A Shift in the Air

by Patricia D. Eddy

  “If he’s still alive, Fergus is hiding them.” Caitlin sank down in the mud and let her head fall into her hands. “I don’t know what to do. They could be anywhere. I can’t think.”

  Mara knelt next to her. “Yes, you can, Caitlin. You have to. Look.”

  Caitlin followed Mara’s pointing finger to the ground next to the car. A sliver of red leather peeked out from behind the wheel.

  The book. They had the book.

  A grim amusement curved the corner of her mouth as Caitlin rose to collect their only hope. “I can,” she echoed, laying her hand against the ancient leather, wishing for some sign, some responding energy that would reassure her of their task. No such answer rushed forth, but she refused to allow her spark of hope to dim.

  “Let’s figure out how you take your element back.” Mara held out her hand.

  The water elemental’s clarity bolstered Caitlin, clearing away more of the haze from Diedre’s charm, and she nodded her agreement. “And then we find Liam.”

  ***

  After a tense phone call with the rental car representative—who thankfully could unlock the car remotely—Cade used Caitlin’s phone to call Peter.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Peter asked when the four of them huddled in the car around the phone. “I’ve been calling you for an hour. You’ve got to get back to Farren’s now.”

  “Fergus took Liam. Diedre’s dead, but we have what we think is the book. Look, I had to shift and…well, my clothes didn’t survive the attack. I need you to meet us in Doolin in back of O’Connor’s Pub with fresh clothes and cash.”

  Caitlin hadn’t even opened the ancient volume yet. The faded leather threatened to crumble to dust if handled roughly and only luck had kept the pages intact after the fire, wind, and water that had buffeted them all during the maelstrom.

  “Liam? Oh God. I’m sorry, Cade. I’m so sorry. I…think I know how Fergus found you. Brian’s dead. Ewan and Tierney and I went out to run right after we talked, and I found him at the edge of Farren’s property. Well, parts of him. And when we came back, Colin and Abagail had disappeared. Colin heard me on the phone with you when you told me about Diedre. He’d have known that’s where you’d be.”

  “Shite,” Farren said and slammed her hand against the back door. “Fucking piece of shite. We grew up together. I’m going to rip his throat out if I see him again.”

  “Why would he do this?” Caitlin sat in stunned horror.

  “I…don’t know. But if Fergus had him for what? Almost two days? Perhaps he compelled him somehow. Or maybe he’s not the man I thought I knew. He never respected my job—didn’t like how often I helped the practitioners.” Farren’s frustration belied deeper pain.

  Peter choked out another apology, but Cade cut him off. “Look, unless you called Fergus himself and told him where we’d be, I don’t want to hear another word. Not until we get Liam back and figure out this damn book. Get clothes for me and for Mara, and meet us in Doolin. Go. Now.”

  Cade reached under the dash and yanked a few wires free. “I’ve only done this once,” he muttered and started fiddling with the various colored strands. Several minutes passed in an agonizingly slow progression until the car purred to life.

  As he pulled out onto the main road, Caitlin lifted the book’s cover. If they were to find Liam, she had to understand what her ancestor tried to relay in these delicate pages. She would rescue her mate or die trying.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thick, coppery sweetness threatened to choke him. Pain. Darkness. Liam tried to raise his head, but his world pitched from the effort, and he collapsed again. A dull roar filled his ears. Blinking his eyes, grit scraped against his swollen lids. The floor under him bounced, and his forehead hit solid metal.

  A groan escaped his bloodied lips. The bastard locked him in the trunk of a car. Fergus had hit him with some fucking compulsion charm in mid-swing, and he’d stood in front of the man like a trained dog. He’d gotten a few good licks in before that, though, and Fergus had to be injured.

  Liam groaned again and tried to assess his own injuries in the confines of the tight space. Then again, he might be in worse shape. He reached up and touched his neck, hissing out a breath. Below his collarbone, a deep slice bled and soaked his shirt. His hip ached with a fiery pain that shot down his leg and into his back. A roof support had slammed into him and cracked his femur. His right leg felt fine, but when he tried to straighten his left, the pain brought an intense fit of nausea, and he fought not to vomit. More than a single break, then.

