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Ursula, a villain who did not deserve to be considered one, was my favorite Disney princess. She’s a working woman, offering a service, and was vilified for it. The payment was obvious. The whiners knew the score. They just thought they were special, that they could get magic for free. That’s not how magic works. You always have to pay. Plus, octopuses are incredible, so I refused to support fairy tales disparaging them.
The Little Mermaid aside, I was calling my Monterey seaside art gallery and tea bar The Sea Wicche because I, Arwyn Cassandra Corey, am a sea wicche, or at least I really wanted to be. The wicche part is true enough.
It was a perfect day, with clear blue skies and a cold, salty wind on the California coast. I went out the back door of my art studio to the deck that ran along the ocean side of a small, abandoned cannery I was having renovated. The deck gave a little with each step. Strangely enough, rotting wood was a bit of a safety hazard. I loved this place, though, even when it had been filled with standing water and rusted machinery.
I used to break in and run around here when I was little. Mom worried I’d hurt myself, but Gran said she’d seen in a dream it would be mine and to leave the poor child alone. In wicche families, the older you are, the more powerful. No one messes with the crones. I was, consequently, looking forward to getting old. The crones do not give a fuck. They’ve seen and done it all and have lost the ability to be polite about it. They’ll tell you what they think to your face, because what are you going to do about it? That’s right. Nothing.
I couldn’t wait. Anyway, Gran said the cannery was mine, so it was mine. Even at seven, it was all mine. The deck sat on tall posts that were mostly submerged at high tide. Now, though, at low tide, the barnacles, oysters, coral, and algae were visible. There were even a couple of gorgeous orange starfish that had made my posts their home.
I sat on the edge of the deck and leaned over, holding on to the weather-warped wood with my ever-present gloves. The two starfish were still there. One was clinging to a post covered in a carpet of purple and green algae. I needed photos. Tourists snapped them up for a good price, especially this close to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Tipping back, I rolled over onto my stomach and took my phone out of my back pocket. Dangling over the deck edge, I framed the shot and took it. Perfect. Yes, my DSLR camera would be better, but the light was magical now. The colors were so vibrant, they’d pop out of the frame. If I ran back in for my camera, the light could change and I’d lose the shot. I’d made that mistake too many times. I had a phone with the best digital camera on the market and I could tweak the image once I got it on my laptop.
I wear special gloves all the time, not just when touching rotting wood. They’re a thin, soft bamboo fabric with connective threads on the fingers so I can still use my smartphone. Touch is a problem for me; clairvoyance is not for the faint of heart. I see too much, hear too mu
ch. You try shaking someone’s hand and hearing he thinks you’re a money-grubbing fake taking advantage of his mother, bilking her out of her last dime, and he wants you to drop dead. All of that and more the moment his hand touched yours.
Or, even better, how about finally getting a kiss senior year from the guy you’ve had a crush on since sixth grade, only to learn that he really wished your ass was smaller and he hoped Rachel heard about his kissing you because he was trying to make her jealous. Oh, and he actually thought you were a weirdo, but groping was fun, so…
Yeah, dating sucked when touch meant picking up every stray thought and emotion. For a while, I self-medicated with booze. That wasn’t a sustainable plan, though. I hated drunk Arwyn and hated even more the predators who moved on me when they saw I was wasted enough to dull the voices. So, new sober me wears gloves and has sworn off dating and sex. It’s a modern world. There are electronic alternatives that don’t close their eyes and think about someone else.
I took a few more photos as long as I was hanging here, none as perfect as that first one, though. A text popped up on my screen and I flicked it away. It was my mom again, reminding me that Gran expected me at dinner tonight. They’d been trying to get me to join the Council since I was in my teens.
Maiden, mother, and crone, the Council oversaw all disputes, heard pleas for help, and granted magical aid, usually for a fee. Now that I was back from England—and my chess set was finally in the hands of the werewolf book nerd it was intended for—they were pushing hard for me to join. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t help when they needed me. I just didn’t want to be tied to the regularity. I had my work and really did not care about the day-to-day petty crap. If they needed me to power a spell, fine. The rest of it, not so much.
