As Stephen and I teleported to Avery’s location, I tapped her mind and told her to knock it off with Kai. She responded back with a curt “Don’t distract me,” along with an image of her repeatedly blasting Kai’s body against a brick wall.

When we arrived at the crime scene—the dormitory courtyard of a small liberal arts school in Washington State—I took the liberty of searching Avery’s most recent memories to see what had transpired. It seemed Avery had done a solid job of terrifying the seer by arriving out of nowhere to blast Kai’s body up into the sky, then slam him against the side of a nearby building. Kai wasn’t fighting back, or even doing much to defend himself.

Interesting. It was a fair guess Kai still felt guilty over betraying Alcaeus, his best friend of four centuries, to Alcaeus’s own Reinoso pack. It was also no surprise Kai would be careful not to harm Avery, for fear of harming her mate Alcaeus in the process. But to not defend himself against Avery meant either Kai was seriously wallowing in self-loathing over his betrayal or he was hoping to placate Avery and possibly distract her from harming his favorite coed.

I noted Kai’s concern for the seer in Avery’s memory of the attack. He’d told the seer to run the moment he’d spotted Avery. Naturally, the girl was still standing there looking horrified and panicked. Not surprising she’d have terrible survival instincts, given the fact she was apparently into Kai.

Well, we’d see how long Kai’s passive tactic lasted the moment he saw me standing next to his little obsession.

Telepathically, I instructed Stephen to scan the perimeter and erase the minds of any onlookers, if necessary. Fortunately, it was nearly eight o’clock at night and cold as fuck outside—for humans, at least. Most students weren’t likely to be out unless they had to be.

After conjuring two hot beverages, along with more appropriate cold weather attire for myself, I strode up to the infamous seer who Mike had “accidentally” made out with and who had managed to capture Kai’s attention to the point that he was acting like a horny teenage idiot.

At first glance, standing in profile to me, the petite, long-haired brunette looked cute enough, but she was nothing spectacular. There was a crunchy, au naturel, Berkeley-esque vibe to her that reminded me of girls I’d gone to high school with back in Santa Cruz. She had a decent bumper on her, though; I’d give her that. I’d noticed it before the few times I’d seen her—both in Mike’s mind and in person. But as far as the overall picture went, I’d seen better talent, and I knew Kai had, too. He’d once been mated to the late Maribel, after all.

So what was his fascination with this little seer about?

The sound of my boots crunching through the dirty snow and leaves startled her, and she yelped as she turned to find me approaching.

“Whoa. Easy, there,” I greeted. “How’s it going?”

Her mouth opened and shut. Her caramel-brown eyes were wide. She looked from me back to the spot in between the dormitory buildings where Kai was now getting his ass kicked supernatural-style, then back to me again.

“Don’t worry.” I gave her my most laid-back surfer smile. “I’m not gonna let her kill him.” I extended a lidded, to-go coffee cup to her in offering. “Here, I got you that gingerbread chai stuff you like.”

Her brows pulled together. She looked me up and down like I was completely mad. “I don’t drink that crap.”

Okay, so I could see why Mike liked her. I shrugged and vanished the chai.

She sidestep-stumbled several paces away from me when she witnessed it. I pretended not to notice as I sipped coffee from the remaining cup.

“Who’re you?”

“I’m Raul.” I held my hand out. She didn’t take it. I withdrew it, saying, “It’s nice to meet you, Lauren.”

She only seemed mildly rattled by the fact I knew her name. “How do you know Kai?” she asked instead. “Why isn’t he fighting back?”

Ignoring her first question, I told her, “He’s not fighting back because he knows he deserves every bit of that beating she’s giving him.”

“Why? What’d he do?” Her tone was defensive.

“I’ll level with you.” I stepped closer. She fidgeted but didn’t back away this time. “I’m not here to answer your questions.” I tapped into her mind and said, “You feel unconditionally safe with me, Lauren.”

She blinked. Then she nodded.

I’d had no experience entering the mind of a seer before, given that all the seers had been wiped out by Maribel shortly after I’d become a werelock. So it was shocking to me how effortless it was to enter Lauren’s mind and compel her.

For some reason, I’d expected it to be harder than compelling a normal human, but it really was no different—perhaps easier. Mike had explained that it was like a two-way street kind of deal in that the same extrasensory sensitivity that gave seers, clairvoyants, necromancers, and the like their great ability to tap into otherworldly activity also left them open and vulnerable to paranormal influences.

Still, I’d half-expected Kai to have erected a shield of some sort at this point. After vowing to leave Lauren alone for good, he’d returned from his pouting sesh in Greenland to play even crazier head games with the attractive coed—and to end his renowned, over-a-century-long run of celibacy by having sex with the seer in an alley behind a campus bar, of all things.

Of course, casting a shield over the mind of a purported potential seer was only likely to draw more enemy werelock attention to her. Doing so would be like waving a flag that there was something important to hide. And Kai knew we were watching.

