‘Possessive Were,’ she gasped when he finally pulled back from the toe-curling kiss.
‘Damn right.’ His smile made her insides flip in delight. ‘You are mine. Just like I am yours.’
‘Damn right,’ she said, swinging her leg over his to face him, chest to chest, holding his face between her touch-needy hands, giving him back his possessive kiss.
A cough came from behind her. She didn’t stop kissing her mate—she wasn’t finished, and whoever it was could just damn well wait.
‘Sorry for interrupting, but you called?’
She gave Iain one more kiss and pulled away. ‘You called Patrick?’ she asked her mate.
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t hear it.’ She heard a lot of his internal communications with the other soldiers in the pack now she was mated to him—it had become a constant flutter in the back of her mind, one she mostly was able to ignore unless they were swapping insults with each other. Then it was kind of fun to listen in.
‘I didn’t want to interrupt your revelation, so I sent to him on the Alpha link.’
Ahh, that explained it. She couldn’t hear that link unless they wanted her to. She knew it was the same for Skye and Bron—they’d chatted about the difficulties of being mated to a strong Were Alpha and his lieutenants many times over the past few weeks since she’d mated with Iain. Especially when they Skyped with her to chat about the mating ceremony they were planning for her and Iain. She’d never had a sister, or even a close female friend, so it had been eye opening, but something she’d come to rely on. She shifted off Iain’s lap, holding onto his hand as she faced his brother. ‘How are you, Patrick?’
‘Not as good as you two, apparently, but pretty okay.’
She didn’t blush as she would have a few months ago, instead giving him a cheeky grin. ‘So I hear from the pack females.’
His brow rose. ‘Is that so?’
‘Okay, okay, enough preening,’ Iain said, gesturing for his brother to take a seat. ‘I asked you here because we need your mad computer skills.’
‘He’s got mad computer skills too?’
‘Don’t make his head bigger than it needs to be, Little Bird,’ Iain said, squeezing her hand. ‘But yes, given Patrick is our Lore Keeper and librarian, he’s pretty good with a search engine. I thought he could help us look into your past. And it seems more pertinent now than ever before.’
‘What’s happened?’ Patrick asked, looking between them.
Iain filled him in on what Eloise had felt, her suspicions about Cain. ‘I told Jason via the Alpha link. He wants us to go up there and discuss what we mean to do next.’
‘What are we going to do next?’
Iain stared at his brother. ‘Well, that kind of depends on what you’ve found out so far.’
‘You’ve already started looking?’ Eloise’s stomach swirled and then sank through the couch as she turned to Iain. ‘I thought you’d asked him here to ask him to help us look.’
He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. ‘I haven’t asked him yet.’ He angled a brow at his brother. ‘Although, knowing my bro, I knew he couldn’t possibly help himself trying to find some information that might help a member of the family.’
Patrick chuckled. ‘You know me well. I started looking as soon as you mated.’
Eloise swallowed hard and leaned forward, intent on Patrick, trying to tamp down the hope building in her chest. She couldn’t read anything on his face. ‘Have you found something?’
He blew out a quick breath, elbows on knees, hands clasped together. ‘Okay. Based on what you knew of time lines and where you were when you ended up with Morrigan and her coven,’ he began, ‘I started to search for any information about missing children or suspicious deaths in that time and area. There were a few deaths that matched the criteria.’
‘How?’
‘The deaths weren’t explained.’
‘That could be said for many deaths.’
‘Yes, except these had something about them that was familiar to me.’ He paused for a moment, his gaze capturing his brother’s, sending some message that Eloise couldn’t figure out, but that Iain nodded to. Patrick focused on her again. ‘These people were found dead, each one with a black hole in their chest.’
‘Warlock Lightning. Like with Adam and Marcus?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said there were a few? Were they a group, like a pack?’ What if Morrigan had slaughtered her entire pack of shifters to get to her and Cain?
