Desire Awakened (Aaron's Kiss #13) (16 page)

Lizzy handed him the plate with the sandwich
on it and froze.

“Can you let it go, Mom?”

“Virtual imaging.” She looked at Morrigan
when Mathew left the room with his sandwich and then threw her arms
around her. “I can see him. I can…Oh my God, I can see him. How do
I do…never mind. I’ll figure it out.” She went to find her
grandfather. He’d help her and be excited about it. She found him
in the study playing with a computer with Pete.

He looked up at her with a smile. “Come
here, my dear. You must see your son’s pictures and captions. He is
quite clever. And he has a steady hand when he uses the camera we
gave him as well.”

She walked to the computer and was
shocked.

“Well done, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are.” He flipped through a few of
them and she could see that he was having fun at it too. When he
got to the end of them, she stood up and thanked Pete.

“Don’t thank me, thank him.” She pointed at
her grandfather. “This was his idea to keep him busy. Between us
and Tristan, the kid is bouncing around us like he’s running a
flipping war room. I’d hate to work for him.”

She laughed and turned to her grandfather.
“I need your help too. I need to go to Logan and speak to him, but
I’m not sure how to do it. The way you and Grandmother can appear
in a room without being here.”

“Oh that’s easy. You just have to dream.” He
laughed when she raised a brow at him. He pressed his finger over
it. “You got that from your father. I’ve never met a man who could
say so much with a brow before. He can—”

Pete cleared her throat. Lizzy laughed. Her
grandparents could go on about nothing at all more than anyone she
knew. He moved to the couch with her and took her hand.

“It’s really very simple. At first, you’ll
fade in and out, but he’ll just be glad to see you and he won’t
notice. You’ll, of course, need to peek in the room before going
in. If he’s with another supernatural that you don’t want to see,
it will be all over.”

She nodded. “And how do I do that?” His
laughter made her smile. “Thank you, Grandfather. I love him so
very much and I just want to talk to him.”

He patted her leg. “Of course you do. Now,
here’s what you do. It’s the same principle as the link you have to
speak to him. You send him images of you, correct?”

She flushed, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Pete did and burst out laughing. Lizzy decided that she was going
to get back at the woman if she had to wait ten decades to do so.
Smiling, she turned back to her grandfather.

“Think of yourself as he’d see you. Sort of
like you see in the mirror. Then you simply project yourself there,
not your voice, but you. He doesn’t really see you in his mind when
you speak, but when you do this, everyone can see you that has the
ability. Understand?”

She thought so and thought about him then
stopped when her grandfather touched her hand.

“Peek first, love. Megan may be stupid, but
she can see you if you let her. Peek by the way your father does
when he wants to see what you’re looking at. Through his eyes.”

Through his eyes sounded easy enough, but
she wasn’t sure what to do. Leaving the study, she went to find her
dad. This was turning into being something of a wild goose chase,
but she had to try. Finding him in his office, she had to wait for
him to get off the phone before she could ask for help.

“That was Bradley. And if you’d like to know
what a pissed off alpha sounds like, call him back. Better yet,
invite him over.” Her dad smiled. “Actually, don’t. I just had the
carpets replaced and he may want to mark them. He just spoke to the
other alpha. He is not a happy camper either.”

“What’s going to happen with the wolves?”
Lizzy said and sat down. Her dad came to sit next to her. “Is the
other alpha going to pay the fine for what his pack did to
Bradley?”

“No. Poor bastard said that Bradley could
have his pack. He told him that he was retiring anyway and his son
was a moron. He basically told Bradley that if he wanted them to
take them, and if some of them died in the process, he was happy
with that too. He’s called the Council in to oversee matters.” He
leaned back into the seat. “Tell me what I can do to help. And just
so you know, I like this young man a great deal.”

“I do too. In fact, I love him very much. I
want to see him, but I don’t know how. Grandfather told me how to
do it, but I have to peek into the room first so that Megan, if
she’s there, can’t see me.”

He smiled. “Brilliant plan. I should have
thought of it myself. Smart girl of mine, you are.”

