A Shift in the Air (5 page)

His name on her lips urged him on, the
pull to soothe her pain his only thought. Digging his fingers into
her hips, he held her as she came apart.

***

She slept peacefully, clutching a
pillow to her chest. Liam leaned against the wall by her window,
unwilling—or unable—to walk out the door and never see her again.
He’d never asked her name, and she’d never offered it. Stars winked
against the inky sky, so like the night he’d kissed Caitlin on
Ha’penny Bridge. “I miss ya every day,” he whispered and then
glanced down at the sleeping woman. He couldn’t stay. He’d had his
one night and the momentary comfort of a warm and willing woman to
ease his pain.

Brushing his lips against her cheek,
he locked this new memory away with all of the other bad decisions
he’d made over the years: nameless women, drinking, drugs,
fighting, and pain. “Goodbye, luv.”

A step away from her door, he paused.
He dug out his wallet and withdrew one of his business cards. No
words could adequately express his need for her, or the torture of
remembering his Caitlin every time he touched her. But leaving her
forever felt wrong.

If you need to forget the
pain again, call me.

Setting the lock and then testing the
knob once he’d pulled the door shut, he wallowed in the memory of
how she’d clung to him and the delicious scent of fig
blossoms.

Chapter Four

Sun spilled over the mountains,
glaring off rain-slicked streets as Liam pulled his bike into the
driveway of the pack’s three-story home east of Green Lake. Peter
met him at the door, a mug of coffee in his hands.

“
About fucking
time.”

Liam’s wolf seethed. “I’m your beta.
Watch your tone.”

Peter stared down at his feet. Under
the shaggy mop of black hair, his dark eyes glinted with gold. A
bitten wolf, Peter couldn’t manage a shift with the moon this new,
but that didn’t mean his beast shied away from conflict. He stepped
aside, and as Liam brushed past him, he muttered a half-assed
apology.

“
You look like shite.” Liam
tossed the insult over his shoulder as his anger boiled. Every year
they repeated the same fucking dance. Peter chastised him for his
recklessness, Liam told him to sod off, and a punch or two landed
before Cade broke up the melee. The previous year, he hadn’t spoken
to Peter for a week afterwards. They’d reconciled only days before
Katerina’s attack.

“
Fuck you.”

Liam whirled and shoved Peter up
against the wall, sending the mug crashing to the floor. “Are we
going to do this again?”

Peter’s arms strained against Liam’s
grip. “Yup.”

Tired of the dance, Liam let him go,
and Peter’s legs buckled, sending him down on his ass.

“
Fuck!” The single word,
raw with pain, escaped before the bitten wolf struggled to his feet
again.

“
Ya all right?” Liam raised
a brow. He knew better. Peter hadn’t been all right for almost a
year now. The fire that destroyed their apartment complex in
Bellingham and had served as a cover for Cade’s kidnapping left
Peter scarred from his neck to his knee on his right side. Livie,
Cade’s personal bodyguard, had almost lost the use of her left arm.
Both had been unable to shift from their wolves to their human
forms for a week after the fire, so their injuries were
permanent.

If only Liam had been quicker. He’d
failed his pack, failed the men and women who meant more to him
than anything. He’d let Cade be taken. Let Peter and Livie
suffer.

Peter groaned as he straightened.
“Leave me alone.”

“
Ya started it. Fuck off.
I’m due at the new townhouse site in an hour.” Liam turned down the
hall, but before he reached the stairs, he paused. Leaving his
friend—his brother—hurting didn’t sit well. “Why do ya wait up for
me every year?”

“
Because someone has to.”
Peter picked up the pieces of mug and shuffled into the kitchen. He
poured a fresh cup of the rich brew and handed Liam the peace
offering before plucking another mug for himself from the dish
rack. “One of these years you’re going to fucking kill yourself.
You were out on that damn bike, drunk off your ass. Do you have any
idea how stupid that is?”

