Impulse: Southern Arcana, Book 5 (4 page)

A tidy bit of hypocrisy, as Kat had pointed out. After all, Sera had run off to marry a man old enough to be her father.

But Lily was…Lily. Human, but comfortable in the supernatural world. Smart and funny, and willing to give Sera space. She’d never presumed to act like a mother or a replacement for one. She’d just loved Sera’s father with a dedication and intensity that made it impossible to dislike her. For the first time in her life, Sera saw her dad happy.

It was like having a family again, and it made her feel guilty for ever having such uncharitable thoughts about Lily. Sera sipped her own tea and turned the page. “This would go so much faster if I went full-time.”

Lily shrugged. “You do what you have to do. Your father would pay your tuition and expenses in a heartbeat, but it’s not necessarily the best thing for you right now. He knows that.”

“Does he?” Sera asked, uncertain. “Honestly, Lily, sometimes I think he’s going to strain something, trying so hard not to push money at me. I know he cares, and he’s there if I need him…”

“He’s trying,” Lily amended. “Trust me, honey. If he wasn’t, no amount of argument would keep him from shoving his way into your business with his checkbook at the ready.”

“I know.” Lily had no doubt been at least partly responsible for her father’s restraint. “I needed to take care of myself, but maybe I took it too far.”

“If you’re ready to let him help out, just say the word.”

“I’ll think about it.” Sera drew a sweeping circle around an introductory science class and tried to keep her voice casual. “Do you talk to Julio much?”

“Carmen’s brother?” She shook her head. “Not often. Why?”

Doodling on the edge of the catalog became very important. “I saw him the other day, and he seemed…tense. I worry about him. He got
tortured
, and everyone acts like he should be able to shrug it off.”

“Not exactly. I mean, he’s seeing a therapist. He’s getting help.”

Sera pressed her lips together and concentrated on the swirls of black ink spreading over the class description for microbiology. “I still worry.”

“Hmm.” Lily closed the schedule booklet. “Are you worried because he’s not doing so well, or worried because you’d be thinking about him even if he was fine?”

She’d never deluded herself into believing her stupid little crush had been subtle, but she wasn’t about to admit to it, either. “I’m worried because I saw him right after it happened. I know how hurt he was. I felt it, Lily.”

“That was months ago, Sera.”

Had it been? She could still remember parts of it with stark clarity. Not the rescue—everyone else had been busy rescuing Kat. But Julio had charged away from them, half-mad from the adrenaline high Kat had forced him into with the brutal application of empathy.

Sera had been the one to soothe him. Her touch, her presence. She’d fumbled at first, tried too hard to do the right thing or say the right thing, and in the end all she’d needed to do was close her eyes and just…be.

She’d never forget Julio’s fingers rasping over her hair, or the way he’d pulled her close and inhaled her scent. Not sexual, not even sensual. Primal and raw, shapeshifter magic at its most basic. An alpha’s desperate rage and a submissive’s quiet trust.

“Sera?” Lily waved a hand in front of her face. “Have you tried asking Julio how he’s doing?”

Sera started, hating the heat that rushed to her cheeks. “No. I mean, I can ask how he’s doing, but he’s not going to answer me. He’s alpha, and I’m…” Young. Damaged. They all thought it, even if most of them didn’t say it. “Julio Mendoza isn’t going to confide in me.”

“But you want him to.”

Lily’s stare had grown
too
interested. Sera resisted the urge to bare her teeth—not polite in public, or in the presence of the woman who would probably be her stepmother before long. “I’m worried about him, okay? And he’s your best friend’s brother, so I figured you might know. I’m worried about Patrick and Kat too.”

Lily folded her napkin in her lap. “I don’t know if you realize it, but Julio might be more likely to be honest with you than with Carmen when it comes to how he’s feeling.”

“Me? Or just anyone
but
Carmen?” The former made her heart skip, but the latter seemed more likely.

The blonde shrugged, though the movement looked anything but nonchalant. “That’s another thing you’ll have to ask him.”

She could ask if Lily knew something, but the very act would prove she cared far too much. She liked Lily, trusted her, but there were some things Sera didn’t want getting back to her father.

So she mirrored the other woman’s shrug and lifted her sweet tea. “I’ll do that the next time I see him.”

