Seer: A Werelock Evolution Series Duet (Book 1 of 2) Page 4

  The morning rush was over, thankfully, which meant we could probably get away with both of us taking inventory while still keeping an eye out for customers. And if we managed to get through inventory quickly, I might even have enough time to take a nap in the breakroom before my Deviant Social Behavior class.

  “You’re the best; you know that?” I knocked my shoulder against his. When he blushed in response, I felt a small pang of guilt.

  Jeff was a good guy. And not at all bad-looking, really. In dim lighting after three drinks he was almost cute enough to hook up with. Almost being the operative word. He was simply classic, eternal friend-zone material. Always had been, always would be.

  We’d barely begun the inventory process, taking turns keeping an eye on the front of the shop through the open door of the back storeroom, when Jeff cleared his throat and muttered under his breath, “Your stalker is back.”

  His announcement was unnecessary, because even with my back to the entrance, I’d felt the man’s presence a second before Jeff had said something. And my eyes were drawn to the front door like a magnet as he walked through it.

  It was him: the older-looking sexy motherfucker who kept showing up around campus. Watching me. Or so it seemed—in my head. Or my wishful thinking. I had tried to strike up a conversation with him in the coffee shop only yesterday when he had come in. But he’d shut me down, ignoring me and walking off.

  I shook my head. “I think he’s stalking you, actually,” I whispered. “That guy’s gay.”

  Jeff laughed, and the brown eyes of the beautiful man in question snapped in our direction and narrowed upon me. I felt my cheeks flush at the censorious look the stranger projected at me, and I had to remind myself that there was no way he’d actually heard what I’d whispered from more than thirty feet away.

  I wished I could claim it was purely his ridiculous good looks that drew me in and annihilated every last one of my brain cells whenever he was near. I’d no qualms about being a shallow, oversexed coed lusting after a hot older man. But there was more to it than that.

  Sure, my vajayjay fluttered to life at the sight of him and my thoughts spiraled straight into a red-light district gutter. But it was something beyond a sexual awareness that he spurred in me. It was the faintest feeling of hope amid hopelessness; a glimmer of rightness in a world I’d long ago written off as wrong.

  I wasn’t one of those women who got off on trying to fix men. Uh-uh. Not me. Typically, I met a guy, quickly catalogued all that was wrong with him—whether real or imagined—and used it as a reason to run screaming for the hills as soon as possible. I had enough problems of my own to work through in life. I was no hero (glutton for punishment) looking to take on and correct someone else’s issues.

  And at first glance, Stranger-Danger didn’t appear to be a man who required fixing. He appeared perfect.

  A beautiful male specimen, he was impeccably dressed each time I saw him on campus. He strode into a room with that quietly commanding, predatory grace that few straight men could pull off without looking like they were trying too hard to pull it off. Each time we had interacted, he’d come across as well-mannered, self-assured, and well-spoken—a man in full control of himself and his surroundings.

  But it was a lie.

  Inside, he was a soul on fire. He was a man drowning. A being who had lost all sense of purpose and the will to survive—and he was dangling over a cliffside flirting with death.

  How did I know this? Because every time our eyes met, his were screaming, “Save me.”

  Save me—as if only I could.

  Even now, as he sauntered casually through the coffee shop toward the register, his eyes were crying out for my help.

  As I stepped behind the counter to greet him, he stared back at me as if he knew me. Intimately. The strangest part was I felt like I knew him, too. He looked at me as if he could read my every thought. As if he’d seen me naked before. As if he knew all my secrets already.

  But then his eyes cut to my nametag, and I was reminded that it was all in my head.

  “Morning,” he greeted politely. Curtly. He glanced at my nametag once more, and I felt an absurd, stabbing pain in my chest. “Lauren, is it?”

  “It is.” I plastered on a fake smile. “Congratulations. You passed the vision and the reading test.” Lame!

  He looked at me strangely, and I laughed a little too hard. Then I snorted.

