by Ellie Pond
He didn’t jump. How the hell was she right behind him? She had better stealth skills than a damn cat shifter. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Visionaries—we’ve come to the future. It’s how Sam helps track down the mates once we have visions of them.”
He couldn’t help but be intrigued by it.
“We enter the visions into a database that other seers have entered into. The computer tries to match them together. Different seers sometimes catch a different view. Like a multi-camera television show. Seers might be seeing the visions from different points of view. Then the computer tries to match descriptions to real people.”
“And you get them on the ship.”
“It’s not that simple. And most of the other seers aren’t interested in mates. That’s what we focus on: helping Matthias’s reputation as captain of a place to meet your fated mate. And he provides us with a pack to belong to.”
“You’re responsible for all the matches on board.”
“No. Take you, for instance. We had no idea that you were Elizabeth’s mate. But then it’s hard for us to get clear visions of those we know, and even harder for those we’re close to.
The door opened at the same time the knock came.
“Ah, you’re back. Of course you are,” Sam said.
Violet motioned for them to sit. Tad came over and completed their triangle around the orange dot on the floor. A visual representation of the witches’ visionary well. She pulled the orb out of her other pocket.
Tad recoiled at the sight. “You keep that in your pocket? Are you crazy?”
“No. I knew I would need it.” Violet placed it in the middle of the circle. “Samantha, take Theodore’s hand and open the orb.”
Sam took Tad’s hand, and the orb’s silver lid slid open instead of cracking in half. A blue light glowed from the top of the orb.
“You will need to be careful to take only the visions with the orb power, Samantha.”
Sam nodded, and the power rippled through the room. Tad’s head flew backwards, and he shook. His chest trembled, and he thought he would black out. Blue flashes of energy flashed around the room. Sam held on to his hands. This time, he didn’t see memories as individual events of his life or hers, but rather streams of color, as if a film played at the wrong speed.
The orb lay between them, the lid closed. Tad collapsed to the ground. Sam’s hands fell away from his. His eyes opened. Sam lay on the ground, not moving. The doctor in him reached out to check for a pulse. Sparks flew from his hand as he touched her.
“You are truly Lara’s son. Not many would be conscious after that.” Violet kneeled next to Sam. Sam coughed and turned her head sideways. Her brown eyes dilated.
“You okay?” Tad asked, his head spinning, an uncomfortable yet familiar shift in him.
Sam sat up. “Yes, you?”
Tad paused, taking an inventory. “Yes, I’m fine. Mostly.” He paused. “Yes. It’s just me in here now. That’s a weird thing to say. I have my own memories and the surrounding emotions.”
“Now I need to do one more thing.” Violet put out her hand. “You don’t want to be bound. I understand. It must have been hard living this way. But I can’t let you out there with no one to teach you about your powers. I need to bind them. Your mother’s shielding was overly strong.”
“You said earlier that it would be more dangerous.”
“That was before I comprehended what you’d do with them. I leave it up to your mother. You will need to have a long talk with her when you get home.” Before he said anything, she had bound his powers. “Top level witches can read you. Most shifters can’t detect a witch, anyway. Not unless they’re a . . . mutt. Your alpha may be able to detect something.”
“I can’t tell my alpha anything now. He’s preoccupied.”
“Indeed, mutt.” Violet laughed.
Tad’s eyes flashed. No, he didn’t like being called a mutt. But Violet didn’t like him not listening to her. So they were even. Him being unshielded would cause problems for them all.
19
A One Leg Flamingo
He climbed the stairs from the third deck to the eleventh, hopeful his sacrifice was helping his mate, no, Elizabeth. Other than his calf muscles getting stronger, he’d be ready for next year’s Empire State building run-up race by the end of the cruise. He felt normal again and didn’t like it much. Now that he was seemingly back to his old Spock self, with most of his emotional bits and pieces tied up behind Violet’s ward, the hollowness shook his confidence. He didn’t understand that he was missing anything before. But now, a tapeworm consumed his soul and he could tell the difference.
The search was on. He would not forget to get Elizabeth’s cell phone number this time. And screw it, he didn’t care what Aurora said about them finding their non-digital selves, he was going to buy the Wi-Fi plan. And he might get it for all of them too and have the front desk tell them they won it for going a whole day with breaking anything or having a family member in the infirmary. He had gone along with Aurora’s plan originally because she became antsy when they spent too much money on her. He had bought the whole family new phones so he didn’t have to deal with her miserable autocorrects because of the cracked screen on her phone.
Mike answered the door. “Hey, Tad.”
“Is Elizabeth around?”
He glanced at his watch. “No, but I bet she’s in the lab. Have you been there?”
“No.”
Mike gave him directions to an unmarked door down on the opposite side of the hall on the third deck.
He thundered down the stairs but stopped on the eighth deck. He waved his band at the lock of his cabin and entered the dark room. A lump lay on the bed. He opened the balcony door and let air into the stale cabin, clicked on the television, and pulled the blanket off his alpha. A cloud of odor followed the cover. “Shit, Spencer. Get up and clean yourself up.”
