“Of course.”
“And Pari?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“This one might look like a harmless teenager,” Alistair said, indicating Layne with a tilt of his head, “but he is a Shifter. You know what they’re capable of.”
Pari swallowed, fear evident in her eyes. “I do.”
“Remember to be careful,” he said, walking over and patting the child on her back. The little girl squeezed her mother even tighter. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Caroline.”
Alistair’s words might have said he was looking out for the child’s welfare, but a thinly veiled threat lay just beneath the surface. Lizzie didn’t need her Seer abilities to know it was there. Alistair was a predator, and once he was finished terrorizing the toddler, he turned his attentions back to Lizzie.
“Lizzie, my apologies for how this first meeting has gone. Next time will be a bit more civilized. I promise.” He reached for her hand, and on instinct, she jerked it back. There was a tense moment when she thought he might show the fury she knew was hiding just beneath his skin, but he reined it back in. “Again, I must say I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He nodded towards the torn and stained glove barely covering her hand. “I will have some more gloves ordered for you. Is there any particular kind you prefer?”
She didn’t want to take anything from him, but if she were going to be able to do much of anything, she would need gloves.
“Just something fingerless, but it’s best if the ends come up almost to the tip.” Hands were hard to keep from brushing against another person, but fingertips were easier to keep under control. Since it was nearly impossible to function without fine motor skills, she mostly wore fingerless gloves unless she was going to be in a large crowd. “I normally make most of my own. If I could just have some needles and yarn, I can whip some up pretty fast.”
Alistair smiled, looking every inch the charming rogue. “You will have both new gloves and knitting supplies tomorrow.” He chuckled as if remembering an inside joke. “You knit. How adorable is that.”
“Totes. Adorbs.”
Alistair ignored Layne’s sardonic comment.
“Until tomorrow, Miss Lizzie,” he said, bobbing his head in a sort of semi-bow before turning to Pari. “I’m trusting you to cover all the necessary items with them. If there are any issues in these first few days, the responsibility will lay on you.”
Pari’s eyes flared, and for one brief second, Lizzie could see exactly how much the other woman hated Alistair. “I’ll be thorough.” She watched with narrowed eyes as Alistair and Mack left the room. Once the door clicked shut behind them she turned to Lizzie and said, “What part of ‘guard the girl’ did your Alphas not understand?”
Chapter 4
“I’m sorry, what?” Confusion wasn’t usually Lizzie’s default state of being, but ever since the minivan rammed into their Escalade she found herself baffled more often than not. Every time she thought she had something figured out, life threw a curveball. Like how all of Pari’s anger now seemed to be focused on Lizzie, or perhaps the Alphas.
“I tried to warn them,” she said. “I told them they were going to take a young girl. But did they listen? No. They sent you out with this… this…” She glared at Layne as if expecting him to suddenly become something else so she could easily label him. “This boy,” she finally decided on with an expressive wave of her hand. “Did they think it was a joke? Did I risk my life so they could have a laugh? ‘Oi. Look here. We got a note saying they’re going to steal one of our wee ones. How funny!’”
When they were younger, Layne would spend hours in front of the mirror trying to raise a single eyebrow. Lizzie probably would have laughed at him if she hadn’t been right beside him doing the same thing. Eventually, she’d been able to pull it off, but Layne never got the hang of it. Instead, he figured out he could pull his eyebrows up into a little mountain peak. It took some convincing on Lizzie’s part, but he finally decided it was even cooler than the one eyebrow thing. It became his favorite expression, one he used so much it annoyed everyone around him. Lizzie thought if she lived a hundred years and didn’t see it again, she would be happy, but she was wrong. Because when Layne looked up at Pari with his eyebrows quirked up together, it felt like home. For the first time in - hours? days?- she felt safe.
“What kind of leprechaun accent is that?” Layne asked.
