I See Me (Oracle Book 1)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

“There isn’t a number we can call? An Adept hotline?”

  Beau snorted, but his amusement was mostly for my benefit. I placed my hand on his thigh and caught his smile in my peripheral vision. I slid my hand a bit higher and he laughed huskily. Then he lifted my hand, turning my palm up to place a tender kiss in the center of it.

  I sighed and tucked my head against his shoulder. Maybe no one would come. Maybe we could watch the sunset, then wander back to that Voodoo Doughnut place with the huge line outside of it that we’d passed on the streetcar a few blocks back.

  Every muscle in Beau’s body tensed.

  I looked up to see him watching a woman as she sauntered toward us along the river walk. A few dozen feet behind her, the grass of the park ended right before an expensive-looking hotel hanging out over the river. Its discrete signage declared it to be the RiverPlace Hotel.

  A couple of joggers outpaced the woman. Based on her casual body language, and if she hadn’t been staring directly at Beau, I would have expected her to walk right past us.

  Beau took a single glance around us, really quickly — as if he didn’t want to take his eye off the woman for even a second. His grip across my shoulders tightened, but he’d dropped my hand the moment he spotted her.

  I glanced around as well. A few people were jogging or biking along the river walk, but the park was mostly empty. Which wasn’t surprising since it was still fairly early on a weekday morning.

  The woman stopped a few feet before us. Then she also casually glanced around. She was a few inches taller than me — maybe five-foot-six without the purple wedge heels. Her hands were on her hips. She was wearing a violet-paisley print silk blouse over a tight dark-plum colored skirt that fell just above her knees. Her shoulder-length dark hair lifted lightly in the breeze.

  That was it. No jacket, no scarf. I shivered just from looking at her. She didn’t even bother glancing at me.

  Beau didn’t move. He was so tense that his arm across my shoulder felt like it was made of steel.

  The woman didn’t look even remotely dangerous. Not until she opened her purple-glossed lips and said, “What have we here, cat?” She spat the final word.

  “I’m Beaumont Jamison. This is Rochelle Saintpaul.”

  “Your names mean nothing to me. Do you know whose territory this is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you dare enter it without proper introductions?”

  Beau squirmed. His gaze was focused on the woman’s shoulder. There wasn’t an ounce of aggression in her body language, but her voice dripped with derision.

  “You think you can wander around Portland without being spotted?” she hissed. “You think I like getting phone calls this early in the morning?”

  “I don’t know the proper way,” Beau finally said. I felt so bad for him. I desperately wanted to help, but I had no idea what to say or who this woman could possibly be.

  She barked out a laugh.

  “Oh!” I said. “You’re a werewolf.”

  The woman closed the space between us in a blur of purple. She dug her thumb into the spot where Beau’s neck met his shoulder. He grunted in pain, but didn’t immediately push her away.

  Not thinking, I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch him,” I hissed.

  Static electricity passed between us. The woman twisted out of my grasp and backed off a few steps. She shook her head as if clearing it. Then, glaring at me, she rubbed her wrist where I’d touched her.

  “She doesn’t mean any disrespect,” Beau cried, and then modulated his tone. “She doesn’t understand this world … or her magic.”

  “What witch doesn’t feel magic?” the woman sneered.

  “She’s not a witch.”

  The werewolf turned her dark eyes on me, her full lips still curled into a sneer. “You’re not welcome here without an invitation.”

  “Then how do we get an invitation?” I asked.

  My calm question seemed to put her further off balance. She frowned and then returned her gaze to Beau. “Why are you here?”

  “Rochelle is being hunted.”

  “So you bring her to the pack?” The woman laughed.

  “By a sorcerer.”

  The woman stilled. Every line of her face and body smoothed out to neutral. Then, looking at me again, she whispered. “What sorcerer?”

  “Blackwell,” I said.

  A slow, scary grin spread across her lovely face. I could suddenly see the wolf underneath her skin — or at least her capacity to be a wolf.