‘I don’t think so. I extended the search when I noticed a pattern. They were spread across the country, hundreds of miles apart. All unsolved murders. Each of them with a black hole in their chests.’
‘Perhaps Morrigan was busy with finding more than Eloise and her brother.’
‘Maybe. But I don’t think so,’ Patrick said, steepling his hands under his chin. ‘There was a pattern to them. A stream of deaths that started in the January of one year and ended in the January of the next.’
‘My birthday is in January.’
‘Yes.’ Patrick swallowed, his mouth tense. ‘And they all happened along the major river systems in the different states.’
Iain let out a breath. ‘She was tracking down shifter packs.’
‘That’s what I think.’
‘How do you know that?’ she asked, every muscle aching, trembling.
‘Shifters tend to live by rivers and streams. Or the ocean. They like the water. They usually buy up farm land somewhere near running water.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t known that. Iain’s hands stilled hers on her lap—she’d been picking at the edges of her nails again as she’d been listening to Patrick.
‘Why did she stop?’
Patrick looked at her, his deep brown eyes more serious than she’d ever seen them. ‘She found what she wanted.’
‘Me and Cain.’
‘I think so.’
‘All that death because of us?’
Iain cupped her chin and pulled her face around to his. ‘No. Not because of you. Because of Morrigan. Don’t take those deaths on your shoulders. The responsibility for them is not yours to bear, do you hear me?’
‘You’re right.’ Anger flared through her at the thought of what Morrigan had done to find her. ‘She has to pay for everything she’s done.’
‘Bloody oath she does.’
Both men spoke together, their voices a vow that tapped her anger, gave it a direction to flow in.
‘How did she know about us? How did she know I was the Nexus?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘Is there something we can do to find out?’
‘Shelley might be able to,’ Patrick suggested.
‘The diaries?’ Iain asked.
‘No. The spirits. There’s all those ancients that follow her around. They might know something of why Morrigan went searching for you. If there was a portent of some kind, they were bound to feel it on the astral plane.’
Eloise stood. ‘Then let’s go find Shelley.’
They stood and headed to the door, but Eloise stopped as Iain opened the door and looked back at the tall Were behind her. ‘Did any of my shifter pack survive Morrigan?’
‘From what I found out, one woman survived the attacks.’
‘I want to see her.’
Patrick’s eyes filled with sadness. ‘That might prove difficult.’
‘Why? Did she die?’
‘No. But from what I discovered, she’s in a hospice. She’s been in a coma ever since that night. With a wound in her chest just like Adam’s.’
‘That was twenty-four years ago!’ she said, the horror in her tone making her voice rasp.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you told Jason and Bron?’
Patrick’s gaze flickered to Iain’s. ‘No. I only got the message just before you called me.’
Eloise felt suddenly sick. If Adam was trapped like that in his body, his wolf howling and in pain, year after
year … ‘The Darkness has to pay.’
‘Yes, it does,’ Iain and Patrick snarled together.
‘Let’s go find Shelley. She might be able to start us in the right direction.’
She led the men out the door and by the time she’d got to the car, Iain had ascertained that Shelley was at the packhouse going over the diaries. It would take only a few minutes to drive there. For Eloise, it was a few minutes too long.
Chapter 10
‘This can’t be right. It just can’t be.’
Shelley turned to another diary, one that was equally ancient, and thought the same question she’d been asking about the Trickster when she’d opened the other ones. The pages flickered, the breeze of their movement fluttering her fringe, and then the pages stopped. The words swirled as hidden entries came to the fore. When they settled on the page, she bent over and read what the ancient witch had said.
Sept 1st: Uain Trickster has become weaker as his Yolanda improved. I noted a change in her aura, a wildness that had never appeared before. What my mother had been afraid of is likely true: Uain will pass beyond the veil and Yolanda will live. He is giving her his life energy. I have tried to stop him, yet he will not listen.
