mistaken, you volunteered for this particular mission. I could have handled it myself.”
    She could have. As the Stella Polaris, aka the most badass of Seers, Talley Donovan was more than capable of taking care of herself. But Jase, her husband of six months, had trouble remembering such things. To him, she was a breakable woman he loved more than anything, including himself. With so many other Shifters and Seers gathering in Lake County, Jase was driving himself to distraction with worry over his wife. When she’d volunteered to head out and pick up the food, Joshua had tried to save his friend an afternoon of panic by suggesting he go along with her.
    “Angel needed to get out,” he said, citing the other reason he’d agreed to come along. “No one knows quite how to treat the Alpha Female’s human sister.” Since female Shifters were generally considered impossible until Scout proved them wrong five years ago, most Shifters and Seers were still trying to figure out what to make of their new Alpha Female and her very human parents and sister. To say interactions had been awkward and the atmosphere strained over the last few days would be understating things quite a bit. “A dose of normalcy is good for the kid.”
    The kid in question was sitting on the end of a picnic table, posing for a group of wiry-looking middle school boys standing nearby. Joshua fought hard to resist the urge to forcefully put the boys’ eyes and tongues back in their head where they belonged.
    Talley took a step forward as the line moved for the first time in five minutes.
    “This is really hard on her,” she said, and since Talley could see a person’s thoughts and emotions by touching them, it wasn’t just an arbitrary statement. “When I was thirteen, I couldn’t See anything yet and thought I was latent, but I always clung to the chance I might have powers someday. And I’d grown up knowing about Shifters and Seers, knowing someday Charlie and Jase would start Changing. But Angel’s been thrust into the middle of our world with no hope of ever being like us. She feels like a freak for not being an actual freak.”
    “She does?” How could he have not known? Joshua and Angel might antagonize each other on an hourly basis, but they were as close to being siblings as you could get without sharing blood. If he’d known Angel was feeling like an outsider in her own family, he would have talked to her before now. “She’s never said anything,” he said, coming to his own defense even though he knew Talley would never accuse him of neglect.
    “She hides it well. She doesn’t want to come off as the whiny little sister.”
    Joshua raised an eyebrow, and Talley smiled at the irony along with him.
    “It’s one of the reasons she’s so drawn to you and Maggie,” Talley said. “You guys aren’t really Shifters or Seers either. She sees you as allies.” Talley’s gaze floated somewhere above Joshua’s shoulder. “And speaking of allies…”
    A scream Joshua recognized as Angel’s rose above the cacophony of voices. His hand was already reaching for the gun on his hip when a ribbon of long brown hair sprinted past him and plowed into Angel, who was holding out her arms, waiting for