Echo Falls
Page 11
“Phoebe?”
She yelped and then looked around. Thankfully the rest of the people at the reception were too drunk or distracted to notice the animalistic sound. However, Aidan recognized it and immediately put his arm around her waist, scanning the area for danger. He lifted his head to scent the air, but nothing alerted him.
“What do you see?” he asked in a whisper.
“Nothing,” she said. She resisted the urge to let him comfort her with all her strength. Liam watched them even now; she could feel it. Letting him comfort her might as well be like painting a big target on his back. No doubt he already had one in Liam’s eyes, but she didn’t want to do anything to encourage the Hunter to strike out.
Aidan moved to wrap his arms around her, but she cleared her throat and took a step back. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing toward the black car.
“What did you see?” he asked again, his voice deep and soothing though more insistent. He looked in the direction she had glanced in and then turned to her.
She shook her head and took another stop back. “A bad dream. I want to leave.”
He nodded and placed his hand on her back, gently guiding her to his truck.
They didn’t speak for most of the drive back to her place. He didn’t press her, his mind busy with other things. He had to be upset with her for keeping so much from him, but she could only protect him by not saying anything. Telling him would only lead to more questions. Questions she didn’t want to answer and probably a few she couldn’t answer.
But are you really protecting him or just protecting yourself?
Anger bubbled up inside her. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t she just tell him? Why did caring about someone have to equate fearing for his life?
“I can’t take it sometimes!” she said, suddenly. “Every time I start to have a normal life, the wolf figures out how to mess things up. Every time I think that maybe, maybe I’ll embrace life as a wolf, humanity keeps calling me back. This tug of war is driving me crazy. I’m so tired. I just want it to stop. But if it stopped, I don’t know if I’d know what to do with myself.”
“You don’t like being a wolf?”
She sighed. A few months ago she would have said that it was a necessary evil. A regular, one-night-a-month side effect of the ‘disease’ she had. But since the nightmare began, her wolf had helped her to survive when she didn’t think she could. Even during the new moon, when she was closest to being a ‘normal’ human, her senses were better than ever. Her sense of smell stayed amazing and her combined instincts even more so. In dark moments, the wolf gave her comfort like nothing could.
Like or dislike? She didn’t know, but she wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
“We need both sides,” Aidan said. “Even ‘normal’ humans. Weres just have a more physical chaotic side. But that just means we are better at balancing the stress and the quiet. Sometimes we take longer to learn that balance, but finding it means more to us.”
He pulled into a parking space in front of her apartment building and turned the engine off, leaving the keys in the ignition. They sat there in silence, watching insects dart around the outside lights. With a nervous flutter of recognition, she realized she didn’t want to go inside yet.
“Do you ever want to just…?”
“Turn into the wolf and stay that way?” he asked, looking at her.
She shivered when she looked at him, the shadows cast by the lights making his face look that much more serious. He could have given her one look right then, and she would have let the wolf take over without a fuss. As it was, she thanked her logical mind for not yet taking off her seatbelt. The sensation of it wrapped around her body made her feel safe from herself.
“Sometimes,” he said, answering her unfinished question.
I want this, she thought, her heart drumming. I want this. I want him. I want to be ‘us’ with him. But she couldn’t. She had to keep him at a distance to keep him safe.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to be safe with him, and she had a feeling that he didn’t want to be either when it came to this. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned, putting one knee on the seat as she leaned toward him.
She held his face in her hands and kissed him. He froze for a moment and then responded with enthusiasm, trying to unbuckle his seatbelt with one hand and pull her closer with the other. He couldn’t quite manage to untangle himself from the buckle and used both his arms to pull her closer instead.
His urgency released something inside her and she unbuttoned his jacket before pressing against him. She dipped her head down and nipped at his neck, her heart pounding.
He managed to free himself of his seatbelt and pushed up slightly, maneuvering her back into her seat. He moved over her, trailing his mouth down her neck and giving her more than the nip she’d given him. A lot more.
She gasped as he bit and sucked in all the right places along her neck, sending waves of urgent expectation washing over her. He moved his hands down to hold her while his thumbs teased her nipples through the thin material of her dress. She grabbed the front of his shirt, making the buttons strain. She gave a moment’s pause to the shirt being a suit shirt and began to fumble with the buttons, aching to get her hands on his bare chest.
Suddenly he knocked his knee into the gear stick, enough distraction to stop his slow teasing of her neck. He paused above her for a moment, breathing hard. Then he lightly kissed her forehead, her cheeks and her lips before sitting back in his seat. She sat up and couldn’t help a small moan.
They smiled at each other.
“Wow,” he said.
She nodded. “Uh huh.”