  Beau shuddered, looking resolutely at her feet. “Please —”

  “Blackwell,” she repeated. “Anything that sorcerer wants, I’m more than willing to keep from him.”

  Beau let out a breath of relief.

  “I’m Lara,” the woman said. “Follow me. Now.”

  She turned and walked away.

  Beau stood to follow. I tried to hold him back. “But —”

  He shook his head and touched his ear quickly. Lara was a dozen steps away now, but Beau seemed concerned she could still hear us. “We go. This is why we came here.”

  “Is it going to be okay?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Lara, still sporting her scary grin, turned to look back at us. It was my turn to shudder as another curl of fear twined down my spine. The werewolf’s grin widened.

  “Try to not be afraid,” Beau whispered. He pressed his hand to the small of my back as we followed Lara.

  “How do I do that?”

  “Pretend,” Beau said. “Now is a good time to pretend. Werewolves like the scent of fear. Any predator does.”

  That pronouncement didn’t really help with the fear factor, but I trotted to keep up with Beau’s long strides nonetheless.

  I could pretend. I’d been pretending for a long time now.

  ∞

  Lara led us into the hotel. This was as upscale as I’d imagined it would be, given its downtown location and the river with a marina to one side. The doorman let us pass without a word and Lara cut across the lobby to the stairs with us dogging her footsteps.

  The stairs led to an underground parking lot.

  The lot held a huge black SUV, which Lara remote-triggered and climbed into with barely a glance at us. She was texting back and forth with someone.

  Beau urged me into the back seat. I’d never been surrounded by so much soft, black leather in my life. I didn’t like eating meat, and I certainly didn’t like being surrounded by this much animal skin, but I wasn’t going to fuss about it in front of a werewolf. Beau reached around me to grab my seat belt, but I slapped his hands away.

  “I’m crazy, not a moron.”

  He chuckled but closed my door without comment. Then he climbed into the passenger seat in front of me.

  I caught Lara’s dark-eyed gaze in the rearview mirror. For a brief moment, I thought her eyes glowed green.

  “What is she then?” Lara asked Beau while she kept her eyes on me in the mirror. “She smells like a witch.”

  Beau shrugged as he pulled on his seat belt. “I’m not sure. She sketches things. The sorcerer, specifically.”

  Lara laughed. “Oh, the narcissistic bastard must love that.”

  “She isn’t bait.”

  “That’s not for you to decide, kitten.”

  Beau tensed as if ready to say something else, but I interrupted.

  “Who does make that decision?”

  Lara shifted the SUV into reverse and backed out of the parking spot.

  “The alpha.”

  “Alpha?” I asked.

  “Head of the pack,” Beau answered.

  “Lord of the pack,” Lara clarified.

  “And the alpha doesn’t like sorcerers?”

  “No one likes Blackwell. He’s a demon-calling murderer.” The word ‘murderer’ came out as a long growl. “I’ll gladly dance naked on his bloody, well-gnawed bones.”

  Well, that was a
clear and horrifying image I wouldn’t be getting out of my head anytime soon. And my mind most certainly didn’t need more encouragement toward darkness.

  “He had a spellcurser with him,” Beau said.

  Lara threw her head back and laughed. “Perfect. Hoyt and I have met.”

  She stopped the car on the parking lot entrance ramp, tugging the blouse away from her neck to reveal a coiled mass of fading scars.

  Beau grunted, pushed his seat belt underneath his arm, and turned to her while lifting his hoodie and T-shirt.

  I watched, jealousy seething in my stomach, as Lara eyed Beau’s chest and ridged abs. I hadn’t realized that he still bore angry-looking, half-healed burn marks from whatever Hoyt had thrown at him … in my hallucination … right?

  Lara smiled, but not in her scary way. She reached over and lightly raked her violet-painted nails across Beau’s muscled belly. He lowered the T-shirt, nodding at her solemnly.

  She returned the nod, then pulled the SUV out of the parking lot and onto the street.