“Excellent.” Lily gestured to the menu. “How’s the cheesesteak?”

“It’s good. Hell, everything’s good.” Sera lifted a hand and waved over the waitress on duty. “Teri, can you tell my friend the specials?”

She leaned over to flip a page on the menu. “As long as a little spice is okay, it’s a travesty if you come to Dixie John’s and don’t do something Cajun.”

Lily’s eyes lit up. “Give me the fried shrimp and a bowl of red beans and rice, then.”

Teri scribbled the order on her pad. “Sera?”

Sera didn’t even look at the menu before pushing it toward Teri. “The usual. How busy has it been? Do you think John’s going to need me tonight?”

“He could,” she admitted. “New ad’s running in the visitors’ guide. Lots of tourists finding their way in.”

Thursdays weren’t usually busy, but Teri was new, one of the lion pride who’d taken time settling in New Orleans before finding a job. “If it gets bad, shout for me. I’m done with classes for the summer.”

“Yeah?” She grinned as she tucked her pen behind her ear. “I might take you up on that.”

Teri left with both menus, and Sera glanced at Lily. “You’re not going to lecture me about working too much, are you?”

“Honey, that’d make me the biggest hypocrite in town. I put in insane hours and still take work home with me.”

“I know.” Someday, she might even think about her father the surgeon and his girlfriend the assistant district attorney without feeling like a complete loser. “Maybe I’ll talk to Dad when he gets back about letting him pick up some of the slack in the fall. The sooner I finish school, the better off I’ll be, right?”

Lily smiled gently. “The sooner you finish, the sooner you can do what you really want to do.”

Somehow, Lily understood. That finishing school and starting a catering business wasn’t the dream, it was the goal. The dream was independence.

For a submissive shapeshifter, sometimes it never got to be more than a dream.

Chapter Three

Julio stared at Callum, the empath who had become his therapist.

Callum stared back.

Callum always did that, even when Julio dedicated himself to avoiding eye contact. It was impossible not to feel the appraising weight of the man’s gaze, the prickling sensation that said you were being catalogued. Studied.

Julio shifted in the plush chair and looked away. “Have you figured me out yet, Dr. Tyler?”

“Do you think that’s what I’m here to do?” came the infuriatingly calm response. “Figure you out?”

“Isn’t it?”

Callum’s mouth twitched. “No. If I had any particular need to figure you out, Mr. Mendoza, I’d unshield and find out what makes you tick. It wouldn’t take long, but it also wouldn’t do you much good. You need to figure yourself out.”

“What if I don’t want to?” It was the first honest thing he’d said in a long time, and as soon as it slipped out he wanted to call it back.

“That’s worth figuring out too.”

Julio focused his attention on a Rubik’s Cube perched on the edge of Callum’s desk. “Maybe I need a vacation.”

Callum sat back and folded his hands together, his body language precise and casual. “When’s the last time you took a holiday?”

“I don’t know. When I lived in Charleston, I guess.” He stared at a green square. “I came down to New Orleans and helped Miguel move from the dorms to his apartment.”

“Mmm.” Even without words, Callum always managed to sound like he’d had a minor revelation. “Well, if you could go on one now, what would you do?”

That, at least, was easy to answer. “I’d go someplace where no one knows who I am.”

“Among humans, then.” Callum’s smile held more than a little self-deprecation. “I understand how exhausting it can be to have one’s reputation precede oneself.”

“It’s…work,” Julio corrected. “There’s always work.”

“Yes.” Callum leaned forward and braced his elbows on his desk. “Work you didn’t ask for.”

Work he didn’t really want. “Doesn’t matter, does it? It still has to get done.”

“Yes,” the empath agreed readily. “But this is the problem with a city full of dominant shapeshifters. You take care of everyone else, but not each other. And no one takes care of you.”

Julio stifled a laugh. “And here I thought the problem was more complicated than that.”

“Oh, it always is.” Callum lifted one eyebrow. “But am I wrong, Julio? This city is out of balance, and nature abhors such things.”

“I thought nature abhorred a vacuum.”

“Making you all miserable isn’t an appropriate expression of nature’s hatred?”

“I don’t think nature needs to intervene. We do a damn good job on our own.”

