Shifting Selves (11 page)

When my eyes did manage to remain shut for longer than a moment, images of James projected against the lids. Not James as I saw him tonight, but as he would likely become. Mac had described the fierce battle that would wage within his cousin, as his human half fought desperately to maintain a foothold on James’s conscious mind, to repel the beast by pure force of will—a battle it was impossible to win.

One day at a time, the human intelligence would dim in his eyes. The upright body would hunch, seeking a return to the animal’s four-legged stance. He would become uncontrollable and irrational, eventually unable to form words. His speech would devolve into a series of growls or grunts. He would have all the desires of the bear and none of the physical strength or defenses. He could not be let out of the house, where he could harm others or find harm himself. James would live the rest of his life, trapped in his home. Caged.

It was a horrible image, made all the worse by the certainty that I could do something to prevent it. There was an answer hovering just outside my consciousness. I chased it, over and over again, trying to identify the smell I’d caught on James’s shirt, trying to match it with something that was scratching at my mind, urging me to put the pieces together.

Finally, a few hours before dawn, my anxious, exhausted mind finally gave up the fight, and I felt myself drift slowly toward sleep. In that space between the conscious and unconscious mind, that moment of drifting without purpose produced the answer I’d been actively searching for all night, a memory sharp and clear, though it was from a night I longed to forget.

The essence I’d found didn’t belong to a person. It belonged to a drug, one used on me the night Brian tied me to my bed and promised we’d be together soon. He’d called it a cocktail, and it was partly intended to knock me out and make me more docile. Given the circumstances, of course, nothing short of repeated blows to the head with a large mallet would have made me docile, but I had to give him points for effort. And somewhere in that cocktail, there was something I hadn’t consciously noticed at the time, so distracted was I with the more pressing issue of the madman at my bedside.

My subconscious, fortunately, had been paying attention, and it remembered the cocktail and its other purpose. Yes, it had made me sleepy and confused, but Brian had also used it to block my access to my magic.

I let myself breathe a quick sigh of relief. The drug’s effects weren’t long-lasting. In fact, they’d worn off within a matter of hours. With any luck, James would be fine in a day or two.

And yet, Brian had developed the drug for an elemental. Though our magic derived from the same source, it might work differently on shifters. It was too great a risk to ignore.

Also, Brian was dead. Someone else was using his concoction, and I could only think of one person who’d worked closely with Brian and also displayed a marked enmity for shifters.

I lay in bed and cursed loudly at the ceiling for several more minutes. Because, as much as I might wish otherwise, I knew of only one way to get more information about this drug, and to possibly learn more about the abductor himself.

I had to talk to my father.

CHAPTER 11

Once I made the disturbing connection between Brian’s cocktail and the shifter abductions, I was unable to sleep. In that final hour before dawn returned light to the world, I crept out of bed and made my way to the river.

Elementals slept and ate as humans did, and to a certain extent we needed it for survival. We were born from the union of magic and humans, and so we bore a human shape and possessed some human needs. And yet, our survival was far less reliant on those needs. We could easily go days, even weeks, without food or sleep, so long as we had access to our element.

And so I stood by the river for that last hour before daybreak, quietly pulling its power into me, letting it interact with the magic that resided in my core. I sought the peace I’d been unable to find in the hours I’d tossed and turned in my bed

His approach was so quiet, I shouldn’t have known he was there, but I sensed his presence the moment he neared. He said nothing, merely stood with me, watching the water rush by. The river wasn’t as full as it would be in another month or two, when the majority of the snowpack melted and the summer sun had yet to claim the water for its own, but it was already stronger than it had been when I first arrived in Tahoe. We watched it rush by, the water growing lighter and less opaque as the sun slowly raised itself above the horizon.

For a long time, I was content to stand next to him, the warmth of his body nearly tangible, and the scent that belonged only to him drifting toward me on the morning air.

I saw a few rocks appear downriver, dark and smooth. I was feeling so calm that it took me a moment longer than it probably should have to remember that rocks weren’t supposed to move. They were familiar, too. I’d seen them before, in the river near Carmen’s house.

“They’re river otters.” Mac’s voice was low and gentle, doing his best to retain the peaceful mood.

I struggled a bit to do the same, because I kind of wanted to squeal like a hyperactive five-year-old upon learning there were otters living behind my house. The nature I loved could be immense and awe-inspiring—and I was glad to be surrounded by such majesty—but sometimes nature could just be downright cute, and that was every bit as wonderful.

The otters dipped below the water and vanished as easily as they’d appeared, leaving me feeling a tiny bit happier than I’d been before their visit.

“You can’t sleep, either?” I asked.

He gave a non-committal shrug, and then he let out a long breath, as if he’d come to a decision. “I heard you come down here.” It wasn’t a declaration, by any means, but it was still more than I’d dared to hope for. I turned to him in surprise. “Shifter ears,” he explained, misunderstanding my expression. With a small smile, he pointed to the body part in question. “They work great when there isn’t a thunderstorm interfering.” As quickly as it appeared, the smile vanished, lost in memories of the night Brian attacked me and Sera while he’d been only a hundred feet away, wholly oblivious.

