Impulse

Chapter Nine

Julio was getting used to waking up with Sera in his arms.

It made him not want to crawl out of bed. So he snuggled closer and nestled his face in the crook of her neck. “More sleep.”

“Mmm.” She’d showered and braided her hair before bed, but little pieces always escaped, and they tickled his nose as she tilted her head. “Morning. Or good night again. Whichever.”

“Morning.” The slanting light drifting through the curtains was too diffuse to be anything but.

“Early.”

“Then we can stay in bed.” Her voice was husky with sleep, and warm. Unguarded. “You don’t get to leave. I’d get cold, since you wouldn’t let me put on clothes.”

Because he hadn’t been willing to give up the soft press of her bare skin against his. “Like your tiny pajama shorts would keep you warm anyway.”

“You just like my ass,” she mumbled. “Don’t deny it. I know you’re an ass man, Mendoza.”

“Guilty.” Hers was round and firm, and his mouth watered as he smoothed his hand down over her curves.

She stretched sleepily under his touch, all but purring as she rolled onto her stomach. “Lucky me. You should spend some time appreciating mine.”

Her back arched, thrusting her backside up on display. “Must not be too cold,” he whispered, sweeping the sheet aside. “You’re encouraging me to do this.” He leaned down and bit her ass.

Her moan of appreciation was just getting interesting when a knock rattled the door.

“Mendoza? Put some clothes on and open the door, would you?”

Wesley Dade. Julio sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face with a groan. The biting retort died on his tongue when he realized there was no good reason the psychic should have been standing outside his motel room.

Unless something had gone very, very wrong.

He slid from the bed, dragged on a pair of jeans and looked at Sera. “Want to grab your clothes and hit the bathroom?”

She rose without bothering with clothing, picking up one of her suitcases instead. “Is that Wesley?”

“Yeah.” Julio hesitated, then told her the truth. “If he’s here, it can’t be anything good.”

“I understand.” Naked and wide-eyed, she should have looked vulnerable. But her hands gripped the suitcase and her expression turned stubborn. “I’ll stay in the bathroom if you want me to, but I’d rather know what’s going on.”

“Hell no. Get dressed and come out. Anything he has to tell me, he can do it in front of you.”

Something in her face softened. She crossed the room and rose to her toes to kiss him.

“Thank you.”

A tiny part of him cracked. It wasn’t right that she’d thank him for such a tiny courtesy, but there was no avoiding it. At best, she was used to being treated as someone who needed to be shielded, even to her detriment.

Damned if he’d do it too. The bathroom door closed behind her, and he dragged open the front door and leaned against the peeling paint. “Dade.”

“Mendoza.” Wesley looked like hell, jaw unshaven and eyes dull with exhaustion. He smiled, though, and raised one eyebrow. “I only rate half-dressed, huh?”

“I don’t figure you’ll swoon at the sight of my bare chest.”

“I see you tucked the cute redhead out of sight, though.”

Julio crossed his arms over his chest and stepped back. “She’s getting dressed, but she’ll be out in a minute.”

“Damn. You really were naked.” Wesley walked past him and gave the rumpled bed one curious look before striding to the window. “Not the poshest place ever. I heard you two ran into some trouble.”

“Anna likes to run her mouth.” It wasn’t true, but he had to say something that didn’t have to do with nakedness or the bed and Sera. “What’re you doing in Florida?”

Wesley didn’t answer the question. “Anna doesn’t run her mouth. I called and nagged until she told me you’d had a scuffle and it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle.”

The man might have been psychic, but he sure the hell wasn’t a mind reader. “I know, Wesley. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” After a moment, the other man turned to perch on the small table. “Something changed. I’ve been having the dreams for a while, but yesterday I had a vision.”

The shower cut on, so Julio settled on the edge of the bed and nodded. “Something certain instead of a possibility?”

“Something likely. Maybe. Other precogs clog the works.” He waved a hand at Julio. “Trying to guess your future is like playing poker when half the deck’s wild. But something big is trying to break through, and Sera’s at the heart of it.”

Julio tensed. “Her ex, or something with the wolves?”

Wesley ran his hands through his hair with a snarl. “I don’t know. Maybe lady luck is mad at me for meddling too much. I see…” He hesitated. “Death. Pain. Apathy. Dominoes falling. Gaps where there should be life. A witch who can shapeshift taking over the Southeast council. Magic exposed. Humans running scared.”

Julio held up a hand. “Wait, back up. A witch who can what?”