  “You a new professor this semester?” Jeff stepped up beside me and asked conversationally, inadvertently coming to my rescue.

  “No.”

  Wow. If looks could kill, then Jeff had just been minced and thrown to the fish.

  “What can I get you?” I interjected.

  “Coffee. Large. Black.”

  For no other reason but the fact that I was born crazy, my eyes shot straight to his crotch when he said it.

  When my willful eyes found their way back up to his face, the look he gave me said he’d noticed their detour.

  “I thought I saw you spill something there,” I lied. Oh, my God, shut up, Lauren.

  His brow rose. He was looking at me like he couldn’t believe they let the mentally challenged work here, much less go to school at the university.

  “I left my glasses at home,” I lied. Again.

  “You don’t wear glasses,” Jeff pointed out.

  Not helpful, buddy. “I do now,” I insisted, digging the hole deeper. “They’re new. Just got ’em. Do you need a towel, sir?” I pressed, because I was too stubborn to back down and let it go.

  “I didn’t spill anything,” he replied, his forehead wrinkling.

  “If you say so.” I shrugged. “I’ll just get your coffee.”

  “Wait. On second thought—” As he spoke, his hand shot out and came down atop mine, imprisoning it against the counter to halt me.

  Anyone watching the exchange might’ve thought he’d just grabbed me by the hoo-ha for how strongly I overreacted. I was so thrown off balance by the sensation of him touching me that I was literally thrown off balance—stumbling backward and almost falling. I would’ve landed in a heap on the floor if Jeff hadn’t caught hold of me from behind.

  When he did, a growling sound erupted from Stranger-Danger, who was suddenly behind the counter next to me, yanking me from Jeff’s grasp as Jeff went sprawling to the floor.

  “What the hell, man?” Jeff demanded.

  “You have inventory to take,” the stranger clasping me flush against his hard body snapped in retort at my hapless coworker.

  All five of the patrons hanging out in the coffee shop turned in our direction to see what the commotion was about.

  To my surprise, Jeff picked himself up off the floor and said, “You’re right. I’ve got inventory to take.” Then he nonchalantly headed back to the storeroom—as if it were perfectly normal to take orders from the stranger who’d somehow hopped the counter into our employees-only space faster than a person should be capable of moving.

  Wait, how had he known about the inventory?

  Stranger-Danger’s arm tightened around my waist, sending a molten thrill through me that shot straight to my lower belly, making me feel disoriented as I looked up at him.

  This close, his eyes weren’t just screaming “save me.” They seemed to be pleading for acceptance … for my understanding. Of what, I wasn’t certain. The fact that he was a total stranger holding me against him like he never wanted to let me go?

  For a moment, his soft brown eyes looked at me with such unmasked eagerness, I swore I could almost see all the thoughts flying behind them that he wanted to tell me—the many things he was dying to express to someone.

  No. Not someone. Me. He wanted to tell me. Maybe because he believed that I could save him from whatever darkness was consuming him.

  Or maybe because he wanted to consume me.

  My body flared with heat as I felt his arm tighten further around my waist, his fingers digging into my hipbone. The palm of his other hand flattened against
my upper back, drawing me closer. He was going to kiss me!

  I could smell the mint on his breath as his head dipped, see the passion and possessive intent in his brown eyes as his lips parted and descended.

  But then he ruined it all.

  “This was a mistake,” he mumbled, releasing me. “I don’t … I don’t like the coffee here.”

  Before I’d taken my next inhale, he was gone—hopping the counter with the speed and ease of an Olympic gymnast and flying out the front door.

  5

  Lauren

  I wasn’t crazy. It had happened. It wasn’t all in my head.

  Even if Jeff hadn’t witnessed it. Even if the five customers present in the coffee shop at the time had looked away and gone about their business as if nothing odd had occurred.

  Stranger-Danger had been about to kiss me. I was there. I’d felt his arms around me. I’d seen the heat in his eyes. The yearning.

  It had happened.

  I’m not crazy.