I knew he blamed himself for not recognizing what Brian was. I blamed myself too, though it was neither of our faults. “You got there in the end,” I reminded him.

“Yeah. I have a bad habit of showing up after the worst of the danger’s already passed.” There was an edge to his voice, a mocking tone directed squarely at himself. I thought he was remembering far more than that one night.

“Hey.” Before I had time to think about what I was doing, my hand was on his upper arm, wrapped loosely around his bicep. My instant awareness of the touch was reflected in his eyes, and I awkwardly released my grip, letting my hand drift to my side. “I thought you said you know better than to try and protect me.”

His snort conveyed both his exasperation and amusement. “Well, I know better than to eat a fourth serving of pie, too, but I still do that every Thanksgiving.”

Blowing out my breath in an exaggerated sigh, I easily pulled the river to me and circled it around the two of us until we stood in a cyclone of water powerful enough to yank us both into the river and hold us below the surface if I asked it to do so. I tried to offer Mac a serene smile, but I’m pretty certain it veered into smug. “I can handle myself.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “Do you plan on carrying a river with you wherever you go?” He wasn’t joking.

I didn’t know where this version of Mac was coming from. He’d never been anything but quietly supportive before. “What’s going on?” I asked, my voice sharper than intended.

I kept the water spinning around us, our own private cocoon where the rules of the outside world might not apply. I could feel tension and frustration pouring off him. I’d felt something similar before, when we’d first met and he’d shown me what it looked like when an enormous adult male had a temper tantrum. He wanted to rage, I thought, to release the poison crawling through his mind.

I thickened the water, trapping him with me. “Tell me.”

His eyes met mine, and for a moment I knew the beast was looking at me. He blinked, and he was just Mac again. Agitated and angry, but Mac. “Seeing James like that, it was a reminder of how little control we really have. How easy it is to be hurt. Aidan, I look at you and I see so many ways I could lose you. To your insane parents. To the elementals if they ever find out what you are. To your—” He stopped abruptly. To yourself, he’d wanted to say.

Everything he said was true, which was why it was so irritating. I felt something begin to break, and I stopped playing fair. “What do you mean, ‘lose you’? You didn’t want me, remember? So you don’t get to stand here now and act like I’m yours.”

He was practically vibrating with suppressed emotion now. It was anger and hurt and, above all, a fear I didn’t understand. “Don’t be stupid, Aidan. I never said that.”

I felt the water slip, for just a moment, and I fought to hold it steady. I had to prove him wrong. He had to know I was in control.

“No, you said I wasn’t ready to be kissing anyone. And now you’re telling me you don’t think I can protect myself. You really don’t think highly of my ability to decide for myself, do you?” Even as I spoke the words, I knew I was distorting his meaning on purpose, trying to hurt him the way I was hurting. I’d thought I was okay with him wanting distance. I was wrong.

He threw up his hands in exasperation. “I never said that, either! You know I want you. You know I think you’re amazing. You know that.”

I did know that, but it seemed to make no difference. “Then why?” I wanted to sound in control, but I couldn’t. When you’re asking the man you want more than any other why he won’t be with you, control isn’t easy to come by.

He shook his head, a sharp gesture intended to remove the anguish creeping across his features. “Let’s forget, for a moment, that you ran away to Oregon.” I began to protest, but he ignored me, determined to finish. “How can we be together? We’re fighting, and I’m terrified to yell at you. I thought I was okay with the half-fire thing, but I will not be the one who pushes you over the edge. I’m not always a calm man, Aidan, and you can’t be around that. You can’t be angry or frustrated or anything that might trigger the fire.”

I knew he meant well, but his intention didn’t matter. I’d spent most of my life with other people making decisions for me, and I couldn’t accept Mac being one of them. Of all the people in the world, I needed him to think I could take care of myself, and learning that he didn’t think that turned my irritation into the very anger he was trying to prevent.

I took one deliberate step toward him until we were nose to nose. Well, nose to clavicle. I tilted my head up and met his worried brown eyes. “So, to be clear, I’m the delicate china doll that needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap and carried around, lest someone break her?” There was iron in my voice. Iron and fire.

“Will you stop twisting my words? I’m not worried about someone breaking you!” That time, he wasn’t able to find his quiet voice, and the words were shouted directly in my face. My own rage rose in response. Part of me wanted to scream at him. Another part wanted to push against him, to force this enormous man to bend to my will. And a final part, larger than it had any right to be, just wanted to claw at him, to press my lips to his and devour him until we were both lost.

I did none of those. My anger did what it always did, and the rage from my fire side blocked my connection to the water. The cone of river water, freed from my control, crashed around us, soaking us both. Neither of us moved or even seemed to notice.

“I’m worried you’ll break yourself,” he whispered. “And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” Without another word, he returned to his trailer, leaving me on the river bank, shivering for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold.