Liam straightened up to his full
height, ran a hand through his hair, and let the wolf pulse under
his skin. Peter looked away. “I’m not a proper tool, mate. I was
sober enough when I left here; then I parked the bike and didn’t
touch her again until the drink wore off. Give me a little credit.
I don’t want to die—and I certainly don’t want to take anyone with
me. I just wanted to forget for a while.”

“
Not all of us have that
luxury,” Peter said, his voice so low Liam strained to hear the
words from behind Peter’s raised mug.

“
What?”

“
Nothing.” Peter’s wolf
challenged, and copper flecks glowed in his brown eyes.

Liam pulled out a chair at the large
wooden table off the kitchen. The whole pack—seven wolves plus
Mara—ate here twice a week, and boisterous laughter, good-natured
ribbing, and tall tales infused the air. Now, though, a thick
silence hovered over the space, and Liam nodded at Peter. “Sit
down. Now. You have something to say? Out with it.”

An order from a stronger wolf carried
a physical weight, and Peter slunk towards the chair, falling
heavily into it. “You have to stop this, Liam. The women, the
drinking. You’re a fucking asshole for a week before and after, and
none of us want to be around you.”

Whirling, Liam let his wolf loose.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you? I get that I’m not the
easiest bloke to live with this time of the year, but can ya blame
me? I’m a good beta the rest of the time, yeah?”

“
Hardly.” Peter shot up.
“Look at me.” He stripped off the rumpled t-shirt and tossed the
material aside. “Take a good, hard look. Did you even know I fell
down the stairs two days ago? Every time I head to the basement,
I’m terrified my leg’s going to give out.”

A dark, purple bruise bloomed on
Peter’s left side. Ropes of thick, angry burn scars drew a map on
his right arm and down his chest. The twisted mess of his ear gave
way to a spider web of burns on his cheek. His former bulk—pounds
upon pounds of solid muscle—had withered, leaving him a shadow of
his previous self. His fingers clenched at his sides, and he
challenged Liam’s gaze with bright, whiskey-colored eyes, all trace
of his brown irises obscured.

“
No one told
me.”

“
Had you pulled your head
out of your ass, no one would’ve had to. You didn’t notice me
popping the aspirin? How hard it was for me to get that wiring done
on the Ballard job?”

“
No.” Shame crawled up
Liam’s spine, intensifying the throbbing behind his eyes. Had he
been so blind since the fire? So wrapped up in his own shite he
hadn’t noticed how much pain his brother—his closest friend in the
pack, save Cade—carried with him every day? Liam’d kept them all
safe for months in Ireland, but he hadn’t been there—not
emotionally. Being back in the land of his birth—the land where
he’d lost Caitlin—did nothing for his mood. He’d spent most days in
brooding silence or running with another small pack led by a female
alpha he’d known in his youth.

“
What can I do?” Liam
snagged Peter’s shirt and passed it back to the scarred wolf. “Ya
want to hit the bars tonight? Or stay in and get a couple of
pizzas? Ya need a few days off of work? I can hold things down for
a bit. I know I lost myself in the pain—too often as of late. It’s
been hard seein’ Cade and Mara so in love. But that’s no
excuse.”

“
It’s not. We depend on
you, Liam. Cade’s a good alpha. Strong, fair, hands-on. But he’s
got Mara now, and she comes first. You need to be here. And I don’t
just mean physically. Christine’s dating someone. She won’t tell us
who. Ollie’s had some problems at work—they’re threatening to make
him take a night shift.”

Peter knew more about the pack than
Liam did. Realization hunched his shoulders, and he shoved his
hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t punch the wall. “And what
about you? Have ya thought about finding yourself a
mate?”

A low growl rumbled in Peter’s throat.
“I’ve tried dating. Signed up for two of those fucking online match
sites. Once the women see my picture, I never hear from them again.
I’m a goddamned ogre, and I can’t even run like I used
to.”

Each word landed with a deeper,
sharper sting, and Liam fought the urge to look away. “Ye’re not an
ogre.” As the denial hung between them, Peter snorted.

“
You try living with this
face for a week and see if you still believe that.”

