“What’s your name?” I ask him again, as Anna starts weaving in and out of traffic, taking the scenic route like the deranged sociopath she is.
“Talbot Lane. I’m an incubus, and since you have no one representing our people inside your sanctuary, aside from an alpha none of us can ever remember without a refresher, it’d be an excellent idea to consider me. I brought my portfolio,” he says, passing me a folder, as he brings his phone up.
He notably checks in on his Idun TV app to reveal that the alphas have already started pouring in, ready for a silly fight put up by an embarrassing Simpleton.
“Bloodthirsty, aren’t they?” I muse, smiling tightly.
“Idun’s been unofficially challenged, Ms. Carmine. It’s not happened with someone of Neopry blood since she put Nadine down so hard the woman lost all face in the immortal alpha ring,” he says to me. “And you’re just a wee immortal, Ms. Carmine. This is what I do—I predict outcomes and consequences. And if you ask for mercy, they’ll grant it and make a formal request for Idun to spare this shifter for the sake of continued unity and peace.”
Anna laughs so hard the car jerks to the right…just like her head. I scream and clutch the guy’s leg with the hand that isn’t trying to break the door handle.
“Whoopsy,” Anna says flatly, and then laughs a little again.
“For you, they would,” he says.
I look at someone like they’re na?ve for a change.
He leans over. “I’ll level with you. I’ve looked into you since your stirrings in Ireland. I’m a man who lives on predictions, and an entire race of Simpletons was raised by another Simpleton. Yet all eyes swing back to the few skin walkers, while you go on to build an entire sanctuary, get laws added to surround the sanctuary with zero protest from any alphas as it was done, while we all watched Idun TV. And you did this all in five months, Ms. Carmine. I predicted you’d disappear into Idun’s clutches, punished for raising them before she was ready. Don’t make that prediction right this day.”
I sit a little still, and Anna fans herself.
“I like him. Tell him it was all my idea. I mean, I did come up with the part where you break up with them and kidnap the baby. And the part where you run away with a handsome stranger and ride off into the sunset like true monsters.”
“You do know you’re not delusional anymore, right? You have no excuse for this. At all,” I tell her very seriously, as she horrifies me with even worse driving over a bridge.
Why are we on a bridge?
“Anna, now we only have fifteen minutes to get there, and I don’t know a bridge! Do you even know where we’re going?” I shout.
“I swear I do!” she yells, just as the car spins in a one-eighty and takes off into oncoming traffic.
I scream. She screams. Talbot curses and he screws his eyes shut, as we somehow get airborne for a brief, really terrifying second.
“Anna! How am I supposed to be a pretend badass in thirteen minutes?!” I shout at her as I silently pray we land on four wheels very soon.
We hit hard, and I’m yanked forward with the impact.
“Anna, if I lose my head, I’m really dead,” Talbot informs her.
“He said my name,” Anna swoons, and then mocks a really embarrassing orgasm charade that goes on…and on…and on…
“Ooohhh, baby, yesssss,” she groans as Talbot obliviously carries on speaking to me.
It’s hard to concentrate on a complete stranger with Anna orgasming, while using her ghost powers to drive a vehicle in no particular direction, while my entire House is dependent on me dealing with this, so I miss all of what he’s trying to predict to me.
Relief fills me when I see Vance’s house come into view, and I pat the dude’s arm. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re great and all, but I’m sort of busy right now,” I tell him distractedly, as I spot the guys scanning the area out front.
“Anna, stop here,” I tell her, and my entire body is shoved forward just before we plow into the back end of a stationary vehicle.
Anna screams as she catapults from the front seat, landing on the car’s hood in front of us.
Talbot groans as he grips his head like it aches.
“Did not predict a ghost,” he groans to himself. “I should have. Idun wanted salt for a reason.”
I shove the door open, and I turn to face him, since he did endure that ride. “If you can beta for Damien, then I’ll consider you, in the future, for beta at the sanctuary.”
I shut the door, and he scrambles out of it right behind me.
“He hasn’t taken a single beta in over five centuries. Why would he start now?” he asks as he chases after me, while I head straight toward the quad, who are blocking the doors.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Talbot. Everyone else does the work before joining the madhouse. You got to really want it to put up with what’s coming, and if you can’t get Damien to take you on, then you clearly have no work ethic.”
He exhales a frustrated breath. I have no idea why people do that to me so much. I’m the one having to rush toward the woman everyone else is hiding from, because my life sucks so hard sometimes.
“Do this and there won’t be a sanctuary. You can’t help them if you get lost in the Neopry House. She’ll have no mercy once you commit to an alpha fight, and she won’t stop until she breaks you. Every single omega is watching Idun TV with false hope right now, Ms. Carmine. The sanctuary has so much potential and a strong foundation. But despite your best intentions, you’re not an alpha.”