Free Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) by Tammy Blackwell Page A

flexing his hand. “But you’re hella bruised. You should be putting some ice on that to keep the swelling down.”
    She was too raw to snap back at him. She mutely nodded her acknowledgement, hoping he would let it drop. The last thing either of them needed was for Layne to see how much his touch affected her.
    “I’m going to kill them for touching you.”
    It was a quiet promise, but even as her heart gave a misguided flutter, her own panic trumped everything else either of them was feeling. Layne wasn’t making idle threats. He really intended on killing Alistair, Mack, and whoever else might have been involved in their abduction. She knew it with the same certainty she knew the sky was blue.
    As members of an Alpha Pack formed through Challenges and force, both Lizzie and Layne had done things in their lives that would make most adults cringe. If Child Protective Services had any idea what went on at the Den, the two of them would have been whisked off years ago. But through it all, neither of them had done anything that would leave permanent scars on their soul like taking a life.
    “No,” she said. “No killing. Good guys don’t kill people.” Layne opened his mouth, but Lizzie cut him off. “Even if they are bad guys. We remove them from society, lock them up in Arkham Asylum, but we don’t kill them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Life, even a life lived badly, is precious. Taking one should be the absolute last resort.”
    “They hurt you, and they’ll hurt you again. Did you see that little girl in there, Lizzie? That tiny little kid with one of her freaking fingers cut off? They did that to her and she’s practically a baby. What do you think they’ll do to you?”
    Lizzie understood his anger. She couldn’t think of Caroline without wanting to turn into a full-on rage monster herself. But going out with guns blazing wasn’t the answer. For one, she wasn’t comfortable with their chances for success. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Layne. She did, probably as much as she did any senior member of the Alpha Pack. The odds, however, were not stacked in their favor.
    She hadn’t been talking out of her ass when she said she didn’t support the taking of human life either. Like The Shadow, she knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men. And evil did lurk. Everyone had at least a touch of it. But everyone also carried love and light inside them. She’d yet to meet anyone who didn’t have something worth saving.
    And no one had more light and love hiding in their heart than Layne. Sure, he was a complete pain in the ass most of the time, but at his core, there was no one filled with more hope, faith, and goodness. Life had done it’s best to beat it out of him, but so far, it hadn’t won. But if Layne was to kill someone? If he was to take a life with his own hands? Lizzie had seen what taking a life, even in self-defense, had done to the Alpha Female. Scout still cried out so loud some nights Lizzie could hear the screams in her room.
    So there would be no killing on Lizzie’s watch. And if worse came to worst, well then, she was Alpha Pack too, wasn’t she? She might not have been trained as a soldier, but the Stella Polaris didn’t leave her Seers defenseless. Lizzie didn’t know how to fight, but there was more than one way to kill someone.
    “They aren’t going to do anything to me,” she said with way more confidence than she felt. “All we have to do is play along, and I’ll be safe.” At least, she would be for a while. Alistair wanted to control her, to have one of the all-mighty Seers under his thumb, and he wasn’t a stupid man. He knew he would get much further with charm than force. “I’m going to do whatever it is they ask me to do until we get rescued.”
    “Rescued?” He said it as if he’d never heard the word before.
    “Yes, rescued. You know, that thing our friends are planning at this very moment. The one where they’re going to come sweeping in here,