by Hettie Ivers
Contents
PLEASE READ
1. Prologue
2. Lauren
3. Lauren
4. Lauren
5. Lauren
6. Lauren
7. Lauren
8. Kai
9. Lauren
10. Lauren
11. Lauren
12. Kai
13. Lauren
14. Kai
15. Lauren
16. Kai
17. Lauren
18. Kai
19. Lauren
20. Kai
21. Lauren
22. Lauren
23. Kai
24. Lauren
25. Lauren
26. Kai
27. Lauren
28. Lauren
29. Lauren
30. Lauren
31. Lauren
32. Lauren
33. Lauren
THANK YOU, dear readers!
Acknowledgements
THE REMEDY is coming…
Excerpt from SLIP OF FATE
About the Author
Copyright © 2019 Hettie Ivers www.hettieivers.com
Cover: Najla Qamber Designs www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
Cover model: Lucas Bloms
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9994405-3-7
FBI ANTI-PIRACY WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
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Please note that Seer is the first book in a DUET within the Werelock Evolution series world. It is NOT A STANDALONE. The Seer duet focuses on the romance between Kai and Lauren while continuing to progress the overarching storyline of the series.
This is Book 6 in the Werelock Evolution series. While Seer may be enjoyed as a first read in the series, for maximum entertainment, it is recommended that you read the books that precede it. At minimum, it is best to have read No Light.
Please be advised that this book contains violence, sexually explicit scenes, and graphic language. (Keep in mind, Kai has been celibate and repressing his sadist tendencies for 5 books now.) If such content offends you, please do not read.
1
Prologue
37 years ago
I saw him coming three days before he materialized in my kitchen. Half a minute prior to his magical entrance, I caught the panicked whispers from several of the undead beings who haunted my house and person—the harmless, useful ones I allowed to remain around me—warning me of Emil’s imminent intrusion. I was grateful, for it afforded me just enough time to usher my only daughter down the hallway and into her bedroom.
Rationally, I knew Barbara was no safer there. There was no running from a werelock. No hiding. Yet I told my thirteen-year-old to keep silent and out of sight anyway—even knowing the beast’s supernatural canine senses would be able to pick up the sound of Barbara’s heartbeat and breathing from all the way on the opposite end of the house. Knowing the monster would be able to hear her every thought if he chose to listen in on her mind—as he sometimes did mine.
Werelocks were the kind of supernatural being who could track humans anywhere, anytime. And kill them twice as easily.
“Seer Nina.”
Even though I was expecting him, the deep tenor of his richly accented voice startled me just the same as he materialized from thin air next to where I stood at the kitchen sink. I hadn’t had time to even turn the water on after securing Barbara in her room, yet I reached for a towel and nervously dried my already dry hands just to have something to occupy my trembling fingers.
“Alpha Emil,” I replied in greeting, forcing myself to turn and look up at him.
At five foot three, I truly did have to crane my neck to look up at him. Emil was huge—the largest man I’d ever seen in the flesh. He had to be nearly seven feet tall. Maribel had playfully referred to Emil as her “God of War” once to me. In truth, Emil resembled the classic image of Thor, God of Thunder.
The Alpha werelock Emil hailed from Alsace—a region in northeastern France on the border of Germany. Alsace had a complex history of violence and strife, having alternated between French and German control five times just in the past several centuries. While I’d never been to the region, I’d seen photos of Alsace—of beautiful rolling green hillsides and quaint villages that looked like something out of a Disney fairy tale. Images so breathtaking and serene, one might never guess the history of conflict and bloodshed the region had borne.
Then again, with his blond hair and blue eyes and striking good looks, at first glance Emil appeared as if he might be a gorgeous prince straight out of a Disney fairy tale as well. He wasn’t. Not by a long shot. And—oh, dear … as I watched, Emil’s brows creased together sharply, as if something had peeved him.
“You did it again.” His words were an accusation.
Did what? My eyes flew wide. I hadn’t done anything but greet him as Alpha Emil!
“I’m … sorry?” It came out as more of an apology than a request for clarification. Swallowing the lump of panic that rose in my throat, I plastered a wobbly smile on my face and offered, “How may I be of service to you today, sir?”
I would’ve preferred to eat the dishrag in my hand than to help Emil. But as a lowly human, I would never be granted the luxury of choice—not when it came to serving the needs of the supernatural elite. Such was the burden of every human luckless enough to be endowed the “gift” of second sight. We had no defense against powerful werelocks like Emil.
