Page 1 of Visions of You
CHAPTER 1
Keegan was on the ground.
A young dragon shifter in baggy street clothes leaned over him. Tears streaked the shifter's pretty face, and he held a stake in one shaking hand.
He looked desperate, terrified in a way Keegan could not explain—when really, it should have been Keegan who was terrified.
Keegan couldn't get up from the ground. His chest felt heavy with inexplicable weight. His whole body burned as if he was on fire. He said something to the shifter, but he couldn't hear his own words.
He imagined that he was pleading for his life.
The shifter's lips were moving, but Keegan couldn't make out whathewas saying either.
Then the shifter raised the stake and plunged it into Keegan's heart.
That was how that vision ended.
Every single time.
The stake would bury itself in his chest and Keegan would snap back to reality.
And every time, Keegan felt a little more pissed off at being shown a vision of his death.
This was his gift—or curse.
He could see the future. Every possible version of it, spread out before him like a complex network of threads, each one a possible path, a possible choice. Sometimes many threads led to the same conclusion. Other times they diverged and split up. Some threads were thick and strong, while others were thin and fragile, like spider silk.
When he had a vision, all the potential paths that led to it would light up like he was being guided by his very own psychic GPS.
All his visions worked like that.
Except for the one that showed him his ultimate demise.
It was the very first vision he had ever seen, and it lit up every single thread in the network.
Whatever path you choose,it seemed to say,this is where you'll end up.
It was ridiculous. The future wasn't written in stone. No one knew that better than Keegan.
And yet.
This one vision seemed stubbornly inevitable.
"You all right?" His best friend, Mordyn, asked.
"I'm fine," Keegan replied automatically, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Mordyn didn't look convinced. They were at the club, which was busy as usual for a Friday night. The air was filled with music, laughter and the hum of conversation. The smell of blood, sweat, and alcohol was thick and familiar.
"You were staring into space," Mordyn said. "You've been doing that a lot lately. More than usually."
Keegan wanted to wave his friend off, but Mordyn was right. He'd been acting like a fledgling, distracted by the onslaught ofvisions he couldn't control. "I don't know what's going on," he admitted. "There's this one vision I can't shake, and it's been dropping by uninvited."
He picked up his wine glass which was still half-full of blood and took a sip. Mage blood tonight. Maybe he should cut back on it. The stuff always seemed to make his visions more vivid.
"What kind of vision?" Mordyn asked. "Anything I need to worry about?"
Keegan shrugged. "I don't know. I've been seeing this one for…" He made a show of counting on his fingers. "Almost eighty years."