  Something intimate had just happened between them. It made me uncomfortably, irrationally jealous. It also made it even more clear that I had no idea what was going on and no idea how to deal with any part of what my mind was throwing my way.

  What if this was all real? What if the real insanity was the process of having denied it this long? What if Blackwell, and Beau’s burns, and Lara who was supposedly a wolf, were all real?

  As Lara maneuvered the huge vehicle expertly through the city, I gripped the handhold over the window by my head — the SUV so tall that I could barely reach it. Then, remembering, I dug my hand into my hoodie pocket for my mother’s necklace. It was stupid to have left it there. With the large stone and the thick chain coiled in the palm of my hand, I found I couldn’t actually close my fingers around it.

  Feeling more grounded, I looked up to see Lara watching me in the rearview mirror again. Her gaze was calculating and penetrating. When I managed to look away, I caught her frown on the edge of my vision.

  Then she laughed, the tenor of which let me know that werewolves weren’t at all like Beau’s tiger. By that look and that laugh, they were ruthless predators. I didn’t have to see Lara in animal form to know that. I knew predators. Growing up in the foster system had put me in front of more than one. Though I’d survived those encounters mostly unscathed, I couldn’t say the same for some of my childhood friends … well, childhood acquaintances.

  “Is there a good tattoo parlor in Portland?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Lara replied. “Do you have a need?”

  I lifted my eyes to meet her gaze in the mirror again. I thought about sketching a wolf paw and having it tattooed among the barbed wire on my left arm. I would draw the paw pierced through its soft pad with a single barb.

  Pleased with this idea, I smiled.

  This time Lara looked away. She didn’t meet my gaze again.

  Yeah, I knew how to deal with predators.

  Don’t be prey.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lara drove us a few blocks through the city before turning left, after which we climbed a short, steep hill and entered a high-end neighborhood. The meticulous homes — mansions, really — ran the range from vintage to brand-new, or in some cases, still under construction. The area resembled the snobby British Properties in West Vancouver, except the hill wasn’t a mountain and the water view was a river, not the ocean. Still, so close to downtown, I imagined this was prime real estate.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled up to a sprawling, single-level modern home perched on the edge of the hill. Lara parked the SUV in front of what appeared to be a three-car garage. She climbed out without a glance or word to either of us.

  Beau turned his dark aquamarine eyes to me in the back seat. “We’ll figure this all out,” he said. “You’ll be safe here.”

  “Will you?”

  He smiled, but the expression didn’t hold any of his usual easygoing charm. “She came alone and didn’t kill me on sight.”

  “We were in public.”

  “True.” He stepped out of the SUV and crossed back to my door. He opened it but I didn’t move. I didn’t look at him.

  “Passive resistance?” he asked, teasing.

  “I was thinking about it.”

  “Need some help, kitten?” Lara called. She’d walked partway to the double front door. A short stone path broke off from the driveway and ran across the front lawn. A wide, tall hedge hid the house from the street. “I’d be happy to carry the not-a-witch.”

  She was standing with one hip cocked, and jangling her car keys in her left hand. Then she caught me looking and stopped. I’d never thought to use my weird, pale eyes to intimidate anyone before. Maybe eye contact was just a big deal for werewolves for some reason. I noticed that Beau didn’t look at Lara directly either.

  “You’re nervous,” I said to Lara. “Why?”

  Lara lost the mocking smile and took an aggressive step toward me.

  Beau stepped into the space within the open door, blocking my sight of the supposed werewolf as he reached across to undo my seat belt.

  “I don’t like that she’s nervous,” I whispered against his warm neck.

  “She can hear you,” he said, but it wasn’t a warning, just information. “All shapeshifters have great hearing. And she’s nervous because she’s bringing an unknown Adept — you — into pack territory.”

  He stepped away from the car, holding his hand out to me. Then he very deliberately looked back at Lara. “Plus, I’m bigger than her.”

  Lara snorted, then bared her teeth. “I’m a pack enforcer, kitten. I could have killed you in the park without anyone looking at me twice.”

