Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) (21 page)

A dog wandered into the lawn. It was small and playful and just dumb enough to pay no heed to all the wolves and coyotes walking around in human form. Caroline abandoned her leaf collecting to squeal with delight as the two of them took turns chasing one another. Layne’s heart felt like it was trying to fold in on itself as he watched her. How was he supposed to go through life without her laugh and fifty million daily questions? Lizzie was the love of his life and his mate, but she now shared the title of best friend with a three-year-old princess with control issues.

Pari watched her daughter play for several moments and then released a long-held breath. Her shoulders drooped, and for the first time ever, she didn’t look as composed and regal as the queen her daughter was convinced she was.

“This is hard for me to say, so I’m just going to say it this once,” she said. “You’re right. Caroline loves you, and it will kill her to have to be away from you, but we can’t go with you. I refuse to trade one cage for another.”

“The United States isn’t a cage. It’s huge. You can fit like seventy-five Englands inside of it.”

“To me it will still be a cage. I’m Scottish, Layne. I need the North Sea and Highlands to keep me grounded. It’s home, and after two years of being kept away against my will, there is nothing in this world I want more than to go home.”

Again, he couldn’t argue her point. He understood the pull of home.

“I can’t stay here,” he said. “I have my pack and responsibilities.”

Pari’s smile was full of empathy. “I know. I would never ask you to.”

They had made it out of Brownlow Manor alive, and for the most part, in one piece, yet at the moment, Layne didn’t feel like a victor.

“So we’re at an impasse,” he said.

“We are.”

He wasn’t going to cry again. Twice in one day was quite enough, but it took considerable concentration to ensure his eyes followed through. With nothing left to discuss, Layne stood, and started across the yard. If he only had a few hours left with her, he wasn’t going to waste them. He was halfway to Caroline when Pari called out to him.

“Yes?” he said, turning back to find her grinning at him.

“You know, I’ve heard a rumor that it’s the twenty-first century,” she said.

Was there a chance she’d gotten high in the last thirty seconds?

“Yeah, I heard something about that myself.”

“I hear they’ve got all sorts of amazing technologies these days. Airplanes. Smart phones.” She pulled a Pack phone out of her pocket in demonstration. “Did you know you can video call someone on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and it’s just like they’re in the room with you?”

The tightness in his chest loosened as he considered her words.

“And I’m guessing someone could use those airplanes to cross this Atlantic Ocean you speak of for visits a couple of times a year?”

Her head tilted in agreement. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. He would make it work. He would call her every day and visit as often as he could. Maybe he would even be able to convince Pari to let Caroline come and stay with him at the Den for a few weeks during the summer.

“Thank you,” he said, his words thick with gratitude.

“No, thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being the kind of man Caroline can look up to.”

Unable to speak, he merely nodded before snatching one of his favorite reasons for living up in his arms and spinning her around and around until they were both dizzy and laughing.

“Are you sleeping okay?”

Lizzie snuggled further back into the overstuffed sofa and hugged a brightly colored throw pillow against her belly.

“Most nights,” she said, trying not to think about the dreams that kept her up the other nights. “I thought I would miss the sleeping pills, and I did for the first week, but I don’t anymore.”

Dr. Byars scribbled something in her notebook. Lizzie hated when she did that. She wanted to know what it said. Did she answer the question wrong? Was she slipping off the edge and was next in line for the nut house? Or did Dr. Byars just remember she needed to buy a gallon of milk?

Despite the annoying scribbling, Lizzie liked Dr. Byars. The Seer from Nebraska accepted an offer to join the Alpha Pack nearly a year ago. It turned out having a psychologist with the ability to See demons - the figurative kind - was kinda handy. Lizzie had been meeting with her three times a week ever since they returned from England nearly six months ago.

The first month was the hardest. Her guilt over taking human lives was a living and corrosive thing. It leeched the life out of living. But Dr. Byars had seen her through the worst of it, helping her unravel the tangle of thoughts and emotions in her own brain, and even finding a way to exorcise the part of Alistair that still lived in her mind.

They met at Dr. Byars’s home/office in one of Lexington’s more posh neighborhoods. Even though she was an official member of the Alpha Pack, she didn’t stay at the Den, citing a need for her patients to feel as if they could pour their hearts out safely, far away from the all-too-acute hearing of the dominant Shifters of the Alpha Pack.

The room where she met patients was painted in warm brown tones and furnished with big, comfortable couches. Throw pillows of various shapes and textures were strewn everywhere, and multiple baskets were filled with throws and blankets. A salt water fish tank took up the majority of one wall. Too often Lizzie found herself nestled on the couch, all warm and snuggly, fighting sleep as she watched the brightly colored fish dart to and fro.