“That’s not the important part,” Wesley countered, his frustration clear. “If it’s not that, it’s something else. What matters is that Alec had to go and give everyone hope, and if we lose it before it feels real, everything falls apart.”

“Everything falls apart.” It sounded too much like a proclamation, an abso-fucking-lute state of being. Julio’s mind whirled. “There isn’t much that could knock Alec off course. Just—just Carmen being hurt.”

Wesley leaned forward and jabbed Julio in the shoulder. “Dominoes,” he said again, and pushed.

The realization hit him harder than the sharp poke. “You’re talking about me and Sera.” It was easy to see the progression once he started with Sera—hurt her, and you could hurt him and Franklin. Hurt them, and you hurt Carmen and Alec. It went on and on, a lightning strike that splintered into a hundred forks of pain.

“Another place, another time, it would have been someone else. But in this place at this time…” Wesley dropped his hand. “Something changed yesterday. I don’t know what you two are doing together, but something changed, and you need to promise me, Mendoza. Promise me you’re not going to let her out of your sight, because you’re the wild card. I never see my own future coming, but you can.”

“I promise.” He offered the words because Wesley expected them, and because they were true. “I’ll protect her.”

Wesley glanced toward the bathroom as the shower cut off. “In my dream she had a gun, like the ones Patrick McNamara uses. Silent and untraceable. You should get her one of those.”

Magical weapons. Unseen threats. It made Julio want to bare his teeth and snarl. “Anything else?”

Wesley’s gaze drifted to the bed again. His lips twitched. “It’s already changing. It’s always changing. Everyone thinks I’m the powerful one, but they have no idea how many times a day you use your gift.”

“Yeah,” Julio deadpanned. “My all-powerful, consuming visions.”

“Your goddamn hunches.” Wesley laughed. “Hell, Mendoza, you don’t even know, do you?

Maybe half the time you think it was just whim, or you blame some shapeshifter instinct. Maybe it’s all tangled up together for you. Fate can’t pin you down because the second she does, some part of you knows to go left instead of right, to take the back roads instead of the interstate. Knows to kidnap Franklin Sinclaire’s daughter for a debauched road trip, even though the rest of us would be scared of losing our balls.”

Sera exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam, dressed in jeans and a thin tank top that clung to her damp skin. “For the record, I went willingly. No kidnapping necessary.”

Wesley grinned at her. “Quit flirting with me, Miss Sinclaire. Your boyfriend’ll wrap my spine around my knees.”

Julio’s retort slammed into a dizzy wave of power, silenced by the way the room faded and brightened at the same time. Some hazy bit of the future, slick and evasive, danced before his eyes, but it vanished before he could get anything but the slightest sense of it. Too far away, perhaps, too uncertain. Unformed.

He shook away the vision with a laugh, suddenly certain of at least one thing. “You still need to be worried about the safety of your balls, Wesley. Just…maybe not quite yet.”

Wesley’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. “Wow, that’s more annoying than I realized. You guys must want to punch me all the time.”

Sera grinned. “You’re lucky you’re pretty. Though I doubt that carries much weight with my dad and Alec. Maybe Carmen.”

“Carmen loves him, warts and all.” Julio stepped closer to Sera and quirked a brow at Wesley. “You sticking around?”

“Hell no. I make a damn squeaky third wheel.” He winked at Sera as he pushed off the table.

“Besides, I came all the way down here. It’d be a shame if I didn’t take a look at the local casinos. Maybe my luck’s better in the sunshine state.”

“Don’t call me to get you out of trouble,” Julio warned. He’d be busy anyway, looking up where to find one of those nifty guns Patrick liked to tote around.

Wesley winced. “Yeah, about that. McNeely’s going to be giving you an earful when you get back. But whatever he says, it’s an exaggeration. I didn’t start the brawl, and I really didn’t see who stole the fertility statue.”

If it had been anything less ridiculous, Julio might have questioned it. Instead, he ran with it.

“Right. You never throw the first punch, huh?”

“I’m an angel, man.” Wesley extended a hand. “Now, since I got on a plane to deliver your warning in person, you owe me. Get McNeely off my back. Jackson may not bail me out next time.”

“He’ll always bail your ass out.” Julio pulled Wesley into a hug and clapped him on the back.

“I owe you one.”

“Yeah you do.” Wesley released Julio and sized up Sera. “I’m trying to decide if being the last one to steal a kiss from you is worth having Julio dent my head.”

Sera laughed, though her cheeks turned pink. “My dad’s right. You like to push your luck.”