One thing was for certain, though: whatever this kinky dance was that Kai was doing with the seer, there was no way my sister, who was Kai’s Alpha, knew about it. Miles would never have approved of all the mind entering and manipulation Kai was engaging in with Lauren. I knew for a fact Miles had put a stop to that behavior with humans after becoming Alpha of the Reinoso pack.

I flipped through Lauren’s memories like she was an open book. Kai had clearly tampered with them, as had Mike. But Kai’s tampering was easier to spot, which wasn’t like him. Another indication Kai was unraveling—becoming sloppy and desperate. None of Kai’s behavior lately where the seer was concerned was in keeping with his staid, stoic pack doctor personality as we knew it.

The question remained: Why? Mike wasn’t convinced Lauren possessed sufficient innate ability to even be among the next generation of seers we were all searching for, much less a seer skilled enough to be considered a threat to Sloane.

Mike believed Kai’s interest in Lauren to be more personal than anything else. It certainly seemed that way. But it was possible Mike was simply bitter over Kai getting the jump on him and having dirty alley sex with the coed before he’d had a chance to make a serious move on her.

I knew the exact moment Kai finally sensed my presence, because he ceased taking abuse from Avery and started defending himself, then resorted to giving Avery a gentle blast when she laid into him harder.

Quickly, I told Lauren, “You never met me tonight, and you never saw Kai get attacked. You parted ways with Kai after you … did whatever it was you two were doing tonight. And then you headed to the library to study. Got it?”

She nodded, and I waved her off. “To the library you go. Don’t look back.”

She was over twenty paces away by the time Kai managed to successfully subvert Avery without harming her and teleport over to me. At over four hundred years old, Kai looked only thirty-five in human years. Regardless, the guy was way too old and far too uptight to be hanging with a hip young coed.

“S’up, Doc?” I greeted him with a smile.

“What did you do to her?” he demanded, his bright blue wolf eyes flashing anxiously from me to Lauren’s retreating form. He appeared torn—wanting to follow after the seer to make sure she was okay, while knowing that displaying too much concern for her well-being would give her importance away.

Oh, yeah, this looked very personal, all right.

Let the games begin.

“Nothing, man.” I kept my tone casual as Avery teleported to my side. “Let’s see … I introduced myself to her, offered her a gingerbread chai latte, told her she hadn’t seen anything, and sent her on her way to the library to study. That pretty much covers it.” I grinned at him. “For now.”

“You weren’t even trying back there,” Avery broke in to accuse Kai. “Do you know how rude that is? How sexist?”

Kai ignored her, growling at me, “Stay away from Lauren and keep out of her head. She’s not the next great seer. She’s nobody.”

“Yeah, yeah, heard you’ve been saying that. And yet …” I squinted one eye at him and sucked cold night air through my teeth. “Here you are, so …”

“I was checking on her. That’s all. You need to call Mike and all others off watching her.” He directed a stink eye at Avery at “all others,” and I almost busted out laughing, knowing he was right to view Avery as more of a threat to Lauren than Mike was—at least from an immediate safety standpoint. “It’s my fault for drawing undue attention to her when she doesn’t have true ability. You’re wasting your time by—”

“Wow, you really got it bad.” I shook my head at him. “Avery, I need to talk to Kai alone a min—”

“I am not leaving.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and gathered patience before shooting Avery my best covert “Please trust me” expression. One of the things I admired most about Avery was that she was hardwired to protect her daughter Sloane above all else. But the fact that Avery was immune to taking orders—particularly when she believed her child’s safety was at stake—came with its share of challenges.

“How’s that working out?” Kai asked, giving me a bland smile. “Being a new Alpha and having two higher-ranking Betas in your pack who won’t take orders from you?”

I gave him a tight smile in return. He was referring to Alcaeus, who also couldn’t be commanded. “About as well as it did for Alex when Alcaeus was in your pack and Alex was Alpha, I suspect.” I should know, since Alcaeus was constantly drawing parallels and comparing my performance to Alex’s as a young Alpha. Alex hadn’t been able to command Alcaeus either.

“Well, it’s good to hear there may be hope for your pack after all then.”

“It’s going great, Killjoy,” Avery told Kai. “Thanks for asking. Chaos is doing quite well without your constant nagging, too, in case you were wondering. And he hasn’t missed feeling beholden to Alpha Milena’s emotional manipulation or being subjected to her ongoing PMS, either.”

My lips curled with genuine amusement as Avery laid a supportive hand on the back of my shoulder.

“If you boys are going to compare dick sizes, I think I’ll be on my way after all.”

I exhaled and gave her a smile of gratitude. I wanted to see how serious Kai was about the seer. Also, to get a sense of where he stood with regard to viewing Sloane as the reincarnation of his deceased former mate, Maribel. I couldn’t have Avery present for the latter.

“Until next time, Killjoy,” she muttered before teleporting out.

Once I was certain Avery was gone, I told Kai, “Congratulations on getting back in the game again after a hundred and eight years.”

His nostrils flared. His jaw tightened. And his skin flushed. Wow. Was that embarrassment I scented rolling off him? Guilt even?