“I want…” He sat back further into his seat and took a deep breath. “I want things to keep going, but not here. Not in the truck.”
She glanced around and then nodded. “Another night.”
“Another night.” He released her hair from the clip it had been in all day and then ran his fingers through it. “When we’re both not half-asleep after a full moon and a wedding for strangers. When we can take the time to make things memorable.”
She wanted to argue that any time with him would certainly be memorable to her, but she knew better. He’d given her an easy out. She could invite him up to her apartment if she wanted to pursue things further or she could leave it at what he said.
“I am tired,” she said.
He smiled. “I’ll help you with your bags.”
He brought her bags to the front door and put them on the ground before turning toward her. She almost giggled when he took her hands in his and squeezed them. She squeezed back, grinning like a mad woman until she looked up at his face. His expression held serious things – and not good ones.
“Phoebe, I need to ask you something.”
She shook her head, her brain refusing to form words. The look on his face said that he wouldn’t be asking any of the questions a woman would want to hear after a first date of sorts.
“I have to ask.” He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Thomas thought that the Hunter had to be working with someone in the pack to be able to get to…” He looked around. “To get to us so fast. I told you about it the night he was killed. I know in my gut that he was right. And I think whoever is betraying us found out about his theory and killed him for it.”
Phoebe nodded slowly, the information coming together in her mind. When Aidan had first told her about Thomas’s theory, she hadn’t had a chance to think about it before that awful phone call came. But now she knew Thomas had a good point. Liam needed an accomplice to know who to kill so quickly. If there was one thing Liam didn’t do, it was take action without reason and planning. He couldn’t go killing whoever she talked to and he certainly couldn’t just know werewolves by looking at them
A sense of relief settled in her. Perhaps the burden of the murders didn’t rest solely on her shoulders.
“There’s something I need to know.” Aidan said.
“No, no. You didn’t know the others who were killed. You didn’t know anyone at the time of the first murder.”
“What do you need to know?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“Did the Hunter follow you here?”
Time seemed to freeze then, the world narrowing into the space just around them. Tears welled up in her eyes and she bit her bottom lip. Words, excuses and lies all swam around in her mind, but none made it to her mouth. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t add up to ‘Mia was right. The Hunter followed me here and I’ve been lying to you all this time’? Oh, by the way, the Hunter is my ex-boyfriend. How’s that for a can of worms?
She pulled her hands away from his and began squeezing the tip of her thumb.
“Phoebe?”
“What does it have to do with anything anyway?” she snapped. “What difference will it make?”
He stared at her for a few moments and then said, “He did follow you.”
She nodded, her tears spilling down onto her cheeks. “I didn’t know at first. I began to think maybe it was him for a while, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“But then you were sure.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking toward the doors, and her heart sank. He’d brought out his inner cop to deal with her; liars didn’t deserve friends.
Or lovers.
She wiped away her tears and stared down at her shoes. “Thomas. When you said he’d been killed with a silver bolt. Then I knew.”
“Something you would have known about the previous murders if we’d had a real conversation about them.”
Something that could have saved Thomas’s life.
She looked up, hearing him moving her bags. He lifted them onto her shoulders and then gestured to the front door. She looked at him, confused.
“I want you safely inside before I leave.”
He tried to sound professional, but the hurt came through and she couldn’t even manage to feel good about his wish for her safety.
“You and I are going to sit down and talk. You will tell me everything about your past and everything you know about the Hunter. No more excuses. No more withholding information. Don’t run because I will track you.”
He gestured at the door and she punched in her number code to get inside. Once the door had clicked shut, he turned and walked away without even a glance toward her.
“Aidan, wait,” she called, but he ignored her and got into the truck.
He drove off and she stood just inside the front doors until she saw his taillights disappear. She turned and looked at the stairs, knowing just being inside the building gave her no more safety than being outside. Her heart raced at the thought of Liam standing outside her door, but he would have more playing to do before he’d show up. She took a deep breath and went upstairs.
She got to the door to her floor and sighed. What had she thought before? ‘This is my life.’ That hadn’t changed in the last five minutes, now had it? Maybe if they had that talk tonight and she just explained that she wanted to protect him. She pulled out her phone, opened the door to her floor and began to dial Aidan’s number.
Just before she pressed the call button, she spotted something on the floor in front of her door.
Liam.
She deleted the number and put her phone back in her bag.
She approached the ‘gift’ slowly, not quite sure what it was. She doubted he’d left her a trap, but with Liam she couldn’t be sure. Instead of a rose, he’d left her a… She stared down at it for a few moments before putting down her bags and picking it up. He’d left her a quiver – a short one to hold crossbow bolts – with a single silver bolt inside. A card had been attached to it with three simple words on the front:
Guess who’s next?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phoebe stared as the first rays of sunshine streamed into her apartment. In the back of her mind, she noted that she hadn’t slept all night – and she didn’t care. She lay curled up on her bed on top of the covers, sill in the dress she’d worn yesterday.