“Yes, he does.” Julio nodded toward the door. “Blackjack table’s waiting.”

When he’d gone, Sera dropped to the bed with a self-conscious laugh. “He was laying that all on a little thick. What is his obsession with getting people to punch him?”

“Control.” It made a twisted sort of sense, he supposed. “Wesley can’t see his own future, but he can make it. Hit on some guy’s girl, get punched. Pretty simple equation that means he does know what’s coming, after all.”

“Some guy’s girl, huh?” Sera braced her hands behind her and stared up at him, her smile so teasing it was trying too hard. “Am I your girl?”

She was waiting for him to turn it into a joke, so he stroked his thumb over her jaw and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. “You’re my girl.”

Her smile slipped away, replaced by tension and heat. “I always did suck at taking things slow.”

“That’s okay,” he murmured. “So do I.”

She hooked her fingers under the waistband of his jeans, dragged him forward and nuzzled his bare abdomen. “We haven’t shifted in a few days. I’m getting antsy.”

After he’d talked to Patrick and located an arms dealer, he’d find a good spot to run. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ve got a lot to take care of.” She sighed and wrapped her arms around his hips. “I heard everything he said, you know. Even over the shower. I don’t want the fate of the world resting on my shoulders. They’re not that strong.”

“Hey. They’re as strong as they need to be, and that’s the part that matters.” He gathered her hair back and watched her lashes fall and rise through several slow blinks. “And you can’t change the fact that people care about you.”

“I guess not.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled against him again, the touch seeming more innocent than sensual. “It still scares the hell out of me. You’ve scared me since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

He’d never shared that fear, only a strange, heavy sense of destiny. “My mother thought I was doing the psychic thing wrong, you know.”

“Why?”

“She believed in Fate, I guess, only she called it God’s will.” Whenever his mother had had a prophetic dream, she’d filed it away as an inevitable occurrence, something willed into existence by her maker. Good or bad, she’d never acted to change anything.

Sera pulled back to study his face. “God’s will was for us to have free will. If precognition fits into that, it should be to give you choices. Or did she think it was a test?”

“Not a test, exactly. More like…a burden. Her cross to bear.”

“And Joan of Arc thought they were a promise, and that didn’t end well for her.” Sera tugged at him until he knelt in front of her, then cupped his face. “The middle ground may not seem as noble, but it’s a lot less likely to get you martyred. And I would be really sad if you got martyred.”

“That’s the argument, isn’t it?” Julio shook his head. “Wesley came here because he had a vision, and he acted on it. What if that’s the shit that gets you dead?”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy?” She stroked her thumbs over his cheeks. “It’s not just for precogs.

My dad spent his life terrified that I was going to get kidnapped by some coyote looking for a mate. I ran wild as a teenager, and he let me because he was afraid of what I was. Afraid that if he didn’t let me be rebellious, I’d roll over and show my belly to the first coyote who came along. And I did. But if I’d been less rebellious, I wouldn’t have run away with him.”

All Franklin had ever wanted was to protect her, but he’d been so scared of driving her away that he hadn’t given her what she really needed. “The best of intentions, I guess, but it only proves Mom’s point. If anything you do, no matter how well-meaning, can fuck everyone up… why do anything?”

“Because that’s what life is about. Fucking up enough to maybe not be an idiot by the time you have grandkids, so you can shake your head about how your kids are raising them all wrong.” She pressed her forehead to his. “You’re alpha, baby. Your mom and even Wesley Dade could never get that. You can’t do nothing, because it’d break you.”

“Maybe,” he allowed with a grin. “And maybe I’m a self-important dick who thinks he can change the world.”

“It looks good on you.” Sera kissed his nose, then his cheek. “Unless being self-important means you’re going to drag me out of the hotel in search of a magic weapon right this second.

Because you’re half-dressed, and I’m your girl. And that’s hot.”

“No, I’ve got to make a call or two first. And find a shirt.”

“Shirts are overrated.” Her next kiss landed on his ear, soft and warm, before she pulled back with a sigh. “Wesley Dade is a mood killer. And don’t even tell me he couldn’t have picked up the phone and called. He wanted an excuse to hit a casino he hasn’t been banned from.”

He was a mood killer, but not because of his sudden arrival. “Sera, it’s serious. If he thinks you need to be armed like that, it’s nothing to joke about.”

Some of the light in her expression faded. Her shoulders slumped, and her gaze dropped to his chin. “I know.”