“Maybe you do.” After a moment of silence, Callum’s smile faded. “You talk to me because it makes everyone else feel better.”

Julio pasted on a cocky grin. “I talk to you because I know otherwise you’d miss our times together.”

Callum stared at him.

“We might have to break up anyway, though, because you obviously can’t take a joke.”

“Not particularly.” The empath continued to watch him with that unwavering stare. “We can keep doing this. We can have these meetings because it makes everyone in your life feel better, and you need that. But you don’t want to be here, and you don’t want to talk. The only honest thing you’ve said to me in three months is that you need a vacation.”

“And you’re just now catching on to that?” Julio sighed.

“No, I’m only pointing out that maybe you should sincerely consider taking that vacation.”

If it were remotely a possibility, Julio would be on the first ship to Mexico or the Bahamas. “Too much work, Callum. I can’t leave people hanging.”

“Then start small. A night off?”

Even that was easier said than done. Unless he avoided Mahalia’s and Dixie John’s, chances were good someone would come to him with a problem, like Don Corleone on his kid’s wedding day. “I’ll try, okay?”

Apparently satisfied, Callum nodded once. “Good. I’ll be in New Orleans for another few weeks before I have to return to London for a month. I’d like to see you once more before I leave, but if you’d rather not…”

“Who knows?” Julio rose. “I might be on vacation.”

“I sincerely hope you are.” His tone made it clear he doubted it would happen.

It sparked a surprising irritation. “I may not be an empath, Dr. Tyler, but I can tell when you think I’m full of shit.”

Callum smiled. “So prove me wrong.”

Julio picked up the Rubik’s Cube and twisted it. “Is that what they call reverse psychology?”

“I’m not your therapist. I’m an empath, and you’re a shapeshifter. There aren’t rules and guidelines for this.” For the first time in months, Callum unbent enough to sigh and run a hand through his hair. “I
know
what you went through in January because I’ve seen Kat, and she felt it. Therefore, I’ve felt it. But feeling isn’t experiencing. So think about it, Julio. Think about if you want to talk about that experience. With me, with anyone. Just think.”

Think.
It was the last thing he wanted to do, something that would undoubtedly bring up memories and all the unresolved shit people loved to hear about. Better to push it down, forget it ever happened. It wasn’t as if people didn’t survive worse every day.

But he couldn’t say any of that to Callum. “I will. I promise.”

“Good. I’ll get in touch with you before I fly back to England.” Rising, the empath offered his hand.

Julio shook it. “If you didn’t, my sister would call you and demand to know why not.”

Callum’s sudden laugh was warm, almost fond. “What your sister lacks in empathic power she more than makes up for in training and sheer will. She’s a formidable woman, and I’m just as happy
without
her chasing after me. So don’t get me in trouble.”

“Yeah.” Julio put the toy back on the corner of Callum’s desk. He’d screwed it up, but he wasn’t surprised.

That was what he did these days.

Friday night at Mahalia’s was the closest Sera came to cutting loose. It was the place she felt safe, surrounded by shapeshifters and spell casters, watched over by staff trained by Nicole Peyton, princess of rebel wolves.

With a beer in her hand and the promise of another waiting for her inside, it felt good to lean against the wall in front of the bar and indulge in a moment of feeling alone without
being
alone. Josh would have to be crazy to pick a fight with her here, where one shout would bring the half of the bar with shapeshifter hearing pouring into the street, ready to do violence.

Josh would have to be crazy, and she didn’t want to believe he was. Not in her mind, and not in her heart, where she’d loved him like a stupid, desperate girl.

Her gut knew, though. Her instincts knew, which was why she’d already tensed by the time she caught his scent. No one else smelled like him—cheap cologne and synthetic leather and engine grease and
coyote
, and that was the part that had tugged at her again and again, even when things were bad, even when they were careening toward terrible.

He was like her. They belonged together.

She sidled closer to the door, though she couldn’t see him yet. Just a shadow five feet to her left, a figure that hadn’t yet stepped into the circle of light spilling out of the entrance. “You can turn around and walk away now, and I won’t have to scream and get a dozen wolves out here to kick you bloody.”

He stared back at her—she could feel the weight of it—but he didn’t move. “You could have already done that.”