She started to tell him that Morrigan had
helped, along with the Fates, but didn’t. Her dad and the ladies
didn’t see eye to eye on the whole magic thing. The ladies told him
it was magic that he used, and he said it was skill. Whatever it
was, she needed a bit of whatever all of them had.

Logan felt the connection to Lizzy, but
before he could pounce on it and speak to her, she was gone. The
pain he felt over that loss was great and he wanted to scream out
in frustration. Then he felt something, a kind of stir in the air,
and suddenly, she was there.

“Don’t talk until I can figure out what I’m
doing.”

He grinned at her tone. She sounded like
Mathew when he couldn’t get a math problem to work out. She faded
out some, but not completely.

“Okay, Dad said to tell you that I’m
backwards. I don’t know why that’s important, but he said that I’m
not very good at this, which I’ve pointed out to him several times.
I’m here, aren’t I? But when I was told to think of…forget it. It’s
not important. I love you.”

“I love you too. Oh, love, I love you so
much.” He watched her fade again. Then he noticed she was looking
to her right, or left, he didn’t really care, but he knew that she
was talking to someone. “Lizzy? What’s going on?”

“I got your picture. Are you hurt? They said
you’d been shot.”

He nodded to his shoulder that was all but
healed.

“Dad had asked for proof of them having you
and we just received a cloth with your blood on it. She shot
you?”

“One of her henchmen did. Is Mathew all
right?”

She nodded and wiped at tears.

“Don’t cry, love, please. Get me home and
I’ll hold you forever.”

“I need for you to help us find you. Are
there any sounds where you are? Bradley said to raise your nose to
the air and open your mouth and breathe in. It’s a trick so we can
absorb more of what’s around us.”

Logan did as she asked. He wasn’t sure what
he was trying to pull in and was having a little trouble separating
the tastes to try and figure out what they were. He tried breaking
them down one at a time like he did business contracts.

“Wolf, of course, and burnt something…wood,
I guess.” He did it again. “No, not wood but coal. I can smell
coal. And flowers. I can smell roses and daisies and marigolds. I
can smell herbs like basil and thyme. There’s oregano too, strong
and sharp. Lizzy, it smells like a greenhouse.”

“That helps.” She turned to someone again,
and he figured it was Pete. “Now sounds. I’ve taken the liberty of
sort of turning down your volume, I guess. Making it so that you
can hear, but not as I do or any other supe does. What can you
hear? And remember that you can hear like a wolf. Things that you
normally wouldn’t hear are going to be painful.”

He felt the moment she stopped turning it
down. Things weren’t just painful, but overwhelming. He looked at
her when she stood up. She was pacing and talking.

“Dad said for you to focus on the sharp ones
and turn them down one at a time. I’m sorry, Logan, I wish I could
have helped you more.” He smiled at her and told her he loved her.
“I love you too and plan on showing you, but we have to focus here.
Get to listening.”

He could hear everything, painfully so. Some
of them were so loud that, like she’d said, they hurt. But then he
realized that they weren’t really loud at all but higher pitched.
Those were the ones he tried to sort out. One by one he went
through them, pushing them to the back of his mind and putting the
others in a sort of box to think about later.

“I can hear cars. Not a lot, but two maybe,
three going by me. Water. Somewhere there’s water splashing against
something…metal maybe?” As he listened, he heard something else,
something curious. “I hear children. They’re talking about a test.
Something about a state test that…Christ, there’s a school
nearby.”

“Good. Water and a school. Pete is looking.
What else? You’re doing fantastic.”

He smiled and closed his eyes this time. It
was getting easier, but no less frustrating. His eyes popped open.
“Someone just paged for Denton that he has a phone call on line
six. And she said there was a sales meeting at nine.”

She turned away and he heard them coming and
told her.

“I’ll be back. I love you, so you stay
strong.”

The door opened just as she disappeared. He
dropped his head down so they couldn’t see the smile that he was
sure was going from ear to ear. He’d helped her find him, he knew.
When Megan kicked out at him, he looked up at her.