Mom and Gran knew the toll it took on me, knew I lived through the worst horrors the people petitioning us carried with them, but they didn’t experience it, so it was easy to forget the price I paid for my magic. I hadn’t had a full night’s rest in ever. The nightmares haunted me as though they were my memories.
So gloves, isolation
and my ocean buddies it was. There was movement in the water below. A tentacle almost broke the surface. Yes, my octopus friend was still hanging out below the cannery. “Hello, Cecil! I hope you have a lovely, watery day!” The way he moved was mesmerizing to watch. So much so, it took me too long to realize what was happening. Damn it! I was going to end up in the ocean.
Throwing the phone over my shoulder, I gave it a magical push to get it to the deck and then hoped for the best. My vision went dark. Snarling. I heard that first. Often the sounds and scents came to me before the images. Growling and the scent of the forest. Two yellow eyes, huge, staring into me, before the scene formed. Large wolves circling one another, one jet black, the other tan.
The tan lunges. The black meets him, clashing tooth and claw. Blood flies as they shake off the pain, circle, and charge. It’s vicious and violent. I don’t want to watch, don’t want new nightmares. The tan one, bloodied and limping, cringes away when the black one howls. The black wolf is set upon by others as they drive him into the dirt…
My body tipped as I watched the wolves tear each other apart. Damn it, I knew it. I was about to get dunked, watching wolves kill each other.
Yellow eyes stare into mine, waiting.
I wasn’t in the water, wasn’t wet. What I was, though, was hanging in the air. A very tall, very strong man was holding me a foot off the deck, a hand gripped around the back of my neck. I stared into warm brown eyes and shouted, “What the fuck? Put me down!”
He dropped me like I was on fire. Thankfully, my balance was pretty good and I kept my feet under me.
He cleared his throat and pointed toward the water. “You were sliding in.” He handed me my phone.
“Thanks,” I said, “for picking up my phone and grabbing me before I went in. I’m an epileptic.” Not really. I just needed a cover for my habit of hitting the ground. “This is private property, though. You shouldn’t be here.” I shaded my eyes. Oh, my. He had to be six and a half feet tall, a perfect muscular specimen, with dark hair starting to curl around his ears and a full, dark beard. He wore faded jeans, sturdy work boots, and a t-shirt topped with a flannel. I
might not be able to touch, but I could look.
“I’m on the construction crew. Phil asked me to stop by to take measurements on the deck.” He stared at me as though he was pretty sure I was insane but was too polite to say it.
Ha, joke’s on him. People have been calling me nuts my whole life. It didn’t even register anymore.
“So you’re okay?” He had a deep growly voice that I liked. “You threw your phone at me and then just flopped over the edge, like dead weight dropping into the ocean.”
I checked my phone. “Seizure. I’m fine now.” No scratches on the screen. Score! “Go ahead,” I said, gesturing to the rotting deck. “Do your thing.” I started back into my studio and stopped. “Why are you working today? It is Sunday, right?” I checked my phone for the date.
“I wasn’t doing anything, so I figured I might as well get started.” He shrugged one beefy shoulder. “Plus, I need the work.” He pulled a measuring tape off his belt. “Do you want the deck any different, or am I replacing this one exactly?” He took an old receipt and a pencil from his shirt pocket, starting to take notes.
“You can do it without dropping planks into the ocean or pounding on the posts so hard you disturb the ecosystem, right?”
“Ecosystem?” He walked to the edge and leaned over, peering down. “Is that what you were looking at?”
“My starfish Charlie got a new friend.” I peered over the edge and saw the guy’s arm move, like he was ready to grab me if it looked like I was about to go in. “The friend kind of looks like a…Herbert.” I slid the phone back in my pocket, brushing the dirt from my gloves. I owned many pairs in a rainbow of colors, all washable.
“Herbert and Charlie, huh? Which one is which?” His balance was amazing. He’d been leaning out past the edge of the deck for a while and not a bobble or tremor in sight.
Wicches can tap a part of our brains that allows us to see a person’s aura, essentially to see what kind of person we’re dealing with. The brighter and shinier the aura, the more trustworthy the person. The smokier the aura, the more we needed to watch our backs. Yes, I was a strong wicche who could take care of myself, but six and a half feet of muscle on a psycho was probably something I should prepare for.
