“Someone has stolen blood from two shapeshifters,” Blackwell replied. “Someone is creating drugs that dampen or enhance Adept abilities. Drugs that appear to be lethal.”
“Lethal?” Kandy asked. “You’ve gotten confirmation?”
Blackwell nodded.
“Ah, shit,” Kandy muttered, pressing her head wearily back against the headrest and closing her eyes.
“The witches would do the same as the pack,” Blackwell continued. “Though their solution would be much cleaner. Perhaps the humans involved would survive with their memories wiped. Though that sort of magic has a tendency to destroy the minds of the magically lacking.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“The Adept don’t stay off human radar easily,” Blackwell said.
Outside, Beau nodded to Henry, then turned to wander back to the sedan.
The marshal, who’d been making notes or texting during the latter half of his conversation with Beau, lifted his phone to his ear as he jogged over to a car. It appeared to be a duplicate of Blackwell’s sedan, except it was navy blue as best I could tell in the low light.
“Henry Calhoun will keep you out of jail, at least,” Blackwell admitted begrudgingly as we watched the other sorcerer drive away.
Kandy snorted. “Like you’d ever be taken, Blackwell.”
“That’s why I said ‘you,’ werewolf. Rochelle and I would be halfway around the world.”
Beau ended the conversation by opening the passenger door and climbing into the sedan.
He glanced around at all of us. “So what did I miss?”
Kandy grimaced. “The sorcerers are the least of our problems. Blackwell says he’s confirmed that the drug is killing Adepts.”
The words were out of the werewolf’s mouth before I could intervene. I wanted to deny it, to rally Beau and say everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. So I didn’t.
“Jesus,” Beau said. Then he fell silent.
“Yeah,” Kandy said. “You want to have a chance of coming out of this alive, and with your family alive, we’re going to have to put up with the sorcerers. Or we could take you back to the Brave and you two could get your asses out of town.”
“And leave you to clean up my mess?” Beau said.
“How is any of this your mess?” Kandy asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
“I left. And before I left, I was … complicit. I worked for Cy … and Byron.”
“As a minor,” Blackwell said. “Even the pack with their draconian laws don’t hold the sins of a father against a child.”
Kandy muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “I’ll rip your draconian head off.”
Beau had turned to catch and hold my gaze. “Rochelle?”
He was leaving the decision to go or stay up to me. Staying could mean more mental and physical torture for Beau — especially if the vision ran the course I’d seen. Running away would be easier in the short term, but possibly way, way more difficult in the long term.
I nodded, through a fear that felt like it had been boiling in my belly for days. “We see it through now.”
“It’s complicated as fuck,” Kandy grumbled, pulling my phone out of her pocket and beginning to text.
Blackwell started the car. “The Motor Inn?” he asked Beau.
Beau must not have known the place. He leaned forward to type the name into the GPS.
“It’s glitchy,” Blackwell said. “Four Adepts and less than twenty-four hours. Magic has had its way.”
My stomach churned at Blackwell’s pronouncement. Which was odd for something said with such flippant ease, but the notion of magic having its way just felt like too … much. Too much uncertainty. Too much potential chaos.
I was glad that everyone else apparently knew the next step to take. Because for someone who supposedly saw the future, I felt completely blind and completely out of my depth. Though neither of those were terribly new sensations. It was just the location and the fine details that were different.
∞
The marshal was waiting for us at the Motor Inn, along with an SUV for Kandy that — other than being charcoal — looked identical to the behemoth she had parked at the university with the Brave. Apparently, the marshal took special requests, though maybe only for snarky werewolves.
The motel was a classic two-storey deal, where you could either pull up and park in front of your room or take the exterior stairs to the second-floor balcony. Not that I’d ever stayed in a motel before.
Blackwell parked the sedan in the last available spot, in front of unit eleven.
The marshal dangled car keys in Kandy’s face as she pretty much bolted from the vehicle. The werewolf snatched them with a grumbled, “Thank you.” Then she grabbed a motel key from him and disappeared into unit thirteen without another word.
Apparently, the red neon ‘No Vacancy’ sign didn’t include us. Free Wi-Fi and ‘retro’ massage beds were listed as amenities below the grammatically challenged ‘You’ll Be Glad You Motor Inn’ welcome sign. Even though I wasn’t sure ‘retro’ was the right term for describing something that was unintentionally super old, I was already digging through my satchel to see if I had any quarters.
“Any word?” Blackwell asked as he took two more motel keys from Henry.
“When Cy turns on his cellphone, we’ll be the first to know,” Henry said. “Thanks to Beau.”
Beau nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I’m in number fifteen if you need me,” Henry added, turning away.
Blackwell watched him go. Then, after a quick glance at the room numbers on the plastic tags attached to the keys, he slowly scanned the walkway between the parking area and the doors of the ground-floor units.
“One of those ours?” Beau asked.
“Yes.” Seemingly satisfied with his exterior scan, Blackwell unlocked the door to unit eleven and looked inside. “Stay here.”
