I See Me (17 page)

He found the highway exit he’d been looking for. Then with a couple of more turns, he had us parked on the far side of the Walmart parking lot. Except for two other RVs that dwarfed the twenty-one foot Brave, the massive lot was empty this far from the store.

“Are they even open this early?” I asked as I peered through the windshield at the biggest Walmart I’d ever seen.

“Yes.” His tone was blunt, but not unkind. He removed his seat belt and crossed to the exterior door.
 

Obviously now was not the time for small talk, but I missed the easiness that Beau and I had … before. Before I’d known this was all a massive delusion.

I followed him into the parking lot. It was chilly, so I tugged on my mittens.

Beau checked the contents of my bag, making sure I had my cell phone, sketchbook, and some money. Then he locked up the Brave and tucked the keys in the bag’s inner zipper pocket. Still without saying a word, he placed the bag over my head and across my body, testing the strength of the strap as he did so, as if he was afraid someone might try to rip it off me.

“Beau …”

He kissed me then. Pulling me into his arms and off my feet, pressing me back against the Brave in a lip lock full of need and passion.

I broke the embrace to wrap my arms around him, whispering fiercely into the warm skin of his neck. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I know,” he said, though his voice was choked with more emotion than acceptance. “I love you, Rochelle. I know everyone would think me crazy to say those words now, so early, and in this situation. But I want you to know.”

I nodded, offering him a smile instead of simply mimicking his declaration.

He smiled back and then set me on my feet. “Right. Ready for an adventure?”

“With you, anytime,” I answered.

“First we need bus tickets.”

“Well, that’s a bit of a boring start.”

He laughed like he meant it this time. The sound eased the fear I still felt in the small of my back. The tension didn’t completely diminish, but it eased enough to make it easier to walk next to him as he urged me toward the nearest bus stop.

∞

“Where are we going?”

“A park. Near the river.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“No, but we’re looking for wolves. Wolves like to run, and they hunt near water.”

We’d taken a bus into downtown Portland and were now standing on a railed streetcar, cutting through skyscrapers interspersed with restaurants and clothing stores. The streetcar was packed. It felt like the entire city was heading to work at the same time.

“So … we’ll be prey?”

“Yep. Let’s just hope they don’t come in numbers. I could maybe handle three if I had to, but not without them hurting me. Badly. Any more and we’re in trouble.”

“We’re talking about people, right?”

“Sure,” Beau said, turning a worried, tense gaze on me. “People like you and me.”

“So, they’ll ask questions. Listen to answers.”

“Yeah, at some point they’ll start asking questions.” He looked away from me, out the streetcar window at the city shifting by us. Every line of his body was bristling with tension — or maybe with barely contained terror.

I left him alone with his thoughts. I didn’t have any extra room in my head anyway.

Apparently — at least along these city streets — Portland had a larger homeless population than Vancouver did. I’d also never seen so many African-American people in one place before. Though I hadn’t seen an Asian person since I’d left Vancouver. When we’d first climbed on the bus that stopped by the Walmart, I thought people were staring at me, but it was Beau who fascinated everyone. I don’t think he noticed.
 

Twice, Beau had consulted maps he’d taken screenshots of and saved on my cell phone. Each time he tucked the phone back in my bag instead of keeping it.

I wanted to freak out, to demand we return to the Brave, but I’d already made the choice to follow him wherever he went. So instead, I curled both of my arms around his left arm and tried to just enjoy being here with him. Even if it was just going to be for this moment, as the streetcar switched tracks and pressed me against the length of him.

Beau was peering out the windows. Then, seeing something, he tugged me to the back doors and off the streetcar when it stopped. People pressed against us, blocking our exit and the path to the sidewalk. Portland definitely felt like a bigger city than Vancouver, though I think Greater Vancouver’s total population — including its outlying cities — was higher. Beau tucked me behind him, twisted his shoulders, and everyone made way.

We hustled along the side of what I thought might be a luxury hotel in another skyscraper. The Marriott, according to the sign I barely had time to read. Then there was a park before us. It was narrow — really just a patch of grass that ran alongside a huge river — but it was pretty.

