“Get your shirt all the way off,” Nadine ordered.
Seamus obeyed without question, his supple arms moving quickly as he bunched the shirt in his hands and pulled it over his head. A man used to being given commands, but knowing which commands were wise to follow. A soldier, as Bree had surmised.
Seamus balled the shirt, as though he didn’t want to drop it on the floor. “I don’t have anything to knock you out with,” Nadine was saying. “Unless you want to get roaring drunk.”
“No,” Seamus said tightly.
Nadine laid out tweezers, alcohol, a scalpel, and bandages. “Bree and I are going to take out the bullets. Shifters might heal fast, but you can’t do it with slugs lodged in you. You’re lucky they’re shallow, just by the ribs. Don’t worry, I was a nurse way back when, and I’ve taught Bree everything I know. Came in handy, living out in the middle of nowhere like we used to. My son managed to get himself peppered with shot more than once in his wilder days, and medical help was hours away. Easier to patch him up and then drive him to the hospital.”
Remy had sure yelled, Bree remembered with a rush of fondness, but conceded it was his own stupid fault—he’d trespass on lands of crazy people or walk in front of a hunter notorious for shooting anything that moved.
Tears moistened Bree’s eyes. Remy had been good at dodging and ducking, managing to avoid the worst of it. But he hadn’t been able to dodge when the missile had come for the helicopter, exploding it in the middle of the sky.
A hand on hers cleared the fog in her mind. Bree blinked, finding Seamus’s large, warm fingers wrapping the back of her hand. He sent her a look, not of sympathy, but understanding, his eyes quiet.
Nadine stuck her tweezers into Seamus’s side. He clamped down on Bree’s hand, then realized and tried to let go. Bree firmed her grip before he could pull away, holding on to him.
Clink. One bullet hit the tray. Clink. Another.
Seamus’s golden gaze fixed on Bree, as though focusing on her eased the pain.
Clink.
“Now hold still,” Nadine said as she picked out the tiny pellets. “If you were my boy, I’d give you stitches, but you’re one of those Shifters, and who knows what would happen if I stuck a bunch of thread in you? I’ll just bandage you up, but you’ll need to stay quiet. No running around for a while.”
Seamus moved with Feline restlessness, but he drew a breath and deliberately calmed himself as Nadine dabbed him with disinfectant. He also didn’t let go of Bree’s hand.
“Those guys chasing us did this, right?” Bree asked him. “Why were they shooting at you?”
“They’re Shifter hunters.” Seamus grunted as Nadine pulled at his wound. “Which means they’ll be coming.”
“This house is fairly isolated,” Bree said. “That’s why I brought you here—they’ll never think to look out this way.”
Seamus’s eyes were filled with certainty. “I’m an un-Collared Shifter. Fair game. They’ll look.”
Bree supposed a very resourceful hunter would have taken down the make and model of her truck, maybe memorized her license plate and have a way to look it up at the department of motor vehicles. She’d already obtained Texas plates for her truck, which would help with anonymity. There had to be several million pickups with Texas plates in this state. Or the hunters had gotten lucky and found the cell phone Seamus had tossed out into the darkness.
However, Bree understood from other Shifters that Shifter hunters weren’t very bright. They were allowed to go after feral Shifters and the rare Shifter without a Collar, but Collared Shifters who followed the rules were off limits. Hunters, in truth, would take a shot at any Shifter, and claim later that they hadn’t seen the Collar.
Seamus flinched again as Nadine pulled a bandage tightly around his torso. “You’ve done this a lot,” he said to her.
Nadine returned the things to her box and carried the tweezers and anything bloody to the sink. She’d wash them then boil them and wipe them with alcohol. “You’d be amazed how many idiots with guns get themselves shot. Including my own son, God bless him.”
Bree’s emotions surged again, which she hid by quickly looking away.
“If you’re a Shifter,” Nadine said to Seamus from the sink. “Why don’t you have one of those Collars?”
“Mom.” Bree raised her head to glare her mother to silence. “I was trying not to mention it.”
“Well, we need to know.” Nadine kept her attention her task. “I thought they all had to wear the Collars to keep them from turning into wild beasts or something.”
