***

“That is so not his boyfriend,” Danny heard Jeff’s obnoxious voice coming from not more than three feet behind him.

“You think? It looks like our little doe finally found her wolf,” Kat whispered angrily. “And keep your voice down. He’s right over there.”

Danny had a mind to turn on his heel and abandon his post only to scare the living daylights out of the two gossipers. Unlike Kat, who usually assumed a submissive role when his boyfriends were around just to show what a cute twink he could be, Jeff was more masculine in appearance and preferred to pretend to be a straight shooter – but not that sort of straight. Both of them hoped for billionaires to come through the front door and whisk them away to lives of luxury.

They worked in a store that catered to young guys with a bit of money to spend on jeans and t-shirts nicer than usual, so that hope for billionaires was so misplaced that it made Danny laugh to himself to think of it.

He must have laughed to himself a little too loudly, because the gossiping stopped abruptly.

“Hey, Danny,” Jeff called out. “Kat is telling me that you got yourself a boyfriend. But I don’t buy it. Was that guy from this morning some sort of rent boy you found at a discount or something?”

Danny turned, his face all a smile. “The guy from this morning will come pick me up at six, when we finish here. You’ll have a chance to ask him yourself.”

The way Jeff’s face metamorphosed from obnoxious to unsettled should have been recorded for posterity. Danny shrugged and returned to his task. He wasn’t the sort to strike back because, usually, Kat and Jeff aimed their poisoned arrows at him. Right now, however, they were insulting Ryder by calling him a rent boy – a mistake Danny himself was guilty of, but he could give himself a break due to the shock of having such a handsome guy in his home. What were his colleagues’ excuses?

***

Was there such a thing as a clairvoyant in this damned city? Ryder zippered his jacket after getting one too many stares from people who eyed his bloodied chest, seemingly startled by the sight of a bit of blood.

His mate had to be under a spell, but without Cassandra’s help, Ryder couldn’t identify its source, nor the way to lift it. The fact that he hadn’t been able to smell his mate at all was unnerving, but at the moment that was the least of his problems.

Theodore was strong, and while Ryder didn’t wish to hurt him, a second meeting was likely to turn really bloody for both of them. Without answers, he couldn’t face Theodore again. Hopefully, he would get them before the next full moon. If not, they would all remain cursed for eternity.

Every place in this city was carefully documented on maps that could be accessed through his phone. Ryder studied the device with keen eyes. If he managed to find someone similar enough to a clairvoyant or a wizard of sorts, he might come closer to discovering a solution to his current predicament.

“Fortunetelling?” he murmured to himself.

There was a fee for the services offered. And there were so many to choose from. How was he supposed to try them all and see who was a fraud and who wasn’t?

“First session free, come back for more,” he read slowly. A free session sounded like a good deal in the beginning. This person was obviously confident enough in his or her ability to charge only for a second session; displeased customers would surely not return to someone who told them a bunch of silly lies the first time.

Ryder had to find this fortuneteller and see if there was any thread of magical wrongdoing he could unravel from the little he had glimpsed during his visit to his mate.

***

The fortuneteller was conducting his business in a small room that could barely contain a tiny table, covered in a dark red cloth, two chairs, one currently creaking under Ryder’s weight, and the young man who advertised his services on the screens of phones.

“I’m here for the free session,” Ryder informed him.

The young man was short and thin, looking like any gust of wind would blast him away. He reminded Ryder of a rodent, but not the pesky kind. More like the cute kind that the girls in his pack sometimes kept as pets. The thick-rimmed glasses seemed too big for the young man’s head, and he was nervously fiddling with a deck of cards on his table.

“Certainly. I wasn’t expecting anyone.” The cute little human offered a small nervous smile, then added, “Today.”

“You’re a fortuneteller and you couldn’t tell someone was going to come through your door today?” Ryder inquired, quirking an eyebrow.

“Good point.” The fortuneteller pointed both his index fingers at him. “I’m doing this as research.”

“Research of what?”

“Never mind. Let’s start.”

Ryder pondered whether or not to get up and leave. But the allure of a free session of fortunetelling, seeing how meager his funds were, couldn’t be denied.

“As a clairvoyant, are you sworn to keep all you find of a person’s future a secret from everyone else?” Ryder asked. Cassandra had told him about this; if a clairvoyant disclosed what he or she knew, a curse would be the prompt reward for such actions.

“I will keep your secrets, sir,” the young man said solemnly.

“Very well. I am Ryder Asherman from Pinemoor, the alpha of Luna’s Sentinels. I am here to find my mate and just discovered that a spell has been placed on him.”

The young fortuneteller stared at him wide-eyed. “Hi, I’m Jack. Your… mate?”

“Yes. My fated mate,” Ryder said slowly, as it seemed that Jack was a bit slow.

“And who is your mate, if I may ask?”

“You may. My mate is Theodore Pembroke.”

“Pembroke? That Pembroke?”

Ryder had no idea what Jack meant by ‘that Pembroke’. “The tall building three subway stations from here. It belongs to him.”

Jack opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times. “Wow. This is juicy. I mean, interesting.”

“Can you help me?” Ryder asked.

Jack grabbed his deck of cards. “I can try,” he said, smiling happily.

TBC