Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3)

by Tammy Blackwell

  “Alistair.” The name was something more primitive than a growl. He longed to see the leader of the SHP’s insides on the outside.

  “Taken care of.” The words were little more than a rasp, barely audible.

  He didn’t ask her to clarify. The haunted look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

  “Knife or gun?” she asked, holding two weapons out to him. He grabbed the knife and heard Caroline whimper behind him.

  And if Alistair wasn’t dead? Well, then Layne was going to enjoy disemboweling him with his own hands.

  Lizzie offered the gun to Pari next, but she refused it. “I don’t know how to use it.” She glanced down at the two dead guards. “And obviously you do.”

  Lizzie nodded, and Layne noticed her eyes didn’t ever dip anywhere below their shoulders.

  Later, he thought, hoping she could hear his words through whatever was going on in her own head. We’ll deal later. Right now, we have to keep fighting. “It’s not over yet,” he finished aloud.

  “Any idea of numbers?” she whispered.

  “They’re moving around too much for me to get a clear count, but I’m guessing about a dozen.” If they were a little closer to the full moon, he would have been able to count the heartbeats, but they were still more than a week out.

  “How close?”

  “Wave one is coming right about…” A head became visible around the curve of the elaborately carved stairs and Layne sent his blade flying. “Now!” he shouted before leaping over the banister and catching the second assailant in the head with his feet. He jerked the knife out of the first guy’s neck and spun, driving the blade into the third guy’s stomach. He tried not to notice how that guy’s stomach was right below a pair of very non-guy-like boobs.

  Like Lizzie, he would wait to fall apart later, when they had the luxury of processing all the damage they’d done.

  Lizzie stood at the top of the staircase, gun aimed at the melee. Pari stood behind her, Caroline wrapped protectively in her arms. She hummed a lullaby as she shielded her child’s eyes from the violence.

  Layne knew a fourth person was coming up the stairs, but the moment he started to meet the challenge head on, Number 2 decided a concussion wasn’t enough to keep him down. It only took two quick jabs to return him to the land of the unconscious, but it was two jabs too long. Before he could turn, two arms, each as long as he was tall and possibly even bigger around, wrapped around him, trapping his arms by his sides.

  It was a hold he’d gotten out of at least a hundred times in practice, but none of those practices had been against someone topping out at over seven feet and weighing in at a good three hundred pounds. And then there was the little fact of the gun gripped in the gorilla’s right hand.

  Sure, his aim couldn’t have been very good in that position, but a shot to the face was still a shot to the face, even if it missed all the death-on-the-spot parts.

  “You made a good run of it, girlie,” the mountain at Layne’s back said, “but it’s time to put the gun down now.”

  Layne’s eyes met Lizzie’s. “Shoot him.”

  Lizzie took a deep breath and adjusted her aim.

  “Are you that good, love? Can you shoot me without shooting him?”

  The hesitation and doubt was written so big across Lizzie’s face they could be read from space.

  “You can do it, Lizzie. Just pull the trigger.”

  She was like a statue. He wasn’t sure she was even seeing them.

  “Lizzie, pull the trigger.”

  Behind him, his assailant coughed.

  “Pull the trigger!”

  More coughing, the kind that took everything you had. Being strapped to someone who was coughing like that was like being on the suckiest Disneyland ride ever.

  “Do you mind? We’re trying to fight to the death here.” To punctuate his final words, Layne brought his heel down on the guy’s instep. Before he could do anything else, the big guy’s arms fell away and he fell to the ground, clutching his throat. His coughs were losing strength and foam was forming at the corners of his mouth.

  “What the hell…?” Not that he was looking a gift horse in the foaming mouth or anything, but whatever that was wasn’t right.

  “The human body is over sixty percent water,” Pari reminded him. “When some of that water moves from where it’s supposed to be and into your lungs, you drown.”

  Of course you would.

  And of course Pari could drown a man just by thinking about it.

  Right.

  Great.

  Good to know he had yet another thing to freak out about the moment he had a few seconds to spare.

  “Move or stand our ground?” Lizzie asked, showing some sign of life for the first time in several moments.

  There were maybe five or six more SHP sheep milling around downstairs. Odds weren’t bad, or they wouldn’t have been if they had been on equal footing. The problem was, those guys downstairs were not only on their own turf, but they were fresh and ready for a fight whereas Layne’s team was decidedly not.

  Lizzie was swaying on her feet. There was no way to know how much blood she’d lost, but it looked like a lot. He wasn’t sure she would be able to walk down the stairs. Kicking ass while doing it? Out of the question.

  “I’m not swaying on my feet. I’m slow dancing to music only I can hear.”

  Well, at least her Sight and sass were still functioning properly. Surprisingly, that knowledge actually made him feel better.

  He jogged up the steps and handed Pari a gun he pulled off the drowned guy. “Safety. Trigger. This is where the bullet comes out,” he said, pointing at the barrel. “Make sure that part is pointing at the bad guys.”

  “There is no such thing as bad guys,” Lizzie said, rubbing her face on her shoulder. The material clung to her face for a brief moment before she jerked it free. “There is us and them.”

