Page 17 of Snag (Conduit #2)

Those connections don’t have to be sexual. But most are.

“You said I might be able to pick up trails?” Presh touches the back of my hand.

Right. I’d been in the middle of explaining why I dragged Presh with me, away from the protection of the estate, despite Rath’s protests. I nod, sweeping my gaze up the street in both directions again. “There will be a lot of those trails here. ”

Except for the nearly collapsed Outcast clubhouse three blocks up, the MC has cleaned every trace of the brawl with Chains, the berserkers, and the other unaffiliated shifters from the immediate area.

In this particular block, the boarded-up windows are the only lingering evidence.

Though most of the stores are closed for business and the foot traffic is minimal, the restaurant on the corner appears to be pumping out take-out — most of it likely for the shifters who’ve spent the day cleaning up the area — and the grocery store has fruit and vegetables displayed outside their plywood-covered windows, under a front awning.

The streets are still damp, but the rain has eased.

“Because of what happened last night?” Presh asks, swallowing. Her attention has shifted westward toward the ocean, as if she’s recalling or visualizing where Bellamy lured her, then killed Kris. Where I murdered Chains before his time.

“Yes. We don’t need to follow any of those trails from last night. But despite the circumstances, it’s a good opportunity for you to practice picking out different resonances.”

“If I can,” Presh says quietly.

“You can,” I say firmly. “All of the awry can sense essence, even if they don’t see it. It’s our fundamental nature. We pull, or weave, essence from ourselves and our environment.”

DeVille’s lighter isn’t working. He shakes it and clicks it a few more times. His gaze is intent on Presh though, and I have no doubt he’s listening.

Rought pivots, phone still pressed to his ear, snatches the unlit cigarette dangling from DeVille’s mouth, and crushes it into tiny flakes of paper and tobacco.

DeVille shoves away from the truck, seemingly ready to fight for his right to slowly poison himself.

Shifters don’t easily die from carcinogens, but they can make themselves sick if they try hard enough.

Rought silences his younger half-brother with a sharp jab of his forefinger and middle finger against his chest.

DeVille loses his breath with a pained gasp, then wheezes on his next compromised inhalation.

Rought’s tone is low. “You’re standing in the presence of a fucking goddess, who has more power in her little finger than you’ll ever access or see in your lifetime. Pay fucking attention. Learn something.”

Well, that makes it clear where Rought stands on the Conduit-as-a-divinity issue. Thankfully, his beliefs don’t seem to deter him from making out with me. Though with his beast a mythical creature, maybe that dampens the whole intimidation factor.

“I’m not awry,” DeVille protests weakly.

“You have no idea what you’re capable of yet,” Rought says.

“We don’t share that bloodline,” DeVille says, frustration edging his words.

“I should hope not,” Rought says with a hint of a threat. “Since you’ve been following my sister around like a lost puppy ever since you first laid eyes on her.”

DeVille goes very still, deliberately not looking at any of us.

Precious flicks her eyes up to meet mine, her gaze filled with questions that I know she’s not ready to have answered. Despite my unfortunate slip during my argument with Rath.

“Though we obviously share commonalities, every awry is different,” I say, ignoring Presh’s look and keeping us on track.

It’s one thing to take a moment to educate the young awry, and another thing to let a dire mage get bored with their hide-and-seek game and start wreaking havoc again.

“I don’t generally see residual essence trails.

I can feel essence, say in spells or charms, though it has to be extremely robust for me to pick up on it.

But what I can see when I take a moment to look are the threads of fate, the essence-forged connections if you prefer, that weave us all together, between each other but also within our world. ”

Presh’s eyes widen. She blinks a few times.

I pause, only partway through my explanation. It’s possible I’m imparting too much information to be useful. I’ve been worried from the start that mentoring with me might not be the right experience for Presh.

“Threads of fate …” she murmurs. “And sometimes you just know you’re supposed to do something …”

“Like go to the beach.” DeVille, now listening intently, steps closer. Though his gaze still rests on Presh not me. “‘The path leads directly to the beach,’ you said.”

“Yes.” I sigh. Last night’s failure lies with me, though. Not the teens.

Presh closes her eyes, swallowing. “Kris said … she said that we should turn up the street. That there was a better place to hide …”

“Maybe this is too much,” I say. “Why don’t we go back to —”

Presh’s eyes snap open. “No, Zaya. I’m here … I want to do this … please?”