Today, however, she was too wired to nod off at inappropriate moments. The Hustings was less than a day away. Shifters and Seers from around the world were flying in for the semi-annual meeting, which meant the Den was abuzz with activity. There was a lot to do, and Lizzie was anxious to get back to it. She’d always been fond of keeping busy, but since leaving England, she found it was imperative to keep moving. It was hard to dwell on things best forgotten when you were juggling three or four projects at a time. She tried to cancel this appointment, but Dr. Byars refused. Lizzie considered pulling rank, but she knew the doctor was only doing what she thought was best.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Dr. Byars asked as if picking up on the direction of her thoughts.

“Me personally, or are you asking if we’re ready in a general sense?”

The corner of Dr. Byars’s mouth kicked up. “I mean you. Are you, Lizzie, ready for tomorrow?” She leaned forward, her eyes growing serious. “You do realize you don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. I’m sure everyone would understand.”

Since this was the first Hustings since the kidnapping, she was expected to give an account of the incident and the trial that followed. The thought of reliving everything made her a little queasy, but it wasn’t the overwhelming sense of panic she felt when the Alphas formally charged the remaining SHP members with crimes against the Alpha Pack.

“I’ll be okay,” she said. “Liam said I didn’t have to give the report if I didn’t feel up to it, but I think it will be good for me. A closure of sorts.”

“I completely agree, but that wasn’t what I was asking about.” Dr. Byars pushed her nerdy librarian-worthy glasses back up her nose. “I was referring to the mating ceremony. Some people might say it’s too soon and you’re too young to make such an important and lasting decision.”

Lizzie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Of all the things in the world she wasn’t certain about — and the number of those were legion — officially becoming Layne’s mate wasn’t one of them.

“Those people,” Lizzie said, referring to Dr. Byars’s hypothetical naysayers, “should remember Layne and I are hardly the first members of the Alpha Pack to swear ourselves to one another young. Scout was younger than I am now when she became Alpha and declared Liam her mate.”

“But Scout has always been the exception, not the rule.”

“And Jase and Talley?”

Dr. Byars grinned in a rare show of humor. “Let’s all hope Jase doesn’t become the new norm. I worry for the future if that’s the case.”

Lizzie laughed as she was expected to, but in truth, she didn’t see anything wrong with Jase Donovan becoming the standard by which other Shifters were measured. He was loyal, trustworthy, and fun to be around. He was actually a lot like his cousin, and she couldn’t think of anyone better than Layne. Sure, the things that drove her crazy and made them fight like cats and dogs when they weren’t together still irked her something terrible - was it really too much to ask for him to throw trash into an actual trash can or turn down his music so everyone in the house, even those without super-hearing, didn’t have to hear it? - but she even loved those things about him. Without them, he wouldn’t be Layne.

“Do you like novels, Dr. Byars?”

If the doctor thought the question was odd or out of the blue, she didn’t show it.

“I prefer nonfiction, but I do enjoy the occasional novel.”

“I love novels,” Lizzie said. “Romances in particular, but I’ll read anything as long as it ends well.”

“And Layne is your hero? Your one true love?”

“He is.” She knew it sounded naive and… well, romantic, but it was true. “He’s my happily ever after. It doesn’t matter that we’re young or that we’ve just been through a traumatic event. We love each other. We will always love each other.”

Dr. Byars wasn’t super old. She was maybe somewhere around forty, but there were times she looked like an old grandmotherly figure. “But how can you be sure?”

“How can you be sure the sky is blue? Nothing is certain, especially not where people and their hearts are concerned, but I know who I am, and I’ve Seen who Layne is, and I’m telling you, we’re going to make it. We’re both too stubborn to give each other up.”

Maybe Lizzie was cursed, but if she learned anything while in England, it was how strong she truly was. She would fight to stay with Layne, and she would win. There were no other options.

She thought about Dr. Byars’s concerns the entire way back to the Den, but even though she tried, she couldn’t make herself doubt going through with the mating ceremony for even a second. It was strange to be so certain of something she once had no hope could ever exist, yet she was.

Speaking of my happily ever after
, she thought, pulling her car into the horse barn Charlie had converted into a ten car garage. Layne leaned up against the massive oak tree growing between the garage and the house, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he was very purposefully trying not to think about something. She felt his relief when she finally shut off the engine. Since coming home, he was uncomfortable with cars and couldn’t bring himself to drive. Dr. Byars was working with him on it, but Lizzie was becoming an expert at distracting him whenever either of them had to go anywhere.

“You know, there are laws against stalking,” she said coming up and dropping a kiss on his cheek. Unsatisfied with her quick affection, Layne pulled her against him and gave her the kind of kiss that made you wish you weren’t out in the open where anyone could see you.

“I’m not stalking,” he said, “I’m merely waiting patiently for my mate to get home so I can show her a surprise.”

“A surprise! I like surprises.”

With a sly smile, Layne reached around the tree and picked up a gift bag she hadn’t noticed. “For you,” he said, handing the package over.

It took all of two seconds for Lizzie to remove the tissue paper and discover the stuffed creature within.