Letting my vision relax, I sized up this guy who wanted to work here while I was alone in my studio. Huh. No aura. Well, hell, that’s why I had the vision. Fingers twitching at my side, I readied a spell, just in case. “Werewolf?”
Poor guy looked like he’d been smacked in the face with a shovel. “What?”
“It’s okay.” I pointed at myself. “Wicche.”
“I know, but how did
you?”
“You knew?” I’d never laid eyes on this guy before. How did he know?
He tapped his nose. “You have a scent.”
I felt my face flame. I’d showered this morning, hadn’t I? Shit. When I got involved in a project, I lost track of time and personal hygiene.
Chuckling, he clarified, “Wicches as a group, not you in particular. You smell like plaster and paint. And the ocean.”
“Oh.” Well, that was okay then. Not all werewolves were psycho killers. In fact, very few of them were. Still, I let the spell dance between my fingers in case I’d read the situation wrong.
He wrote something on the paper in his hand. “What kind of railing do you want?”
“None.”
He raised one eyebrow. “You’ll need some pretty good insurance to cover all the lawsuits from people falling off this thing.”
“The plaster and paint you’re smelling are from the tentacles I’m building. They’ll be thirty feet tall and come up from below the water, curving this way and that to keep people from falling in. It’ll look like a sea monster is pulling us into the ocean.”
His eyes flicked from the ocean to the edge of the deck. “Nice.” After pausing a moment, he asked, “What about kids? The curves will leave holes, the perfect size for little heads. Plus, you’re not going to want the tentacles crowding out the view, right? There’ll be gaps.”
I bit off the automatic denial and thought about the design I had in mind. I waved him in the back door of my studio. It took up about a third of the cannery building and was the first section remodeled. I needed a place to work. The gallery could wait. I sold my work in other galleries around the world.
I stopped him before he stepped over the threshold, though, my hand on his chest. “Wait. What’s your name?”
He stared down at my hand until I moved it. “Declan.”
“Declan what?” I’d be texting all the cousins first chance I got to see if anyone knew anything about this guy. Then again, my cousins were assholes. Maybe I’d chance it.
“What’s it to you?”
“Maybe you’re a serial killer.” I doubted it, but it was possible.
He stared at me, his intense brown eyes making my stomach flutter. “You’re the wic
che,” he said, leaning in. “Am I a serial killer?”
Damn, he was potent. Instead of answering, I just waved him in. I was pretty sure he was safe. Being a werewolf, I couldn’t read him easily, but I had a spell at the ready if he gave me trouble.
“You know, I’d like to know your last name too?” A second man’s voice made me jump.
Who the hell was that? I ducked my head through the open door and found another muscular guy on my doorstep. Unfortunately, I’d met this one before. He was Logan, the Alpha of the local pack. Six-four, tawny hair, tanned skin, blue eyes, he was the golden child of Monterey. Women flocked to him, and he’d never met one he hadn’t liked.
“Arwyn.” His gaze traveled from my out-of-control curls down to my paint-spattered sneakers. “Good to see you again, although I can’t say much for your company.”
My cousin Serena had dated Logan in high school when he was the star athlete on every team. She was head over heels, but he was working his way through the female student body, so it didn’t last long. She said he wasn’t a jerk about it. He was just a guy who loved women and couldn’t rest until he’d bedded all of them. Everyone needed a hobby, I supposed.
When he turned to Declan, the physical change was extraordinary. Relaxed and flirtatious morphed into clenched jaw, puffed chest, tightened fists. “You know the rules. You can’t come into my territory without meeting with me and getting my approval. I’m Alpha.” Logan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Declan, eyes going wolf gold.
Declan didn’t flinch, didn’t seem the least bit concerned. “I’m not in your territory. Pack grounds are in Big Sur. I live and work in Monterey. Eve is the Master of Monterey.”
Logan growled, “Bloodsuckers don’t rule us. You want to stay here, you meet with me.”
“Gentlemen,” I interrupted, “I have reason to believe this won’t end well. What do you say you just shake hands and walk away? In fact,” I added, glancing back in my studio, “I can offer you both a freshly baked fudge brownie with a layer of caramel in the middle. Can you smell them?” Being werewolves, they’d never back down from a fight, but it was worth a try.