Spencer rolled over and put the pillow over his head. Tad tore it away.
“Get the fuck out,” Spencer said into the mattress.
“No. Get up.”
Spencer sat up. “What do you want me to do?”
“Not this wallowing shit.”
“I’m not wallowing.” He trudged out of bed and into the bathroom.
He’s up. Good enough. “I’m out of here,” Tad yelled.
“Whatever,” Spencer mumbled back.
The cabin attendant was staring at the open door, his cart on the other side of the hall. He pointed at the door. “Can I get in the room now. Is he still in there?”
Gunnar came sauntering around the corner, whistling. He was wearing his questionable swimsuit. The one that his mother had bought for both of them. She encouraged the twin aspect of their cousin-ness. The bright pink flamingos on the suit accosted his vision.
“Hey, there you are. Are you ready?” Gunnar asked. The attendant waited.
“Ready for what?” He wanted to find Elizabeth.
“I promised your mom we’d take a photo in our new suits.”
“You did what now?”
“Get changed.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You’re on vacation. What could possibly be taking so much time?” He stared right into him.
Shit. Aurora told him.
“Too busy to get a photo for your mom? Can you believe this guy?” Gunnar said to the attendant, who obviously wanted them to get out of his way.
“Fine, I’ll do the photo. But you need to get Spencer to come too.”
“Mission accepted.”
* * *
“Now turn your back to mine and pretend we’re in a bad buddies movie.” Gunnar glanced over his shoulder. “Can you at least smile? This kind lady is taking our picture and you look like you have a stick up your butt.”
The woman holding the phone didn’t seem to mind, the way she was looking both of them up and down.
“You tell your brother the serious look is hot. You two are adorable in your ma
tching swimsuits.” She winked at him.
He was never going to do this again. He pasted on a smile.
“Got it.” The woman held up Gunnar’s phone for him to see the pictures. If the camera on the new phone was used correctly, it got rid of the shadow of a shifter’s animal from their eyes.
Tad glanced over at Gunnar. “Are we good here?”
“We’re good.”
“Keep an eye on him.” He pointed to Spencer who sat in the shade of the pizza parlor, a beer in his hand and two more lined up.
“Maybe.” Gunnar shrugged.
Tad didn’t doubt that he would. He took off down the stairs for the third deck.
He knocked on the lab door.
“Come in?” Elizabeth’s voice questioned.
“Hey.” He wanted to kiss her, but she hadn’t glanced up from her microscope.
“I’m . . . give me a second.”
“Sure, no problem.”
The lab, if you could call it that, wasn’t much bigger than his guest bathroom in his New York City apartment. The equipment was new. A sterile hood took up most of the space. For the most part, the lab was efficient.
Her notes were open on the counter next to her. They drew him in—he paged through them. Her methods were careful and precise. Each member of her participation group case was carefully noted. Numbers were assigned instead of names. But he recognized Nurse Stephanie as Patient 12. He followed her number from her samples; they weren’t good. Other than a few small blips along the graph, they were downright dismal. Her photos showed the same downward progression. Damn, it clenched at him.
He flipped through the orange binder, reading each of her notes. To some extent, this was exactly what his company did: understand labs and what they had under development and advise his clients if they should invest or not. Elizabeth’s study wasn’t anywhere near to the point where someone would invest. Not that she was searching for backing. The dragon covered the lab’s expenses. But if she wanted to come to the mainland, he could think of a few labs that might benefit from top-level research like this, one of them on the same side of town as his apartment.
Her research was solid. He leaned up against the counter. It was a moment before he realized that she was watching him.
She had an unsteady smile on her face—she was overthinking again.
* * *
The creases between his eyes deepened as he turned the pages of her research binder. What was he thinking? Nerves fluttered in her stomach. She had colleagues on the mainland she’d been sharing her research and data with. However, they weren’t researching longevity of shifter mates to help shifters. No, they were researching shifter widow mortality to study how shifter healing worked and how it might help humans. Valid studies, with a heck of a lot more money behind them. That wasn’t fair. The captain gave her a large budget. She’d never had someone come to her lab and start reading her notes before, though, not for a long time. He was nodding as he read.
“This is solid.” He was studying the charts of the hormone levels she’d been tracking: cortisol and a host of others, prolactin, gonadotrophins of the pituitary . . . the list went on.
“Thanks. I’m working with a few labs that focus on the human health side.”
He pulled up a stool, and they talked specifics of the data sets she had. Anna opened the door. There wasn’t room for her to enter and close the door. Tad didn’t glance up but continued talking. He had some excellent points, and the two of them debated about the meaning of the dips of cortisol in the widows. She’d put Stephanie on steroids a month ago, but no matter how high the dose she was on, it didn’t stop her numbers from rising.
Twenty minutes later, Anna poked her head through the door and wiggled a bag of food. She placed two coffees and the bag on the counter next to Tad without saying anything.
“Thanks,” they both turned and said to the closing door.
