by K. F. Breene
That was a threat, and it was a damn good one.
I opened my mouth to scream at the kids to run, but a blur of movement made me flinch back. Mustache’s fist lifted, and suddenly another large body was right beside me. A strong arm struck the air in front of me, then pushed back, moving me behind his warm, sturdy body. A body that felt exactly as I’d imagined it would from being wrapped in the aching power of its energy field.
21
Alexis
It was the stalking stranger!
His fingers lazily wrapped around Mustache’s forearm, and though his arm wasn’t as big and he wasn’t as tall, his strength and power easily topped the other man’s. The stranger shoved, and half of Mustache’s body jerked backward, forcing him to stagger sideways into one of his cronies.
The guy hadn’t brought any friends. He stood alone against a group of five. If it bothered him even a smidgen, I sure as hell couldn’t tell.
“This woman is not to be touched. Not by anyone. Do you understand?” The stranger’s voice whipped out through the night, making Mustache jerk back and half the crowd startle. They looked in our direction with wide eyes. A moment later, a dozen people pointed.
The stranger’s head swiveled, and I knew he was raking his gaze across the five beefed-up bullies. A look of fear rolled across Mustache’s face. They visibly shrank before the stranger, and I couldn’t hide my shock.
“I apologize, sir,” Mustache said, taking a step back. “I wasn’t aware she was with you.” He put up his hands. “I’ll let the boss know. Sorry, sir. Sorry.”
“You do that,” the stalking stranger said, his demeanor supremely confident. “Right after you tell him that he’ll soon be out of business. I’ll be looking into his…collection. Personally.”
Mustache’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say another word.
Stunned, I watched as the wall of muscle limped back into the crowd like whipped dogs.
Who the hell was this dude?
Hands still shaking, I stared mutely at my stuff strewn all over the ground. My legs started shaking too. “And this is why I can’t have nice things.”
The stranger turned to me slowly, the feel of him washing over me and soaking into my blood. My skin tingled with rich, unadulterated desire. My core ached for satisfaction.
“Quick to turn on the charm, eh?” I forced out, trying to level my voice against the onslaught of heady, potent magic that curled around my body in all the right ways.
The stranger minutely bent, his face now inches from mine. His warm breath dusted my face, smelling of chocolate and salty sea foam.
“Just when I think I have a handle on all your oddities, you show up in a place like this and hold court.”
“Holy shi—” Daisy muttered. “Her descriptions didn’t do him justice. I thought she was exaggerating, but she was under-exaggerating.”
“He’s the danger I felt,” Mordecai whispered. “I still feel it. We need to get away from him.”
“We can all hear you,” I said. The kid needed to put down the book on trees and pick up one on stealth.
The stranger’s eyes roamed my face for one more moment before his head lifted and turned, taking in my wards.
“They don’t get out much,” I said, hurrying to put myself between him and them. “I don’t even think they know how to turn their mouths off. It’s a problem. We’re working on it.” I took a deep breath, trying to still the tremors running through my body. “Get ready to go, kids,” I said out of the side of my mouth.
“I can still hear you.” The stranger righted one of the chairs before prodding my non-magical would-be client in the ribs with his black, shiny boot. The guy had curled up into a ball, frozen in fear. He wasn’t great at survival, clearly. “Feck off.”
Like a kid hearing an ice cream truck jingle from afar, I tilted my head to the side. His accent had sounded Irish just now. Like Thick Mick’s, almost.
“I wish to purchase a…consultation,” he said, his accent back to what could best be described as generic American. He put the chair in its tape circle and sat. The non-magical guy stumbled to his feet before taking off running.
I stared at the stranger with a buzzing brain. I simply could not make sense of what was happening. An elbow jabbed me in the ribs, jarring me out of my daze.
“Yes, sir,” Daisy said loudly, before elbowing me again. “Come on,” she whispered urgently. “If he wanted us dead, he would’ve let those circus clowns with the mustaches do it. Let him buy a…thing. Look at his clothes. He can afford it.”
