Page 2 of Pike

But she wasn’t easily put off. “I think I see some books in the back. Why don’t you stay by the door and tell me if someone comes by? Keep them off my tail.”

“Tell you if someone comes?” Ben’s eyes looked large enough to explode out of his head. “It’s a retail shop. Of course they’re going to come. They’re going to see us and kick us out. They might even go to the police when they see we aren’t here to buy anything. I’m sure the owners want to crack down on the troublemakers who keep coming inside for a prank.”

He was always the first one to see the worst-case scenario. Not just see them, but veer off course and take the worst-case detour.

“Just whistle, okay?” she said in an agitated whisper.

Lavinia tapped a finger on her chin and moved quickly toward the back of the store. There were a million other places she would rather be. Her head flew out of control from the mix of temperature and incense. She drew the sides of her sweater together when a sudden chill took her. For all the heat in the store, it was impossible to get warm.

She scanned the items on either side of her and saw nothing of interest. Sure, there were crystal balls. There were boxes of wands, small pieces of twine tied up in intricate knots and circles. Candles in rainbow hues. There were gilded dragons and rune-etched Norse blades and curios of all shapes and sizes.

Then there were the spell books.

Her eyes zeroed in on the leather tomes. Their spines glittered like they were bound in magic itself. No matter how hard she tried to ignore them, they drew her, a magnet turned toward the north. This time she didn’t need to force her feet forward. They moved on their own.

Her fingertips reached out to the second shelf and the scarred book with a long purple bookmark ribbon trailing almost to the floor. She grazed the spine. Fire scorched her skin. Unspoken words burned her throat, and with incense thick in the air and Ben’s frantic whistles falling on deaf ears, Lavinia opened the book to read.

CHAPTER 1

Asheville, North Carolina – Present Day

On a dark city street, against a nighttime backdrop of lit office buildings and tree-lined residential areas, Lavinia Cutler urged her legs to speed the hell up. She kept her head down, a black hoodie hiding her face from any attention she may have attracted. Her hands dug deep into the pockets of her jeans.

Hurry. Hurry!

He needed her help. She was almost positive about the image she’d seen, flashing across the inside of her head like a film reel at the movie theater. Black and white. No sound. Almost positive because sixty-eight percent of the time, the things she saw didn’t come true. Or hadn’t yet happened. She couldn’t quite get the hang of this part-time psychic gig.

There was probably a trick to harnessing her cognitive powers. Some technique she hadn’t yet discovered, some skill she hadn’t yet mastered.

Lavinia wasn’t sure.

She was a store clerk, for God’s sake, alone at night and a little hungry. She’d skipped dinner. Once the vision played behind her eyes, dangling there like a carrot in front of a starving horse, she’d been out the door and gone without grabbing a bite to eat. She really needed to learn to keep a snack in her pocket for the next time she wigged out and lost her mind.

At least she’d remembered her sweater this time. The first vision she’d had about Pike had her running through downtown after him, wearing nothing but a tank top and sleep shorts and hastily donned sandals. In thirty-degree weather. North Carolina winters were no joke. Wind chill alone tended to take it down several degrees below freezing.

This time she was a little better prepared.

Pike Radclyffe was a stranger then, and had laughed at her when she’d finally found him. He’d laughed at her concern when she’d rounded a corner and saw him leaning against the entrance to a pub, with his hands empty and a couple of buddies circling him, all sharing a smoke. It was definitely not the bloody brawl she’d seen in her vision, accompanied by a blinding urge to help. It was pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum.

When she’d first seen Pike in her head movies, he’d been running down a couple of rat shifters. Rat shifters. Something Lavinia never thought she’d say in this geological age. She was just getting off work and walking through the front door when the vision had knocked her on her ass. Her brain spun under a tidal wave of colors and sounds, places she’d never seen and a man she didn’t know. Then a dose of tall, dark, and handsome was staring out at her from amidst his circle of friends. Men, not rats. No blood and no brawl.

He’d sent the crazy stranger on her way and told her to get to bed like a good girl. Oh, the embarrassment. She hadn’t even gotten a proper introduction out of him.

Most of her visions centered on the man. It was infuriating! For reasons she couldn’t fathom, the moment she’d opened the spell book eight years ago and muttered an incantation she should have left alone, Lavinia and Pike were deeply connected. A metaphysical bond neither one understood. It took a grand total of five years before she’d actually met him in person. She felt like she’d known him forever, having seen his smile in her dreams a week after the spell-gone-wrong.

Then every night since.

It took one smile, a single snarky smile where his pearly teeth flashed brilliantly in the night, and the image in her head melded with the real-life version helping her to her feet after her knees buckled.

She was toast.

Pike was the kind of man who turned heads. A dark fantasy. Or a wild nightmare? Lavinia still wasn’t sure. All she knew was that her body reacted viscerally whenever he stood within two hundred feet of her. Too bad he didn’t feel the same way. He found her meager paranormal gifts cheeky.

Did she mention the British accent? It was hard to resist.

Yeah, no wonder she was scurrying through back alleys trying to find him. To assist him, she amended. Her vision had told her that he was in trouble. Again. Or he would be soon. Or had been already.

She was almost positive this time.

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