Declan studied me a
moment, lifting his head to scent the air, and then grinned. “I’m in.” He stuck out his hand and waited.
I did not expect that.
Logan smacked Declan’s hand away.
Yep, totally expected that.
Declan blew out a breath and leaned against the doorframe. “Where and when?”
“Pack grounds. Full moon. And since I had to track you down, you’ll join our hunt instead of meeting me in my office. You think you can handle that?” Logan sneered.
Declan’s expression was priceless, like he was dealing with a toddler having a tantrum. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Thanks for your concern, though.”
I had to bite my lip not to laugh. Laughing at a pissed-off Alpha was a good way to get bitten.
“We’ll see what happens when you’re on pack lands and whether or not I allow you to stick around.” When Logan grinned, for just a moment his teeth seemed too long, too sharp, but it could have been a trick of the light.
And then his eyes were back on me and all the aggression was gone. “You Corey girls sure do have the biggest, prettiest blue eyes.”
“Green,” Declan corrected.
“Right. So, I’ve been meaning to ask you, there’s a new Mexican restaurant in town I’d like to take you to. What do you say?”
“Well, I’ll have to think about that, won’t I?”
“You do just that. And I’ll see you again real soon.” With a warm grin, he sauntered off.
Logan had been doing his damnedest to seduce me since I was fifteen, bragging about what a powerful couple we’d make. When I turned back to Declan to discuss railings, though, he wasn’t watching the threatening Alpha depart. He was watching me.
“Ibelieve you said something about a brownie,” Declan said.
I blew out a breath, shaking off the weirdly charged, testosterone-fueled moment, and went for the baked goods. When I realized he was still standing in the doorway, I beckoned him forward, saying, “Come on in.”
I could use a brownie too. The way this guy blew off impending werewolf trouble for baked goods made me want to classify him as a decent guy. Of course, that might have been because I couldn’t hear his shitty thoughts. Trusting, I was not.
I put two brownies on a plate for him and one for me. “I have coffee, tea, milk, soda, or water. Do you want anything to drink?” I grabbed myself an orange soda and a fork. Wearing gloves meant I almost always ate with utensils. Try eating chips with chopsticks. Go ahead, I dare you.
“I’ll take an orange soda too, if you’ve got another.” His voice was closer than I’d expected.
I turned, trying to decide if I needed to drop the baked goods and get that spell ready again. Nope. He was just studying my paintings. That was a relief. I didn’t want to have to drag his huge unconscious ass out of here after I’d put him down.
My studio was part workroom, part apartment. I had an oversized worktable in the center, with cabinets against the far wall for supplies, finished pieces, whatever. There was a door in that wall that led to the Fire Room. I did glass blowing and pottery in there. Opposite that wall was the door to the gallery space, which was double the area of my studio. I also had a couch and a chair in a small living room area.
Along the back wall was my kitchen. I had an industrial-grade stove because when the nightmares woke me, I baked. A lot. My gallery—when she finally opened—would have an area where I sold baked goods and my mom’s tea. She ran a very popular tea shop.
I had a small toilet downstairs and a full bathroom upstairs in my bedroom loft. Stairs ran along the wall in common with the gallery and led to a huge loft that served as my bedroom. My bed was soft and inviting, with water-colored bedding and a mountain of pillows. Over the years, I’d tried everything in an attempt to sleep through the night. As that never actually happened, I also had a comfy reading chair. Above the bed, there was a new skylight. When I lay awake in bed, I was now able to watch the stars, the movement of the moon, the shifting of the clouds.
I brought his brownies and soda to the worktable. I could have put them on my coffee table, inviting him to sit down, but I didn’t know anything about this guy. He could stand and eat.
He was leaning in to examine something on my Deep Ocean canvas when his head snapped to the windows overlooking the deck and ocean. “A tennis ball just dropped on your deck.” His confusion was hilarious.
“Be right back,” I called, jogging to the door. “Eat your brownies.”
Once outside, I shaded my eyes from the sun, looking for the little scamp. Wilbur was a gray speckled harbor seal who liked to play catch. And hide-and-seek. I grabbed the wet tennis ball. Looking for the telltale ripple, the quick surfacing of his rounded head, I searched the water.
