Daniel grinned. “Oh, I have some ideas.” He took her coffee cup from her and looked down at his zipper before looking back up at her.
She grinned and dropped to her knees. She had his cock out and in her mouth before he could set the coffee mugs down on the nearby table. “Christ!” he hissed. “You are too good at that!” He grabbed her head and held on, letting her set the pace but reminding her who was in charge. She knew how to flick her tongue perfectly along his glans before swallowing him to the root and sucking firmly.
He didn’t bother trying to hold back. He let his orgasm roll out of him from his balls down his cock until he rewarded her with a mouthful of cum.
She gave him a happy little mumbling noise in return as she swallowed every drop, laving his cock with her tongue to retrieve every last drop until he finally had to pry her off him with a laugh. “Enough, pet. You’re done.”
She pouted. “I want seconds, Sir.”
He pulled her to her feet by the arm and slapped her on the ass. “Then go get naked and wait for me on the bed.”
Like a shot, she was gone.
He grabbed his coffee mug and followed her.
Yep, he could keep himself busy aaalll day.
PART III
Chapter One
Walter Medved, known as Wally to his friends and family, sat in his car across the street and three houses down the block from his target, Lenny’s address. He’d anticipated taking another week off following his trip to Yellowstone, but this was more important. He’d grown up in the old country hearing nightmarish stories of the cockatrice and what they’d done to his kin, as well as kin of other shifter races.
No way in hell he wouldn’t help out, even if it’d been someone besides Brodey calling him for the favor.
After an hour, he was reasonably sure there was no one else in the house. He grabbed his clipboard holding fake political surveys and headed for the house. The tiny front yard wasn’t exactly a jungle, but large, unkempt bushes concealed the front windows and shielded a good chunk of the front porch from view of the street and sidewalk. The house had chipped and peeling grayish paint that looked like it might have once been a shade of pale green.
He knocked, loudly, and waited. Knocking again just to be on the safe side, he waited. Receiving no response, he pulled on a pair of gloves, slipped a lock pick set out of his jacket pocket, and let himself in.
The deadbolt wasn’t locked, just the knob. He found out why upon stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. The place looked trashed. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t a robbery because a sixty-inch plasma TV was still firmly attached to the wall, as well as all the electronics were still there.
Everywhere he looked in the small house, drawers were pulled out, closets were emptied, and stuff was dumped on the floor. The searchers had even pulled apart heating vent grates to look inside for whatever it is they were after.
He had a good suspicion what it was they were after. Fortunately, the old book was safe in the dragons’ hands. After a half hour, Wally knew he wouldn’t find anything useful. Had there been anything, whoever ransacked the house had beat him to it. He let himself out, locked the door behind him, and hurried on his way.
* * * *
Brodey got off the phone with Wally.
Lina didn’t have to use any freaky powers to read his mind. The result could clearly be seen in the frown on his face.
“Well?” she asked anyway.
He shook his head. “The place is totally trashed. Looked like someone turned it upside down, inside out, and hit frappe.”
“We have no idea if they found what they were looking for, do we?”
“We damn sure do know what they were looking for,” Zack said, slapping his palm on the book. “Unlucky for them we found it first.”
Brodey retook his seat at the table. “I have to agree. Whoever was in on this with Lenny had to know about the book.” He looked at his brothers. “I’m going to take her up to meet Lacey. Wally said he’d meet us up there for backup.”
Ain nodded. “Good idea. This is going to get messy really fast, I’m sure.”
“When do we leave?” Lina asked. “I’m up for a road trip. I think.”
Zack smiled. “You do realize you’ll have to fly to get to France, right?”
“I refuse to think about that now.” She shivered. “I’m sure we can find a doctor who will prescribe something to knock me out.”
Brodey laughed. “We have to get you over your fear of flying, kiddo.”
“Yeah, but there’s no rush, right?” She looked at Jan and Rick for backup. “Right? Please tell me we can drive up to Maine?”