“Peppa!” she said, cuddling the little pig to her chest. “I hadn’t realized I missed her until now. Thank you.”

Layne’s smile was as cocky as it was beautiful. “You’re welcome, but I didn’t buy it for you.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I did!”

Lizzie had no time to prepare herself before Caroline sprinted from behind the garage and barreled into her. Layne caught them before they could tumble to the ground, but Lizzie still had the breath knocked out of her.

“Caroline! What are you doing here?” Not that she cared about the reason. Lizzie missed the little girl almost as much as Layne did. They talked nightly, and she and Layne had flown to Scotland to visit her at Christmas, but it had been entirely too long since she’d been able to smell her sweet little kid head and get pelted with a million baby kisses. Pari was also there, and although she didn’t show quite the same level of excitement as her daughter, she looked genuinely happy.

“Layne invited us to your mating ceremony,” Pari said, giving Lizzie an awkward one-armed hug. “He told Caroline if she came, she could ride one of your horses.”

Of course he did. Because bribing a four-year-old with a ride on a thoroughbred was exactly the sort of thing a reasonable person would do. She supposed since Layne couldn’t get near the horses without spooking them the responsibility of making sure Caroline didn’t topple to her death from the back of a future Kentucky Derby contender would fall to her.

They spent the afternoon showing Pari and Caroline the farm. Pari told them about the classes she was taking at university and the new apartment they found near a park. It had taken a while for Pari to accept the money the Alpha Pack offered her in return for everything she’d done to protect Lizzie and Layne, both before and after their capture, but eventually Layne wore her down, telling her she could use it to build a new life for Caroline.

As night descended, Caroline valiantly fought sleep, but eventually jet lag got the best of her. She fell asleep in Layne’s lap, her head nestled against his chest. As Lizzie watched Layne carry her back to the room she would be sharing with Pari, she knew one day he would carry their own children the same way. She wasn’t anywhere near ready for that day to come anytime soon, but it still made her go all warm and fuzzy.

Since Pari was also struggling with the time change, she followed her daughter to bed. When Layne came back to the living room, it was to find Lizzie sitting on the couch, smiling into space.

“You look happy,” he said, sitting down and pulling her against him.

“I am,” she said, realizing the truth of her words as she said them. “I really am.”

“So Byars didn’t talk you out of going through with the mating ceremony tomorrow?”

Lizzie tilted her head so she could get an upside-down view of Layne’s face.

“How did you know about that?”

Layne dropped a kiss on her nose. “Because she pulled the same stunt with me yesterday.”

“Do you think she’s honestly concerned, or was she doing some sort of psycho-voodoo stuff to make sure we don’t get cold feet?” she asked, dropping her chin.

Dr. Byars had always seemed very supportive of their relationship, often giving it the credit for how quickly they were able to readjust to the real world.

“What I think,” Layne said, “is Dr. Byars does whatever her Alphas tell her. Isn’t that right, Scout?”

The Alpha in question strode through the door, a quart of cherry ice cream in her hand.

“I regret nothing,” she said, throwing herself in a recliner as Liam, Charlie, Maggie, Jase, Talley, Joshua, and Ada began crowding into the room.

“I, on the other hand, have many regrets,” Jase chimed in, tossing an oatmeal cream pie into Layne’s raised hand. “I regret dismissing
Gravity Falls
as a stupid kid’s cartoon in the beginning. I regret the fourth taco I had for lunch. But mostly, I regret offering to set up the chairs for our first Hustings here three years ago. No one cared to mention it would be a lifelong assignment at the time.”

“Quit your whining,” Joshua said from the floor where he was laying on his back, his long limbs sprawled between pieces of furniture. “At least you weren’t scrambling to install a new PA system
someone
decided was absolutely necessary at noon today.”

Ignoring Jase and Joshua, Scout took a bite of her ice cream and passed the carton to her husband. “Did you know Layne once flooded Gramma Hagan’s shed on purpose?” she asked Lizzie.

“I did,” Lizzie said. “You’ve told me at least three times.”

“And it wasn’t on purpose,” Layne added. “I meant to play with the water hose. The shed flooding was an unfortunate side effect.”

“What about the time he wrote all over a white wall with a black Sharpie?” Scout countered, grabbing the ice cream back from Liam.

“I was three.”

Charlie, who was sitting on the other end of the couch, leaned forward to peer around Maggie. “Did you know he once cut every bedsheet he owned into strips in an attempt to fashion the world’s longest rope and then blamed me when he got caught?”

“I was seven,” Layne growled, clearly growing annoyed at this trip down memory lane.

“Oh, I’ve got one,” Jase said, waving his arms around as if to silence the hordes of people rushing to interrupt. “Remember the time we were having a big exhibition at the dojo and he pulled down his pants and peed all over the mats right there in front of half the army base?” He was having a hard time talking and smothering his laughter at the same time. “What was that song he sang as he whipped his little penis around? Something about how even kings and queens go potty?”