A crowd had gathered around, staring at the stranger with awe or shock. Phones came out and fingers tapped away.
They clearly knew who this guy was. I still did not. Of all the horrible times not to have done my homework.
“Right…” A tangled mess still littered the ground around me, two TV stands twisted and bent, another on its side. “Uh…”
“Get going,” Daisy said through clenched teeth.
“I’ll give you a moment to fix your station.” The stranger swept his fingers toward what remained of my belongings.
“Oh well, that’s magnanimous of you,” I said sarcastically.
“He just saved your ass. And ours, I might add.” Daisy shoved me toward the rug that had been flung. “The least you can do is give him a…thing.”
“That guy wasn’t going to kill me. Not here,” I murmured. “I would’ve handled it.” Part of me even believed that.
Mordecai joined us, his blanket dirty and looped over his arm. He was barely shivering, and luckily, we had plenty of medicine to ensure another cold wouldn’t take root.
“I vote we politely decline and get out of here,” he said, his voice almost too low to hear. “I sense danger from him, Alexis. I don’t know how, and I’ve never felt this before, but it’s a gut instinct, and I think we should trust it.”
“Of course he’s dangerous. Those clowns all but pissed themselves trying to get away.” Daisy picked up the rug and handed it to me. “Predators love a chase. He is clearly a predator, and he has clearly been hunting her. Give him the reading, Lexi. Make him happy—by lying if you have to—and then we’ll get out of here.”
“She’s better at survival than you,” I said to Mordecai, feeling the gravity of the situation in my gut. “I don’t know what he’s after, but I doubt he’ll leave until he gets it.”
“He’s toying with you.” Mordecai’s voice was still just above a whisper, but it had taken on a vicious tone I’d never heard from him before.
Daisy frowned at him, then patted his arm. “The ring is taking hold of you, huh?” She turned to me. “Hurry. I don’t like this any more than you guys do, but what choice is there?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know why he keeps turning up. But I might as well talk to him. Maybe he’ll realize I’m largely an untalented hack and finally leave me be.”
“Don’t hit-and-run yourself,” Daisy chided. “That lady next to us, with all the arm waving and moaning—she’s the untalented hack. You can actually do the magic stuff; you’re just an ass about it.” She picked up a smashed TV tray. “This one is trash. Do you need it right now?”
“Be nice to that guy,” Mordecai said, nearly aggressive in his unease. “Don’t give him any reason to take offense.”
“Mordie is starting to make me nervous,” Daisy said under her breath.
“That’s the shifter coming out in him. We’ll probably need to talk that through, but first…” I hoisted up the only TV tray that had mostly made it through the Great Mustache Collision. “Just have a seat. We’ll leave after this.”
I placed the TV tray and rug in front of the guy’s chair, then stared down at the tarot cards strewn across the ground. The crystal ball was nowhere to be found, and most likely it had rolled to freedom. If only I could have glanced through it and predicted that turn of events.
Heaving a tired sigh, I collected the cards and placed them on the TV tray, then sat on my ch
air, the only thing that had survived the animal handlers’ tirade.
“Right. Okay.” I clasped my fingers in my lap and finally met the stormy eyes of the most devilishly handsome man I’d ever seen. The wind worried his midnight hair, sending strands across his smooth forehead. His sharp cheekbones and straight nose threw shadows in such a way that he looked both noble and incredibly severe. Stubble adorned his strong features, and his high, arching eyebrows might have pushed his striking looks toward harsh instead of beautiful if not for those lush, shapely lips. Those babies pulled the whole look together, bending his ruggedness into something angels would weep over. He had been made by a divine hand.
He waited patiently for me, his gaze intense, his focus absolute.
I looked away, embarrassed and not sure why.
“Start by saying thank you for saving your face,” Daisy coached, still playing the unasked-for role of my business manager.
Though she did have a point.