“Where are you, you little punk?” I muttered, pacing across the deck. Giving up—that brownie wasn’t going to eat itself—I pulled my arm back to throw it as far as I could and then stopped, remembering I had access to a werewolf’s arm.
“Declan!” I shouted, turning back to the studio door and bouncing off his chest.
“Yes?” He was leaning against the doorframe, watching me.
I handed him the wet ball and pointed out into the ocean. “Throw that as far as you can, please.”
He did and I loved that he didn’t ask questions first. Just threw. I walked past him to change gloves and get my brownie when I heard him say, “Look at him go.”
I ran back out, searching the water. “What did you see?”
“A seal. He came shooting out from under the deck, racing after that ball.”
“You’re a cheat, Wilbur!” Shaking my head, I stared through the slats of the deck. “I know you were hiding him, Cecil! I’m not happy with you either!” I stomped back into the studio. They were ganging up on me.
Declan stayed in the doorway. “Got beef with a seal, huh?”
“He knows what he did. I don’t have to explain it to you.” Sneaky little bugger, hiding where he knew I couldn’t find him. “Hey, how long will I not have a deck?” Some days, it felt like half my time was spent out there.
“You going to eat that brownie?” Declan was staring at the brownie I had left on the plate with the fork.
I stared him down, laughing on the inside. It made me happy when people enjoyed my baking. It took the edge off all those sleepless nights when I baked instead of slept. “Depends. How long will I be without my deck?”
“Do you want it fast or do you want it good?” He walked over to the plate and slid it closer to himself.
I hit it with a spell, sliding it back to my end of the table. “I want both.” I lifted the plate and forked up a huge chunk, stuffing it in.
“Talk about cheaters,” he grumbled. “I can do it in two or three days. Since I need
to be careful during demo, making sure nothing drops in the water, it’ll go a little slower.”
“Hmm.” I slid the plate back across the table. With my finger. “Okay. And as an act of goodwill—something a cheater would never do—I’ll have baked goods at the ready for you to urge you along faster.”
He rested his hands on his hips and gave me back the suspicious stare. “How do I know the rest of what you bake is any good?”
“You don’t.” A knock sounded in the gallery space. I checked my watch. “I have an appointment. Go away.” I waved my hand toward the open studio doorway before heading through the gallery door.
Crossing the floor felt like walking on water. As the contractors had to level the floors anyway, I had them pour deep swirling blue-stained cement in the gallery and studio. The gallery portion of the cannery was still wide open and empty. The cannery had a forty-foot ceiling, with exposed metal beams and a wall of windows looking out over ocean.
The workmen had made all the repairs, painting the walls a dark midnight blue and replacing all the broken windows. The window washer bill was going to be astronomical, which was why I still took on random clients for readings. I needed to keep the money coming in. And as the windows rose almost as high as the ceiling, I needed to have them UV treated. I didn’t want my art pieces fading in the sun.
I pulled open the dented metal door—the last thing that would be replaced once all the work was done—and found a nervous-looking man on my doorstep. Short dark hair and sad brown eyes. He wore jeans and a light blue button-down.
“Hello.” I knew this was the guy I was waiting for, but I could tell he wanted to run, so I gave him a chance to make up a story and take off.
“Hi. My sister Lili said I should come see you.” He stuffed his shaking hands into his pockets and waited for me to put him out of his misery.
“Sure. Come on in.” I opened the door wide and waved him in. “How is Lili? I haven’t seen her in a few months.”
Some of the tension in his shoulders loosened. “Oh, you know Lili. Working her way up that corporate ladder. Mom and I joke she’ll be their youngest CEO.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Lili was actually good friends with my cousin Cat, but I knew he needed comfortable small talk. “Hey, I just made brownies. Wou
ld you like one?”
He pulled a fist out of his pocket to wave off the offer. “I don’t want to be a bother. I’m fine.”
“Nonsense. How am I supposed to explain to Lili that I left her brother hungry when I have a tray of brownies in the next room?” I gestured to the table and chairs while making my way to the studio door. “I’ll be right back. What would you like to drink?”