He had to lift her chin to meet her eyes again. “It doesn’t mean what you think it does.” That he’d lock down, go into super-alpha mode and choke her with good intentions. “You have to fight. Whatever he saw, whatever’s coming, you have to fight it.”

“That’s what everyone says,” she whispered, her eyes too bright. “They all say they want me to fight, right up until it matters. If you told Alec what Wesley said, he’d lock me in a steel room for the next decade. And who would blame him, if it’s the end of the damn world?”

“Because it’s the answer,” he told her firmly. “If anything any of us do can fuck it all up, then we all need to be prepared. Not just the alphas protecting the subordinates. Everyone, including you.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. “Okay, I believe you.”

No, she didn’t, but that was okay too. “Who knows better where to get enchanted guns, Anna or Patrick? Want to make it a contest between them?”

That got him the ghost of a smile. “If we were on the west coast, I’d say Anna,” Sera mused.

“But the Southeast is Patrick’s area.”

“We could let ’em fight it out. They get off on it, you know.”

“Everyone has their own brand of foreplay.” She twisted away and leaned across the bed to retrieve her phone. “Let’s set them on the trail and go find some place serving breakfast.”

Breakfast. Such a normal start to what couldn’t possibly be a normal day.

The couple selling the guns looked like they needed their own cable television reality show.

Couple—or siblings. Patrick hadn’t been entirely sure and had warned Julio not to ask.

Malcolm and Molly Mitchell had names faker than Molly’s neon pink hair. Malcolm ogled Sera’s chest long enough to make the case for siblings, at least until he glanced at Molly and raised both eyebrows.

“Too big,” was Molly’s cryptic response, “unless you want me to give up bow hunting altogether.” She shook her head and pinned Julio with a fierce look. “You’re not going to buy her a bow, are you?”

He blinked. “I was thinking more along the lines of a pistol. Something semiautomatic, reliable and silent.”

“The McNamara special.” Malcolm grinned and walked from behind the counter. The building Patrick had directed them to looked like a basic enough hunting supply store, but Malcolm gestured for them to follow him through a beaded wooden curtain.

As soon as he crossed the flimsy barrier between the rooms, magic sliced through him like a frigid wind, chilling him from the inside. He reached for Sera’s hand and wrapped his fingers around hers.

The walls were lined with weapons, everything from assault rifles to swords to what looked like gnarled staffs of burned wood. “Impressive stock. Is it all enchanted?”

“To varying degrees.” He glanced over his shoulder and studied Sera again. Not a man looking at a woman this time, but a salesman judging his mark’s net worth. His gaze jumped to Julio, and he didn’t seem embarrassed to have been caught. “How rich are you, wolf? Because even McNamara can’t afford the really good stuff.”

“Pretty damn rich.” Having your evil uncle transfer all his wealth to you had its upsides.

“Something easily hidden too. I want her to be able to carry it without alarming anyone.”

Malcolm rubbed his hands together and turned toward a display of various-sized pistols.

“Molly, I need the athame, an enchanted holster and two kits. Invisibility and binding.”

Molly’s grunted assent drifted through the curtain as Malcolm selected a compact Beretta from the shelf. “This baby has all the standard features. Silent, with untraceable ballistics. It can take our whole range of enchanted ammo, from the bullets that’ll disintegrate an hour after being fired to the ones that’ll fire true, even through walls.”

Sera held out a hand. “May I?”

He handed it over, and she inspected it with a growing familiarity that meant Anna and Jackson had been doing a good job teaching her how to handle firearms. Julio watched as Molly delivered the requested items. “Do you have any rounds specifically designed to take down shapeshifters?”

“Sure, sure.” Malcolm retrieved a cardboard box of ammunition and nodded toward a door on the far side of the room. “Why don’t the two of you take this out back and let her fire off a few rounds while I set up the ritual? Make sure the gun feels right, because there ain’t no quick second chances with this sort of magic. I’ll be tapped out for a few days.”

Julio carried the box, and Molly led them not outside, but to a cavernous warehouse sectioned off into firing lanes. An indoor range, no doubt one fortified to contain and neutralize the magic released inside.

He hoped.

Molly pointed out the various features to Sera, then retreated the way she’d come. Sera stood studying the target for a long time before she sighed. “You’re going to spend more money than I’ve ever seen in my life on this gun. Tell me you’re doing it because of the dominoes, okay? Make me feel better.”

“Wouldn’t you, if Wesley Dade showed up preaching doom and gloom?” There was no ear protection on the surface before them, but he supposed they didn’t need it. “What do you want to try first? Something that goes boom?”