Pari looked like a jungle cat getting ready to pounce. “I’m Scottish,” she ground out. “Leprechauns are from Ireland.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Either Layne was pissed at being called a boy or he had a death wish. Lizzie wasn’t sure which.
“You sent the letter,” Lizzie interrupted before Pari could unleash her claws and eviscerate Layne. “The one from the Society for Human Preservation.” The Society for Human Preservation, also known as SHP, had declared war against the Shifters and Seers of the world a few years back. From what the Alpha Pack could gather, SHP was offended by the notion of supernaturals and sought to eradicate them from the world. They’d sent a few pieces of hate mail to the Alphas over the years, but the last correspondence they received wasn’t the normal die-monster-scum letter they were used to. This one warned that a young girl close to the Alphas was in danger. Everyone assumed they were talking about the Alpha Female’s little sister.
Apparently they were wrong.
“They’ve been planning this for a while,” Lizzie guessed.
Pari moved to the green chair and sat down. Her daughter was still wrapped around her, trying her hardest to disappear from sight all together.
“I’ve heard murmurings and whispers since Christmas, but it took some time for an opportunity to warn you to arise.” Her gaze raked down Lizzie’s body. “They say you are very powerful and will be very useful. Why don’t you take off those gloves and show me what you’ve got, Elsa? If you’re as strong as they say, we might find a way out of here after all.”
The kid, Caroline, peeked out from her mother’s neck, eyes wide. “Elsa?”
“No, I’m not—“
“Do you wanna build a snowman?”
Good grief. Did Layne really have to encourage the poor child?
“Do you wanna come and play?” His smile was more cruel than sweet.
Caroline finally pulled away from her mother. “Mommy, is she really Elsa?”
“No,” Pari said. “I was just trying to be funny.” She smoothed a hand down the child’s hair. “It wasn’t a very good joke, was it?”
Caroline shook her little head. “I didn’t think she was really Elsa. Her hair is wrong. And she’s got more polka-dots than Anna.”
Lizzie had learned to live with her freckles a long time ago. Since she sported about one million per square inch of skin, she figured it was important to come to some sort of truce with the atrocious things.
“Sorry,” Lizzie said, not quite sure if she was apologizing for not being a Disney princess or her “polka-dots.” “I can’t sing or make it snow either. I’m probably more of a Olaf than anything.”
Layne muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, “Or Hans.” Lizzie took a deep breath and reminded herself it was in everyone’s best interest for her to just ignore him. Not that it had worked out particularly well for the last three years, but it was better than any of the alternatives.
“I’m Princess Jasmine,” Caroline told her. “Mommy is Princess Aurora because sometimes she has to sleep for a long, long, long, long, looooong time.”
The question must have shown on Lizzie’s face because Pari said, “Burn out. You know how it is.”
Lizzie did. Too many voices. Too many feelings. The more they poured into her, the less room there was for energy.
“So,” Pari continued, “you are one of their so-called Seers.” Lizzie nodded, although it didn’t really seem necessary since Pari just kept talking. Now that her hands weren’t occupied by her daughter, they danced in front of her as she spoke.
“I am one of the Fae. My talents lie in water. I’ve been in service to the Viscount of Langford for…” her mouth moved silently as she counted the months. “Two years come September.”
While Pari was talking, Layne pulled himself out of his chair and moved over to the windows, inciting Lizzie’s jealousy. She desperately wanted to get her bearings and was more than a little curious as to what England looked like in real life, but now it would look like she was following him around the room, so she was stuck in her chair.
“Viscount Langford?” Layne asked, pulling back the edge of a heavy wine-colored drape and looking down. By the amount he had to tilt his head, they were pretty far up.
“Viscount Langford,” Pari said in a mocking aristocratic voice. “I believe he was allowing you to call him Alistair.”
