An Outlaw for the Psychic Soul
Three years ago
The bloodline seer’s laser drilled a point of heat between Monica’s shoulder blades. Whoever the hell the seer was, he or she was going to blow Monica’s unassuming, girl-next-door cover.
Ditching her baseball cap and pulling on a jacket, she continued along the crowded sidewalk. She could lose eighty percent of her tails with those two simple changes. Most people fixated on the hat or clothing, not the actual person.
The gait and boots from her peripheral vision suggested her pursuer was male, although she’d yet to glimpse his face. He continued to trail her, proving he wasn’t a novice. Just her luck that she’d taken her psychic suit in for cleaning, leaving her without her most-powerful weapon.
Whether he’d randomly picked her from the crowd or had intentionally targeted her, his seer power would have told him she was an unmated orgasmic psychic. No doubt he thought he’d hit the bounty hunting jackpot. Veering off the crowded sidewalk down an alley, she let him salivate over how easily he’d take her down.
The guy continued past her. If he was as good as her first impression led her to believe, he’d turn down the next alley then thread between the tight city buildings, intercepting and gagging her in less than thirty seconds.
Twenty-four seconds later, he charged at her, his palm going straight for her mouth. Monica channeled his forward momentum and flipped him over her shoulder. Laying him flat on his back on the broken pavement, she thrust her knee in his groin before the wind reentered his lungs.
He grunted.
She gouged again. From here on out, she called the shots and had no qualms about unmanning him permanently.
“Fu—” His curse faded to a moan.
Satisfied he was solely focused on the searing pain between his legs, she eased up. He rolled into a fetal position, clutching himself. She grabbed his shoulder and dragged him to the light pole at the side of the alley. Pulling her handcuffs from her vest, she snapped them around his left wrist. She yanked his right hand from his groin and pulled it behind the light pole, cuffing it with the left, so he sat with his back to the pole.
From behind, she patted him down, removing a stun gun and a knife from his person. After she messaged the police, she rounded the pole to face him head-on.
“You troublemaking asshole! You just caused me a shit ton of paperwork.” She glared at him. His face was scruffy with a two or three day beard. His striking bright blue eyes were still dilated with pain and shock from the twin hits to the pavement and the groin.
Something deep inside her clicked.
Oh no. Fuck, no. She stumbled. Not her soulmate. She was government spy, damn it. One of the good guys. She took down guys like him for a living. What she did not do was mate with them.
“I’d hate to cause you any trouble, Sweetheart. Why don’t you just unlock these cuffs and send me on my way? I won’t bother you again, and you won’t have to waste your time with unnecessary paperwork.”
“Bothering me in the first place was your mistake.” The way he truly bothered her had nothing to do with the fact that he’d tried to abduct her.
“I just tripped over my own feet, and you happened to be right there when I tried to catch myself. I apologize if you thought I was trying something inappropriate.”
“Save it for your lawyer and the judge, creep.” How dare her soul pick a criminal.
“The name’s Dex, sweetheart. Dex Seer. And I’m free on Friday if you want to go out.”
She’d dated a lot of sleazy guys in the ongoing effort to track down enemy information and make the world a safer place. But soulmate or not, she wouldn’t go out with this one. “You’re going to be in jail on Friday night.”
“Saturday then.”
Rolling her eyes, she pulled out her phone and entered his name into the government database.
“Holy shit.” She scrolled through the list of stuff he was wanted for—kidnapping, aiding and abetting the enemy, breaking and entering. If she hadn’t stopped him, he would handed her over to the government’s enemies for a price that would have matched her yearly salary. “You might want to consider using a fake name with your pickup lines. Dex Seer is wanted for a crap ton of stuff. If you’re angling to walk free from our scuffle by using a ‘he said-she said’ defense, you better start worrying about all the other charges the government can make stick.”
A flash of worry crossed his face. Then he aimed an ‘aw-shucks’ smile at her. “If you’re not ready to trust me, we can arrange a neutral meeting ground for our date on Saturday sweetheart.”