“
Online is hard, yeah? Come
out with me tonight.” Liam held up his hand when Peter’s eyes
glowed brighter. “No more anonymous women. I…think I’m done with
that. But we’ll find a pretty young thing for ya to chat up, and
ye’ll see. Ya have a good soul, Peter. Ye’ll find someone who’ll
see past your scars.”

***

“
Ye’re so beautiful.”
Soothing words floated from far away. Chilled, she tried to draw
the blankets closer, but her arms were lead weights at her sides. A
dull ache pulsed at her temple, and a hand cupped her cheek. “Mine.
Always. We’re meant for each other, yeah? Closer than any two
people have ever been. I’ll take care of ya, always.”

She wanted that. “Help me.”

“
I am helpin’, my sweet
girl. Ye’ll see. Ya learned a lesson today, yeah? I’ll always come
for ya.”

The warm hand pulled away, and a
sticky, coppery scent infused the stale air. A hot tear rolled down
her cheek, all the way to her lips, and she licked them, the scream
welling up inside of her before she could stop it. Not a
tear.

Blood.

Forcing her hand up, she touched
trembling fingers to her cheek, her eyelid, and her temple. Pain
drew a hiss from her lips, and she stared down at the blood
staining her palm.

His face shifted in and out of focus,
and as his hand flew towards her once more, his name died on her
tongue.

Fergus.

Bella screamed in her bed, struggled
against the sheets that wound around her legs, and toppled onto the
floor with a bone-jarring thud. The nightmare felt so
real.

Scuffed walls spun around her, and her
neighbor’s hip-hop music vibrated inside her skull. Why couldn’t
the kid appreciate silence?

She rose in stages. First to her
knees. One hand on the mattress, then two. As she stood, still bent
over, she almost fell a second time, but a few deep breaths stilled
the swirling room and allowed her to straighten.

The bedside clock read eleven, and she
thanked whatever god or goddess was up there that she’d had the
foresight to take the day off of work.

April nineteenth was never a good day
for her; she always managed to fuck up something in her life on
that date. One year, a fender-bender. Another, she’d broken a
finger. The next, she’d left the door of Flaming Objects unlocked,
and they’d been robbed. And this year, she’d almost gotten fired.
Screwing up a client’s airline reservations could have been the end
of her job as an entry-level representative at Wings over the
Needle. Luckily, she’d managed to rebook the flight just in
time.

And last night…she’d slept with a
werewolf. A handsome, kind, sexy werewolf. Liam’s scent lingered—a
heady mix of wood and the ocean and a spicy hint of aftershave. A
long-ago memory of another place, far away, nudged. A sense of calm
and safety. Home.

The thought faded as the dream
replayed in her mind’s eye. Fergus. She knew that name. But how?
Bella stroked the crystal at her throat. She missed Katerina—missed
her home in Phoenix, though without Katerina there, the city held
only empty memories. For all the woman’s issues—and there’d been
many: her temper, her tendency to jump to conclusions, and her
insane vendetta—Katerina had loved her like a sister. Mara’s
absence and rejection had left a void in Katerina’s life, one Bella
had tried to fill. And Katerina had offered the same: a safe place
to call home and shelter from a past Bella couldn’t—and didn’t want
to—remember.

Fergus. Was he part of that past? If
she and Katerina had been honest with one another, their shared
pain had never been enough to hold them together, but for years,
they’d tried. Who was she now that Katerina could no longer protect
her? The crystal at her throat warmed, a bit of Katerina’s fire
element pulling Bella from her tumultuous memories.

The belch tasted of shame, and she
barely made it to the toilet before heaving up bile. Never again.
Bourbon didn’t solve anything—except for quelling the darkness that
hovered around the two words that played on repeat through her
mind.

Caitlin. Fergus.

She brushed her teeth and scowled at
the dark circles under her eyes and the mussed curls that must have
dried against her pillow. A vague memory of Liam—naked, wet, and
kneeling at her feet—warmed her belly. What had she done the
previous night? The bourbon-soaked brain cells didn’t want to fire.
Oatmeal would help. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.