  He had to shift. He could heal his injuries and rip Fergus’s head clean off afterwards. Trying to relax as the car’s shuddering intensified the pain of his injuries, he reached for his wolf, a constant presence hovering under his skin, ready to break free at a moment’s notice. The animal railed for his freedom, clawing and fighting his way to the surface. And then he shrank away, whimpering. No, that noise came from Liam. What the hell? Why can’t I shift?

  Fergus whispering in his ear, “Yer wolf will obey. Ya will not shift—I forbid it.”

  Fuck. If he couldn’t heal the broken bones, he’d never survive the crazy bastard. And where would that leave Caitlin? He’d passed out before Fergus had shoved him in the trunk of the car. Had Caitlin escaped?

  “Caitlin!” he roared, banging on the trunk roof until his knuckles bled. “Ya fuckin’ arse, what did ya do to her?” The car lurched, tires squealing, and Liam rolled forward until his broken leg twisted, and white-hot pain drove him out of his mind.

  His wolf howled inside of him. The moon approached, and the animal yearned to be free. Liam tried to hold on to the vision of Caitlin smiling, the memory of her touch, but as the motion of the car aggravated his injuries, he drifted in and out of consciousness. The pitch of the engine lowered, and the bouncing intensified as the car transitioned from pavement to dirt roads. Occasional plinks of rocks and branches hit the undercarriage, startling him awake and sending raw waves of pain to swamp him whenever he jerked.

  Broken bones didn’t usually bother him. Hell, every bone in his body shattered when he shifted, but healed right away. The blood loss left him too weak to do much more than raise his head. His shirt stuck to his skin from his collar to his navel, and lying on his back, more blood dripped and trailed along his neck. If he couldn’t stop the flow soon, he’d die.

  They lurched to a stop, and Liam rolled and slammed into the front of the small enclosure. Muffled footsteps approached, and the trunk popped open. The light blinded him. A hulking figure laughed, a thin, rasping sound. “She’s mine, wolf. And you’re going to pay for what you did to her.”

  Fergus’s punch knocked his head back. He yanked Liam up by his arms and then slammed him against the wheel well. As Liam’s head hit the metal, he got a clear look at Fergus’s eyes. Wild desperation hovered in the pinpoint pupils, but a deadly calm infused his words. “No one touches what’s mine.” Tiny dark spots blossomed in Liam’s vision until everything faded into darkness.

  ***

  Caitlin’s head ached from the day’s battle, compounded by the lingering effects of Diedre’s cast. She’d opened the book’s cover, but between her shaking fingers and the bumpy ride, the miniscule text, written in a crude hand in Goidelc—an ancient form of Gaelic—didn’t make any sense to her. Farren suggested they attempt to see if Paddy still hovered in some dark corner of O’Connor’s. “If anyone can make sense of those scribbles, he can.”

  Caitlin fought to train her eyes on the road. Peter paced behind O’Connor’s Pub as Cade eased the car into the alley. Caitlin smoothed her hand over the book in her lap.

  “Cade, what happened?” Peter said as the four of them eased their aching bodies from the car.

  “Clothes.” Cade pulled on pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, then shoved his feet into a pair of Keds. Mara stripped off her sopping wet sweater and donned a dry sweatshirt, grimacing when Cade handed her a pair of fresh pants.

  “Stripping in a back al
ley of Ireland. I guess I can cross that off my bucket list.” Mara almost glowed—a tall, red flame in the half-light of dusk, and Cade reached for her hand.

  “Are you all right? You look…different.”

  “I can feel the fire…kind of like a low simmer inside me. But I’m not about to go batshit crazy or anything. I’m good.”

  Peter continued to pace and mutter to himself quietly. “All my fault. I can’t fix this.”

  “Stop that.” Cade took Peter by the shoulders and held him still. “We’re no good to Liam if we fall apart. Once we get somewhere safe, tell me what you know, and we’ll figure out what to do. You can feel guilty later when Liam’s safe.”

  Anxiety tugged at Caitlin’s mind. She couldn’t imagine any scenario where Fergus would keep Liam alive for more than a few hours. Just long enough to torture him and make him “pay” for his relationship with her. Her worst fear had come to pass.

  “Hey,” Mara said. “We have the book.” Her cool touch on Caitlin’s wrist and her gentle tone pulled Caitlin out of her own thoughts.