  I repeated this mantra in my head as I stomped through the freshly fallen snow. It was a mantra I’d repeated often enough throughout my life.

  Scattered flurries were still coming down. I was living in an eternal winter. I should’ve just gone to school in Seattle. Sure, it was snowing there, too, but it was at least ten degrees warmer in Seattle in January than it was here. Okay, so maybe more like six. Still—I’d take those six degrees right now.

  Damnit, I was late for class.

  Deviant Social Behavior was one of my favorite required courses this semester. Unfortunately, the class was located in my least favorite lecture hall. It wasn’t simply because Cambridge Hall was located all the way across campus—the farthest distance from my dorm as well as my job at The Screamin’ Beans—that I disliked it. It was because it was the renovated former administration building originally built in the eighteen hundreds, adjacent to the former hospital erected at the same time.

  For anyone with a pulse, the vibe of the old hospital building was eerie. For someone who sometimes kinda sorta maybe for sure struggled with extrasensory perception just a teensy bit, it was damn exhausting. And I was already tired from lack of restful sleep. I hadn’t been able to take a nap in the breakroom like I’d wanted to because my mind had been too preoccupied replaying my interaction with Stranger-Danger this morning.

  It was always harder to block supernatural activity when I was tired. But I pushed through the doors to the old building and hoped for the best. In my head, I chanted, “I don’t see you, I can’t hear you, I won’t help you,” as I ascended the stairs to the second floor and headed down the long hallway toward the entrance to my classroom. It was a novice’s trick my Granny Nina had taught me as a child. She hadn’t lived long enough to teach me much else. Thankfully, it worked well enough for me most of the time.

  “Boundaries, Lauren. You have to set boundaries with the undead,” Granny used to say to me. She’d said the same of visions: “Don’t let the visions control you. Let them be a tool—a guide. They’re meant to aid you. But they’re not a clear road map. Don’t allow them to box you in, to blind you to the sharp turns and dark corners that may still lie in your path.”

  Several familiar voices followed me as I made my way through the vacant corridor. Predictably, the loudest voices belonged to the angry man claiming to have been framed and the woman who was perpetually wailing over her dead baby.

  The spirit of the hysterical woman didn’t bother me much. While the sound of her wailing sometimes gave me the shivers, she was a weak, harmless spirit. I got the sense she had no idea I could hear her. She may not have even been aware of my presence, in fact—too trapped within the interminable loop of her own grief to sense much else. The irate man, however, gave me the creeps. He knew I could hear him, and he always tried to engage with me. He didn’t take kindly to being ignored and blocked, either, and recently he’d resorted to taunting me.

  “Think you’re so smart … so much better than me,” he grumbled in my left ear. “Just like the rest of them … too busy to help me … too proud to be associated with the accused …”

  Picking up my pace, I focused on the clomping sound my boots made in the barren hallway.

  I don’t see you.

  I can’t hear you.

  I won’t help you.

  “I’m innocent! I didn’t do it, you hear me? I never touched those kids. I was wrongly accused, and I can prove it.”

  Whatever this asshole had been accused of, he was guilty. I was sure of it. And once I graduated in two years and knew that I’d never have to set foot in this building again for a class, I was going to do a little search through the town archives to find out what creepy shit he was guilty of. But I didn’t need to know today. I didn’t want to know today.

  I don’t see you.

  I can’t hear you.

  I won’t help you.

  “I built this institution, you stomping, stuck-up bitch,” he hissed at my back.

  I could hear footsteps falling behind me now, stomping as if mocking my rapid gait.

  Great. Granny had said it was a bad sign when spirits grew strong enough to move objects or create sounds in the physical world. What’s worse, he was also drawing more undead attention to me, as faintly I heard a new spirit calling out—beseeching me to stop.

  Don’t engage.

  You can’t hear him.

  “I know you can hear me. I saved countless lives within these walls. I was a well-respected man in this town, and I demand to be vindicated!”

  A hand tapped the back of my shoulder, and I lost it.