“Thank you.” I inched my eyes up, finding his again. They pulled at me, sucking me into a place that lacked gravity. I hovered there, lost in those eyes. In his intensity.
“And now ask what he wants,” Daisy said slowly, as though talking to a child.
And she might as well have been.
“Right. Sorry.” I tore my gaze away. “I’ve had a lot of visitors tonight. I’m a bit out of it. Um…” The throng of onlookers continued to watch our unimpressive show. “This is when stage presence would really come in handy.”
“Yes, it would. Just work with what you got,” Daisy said.
A tiny smile played on the stranger’s full lips, but he continued to wait patiently.
“What’s your nam—”
“No,” Mordecai said, his eyes rooted to the stranger just as surely as the stranger’s eyes were rooted to me. “Do it the same way you usually go about this.”
Daisy rolled her eyes.
Far be it from me not to trust the guy just because he was developing shifter tendencies.
“Sure. Fine. Just back off, you two. Sorry,” I said to the stranger, wanting his name. Wanting to be on more intimate terms with him.
Except he was a stalker, obviously dangerous, and it was annoying that a couple of kids had way better sense than I did.
“Okay. Let’s get to it.” I snapped and half considered borrowing a chime from whoever kept ringing the thing a few stalls down. I needed to jog myself out of this daze. “What is it you’re after?”
“What is it you offer?” he countered.
“I thought you knew all that. I can see spirits. Or…maybe just ghosts, if spirits and ghosts are different.”
“She definitely needs to learn more about her craft before we make a thing of this,” Daisy whispered.
“Agreed,” Mordecai responded.
With effort, I unclenched my jaw. “That’s it. So if you have a ghost plaguing you, or if you want to try and contact a ghost, I’m your girl. The exception is if the ghost is on the other side of the Line, and is content to stay there. Then you’re out of luck, because it’s not right to disrupt a soul because of your selfish desires.”
He didn’t comment.
“Sorry.” I shrugged. “That’s all I got.”
His stare beat into my head, and I tried desperately to tear my eyes away. His acute focus had unearthed all of my old insecurities. No one had ever noticed me this much, or for such an extended period of time. It was like he had shrugged off the rest of the world, could only hear and see me, and was enraptured by what he was witnessing.
“We won’t speak of my desires at the moment, Alexis,” he said, making shivers coat my body. “What we will speak of is how you have been grossly mislabeled. Mislabeled and mishandled. Regardless, take me through your skills. Guide me.”
What was he saying? I’d been me for twenty-five years. Whatever power he thought I had, my magic didn’t do a lot more than the gamut I’d taken it through tonight, and the only people willing to fork over real money for my abilities were career criminals. Besides, I’d been magically assessed like everyone else. Yes, I might have fudged my power level, but magic type was magic type. That couldn’t be changed.
I frowned at him, knocked out of the moment. “Well…”
“Show him the cards,” Daisy prompted.
“It’s like a never-ending car wreck,” I muttered, grabbing the tarot because my brain had completely stopped working. “The thing is, I don’t guide people unless I can see people lurking around them.”
“People, meaning spirits?” he asked.
“Ghosts…?” I lifted the end of the drawn-out word, making it a question. He was making me question everything now.
“They are the same thing.” His lips tweaked upward, as though he were trying to ward off a smile.
“Laugh it up, chuckles,” I muttered. “Fine. Whatever. But you don’t have spirits lurking around you. So unless you have a question for someone specific and can call them here, I’m not much good to you.”
His gaze finally flicked away, hitting the kids. A moment later, it bounced back, tensing me up again. “I am confident you will be, in time.” His words dripped with innuendo, and a flurry of butterflies exploded through my stomach. “As for now, how do you handle someone who’s in my position asking for your services?”
“I haven’t had many clearly important stalkers blow through, but tarot is a good place to start.” The cards snapped as I shuffled. A glance revealed people were still gathered around us, taking it in. “What is it you do aside from following innocent, unassuming women around and making your demands known?”
