The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened up on a huge, mostly open-plan work floor. Sunlight streamed through the windows encircling all sides of the building, competing with the lights overhead. Long tables instead of cubicles offered up shared workspaces in conjunction with randomly placed coffee tables and comfortable chairs where people worked diligently on their MacBooks.
Half the people working had headphones on as they listened to music, a few heads bobbing here and there to a beat no one else could hear. Patrick could see a pool table in one interior room that was clearly a gaming area, along with multiple flat-screen televisions. Despite the hour, a first-person shooting game competition was happening. A snack station full of junk food and healthy food in equal proportions, as well as coffee and beer, was being ransacked for an afternoon pick-me-up by no less than ten people.
PreterWorld was the largest tech company originally catering to the social media habits of those born with magic or who belonged to the preternatural world and weren’t shy about sharing their identities. The social media platform, which incorporated status updates, photos, and video on a feed, initially had a cultlike following before more and more mundane users began wanting access.
Patrick wasn’t a fan of social media. His hatred of sharing every last little detail stemmed from living a life of secrets. PreterWorld, and the notoriety and fame one could conceivably gain from it, had never been something he wanted. He had to give the tech CEO credit though. Patrick’s magic recognized most of the employees as magic users or someone who hailed from the preternatural world, which was a much higher percentage than most people ever hired.
Casale ignored the curious eyes and strode forward. They bypassed a multimedia capable conference room on the way toward the corner office situated behind partially frosted glass walls that screamed CEO.
Patrick tried to remember anything he could about the company’s owner and founder. Young, as most tech entrepreneurs were, and stupidly rich after the IPO went public. But it was Casale’s mention about eyes that finally triggered Patrick’s memory from a long-ago meeting with Setsuna during one of his shore leaves.
There were a handful of god-touched people in the world he needed to steer clear of. Setsuna kept him updated on their whereabouts when she could. The general public might not know the CEO of PreterWorld was a seer, but the federal government did, and apparently so did Casale.
Shit, Patrick thought.
He kept his expression neutral, despite the desire torunbeating at the back of his mind. He was aware of all the eyes on them as they walked the length of the company floor to Marek Taylor’s office. The whispers in the background weren’t as quiet as the gossipers thought they were.
The tall, strikingly handsome Latino man who opened the office door wasn’t Marek, but someone, or rather, somethingelse. Recognition burned briefly through Patrick’s magic beneath his shields with the specific spark that meantwerecreature; he just didn’t know which kind.
Werecreatures were native to Earth. They weren’t like demons who had to cross over from the many hells in existence or the fae who called the fringes of the veil home in a different plane. Way back in the murky annals of history, werecreatures used to be humans who changed into the sort of predatory animal you’d see in the wild—normal, fuzzy, liked to eat rabbits kind of werecreatures. They were feared and ostracized even worse back then when discovered by society, but those in power had seen an opportunity.
A Roman mage had been ordered by his emperor to create an army of werewolves. Calling on the power of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, he tried to subvert what nature had wrought. His attempt at magical control backfired and resulted in the werevirus, one of the first recorded instances of magically created biological warfare introduced into society.
The werevirus was an incurable disease made up of two substrains that caused those who were infected to change into monstrous beasts. Over time, the magic that still powered the werevirus allowed it to jump species, and the world had more than werewolves on its hands now. Born or bitten, werecreatures didn’t have easy lives.
Patrick didn’t know what beast the guy carried beneath his skin, but he knew the stranger had preternaturally enhanced strength and senses. Patrick’s personal shields kept the taint in his soul under control, with a side effect of dampening his power to the point most people could never tell he was a magic user. If they did, they never figured him for a mage. Werecreatures were always hit or miss though. Their sense of smell was just too damned good.
“Leon,” Casale said in greeting.
“Casale.”
Leon carried himself with a confident manner that didn’t promise violence but did promise he’d end any fight someone else started. Patrick’s gaze flicked up and down Leon’s body, automatically checking for weapons and finding none. Not like the man needed one since he was a werecreature.
Leon was handsome though, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He was the kind of guy Patrick had hoped to pick up in Maui while on vacation, someone who would be able to fuck him into oblivion. Pity his week of debauchery in paradise wasn’t happening.
Leon’s gaze jumped from Casale to Patrick, brown eyes narrowing. “Who’s he?”
“He’s new,” Casale said easily enough, coming to a stop in front of the doorway Leon was blocking.
“What happened to Ramirez and Guthrie?”
“Not your business. You mind letting us through?”
Leon looked like he minded very much, but a voice from inside the office spoke up. “Let them in, Leon.”
Leon scowled and stepped out of the way, allowing the pair to enter the spacious modern office. Marek Taylor—CEO, billionaire, and one of the United States’ few true god-touched seers—was in his late twenties, with stylishly cut brown hair and sharp hazel eyes that watched them with an eerie intensity.
Patrick didn’t envy Marek’s position. Mages, especially combat mages, had a higher risk of dying on the job than other kinds of magic users based solely on the types of missions and cases they handled. Seers on the other hand, they went blind, their power increasing in strength with every color they lost until the only thing they could see was the future. Most went crazy after their slow slide into darkness and ended up dead, usually by way of suicide.
Patrick had done the slow dying thing once before. He’d rather eat his gun than go through it again.
His magic had easily recognized Leon’s true status, but recognition of Marek’s was slow to seep through his awareness. Patrick sensed a depth of power that reminded him of those blue holes in the ocean, the marine sinkholes that hid so much below the surface. Marek carried power in his soul, the likes of which Patrick knew he shouldn’t mess with.
The Fates always got so fuckingpissedwhen he broke their favored mouthpieces.
“Close the door on your way out, Leon,” Marek said after a moment of tense silence.
Leon never took his eyes off Patrick. “You sure?”