“Uh, water’s good.”
I ducked back into my studio and found Declan leaning over the table, drawing. “What are you still doing here?” I hoped this wasn’t a feeding-a-stray-dog-and-they-never-leave situation.
“I can get started today. I’m sketching my plan for the deck. I want to make sure you approve before I begin.”
“Oh, smart. But in general, if a woman tells you to go away, you should.” I grabbed a couple of paper towels and then plated a brownie for Rob, who had yet to introduce himself, and a lemon square for Declan. I wasn’t rewarding bad behavior. I was demonstrating my awe-inspiring baking skills. After pouring a glass of water, I pulled beer from the fridge. I couldn’t stand the stuff, but I had friends and family who liked it, so, you know.
“How come I wasn’t offered a beer?” Declan glared at the brownie and beer and it was so hard not to laugh.
“I have my reasons.” Let him wonder. I left him the lemon square, which softened his expression, and then headed out.
Rob was staring out the window. “I’m not sure, but I think a seal just tossed a ball onto your deck.”
I left his beer and brownie on the table and then took off out the back door. Declan was already there, picking up the tennis ball. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for the go-ahead.
“Chuck it!” I knelt at the edge of the deck, waiting. Declan could throw three times farther than I could. Okay, fine. It was at least ten times farther than I could. Shut up.
The ball hit the water with a splash and gray streaked out from under the deck. “I see you, Wilbur!” The seal had been arrowing through the ocean, but at my shout, he rolled over and over before doing a flip. I won that round and we both knew it. “Thanks for the assist.” I nodded at Declan before returning to Rob.
“Sorry about that,” I said, closing the back door.
“You have a pet seal?”
The wonder on his face finally made those tense shoulders come down. “Not a pet. Just a friend.” I walked to the table and sat down. “I know you said water, but I thought you might want a beer.” I pointed at the plate. “And if chocolate isn’t your thing, I have lemon too.”
“Uh, no. Chocolate’s good. Thank you.” He sat down and some of the wariness returned.
“Go ahead and eat. We can get started in a minute.” I paused, waiting for him to pick up the brownie. When he reached for it, I began to ramble. The poor guy was wound so tight, I’d never get anywhere with him.
“Did Lili tell you I lived in a converted cannery?”
He shook his head.
“Yeah, I used to play here all the time when I was little. You could smell the fish a half mile away…” He didn’t look bored as I droned on. He seemed genuinely interested in my story about the cannery. Nice guy.
When he finished, he wiped his fingers off on the paper towel and tipped back the beer bottle. “Thanks for all this. This psychic stuff makes me uncomfortable.”
Something dropped in the studio and poor Rob flinched.
“That’s just the construction guy who’s rebuilding my deck. Let me just check nothing was broken while you finish your beer.” I stood up.
“Oh.” He shook his head, laughing. “I thought the place was haunted.”
“Nah. No ghosts here.” My sneakers were silent across the floor. Nonetheless, when I opened the studio door, Declan was staring at me. Closing it behind me, I stared right back. I knew that look. It was the look of disbelief and disgust. Whatever. “Can you please go sketch in your truck or something? You have excellent hearing and his business isn’t yours.”
“You’re a psychic?” The flirty interest in his eyes was gone. “I thought you were an artist.”
“I am.” It shouldn’t have hurt. I barely knew the guy. “But what I am or am not is none of your concern. I’ve asked you nicely twice to go.” I wr
iggled my fingers. “If I have to ask again, it won’t be nice.”
He ripped a page out of my sketchbook and tossed it across the table. “I’ll be back in the morning to get started. If you want changes, you can tell me then.” He walked out without a backward glance.
I let out a breath, watching him go. They always go, don’t they? Didn’t matter. Rob needed my help. What Declan thought of me was irrelevant.
Iwent back and sat, pushing my wild hair over my shoulder and folding my gloved hands on the table. “So, what are you thinking? I can do palm or Tarot reading. I also have psychometry abilities, if you’d just like me to hold your hand and tell you what I see.” There was more, but I wasn’t looking to scare the poor dude.
He shook his head, the nerves returning.