Jan smiled. “Yes, we were planning on driving. But it won’t be a leisure trip. It’ll be straight through.” He looked at the others. “I suggest two vehicles. Can we leave one of our cars here?”
Ain nodded. “No problem. Hopefully, by the time you get up there, Jocko will have an answer for us on Daniel Blackestone’s location and know how to get in touch with him.”
Lina breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it.”
Chapter Two
They left the next day, taking two vehicles. Kael, Zack, and Brodey took one, following Rick, Jan, and Lina. Driving straight through, it took them nearly two days. After checking into a hotel on the grounds of the Pack compound, Lina spent the better part of a day sleeping.
The next morning at breakfast, she asked Brodey, “So when do we go see Lacey?”
“Today. I called her when I got up.” He looked at Jan and Rick. “I think it’d be best if Zack and I take her. We don’t need to overwhelm Lacey or Lina.”
Rick looked like he wanted to bristle at that, but Jan immediately nodded. “That’s fine.” He turned to Rick. “She’ll be fine.”
Rick grumbled a little under his breath, and Lina thought she spotted a wisp of smoke emerge from his nostrils, but he agreed.
They pulled up in front of an old wood and stone cottage that looked like it had been built at least fifty years earlier. A white picket fence surrounded a lush flower garden that perfectly seemed to fit the casual mood of the house. Brodey led the way to the front door while Lina followed and nervously clung to Zack’s hand.
He leaned in and muttered in her ear. “She’s not going to eat you, sweetie.”
“I know. I’m just…nervous. What if she doesn’t like me?”
Brodey turned with a snort. “Honey, if Lacey doesn’t like you, I’ll ask Jocko to run her to the doctor for testing.”
A woman Lina could only describe as grandmotherly opened the door. Shorter than herself, and no telling how old, but the bright spark in her brown eyes and straightness of her posture told Lina there were still a lot of years, as well as a lot of strength, left in her body.
“I heard that, Brodey Lyall,” the woman said, smiling. “How are you, son?”
He tipped his head to her. “Very good, Lacey.” He turned and motioned Lina and Zack forward. “This is Lina and her Watcher, Zack.”
Lacey cocked her head in an appraising way as she shook and held hands with Lina. “You are also your flagyer’s Seer now, aren’t you?”
Lina blushed. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what they tell me.”
Lacey laughed. “You don’t need to call me ma’am. Well, come in, come in, all of you.” She led them into her kitchen. The delicious aroma of bread baking filled the air. “I’m terribly sorry about Bertholde,” she said. “We were friends for a very long time. I shall miss her.”
“Thank you,” Lina said, struggling not to tear up. How the hell was she supposed to learn everything she had to learn? Who would teach her?
“I know I’m not a dragon,” Lacey said, “but I have met many other Seers, from wolf packs as well as other races. Always feel free to come to me for advice. Or if nothing else, a friendly ear.”
Lina nodded, hugging herself. “Thank you.”
Lacey stud
ied her for a moment. Then she grabbed Lina by the hand and led her to the back door. “We’re going for a walk,” Lacey said. When the men stood to join them, she held up a hand. “I didn’t mean you two. Lina and I need some alone time. We’re perfectly safe here in the compound.”
Lacey donned a shawl that hung on a hook by her back door. She glanced down at Lina’s shoes. “I’m glad you’re wearing sneakers,” she said with a smile. Then she led Lina out the back door and off the porch. They made their way down a winding path through Lacey’s beautiful herb and flower garden.
“This place feels so peaceful,” Lina said.
Lacey nodded. “Thank you. I have worked very hard over the years to cultivate only that which pleases me and causes me no stress.” She glanced at Lina. “And your men are stressful to you right now. I know they mean well, but their efforts to protect you are misguided. You are feeding off their nervous energy, which in turn only serves to heighten your nervous energy.”