“Heard all about how you’ve been banging that ‘nobody’ coed who definitely is not the next great seer,” I proceeded to goad him. “Oh, and in case no one has given you sex pointers for this century yet, you should know that nowadays, most ladies prefer a bed over rutting in a dirty alley or on the frozen forest floor.” I raised a conciliatory hand when he began growling at me. “Just a friendly suggestion.”

Internally, I was celebrating the brief indication of surprise that I had glimpsed behind Kai’s angry blue irises. “I got eyes everywhere, Kai. How was Greenland, by the way?” I asked to further drive the message home. “Feeling better now that you got that emotional breakdown out of the way?”

He was silent, his facial muscles taut, his steely blue gaze leveled on me with disdain.

I tapped Stephen’s mind and confirmed that he was done scanning the surrounding area and on his way over to us. I let him know to hustle, because I was nearly done with Kai, and I was anxious to get back to Bethany as quickly as possible.

“Say, how does my sister feel about you remaining in wolf form for longer than you do human form lately? Is Miles cool with that? Come to think of it, how does she feel about you mind-raping that poor human seer?” I winced. “Somehow I can’t see her being okay with that. You know she only sees things in black and white, wrong and right, and all that.”

His expression remained pinched, his eyes cold as they considered me. “It’s a shame you’ve spent your whole life so blinded by jealousy and hurt, you’ve never gotten to know your own sister. Milena’s always been either a threat or a commodity in your eyes, hasn’t she, Raul?”

“You only think you know her,” I snapped. “Wait until she finds out what you’ve been up to with the seer. You think she’ll understand? Think again.”

“Perhaps she won’t,” Kai responded calmly after a beat. “Can’t say I’d fault her if she didn’t.” His gaze lowered to the ground before returning to me. “We all make choices we have to live with and be accountable for. The difference is you still blame Milena for things she had no control over—for the choices others made that you were forced to live with. Decisions that Mateus, your mother, and your aunt Aracely made that impacted both of you. If you’re a victim of their choices, then Milena is too.”

It was no wonder Kai and Alcaeus had been friends for four centuries. They were cut from the same old-guy know-it-all cloth.

Stephen strolled up to join us, and his intrusion helped me to calm my rattled emotions and regain focus. I decided to double-down and take aim below the belt.

“Hey, just out of curiosity, Kai, what bothers you more: that your lifelong friend works for me now and refuses even to speak to you, or the fact that your former mate was reincarnated as someone prophesied to be incapable of connection, and yet somehow she made a connection with me but doesn’t remember you?”

“Sloane is not Maribel,” he hissed.

I could almost see the explosion of emotions my taunt had ignited within him. Direct hit. And score.

“Right. Right.” I couldn’t help but chuckle in the face of his blossoming inner fury. “I agree it’s definitely a toss-up. I know I’m still trying to decide which delights me more. So I suppose outright denial’s probably the better option for a guy in your shoes.”

Kai looked like he was on the verge of shifting and attacking me. But then he started laughing—so hard he ended up dabbing moisture from his eyes.

Clearing my throat, I gave Stephen a confused, annoyed side-eye glance. The wacky doctor was obviously unraveling if this was the best he had in his dated arsenal of werelock posturing and clever comebacks.

Finally, Kai stopped chuckling. His tone and expression turned dead serious as he said, “You’re nothing but a wounded, overgrown child power-grabbing and lashing out at the world, seeking an emotional solace you’re not smart enough to ever find—because its source has been right under your nose all along.”

He shook his head at me in disgust. “But that’s not your greatest folly. That’s just the cancer that eats away at you, the abscess that erodes your heart, propelling you blindly in all the wrong directions in life. What will ultimately seal your destruction is your infantile arrogance—the way you underestimate your opponents every time. Never start a fight you aren’t prepared to lose, Raul. Remember that.”

His eyes swept over Stephen before returning to me. “Keep your pack away from Lauren. I won’t warn you again.”

With that, he was gone.

Stephen turned to me and asked, “Is it me or did Chaos give you almost that exact same speech a month ago?”

I hunched one shoulder and shook my head. “Could be. They all sound the same after a while.”

“The topic was different, of course,” Stephen clarified. “But something about it sounded so familiar.”

I nodded. “It’s their shared use of the word ‘folly,’ I believe.”

“That’s it.” Stephen snapped his fingers. “And the part about infantile arrogance.”

“Yup. Alcaeus does say that all the time. It’s classic old-guy speak.”

“Definitely,” Stephen agreed. “So you want us to back off the seer?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Hell no. Let’s turn up the pressure. We’ve found our Reinoso weak link.”

As I was teleporting Stephen and myself back to the jet, I felt Sloane’s fear tugging at me, her strong emotions pulling me into her subconscious—where she was in the midst of what felt like a really bad nightmare. She hadn’t had one of those in weeks, and instantly I felt guilty for not singing the Frozen song with her the night before.

I kept my focus as we rematerialized aboard the plane. I tapped Mike’s mind to check on how Bethany was doing, and to let him know I needed him to watch over her a while longer while I went to help Sloane navigate her nightmares, before teleporting to Sloane’s side in Bariloche.