Tad opened the bags and made Elizabeth a paper plate of food without stopping their debate. They squeezed around the tiny desk to keep the food away from the specimens. A sandwich hung out of Tad’s mouth as he used both of his hands to point out something in her research. And for the first time in the last hour, she noticed how dang handsome he was. She’d gone a whole hour focusing on her research. Better than that, with his in-depth knowledge of neuroendocrinology, he’d challenged a few ways she was thinking about interrupting the data. She made great progress.
He had crumbs in his beard again. He was looking at her oddly. “I said, ‘what do you think?’”
Shoot, he’d been talking and she wasn’t focusing. “I think you’ve been extraordinarily helpful. But you have crumbs in your beard.” She reached out and brushed the crumbs off the side of his cheek. He kissed the palm of her hand, and his eyes flashed at her. Her core clenched.
“Are we taking a break?”
She nodded and ran her hand down his arm to the waistband of his, holy tongue depressors, what was he wearing? How’d she missed his pink flamingo-ed swimsuit?
He rose from the stool. One flamingo was standing on an oversized leg, bulging out of his suit. “You like it? It’s all for you.”
He picked her up, her legs wrapping around his waist. His flamingo hit her in the right spot. He backed her up against the door. He’d brought a new perspective to her research with his words, and his mouth brought new joy to her study break. What was not to like? Maybe—maybe this could work.
20
Baby Onboard
Elizabeth slept five hours and felt refreshed. She hadn’t seen Tad since the day before. And while she was sure that he had visited Violet, because the mental fog that had been surrounding her was lifted, something gnawed at her.
With clean scrubs and a quick twist of her hair into her signature bun, she headed to the infirmary. It was her favorite time of the day. The partiers were in bed and the joggers weren’t up yet. As she padded down the corridor on the third deck, no lights spilled out from under the doors, until she reached Violet’s quarters. She paused and impulsively knocked. What had she done to him, after the first visit and then the one yesterday? And most importantly, she should report Sam’s injury to the captain, but she didn’t want to do it until she’d talked to Violet.
“Doctor Cottage, would you like some tea?” Not ‘what are you knocking on my door for at 4:00 a.m.?’ Elizabeth mulled it over, glad Violet hadn’t asked what she wanted. She wouldn’t have been able to answer.
She followed Violet into her cabin. Violet’s normally ivory skin was a pasty green color. She opened a cabinet on the far wall to reveal a shelf with an electric kettle. She scooped loose tea into a pot from several tins. “Getting up or going to bed, darling?”
“Uh, getting up.”
“Of course.” Violet added another scoop from a canister on a top shelf. She prepared the cups and poured the tea. She waved her hand over the china teacup and handed it to Elizabeth. “Perfect,” she said as she sipped from hers.
Elizabeth tried hers. It tasted wonderful.
“Now, I imagine you’ve come to give me a piece of your mind?”
"I have to report the incident with Samantha to the captain. I should have done it yesterday, but we were overly busy.”
“And you don’t want to talk to the captain anyway.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth searched for a place to put the cup down. Seeing none, she held it. “How did you know?”
Violet’s eyebrows rose. “Samantha is fine. There’s no reason to report anything.”
“I still think he should know.”
The petite woman frowned. “I’ve told him non-stop about what’s going on. But you might be able to help my case. Please tell him, if you are so inclined.”
“Right.” She could imagine how the conversation would go. She had none of the supporting details he would demand. “What is going on with Samantha?”
The witch glanced up at her. “The captain and I are having a disagreement and Samantha decided to take a stand.”
; That was as clear as mud.
“Anything else?” Violet sipped her tea.
“What did you do to Tad?” They had agreed to not mate, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want the best for him. The gnawing instinct in her gut didn’t trust Violet.
A low hiss of a sigh escaped Violet. “Are you not better? Can you not think clearly again?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I asked.”
“It is precisely what you asked, my lady. I removed the visions and memories, bound his magic, and warded him from others. Close to the same as when he came on board.”
“Oh. You fixed him?”
“Fixed him? Far from it. I broke him by binding his powers back up. His mother’s ward and binds broke him the first time long ago. If I were to fix him, I would have let him have his powers, be a witch. No, he’s a broken shifter, his wolf and emotions partially tucked behind his ward.”
Elizabeth drank the rest of her tea and thrust the cup out for Violet to take. Her stomach clenched.
“Anything else, dear?”
“No. That’s enough.” Fudge pops. No wonder he came off as pompous. “Can I do anything for you?” Not that Violet had ever visited her infirmary before, but she was obviously ill.
“What ails me, your medicine can’t fix. If you talk to the captain . . . never mind.” She sighed.
“If you’re sure.”
Violet inclined her head. “No. I can trust you? Can I?”
“I hope so.”
Violet opened her robe. Elizabeth gasped. Violet’s body was covered in purple and black bruises. And gray-green streaks ran from the bruises. She shuddered inside her robe.
“And you’re sure I can’t help you?” Elizabeth’s stomach was iron. But the sight of Violet made it twitch.
“I made a promise to the captain. And I broke it. Now the blood oath is taking my life. Either I break my allegiance with the Dark Wing or I die.”
“There must be something you can do?” Elizabeth asked.