Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) (9 page)

“How many people do you think he would kill to keep you safe?”

Lizzie’s stomach knotted because she knew. Layne would kill as many people as possible if it guaranteed her safety. And in the process, he would lose everything good inside of him.

She couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t. Pari may have already guessed how far Layne would be willing to go for her, but no one had any idea the lengths Lizzie would go to - had already gone to - to protect Layne.

She would give them whatever information they wanted and would endure whatever torture they concocted for her without flinching. If it came down to it, she would choose his life over her own. The one thing she couldn’t do, however, was tell him to hide what he felt for her.

“This is his problem, not mine,” she said, her eyes fixed on the knitting in her hand. Maybe if Pari couldn’t see her face she wouldn’t know she was lying. “You should be talking to him about this. Not me.”

Pari placed her carefully folded rag in the sink and turned around, resting her hip on the edge of the counter. Lizzie and Layne had placed a bet on Pari’s actual age. Lizzie thought she was just a few years older than them, and therefore guessed twenty-two. Layne was convinced Pari was old, and guessed thirty. They’d tried to subtly get the answer, but Pari was tight-lipped when it came to just how long she’d been on this earth. At the moment, her posture said young while her eyes whispered she wasn’t just old, but weary as well.

“I am talking to him,” Pari said. “I know how Shifter hearing works, and I know his isn’t anywhere near human levels no matter what the moon might say.” She turned to address the door leading to the hallway. “Not that he would need it to hear us talking when he’s lurking in the hall.”

The door swung open and Layne entered, ducking as he came through the doorway so the little girl on his shoulders wouldn’t hit her head.

“How did you know I was there?” he asked.

Pari held out her arms, and Caroline lunged, nearly taking off Layne’s head in the process.

“Did you know the human body is more than sixty percent water?” Pari rubbed her nose against Caroline’s, which made the little girl giggle hysterically. “I always know where you are,” she said.

Layne slung himself into an antique Queen Anne chair, which whined under the onslaught.

“That’s creepy.”

Pari snorted. “And being able to hear a little girl’s nighttime prayers from four rooms away or being able to pull thoughts out of someone’s head isn’t? Don’t forget, one person’s creepy is always someone else’s normal.”

“Question,” Layne said, leaning forward. “Do women get a book of all these lame axioms at some point or is knowing them an after-effect of child birth?”

“It’s from going through life observing and learning. It’s not our fault that women observe and learn more than men,” Pari said.

“What does observe mean?” asked Caroline, who had wiggled away from her mother and was now climbing up on Layne’s shoulders.

“It means watching everything around you like a nosey busy-body,” Layne said. “You know, like how you’re always looking to see who is getting what in the kitchen. You’re observing.”

Caroline shook her head, causing the pom-poms on her hat to dance around her shoulders. “Nuh-uh. I’m not observing. I’m just making sure you’re not going to steal my biscuits.”

“Cookies,” Layne corrected.

“Biscuits,” Caroline insisted.

It was an argument that could go on for hours. Lizzie knew because they’d had the same one two days ago. It began at lunch and Caroline’s last word when she left to get ready for bed that night had been, “Biscuits!”

While they furthered the divide between American and British English, Lizzie asked Pari a question she’d been wondering about since they’d first arrived.

“Where is Caroline’s father?”

The only indication Pari heard was a brief pause in the swish-swish-swish of the feather duster she was using to move nonexistent dust from one side of the fireplace mantel to the other.

“Did they kill him?” Lizzie persisted.

“As far as I know, Caroline’s father is still keeping the pubs of Falkirk in business,” Pari said, the feather duster now in hyper-drive.

That wasn’t exactly the answer Lizzie was expecting.

“Don’t you think he’s looking for you?”

The feather duster sped up to impossible speeds and then stopped all together.

“Would you be looking for a one night stand you had four years ago?” Lizzie felt her eyes grow round. Pari gave her a wry smile. “I didn’t think so.”

“But Caroline—“

“But Caroline what? Should know her father? He should at least know she exists?” Bright pink feathers flew around in agitation as Pari brandished the duster like a weapon. “You don’t think I already know that? Because, trust me, I do. I’ve had a while to think about it.”

“Then why didn’t you—”

“Tell him?” Pari laughed and the sound was sadder than any country song Lizzie ever heard. “I would have to know his name first.”

Lizzie wasn’t sure how to process this information. She knew people did that of course. Her life was far from sheltered, and it wasn’t like she thought Pari was a bad or amoral person. Far from it, actually. Over the past month, Pari had proven to be a kind, thoughtful woman and amazing mother. It was, she supposed, she simply couldn’t imagine herself in the same situation. When she did what a person must do in order to make a baby, Lizzie wanted all the love and romance found in the pages of her books. She knew it was a naïve fantasy, but she didn’t think she would be able to go through with a quickie with a nameless stranger she met in a bar.

The harder thing for her brain to accept was the loss of another fantasy. She’d allowed herself to believe there was still a chance someone was coming to save them. In her daydreams, a dreamy guy in a kilt would kick down the door, take one look at Pari and Caroline, and sweep them into a loving embrace while shooting the SHP member who had tried to sneak up behind them. He would have a whole army with him, and when one of the other soldiers led Lizzie outside, she would see Charlie, Scout, and the rest of the Alpha Pack waiting for her. They would take her home and everything would go back to normal.

The loss of that fantasy hurt more than she was expecting.

Being a prisoner of the SHP was wearing away at something deep inside of her. Every day was filled with fake normalcy. It was like being trapped in a play where she hadn’t learned her lines but knew them all the same.

With Pari and Caroline she was the family friend. She would partake in idle chit-chat and indulge the little girl with hours of playing.

