Spence’s eyebrow traveled way up north again. “Liam? She’s Liam’s?”
“I came here with Liam. I don’t belong to him like a piece of property.” Of course, that wasn’t exactly what he was implying. My blood threatened to rush to my face at what he was implying, especially since it brought the memory of our not-really kiss up to the forefront of my mind. “Why do I need boots?” I asked Miriam to distract from the whole issue of Liam and me.
“Dear, I don’t question Liam. I just do as he asks, and he asked me to get you some boots and thermals.” She held up the hiking boot. “What do you think?”
“It’s ugly?” I’m not really into clothes and shoes and stuff, but I wasn’t sure the leather and mesh lace-up atrocity she displayed was even intended for females. “Do you really take orders from Liam?”
“It’s not supposed to be pretty, it’s supposed to help you navigate the wilderness and protect your feet.” She looked at the shoe and wrinkled her nose. “And of course I take orders from Liam. He’s a Dominant, and I’m a Seer.”
“But you’re like his step-mom. Moms don’t take orders from kids.” It was something my mother reminded me of often during my middle school years.
“If they’re going out during the winter she’s going to need a mountaineering boot instead of a backpacking one,” Spence interjected. He grabbed one of those silver foot measuring things I’ve never actually seen anyone use from a bench. “Sit down and take off your shoes,” he said to me.
I thought about resisting, but realized it would be a bratty, spoiled child-like thing to do.
Miriam put her selection back in its spot. “Even those of us who don't fully support our Alpha Pack have certain rules to follow. It’s part instinct, but mostly it’s to ensure that chaos doesn’t reign. Liam is a strong, trustworthy Dominant. He loves and respects me, so if he asks me to do something, I do it.”
“And if one of the Alphas asked you to do something?” I asked as Spence grabbed my foot and put it in his contraption. The metal was cool and his fingers soft as he arranged it just so. I bit my lip to suppress a completely inappropriate giggle.
“Outright defiance is harder for us,” Spence answered. “Since she can get into our heads anytime she pleases, we have to at least have the appearance of being her loyal servants.” He finally stopped tickling my foot and released it. “Wait here. I’m going to grab a few different styles for you to try on.”
There was something about what he said that was bothering me. “She can reach you guys anywhere, any time, right?”
"Yes," Miriam answered, "the Alpha Female is able to contact her Seers no matter the distance or time of the month.”
“So, she can only do the brain-talk thing with Shifters when she’s in a certain range?”
“Yes. Like the rest of us, she has to be within a few miles during the full moon to communicate with a Shifter.”
“But not just during a full moon.”
Miriam’s attention had returned to the shoes on the wall. “No, it’s just during the full moon. Her connection to Shifters is no different than mine or Spence’s.”
“That’s not true,” I said as Spence came from the back room with a stack of shoe boxes there was no way he could see over. “When they had me captive she mind-melded with me in the middle of the day, and it was a few nights after the full moon.”
Spence dropped his haul without an ounce of grace. “She knows you exist? You’ve talked to her?”
“It wasn’t voluntary on my part,” I said. “Although, it’s hard to refuse when she’s got you locked in an electricity-fortified steel cage.”
“The Alphas had you captive? And you got away?” Spence’s eyes nearly popped out his head. “How?”
I shrugged, hoping I made it look like it was no big deal. “Charlie, Liam, and I killed some Stratego, and then Liam and I made a run for it.”
His wide-eyed gaze swung to Miriam. “You’re going to get me killed!”
She ignored him to focus on me. “Are you sure? Sarvarna spoke to your mind in daylight?”
“Well, I can’t be sure about the daylight part since I was in a basement, but I do know it wasn’t a full moon.”
Miriam’s face, which always held a kind of softness before, hardened into a mask of complete seriousness. “What did she say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.” A lot had happened between then and now. “She was talking crazy. Something about how I didn’t think she would find me and how I was breaking some sort of rules. It didn’t really make any sense to me, although she really thought I should know what she was talking about. I think she thought I was someone else. She even called me the wrong name.”
“What did she call you?” Her voice was high and reedy.
“Ummm… Lydia? Lilly? Lilith?” That was it. I remembered thinking I had heard that name used in some sort of mythology before. “Yeah, Lilith.”
Miriam visibly paled.
“What is it?” Spence asked. “What are you thinking? How much danger are we in?”
She swallowed deeply and smoothed her hair down. “Spence, dear, let’s see what treasures you’ve brought us.”
“You promised me when I moved here I would be kept safe,” Spence said, jaw clenched. “You said I could stay out of all of it, live my life like a normal person under your protection. Now you’re bringing a girl who throws off enough Dominance to make the hair on my arms stand on end, and has murdered part of Her Majesty’s Elite Guard into my store and asking me to aide her. That isn’t staying out of if, Miriam. That’s standing right in the middle of it with a bull’s eye painted on my chest.”
Her eyes didn’t even flicker. “The boots, Spence.”
“Tell me why, Miriam. Who is she? What’s going on?”
Miriam walked over to the pile of shoe boxes, picked up the one on top, flipped open the lid, and dug out a boot. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said, handing me a monstrous shoe. “You now know what I do. The girl is a Shifter, she was being held by the Alphas, but she escaped.”
“There’s more.”