“Sure.” She slid the magazine free and studied the ammo. “Anna hasn’t said anything else to me about Josh, only that I shouldn’t worry. Does that mean she found him, or she’s pretty sure he can’t get to me while I’m with you?”

“She found him.” And she planned to stay on top of him, just in case he got any bright ideas about returning to New Orleans—or worse, tracking Sera down.

The tension in Sera’s shoulders eased. “That’s my big fear, you know. A wolf’s power isn’t the same. It’s close enough most of the time that I don’t feel all that different, but the dominance doesn’t hit me the same way. I still have a choice.”

Every time she mentioned Josh overriding her will, it made Julio sorry he’d fought to keep him alive. “Yeah, you have a choice.”

Sera began to load the magazine with careful, deliberate movements. “If he lays hands on me again, I’ll shoot him. I don’t care if it breaks my coyote. I’m not following the rest of my species down the road to crazy feral town.”

The urge to assure her she wouldn’t have to protect herself rose, turning him into the worst sort of hypocrite. He squashed his instinctive reaction and watched her load the gun. “I hope you don’t have to shoot anyone.”

She smiled. “Me too. I’m a little mixed up, huh?”

“Nope. I’d worry if you were chomping at the bit to spray some lead.” He shook his head.

“Most people want to be left alone. Live in peace.”

“So much for that.” She slid the magazine home and raised both eyebrows. “You want to try first, or should I? Honestly, I’m better with rifles than pistols.”

“A bona fide country girl, huh?” He took a step back. “It’s all yours, sweetheart. I’m kind of shitty with guns, full stop.”

“Anna doesn’t approve of being shitty with guns.” Sera turned and set herself in a careful shooting stance, then squinted at the distant target and fired.

The pistol was silent, but it wasn’t subtle. Magic punched out from her in a jagged circle as the trigger clicked. At the other end of the range, the bullet tore through the outer edge of the target and broke apart before piercing a secondary target in four places.

Julio whistled. The kind of magic wound into the gun and the ammunition wasn’t easy, so he doubted the man had been exaggerating about being down for the count after casting his spells. “No wonder this stuff is so pricey.”

“It’s quiet, even when it pretty much explodes.” Sera adjusted her aim and managed to put a second bullet closer to the center. “The noise always makes me jump, whether I’m wearing ear protection or not. Apparently that’s doubly bad when you’ve got shapeshifter reflexes.”

“It can’t be good for your aim,” he agreed.

“A magical gun.” She fired again, and actually smiled. “I’m only letting you buy this for me because the fate of the world is on the line. And because I’m hoping to get laid.”

He ran his fingers over the delicious line of skin exposed by her shirt riding up. “Badass chicks are hot.”

“Mmm.” Another shot, and the target shredded into pieces when she nailed it through the bulls-eye. “See? Now I’m all inspired.”

“Want to try something else?”

“Sure.”

He retrieved another small box of rounds and peered at the scribbled writing on the side.

“This one either turns people into frogs, or is particularly effective against them. Can’t tell which.”

Sera laughed and bumped her hip against him. “The first time I met Mahalia, I asked her if she could turn people into frogs.”

“Oh yeah? What’d she tell you?”

“That she only did it to people who really pissed her off. Usually she’d just give them warts.”

She plucked the box out of his hand. “One more round, then we need to go in and get this ritual over with. We’re probably both going to leave here bleeding.”

“At least we heal fast.” And it was a damn sight better than bleeding a hell of a lot more later.

Sera loaded the new ammunition and held up the gun. “I bet I can hit closer to the bulls-eye than you can.”

Her victory came to him on a flash, right down to the cute little dance he was sure was last popular in the nineties. “Sucker bet, sunshine. Never wager with a precog.”

“So cheat.” She grinned. “You haven’t even heard the terms yet. If you win, I’ll let you buy me a pretty dress and take me out for a fancy dinner.”

“And if I lose?”

“I get a cheap bar, beer and hot wings, and dirty sex in the bathroom.”

Julio cleared his throat, took the gun from her and winked. “Like I said, sucker bet.”

“Uh-huh.” As she stepped behind him, she trailed her fingers up his arm. “I’m bad news, mister. I hope you can handle me.”

“I’ll try.” He lined up a shot, squeezed the trigger and snorted when the bullet went wide. “I told you I suck at this.”

She laughed and retrieved the gun to line up her shot with adorable concentration that furrowed her brows. Her shot wasn’t perfect, but it winged the target, and her victory dance was just as cute as it had been in his vision.