Sept 5th: I tried to bind him yesterday, however his empathy pathways are strong and have already found another path around my spells. I managed to slow the fading, but I could not stop it. From my reckoning, he has but a few days left. I do not know what else to do.
Sept 8th: Uain Trickster passed into the light of the Goddess yesterday. I have bound Yolanda to myself and the pack even tighter to stop her from following her mate into the veil. If only she and Uain had borne children, this task would be easier.
Sept 9th: I have written to Katelyn asking for parlay with the other Covens in the area. If what I have seen here has occurred elsewhere, it may be that we have created a problem in binding Coven and Pack that was never intended, for one thing is certain, Tricksters never gave of themselves in this way before the Pact. If I am correct—and I hope to the Goddess I am wrong—we have to find some way of stopping the Tricksters from using their empathy in this way. They are needed in the Pack. They cannot be allowed to falter and fail.
Shelley finished the section and rubbed her brow. ‘But why would he do that? Why are you showing me this?’
The pages fluttered and flickered open to another entry. One on mating. Her heart lurched. Then anger burned in her chest. ‘You don’t know anything!’ she shouted at the diaries. ‘This wouldn’t happen. Not now.’
The pages flickered again, flipping between the entry about Uain and Yolanda and the one on mating. Her aunt’s words reverberated in her mind.
She slammed the diary shut and glowered at it. ‘Why the fuck are you showing me this? I want to know how to heal him, not how to mate him.’
‘Mate who?’
She jumped at the voice behind her. ‘Fucking hell, Adam. Warn a girl before you appear behind her.’
He laughed. ‘It’s more fun this way.’
‘Of course you’d think that.’ She swung around in her chair and glared at him. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Why? Did you miss me?’
‘Of course not,’ she lied and swung back around to face the table before he could see the lie in her eyes, her face.
He chuckled, a soft sound that slid up her spine. ‘I went back to look for the woman again as you suggested. So far no luck.’
‘I wonder why she hasn’t been back.’
‘Well, that is the question, isn’t it?’
‘Hmm.’
He propped himself on the table beside her, his leg too close to her arm, his presence like static electricity chasing across her skin. She shifted, hiding the action by reaching to pull another diary across the table. It was a truly ancient one that smelled of dust and the sharpness of the herbs used, alongside magic, to preserve the parchment. She pulled cotton gloves on so as not to get the oils from her hands on the pages, and opened it.
Adam slid off the table, turned and leaned over her, his stomach brushing against her shoulder, his hand coming down beside hers. ‘What do you have there?’
She managed not to flinch at his accidental touch, gritted her teeth, wishing he’d move away. It wasn’t fair that even in this form he could make her feel like this.
He leaned closer. ‘This one looks really old.’
She flipped a page, trying to think of a question, unable to think of anything but him.
‘Whose diary is it? What does it say?’
‘I don’t know. You’re in my light.’
‘I’m see-through. How can I be in your light?’
‘You’re hardly see-through.’
‘I don’t cast a shadow.’
‘Then you’re standing too close.’
‘Am I?’ She tried not to move, to concentrate on the words on the page before her, but they blurred and it was no use, she had to look up. He was smiling, damn him, as if he knew exactly how he affected her.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘You are.’
He moved closer, like he intended to kiss her. Her gaze flickered to his mouth, to his eyes, then back to his mouth. His smiling, sexy mouth. She licked her lips. Shit! Had she just made a little moaning sound? Had she moved closer to him, or was he moving closer to her.
If he didn’t kiss her soon, she was going to turn into a puddle. She reached up to touch him, her hand moving without her willing volition, and felt the cold not-quite-thereness of his skin. The sensation was like a slap.
She jerked away, turning to stare out the window. What the hell was she doing? She couldn’t encourage him. Shouldn’t. No matter how much she longed for it. Even if he was back in his body, it was more impossible than ever before. If what she had just read was true—and she was terribly afraid it was—allowing anything to happen with Adam would end up killing them both.