Yesterday. That meant she only had a matter of hours before she would have to face Liam.
On the front of the card he’d left for her had been those three words, three words that kicked her in the gut: Guess who’s next?
The warning had been clear enough. Aidan would be the next to die if she didn’t do what he wanted. And he wanted to meet. On the back of the card she’d found a date, time and café name. Soon, she’d be facing the man she’d run away from so hard and so fast only to be trapped so easily by him when she’d finally stood up for herself.
Her mind hadn’t been playing tricks on her at the wedding; he had been standing there watching her, possibly for hours. She’d put Aidan in danger by asking him to be her date. She tried to remember all the little touches and glances they had exchanged that day, each one making it even clearer that they had feelings for each other. Feelings Liam would use.
She didn’t know if he had been watching them in the truck as well, but her stomach roiled at the thought. If he had, she had firmly sealed Aidan’s fate.
She would just have to change it.
The wolf and human came together in their fierce and unwavering protectiveness of him. The feeling nearly took her breath away. The thought of him being hurt or at the mercy of Liam the assassin, the murderer, the hunter of werewolves… She pursed her lips, violent thoughts filling her mind.
She’d been wrong to relax and horribly wrong to think she could establish a life here. All her decisions about taking charge had come to be tested much sooner than she’d thought they would. So much for things being on her terms.
The only thing she could take comfort in was the fact that Aidan was still safe, at least for the time being. Knowing Liam, he wanted to play with her and would take his time doing so. He liked to play and he liked to talk. He could be an efficient killer, but when things were personal…
She squeezed her eyes shut. She needed to do something. To get ready. To think. But she couldn’t make herself move. Every time she tried, the memories of the night her life had turned upside down battled what little confidence she’d mustered.
“I’m home!” she called, holding the cabin door open with her hip and moving to get the bags full of groceries in her arms through.
She brought the bags to the kitchen where Liam sat looking at a manila folder on the table. When she moved around the table to hug and kiss him, he stopped her with one hand, his palm stopping just short of touching her chest. She backed off, knowing that he occasionally had his moods. She hoped the special dinner she’d planned would warm him up.
She loved him despite his bad moods and she loved his quiet ways of showing his affection for her. They always had amazing conversations in which he always expressed high hopes for his life and for humanity. He always had big ideas for improving so many things.
Hopefully tonight they would have one of those amazing conversations when she revealed her biggest secret to him. When he would finally know why, on one night about every four weeks, she would more or less disappear. She’d bought all his favorites, right down to the garlic bread for an entrée and Shiraz to go with the meal. The meal and dessert came from the nearest Italian restaurant she could find, but the thought would still count.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said cheerfully, pulling the food from the bags.
“More?”
She looked at him. “Sorry?”
“You cannot surprise me any more than you already have.”
She turned and faced him, a tightness in her stomach telling her that this went beyond one of his usual brooding nights. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I am disappointed in you,” he said, pushing the folder toward her. “And in myself for not knowing sooner.”
“Disappointed?” She sat down across from him and began squeezing the tip of her thumb. “What do you mean?”
“Oh no…”
Photos. So many photos and all of them of her in various stages of transforming into a wolf. During the last full moon, she guessed. No doubt she’d been photographed by a professional, as the photos had been taken with a very good camera and caught her face before transformation.
She smiled, hiding her shaking hands below the table. “This is the funniest timing.” She nodded at the food she’d bought. “I was going to make you a special meal. I got all your favorite things. Then, over dinner, I was going to tell you. Tonight.”
He stood up and walked over to her.
“I was,” she said. “Check the bags. All your favorites. I know it seems like a strange coincidence, but it’s true.”
“I believe you,” he said, placing his hand on her bare shoulder.
Her skin underneath his hand began to itch and burn. Crying out, she rushed over to the sink and washed off whatever he’d put on it.
“Silver powder,” he said, showing her his slightly sparkling hand. “As a powder on the skin of a werewolf in human form, it is an irritant. It will cause an allergic reaction of sorts if the amount of contact is small. More and it can become a flu virus, breaking down cells and causing illness.”
“Liam, you don’t need to protect yourself against me. I won’t hurt you.”
He chuckled. “I am not afraid of you. I pity you.”
She rubbed her shoulder, watching him slowly turn from the man she loved into a stranger who regarded her with disgust. She’d expected disbelief and some fear, but not this. It was almost as if…
“You know about werewolves.” She reached out to him. “Then you know that we’re not monsters. We don’t kill people. We can have normal lives.”