Seamus had gone very still, and his eyes … changed. One moment they looked as human as Remy’s, the next they’d flicked to the tawny, slit-pupilled eyes of a cat. A wild cat, holding himself quiet until he decided to strike.
“I won’t hurt you,” Seamus said.
“Damn right you won’t.” Nadine dried her hands and extracted another cigarette. “I just patched you up. It would be very bad manners.”
Seamus still had hold of Bree’s hand. His fingers tightened on hers, as though he worried she’d pull away and run.
Bree wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. On the one hand, no Collar meant no shock devices to control Seamus if he went crazy violent and started to tear up the place. Collars were supposed to keep Shifters from reverting to their wild ways. A Shifter who’d never worn a Collar …
She’d never seen a Shifter without one. Most Shifters had been Collared twenty and more years ago—those who hadn’t were rumored to be dead and gone. But there Seamus sat, his neck clear and free of any chain.
On the other hand, Seamus had jumped into her pickup and forced Bree to drive him away. He’d essentially abducted her.
On the third hand, he hadn’t hurt her, and he obviously needed help. Seamus held on to Bree not so much to keep her from running, but as though holding her soothed him. She’d heard that the touch of a mate could heal a Shifter.
On the fourth hand—Bree had no idea what to think. What the hell? If she’d been back in Louisiana, she’d have called someone in a Shiftertown—she’d made enough friends to get hold of one—and asked them what to do about a Shifter without a Collar sitting in her kitchen.
Bree hadn’t had a chance to meet any Shifters here, which was why she’d gone out tonight. Here, she had no contacts, no friends, nothing. The emptiness of that kicked her in the gut.
Seamus broke the silence. “I’ve never had a Collar. I was separated from my clan when I was very young—they were taken, and I escaped.”
Nadine opened her mouth, smoke curling out of it, to ask more questions, but Bree shook her head the slightest bit, and her mother subsided.
Seamus’s matter-of-fact statements, which clearly hid much more, spoke to her. Seamus was alone, his family gone. He was hurt, down, scared, though a man like him would refuse to show it.
Bree knew about that loneliness, when you’d lost what you loved and wanted to curl up and hide until you stopped hurting. It never went away, that hurting.
“You can stay here tonight,” Bree said quietly. “Mom will make up a bed for you on the couch. We won’t say anything to anyone, all right? It wouldn’t be hospitable. You’re hurt, and you needed our help. In the morning, if you still think you need to go, you go. You were never here.”
Nadine ran water from the sink and set a pot on the stove. “It’s kind of an unwritten rule in the Fayette family. If you’re under our roof, we take care of you, even if you’re a fugitive.”
Seamus caught Bree’s gaze with his Shifter one, and Bree couldn’t look away. His golden eyes bore flecks of green, the irises ringed with deeper gold.
Then his eyes changed to human again, and Seamus gave Bree a nod. “I am grateful.”
Bree let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Seamus didn’t loosen his grip, and he didn’t look away.
“Good.” Nadine clattered her instruments into the pot. “Bree, get out some clean sheets.”
***
Seamus lay on the couch in the dark, a sheet pulled up over his jeans to his bandaged chest. He was wide awake, staring at the living room ceiling. His bare feet stuck out over the end of the sofa, his frame too long for him to stretch out.
Bree had taken his ruined shirt away, darting into a laundry room off the kitchen to toss it into the washing machine. The bandage around Seamus’s torso itched, but it was a hell of a lot better than the hot bullets in his side.
He owed these people his life. Bree had gotten him away from the hunters in the nick of time—giving him a crazy, wild ride. Nadine had competently removed the bullets, which would allow Seamus to heal cleanly. His Shifter metabolism might have closed flesh around the shots, but they could have festered. Shifters were tough to kill, but infection happened.
Directly above him, separated from him by the ceiling, Bree lay in her bed. Seamus sensed her with his entire being, imagined her breathing quietly, covers over her body. Her golden hair would be rumpled on her pillow, her hand curled under one cheek.