Lina let out a snort. “You’ve got that right.” The path seemed to be going downhill. “Where are we going?”
“My special thinking place. I want to show it to you.”
They continued on for several minutes through green woods. Lina thought she smelled salt air and heard the sound of waves. “We’re close to the ocean?”
“Yes. Very. We’ll get even closer.”
The path gave way from dirt to rocky outcroppings as the woods thinned. They rounded one last turn and the path opened up to rocky coastline. They came to a stop atop an overlook where a steep, rocky path led down to a secluded beach.
“This is beautiful,” Lina said. “I’m used to the Gulf of Mexico, not this.” They were looking across a calm inlet. If Lina looked to the east, she could see where the mist almost totally obscured her view of the open Atlantic Ocean.
Lacey smiled. “We’re not done yet. Let’s go down to the water.”
Lina wasn’t sure that was a good idea considering how treacherous the path appeared, but Lacey started down the path with the sure-footedness of a mountain goat. Lina followed and found the going far easier than it looked from up top. When they finally reached the beach, Lacey led Lina over to a flat-topped rock where they both sat. Their perch afforded them a peaceful view of the inlet.
“This is where I do my best thinking,” Lacey said. “Since this part of the compound is deeded to me, no one but me comes here.” She grinned. “There are perks to the rank and age.”
Lina laughed. She bet Lacey was a pistol in her younger years, considering how fiery she appeared now. “I can see that.”
“When you consider what we do,” Lacey said, “it’s only fair.” Her face grew sad. “I don’t wish this job on anyone.”
“Yeah, I’m getting the idea this can be a real drag.”
“That’s one way of putting it, dear.” She stretched out, leaning back on her elbows. “There are a lot of hard times ahead. For all of us. I’ve been seeing it for a while. This is only the start, believe it or not. It’ll come to a serious head a few years from now. What we’re going through is only the initial skirmishes.”
“How do you see things? Do you dream them or what?”
She nodded. “Usually. Sometimes I have visions when I’m awake, but for the past few hundred years, it’s mostly been while I sleep.”
“Then how do you know what’s a vision and what’s a real dream?”
She let out a snort. “Oh, believe me. I know. There’s a clarity to them, and I completely remember them when I wake up. I rarely dream-dream, the normal kind. When I’m lucky, I can go weeks without any sleep disturbances. But like now, when they come, they’re hard and heavy. Every Seer is different. Some have waking visions only, some sleeping only, some both. Some can only see the future, some can see the future and past.”
Lina picked up a pebble and rolled it around in her hand. “I hit the lottery, I guess. I can see past and future, both asleep and awake. I finally figured out that stuff in the future looks blue. Stuff in the past looks normal.”
“Very good. You’re learning fast. You’ll need that. There are some who would love to have your power.”
“What did Bertholde do to me? Did she give me her powers or something?”
“No, dear. It doesn’t work like that. This life, you just happened to be lucky enough to be born a Seer. She saw your coming from nearly the day you were born. Bertholde had very strong Seer abilities, but she was also dragon-born. She couldn’t shift, but both her parents were shifters. If I’m not mistaken, what she did at your ceremony was take advantage of the circle of love and trust surrounding you to send a sort of psychic jump start to you. She reached out to you, when your powers were the highest and you were most receptive to it, and gave you a nudge, in a way. As clichéd as it sounds, there are few things more powerful than love. You were surrounded by it then.”
“Couldn’t she have just sat me down and talked to me about it?”
Lina sighed as she stared out over the water. “She didn’t know who she could trust. She ordered her brother to stay home because while she thought, based on her visions, that he would be safe, she wouldn’t take any chances. She felt she didn’t have any other choice.”
“You two were pretty good friends, huh?”
“Yes. For over five hundred years. Although when phones, and then the Internet came along, it made communicating very easy.” Lacey closed her eyes and tipped her head back as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and bathed them in a warm shaft of light. “Ahh. The simple pleasures, Lina. Treasure them. Especially now. If what you think you are about to go through is difficult, it pales in comparison to what happens in a few years.”
