Water. It was the only place the spirits couldn’t reach her. They didn’t seem to like the water’s energy. It was like the air was thicker, unsteady, always in flux, over water and they couldn’t move through it as easily. A few determined spirits did follow her, moving so slowly in the turbulence over the water that they looked like flies caught in amber. ‘Leave me alone!’ she screamed, the sound pushing them back until they stood, moaning, in a ring around the dam.
She waded in further, the energy of the water dulling the sound of the spirits’ wailing. ‘Oh, thank God.’ She came to a halt when she was waist deep. The water was freezing. She began to shiver. She didn’t care. Being cold was better than the sensation of implosion that pressed on her constantly. She was sick and tired of being surrounded all the time. Sick of never having a moment’s peace. She wanted to be alone. Craved it.
She snorted. At one time, she’d hated to be alone. When she was alone, the spirits came to her more readily and she had more trouble fighting them. It’s why she’d taken up nursing. It kept her busy and surrounded by the living all the time. She hadn’t thought about what happened when someone died. Nor that so many spirits would be roaming around the hospital—you know, you’d think they’d have somewhere better to go than the sterile hallways of the hospital, but apparently not. Apparently it was the place to be if you were dead. There and cemeteries. She shivered. Ugh. She really didn’t like cemeteries. She hadn’t set foot inside one of them for years. And after her current tenure was up at the hospital, she planned to never step foot inside a hospital again either.
It was time for her to do something else. Something that took her far away from the dead and the living. She had no other choice if she wanted to keep her sanity. She now understood why insanity ran in her family—a family of mediums. She was learning more and more about her ‘gift’ all the time; everything except how to control it. The others had no idea how bad it had got for her—she didn’t want them to know that she was now open to seeing more than she ever had. Her old blocks just didn’t work like they used to. Inviting in Harrison and Adeline the year before to help save River and Skye had opened a Pandora’s box of spirits she had no hope of controlling. They were taking over her life.
She smacked the water with her fist. ‘I’ve had enough, you hear!’ she yelled at the sky. She wasn’t cut out to be a Pack Witch. She wasn’t cut out to be a medium. She hated everything about it. She only ever saw the horror, not the wonder of it, and she was sick of having her life ruled by something she couldn’t truly control. No matter what she did, the spirits were always there, always pressing in on her, and she was fucking well sick of it.
After they were over this crisis, things were going to change. She wasn’t sure how, but she wasn’t going to use her powers to commune with the dead anymore.
Maybe she’d go travelling. Get into some form of research that meant dusty library shelves and no people. She did rather like researching the histories of the Pack Diaries. Maybe that was her path. Pack Librarian, not Pack Medium. Not that. Never again. And if the pack didn’t like it, they could just go blow. This was her life and she was finally going to live it. She was sick and tired of trying to live up to other people’s expectations of what she was meant to be. Her family, her cheating ex, the pack, even her best friends all expected her to be something she wasn’t. After this, it was going to be Shelley time.
‘Kitten. Are you okay?’
Shelley curled her fingers against her side, fighting the sensation that curled through her at the sound of Adam’s voice. That sensation irritated her. Her body’s reaction to him irritated her. He irritated her—beyond measure. And to make matters worse, he wouldn’t leave her alone. Okay, he was her Shadow, but he seemed to stick closer than any of the others who took over from him when he wasn’t able to be her Shadow. He was like a cat in that way. She’d always been amused by the way cats honed in on the person who didn’t like them and wouldn’t leave them alone, twining around their feet, sitting on their lap, purring into their face. It wasn’t such a funny trait in a man though.
Adam had actually purred at her the other day when she’d snapped at him about something!
She’d wanted to slap him and kiss him all at the same time—but she’d done neither. She wasn’t an emotionally explosive kind of person. Although she did rather feel like a powder keg primed for a spark. She was so sexually frustrated, the itch of it was torment, making her want to scream.
Instead of screaming, she plastered a smile to her lips and turned to face him. ‘Finished cock fighting with Marcus have we?’
‘That wasn’t a cock fight. That was just an airing of frustrations.’
‘Can’t you go for a run or something?’
‘We could, but that was more fun.’
‘For whom?’
‘Me. Marcus. Even Cordy enjoyed it.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘No.’ He stepped up to the water’s edge. ‘You never enjoy arguing, do you?’
She swallowed hard. ‘Not really.’
‘You argue with me.’
‘That’s different.’
He smiled—she wanted to slap him for it. ‘I know.’
She blew out a breath and turned away from him. ‘Go away.’
‘Come out of the water.’
‘No.’
A sigh. ‘Okay then.’ The sound of splashing behind her.
She whipped around, staring at him as he waded through the cold water towards her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Joining you.’
‘Why?’
He waved his hand through the water. ‘This appears to be the place to be.’
She almost laughed—almost. ‘You are ridiculous.’
‘I’m not the one standing in cold water.’
She turned away from him, away from that look that made her feel stripped to the bone. ‘It’s not so cold.’
‘Your teeth are chattering.’
She clamped her jaws together.
‘Shelley.’ He touched her shoulder.
She jerked away. ‘Please, don’t.’