“The name’s Smic. Monica Smic. I’m your worst nightmare, not your sweetheart.”
###
“Saturday night. Neutral meeting place. I knew you couldn’t say no to me, Smic.” Despite wearing an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, Dex grinned as he sauntered into the stark, gray booth.
Monica scowled at him through the glass. Although his seer scan would have told him she was an unmated orgasmic psychic, he didn’t know her soul had picked him as its mate. And as she didn’t intend to complete their mating, he’d never know that part. But her soul would forever crave his closeness. “Why are you involved in so much shitty, shady stuff?”
“Who says I am?”
“I’m not here to get a confession out of you or cut you a deal.” She just wanted to understand how her soul could have picked him. The guy sold his seer services to good guys and bad guys alike and offered his bounty hunting services to known criminals. But he lived with his mother and sister in a low-crime, working-class neighborhood and fixed his elderly neighbors’ leaky pipes and broken locks at no charge. Any assurance that his good side overrode his criminal background would ease her internal tug-of-war.
“Ah, so you came for a conjugal visit.” He smirked. “How do we get on the same side of this glass wall?”
Clearly, any redeeming qualities didn’t extend to his smart-ass personality. Regardless of his occasional brush with decency, he was still a criminal, and she’d dedicated her life to ridding the world of crime.
“Coming here was a mistake.” Standing, she signaled to the jail guard.
“Wait.” Dex’s smug expression disappeared, replaced by panic. “I need your help to get out of here. My sister depends on me to get the medicine she needs.”
“Maybe you should have asked for my help in the alley, instead of attacking me.”
“Look, it wasn’t anything personal against you. Her medicine’s expensive.” He shrugged away the guard’s hand.
“The government has programs for people who can’t afford their medications. Your sister should look into them.” She leaned toward the speaker imbedded in the glass separating them. “Abducting people is not an acceptable answer to any problem.” She waved at the guard to take him away.
Dex glared at her. “Those programs don’t do shit when the medication is no longer produced or available for sale.”
The guard tugged him toward the door.
“My sister will go blind without this medicine,” Dex yelled, still holding her gaze.
A second guard joined the first, and they dragged him through the doorway.
“Her name is Lucy. She’s only thirteen years old. If she goes blind, it will be on your conscience, Smic. If you won’t help me, then help Lucy. Please.” He kept yelling, his voice fading down the corridor.
Monica marched out of the jail. She wouldn’t help the asshole who’d tried to kidnap her and sell her to her government’s enemies. Dex was a manipulator, a player, and a criminal.
She slumped against the wall outside the building. His sister was an innocent child, the type of person she’d dedicate her life to protecting.
If Lucy really would go blind without the medicine, then Monica would make sure she got it. But she had no intention of letting Dex know she’d lifted a finger to help him.
Now read the rest of the story. Find out what happens when Dex and Monica are reunited three years later in Solace for the Psychic Soul, part of the Wiccan Haus MID-WINTER HEALING anthology.
Dex Seer has spent his life on the wrong side of the law, working for anyone who will pay him enough to afford the medicine his sister needs to keep from going blind. But the medicine no longer exists. In desperation, he books a stay at the Wiccan Haus to heal his sister. With a sexy government spy following him through the portal, he stands to lose everything he’s spent his life protecting.
After too many years reading the evil, sadistic thoughts of her government’s enemies, Monica Smic is exhausted and cynical. Worse, her soul discovered its mate in a lawless bounty hunter, and staying away from him is destroying her from the inside out. When she passes out on the job, her boss forces her to take a week off at the Wiccan Haus to get her act together.
Despite their mutual distrust, the more time Dex and Monica spend in each other’s company, the more their battered souls find solace in the other’s. But Dex’s first loyalty is to his sister, and Monica’s is to her government. On the Winter Solstice, they will either heal each other or lose everything in winter’s fiercest storm.
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