  “I’d see you,” I said.

  Lara flicked her gaze to me. I took Beau’s hand and climbed out of the SUV. It was a long step down to the ground, but I held Lara’s gaze the entire time.

  “Don’t play dominance games with me, not-a-witch.” Lara sneered as she looked away.

  Beau snorted, then stifled the laugh.

  Lara pivoted, then walked stiff-backed to the front door.

  “So, suddenly you believe? Believe that you can see … something?” Beau asked. His tone was hushed.

  “No,” I said. “But you guys do. I was just always good at poker.”

  “Yeah, I imagine you are.”

  We followed Lara through the door and all conversation ceased.

  I’d never seen a house like this before. It was all wood and glass and stone tile. The entranceway opened up around us, with hallways branching off in opposite directions from where we stood, leading to what I assumed were a crazy number of bedrooms and bathrooms. A massive kitchen with a huge granite island stood to the left. A dining room with a wooden trestle table that was easily ten feet long took up the middle. The living room sprawled to the right, ending in a massive stone fireplace that occupied the entirety of the far wall. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the river and city below, where thousands of cars crawled over the bridges and the highway.

  Two steps into the house, and I already felt like a grubby orphan. I never, ever wanted to feel this way.

  “I don’t want to be here,” I said. My voice rang through the open space before me. I was surprised my words didn’t echo back.

  “I know,” Beau answered. I could hear that he understood exactly what I meant, even though I wasn’t all that articulate. His commiseration settled me for the moment, though.

  Heels clicked on the wide-tiled granite floor, and I cranked my neck left to see another dark-haired woman crossing toward us. She was taller than Lara by a couple of inches — though that might have been due to the heels, which were so high I was surprised she could walk in them. She was dressed in a sleek business suit that seemed to drip with money, even though I knew nothing of such things. She even wore a choker of pearls underneath her cream silk collared blouse.

  I scuffed my sneakered f
eet on the floor but stopped myself. I wasn’t ashamed of being poor. I had worked for every cent in my pocket. Every cent in my gas tank. By the looks of her manicure and her perfectly smooth cascade of hair, this woman didn’t even know the word ‘work.’

  “These are the interlopers?” she asked Lara. Her tone dripped with contempt.

  No hint of a smile or sneer appeared anywhere on Lara’s face now, as she stared resolutely at the woman’s right shoulder. “Applicants, maybe.”

  Beau’s shoulders stiffened as if he wanted to protest something, but he didn’t speak or look up from the floor when the woman turned to him.

  “Really?” she murmured. Then, with what sounded like deliberate clicks of her pointy heels, she slowly paced around us, all her attention on Beau. She was sizing him up, like he might be a cow or a pig at a fair. Or maybe like a potential owner would eye up a slave or a gladiator, like I’d seen in all those movies and TV shows about ancient Rome. Or maybe it was Greece?

  She was looking like he was just muscle, cannon fodder … amusement.

  I didn’t like that look at all.

  Beau didn’t flinch, though his grip on my hand tightened momentarily.

  The woman stopped behind us. Her gaze rested on our interlocked hands. She lifted her eyes and seemed surprised to find me turned to look at her over my shoulder. She frowned.

  “The witch has no manners,” she said, directing this comment to Lara.

  “No understanding of protocol, I think,” Lara answered. “She supposedly doesn’t understand what she is. And she might not be a witch.”

  “Ha!” the woman snorted snottily. “She’s a witch. No other Adept would ever be so stupid in the presence of a greater predator. You’re just intimidated by the eyes, Lara.”

  Lara twisted her lips as if stopping herself from speaking, maybe ready to deny being intimidated by me. Or rather, by my eyes. Funny, I’d forgotten to put on my tinted glasses. I couldn’t remember when I’d stopped wearing them.

  “See witch?” the other woman asked. She bit down on the ‘ch’ in the word. “Lara and the cat here know their place. If I were you, I’d learn quickly.” She leaned toward me and her nostrils actually flared. “What smells like a witch must be a witch.”