Sure, whenever an opportunity arose, we took what petty revenge we could against our supernatural overlords—typically, through relaying our visions by means of the most convoluted, obscurely worded prophecies we could think up. Then we’d quietly revel in the werelock world’s confusion, which sometimes persisted for decades—even centuries. Such small, spiteful triumphs were the only power we wielded in an imbalanced system that would forever hold us in servitude.
“You were thinking of her—of Maribel. Just now.” The inherent condemnation in Emil’s annoyed growl sent a shockwave of fear skittering down my spine. “I know it.” His accent thickened as he raised his voice to me in anger.
Reflexively, I shook my head in denial and took a cautious step backward, away from him.
Emil spoke fluent French and German, and his preference was to speak Alsatian, a Germanic dialect of his region. When he spoke in English, it was with a slight accent that sounded more German than French to my untrained ear. And whenever he got upset, his accent became thicker. It always terrified me when I heard that happen.
His lips curled into a nasty sneer. “I know it, seer. Because your mind goes blank every time—as if Maribel is blocking me from your very thoughts of her.”
Oh, Lord, help me. He’d been in my head already. That meant he’d heard—
Shakily, I lifted the dishrag in my hands and stammered, “I—I didn’t really mean … I mean—the part about eating … I really do enjoy helping y—”
“Be quiet. Or I shall make you eat the rag.”
He would too.
“I will ask you once more. And you will answer me truthfully this time.”
I took another unconscious step backward.
“Have you seen this woman in your visions before? In any of your dreams?” He conjured an old black and white photograph from thin air and held it up to me. “This picture was taken a few years before her untimely passing.” As he’d done during every visit, Emil was presenting me with a new image of Maribel—different from any of the ones he’d shown me before. Sometimes, he’d even conjure up large oil paintings and fancy portraits of her and thrust them in front of my face. I forced a calming breath as I pretended to scrutinize this latest image of Maribel, which would’ve been taken in the early 1900s.
The stunning, fair-haired young beauty in the photograph looked to be in her early twenties. But werelocks were virtually ageless, and I knew that Maribel had been a little over a century old when she’d died. Her features were exquisite—her incomparable beauty the kind you could lose track of time gaping at. She stood ramrod straight in the photo, looking pristine and perfect, her lithe yet feminine build accentuated by the ethereal-looking gown she wore as she smiled shyly at the camera.
To anyone who didn’t know better, the woman in the old photo might appear demure. There was a marked vulnerability to her—a childlike innocence and excitement that flowed effortlessly from her big, hopeful bright eyes. I still remembered how, the first time I’d encountered Maribel in the ether and gazed into her seemingly guileless violet eyes, that mask of fragility of hers had called to my own protective instincts. It didn’t anymore. Now, Maribel’s slight smile as she looked straight through the camera lens at me only prompted an involuntary shiver. I knew it in my bones that hers was the face of evil that would one day return me to my maker.
Slowly, I shook my head and gave Emil the only answer I could—the only one Maribel would ever permit. “No. I haven’t. I’m sorry.”
“You will look again,” he growled. “You will look closely and cease lying to me if you value your life.”
Blinking against the futile tears of frustration that threatened to surface, I leaned closer to the photograph and made a show of inspecting it more thoroughly. Again, I shook my head. “I’m very sorry. I haven’t seen her in any dreams or visions.”
Emil inhaled audibly, and the photograph vanished. His voice was taut with tension—replete with barely restrained fury—as he said, “How can it be that I scent no lie, when clearly, you do lie to me, seer?”
I had no answer for that. I didn’t understand it either. And I was pretty sure Emil knew that by now.
“Fine then.” He stepped back from me, glanced around my kitchen with a look of distaste, and rubbed absently at his temple. “Tell me … what message from my beloved Maribel in the beyond do you have for me?”
He’d posed the question casually enough, but his jaw tightened and his gaze turned steely as he braced himself for the message he already knew by heart. It was the only message any of us seers ever gave him.
The only one we were allowed to give.
I twisted the dishrag in my hands as his eyes narrowed, his huge fists clenching at his sides expectantly. Swallowing against the tightness in my throat, I replied carefully, “Only one, sir. It’s the same message that has been passed down, from seer to seer, on Maribel’s behalf for you since 1915.” I paused to take what I knew might be my last breath. “I am to remind you of your promise.”
His nostrils flared at my words. His clear blue eyes turned to twin amber flames. It didn’t matter how often Emil heard Maribel’s final and only message for him; it never failed to enrage him. Still, he inclined his head with mock civility and prompted, “Then remind me, seer.”
“Seer” came out as a repulsed snarl. Emil hated me. Hated every seer the world over. Because he refused to hate the undead, violet-eyed witch who had bound us all to silence.