  “You’re right. We do.” She forced a tight grin. “Where can we go? I need time. And a gallon of coffee to clear my head.”

  “What is it?” Concern gathered Mara’s brows.

  “Diedre’s charm—I can pack a punch, but I’ve never felt anything like that before. I think because it’s my own element, she messed with my head. I feel a little better now, but—“

  “Mickey has a back room,” Farren said. “A shot of whiskey will clear ya right up. Then coffee.”

  Farren slipped into the pub first to see if Paddy lingered and whether Mickey would give them the space. A few tense and silent minutes later, she propped open the back door. “Come on, then.”

  O’Connor’s backroom carried the scent of old stale cigars, fried fish, and whiskey. A card table in the center bore the nicks and scars of decades of gambling, and along the back wall, boxes of vodka, gin, and scotch rested on wood pallets.

  Paddy slumped at the far end of the table. He’d removed his tweed cap to reveal a bushy head of salt and pepper hair, and he whispered to himself, occasionally rocking a bit from side to side as he did so.

  The center of the table offered a full bottle of Jameson and six glasses. “Mickey’s makin’ coffee,” Farren said. “And we’re safe here for at least an hour or two.”

  “Old Paddy isn’t safe anywhere,” the old man said and fixed Farren with a watery stare. “Nor’s the elementals. Need to restore balance. Too far gone.”

  “What balance?” Farren asked. Paddy shook his head and poured himself a shot of whiskey.

  “Can’t say.”

  A tug on her element made Caitlin gasp, and the book slid onto the table. Pain and a deep-seated sadness filled her. Farren caught her before she fell.

  “Easy now, Caitlin. Shall I get ya some food?”

  “Fergus.” She clutched her head and tried to focus through the swirling thoughts. Jealousy, rage, and desperate need consumed her. “He’s…using my element. Help me.” Caitlin threw a fumbling hand out towards Mara. The cool fingers that wrapped around hers and the rising humidity in the room calmed her ragged breaths, and she let the intense hold on her element flow into Mara. The two women held on to one another until the worst of the storm passed.

  “What did you just do?” Mara asked.

  Leaning against the back of the chair as her head pounded with each heartbeat, Caitlin shook her head. “Fergus takes his strength from me. I can’t fight him. When I gave him my element, he became the earth to my moon, holding me to him like gravity. If he tries to use my air, I weaken for a time while he grows stronger. I think…I tried to give you what he wanted.”

  “Is that…smart?” Mara caught her lower lip under her teeth. “If I’m like him…won’t giving me your air make me…crazy?”

  Cade reached for her hand, bringing her wrist to his nose and inhaling deeply. “How do you feel?”

  “Good. Strong. Balanced even. I’m fine, Cade. Really. Wielding fire at Diedre’s hurt. More than ever before, but after Caitlin helped me at the car, the pain faded away. I’m good. Just a little…queasy. I could really use some coffee and maybe some fries. And an ice pack.” She rubbed her cheek and winced. A deep purple bruise from Fergus’s fist bloomed across her pale skin, and Caitlin sent a weak charm over her to try to ease the pain.

  Peter hadn’t taken a seat at the table; instead, he hovered by the door with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his gaze fixed on his shoes. Cade turned to him and raised a brow. “Sit down. What happened at Farren’s?”

  With a sigh, Peter obeyed. “When we all got back to the house after searching for Farren, Colin joined us. He didn’t say a lot, and I figured whatever Fergus did to him sort of broke him. But then you called, and he perked up. Everyone else had gone off to prepare to run, but he said he couldn’t manage a shift so he hadn’t left the room. After I hung up with you, he asked me about Diedre. I didn’t think anything of the question, so I told him that we thought she had the book Fergus wanted.”

  “Shit.” Cade rubbed the back of his neck and stared into his whiskey. “That’s my fault. I should have told you to keep that part quiet. But…hell. I would have trusted Farren’s pack too—especially a wolf that’d been nearly killed by the fucker. And one Farren and Liam grew up with. No one thought he’d ally with Fergus—willingly or unwillingly.”

  “I shifted so I could run with Tierney and Ewan. Abagail decided to stay with Colin—keep him company. When we found Brian at the edge of the property…shit.” A shadow passed over Peter’s eyes. “Every bone in the kid’s body’d been crushed. The pain…and…Fergus suffocated him. We found his mouth full of mud.”