The sorcerer entered the room and began to prowl, not touching anything as he looked around. When he crossed into the bathroom, I could hear him pull the shower curtain back. Then he returned to where we were obediently waiting by the door.
“Clear,” he said, passing the key to me. “Though I imagine you’ll want to check yourself.”
Beau stepped past Blackwell without replying. He conducted a more thorough search of the room, which included lifting the mattress and then the entire bed frame.
“You think Henry would plant something?” I asked Blackwell.
“I think he’s a sorcerer. Younger and less powerful than me, and in a position to … accumulate assets.”
“Like you accumulated me?”
Blackwell smirked. “I’m next door.” He stepped past me to exit the room.
I closed the door behind me, threw the night lock, and was snatched into Beau’s arms before I could turn back.
He lifted me off my feet as he pressed my back against his chest, his face into my neck. “Don’t hate me,” he whispered into the sensitive flesh just behind my left ear. “I should have told you … I should have …”
I wrapped my hand up and around the back of his head. “Beau …”
“No, I need to speak now. I need to tell you everything.”
“Okay.”
He carried me to the bed. After setting me down on the end, he kneeled before me. I lifted the strap of my satchel off over my head and set the bag on the floor by my feet, never taking my gaze off Beau’s anguished face. His head was bowed, eyes staring blankly somewhere around the level of my knees. He was visibly overwhelmed by everything he thought he had to say.
I ran my fingertips across his temple, then along the edge of his ear. “Bright in here,” I murmured.
Beau immediately stood, crossed back to the door, and flicked off the yellow overhead light. A dimmer wash of light filtered in from the bathroom, fading into deep shadows by the door. This softened the edges of the room, dulling the garish orange and beige bedcover, smoothing
the worn tan carpet, and hiding the chipped edges of the fake wood dresser.
Beau kneeled before me a second time, leaning forward to grip my hips, then pressed his face into my belly. He remained silent, though. I was afraid he’d explode if he didn’t manage to express himself soon.
“I know I …” He started to speak, then corrected himself midthought. “That first time in the Brave. The night we met. I just … I’m good at that. At sex. But I know you hadn’t been with many people before me. That it was sudden for you.”
“I asked you to come back with me, Beau. I couldn’t believe you’d come with me.”
Beau laughed harshly. “And now you know that I’m a whore.”
I gripped his shoulders, struggling to ignore the pain that shot through my chest at his choice of words. I needed to say something … to help … to try … but I’d never been tied to someone so tightly that I took their pain as my own, and the feeling overwhelmed me.
“It sullies everything between us,” Beau cried.
I pressed my hands to his face, holding him so tightly that my knuckles ached. “No,” I whispered fiercely. “Never.”
“Listen … listen to me.”
“I hear you, Beau.”
“I took money from women for sex, even after I left Southaven,” he said. “I never asked for it. At first it was just … arranged. Then —”
“Then they wanted to give it to you,” I said. “A gift. Just let that be gifts.”
“And before?”
“Did you ever harm anyone, Beau? Did you ever physically assault anyone … other than defending yourself from Cy?”
“Not even then,” he whispered. “I might have killed him if I’d hit back.”
“So you did what you needed to survive. If I’d been you … if I’d had to do what you did, what you were forced —”
“Not forced.”
“Coerced, then. As a minor, by people you trusted …”
Beau nodded, though I knew he was simply acknowledging my words. Not agreeing with them.
“Would you love me any less?” I whispered.
“No.” The word was ripped from him. As he fought with his emotions, his grip on my hips became harsh for a second, then relaxed.
“I was …” I stumbled over my thoughts, correcting them as I spoke. “The only reason I didn’t do more shit was because … no one wanted me. Not until you.”
Beau growled, starting to negate my words. But I pressed my hand lightly across his mouth so I could finish.
“Our lives began that night in the Brave.” I gazed down at his perfect face in the dim light. Though I didn’t have to see it to know it better than my own.
“You’d do that for me?” Beau whispered.
“You did that for me. Why should I love you any less?”
I pressed the lightest of kisses to his lips. I wasn’t sure he wanted physical intimacy, given the tenor of our conversation. But I didn’t know how to express everything I felt verbally.
Beau flicked his tongue against my lips. I opened my mouth to deepen the kiss, pressing my tongue against his.
“It’s different with you,” he whispered as he broke off. Pressing his forehead against mine to speak, then kissing me again. “You know that, right? It’s not about … proving or taking. It’s just this.” He ran his hands up my arms, wrists to shoulders, then slipped them down again to flick his thumbs against my erect nipples. Electricity followed in the wake of his touch. His magic stirred up my magic, moving through and around it.
“I know.” I darted my tongue into his mouth and wrapped my legs around him as best I could. “I see you. Sometimes all I can see is you.”
Briefly removing his mouth from mine, Beau slipped his hands up underneath my tank top and pulled it off over my head. I did the same with his T-shirt as he flicked my bra open. He got my sneakers off with two quick tugs at my heels.
I lay back on the bed to shimmy out of my jeans. Beau stood to divest himself of the remainder of his clothing.
“I don’t like this bedspread. It’s scratchy,” I pouted teasingly.
