Chapter 1
“THIS IS going to be a total disaster. You know that, right?”
There are times when having a boyfriend who can tell the future is great. And then there are times like this.
Rolling my eyes, I flipped down the visor to check my makeup in the little mirror.
“Is that your Oracle self talking, or your concerned boyfie self?”
David laughed at that, twisting in the driver’s seat to look at me. His sandy blond hair was its usual wreck, his blue eyes bright behind his glasses. “Seriously, you have got to stop calling me that.”
The visor smacked back into place with a snap as I smiled at him. “But you are an Oracle,” I said with mock innocence, and now it was his turn to roll his eyes.
“You know which term I was objecting to.”
The windows in David’s car were down, letting in the breeze as well as the faint smell of beer and the pounding bass coming from inside the Sigma Kappa Nu fraternity house across the street. It was getting late, and there were a million places I would rather have been, but I had a job to do tonight.
Still, I could mix a little business with pleasure. Leaning over the seat, I tipped my face up so he could kiss me. “It’ll only take a sec,” I promised once we parted. “And besides, this is what we’re supposed to be doing.”
David’s lips were a thin line, and there was a little wrinkle between his brows. “If you’re sure,” he said, and I paused, hand on the latch.
“What do you mean?”
David pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “This whole changing-the-future thing. Sometimes I wonder . . . like, what if you can’t change the future, Pres? What if you’re only delaying it a little while?”
My hand fell away from the door as I thought about that, but before I could answer, a loud bang from the front of the car had us both jumping.
Two dark-haired guys in polo shirts and pastel shorts chortled as they walked past, their faces washed out in the glow of the headlights. “Nice car, asshat!” one of them shouted before they did some kind of fist-bumping move that made me want to bump my fist, too.
Right into their faces.
At my side, David heaved a huge sigh. “Well, if we’re supposed to be fighting evil, I’m not sure guys like that qualify.” He turned to look at me, one corner of his mouth lifting and making a dimple appear in his cheek. “Although I am a little more excited about watching you pound them into a pulp now.”
I settled back into my seat, fussing with my hair. “Hopefully there won’t be any need for that. I’m going to get in there, get the twins, and get out. And you won’t be watching anything, since you need to stay in the car.”
David scowled. “Pres—”
“No.” I turned back to him, the streetlight overhead outlining him in orange. “There’s no way those guys will let you in. Because you’re . . .”
Wearing an argyle sweater and lime-green shoes, I thought to myself. “A guy.”
He was going to argue again, I could tell. That V between his eyes was getting deeper and his knee was jiggling, so I hurried. “You’ve already done the Oracle thing, so let me do the Paladin thing, and then we can get the heck out of here as quickly as possible, okay?”
Not even David Stark could argue with that, so he gave a terse nod and leaned back in his seat. “Okay. But please make it fast. This place is already starting to have a bad influence on me. I feel the need to buy polo shirts and shorts. Maybe some Man Sandals.”
Grinning, I unbuckled my seat belt. “Anything but Man Sandals! Although, not gonna lie, a polo shirt wouldn’t be a bad addition to your wardrobe.”
David made a face at me and tugged at the hem of his sweater. “This is a classic,” he informed me, and I leaned over to give him one more quick kiss.
“Sure it is.”
Across the street, a group of boys came stumbling out the front door of the redbrick Sigma Kappa Nu house, one of them breaking away to puke in the azalea bushes.
Charming.
“Abigail and Amanda, the things I do for you,” I muttered as I got out of the car, shutting the door behind me.
Pushing my shoulders back, I did the best I could to saunter across the lawn, projecting confidence while also trying not to draw too much attention to myself. That’s why I’d picked this dress. Should things get . . . out of hand, “girl in a black dress” wasn’t all that memorable of a description.
The door to the frat house was hanging open as I approached, thanks to the puking guy and his friends, so I was able to slip inside unnoticed.
If the bass had been pounding from outside, it was like a physical presence in the house, rattling my teeth and starting an immediate headache behind my eyes.
And the smell . . .
Beer, boy, old pizza, and carpet that probably hadn’t been cleaned since they’d built this place back in the sixties.
Ugh. Frats were the worst.
But I was here on a mission, and I switched my purse from one shoulder to the other as I scanned the crowd, looking for Abigail and Amanda’s twin blond heads.
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are some fraternities worth hanging out with, but Sigma Kappa Nu was not one of them. These were, on the whole, big dumb party boys, and I was not into that. At all.
But back in October, I’d killed my history teacher with a shoe, and everything had changed.
It turned out I was a Paladin, a kind of superpowered warrior, charged with protecting the Oracle, aka David Stark, aka my new boyfriend. Being an Oracle meant that David could see the future, which obviously made him a pretty valuable commodity to a lot of people. And not good people, either. The Ephors were a group of men who had owned Oracles for years, using their visions to get ahead in the world. To predict the outcome of everything from wars to financial investments. Because David was a male Oracle, the Ephors had wanted to kill him—the only other male Oracle had been nowhere near as powerful as the traditional female ones, plus he’d become super unstable. But David had been rescued by his first Paladin, a guy named Christopher Hall, and by his Mage, Saylor Stark.
I hadn’t exactly done a bang-up job of protecting David at first—people had died, including Saylor, and David had undergone a spell that gave him stronger powers than ever. Not only did he have much clearer visions, but also, he’d been able to make Paladins, giving the same powers I had to a group of girls at Cotillion. Oh, and did I mention my ex, Ryan, was our new Mage? So, yeah, complicated, but we were all trying to make the best of things.