The Altered (9 page)

He touched the
screen to wake it and was a little surprised to find a text from
Jordan. He’d sent it a few minutes ago, and Daniel assumed that was
what had woken him.

He quickly
unlocked his phone and opened the message.

Um… not
really, just Jordan.

Daniel
snorted. Typical.

Sometimes J I
guess, but that’s usually just Keira.

Daniel smiled,
trying out how it sounded in his head. He couldn’t picture calling
Jordan ‘J.’ It didn’t feel right.

Jordan it is,
then.

He got a
smiley face in return, followed by,
Fair’s fair, are you Dan or
Daniel, then?

Daniel thought
about it for a second, his fingers hovering over the keys. Matt and
Ash sometimes called him Dan, but mainly Daniel. His mum refused
flatly to shorten his name, but he honestly didn’t mind either one.
Turned out he was just as bad as Jordan.

Either’s
fine.

Okay. Oh, btw,
Matt was in here earlier. He wasn’t too pleased to smell your scent
on me.

Arse. Daniel
could well imagine what Matt would have thought.

He was halfway
through replying when the front door opened, and speak of the
devil.

“So,” Matt
said when he poked his head in through the living room doorway, “I
gather you and Jordan are a thing now, then?”

Daniel put his
phone down and sighed. “We’re not ‘a thing,’ just friends. Or
trying to be, anyway.”

Matt took an
exaggerated breath as he walked farther into the room and then
wrinkled his nose. “Friends?”

“God, stop
sniffing me, you freak.” Daniel stood up and punched him on the
arm. “And yes,
friends
. It’s complicated, weird…. I don’t
know.”

“It doesn’t
smell complicated. In fact I’d say he’s made his intentions
perfectly clear.” Matt wiggled his eyebrows and laughed, dodging
out of the way of another punch.

“Get lost.”
Daniel headed into the kitchen to make a cuppa, knowing Matt would
follow him. “Anyway, you seem less bothered than I was expecting. I
felt sure you’d be all, you know.” He made claws with his hands and
mock snarled, grinning when Matt predictably scowled.

“Fuck off. I’m
not that bad.” Matt dropped his gaze to the floor, a dead giveaway,
and Daniel burst out laughing.

“What did you
do?”

“Well, after
what he said to you at the library, I might have gone in there with
the intention of having a quiet word.” Matt paused, his shoulders
tensing up. “Because, come on Dan, he had no right to threaten
you.” He looked up then, and Daniel’s smile fell away as he caught
the fierce look of protectiveness in his expression.

Matt hadn’t
got the full package when the pathogen changed his body. Sometimes
Daniel forgot that Matt had the same instincts as full shifters,
and that meant he was overly protective where friends and family
were concerned. Daniel was as close to a brother as Matt had.

“Hey, I get
it. It’s fine, he probably had it coming, anyway.” Jordan had been
bang out of order, and although he’d apologised, Daniel refused to
get mad at Matt for calling him out on it.

“Yeah, well,
when I got in there and smelled you all over him, I assumed he’d
been back to have another go at you, and I kind of flipped.” He
held out his left hand, and Daniel scooted forward to get a better
look at the fading yellow bruises along Matt’s knuckles.

“You attacked
him?”

“Yeah.” Matt
grinned. “Kinda. I got in one good punch before he pinned me to the
floor. But come on, you’ve seen him. He hit the jackpot in the
pathogen lottery, and he knows how to use it.”

Daniel smirked
as he ran his thumb over Matt’s hand. Yeah, he’d seen Jordan, all
right. He’d felt all that muscle when Jordan had his arms wrapped
around him. “I’m glad he didn’t hurt you too badly, then,” Daniel
teased. Apart from his bruised hand, Matt didn’t appear to have any
other injuries, so Daniel figured Jordan hadn’t hit him back.

“Thanks.” Matt
huffed and snatched his hand back. “Your sympathy is touching. You
should be more grateful. It’s your honour I was defending, after
all.”

Daniel
laughed, pulled Matt into a hug, and ruffled his hair. “I know, and
I am. Thank you.” He let Matt rub up against his neck, replacing
Jordan’s scent with his own—something he’d probably wanted to do
since he’d come in—and then gently pushed him back. “So what
happened next?”