  Caitlin tensed, and Mara wrapped an arm around her. “Fergus had Brian for what? Three days. Liam’s been gone all of an hour. We’ll get him back.”

  “I know. We have to.” Her gaze met Mara’s, trepidation mirrored back at her, along with understanding. Mara knew something about what these wolves could undergo before they broke. Caitlin prayed Liam wouldn’t have to face the same test Cade had.

  “So who’s left at the house? Tierney and Ewan?” Farren’s voice took on a rough edge—full of pain and betrayal. Peter nodded. “Why didn’t ya warn me?” she asked Paddy. “I stayed with ya for three days. Ya could have warned me! Brian turned twenty-two a week ago. He’d started courting a lass in Dublin. He had his whole life ahead of him.” Tears spilled over her long lashes and glistened over the bruise healing along her jaw.

  Paddy’s pale blue eyes darkened, and he sat up straighter. “Paddy warned ya. Best he could. Told ya yer wolves wouldn’t survive this, he did. Ya chose not to listen.”

  Farren slammed her glass of whiskey down, and some of the brown liquid splashed over the rim. “What good is that knowledge if you don’t tell me how to stop it?”

  “Calm down,” he spat. The shock of his tone had Caitlin’s eyes widening. His voice softened again. “Much of this world remains hidden from yer knowledge—from all of us. Paddy sees bits and pieces when he’s meant to. Find comfort and home, despite yer anger. Fire answers all, and the answer is a feather on the wind.”

  Farren swiped at her cheeks and took another shot of whiskey. “Will ya tell me one thing? One straight answer?”

  “Paddy’ll try.”

  “Will we be safe if we go back to my home now?”

  “Safe as anywhere.”

  Farren turned her shot glass over in her fingers. Peter balanced his elbows on the table and refused to look at anyone.

  Caitlin turned back to the book. Now, more than ever, she needed answers. Fergus had Liam. He might last a few hours against Fergus’s torture. She’d only survived him time and time again because Fergus cared for her in his own, misguided way. Loved her even. Liam would receive no such boon.

  “Bonny words for such a dark day,” Paddy said and ran wrinkled fingers over the front of the book. “Twisting like ribbons until two become three.”

&nbs
p; Farren slammed her hand down on the table. “What the hell does that mean?”

  The old man smiled. “The world balances under a rare moon.”

  “Fuck me, Paddy. More riddles? I’ve put up with ya for more than a decade. Let ya train me with those daft words. But if we don’t find Liam soon, he’s goin’ to die, and that’ll be on yer head if ya can’t give us a straight answer.”

  “Far’n, ya do not listen.” Paddy’s lips twisted into a half-snarl, and he turned to Caitlin. “Ya understand Paddy, lass?”

  “No.”

  “Ya will.”

  Caitlin’s resolve strengthened, and she glanced down at the first page of the journal and read aloud, translating the Gaelic for those in the room.

  To my darling daughter—may these words keep you whole.

  The script had faded in places, long-dried droplets of water leaving spiderweb-like designs around several of the words. Rain? Tears? Carefully, using only her thumb and forefinger, Caitlin turned the page.

  Images of the sun, moon, and stars filled the spread, and constellations winked against the yellowing parchment. A string of words along the bottom of the page didn’t make any sense.

  “Sea…Stars…Light…Hope.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Cade asked. “Keep going.”

  Hastily scrawled words slanted frantically across the next two pages, rantings that barely formed sentences, let alone coherent thoughts. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said. “Most of the words aren’t even modern Gaelic. My mum taught me some Goidelc a long time ago, but I hated those lessons. Now I wish I’d paid more attention.”

  “When darkness falls, see balance. When one is weak, the other is strong. Only together will you find peace.”

  Caitlin continued paging through the book, cringing as the occasional scrap of paper sheared off in her fingers. Hope waned, the bright flame fizzling with each unfamiliar word. Why hadn’t she learned? Her mum forced book after book on her as a child, spent time going over each letter, each sentence. All of the children in the town attended school together in one of the other families’ home, but Caitlin spent hours every weekend on lessons the other children escaped. Odd charms, Goidelc, fables and legends. She’d give anything for those memories now.