“Okay, how about this? You tell me the question you want answered and it’ll be dealer’s choice.” I was pretty sure I already knew the question, but for his own peace of mind, he needed to say it.
He scratched the stubble on his cheek. “I’m having a hard time with something.”
“Okay. Why don’t you tell me about that.” He was struggling so hard, my stomach began to knot.
“I guess my question is if I should be a father.” Shame underlaid those words.
Mentally, physically, this was going to take more out of me, but I knew the cards weren’t right for this situation. I pulled off my gloves and rested my hands, palms up, in the center of the table. After a moment of hesitation, he placed his on top of mine.
I felt it almost immediately, the sharp open-handed smack across the face. I flinched, trying to absorb the pain. A shove jolted me in the back. My hair was yanked. In that moment, it was happening to me. I breathed through the hurt. I knew of ways to block my empathic side, but creating that barrier made me far less effective as a psychic. Self-preservation dictated I fuck that noise and create the buffer, but I struggled, knowing the horrible guilt that sometimes accompanied putting my own needs above the person who was hurting.
My family didn’t know the half of what it was like for me. I believed—I really wanted to believe—that if my mom knew, she wouldn’t be hounding me to be on the Corey Council. She had, over the years, given me hell for not blocking more. I said I didn’t because I’d built a reputation and had to deliver in order to make money to fund my art. And while that was true, it wasn’t why.
I’d gone to school with a girl. Quiet. Skittish. She wasn’t in my class. I was two years younger, but I brushed past her in the halls and lunch line. The darkness and pain in her overwhelmed me. I blocked hard—as much as I knew how at that age—and tried to stay away from her. We found out later her uncle had been molesting her. Third grade and she’d tried to kill herself. If I hadn’t blocked, hadn’t avoided, maybe I’d have been able to tell someone, do something. Anything.
This was why the psychics in the Corey family had dark, horrific lives. One of us is born every couple hundred years, and all those before me went insane and died young. So, you know, I had that to look forward to. As I was twenty-eight, already twice as old as most of the others when they shook off this mortal coil, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on borrowed time. As far as magical gifts went, mine blew.
All of which is to explain why I was holding this man’s hands and allowing the punches to land. Guilt crushed the soul. “How long did your father live with you?”
His hands flinched. “He left when I was seven.”
His mom took the kids and ran when he was seven. What kind of evil pushes adults to prey on the helpless? “And how was it with just your mom?”
“Mom’s great. She’s over the moon. Can’t wait to be a grandmother.” His voice had lightened, as had his memories.
The ring on his left hand brought him joy and love. I tried to hold on to that feeling. “And your wife? How is she reacting to the pregnancy?”
“She smiles all the time.” He shook his head in wonder. “I mean, not always, except kind of always. She throws up in the bathroom and then comes out, rubbing her belly, full of plans for the baby’s room.”
“What color are you painting it?” Swatches of color raced through my mind.
“I don’t know. She showed me colors, but I walked away. Whatever she wants, you know?” He shrugged, misery written all over him. “I’m hurting her. I can see her disappointment, but I never wanted kids. I’m just—I don’t think I’d be good with them. Isabella wants me to be a part of the planning and preparation, to take the class and read the book, but I can’t.” He stopped and gave his head a little shake, as though arguing with himself. “I don’t like talking about this. Besides, this isn’t why I’m here. I just want to know”—his hands fisted in my palms—“will I hurt it?”
I gave him time to settle after asking the real question. I could have led him through it, try to get him to see it himself, but I could feel his exhaustion and self-loathing.
“I can’t tell you that you’ll never raise your hand to your child. The future has yet to be written. I can remind you that there have been many people in your life that have pissed you off and you never hit them.
“Your first job—fast food? I smell oil, hear sizzling—there’s an older man who’s being creepy to a teenager you were working with. He scheduled her late or kept her after. Something that got her alone. You stayed, though. Your shift was done, and you came back or stayed late. You knew she was scared and so were you, but you were there when
he ran his hand down her back, grabbing her ass.”
“I shoved him against a wall. Hard.” His face fell, as though I was confirming his violent tendencies.