Matt pulled
out one of the kitchen chairs and slumped down into it. “He
escorted me into his office, sat me down, and explained a few
things. And that crazy girl he works with—Keira, I think—well, she
came in and started threatening me until Jordan dragged her out.
She’s embarrassingly scary for someone so short.”

“I hope you
didn’t say that out loud.”

“God, no. I’m
not stupid. Anyway, it was fine after that, and he offered me a
free induction to his gym to make up for Keira harassing me. So,
you know, I said yes, and that’s where I’ve been.”

Daniel smiled,
trying not to let his unease show. For some reason, the thought of
Jordan and Matt spending time together made him uncomfortable.
Jordan wasn’t part of their circle of friends. They didn’t know
enough about him to trust him. It was one thing for Daniel to try
to get to know him—they had that weird connection that he couldn’t
begin to explain—but with Matt doing the same, it felt as though it
was all happening too fast, and Daniel didn’t like it.

“What’s
wrong?” When Daniel shook his head and went to move away, Matt
tugged on the cuff of his sleeve “Don’t give me that. I know that
face.”

Daniel sighed
and sat down heavily in the chair next to Matt’s. “It’s just….” He
huffed out a laugh and slumped farther down into the chair before
turning slightly to face Matt. “It seems too easy. We’ve never run
into Jordan or his friends before, and then all of a sudden we’re
seeing them everywhere. And Jordan and I, we’re… we’ve got….”

“What?”

“I don’t know
how to explain it. It’s so weird, Matt. I mean I saw his altered
form as clearly as if he shifted in front of me, and when I look
into his eyes, I can feel this pull right here—” He put his hand on
his belly and pressed lightly. “He’s a bit of an arsehole sometimes
and I don’t trust him and he pisses me off no end with his
attitude, but the thought of not seeing him again….” God, when he
said it out loud it made him sound more than a little pathetic.

“You know.”
Matt paused as if choosing his words carefully. “If I didn’t know
better, I’d say that sounds awfully like a mate—”

“No way. I
don’t buy into any of that shit, and I didn’t think you did either.
Besides, even if it wasn’t utter bollocks, it wouldn’t apply to me,
anyway, would it?”

Matt bit his
lip and looked down at his hands. He flicked his claws out with a
soft
snick
, and Daniel’s gaze immediately followed. The
sight was still as fascinating as the first time he saw it. Matt
flexed his fingers, turning his hands this way and that as though
inspecting them.

“We have no
idea what they put in that pathogen, and I doubt we’ll ever find
out. Something did this to me.” He sheathed his claws and placed
his hands back on the table. “It altered others in all sorts of
ways, and it gave you the ability to see it all.” He curled his
fingers in to make fists. “Who knows what else it did to us.”

When he put it
like that, Daniel guessed he had a good point. “But mates?” He
screwed up his nose in distaste. “It sounds so—” He waved his hands
around, searching for the right word. “—cliché.”

Matt grinned
at him. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” He nudged Daniel with his
shoulder. “All joking aside, though, Jordan seems trustworthy
despite being an arse. And I didn’t want to bring this up until I
was sure, but a couple of times now I’ve picked up strange scents
on our street.”

Daniel tensed.
“Fuck.”

“It might not
mean anything,” Matt hurried to add. “It’s not like we know
everyone who lives around here. But—” He turned his chair so he
faced Daniel and rested his forearms on his knees. “—I’d feel a lot
better with someone like Jordan—even with his crazy friends—looking
out for you as well.”

Matt raised
his hands in surrender as Daniel bristled and opened his mouth to
protest. Daniel hated being treated like this. “I’m not a child,
for Christ’s sake,” he snapped, sick and tired of always being the
weak link. “I don’t need babysitting.”

“No, you
don’t, and that’s not what I said. But like it or not, there are
people out there—both altereds and humans—who are a threat to you,
and I’d rather piss you off than lose you.” Matt looked up at
Daniel then, his gaze almost pleading, and Daniel felt the fight
drain out of him. “We’ve been lucky so far. But I don’t trust those
two guys from outside the bar not to say anything. Who knows who
they’ve told by now?”

“Yeah,
okay.”

“I just think
it won’t hurt to have a few more people around who can protect you
if you need it.”

“Fine, I get
it.”

