“I don’t even know the lot of you,” Eli said with his hands clasped around the plate. “I have no reason to be for or against you at the moment. I don’t hurt people. I was the kid in school who got beaten up because I wouldn’t fight back. Not because I couldn’t, but because I don’t think violence solves anything.”
“If ya’ stick around, ye’ll have to fight.” This from Tierney, the young wolf who’d brought Eli his luggage this morning. “No way around it.”
For the next half an hour, Cade, Liam, Mara, and Caitlin explained the entire history of elementals and werewolves, until Eli’s head started to spin. He’d managed all of two bites of donut, and eventually tried to set his plate aside, but Farren took it from him and polished off the leftovers.
“Questions?” Cade asked. “Because now’s the time. Before we show you the book.”
“The man’s overwhelmed.” Mara held out her hand, and Cade linked their fingers and sank down next to her. “Eli, I know this is a lot. When I discovered I was an elemental, Cade was trapped as his wolf and I was about to die. I was lying in bed with my arms wrapped around a wolf I had no idea was really a man, and everything was going dark and quiet. I couldn’t move. The next thing I remember, I was on the floor, soaking wet, and there was a naked man in my bed.” She chuckled and brushed a kiss to Cade’s knuckles. “I’m sure you can imagine that wasn’t the way I wanted to find out I had...abilities.”
“I’d hope not,” Eli said. “Not sure I would have trusted my own sanity if that had happened to me.”
“I didn’t. Not completely. Not until the next day when we found Livie—she’s another member of our pack—and she threatened me. I drenched her with my element. Like...it was raining inside Cade’s studio.”
When Mara said “our pack” Cade sat up a little straighter and the look of pride and pure love in his eyes struck Eli. That was mating. Mara looked at him the same way. Shifting his gaze to Farren, he wasn’t sure if he was upset or relieved that she wasn’t looking at him like that. All he found in her stare was confusion and pain.
“I’ve seen enough to believe what you’ve told me,” Eli began when he returned his focus to Cade. “But I still don’t understand why you believe I’m an elemental too. Even if I am, I can’t use whateverpowersI might have. So there’s no reason this group of practitioners—the Thirteen, yeah?—would come after me. I’d be useless to them.”
“Not if they have a way to unbind yer element,” Caitlin cut in. “For years, Fergusownedmy air. When he could sense me, when I wasn’t protected by the spell Mara’s sister cast, my powers were...terribly weak. Almost useless. I could only call on them whenhelet me. If he didn’t want me commanding the air, the best I could do was a weak breeze. Barely enough to stir the leaves on the ground.”
Caitlin settled closer to Liam, and the massive man with wild reddish hair draped an arm around her shoulders.
“If whatever happened to ya’,” Caitlin said quietly, “was anythin’ like what Fergus did to me, ya’ might not know ya’ even had powers.”
“Tell them about yer parents,” Farren said. She rested her hand on his shoulder, and a deep sense of calm wove its way into his heart. “Or what ya’ remember about them.”
“Nothing.” Eli reached back and gave her fingers a squeeze. Why, he didn’t know. “They died when I was fourteen, and I remember nothing before waking up in hospital after what I’m told was a coma that lasted more than a week.”
“Nothing. Literally nothing?” Cade asked.
“I can’t tell you what they looked like, sounded like... All I have to go on is the photos from their national ID cards.”
Mara rubbed a hand lightly over her belly as her brows furrowed. “Not even family pictures? Nothing in your house was familiar?”
Regret—as well as a healthy dose of self-flagellation—hit him as he shook his head. “I was fourteen, Mara. When the barrister who’d been appointed my guardian told me that their flat had been sold and emptied while I’d been in the coma, I believed him. Didn’t question a bloody thing when he dropped off a suitcase chockablock full of clothing for me but didn’t bother to bring a single picture or knickknack from home. A few years later, I realized how odd that was, but by then, I’d turned eighteen.”
“What about your guardian?” Cade ran a hand through his shaggy hair, frustration edging his tone. “What did he say when you asked him about it?”
Eli’s cheeks felt like they were about to catch fire, but he refused to give in to the urge to stare only at his hands clasped in his lap. “He left London on my eighteenth birthday. I tried searching for him. Even hired a private investigator when I was twenty-one. He moved to Canada, then to the States, and disappeared. There’s been no trace of him in more than fifteen years.”
“Well, that’s more than a wee bit convenient, don’t ya’ think?” Liam asked. The big man stood and started to pace back and forth in front of the hearth. “Caitlin, luv? Is there anythin’ in that book about bindin’ powers?”
“Not that we’ve found, but with how the letters keep shiftin’ on the page, we could be lookin’ at a spell for world peace or the cure for cancer and we’d never know it.”
Eli peered back up at Farren. “The letters shift on the page? You’re joking, right?”
“No.” Farren stood, hands on her hips. “Can we all agree there’s enough mystery surroundin’ Eli that the likelihood of himnotbein’ a part of this whole mess is practically nil?”
One by one, the werewolves and elementals agreed.
“Then I think it’s time we showed him the book.”
* * *
Farren
Every moment she spent close to her mate she wanted more. Whatever scent he was giving off, it definitely wasnothis soap, as he’d used hers today, and he still smelled like home. Like mint and spice and the woods she ran through every night. Well, except for the previous one. She hadn’t been able to force herself to leave his side.
She’d rationalized it all. If she left to run, Cade or Liam would try to interrogate Eli. Or worse. But though neither of them trusted him, this was still her house, and she’d ordered him not to be harmed or disturbed. If they’d done so much as knock on her bedroom door without her around, she’d have cause to kick their arses into next weekandthrow them out of her home.