DeVille exhales a heavy breath. “I shouldn’t have listened.”

“It’s not like you could have carried both of us, Andy,” Presh says, firmly maintaining the prickly walls she’s erected between them.

“I could have,” he insists.

“It was not your fault!” Presh snaps, hands clenched at her sides. “I listened. I listened … to Kris. And you … you tried to protect … me.”

They stare at each other for a moment, DeVille towering over the tiny awry, both of them presumably reliving the events of last night, replaying the terror and confusion in their heads.

“Why the beach, Zaya?” Presh asks with a croak, pulling her gaze from DeVille to look at me. “Was that one of the things you just know?”

“Yes.”

“Because … you can see the future?” DeVille asks.

“No.”

“Fate,” Rought interjects, though he doesn’t look up from texting on his phone. “Zaya just told you. She can see, or feel, the threads of fate.”

That’s the easiest answer, so I don’t elaborate further.

Especially because this is about focusing Presh’s power, whatever that power might turn out to be.

She almost self-combusted last night through the terror and pain of losing Kris, during which I got a look at the depths of the essence she will eventually wield.

That much access to essence, paired with the multistrand, multicolored threads of fate that surround Precious, needs focus.

For any number of reasons.

Many awry don’t survive the full manifestation of their power, and one awry can take a lot of people with them if they implode.

“Fate,” DeVille scoffs, shaking his head. “There’s always a reason. Something tangible.”

“In the aftermath,” I say, incapable of fully disguising the smirk his doubt evokes. Because I’ve seen his threads and who he is undoubtedly fated to already. “There’s usually a reason, yes. ”

“So the beach?” Presh prompts. “What reason would there be to send us there?”

I think about that for a moment. “Logically … depending on the dire mage’s skill set, there’s a good chance that salt and water would have interfered with their castings. Maybe even stopped the mage from …”

I realize what I’m saying, too late.

Presh visibly deflates.

DeVille grimaces, then scrubs a hand over his face. “So if I had gotten Kris to the beach, the mage might not have been able to …” His gaze flicks to Presh, taking in the anguished look on her face. He doesn’t finish his thought either.

Not at all certain whether I’m even capable of bringing comfort to anyone, I pull Presh against me in a one-armed hug, even while reaching for DeVille and laying my hand across the back of his neck. He instantly tucks next to Presh, bowing his head so I can reach him easier.

I never reached for my aunt like that. Never sought physical comfort from her.

She offered all her knowledge and all her support, but hugs just weren’t a thing.

She’d been the Conduit for over seventy-five years by the time I was born.

There are very few people comfortable coming into any contact with that level of energy, even with the necklace currently hanging around my neck to help mitigate it.

Still holding the teens, I meet Rought’s gaze. His phone is forgotten in his hand, his expression tender but not sad.

He looks at the three of us as if we’re everything he’s ever wanted.

My chest floods with that internal sunshine, that steadying warmth, that Rought seems to lend me effortlessly. Presh relaxes against me. DeVille closes his eyes with an inaudible sigh, curling his fingers around Precious’s wrist. She doesn’t brush him away.

A familiar green pickup truck pulls up to the curb, parking alongside us. Rought tears his gaze away from our huddle. DeVille steps back from the loose embrace as well, pivoting to straighten to his full height.

Not because the massive, grizzled, dark-skinned shifter who steps out of the truck’s cab is a threat, but because he’s a lieutenant in the Outcast MC. By his own admission, he’s ranked even higher than Rought, and DeVille is only a club prospect.

Grinder, wearing his full cut with his beard neatly trimmed, claps his hand on Rought’s shoulder hard enough that the gryphon shifter stumbles slightly. They’re a similar height — both of them giants compared to Presh — but Grinder carries the weight of age in his broad shoulders and massive chest.

“Glad to see you all unscathed with my own eyes,” he says in his deep, gravelly tone.

His gaze flicks to me still cuddling Presh as he crosses to us, ignoring DeVille in that shifter hierarchy way.

Meaning he likely knows everything he needs to know about the young shifter’s health and welfare without a single word or glance exchanged between them.

Presh peeks up at Grinder with a sad smile as he pauses before us. Then he levels his gaze on me and deliberately taps his chest with the first three fingers of his left hand, over his heart.