“It’s about ten minutes from when your deal
is going to go bust. I just wanted to be here to watch your face
when you realize that I won.”

He didn’t say a word. What would be the
point?

“The big and bad Logan Burris lost to a
halfling.”

“Halfling?”

She flushed probably not realizing until
then what she’d said. But he’d heard her.

“Yes. My mother was a fae and my father
human. They loved each other so much that they didn’t care that
when they had me I’d be nothing more than a halfling. But I showed
them. I showed them all, and now I’m going to take something that
they all love.”

“Lizzy.”

~~~

“Are you ready?”

Lizzy looked at Maddy and tried to think
about what she was saying to her.

“Lizzy, if you’re not going to do this, just
say so. I can take this old bastard on if I have to.”

“No. I was thinking about something else. He
said children and a page about a phone call. I don’t think it’s a
school.” She shook her head. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

Elijah Peterson was on the city council of
their town. Actually, he was the entire council. No one else had
wanted the job and now that the city was having so many financial
problems they could only afford him. He wasn’t a particularly nice
man, and Lizzy figured that, as a bear, he probably wasn’t nice
then either. And he hated her dad. She smiled at the memory.

Her mom and dad had been out. Lizzy hadn’t
ever figured out what they had been doing, and after all this time,
had never had the inclination to ask. She was pretty sure, but like
most kids, didn’t want to think about it. But at some point, they’d
crossed paths with Elijah.

He’d been fishing in the great pond on her
parents’ property. Not with a pole, but as a bear, and he’d been
showing his son, another Elijah, how to catch them with his claws
and toss them up on the shore. While her parents had been watching
this, apparently one of the fish had hit her mom.

No one but Elijah the senior had been upset.
Her mom had told her she thought it was funny. They had been
watching, but it had been their fish and pond. Elijah had come
running after them, out of the water in great leaps until he was
nearly on top of them. Her dad had simply protected his mate. He’d
punched Elijah in the nose. But that hadn’t been what had brought
on the hatred.

Elijah the child had laughed. Great, loud
resounding peals of laughter that had brought out other animals to
see what was going on. Elijah senior, nose bloodied and
embarrassed, had risen up on his hind legs and roared at his son.
The boy only laughed harder until in his anger, he’d run after the
boy and had slapped him.

His claws had raked across the boy’s face
and tore it open, harshly. As Elijah had stood there looking
pole-axed, her dad had pulled the boy from the water and
immediately tore open his wrist to save him. Within minutes,
seconds really, her mom told her that the wounds had sealed and the
boy had nothing more than bloody fur to show for what had happened.
Except for his mistrust now for his dad. And that was why whenever
he could, Elijah would go out of his way to thwart her father on
anything and everything because he’d always felt that Aaron had
thought to save his son and not him. Stupid Lizzy always thought
the man should have been grateful but he had lost face with the
others who had witnessed him hurting his son.

Logan’s name was called, and Lizzy stood up
and straightened her suit. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward.
When she smiled at Sam Luna, the bailiff, he nodded and winked. He
was a wolf in Bradley’s pack and she’d known him all her life.

“It says here that Logan Burris is supposed
to be here to put in his bid. You’re not Logan.”

She shook her head and handed Sam what she
had to prove that she could come here and represent her
husband.

“You any relation to that Aaron
MacManus?”

“He’s my dad.”

Elijah tossed the papers onto the desk and
glared at her. She waited for him to speak. For one, she was a
great deal older than him, and two, she was more powerful even if
he shifted to bear.

“I have other offers and I’ll take his into
consideration. As soon as I get them all, I’ll—”

She cut him off. “No, you won’t. You’ve seen
the name MacManus and you figure you’ll just stop this bid because
you think my dad embarrassed you when you should be happy he saved
your son. Well, I’m not going to sit here and wait for my town to
go bust because you’re an arrogant asshole who doesn’t know when to
say enough.”

“Now see here. You can’t talk to me that way
in my—”