  “Us are the good guys,” Caroline said, her words muffled since her face was buried in her mother’s neck. “Them are the bad guys.”

  Layne dropped a kiss between to pigtails. “Well said, princess. Well said.” He met her mother’s eyes over her head. “If you had to, how many more times could you do that thing you did?”

  Pari’s chin lifted, and her eyes narrowed. “As many times I need to.”

  Bullshit. She was nearly drained. He could see it in the tight lines around her mouth. She might be able to do it once more before collapsing, but maybe not. There was no point in relying on her ability to pave their way to the front door, but Layne felt confident if it came down to it, she could protect Caroline, and that was all that really mattered.

  The rest of it was all on him.

  “On us,” Lizzie corrected.

  On them. Right. Because what he really wanted was his mate, who was already injured so badly he was in a near panic over the possibility of losing her, to fight some more. That sounded like a really awesome idea.

  “I’m not leaving you, Layne.”

  It was a promise. One he hoped like hell she would be able to keep.

  A burst of static had him turning towards the stairwell, his grip on the knife in his hand tightening.

  “Sterling? What the bloody hell is going on up there? Report.”

  Layne looked around the hall in confusion. “Speakers?”

  “No,” Lizzie said. “There aren’t any cameras or anything outside of the apartment. I think it’s a walkie-talkie.”

  “A walkie-talkie?”

  “It’s a communication device,” Pari explained.

  “I know what a walkie-talkie is.” He was a boy whose father served in the United States military after all. He had at least seven different sets growing up. “I’m just appalled that we let ourselves get kidnapped by a cult so freaking lame they still use walkie-talkies. What do they think this is? An 80s movie?”

  Another burst of static.

  “Sterling?”

  A door opened somewhere downstairs, and Layne
could finally hear what was being said clearly.

  “They’re not answering. Gear up. We’re going in.”

  Definitely six of them. Six trained fighters at peak performance. He could take them one at a time but—

  One at a time.

  With a burst of inspiration, Layne hopped down three steps and rummaged through the giant’s pockets until he pulled out a walkie-talkie that had to be at least as old as he was.

  “It’s been a bit of bugger,” Layne said into the device, dropping his voice down to a convincing bass and adopting an even more convincing British accent. “I need some bloody rope.”

  “What? Have you neutralized the situation?”

  “Rope! I need rope!”

  Layne heard a long stream of curses come from downstairs, and then the door closed and a single set of footsteps made their way towards the stairs.

  He honestly couldn’t believe that worked.

  “Someone’s coming,” he informed everyone with less sensitive ears. “You guys take cover.”

  “I thought we’ve talked about this,” Lizzie said, giving him a bloodied smile that made her look like a crazy person. “We’re in this together.”

  He wanted her protected and safe, but if there was one thing he’d learned as a member of the Alpha Pack, it was that you had to let people fight their own battles.

  “Pari?” he asked, already anticipating her answer. “For Caroline’s sake?”

  “What my daughter needs is to get out of here, and our best chance of that is by doing this together.”

  “Keep your guns up and the safety off.” It took Pari a second, but eventually she found out a way to hold the gun and Caroline at the same time. “Don’t let anything get beyond the stairwell. Understood?”

  They both nodded, and he moved onto the top step. If whoever was coming up the stairs came around the corner shooting there wasn’t much protection he could offer them, but it made him feel better to put his body between theirs and the danger.

  “I got your bloody—”

  So, not shooting but complaining.

  And better yet, it was his old friend Mack. Layne couldn’t help the grin from stretching across his face. He had a score to settle. Channeling Keanu Reeves, Layne quirked his eyebrows and beckoned Mack with two fingers.

  “I should have put you down when I had the chance,” Mack said, stepping around the bodies littering the wide staircase.

  Unlike Layne, Mack hadn’t been trained in martial arts since he was old enough to walk. He was, however, solid as a brick wall and in possession of a big-ass knife. Said knife hurled towards Layne’s stomach. Layne blocked it, but Mack had put enough force and speed behind the strike Layne nearly lost his footing, causing his own strike to hit the other man’s shoulder instead of his neck.

  The next blow came just as fast and furious. This time, Mack went for the throat. Layne blocked it, but Mack blocked his counter-strike with equal efficiency. Another blocked strike. Another blocked counter-strike. Over and over again, until it became a dance of sorts. A dance of brawn and blades by two people who wanted nothing more than to kill one another.

  Layne didn’t mind the dance. Actually, he reveled in it. Being a Shifter meant he was naturally light and graceful on his feet. Like Eliza Doolittle, he could have danced all night. Mack, on the other hand, was a human street thug whose strength might have held out, but his footing…

  Layne took a wild swipe, knowing it wouldn’t land, but neither did Mack’s foot. There was a frozen cartoon moment where Mack’s oh-shit face was all Layne could see, and then Mack was rolling back down the staircase. Layne followed, and the moment Mack came to a stop, Layne drove his knife between his fourth and fifth rib.

  And just like that, he had fulfilled his vow.

  It wasn’t quite the cathartic experience he imagined it to be.