With Midge she was the house guest. She would praise the food and thank her profusely for the smallest kindnesses.

With Layne she was… Well, she supposed she played the same villainous role she’d been playing for years.

And with Alistair, she was alternately the cat and mouse in a game where the stakes were nauseatingly high.

She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Layne she’d accidentally taken everything when Alistair touched her. She had only made that mistake once before, and she was still dealing with the ramifications. She wouldn’t have done it again if she could have helped it, but at the time she was scared, tired, and in pain. Her Sight acted instinctively, doing its version of a full-on attack.

At first, she worried (or was it hoped?) it would have the same side-effects as the only other time she’d pulled a person’s entire mind into her own, but when she couldn’t get any hint of Alistair’s thoughts or emotions just by being near him, she realized it wasn’t the same at all.

She had three theories about that. One was when she’d done the whole brain suck the first time, she’d been trying. It had been an experiment, one where she’d been fully conscious and thoughtful about every single moment and action.

The second was Alistair was so unsure of his own mind there was nothing to project. From the hours she’d spent trying to unravel bits of information from the massive noise she’d grabbed from him, she thought this was probably her strongest theory. There was something off about Alistair’s brain. Everyone’s head is loud, but his was unbearably so. If the normal brain was a rock concert, Alistair’s was standing next to a bomb as it exploded. She had no idea how he hadn’t gone mentally deaf.

Her third theory was the most simple, and the most complex: Alistair simply wasn’t Layne.

She didn’t spend much time dwelling on her third theory. Thinking about why Layne would be a unique situation made sleeping harder, and since arriving at Brownlow Manor, sleeping was one of her few true joys.

Despite having full and complete access to his brain, in a manner of speaking, Lizzie was no closer to figuring out the proverbial chink in Alistair’s armor. His thoughts were simply too much of a mess. The few things she pulled out only confirmed her earlier theories. His father was a bully, his behavior bordering on abusive when he actually took the time and energy to notice his son’s existence. Alistair used the rage he felt towards his father as fuel to succeed in life. He did well in school; had lots of friends, whom he thought of as followers; and had a very active dating life, of which Lizzie had way too much intimate knowledge. It was truly outstanding how clear and unraveled his memories of his various and many sexual encounters were. Perhaps it was because there was zero emotion other than conquest attached to any of them.

When he came up to their rooms every few days, he acted exactly like Lizzie expected. He was kind and charming. He brought her presents. Sometimes it would be new yarn, others it would be an outfit or candy. After he brought her a box of chocolates, which she immediately turned over to a forlorn Caroline, he started bringing the little girl treats, too. He didn’t seem to notice how she flinched every time he reached towards her.

Alistair smiled and flirted and acted like Lizzie was the most beautiful and entertaining human being he’d ever met. He didn’t fool her in the least, but she was beginning to think he might be fooling himself. There was something in the way he looked at her. The more she pulled back from his touch, the more determined he was to touch her. She didn’t have to See him, the truth of it was clear in the way he leered at her as if she was a prize to be claimed. It terrified her, but she merely smiled and laughed at whatever it was he was saying, hoping like hell there never came a day she was alone with him.

Of course, she was beginning to think there was never going to be a day when she wasn’t trapped in the apartment with Pari, Caroline, and Layne as her constant companions. She’d expected to be taken out on a mission to prove her worth almost immediately, but as the days slipped by, one after the other, the thoughts of leaving dwindled. Which is why she was completely unprepared when the locked-down doors opened to reveal Mack and a spindly looking dark-skinned man with white tufts of hair.

“Dr. Patel, I wasn’t aware I would be seeing you today,” Pari said, her voice taking on the formal tone she normally reserved for the few short words she exchanged with Alistair.

“Pari. Caroline.” Dr. Patel nodded his greetings. “And you must be the Seer I’ve heard so much about,” he said, extending a hand to Lizzie. “I am Dr. Patel. I will be assisting you prepare for your journey today.”

Journey? What journey?

And how exactly was a doctor supposed to help her prepare?

Before she could stretch out one gloved hand and try to get some answers, Layne stepped in front of her. He crossed his arms and glared down at the doctor, who she hadn’t realized was so small until Layne towered over him.

“She doesn’t like to be touched,” he growled.

Dr. Patel held up his hands as if surrendering to Layne’s bad manners.

“My apologies.” His voice had a pleasant, sing-song quality about it. “I forgot. I did not mean any harm.”

“It’s okay. No harm, no foul and all that.”

Layne grunted his disapproval, which was collectively ignored.

“What are you going to do?” she asked even though she’d already figured it out.

Dr. Patel smiled, revealing a row of perfectly straight teeth. “Simply making your journey more comfortable. There will be no pain, and I will take efforts to make sure my contact with you, even through gloves, is limited.”

Across the room, Pari removed the thin sweater she’d been wearing and whispered something to her daughter. The wail Caroline emitted seemed to wrap itself around all of Lizzie’s internal organs and squeeze.

“You can do me first,” Pari said, her spine and voice so stiff they almost hid the tears swimming in her eyes.

Caroline wrapped herself around her mother’s waist, chanting, “Don’t go, Mommy. Don’t go.”

“You will keep an eye on my pup, won’t you?” she asked Layne, using Pack terms to remind Layne of his obligation to Caroline. Not that she needed to. Lizzie was fairly certain anyone who tried to touch the child would be fortunate to merely lose a hand.

Layne dipped his head in a show of submission. “I’ll guard her life with my own.”

Those weren’t idle words. It was an oath, one Layne would honor unto death. For the first time in years, she wished her Sight worked in reverse so he would know how proud she was of him.