  “Fuck off, asshole; I won’t help you!” I spun around to glare at the invisible creep of a spirit who had just dared to cross the line and touch me, and I nearly had a heart attack when I came face to face with a very real, very attractive, wide-eyed young man in a wool peacoat holding his palms up in surrender.

  “Oh, my God, I’m so, so sorry,” I apologized, my heart lodged in my throat. “I—I thought you were someone else.”

  “Sure hate to be that guy,” he muttered with a wry, tentative smile. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

  “Not at all,” I lied.

  Mercy, he had a British accent. My depressing day had just taken a turn for the better.

  “I’m looking for a deviant sosh class. You wouldn’t happen to know if this is the right—”

  “Yes, it’s just down the hall, second classroom on the left.” My pulse was still racing, and my words came out breathless. “I’m headed there myself. Though I kinda feel like skipping now that the whole class probably just heard me yell at you to fuck off,” I admitted with a wince.

  He laughed. “In that case, we should probably walk in together.” His grey eyes gave me a swift once-over. “Maybe even hold hands? You know, keep ’em guessing.”

  He was flirting with me. A guy who was tall and good-looking, smelled nice, and had a sexy British accent was actually standing outside of my deviant sosh class flirting with me.

  “I’m Michael.” He held his hand out. “Michael Fulton. Just transferred here from Oxford.”

  “Wow. Why?” I blurted without thinking.

  He cracked up again, and I realized how much I liked the sound. Also how much I liked his face when he was grinning. I reached out and shook his hand.

  “Lauren Novak. And not to be rude, but seriously, why?”

  “I’m here for a semester as part of my Oxford Ph.D. program.”

  Older man. Check. Sexy Brit. Check. Well-educated. Check and major score.

  “Which program? What’s your doctorate in?”

  “Religious studies.”

  Ugh. Major fail. Abort, abort.

  “And their impact on accepted social behavior—particularly social deviances.”

  Ooh, game back on again.

  “Cool.” I blushed as more intelligent speech failed me.

  He totally noticed my blush, too, because he gave me a look that said he was charmed by it. God, I could eat thi
s guy with a spoon.

  He was no Stranger-Danger reducing me to a pool of lust with one glance and turning my brain to mush, but I definitely felt something stirring in my lower half. This was good. This was what normal, healthy attraction felt like. Stranger-Danger was just a bizarre crush. What I thought I felt when I saw him was all fantasy. It wasn’t real. I didn’t even know his name or anything about him. The chemistry that I’d imagined we’d shared this morning was all in my head.

  “Shall we?” Michael smiled and gestured in the direction of my—our—classroom.

  I happily led the way.

  I spent a good portion of class distractedly eyeballing Michael’s forearms. I’d suspected that he was fairly well-built beneath his peacoat, and when he took it off and slung it over the back of the seat that he had taken next to mine, I was not disappointed. Several times during the lecture he leaned over to me to offer well-timed, humorous commentary. By the end of class, I was quite taken with my smart, witty new acquaintance.

  We were still in our seats, chatting and exchanging numbers as the rest of the class was shuffling out, when I heard a feminine gasp over my shoulder.

  “Lauren, is that you? I can’t believe you’re already back at class,” a grating female voice awash with false concern interrupted our conversation. “You must be so traumatized.”

  I looked up to find Jana, our classmate, standing in the aisle next to my seat—biting her lower lip and making weird eyes at me that I could only guess were meant to convey concern.

  Sheesh, she was a shitty actress. Jana hated me, so if there truly was some news for me to be upset over, she was no doubt rejoicing right now.

  “Ah, excuse me?” I raised one brow in feigned interest and gave her a tight-lipped smile, since I couldn’t very well just tell her to go fuck herself in front of Michael.

  “Oh, how rude of me,” she gushed, her greedy blue eyes cutting to Michael. She thrust her hand at him, nearly elbowing me in the face as she reached past me. “I’m Lauren’s friend, Jana.”

  Ha! My friend.