We jaywalked across the Southwest Natio Parkway, which was clogged with early morning traffic, to a path that cut down to the edge of the river. Here, a paved river walk ran parallel to the water in both directions. I could see an elevated expressway on the opposite side of the rushing water. I’d never seen a huge highway traveling over and around a city like that before, or so many bridges crossing a single river. From my vantage point, I counted five connecting the two sides of the city. The river was like a huge artery with overpasses and bridges for veins.

“That’s a lot of bridges,” I said.

Beau grunted, not completely listening. He was scanning the crowd anxiously in either direction. An older couple, obviously tourists by the paper brochures they were chatting over, stood up from a bench on the grass at the very edge of the river walk. As they wandered off, Beau and I took their place. He tugged me down to sit next to him, his arm slung over the back of the bench above my shoulders.

It wasn’t as chilly here as in Vancouver, but even with my hoodie underneath my jacket, a hat, and my mittens, it wasn’t really bench-sitting weather. Beau was wearing his usual plain T-shirt underneath his gray hoodie, which was unzipped about halfway. He should have been freezing but obviously wasn’t.
 

“So … we wait?” I asked.

“Yeah, we wait.”

“There isn’t a number we can call? An Adept hotline?”

Beau snorted, but his amusement was mostly for my benefit. I placed my hand on his thigh and caught his smile in my peripheral vision. I slid my hand a bit higher and he laughed huskily. Then he lifted my hand, turning my palm up to place a tender kiss in the center of it.

I sighed and tucked my head against his shoulder. Maybe no one would come. Maybe we could watch the sunset, then wander back to that Voodoo Doughnut place with the huge line outside of it that we’d passed on the streetcar a few blocks back.

Every muscle in Beau’s body tensed.

I looked up to see him watching a woman as she sauntered toward us along the river walk. A few dozen feet behind her, the grass of the park ended right before an expensive-looking hotel hanging out over the river. Its discrete signage declared it to be the RiverPlace Hotel.

A couple of joggers outpaced the woman. Based on her casual body language, and if she hadn’t been staring directly at Beau, I would have expected her to walk right past us.

Beau took a single glance around us, really quickly — as if he didn’t want to take his eye off the woman for even a second. His grip across my shoulders tightened, but he’d dropped my hand the moment he spotted her.

I glanced around as well. A few people were jogging or biking along the river walk, but the park was mostly empty. Which wasn’t surprising since it was still fairly early on a weekday morning.

The woman stopped a few feet before us. Then she also casually glanced around. She was a few inches taller than me — maybe five-foot-six without the purple wedge heels. Her hands were on her hips. She was wearing a violet-paisley print silk blouse over a tight dark-plum colored skirt that fell just above her knees. Her shoulder-length dark hair lifted lightly in the breeze.

That was it. No jacket, no scarf. I shivered just from looking at her. She didn’t even bother glancing at me.

Beau didn’t move. He was so tense that his arm across my shoulder felt like it was made of steel.

The woman didn’t look even remotely dangerous. Not until she opened her purple-glossed lips and said, “What have we here, cat?” She spat the final word.

“I’m Beaumont Jamison. This is Rochelle Saintpaul.”

“Your names mean nothing to me. Do you know whose territory this is?”

“Yes.”

“And you dare enter it without proper introductions?”

Beau squirmed. His gaze was focused on the woman’s shoulder. There wasn’t an ounce of aggression in her body language, but her voice dripped with derision.

 
“You think you can wander around Portland without being spotted?” she hissed. “You think I like getting phone calls this early in the morning?”

“I don’t know the proper way,” Beau finally said. I felt so bad for him. I desperately wanted to help, but I had no idea what to say or who this woman could possibly be.

She barked out a laugh.

“Oh!” I said. “You’re a werewolf.”

The woman closed the space between us in a blur of purple. She dug her thumb into the spot where Beau’s neck met his shoulder. He grunted in pain, but didn’t immediately push her away.

Not thinking, I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch him,” I hissed.