His heart beat faster, but Seamus tried to suppress the vision. He didn’t have time for an amorous encounter right now, didn’t matter that the simple act of holding Bree’s hand had both aroused him and eased his pain.
Bree was not for him. Seamus had bigger things to worry about than cuddling up with a woman, no matter how enticing she was.
He smiled in the darkness. Bree wasn’t a meek, weak creature. She’d make someone a good mate.
Seamus saw the deep sorrow in her. The brother, Remy, Bree spoke of, who was very obviously not here, was dead. Seamus recognized the grief in Bree’s eyes and that of the mother. Photos in the living room showed a young man in a uniform. Probably Remy had been killed in one of the endless wars humans waged with one another. In every decade there was one, the new war usually segueing from the previous one.
Not that Shifters couldn’t fight bloody battles when they had to. The time was coming, Seamus knew, when such a thing would have to happen again.
Far above him, Seamus heard a soft thump and a rustle. He was already wide awake, but his Shifter self woke up further.
The sound hadn’t come from Bree’s bedroom, or Nadine’s. It came from higher, at the top of the house—the attic.
Quietly, Seamus pushed back the sheet and rose to his feet. The rustle came again, as though someone had gone up to look through the boxes of junk left above.
In silence, he flowed up the stairs, already knowing which steps creaked and how to avoid them. He wouldn’t be able to avoid making noise pulling open the attic door, though, so if he couldn’t be stealthy, he’d simply have to be quick.
Seamus crouched down on his heels, and in one movement, sprang the distance between floor and ceiling, shoving the door out of his way as he went. He caught the frame around the attic door and swung himself upward, half scrambling, half leaping into the attic. His feet found beams on which to land, his vision changing to his lion’s as he looked around the pitch-dark space.
Across the attic was a wavering light, which brightened into one clear beam as Seamus looked at it. In that light he saw that boxes had been upended, books and papers strewn about.
Then the light winked abruptly out, bathing the room in darkness. A few papers fluttered to the floor.
“Shit!” came Bree’s whispered voice. Seamus looked down, finding her directly beneath the attic’s trap door. Bree’s eyes were wide, her cheek lined with creases from her pillow. “Please don’t tell me my mom’s right, and there really is a ghost.”
Chapter Four
Seamus slid back through the opening, bracing himself on the trapdoor’s frame before letting go. He landed on the floor below, right next to Bree, who didn’t move an inch.
She wore a thin shirt that reached to her knees, opaque enough that Seamus could see the shape of her limbs beneath it. She smelled of warmth and sleep.
Seamus didn’t touch her—it was enough for now to be beside her, breathing her scent. “I don’t know what it was,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “The light shorting out, maybe.” He didn’t truly believe that, and he was puzzled by it. He hadn’t sensed danger, exactly, but it was odd.
Bree glanced at the dark space above them. “Well, close it up, will you? It gives me the creeps.” Before Seamus could move to put the door back in place, Bree took a step closer to him.
“Are you all right?” she asked in a soft voice. “You should be keeping still.” She touched Seamus’s side, where the bullets had been.
The soreness there, which had been bugging Seamus as he tried to sleep, eased a bit. Bree’s fingers were small, her fingertips smooth.
She kept her gaze on his side as she traced the bandage over the now-closing holes, ran her fingers along ribs that had been black with bruises. The bruises were a greeny yellow, and their soreness faded as Bree touched them.
Seamus lifted his hand and cupped her face. Bree started, then leaned into his touch, her cheeks flushing, eyes sweeping downward. Her plump features were small against his palm. Seamus ran his thumb across her cheekbone, liking the softness of her skin.
Bree took a long breath and let it out, the brush of it sending a wave of pleasure all the way down his body. Seamus moved his thumb over her cheekbone again, more firmly this time as he learned the feel of her.
Her eyes were soft, the blue of them almost black in the darkness. Seamus slid his fingertips across her brows, brushing over her lashes as he came back to her cheek.
Bree’s throat moved. She touched his side again, near the wounds, then ran her fingers around the lines of his pectorals and up to his shoulders.
