A Shift in the Air (26 page)

“
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 alley
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.”

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.

“’
Fire…life.
Love…loss…transform.’ The words mean nothing to me.” The whiskey
burned as she tossed the shot back, and she slammed the glass down
on the table. “I can’t read a fucking ancient language that no
one’s used in thousands of years. This is our hope? Our
answer?”

“
Caitlin.” Cade leaned
forward and pierced her with his luminous stare. In the dim light
of the back room, his eyes glowed with the animal inside. “If you
can’t break the charm, we’ll break the connection for you. I’ll end
him. If he’s dead, the charm fades, right?”

“
I…don’t know. Katerina’s
didn’t. But Fergus never imbued an object with his power.
So…maybe?” Fergus dead. The idea had seemed logical an ocean away,
but now, here, seeing him in the flesh...could she kill him—or
allow him to be killed? She’d never wanted that. Not truly. The boy
she’d once known, his kindness shrouded in fear, had been corrupted
by power, turned into a vicious tyrant. After everything he’d done,
she didn’t wish him dead. Punished, jailed, locked away so he
couldn’t harm anyone again. But dead? Her sense of justice warred
with her terror over Liam—and would killing Fergus even save Liam?
Or had he already succumbed to Fergus’s insanity?

“
You saw him, Cade. He
nearly took you out. We’re no match for him.”

“
We were unprepared.”
Cade’s stubborn gaze never wavered. “Now we know what we’re dealing
with. This many wolves against him, he doesn’t stand a chance,
charms or no. Where would he take Liam?”

Caitlin pondered his question, the fog
around her brain dissipating in the wake of strong whiskey. “When
we were young, he’d lock me in a basement when he was angry—a
punishment if I tried to escape him.” Her blunt honesty must have
surprised Cade, and he dropped his eyes. Despite their tenuous
beginnings, the beginnings of a familial bond wove around the small
group huddled at the table. “I think his home is in Lahinch. If I
saw the road, I could probably find my way.”

Cade stood. “Then let’s
go.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The fifteen-minute ride to Lahinch
felt like an hour. Caitlin curled against the door, burrowing into
Liam’s leather jacket her. She should have told Liam one last time
that she loved him. What if they were too late?