‘You need to come out of the water. Your teeth are chattering and you’ve got goose bumps so large I could ski through them.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s more peaceful here. My head is clearer. I can think.’
‘The spirits?’
She opened her mouth to deny it, to tell him to go away, but instead whispered, ‘They’re shouting at me about something, but I can’t understand them.’
‘You’re exhausted. Your concentration is shot. Perhaps if you had some sleep you’d be able to figure it out.’
She whipped around to face him. ‘Don’t you see? I don’t want to figure it out. I don’t want any of this. I never did.’ Her gaze slid past him, up towards the house. ‘It’s okay for Cordy and Bron and Skye and the others. They want this—’
‘Skye didn’t.’
She waved her hand. ‘That’s just because she was brought up with a lie and believed the wrong thing about herself. Now she knows, she’s embraced it fully. But that was never the case with me. I knew and I didn’t want it. My Gran tried to train me so I could follow in her footsteps, despite the fact my aunt was turned insane by the never-ending grind of this “gift”. That’s what they called it, a gift.’ She snorted. ‘Even then, I saw it for what it was, and the only reason I went through any training at all was I wanted to learn how to block what I could see, what I could feel, so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.’
‘Shelley, why didn’t you tell them?’
She shrugged away his hands as they reached for her again. ‘They didn’t care that I didn’t want my Gramps coming to me telling me I’m with the wrong man and showing me exactly why. They thought it was a wonder that I could see my dead cousin weeping, pleading not to be dead, kept away from her husband and baby. They didn’t understand that I didn’t want to be touched by the man who got knocked over as he crossed the road, his confusion and grief more painful tha
n his death. That I didn’t want to dream of tragedies or people dying when they were things I couldn’t stop.’ She gripped her hair, pulled. ‘I don’t want all of this… this… death and depression and darkness in my head. I just want a normal life. Don’t you understand? A normal life. And yet, now I’ve been tied to the pack, that can never be, can it? Can it?’
Her eyes widened as she realised how much she’d said. She turned away before she could see the look of horror that must be on his face. ‘Forget it. Just go away.’
‘Shelley.’ His hands were on her shoulders again, turning her, the water rippling out around them. ‘I’m not going away.’
‘I wish you would.’
He cupped her face, forcing her to look up at him. ‘No, you don’t.’
She shivered, but not from the cold. His touch. It was too much. And not enough. She wanted him to go, but a part of her, deep inside, cried out for him to stay. He was the one steady thing in her life right now, the one person who never wanted anything of her except a laugh and a smile. And he always seemed to know when she needed to be pulled from her dark thoughts. Which he could always do, because he confused her so much, she could never think straight when he was around. ‘Why are you here?’ she whispered, her voice hoarse.
‘Because you need me.’
‘I don’t need you.’ She tried to sound certain, but it came out breathy, a question.
‘Yes, you do. You’ve always needed me, the same as the pack needs me. Maybe even more.’ His fingers moved on her face, stroking across sensitive skin, into her hair, holding her still. ‘Jason thinks that the Trickster is connected to the pack in a way that no other is. That my wolf allows me to take the emotional temperature of the pack as a whole, including our coven, as well as the individuals within it. He enables me to fulfil my role. I’m coming to think that’s true, because of what I’ve been feeling, the way I’ve been behaving, but mostly because I can feel the struggle within you. I can feel your pain as if it’s my own.’
‘And you think you can fix that with a laugh?’
‘No.’ His eyes searched hers as his breath brushed over her face. ‘But I know I can fix it. I know I have to fix it.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or we might all be lost forever. I might be lost forever.’
‘I—’ she said, his words tearing all her thoughts to shreds.
‘Don’t leave us, Shelley. Don’t leave me.’
His thumbs moved on her cheeks, gaze searching hers, understanding. Something heated between them, pulled, and suddenly she couldn’t stand the distance she’d created. The endless frustration of denying this thing she felt inside whenever he was around. With a voiceless cry, she surged forward just as he did, their lips meeting in a clash of teeth and tongue. She clutched his shirt, pulling him closer, closer, her breasts squishing against the hard planes of his chest. They fit. She was tall, taller than many men she knew, but he was taller. She never felt ‘big’ around him, like she was living in the Land of the Giants and she was the giant. Around him, she felt normal sized. Now she felt the right size. For him.
She was kissing Adam. Annoying Adam. She almost laughed with the ludicrousness of it, except the heated desire surging through every fibre of her being made laughter impossible. She was too hot for laughter. In fact, she was thankful they were standing in water, or they might have already combusted on the spot. She made needy little sounds in her throat as his lips left hers and worked their way down her neck and back up to suck on her ear. She shifted restlessly against him, her hands running up and down his back to settle finally in his hair, her fingers curling in the dark threads of silk and pulling him back to her mouth. She needed his lips, his tongue, his teeth. The taste of him filling her up, the scent of him in her nose—citrus and sunshine and laughter all rolled into one. She wasn’t sure how someone could smell of sunshine and laughter, but Adam did. He always had. She’d always found it so annoyingly hot.