Mac joined the rest of the cabin for breakfast, and we both did our best to pretend nothing had happened.

When I finally remembered to tell him my nighttime realization and my plan to visit my father, he immediately phoned his family with the new information and let them know he’d be busy all that day.

It didn’t matter if we were fighting. There was no way he was going to let me face my father without the support of friends. It really wasn’t easy to stay angry at the man.

He wasn’t alone. While my friends had confidence in my ability to function day-to-day without going crazy, they apparently didn’t view a visit to Josiah, during which I asked whether he’d started abducting shifter children, as a day-to-day activity. They collectively decided I needed supervision.

A lot of supervision, in fact. We took Mac’s Bronco, because it was difficult to fit three elementals and two shifters into Sera’s much smaller car. In case I wasn’t secure enough with four babysitters, they’d placed me in the back seat, with Simon and Vivian bracing me on either side.

I suspected the company had much to do with that morning’s loss of control. The kitchen window overlooked the river, and anyone watching my confrontation with Mac would have seen the rage briefly consume me. My friends knew that every time I accidentally tapped into the fire magic, I was slowly creating a schism between the two halves of my psyche. This morning, that short loss of control had likely pushed me one step closer to insanity, a fact I really wanted to ignore. I didn’t feel any crazier than normal. Not yet, at least.

Even so, I needed to stay calm. It was just that simple. Calm and controlled at all times, just as I’d been raised. It sounded peaceful and mind-numbingly dull.

I looked to my right. Vivian was looking out the window, her face serene as she quietly observed the passing scenery. “Do you ever get angry?” I asked.

She turned to me surprised. “Of course I do.”

“Really? When?”

Sera twisted in her seat to listen in. Mac had refused to let her take over his stereo, and she needed some form of entertainment for the drive. “Seriously, Viv, when?”

Vivian fidgeted under our dual scrutiny. “Last week. You were both there. Remember when I couldn’t break into the MI-6 database?”

I looked at her, dumbfounded. “You mean the night you cursed twice and ate a large bowl of ice cream?”

Vivian nodded. “I dislike being thwarted.”

That I could believe. So far as I could tell, Vivian had no intention of selling national secrets to terrorist factions or blackmailing high ranking government officials. She simply wanted to know everything there was to know, and she viewed a government firewall the same way the rest of us viewed a somewhat challenging Sudoku. It was nothing more than a puzzle to be solved.

“But...” I could tell Sera was trying to figure out how to phrase her next words without sounding condescending. Finally, she gave up. “You’d make a lousy fire, Viv.”

“Thank goodness for that,” said Simon. “We have enough hotheads in this car. I can’t be the only one in favor of a calm, reasonable approach to life’s problems.”

“Hey!” I protested. “When I’m not setting things on fire, I’m totally reasonable.” I decided to change the subject before anyone began a rebuttal. “So, Vivian, how did you manage to calm yourself down from that shocking fit of rage?”

A small, self-satisfied smile crossed her face. “I broke into the MI-5 archives. They were redacted files, though,” she added modestly.

Sera whistled, impressed. “If you ever decide to take over the world, can I be your consultant? I can think of a few changes I’d like to make.”

“Pancakes on every restaurant menu,” I suggested. “And none of those weird-ass fruit-flavored syrups, either.”

“I was thinking we give in to global warming for a while. You cold weather-loving freaks have had your day,” said Sera.

“A koi pond in every yard,” said Simon. The distant, dreamy look in his eyes suggested he wasn’t entirely joking.

“Reunite The Clash,” added Sera. “We can reanimate Joe Strummer, right?”

“Do you listen to any bands in which all the members still live, Sera?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Hey, the good ones always go young while the boy bands live forever. What about you, Mac? What would you change?”

His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, his somber gaze reflecting none of the others’ levity. “I’ll get back to you.”

He swung the wheel, turning us into the parking lot of Truckee’s lone luxury hotel, the building Josiah owned and lived in when in town. The place he intended to call home until I finally saw his version of reason and returned with him to Hawaii. “I’d like to have fewer crazy relatives,” I said quietly. I glanced at Sera, staring at me with more compassion than I could handle. “Present company excluded, of course. You’ll always be nuts.”

She grinned, and the expression vanished from her face. “Gotta keep up with you. Sisters are supposed to be competitive, you know.”

As we walked to the lobby, my friends quietly surrounded me, forming a protective barrier. Though I hated being treated as weak in any way, I found the support touching, even knowing how ineffective it was. Josiah could incinerate them in an instant if he felt so inclined. He also had to know that if he did so, Sera and I would be lost to him forever. I suspected he had a few more cards to play before resorting to such extreme measures.

“Ms. Blais. Ms. Brook. I’m Jonathan, Mr. Blais’s new personal assistant.” A young man rushed up to us. His dark eyes and hair and bronze skin identified him as being almost certainly a fire, and a reasonably strong one to still have the traditional coloring. Though he looked eighteen, he could have easily been well into his 30s or even 40s, depending on how much elemental blood coursed through his veins.