Words whispered in her head, her aunt’s crazed whisper, and she knew it was true. She’d been shown in too many ways to ignore it.
Her love equalled death for him.
‘Earth to Shelley?’ A hand waved in front of her eyes and she blinked. ‘Are you there Shelley?’
She swatted at his hand and growled at him. ‘Of course I’m here. It’s you who isn’t here.’
‘Well, that’s just ghostist.’
‘What?’
‘Racist against ghosts because we’re disembodied.’ He smiled as he stared down at her, arms crossed over his chest, and she almost sighed with relief that he had taken a step back, was no longer touching her.
‘That’s ridiculous. You’re ridiculous.’ She turned back to the diary in front of her and thought a question at it. Words swirled on the page in front of her.
‘I love it when it does that for you.’
She smiled lightly. ‘I do too. It’s like the TARDIS.’
‘Yep. Bigger on the inside and changing itself to the needs of the individual Doctor. Or in this case, witch.’
She grinned up at him. ‘It’s nice that you get my Doctor Who references.’
‘I didn’t before I became this. But given you’re addicted and I’ve been hanging around you the most, I’ve learned an appreciation.’
‘Glad I could give you a proper education.’
‘So, what question did you ask it?’
She looked back at the diary. ‘I wanted to know how Warlock Lightning was first created.’
‘Ooh. What does it say?’ He leaned over her, close, so close, and began to read with her.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. His breath—how did he have breath when he didn’t have a body?—brushed over her arm, bringing tingles and heat chasing over her. The words swam in front of her eyes, the ancient scrawl harder than usual to read. Fuckity-doo-da! Concentrate, Shelley. It’s really not that hard. She rubbed her eyes and forced herself to ignore his presence and to concentrate on the words in front of her.
‘Did you know that when you’re lost in concentration, your brow furrows in
the most endearing crease right here.’ He touched a spot between his eyes.
She jerked back. ‘Everyone’s brows furrow there.’
‘Not like yours does.’ He cocked his head. ‘It’s different on you. Added to the fact that you mouth the words you’re reading.’
‘You’re supposed to be reading the text yourself, not me. And besides, I do not mouth what I’m reading!’ She used to do that, right from when she was young, through school and university, but she’d worked really hard to stop when she was going out with Charlie, her arsehole ex-fiancé, because he’d found it annoying and distracting and childlike.
His lips tipped up in that infuriating shit-eating grin again. ‘You do. It’s endearing. And fun to watch. I’m trying to see how well I can read lips. I think I’m getting it most of the time—although that last section I’m pretty sure was wrong. I don’t think Bridgette Colliere would have written about spanking her play with no dildos where man can do one as he anchored her soup porcupine.’ She surpressed a laugh as he looked down at the words on the page and read out loud the sentence she’d just been reading. ‘Astral travelling is best done in a Spartan place with no distractions so Malcolm may anchor my soul properly.’ He looked up at her. ‘Nope. Not even close.’
His lips were twitching and she couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
‘What?’ he asked, lifting his hands, all innocence.
‘You are the most ridiculous man I have ever met.’
‘I made you laugh. That has to be at least one up for me, especially given that I’m not even truly here.’
The laughter died on her lips, the reminder of his situation a slap in the face. ‘Yes. It is.’ She wished he wouldn’t be so jolly about it. Wished he didn’t make her laugh and feel like this whole thing was normal. If normal was Melbourne, then this was somewhere in far north Siberia. He was supposed to be here, in body, not just in spirit, so she could lean over and slap him when he annoyed her too much; jab him in his ribs when he was being overprotectingly stupid; reach up, pull his head down and kiss him if she goddamned wanted to kiss him. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, couldn’t. It could lead to nothing. Would just be a torment to both of them. Tears pricked her eyes. ‘Shit!’ She threw her pen down and surged up from the table, tripping over her chair in her urgency to get away.
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