She gripped him tighter when he began to pull away, heard her name against her lips. She didn’t want this to stop. For the first time her mind was clear of everything. There was just the heat of him, the scent of him, the humming sound of him harmonising with her needy noises.
Except, how could he be saying her name and making humming noises at the same time?
She blinked, loosening her grip, allowing him to pull back slightly, aware for the first time of the change in his tone as he said her name.
‘Kitten? Are you okay? Shelley? Shelley!’
She could tell he was shouting at her now, but his voice was fading away under the humming noise coming from her. From somewhere deep inside. Reaching up and forcing itself out of her against her will.
Her eyes widened in fear as she gripped his shirt, holding onto him as he and everything around her faded away and the world became nothing but the sound. Her head fell back, and the scream erupted from her mouth.
***
If you don’t lie down now,’ River said, trying to move Bron away from the workbench, ‘you’re not going to be able to help anyone later.’
‘I’ll be fine. Truly.’ He didn’t respond to what she thought of as an encouraging grin.
He shook his head, turning her to face him fully, hands on her shoulders, thumbs stroking her neck. Warmth shot through her, a heat that only River could spark to life—even when she was completely preoccupied, like now.
‘Kiss me.’
He did, but it was no more than a soft press of lip. ‘You can smile all you like and pretend exuberance for your work, but I know you. I can feel you inside my heart. I can feel the drag of exhaustion on you, on your power, on the bond.’
‘I didn’t realise I was pulling on your energy. I’ll try to stop.’
‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You need to sleep. You’ve been on the go for forty-eight hours straight. I really would rather prefer you didn’t keel over and damage yourself. I’d be seriously pissed if that were to happen.’
‘I can’t stop now. I need to do this.’ She turned to grab another bunch of lavender.
He put his hand on hers. ‘You have the ingredients you need at the shop. I’ll call Helen and ask her to put together what you need. Patrick will pick it up.’
‘The shop will need to be resupplied, so I need to make this next batch anyway.’ She reached out to grab a beaker, but fumbled, knocking it off the edge. Instead of the sound of smashed glass on tile, she heard nothing; saw nothing but endless black.
‘Bron! Bron!’ River’s voice came from far away but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t reach him. All she could do was fall.
River caught her before she hit the ground. She whimpered, her fingernails digging into his arms. ‘No. No,’ she whispered, her breath coming in painful gasps. Her eyes flickered open—swirling black stared up at him.
‘Bron.’ He grasped her face in both hands. ‘Bron, come back to me. Follow my voice. Don’t lose yourself in the vision.’
‘Don’t let her do it!’ she rasped, her voice not her own. ‘Stop her. Don’t let her do it.’
‘Don’t let her do what? Who are you talking about?’
Bron snapped upright, her eyes wide open. ‘Shelley!’ she cried out.
‘What is it?’ River gripped her shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘What’s happened to Shelley?’
‘The banshee wail. Death comes.’ Her grieved gaze met his. ‘We have to get up there now, before it’s too late.’
***
Skye brushed Tom’s hair from his face, kissed his brow. ‘Good night,’ she whispered. Even though he was sound asleep, she knew somewhere deep inside, the little boy felt her loving touch. That kind of thing counted. She knew that better than anyone. It had been things like this that had carried her through the terrible years after her grandpa died. Her grandmother might not have showed outwardly that she loved Skye, but she’d done it in moments like this, and somehow, deep down, Skye had always known. Just as she knew Tom knew.
Although, Tom never
had to wonder if he was loved like she had. He was well and truly surrounded by it through every waking moment. It was a wonder he wasn’t spoilt. But he wasn’t. He was a wonderful, generous, kind-hearted little boy and he’d grow up into a remarkable man. He would make such a wonderful big brother to a little cousin or surrogate brother or sister.
Unfortunately, that was something she couldn’t give him unless she and Jason adopted. And right now, with their lives turned upside-down by Morrigan and her insanity, they could hardly bring another little soul into the crosshairs. No. That would have to wait until all of this was over.
God. She hoped it would be soon.
She bent to give him another kiss, but ended up clutching the bed as a wave of nausea rose up and through her. She stood there, bent over and panting as her skin prickled with sweat. Forcing herself to breathe slowly, she closed her eyes and counted to ten, willing the sensation to pass. It took to a count of thirty—she’d been struck with this strange feeling a number of times in the last few days and each time it had taken only a count of ten for it to pass—but it loosened its grip and slipped away.
She wiped a trembling hand over her brow and forced herself to straighten. She must be coming down with something—although this had been happening for a few days and it hadn’t got worse. Maybe it was just the stress of everything. There certainly was a lot to be stressed about. Yes. That had to be it. She probably just needed to make sure she got some good sleep in the next few days and took some time out. Maybe she’d take Bron up on that massage she kept insisting Skye needed. And she needed to do it before Jason found out about these little bouts of dizziness and nausea. He had enough to worry about. He’d want to roll her up in cotton wool and never let her go out if he found out. He really did have a habit of being overprotective. She loved that about him, but it was also frustrating to someone who had been so self-sufficient for so long.
She waited until she was certain she showed no signs of the little bout of whatever it was before she gave Tom one more kiss and silently slipped out of his room.
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