He didn’t shift, flinch, move, or answer me, all things a normal person might’ve done if that question was randomly lobbed at them. The only change was a subtle gleam lighting his eyes.
“All right, then.” I reached the deck forward.
He looked at the offering, but didn’t bend forward in the chair to collect it.
“Really?” I lifted my eyebrows. He still didn’t bend for it. “Do you want them on a silver platter?” I stood and reached the cards across the TV tray, getting them closer to him.
Finally, he extended his hand and took them.
“Happy days,” I mumbled, sitting back down. If he’d been someone else, I definitely would’ve told him to get bent and find someone else to wait on him. “Go ahead and cut those.”
His eyes dipped before he turned the deck over and fanned out the cards, looking at the pictures. A small crease formed between his brows, but he didn’t comment. The cards slid against each other as he shuffled, not nearly as practiced as me.
“Sure. Shuffle, if you want,” I muttered. “Have you done this before?”
“What do you mean by this? Visit a horror show intent on displaying the worst of our magical society and beasts that could not choose their fate?” He paused for a beat. “Yes. I’ve torn a great many of these things down. This one, however, wasn’t on my radar. It isn’t very large compared to some I have seen. It didn’t seem of pressing importance. I’d had no idea that magical slaves and imprisoned beasts were the preferred fare, however. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
“Me?” I flinched back so hard that my chair went up on two legs. That was all I needed—the people in this fair thinking I was the tattletale who’d fucked them out of a job. “Whatever enlightenment you’ve found has nothing to do with me.”
“He followed you here.” Mordecai spoke in a level voice, but I could hear the wariness coating each word. “He came because of you.”
“Oftentimes, the answer to a question can be gleaned by seeking out more information,” the stranger said. “Only, in your case, the puzzle keeps getting more intricate.”
“I have no idea who he is talking about right now, because Alexis is, literally, the most boring adult I’ve ever met,” Daisy said to Mordecai. “Except for her weekly jaunts to the bar, she has, quite literally, no life.”
“You’ve reached your quota on using the word ‘liter
ally,’” I said dryly. “And we can still hear you.”
I didn’t think I needed to remind her of the kind of adults she’d known prior to meeting me. It was what had landed her with me in the first place.
“Or did you mean,” the stranger said, ignoring our family squabbles, “have I paid for the services of a Ghost Whisperer before in order to speak to those beyond?” He paused again. “No, I have not. Because they wouldn’t take my money for services rendered.”
“No offense, sir, but we’ll be taking your money,” Daisy said. “Ow! Keep it up, Mordie, or you’ll end up like Boromir.”
“Or do you mean—”
“I didn’t realize there were so many layers to such a simple question,” I said.
“—have I ever sat in a fold-out chair struggling to take my weight, in front of a rickety TV tray covered in a stained rug, across from a beautifully entrancing woman who is attempting to be a Ghost Whisperer, while two teenagers organize and practically run the business, with a crowd of onlookers at my back?”
“He called her beautifully entrancing,” Daisy whispered. “I think I just fell in love a little.”
“He’s been stalking her, without invitation, for days, and he won’t disclose his employment or any personal information,” Mordecai replied. “He’s someone we should call the police on.”
They both had a point, as usual.
“No, I have not,” the stranger said, still (somehow) ignoring the pubescent peanut gallery a few feet away.
“Okay. So you have seen someone who talks to spirits,” I said. Best to get the show on the road.
“Yes, I have,” he answered. “They were not able to answer my question.”
“Ah. There we go. You have a question.” I crossed an ankle over a knee. “Great. That’s a good place to focus. Do you want to tell me who the question is for?”
“No.”
“Super. Do you want to tell me what the question is?”
“No.”
“Great. We’re off to a fairly normal start. So go ahead and shuffle until you’re content, then put the cards on the rickety old TV tray that I found on the street—in case you were wondering—and we’ll get started.”