  Pointedly ignoring the slaughtered fruits of his labor, he jogged back up to the top of the stairs and offered Lizzie a bloody palm. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 25

  Brownlow Manor had turned into a giant ship on stormy seas. Not that Lizzie had ever been on a ship before, but she imagined it felt very much like this with the walls tilting this way and that and the stairs rolling back and forth, making descending them much harder than it should have been.

  Layne was right. She was barely standing. Everything was foggy. Her own thoughts muffled as if her brain was wearing a thick pair of wool mittens. Her throat burned, each breath like sandpaper on a sunburn. But in comparison to her face, her throat was a walk in the park.

  She tried not to think about it, but it wasn’t working out so well. Overwhelming pain had a way of making sure it received the notice it was due. And then there was the way Layne couldn’t look at her for more than a split second at a time. She knew it was because seeing her so badly hurt was tearing him apart, but the voice of vanity in her head wondered if part of the reason, a part he wouldn’t even admit to himself at this point, was because he knew even if they made it out and she survived all this, she would never look the same again.

  Would he still want her if she was scarred and ugly?

  Maybe it would be best to give up and let the pain overtake her. It wouldn’t take much. Actually, it would be a gazillion times easier than fighting to stay conscious. She could just slip into a sleep where the pain no longer existed. Layne and Pari would have a much better chance of getting out without her. It was the best option, really.

  No. No, it’s not.

  The Scout voice was right. If she died, she would be breaking her promise to Layne. Too many people had abandoned him in his life. She couldn’t add herself to that number.

  Pari was softly humming “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” to Caroline, and Lizzie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If they actually made it out of there alive, would their freedom be sweet enough to make all this violence easier to swallow? She had thought so before, when she’d been cuddled in Layne’s arms where she felt invincible.

  But now?

  Now she was barely standing on her own two feet and freedom seemed no closer than it had when she first woke up.

  She missed a step, one she hadn’t known was there, and Layne caught her in his arms. His chest was a solid wall of strength. She wanted to stay there forever, despite the smell of blood clinging to them both.

  Her mate was a warrior, fierce and proud. But he was also a seventeen-year-old who had just taken four lives with his own hands. Lizzie had been around the Shifter version of soldiers long enough to know the guilt and remorse he was feeling now was nothing compared to the days, weeks, and years to come. Five minutes of poetry-in-motion fighting would result in a lifetime of tortured nightmares.

  And it was all her fault.

  What made her think it was okay to stage an escape on a whim? Why had she set into motion something that might very well end with them all dead? And for what? Even if they escaped, would they ever be truly free of this place? Would Layne be able to look at her and not see the walls of this house or the lives he’d ended just to protect her?

  Don’t worry about that now, Lizzie Lou. You have to keep fighting.

  Keep fighting.

  Yes, she would do that. Just as soon as the room they’d stepped into stopped spinning.

  “Which way?” Layne whispered, looking around the cavernous hall. It was all stone and dust. A large crystal chandelier hung overhead. Lizzie suspected the ballroom was nearby. She could easily imagine ladies in beautiful ballgowns and men in cravats standing around this room, waiting to be introduced to the crowd waiting inside.

  “Right,” she said, knowing the library lay to the left.

  Since the stairs ended on the left end of the hall, Lizzie had never ventured far enough into it to see its full splendor. It stretched maybe forty feet across and doors lined the two outer walls. While the upstairs had an abandoned chic aesthetic, this part leaned more towards Target clearance rack fabulous. Someone had tried to hide t
he house’s ancient architecture with bright modern prints and cheap furniture with clean lines. Annoyed by the modern invasions on the vintage splendor, Lizzie’s fuzzy gaze drifted up high where no one had bothered to do anything since the invention of electricity.

  Well, not much of anything. It appeared she was wrong about that whole no-cameras-anywhere-but-the-apartment theory of hers.

  “We’ve got eyes on us,” she said at the same time as Layne snatched Caroline out of Pari’s arms and sat her in a monstrous fireplace covering a large section of the west wall.

  “Stay down and stay quiet. Got it, princess?” Caroline nodded her terrified understanding as Layne snatched two sleek fake-leather chairs - one in each hand - and placed them in front of the fireplace, blocking Caroline from view.

  They didn’t have time to discuss anything. The moment the chairs were in place a door opened somewhere down the narrow corridor branching off from the hall and gun shots rang out. Lizzie plastered herself behind a small column made of stone and saw Pari do the same across from her. They both raised their own weapons, although neither seemed to be able to hold them steady. She wasn’t sure where Layne was, but she could See him and knew he was safe and prepared to take on whatever came their way.

  A bullet hit the edge of the column she was standing behind, sending tiny shards of stone into the cuts on her face. Blinking through the pain and blood clouding her vision, she dared a quick glance around the column to see five SHP members standing in a V-formation, all wearing bullet-proof vests. Only two of them carried guns. Either Alistair’s fascination with cutting things bled over into how he outfitted his people or they should be thankful they weren’t being held captive back in Kentucky where everyone over the age of ten had a hunting rifle.