“You protected an innocent from a predator. You, Rob”—he hadn’t given me his name, but I needed him to hear me—“are a protector, not a monster. You’re nothing like your father. You’ve been enraged plenty of times in your life, just like the rest of us, and not once did you take it out on someone smaller and weaker.”
I paused, giving him time to think, to run through those moments in his life that supported what I’d said. His hands in mine were already feeling lighter. “Don’t let him take this away from you. He’s done enough damage. Be a part of the planning. Borrow some of your wife’s joy until you feel it yourself.” I squeezed his hands. “You’re going to be a good dad because you know exactly what it is to have a bad one.”
I pulled my hands back and put on my gloves.
He stood, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah?”
“Go help your wife paint the nursery.” I nodded, shoving my hands into my paint-spattered overalls.
“Yeah, okay.” He nodded, a tentative smile appearing. “I did like that green she showed me.”
“I like green,” I said, though he’d stopped listening to me. His delight had me tearing up.
He turned to the door and then stopped himself, spinning back to me. “Sorry.” He pulled his wallet from his pocket and laid five hundred dollars on the table. I’d told him on the phone my fee was two-fifty, so it was a nice tip.
“Thank you.”
“No,” he said, “thank you.” As he left, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “Izzy, honey—” and then the door slammed.
I shook out my hands and jogged in place before bending forward, stretching, palms to the floor. I straightened up and pulled an old-fashioned scrunchie from my pocket. I swear, they were the only things strong enough to take on my hair. I tied my hair up and then headed for the back door. I needed my friends to shake off the melancholy of a beaten little boy who grew up, saw his father in the mirror, and began to fear himself.
The clouds had rolled in, the wind almost knocking me back through the doorway. I went to the edge and knelt, as I had before. Pulling off my gloves, I stuffed them in my pockets and then lay down, my head and shoulders over the edge, my arms hanging down.
Charlie and Herbert were still with me. “Hi, guys! Looks like the tide is coming in. I
won’t be seeing you for a while. Is Cecil still here?” A tentacle rose and splashed the water at the surface. I waved back.
I’m only half wicche. My father is water fae. I’m not sure what flavor. I’ve never met him. Mom didn’t want to talk about him and my empathy for her discomfort meant I mostly kept my questions to myself. One of my more assholish cousins questioned if I should really be considered a Corey wicche, given my questionable parentage. My aunt Sylvia shut that shit down fast, smacking him upside the head and making him apologize. While it was nice in the moment, that stuff never works. It just taught him to be sneakier in the future, which he was.
From my father, I inherited an affinity for water, particularly the ocean. I held my hands over the waves and pulled, willing it to rise gently toward me. Much like my octopus friend Cecil, I could direct short bursts at a target. I’d mastered that by the time I was ten. And believe me when I tell you that my little shit cousin Colin got blasts of saltwater in the ear whenever he dared to go near the ocean.
It was slow, measured control that had always been difficult for me. I drew two narrow towers of water up, slowly pulling them to my palms. They were almost there, a foot away, when Wilbur shot up out of the ocean and dove through both lines of seawater, splashing me in the face and flinging the tennis ball onto the deck.
“Wilbur!” I wiped my face on my sleeve. “You little—fine,” I muttered. “You won that round.”
A tennis ball flew over my head, far out into the ocean. I reared back to find a certain dark-haired werewolf sitting on my deck, leaning against the doorframe of the studio. “Oh, it’s you.” I sat up, not liking a potential enemy at my back. “I thought I told you to scram.”
“You did. I came back to apologize. I was out of line.”
Huh. Another unexpected reaction. Interesting.
“Psychics.” There was that look of disgust again. “You seem nice enough and that water trick was cool, but I just don’t believe in psychic abilities.” He shrugged one big shoulder. “My aunt believed in that stuff and got taken by a never-ending chain of frauds, making vague predictions, rephrasing what she’d already told them to make it see
m like they’d heard the info in the great beyond. It’s all smoke and mirrors, and then hand over the money. But what you do is none of my business, like you said, and I really want this job. So, I’m sorry for being rude earlier.” He stood, nodded once, and walked around the Sea Wicche to where he had no doubt parked.
When I looked down at the water, I found Wilbur looking back. He gave an exaggerated shake of his head and dove under.
Yeah, right there with you, buddy.