“Alistair is a noble? Like a real-life, has-a-title-and-lands noble?” Lizzie developed a borderline unhealthy addiction to historical romance novels when she was fifteen. It started when the Alpha Female, whose tastes were more on the urban fantasy side of things, let her borrow a steampunk novel. The description of werewolves and weird technology hadn’t appealed to Lizzie in the least, but the parts about the beautiful dresses, ballroom antics, and ill-advised trysts left her salivating for more. Over the past three years, she’d read at least two hundred novels set in the Georgian, Regency, or Victorian era. She’d memorized the rules of the ton and noble ranks. She knew the difference between a duke and an earl, and even knew who would gain the title if an heir wasn’t produced. What she didn’t know was dukes, earls, and viscounts still existed.
Caroline stood on her mother’s legs, watching Layne with intent interest as he paced along the wall of windows, tilting his head this way and that as he examined every aspect of their surroundings. Pari had to crane her neck around her child’s legs to see Lizzie. “What Alistair is is a spoiled child with nothing more than an ancient, deteriorating manor, a worthless title, and a whole cartload of crap ideas he inherited from his hateful parents. He is a boy who has nothing but believes he deserves everything. He does not see his wrongdoings because he believes himself incapable of doing wrong. When it comes to villains, they don’t get much worse than Alistair Halifax, the Viscount of Langford.”
Layne stopped his inspection of the world outside and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “Sounds like you and his royal pain in the ass are the bestest of friends,” Layne said. “I’m guessing you didn’t volunteer to work for him.”
Pari snorted and dropped an f-bomb onto her confirmation of “No.”
“You talk funny,” Caroline said to Layne, and Lizzie had to smother a laugh. She’d been raised in California and had only transplanted to Kentucky once the Alphas moved their den there from Romania. Layne, on the other hand, had grown up straddling the Kentucky and Tennessee border. He had a slow southern drawl that would make any mama in Georgia proud.
“No, I talk normal,” Layne said, the green eyes inherent to all Hagans narrowing on the young girl. “You talk funny.”
“Your hair sticks up all crazy,” Caroline countered.
“Your ears stick out weird,” Layne shot back.
Normally Lizzie would have sat there appalled, waiting for Charlie, Layne’s uncle who served as his guardian, or one of the other senior members of the Alpha Pack to correct his behavior, but there was no one else there to save her from the task.
The realization that they were in this alone hit her with a physical force. One hand flew to her stomach as a one-moment-too-late attempt to protect it from the blow. Ever since Scout and Liam took over the Alpha Pack she’d spent every hour of every day confident she would be protected. Even before then, when she’d been under the less-than-desirable rule of Sarvarna, she always believed someone would look out for her and keep her safe. But now, everyone who she normally turned to for support was an entire ocean away, which meant her wellbeing - and Layne’s behavior - rested in her hands.
She made another desperate attempt to connect with the Alpha Female, but received only silence in return.
“Layne Hagan,” she said, focusing on something she actually had a chance, albeit a small one, at being able to control. “For the love of all things holy, she’s a two-year-old. I realize your maturity level isn’t much more advanced than that, but seriously, stop harassing the toddler.”
Caroline’s hands balled up into tiny fists as her face screwed up with righteous fury. “I am three years old, and I’m not a totter. I am a girl. A big girl. I go potty by myself.”
“You are,” Pari said, pulling Caroline back into her lap. “You are Mommy’s big girl. I’m very proud of you.”
“Because I can go potty all by myself?”
Pari smiled at her daughter and a pang of longing reverberated in Lizzie’s chest. Had her mother ever looked at her with so much love and affection in her eyes? At times, she thought she remembered the early years of her childhood being happy, but maybe it was just wishful thinking on her part.
“I’ll admit, your ability to potty by yourself is one of your more admirable qualities,” Pari said. “but I’m also quite proud of the way you can go and play all by yourself sometimes. Only the biggest of big girls can do that.”
“Really?” Caroline asked as if she had serious doubts as to her mother’s honesty. Pari wouldn’t be able to manipulate the kid much longer. But for now, Caroline was still young enough to believe every word out of her mother’s mouth.