Beau laughed, sounding more like himself than he had all day. I grinned back at him as he towered over me completely, epically naked.
He picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, ripped the cover off the bed, and then tossed me back down. Bouncing on the springy mattress, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Much, much better,” I said.
Beau leaned down over me, planting his hands on either side of my shoulders. Then, not touching me anywhere else, he sucked on my nipples one at a time. The pressure was intense. Almost painful. Needy.
“Salty,” he said, appreciatively smacking his lips.
“We could shower,” I murmured, though I didn’t even remotely want to move an inch away from the bed.
Beau slipped his hand between my legs to make sure I was ready for him. “We’ll do that next,” he said, lowering his body over mine and sliding into me.
I wrapped myself around him — arms, legs, and heart. Our playfulness dissolved into a pure need to touch and taste and feel. To just be in this moment. Together.
∞
The sun was rising by the time we curled up in bed, freshly showered and with the intention of sleeping. I opted for opening windows over turning on the air conditioning, but it was still too hot to cuddle. We lay spooned without touching, my back to Beau’s front.
I’d been drifting for a while when I realized I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say. Everything that needed to be said before dawn.
“We might not be able to stop it, Beau.”
“I know,” he murmured sleepily.
I almost didn’t continue. He needed to sleep, to heal his mind along with replenishing his magic.
“The vision of you … in the parking lot …”
“Which you stopped.”
“Or I put on hold.”
“Blackwell isn’t going to kill me.”
“Chi Wen said I was only successful in thwarting that vision because Blackwell didn’t intend to kill you. It wasn’t your destiny to die in that parking lot.”
“Cy might be an asshole, but he doesn’t want to kill Ettie.”
“Exactly. It’s an accident. I’m not sure we can stop an accident.”
“Of course we can. That’s what makes things accidents. Their changeability.”
I didn’t want to argue Beau out of having hope. I didn’t want to be that person to him.
“Have you seen different?” Beau asked. “In this newer vision?”
“No, just …” I said. “Things are piling up … maybe I just haven’t had enough time to really study the sketches.”
“But Blackwell has.” Beau’s sleepy tone sharpened slightly. He tolerated the sorcerer because he respected my choices, but he didn’t like him. Certainly not anywhere near as far as he could throw him.
I rolled over onto my back to stare at the crosshatched pattern of the ceiling. The motel room was slowly brightening. Sunlight was attempting to penetrate the room through gaps in the curtains. Not that it mattered. I was already carving into the pocket of peace we’d created just by voicing my concerns.
“Blackwell thinks the visions are about the drugs. Because Ettie isn’t magical, but the drugs are. I think the connection for us is Ettie. Ettie’s death.”
“To draw us here.”
“If you believe that’s how the magic works … if you believe that I’m supposed to function as some sort of hand of fate.” I still wasn’t a fan of the idea of destiny. I liked to think I carved my own path, made my own choices. So the idea that I might not be a hundred percent in control of everything chafed me, though I still had to acknowledge the possibility.
“A conduit, maybe,” Beau said, willing to entertain at least part of my hypothesis. “But you chose to come.”
I swiveled my head to look at Beau. His eyes were closed, which meant I could stare at him as long as I wanted without feeling weird about it. He reached across, gr
abbing my far hip to tug me closer.
“We’ll get all sweaty,” I said.
“That’s what the shower is for.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s what the shower is for? Could have fooled me.”
Beau laughed huskily. The arm he’d slung across me grew heavier with sleep. “There’ll be more time for words,” he murmured.
I let him sleep, thinking I was too wired, too full of questions and concerns to do so myself. But I was wrong. I drifted, then slept without dreaming.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Can’t you let them sleep longer?” Kandy’s voice floated in through our open window.
I groaned, rolling away from the sound and wishing it had been a cool breeze instead. I fell instantly back to sleep.
What felt like only seconds later, someone was rapping briefly and lightly on our door. The noise was just loud enough to cut through the regular city sounds that I’d had no trouble sleeping through.
I cracked open a single blurry eye. Beau was already crossing to answer the door. He stuck his head out and engaged in a brief murmured conversation. I was surprised that he was both awake and fully clothed. I needed at least three more days of sleep.
Beau shut the door quietly, as if he thought I might still be sleeping, then turned back to find me watching him from the bed. He’d thrown a sheet over me sometime in the night or maybe before he’d answered the door.
“Who was that?” I yawned as I stretched, then regretted the stretching because it woke me up far too fast.
“The marshal. They got a ping off Cy’s cellphone. They need a couple more to triangulate. He just wanted us up and moving.” Beau hovered at the base of the bed, staring down at me. His face was etched with worry.
“What time is it?”
“About ten.”
I groaned. “That’s not even four hours’ sleep.”
“You could stay here.” Beau shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, still looking at me steadily but not smiling. He was wearing an emerald green T-shirt I didn’t recognize, but which did wonderful, intoxicating things to his dark aquamarine eyes.
“What’s wrong, Beau?”
“What isn’t wrong?”
I See You (Oracle 2) Page 19