Sean was quiet when he came home from school, and Gage was so deep into his work he didn't notice Sean was home until his small voice spoke up behind him. "Hey, Gage, can you come into the kitchen for a minute?"

Gage looked up in confusion, taking a few seconds to clear the last threads of code thoughts from the front of his mind. Sean's face was drawn and worried, and Gage stood up quickly. "Yeah, what's wrong?"

Sean bolted at him and wrapped him in a fierce hug. Gage held him close. Sean was at that age where he really didn't initiate hugs. Gage smelled Luke approaching, basil and strawberries, before he saw him, and his anxiety ramped up another step. "What's wrong?" Gage asked Luke, seeing as Sean wasn't being very forthcoming.

Luke leaned with deceptive casualness against the doorjamb. "Mark decided to pay your boy here a visit at practice today."

Gage’s arms clutched tighter around Sean. "He didn't—there wasn't—"

Luke shook his head. "Nothing happened. He said he wanted to bring Sean home—"

"I would never give him permission to do that," I spat.

Luke put out his hands in a calming gesture. "And I told him he had to take your authorization note to the front office, which he clearly didn't have. And then I barely let Sean out of my sight until we came into the house."

Gage closed his eyes in relief and took a deep, calming breath. He pushed Sean back to look him in the eyes. "You're okay?" he confirmed.

Sean nodded, the fear fading from his demeanor.

"Why don't you go get some food, then. I'm sure you're hungry after all that running around."

Sean nodded, but stood on tip toe to whisper in Gage’s ear, "You can tell him." Gage glared at him in his best "not now" look, but Sean met his eyes instead of backing down. "Please, Gage. Just trust me."

Gage held his eyes. "You're sure?"

He nodded.

Gage sighed involuntarily. "Okay. No go on, get a snack."

Luke ruffled Sean's hair as he passed, and the boy gave him a grin. Then Luke turned to Gage and quirked his eyebrow. "So... is there something I should know?"

Gage collapsed in his office chair and pushed the spare at Luke who sat on it backward, leaning his arms against the back of the chair.

"Sean has... a gift," Gage said after several moments of silence. Luke didn't interrupt, but let him process through how to say what he wanted. "He can see things." Gage still wasn't comfortable letting Luke in on this secret he'd held so long, but Mark had crossed a line, and Gage couldn't be at Sean's school all the time. Luke was already there. Bringing Sean home and homeschooling him was only a short term solution, one Gage had battled back and forth on even before Mark had dared show up and school and run the risk of insulting the White Falls and Taylor Road packs.

Luke still waited for Gage to go one.

"Like us," Gage waved between them. "And Jess and Cole."

"He's a matchmaker?" Luke asked.

"No, that's just an example. He knew you were my mate because he saw it, in a vision or something, I'm not really sure how it works. He saw our parents' deaths too, but sometimes it's hard for him to tell what's a real vision and what's a dream." My right leg bounced with anxiety. I'd never talked about this with anyone outside of our family before.

"He's a seer," Luke said.

"Yeah, something like that." 

"No, exactly like that. That's his gift."

Gage sat up straight. "You've heard of others like him? Do you have any in your pack?"

"No," Luke said with a tinge of regret in his voice. "Just stories only. My mother is something of a historian. It's been at least a hundred years since the last seer died."

"How do you happen to know all this?" Gage asked. He couldn't help the suspicion in his voice. He'd looked high and low for information regarding Sean's gift, and this guy who just might be his mate just happens to work at his brother's school and just happens to know about all this? He just wasn’t that trusting of a person.

Luke shook his head a bit, bashfully. "Well, I might be a bit of a local history buff. Especially when it comes to pack lore. I was obsessed with the last seer when I was a kid. Besides his gift, he was an omega and a hunter. He was kind of my role model."

GageI wanted to believe Luke. And right now, he didn't have much choice. He'd already told him about Sean.

"So what's the deal with your alpha and Sean?" Luke asked.

"Mark... he suspects about Sean, I think."

"And that's... not good?" Luke ventured.

"Not good at all," Gage agreed.

"Why's that?"

Gage didn't know how much further he should trust Luke. How much further he could trust him. But there wasn't much worse Luke could do with the rest of the information. He knew about Sean. That was the most closely guarded secret Gage had ever kept.

"I think he's been trying to get Sean under his control. Since before Mom and Dad died. In fact..." Gage hadn't even shared his suspicions with Jess, and even with his misgivings, it was such a relief to have someone to talk to about this. He needed someone to talk to about this. "I suspect that Mark might have killed them."