Kelly Meade - Black Rook

She glanced at him, nodded. “Yes.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I saw it in a vision last week. Him”—she pointed at Rook—“standing over my father’s mangled body with blood all over his hands.”

Rook’s guts tightened with disgust. Being accused of killing someone was bad enough, but she made it sound as though he’d ripped the man apart with his bare hands. And while beating a man to death was, as a Black Wolf, theoretically possible, he couldn’t ever imagine a scenario in which he’d actually do it.

No, that wasn’t completely true. He could imagine killing a man in defense of his family or his run’s safety. Hypothetically and in self-defense. Not murder.

“And you interpreted this vision to mean that Rook kills him?” Father asked.

“No one else was in the vision. He was covered in my father’s blood. How would you have interpreted it?”

“You don’t know me,” Rook snapped, finding his voice again. “But because I’m loup garou you assume I’m a killer? Or is it just the tattoos?” In the band, the markings and piercings had made him cool, made him part of the scene. At home in Cornerstone, it made him scary and different, especially when he shifted and the gauges remained in his ears.

Brynn flinched, and her façade of confidence cracked. “I assume you’re a killer because of what I saw.”

“These visions,” Father said. “Do you see futures that will happen, or futures that may happen unless a course is altered?” Perfect redirect of the conversation.

She gave her attention back to him. “I see what will happen, but the ability isn’t well-defined, and I can’t control it. Sometimes I see things months in advance. Other times, I see things that happen seconds later, so there’s no possibility of trying to change them.”

“Not well-defined?” Bishop asked with a derisive snort. “I call shenanigans. I’ve yet to hear any Magus admit to being in less than perfect control of his or her power.”

The furious expression Brynn leveled at Bishop made him take a half step backward. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Just making an observation.”

“If your father is the supposed victim,” Father said, “why are you here, and not him?”

“Because he refuses to believe I’ve had this vision, much less that it will come true,” Brynn said. “He cannot foresee himself in the middle of the woods, much less allowing himself to become the victim of a loup garou.” She seemed about to add more, then thought better of it.

The phone on his father’s desk buzzed, and then Amber’s voice came over. “Thomas? We’re starting in five minutes.”

He reached across the desk and pressed the intercom button on the phone. “I’ll be down shortly, thank you.” He turned back to Brynn. “I hope you understand that this conversation isn’t over, but I do have a business to run.”

“Which means?” she asked.

“It means that Bishop, Knight, and I need to get downstairs. For now, you’ll remain here with Rook.”

“What?”

“Sir?” Rook asked. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the entire auction stuck in his father’s office with a Magus who thought him a murderer, based solely on visions she admitted weren’t under her control.

Father crowded him to the other side of the office, and Rook didn’t protest. “Talk to her,” Father said in a low voice. “Get her to describe the vision in detail, especially where it happens. Anything she says could be helpful.”

Rook squashed the impulse to protest babysitting the Magus. Father was putting a huge amount of trust in him to both keep an eye on her and to get answers. Besides, Rook was the one that Brynn had come to see. Maybe she’d talk to him more openly without the others around.

He wasn’t the subtlest of people or the best listener, but he’d give it a try. “All right,” Rook said. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.” Father turned around. “Ms. Jones, if you require anything to eat or drink, just let Rook know and it will be brought up.”

Brynn frowned. “So I’m a prisoner now?”

“Not at all, but this discussion must wait for a few hours, and to be honest, you’re safer up here than wandering around town.”

“Safer?”

Safe from the other loup who’d react poorly to her mixed Magus-loup scent—something she seemed unaware of, and they hadn’t shared yet. Rook would have to be careful to not let that bit of information slip out before they decided what to do with it.

“Yes,” Father said. He left with Bishop and Knight in tow, and they closed the door behind them.

Brynn watched him from her spot by the bookshelves, hands once again up by her chin, fingers twisting away at that ring. The nervous tic was starting to irritate Rook. With the loss of three other large bodies, the room seemed to fill with her scent. Floral and sweet, with that strange mix of Magus and loup. Beneath it all, though, came the faint, sour scent of fear.

“You might as well have a seat.” Rook gestured at the wicker chairs. “We’re going to be up here for a few hours.”

“I’d rather stand, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” He moved to the window overlooking the auction floor and all of the activity he couldn’t take part in today. “Just don’t try to bolt out the door, okay? I’m faster than you, even from over here.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she actually seemed offended. “I’d never run away like a caught thief. I’ve done nothing wrong, except perhaps not introduce myself to your father, who I did not, by the way, know was the Alpha.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. The names of the run Alphas isn’t information that I have access to.”

“You couldn’t ask Daddy? Or doesn’t he know that I’m supposed to kill him?”

“I told him of the vision, but he didn’t believe me. Not even when I figured out who you were and that you were loup garou.”

“How did you figure that out, anyway?”

“I have a good memory for faces. I’ve spent many years amusing myself with research, investigating small mysteries, absorbing knowledge. You can discover almost anything on the internet, if you know where to look.”

“So you have magical internet hacking skills?”

“Hardly. I found a band photo online, and I tracked you from there. You should have used a stage name, Rook McQueen.”

“That’s really creepy.”

She shrugged—her only response.

“You keep mentioning your father,” he said. “What does your mother think of all this?”

“Nothing. She died when I was an infant.”

“I’m sorry.”

Rook looked out over the auction floor. His father had taken his seat up on the dais between Butch, their auctioneer, and Amber, the office manager. Father didn’t need to be up there for the auction to run smoothly, but he always was, unless he was absolutely needed elsewhere. He teased and joked with the audience, and the friendly rapport often helped drive prices. The higher the prices, the more the seller earned—and the more the house kept.

Knight and Bishop had joined Devlin and Winston Burke by the tables to work as runners, buyers were taking their seats, and everyone seemed primed to go. He knew this performance by heart and he hated being apart from it.

Brynn’s scent shifted, drawing closer, and he startled when she stepped up to the window, keeping a good two-arm’s reach of distance between them. Her presence rippled over him as though she’d caressed his skin. He’d never felt anything like it. Had she felt it, too, or was it all his imagination?

“What’s happening down there?” she asked.

Rook arched an eyebrow at her. “You’ve never been to an auction?”