Lina was scared to ask this. “What do you see happening?”
“Nothing specific about you and your men,” she said without opening her eyes. “I just see the bigger picture in regards to that.” She smiled. “And the Lyall boys find their mate.”
Lina let out a snort. “Yeah. I saw that, too.”
“They’re good boys.” She opened her eyes and looked at Lina. “But I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Especially now that you’ve all adopted each other.” She playfully smiled. “You went from orphan to one of the pack.”
“Yeah, lucky me. I wish it’d been under better circumstances.”
Lacey sat up and shrugged. “We don’t get to choose our path, sometimes. Even though we fool ourselves into thinking we can. We have free will, of course. But unfortunately, sometimes our will is stymied by the facts of life. You could go run and hide under a rock for the rest of your life, but it would only make you miserable and fearful. And then the forces against you have still won, at that point. Along with taking countless innocent lives.”
“So why can’t I just sit down and wish for the answers to all this bullshit?” Lina asked. “All this power seems pretty darn worthless if I can’t control it.”
“You’re both a goddess and a Seer. But you are mortal-born. Unlike Baba Yaga and her kin, you don’t have your own powers. Your powers come from being part of the triad with your men. Your visions come from being your flagyer’s Seer. You cannot see what you do not know.”
“But what about the stuff about how the tablet was made?”
“You helped make the tablet. You were involved in that. You might not have personal knowledge about who in the cockatrice forces laid their eyes on the tablet at some point. You might not have been present when that happened. Perhaps you cannot see what you did not see. Does that make sense?”
“But Baba Yaga took me to when my parents died. She showed me that.”
Lacey shook her head. “You’d have to ask her if that was her doing, or using your own powers to take you back to watch the events. Like it or not, you’ll have to form some sort of tenuous truce with her.”
“I saw Kael’s family get killed. I wasn’t there for that.”
She shrugged. “Again, you need to ask Baba Yaga. Perhaps you have the power to travel back in time as a witness. Or it
was a vision. I don’t know.”
“So what’s with the other powers? The goddess stuff?”
“I’m far from an expert in that area. Focus on what your men can do. That might give you a clue.”
“I can change into a dragon?”
Lacey laughed. “No, not quite. But fire, ice, you should be able to control those things. You can control how you communicate with others. You can transmute yourself from one place to another.”
Lina thought about that. “That means in Yellowstone, I could have blinked myself home and saved everyone a lot of trouble?”
“Doubtful. You had no idea you could do that. Plus your powers are still so new, it’s likely you couldn’t have done it even if you had known how. You only recently realized it was possible.”
Lina had so many questions. Too many. Her brain spun with them.
“I still don’t understand how I helped make the tablet.”
“What do you mean, child?”
“I saw the vision about the tablet when we were at home. It was in blue, meaning it hadn’t happened yet. Then I found the picture in the book. If the memory I have is correct, it was the me from the present that went back and told the me in the past how to create the tablet. How could I have created it if someone else didn’t do it? How could I possibly have done that?”
That actually made her brain hurt.
“I can’t answer that, child. Perhaps you had help you didn’t recognize.”
“But I…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what it meant. “Can you wait here just a minute?”
“Of course.”
Lina closed her eyes and opened them again in Baba Yaga’s kitchen. Lina took a second to feel pretty damned pleased with herself over that.
The maiden sat at her counter with a cup of coffee in her hand.
Lina stalked over to her. “You made the tablet, didn’t you?”
Baba Yaga’s eyebrows arched in a wide-eyed innocent stare. “Me, Goddess? I clearly remember Zaria and her men making the tablet.”
Lina shook her head. “It’s not possible. You did something. I couldn’t come back from the future to the past to make something I made from seeing it in the future if it wasn’t made yet! When I first saw the tablet in my vision, it all looked blue, so it had to be from the future!”