“Your brother is a Nightwolf,” Chael added. He lifted Antonio in his arms and tickled him underneath his chin. The little boy squealed in delight, and I felt my eyes gloss over at seeing Chael, so damn strong and large, yet so gentle and loving.
An image of Chael and me in our bed with me holding a baby boy wrapped in a colorful blanket flashed in my mind’s eye. The image stole my breath. That wasn’t the first time that image had made its way into one of my visions. Over the past three months, since being rescued from Pines’s home, they had become more common.
They filled me with a deep fear and a longing for it to come true.
Chael and I locked gazes. He still held on to Antonio, but he stared at me as if he could read my mind. The simmering look in his eyes warmed me from the inside out.
“I know what I can do,” I said with a shake of my head to break out of the daze of my visions and Chael’s look. “Sera hasn’t been around for a few days. I’m going to check on her.”
Before anyone could say anything, I headed for the door. Chael caught me by the arm, stopping me. With intent in his eyes, he leaned down and brushed his lips across my forehead. Those damn forehead kisses of his always made my insides melt like my favorite candy bar laid out in the New Mexican desert sun. I stifled the purring sound that tried to escape my throat and gave him a smile before calling for Henry.
A second later, Henry came loping around the corner into the kitchen. Bracka accompanied him in his wolf form and gave me a look as if to ask if he could go too.
I laughed and nodded, and the three of us started for Sera’s home.
Sera lived alone at the far end of the commune. It was only about a quarter of a mile from our centrally located home. We passed numerous packmates who waved with wide grins, telling me how excited they were for the night’s events.
So many proud parents had come to me over the past few weeks, asking me to see what the future held for their pup. Only a handful of visions came to me regarding the children that would have their first shift that evening. Most of them were happy events like a birthday celebration or graduation.
According to Ms. Elsie and a book she’d given me on what it meant to be a seer, not everything I saw would come true, but it was a possibility of the future. Any number of events could change the outcome of a vision.
Before I knew it, we arrived at Sera’s. I knocked on her purple door and waited for a beat. Eventually, I heard movement on the other side of the door, and a moment later, Sera appeared.
“Hey.” I waved. “Are you coming tonight?”
Her eyelids dropped, and I could see the bags underneath her eyes. I didn’t need to be a seer to know she hadn’t slept well in quite some time. Over the past few weeks, in the few moments I managed to get away from Chael, I went out to the field to see if Sera was there. She hadn’t been, which was unusual.
“Hey.” She rubbed her lips together and folded her arms before leaning against the doorframe.
“You’re not coming,” I answered for her.
In the months since our Texas kidnapping, Sera had lain low. Even after Montgomery awakened and reunited with his brothers, she refused to return to the clinic. Montgomery’s memory was foggy, and he remained unable to recall how he ended up in Pines’s basement.
“I shouldn’t,” she finally said.
“Why not?” I almost begged.
Henry even whined, tilting his head sideways.
Sera gave Henry a half smile. “Hey, Henry and Bracka.”
Bracka rubbed his nose into the side of her leg.
“See, they’ll miss you if you don’t come,” I told her. “If this is because you think Chael’s still angry with you for taking me to Texas, don’t worry about that.”
She shook her head. “Alpha had his reasons to be angry, but that’s not it.” She stared off into the distance. “I just think it’s time I stopped hiding out here.”
“Hiding? From what? This is your pack.”
She shook her head. “I know, but…” She pushed out a heavy breath. “There are some things I need to take care of, and if I stay here for too long, they’ll come for me.”
I didn’t need to know who they were. Her mates. However, she refused to call them that.
She shook her head. “I’m not the mating type.”
“They don’t seem to think so,” I reminded her. I didn’t understand everything about the shifter way of life, but it seemed like once one of them determined someone was their mate, there was little to dissuade that notion. And Sera didn’t have one mate, but three.
Even Montgomery, who didn’t know or understand everything that’d happened to him, remembered the moment he laid eyes on Sera in that basement. He vividly recalled watching her be attacked by a wolf, which caused him to summon all of his strength to shift and protect her by killing the wolf and then licking the wound on her arm.