“Really,” Pari said. “Why don’t you go next door and play with your dollies for a little while and show our new friends just how much of a big girl you are?”
It took a little bit more convincing, and a promise to leave the door between the rooms open so Caroline could see her mother the whole time, but eventually the little girl was playing quietly on her own, leaving the adults - well, the one adult and two teenagers who had no freaking clue what they were doing - alone.
“Now, where were we?” Pari asked, taking one of the straight-back chairs so she would have a better view of her daughter.
Layne was still holding up a piece of the outer wall, looking for all the world as if he was bored with this whole kidnapping thing.
“We were talking about the mustache-twirling Lord Viscount,” he said. “What I want to know is, if he’s the villain, what does that make you, Paris?” Layne pronounced the name of France’s capital city like the entire non-French part of the world, putting a lot of emphasis on the ’s’ at the end. Pari leveled him with an annoyed look that might have done a lot more good if he hadn’t seen the same thing from every single teacher he’d ever had. “Are you the heroine? The damsel in distress? Or are you the double-agent, playing a fellow victim to gain our trust and confidence so you can stab us in the back with it later?”
“First, my name is Pari. P-a-r-i. My three-year-old can help you with the pronunciation and spelling if you would like.” She plucked a grape off the plate Alistair had abandoned and popped it in her mouth. “And what I am is a survivor.”
Survivor. Clever. It didn’t necessarily put her in the hero or villain column. People would do lots of ugly, villainous things just to survive. Lizzie hadn’t thought to distrust the other woman before, but once Layne put the thought into her head, she was wary. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time the SHP used someone who seemed harmless to lull the Shifters and Seers into complacency before going for their throat. Reid St. James had seemed like nothing more than a self-centered, moneyed brat before she sat a building on fire with an Alpha Pack ally inside, and then there had been that whole Soccer Mom in a mini-van trick.
No, they couldn’t trust Pari, at least not until they knew what she was really about. Unfortunately, there was only one way to do that, and Lizzie was already fried. Her entire body felt heavy, as if her skin had turned to lead. It was taking most of her energy to stay upright. Still, sacrifices had to be made in war, and you didn’t know how far you could go until you went there.
Slowly, so as not to al
ert anyone else as to what she was doing, she slid her gloves off her hands.
“I’m sorry. We’ve done this all backwards and wrong.” Lizzie attempted to look like the helpless girl everyone assumed her to be. “I’m Lizzie,” she said, reaching across the divide to offer Pari her hand, “I would say it’s nice to meet you, but the situation is about as far from nice as you can get. But still, it’s nice to meet someone who hasn’t tased or punched me in the last twenty-four hours.”
Her hand held awkwardly between them for a long time, but finally the other woman grabbed it.
“I’m Pari. And I would have really rather not have met you myself, but since you’re here, we might as well make the most of it.”
Her control was in shreds. She had no filter, nothing to separate all the noise into individual pieces of information. It was like standing in the middle of a concert right after the band first walks onto the stage. There was nothing but a deafening roar, so loud it was almost as if there was no sound at all. Their hands disengaged, and Lizzie still didn’t know what kind of person Pari was or what she really thought about their arrival. She’d only managed to get one thing from their brief contact, but thankfully, it was the most important.
“She’s telling the truth,” she told Layne, swaying a bit as she tried to remember how to breathe. “She’s one of the good guys.”
Pari’s jaw tightened and something hard and painful flashed in her eyes. “There are no good guys here. No innocents. Trust me, I’m not on the side of angels.”
She might not have been. If Lizzie had been in top form, she would have known for certain. On her best days she could cut through the noise to find the true flavor of a person’s soul. But today wasn’t one of her best. The only thing she’d picked up from the noise was that Pari truly hated Alistair, was here against her will, and honestly hoped no harm came to Lizzie and Layne.
Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) Page 3
