Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
JESSE
Icouldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.
Caleb sat in the wooden chair with his eyes closed. He was relaxed now, the tension gone from his shoulders. A little smile touched his lips. His eyes moved rapidly under his lids.
Beside him, Nin had gone pale. But she didn’t look at Caleb anymore. Like everyone else in the chamber, she stared at the scene playing out in front of him.
A vision hung in the air as if someone projected it from the rear of the chamber. Shimmering and faint at the edges, it showed me in the back of my SUV with Caleb in my lap.
We stared at each other, faces flushed and emotion thick between us. He gripped my bare shoulders. I held his hips. Sunlight played over his freckles.
My heart raced. I squeezed the wooden bench under me. Past and present overlapped, and I couldn’t separate them.
The vision rippled. Then it changed.
Now, Caleb and I faced each other across a round dining table. A votive candle flickered between us. The clink of crystal and the murmur of conversation filled the air. Caleb wore a tuxedo, his golden throat smooth above his starched white collar. His black jacket hugged his broad shoulders.
He lifted his wineglass and swirled his red, a knowing look in his sky blue eyes. “You’re drooling, Jesse.”
Fuck, the way he said my name. But he’d never said it in a tuxedo before. The image in the air had never happened.
Not yet.
In the vision, I glanced around, then reached down and adjusted. “Thank god for this tablecloth,” I heard myself mutter.
Caleb laughed, mischief in his eyes. “Should we skip dinner and go straight to the show?”
Confusion clouded my features. “What show?”
Caleb winked.
The vision vanished. Silence fell over the chamber, the only sound the hiss of the torches on the walls.
Nin stumbled backward. A thin line of blood trickled from her nose. She stared at the empty space where the vision had been, her chest heaving.
Around the chamber, the elders sat in stunned silence. Stefanos had gone rigid in his seat. The woman beside him gripped the armrest of the riser.
Caleb sat back in his chair. His eyes were open and bloodshot. Rings of sweat darkened the fabric under his arms. More sweat dampened his temples.
I stood, and no one tried to stop me as I charged down the stairs and pulled him to his feet. He stepped into my arms and buried his face against my shoulder.
“How the hell did you do that?” I asked against his hair.
“I don’t know.” His voice was muffled by my shirt. “I don’t know what I did.”
I pulled back enough to look at him. “You saw the past…and maybe the future.” My heart raced, and awe spread through me. “That’s your gift, Caleb. You’re a seer.”
He stared.
Nin wiped the blood from her nose and looked at her hand. Then she lifted wolf-bright eyes to Caleb. “Seer,” she said, almost as if she spoke to herself.
Stefanos appeared at her side. The other elders left the risers and clustered at the bottom of the steps. All eyes were on Caleb.
He glanced around, looking self-conscious, and I tightened my grip on his arm.
“You’re the first seer in a hundred years,” Stefanos said.
Caleb shot another look at the elders. “Is that good or bad?”
“Seers are rare,” Nin said, recovered from her shock. “Some can only see the past. Others can look into the future. It appears you can do both. The gift manifests across every supernatural species. In some cases, it even shows up in humans.”
Pieces slotted into place in my mind. I looked at Caleb, replaying things I should have caught sooner.
The anxiety he’d displayed when I’d tried to leave him in Albany.
The desperation that had sent him reaching for his safeword.
At the time, I’d assumed it was a fear of abandonment. But it was more than that.
“You wouldn’t let me hunt Ulfrik without you,” I said. “You used your safeword to stop me from leaving you behind.”
He went still. “Yeah, I felt really anxious about it.” His eyes widened, and he made a strangled sound. “Holy shit. I think I saw you get hurt. It was so real in my head. And I saw Nathan Brooks and Aiden Cross show up to your house a minute before they actually did. I thought it was a dream.”
Nin studied him. “Do you have any witch ancestry in your family?”
He blinked. Then a slow smile spread over his face. “I don’t think so. But that would be hilarious.”
“This gift is a great responsibility,” Stefanos said. “You’ll require training.”
I slid my hand to Caleb’s and locked my fingers around his. My wolf stirred in my chest as I pinned my gaze on Stefanos.
“Right now,” I said, “he needs freedom, food, and a clean bed.”
“With a pillow,” Caleb added.
Silence held.
Stefanos and Nin looked at each other, something passing between them.
Nin turned back to us. “Very well.” She looked at Caleb, her eyes near-black once more.
“We release you, but you’re not permitted to live on your own.
You still require the guidance of a more experienced wolf.
” She looked between us, the flicker of a smile in her dark eyes.
“I suspect staying with Jesse won’t pose a hardship. ”
“None at all,” Caleb said. He turned to me. “I don’t actually know where we are.”
“London,” I said, grinning like an idiot. Which was inappropriate given the circumstances. We had a lot to figure out. But right now, the future didn’t seem like that big of a problem. “I have a house here.”
Caleb smiled. “Then take me home.”