We were only ever allowed to impart to Emil—and to any other werelock for whom the promise to Maribel applied—the message Maribel had intended as her parting edict. And although many elder seers still shared stories from time to time of how several werelocks had expressed confusion, outrage, or resentment upon first hearing Maribel’s parting message for them seven decades ago, Emil’s initial reaction remained legend among every important seer sought out by the supernatural elite. For the behemoth man before me had succumbed to a horrifying fit of rage, transformed into his wolf form, and killed the first several unlucky seers who had dared deliver the very same message that I was about to impart. Again.
Unable to meet his furiously glowing amber eyes any longer, I lowered my own to the dishrag I was white-knuckling between my hands and told him quickly, “Maribel wishes to remind you of your solemn promise to her that you will never mortally wound … her mate.”
Those last two words were always the most difficult to make myself say—knowing how much they infuriated Emil. As soon as the words were out, I held my breath and silently prayed.
And waited.
Sometimes, if I was lucky, Emil would simply vanish once I’d reiterated the message. Other times, he’d start cursing and shouting at me. Sometimes he’d break things—whatever was in reach. Which nearly always seemed to be a large piece of furniture for some reason. Occasionally, he’d start laughing—as he’d begun doing now.
It was a quiet rumbling of madness that originated deep in his chest and morphed into a bitter, throaty chuckle.
Please don’t kill me.
“Her mate,” he scoffed, the venom in his words slicing through the air like a razor, causing me to flinch. “Surely, you don’t mean Kai, the great White King?” he taunted. It should have been rhetorical, yet he crossed his arms over his massive chest and gave me a raised brow, demanding I confirm it.
“Yes. I—I do … mean Kai. I’m sor—”
“No,” he rejected. “The lone arctic werelock is a gutless bastard for continuing to live on without her, proving with each and every breath he doesn’t deserve to take that he was never my Maribel’s true mate. It defies the very laws of our werewolf species.”
And therein lay the cruel rub, because unfortunately—for all of our sakes—it seemed that Kai was Maribel’s true mate in the werewolf species sense. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be tied to him still, and trapped as she now was in the ether.
“I am t-truly sorry … for your loss, sir.”
What else could I say? Werelocks could scent lies. And I genuinely was sorry. But I also hoped beyond hope that one day the message would finally stick and he would stay away. Because Emil terrified me. Almost as much as Maribel herself did.
“Let me get this straight one more time.” He strode over to my new solid oak kitchen table and casually tested its strength before leaning against it.
Anticipation of the inevitable made my heart race. I couldn’t afford to replace another piece of furniture. But I reminded myself it was better the table than my head.
“You and every other seer the world over persist in claiming that Maribel relayed this final parting message immediately after she passed. That correct?”
My head jerked in a nod.
“And no seer has glimpsed or heard from Maribel in the ether since? Not even once?”
I cringed inwardly and confirmed, “Yes. That is correct.”
“Lies,” he hissed. And then he roared the word at a frightening decibel as his fist lifted and crashed through the center of my table, destroying it. “Why?” he raged. “Why hide in the ether? Why in death remind me and every other powerful Alpha of a promise we made to her when she was alive—a promise that should no longer apply? As Maribel’s true mate, Kai was meant to die with her. Yet it’s as if even all those years ago, Maribel knew that he would not.”
Indeed. That was the part Maribel had guessed right. Unfortunately, it was everything else about her mate’s unique gifts that she’d recklessly miscalculated. Despite the great power t
hat was his birthright, the White King had somehow failed to save Maribel, his own mate, from death. And then, to add insult to injury, he’d also failed to follow after her.
Maribel’s predicament was as ugly a mating bond situation as any the werewolf world had never dared imagine. And it was one they’d never know of if Maribel had anything to do with it. For the latter, I despised Maribel. Because she’d made her living hell the seers’ burden to bear as well—forcing us to keep her secrets and do her bidding. And yet, in my heart, a small part of me would always pity her. Because the mating bond to which werewolves were beholden truly was the greatest inherent flaw of their species. Maribel’s situation was proof of it.
“You’re doing it again!” Emil accused, shaking his fist in the air at me. “You’re thinking of her. How is it that no other werelock recognizes this oddity but me?”
Because no other werelock remained as obsessed with Maribel as Emil was. Most werelocks came around demanding knowledge of other things. I couldn’t understand why Emil kept coming back to me and to the other seers, tormenting us, while torturing himself with hearing the same message repeated again and again. Maribel’s other former lovers—and even her surviving mate, Kai—had given up on seeking further intel from seers on Maribel’s status in the afterlife many decades ago. Yet Emil persisted. Which made me certain he was mad.