Matt smirked a
little as he sat back again. “Besides, you don’t seem totally
opposed to the idea of spending more time with Jordan. In fact it
sounds like the pair of you have trouble keeping your hands off
each other.”

“Oh shut up.
Don’t you have something you should be doing?”

Matt shrugged,
his smirk now a full-blown grin. “Nope.”

“Yeah, well I
do.” Daniel stood and flicked one of Matt’s ears as he left the
kitchen. “I’m gonna do some weights in my room. Meet you back here
in a couple of hours to start on tea?” He didn’t hang around to
hear Matt’s answer, already pulling his phone out as he took the
stairs two at a time up to his room.

The screen lit
up with a waiting text message, and Daniel smiled as he saw
Jordan’s name.

Everything
okay with Matt?

Yeah,
why?
Daniel replied, shutting his bedroom door with his
foot.

You didn’t
reply to my text. I was worried.

Daniel stared
at the message for several seconds, debating how to reply. He was
used to Matt worrying about him, but he and Jordan weren’t there
yet as far as Daniel was concerned.

No need to
worry about Matt. He’s my best friend.

He thought
about writing more, that his wellbeing wasn’t Jordan’s concern, but
he couldn’t bring himself to type it out. Matt’s words lingered in
his head.

Shifters had
odd ideas about things. He should probably have expected Jordan to
feel a little protective toward him, and if what Matt said was
true, then maybe he should be encouraging him, not pushing him
away. Although Daniel hated the thought of essentially using Matt
and maybe Jordan as bodyguards, he wasn’t so pig-headed as to put
his own life in danger.

Know your
hours at the gym yet?
Want to meet for coffee next week? he
typed instead, then set his phone on the bed and reached for the
weight set next to him on the floor.

Jordan
replied, and Daniel answered after doing one set of curls. They
texted back and forth, and by the time Daniel had worked through
his routine, they’d agreed to meet for a coffee the following day
at the coffee shop next to the library.

Over dinner he
might have insisted to Matt and Ash several times that it wasn’t a
date, and it wasn’t
exactly
. Daniel wasn’t sure what it was.
Despite his uncertainty, though, he couldn’t deny that he’d never
been so keen for Monday morning to arrive.

It was a good
job Daniel hadn’t been expecting it to be a date. Because it
wasn’t. Not like any date Daniel had been on before, anyway,
although he didn’t have that many experiences to compare it to.

Jordan did
give him a hug when he first saw him, and it might have lasted
slightly longer than Daniel was used to, but that was the only time
they touched until the end. Maintaining eye contact seemed to be
getting easier. It still caused a gentle tug in Daniel’s belly, but
he no longer felt the urge to jump into Jordan’s lap, and Jordan
didn’t appear to be seconds away from shifting all the time
either.

They chatted
for the whole of Daniel’s lunch break, which went surprisingly
quickly, and Daniel found himself sinking into Jordan’s embrace
when he gave him another hug goodbye.

The same
happened when they met on Wednesday.

It didn’t
escape Daniel’s notice that Jordan rubbed against his neck each
time they hugged, and despite his initial thoughts about Jordan
being a bit of a knob, he kind of wanted more.

By the time
Friday morning came around, Daniel was a jumbled mess of pent-up
frustration, and it made him an “irritable fucker,” according to
Ash. Ash had sighed and shaken his head after Daniel had snapped at
him for the third time and had gone back to his own floor to shelve
books which Daniel knew he hated.

Daniel sat at
his desk, grumbling as he entered orders into the library computer,
totally unaware of the stranger standing on the other side of the
counter until they cleared their throat to get his attention.
Daniel looked up sharply, an apology on his lips, but he faltered
at the flash of elongated fangs.

“Sorry, you
startled me.” He put his hand to his chest and grinned, trying to
appear sheepish and not like he’d just recognised the stranger as a
fully altered shifter. What was wrong with him lately? He had
better control than this.

“My
apologies”—the stranger let his gaze wander down to rest on
Daniel’s name tag—“Daniel.”

Daniel had not
given much thought to Matt’s warnings. If he worried about every
strange shifter Matt sensed then he’d be a nervous wreck by now.
But there was something off about the man in front of him. Daniel
couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly, but it made the
hairs on the back of his neck stand up.