Static electricity passed between us. The woman twisted out of my grasp and backed off a few steps. She shook her head as if clearing it. Then, glaring at me, she rubbed her wrist where I’d touched her.

“She doesn’t mean any disrespect,” Beau cried, and then modulated his tone. “She doesn’t understand this world … or her magic.”

“What witch doesn’t feel magic?” the woman sneered.

“She’s not a witch.”

The werewolf turned her dark eyes on me, her full lips still curled into a sneer. “You’re not welcome here without an invitation.”

“Then how do we get an invitation?” I asked.

My calm question seemed to put her further off balance. She frowned and then returned her gaze to Beau. “Why are you here?”

“Rochelle is being hunted.”

“So you bring her to the pack?” The woman laughed.

“By a sorcerer.”

The woman stilled. Every line of her face and body smoothed out to neutral. Then, looking at me again, she whispered. “What sorcerer?”

“Blackwell,” I said.

A slow, scary grin spread across her lovely face. I could suddenly see the wolf underneath her skin — or at least her capacity to be a wolf.
 

Beau shuddered, looking resolutely at her feet. “Please —”

“Blackwell,” she repeated. “Anything that sorcerer wants, I’m more than willing to keep from him.”

Beau let out a breath of relief.

“I’m Lara,” the woman said. “Follow me. Now.”

She turned and walked away.

Beau stood to follow. I tried to hold him back. “But —”

He shook his head and touched his ear quickly. Lara was a dozen steps away now, but Beau seemed concerned she could still hear us. “We go. This is why we came here.”

“Is it going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Lara, still sporting her scary grin, turned to look back at us. It was my turn to shudder as another curl of fear twined down my spine. The werewolf’s grin widened.

“Try to not be afraid,” Beau whispered. He pressed his hand to the small of my back as we followed Lara.

“How do I do that?”

“Pretend,” Beau said. “Now is a good time to pretend. Werewolves like the scent of fear. Any predator does.”

That pronouncement didn’t really help with the fear factor, but I trotted to keep up with Beau’s long strides nonetheless.

I could pretend. I’d been pretending for a long time now.

∞

Lara led us into the hotel. This was as upscale as I’d imagined it would be, given its downtown location and the river with a marina to one side. The doorman let us pass without a word and Lara cut across the lobby to the stairs with us dogging her footsteps.

The stairs led to an underground parking lot.

The lot held a huge black SUV, which Lara remote-triggered and climbed into with barely a glance at us. She was texting back and forth with someone.

Beau urged me into the back seat. I’d never been surrounded by so much soft, black leather in my life. I didn’t like eating meat, and I certainly didn’t like being surrounded by this much animal skin, but I wasn’t going to fuss about it in front of a werewolf. Beau reached around me to grab my seat belt, but I slapped his hands away.

“I’m crazy, not a moron.”

He chuckled but closed my door without comment. Then he climbed into the passenger seat in front of me.

I caught Lara’s dark-eyed gaze in the rearview mirror. For a brief moment, I thought her eyes glowed green.

“What is she then?” Lara asked Beau while she kept her eyes on me in the mirror. “She smells like a witch.”

Beau shrugged as he pulled on his seat belt. “I’m not sure. She sketches things. The sorcerer, specifically.”

Lara laughed. “Oh, the narcissistic bastard must love that.”

“She isn’t bait.”

“That’s not for you to decide, kitten.”

Beau tensed as if ready to say something else, but I interrupted.

“Who does make that decision?”

Lara shifted the SUV into reverse and backed out of the parking spot.

“The alpha.”

“Alpha?” I asked.

“Head of the pack,” Beau answered.

“Lord of the pack,” Lara clarified.

“And the alpha doesn’t like sorcerers?”

“No one likes Blackwell. He’s a demon-calling murderer.” The word ‘murderer’ came out as a long growl. “I’ll gladly dance naked on his bloody, well-gnawed bones.”

Well, that was a clear and horrifying image I wouldn’t be getting out of my head anytime soon. And my mind most certainly didn’t need more encouragement toward darkness.

“He had a spellcurser with him,” Beau said.

Lara threw her head back and laughed. “Perfect. Hoyt and I have met.”