The leisurely touch had him burning more than if she’d jumped on him and borne him to the floor. Not that he’d mind if she did that. Seamus would cradle her against him, soothe her eagerness with slow kisses ...
Her fingers moved across his shoulders, Bree’s gaze on the hollow of his throat, where a Collar was supposed to rest. She leaned forward the slightest bit and touched her tongue to his skin there.
Seamus started, his blood igniting. Her hair brushed his nose, the violets smell coming to him again. Wanting greater than he’d ever felt rushed through him. Seamus had been holding himself so tightly for so long, that loosening was going to kill him.
He closed his eyes, inhaled the goodness of Bree, and pressed a kiss to her hair.
I need this woman. I need her to hold me, to help calm this thing raging inside me. I need her to heal me, to make me whole again ...
There was a sudden clatter from Nadine’s room, and she yanked open her door, not six feet from Seamus.
Bree wrenched herself away from him, her face flaming. The shock of her vanishing warmth jerked a growl from Seamus’s throat. Time had slowed, thickening, as he’d touched her. Now it rolled forward with a kick.
“I heard it,” Nadine said. She struggled to tie a robe around her substantial form. “What did I tell you? Seamus, help me get up there. I want a look.”
***
Seamus at first refused. Too dangerous, he said. Bree privately agreed with him, but her mother wouldn’t take no for an answer. Now Bree waited, heart beating rapidly, as Seamus maneuvered the ladder he’d brought from the garage under the hole.
Bree was on fire from his touch, her fingers tingling with the need to reach for him, to taste him again. His skin had been vibrant under her tongue, smooth, with a bite of salt. She’d never sensed the vitality, the aliveness, for want of a better word, in any other Shifter that she sensed in Seamus.
Maybe because he didn’t have a Collar? Didn’t have to curb himself to avoid pain as other Shifters did? Or was it something about him, Seamus himself?
All Bree knew was that if he’d led her back inside her bedroom, slid off her shirt, and made swift love to her on her bed, she wouldn’t have stopped him. Would have encouraged him all the way. Still might.
Nadine snapped on the lights in the attic from the switch in the hall. Seamus had suggested it was the light shorting o
ut up there that had caused the flickering, but nope. The light came on, beaming a small circle down at them.
Seamus started climbing the ladder, which looked rickety, though Nadine claimed it was perfectly good. As firmly as Seamus held it from above, Bree from below, it rocked around as Nadine scrambled up.
“Get up here, Bree,” Nadine called down once Seamus had helped her into the attic. “Come and see. Don’t worry; you’ll be fine.”
Seamus gave Bree a reassuring nod. Bree rolled her eyes and put her foot on the first rung.
The ladder shook, swayed, creaked, as she ascended. Bree didn’t much like ladders, having fallen off one and broken her ankle when she was six. The ankle in question gave a throb, questioning her sanity.
Bree held her breath, clung to the ladder, and made it to the top. Seamus caught her hands and steadied her as she stepped from the ladder onto the beams of the attic.
There was plenty of room to stand up, Bree found as she straightened, the roof peaking high above them. The closely spaced floor beams were the sturdiest things to stand on, though boards had been laid between them.
Keeping her feet on the beams, Bree carefully made her way to where her mother was picking up papers from beside a box. “This is what he was looking at,” Nadine said. “This is what fell.”
She thrust the papers at Bree. Bree found herself looking at a copy of Remy’s orders from the army and his paperwork from after he’d been killed. The box held a few books and things he’d saved from high school—his yearbook, a boutonniere his girlfriend had given him at his last Homecoming dance, racing car posters that had hung in his room, complete with buxom females draped over said cars.
“It was Remy,” Nadine said, beaming. “He was looking for something. These are his things.”
“You stuffed Remy’s things up here in the attic?” Bree looked at her mother in surprise. After Remy’s death, Nadine and Bree had been very careful with anything he’d ever touched. When they’d moved into this two-bedroom house, Nadine had fitted out the closet between the bedrooms with shelves and neatly placed the things they’d kept in it—photos, T-shirts, letters, Remy’s uniforms, trinkets that had been special to him. Paperwork was in a strongbox.