Free Pack of Strays (The Fangborn Series Book 2) by Dana Cameron Page A

under control.
    “We have a few hours before our flight. Need to pick up anything ?”
    I traveled light, with only my backpack. I’d been keeping up with laundry and had toothpaste. I shook my head. “I’d like to stretch my legs, get some lunch.”
    “Okay, I need a few things. How about we meet at the car in a couple of hours?”
    “Sure.”
    He handed over the envelope with my papers and then hesitated. “Be careful, Zoe.”
    “I’m a werewolf in New York City. What could go wrong?”
    “I’m serious. Fangborn, human … you don’t get to be stupid, you don’t get to make mistakes. Never imagine you’re acting in a vacuum.”
    I so hated that idea. I liked being invisible, almost rootless. I pres sed my lips together, tight, to restrain the first three t hings I thought. A deep breath. “I’ll see you, Adam. I’ll keep my phone on.”
    He looked reassured by that. “Me, too. Text if you need anything .”
    Adam headed into a department store, and I began to wander. A thought struck me.
    I had a card in my pocket—I had half a deck of cards. Not all of them were crossed out. I had two pulled out. One was in Europe, but one was right here in New York City. Victoria Brooks—and a business address downtown. If I was right about the abbreviations, she was an oracle.
    I had a hunch about the cards, and I figured it was safe enough to reach out. Most of the ones I had were marked “Stray.” Like me, odds were, she’d be on her own.
    After getting confused by the subway system, I found the building in the Forties, on Sixth. No cute little brownstones here; it was all business and skyscrapers. The smells and noises started to settle in on me, pressing closer than I liked, but I gawked like the tourist I was.
    Double-checking the address, I ventured in. A row of turnstiles like the subway station, guards at a giant help desk. A long bank of elevators. The place was massive. There was no way I’d find Victoria Brooks in here.
    Cowed, I turned quickly, dodging a group of late lunchers. Damn it—bad move. Now if I decided to ask the guards, I’d look really suspicious.
    I opened the door, and glancing ahead of me, saw a young woman carrying a flat with rows of white paper bags, lunch for eight or nine people. I held the door for her, and she nodded thanks, barely making eye contact. Still, it was more than most people—
    Wait. Something was wrong …
    I sniffed; there it was again. Wait.
    Maybe something was right.
    The young woman froze, almost as soon as I made the connection. She wasn’t exactly what I thought she should be—not immediately recognizable as either vampire or werewolf—but I was learning, oracles are always a little different.
    She looked Normal enough, not that you can tell Fangborn from Normal humans just by looking. Dark skinned, dark brown wavy hair cut straight across at her chin, like a flapper going for Cleopatra vampishness. A little taller than me, maybe five six, she was wearing a pair of super-skinny white jeans and a short-sleeved sweater in pale blue. An oversized bag over her shoulder looked like it cost a fortune. She looked exactly like every other professional woman around, but from the smart casual look, I was guessing she was tech, not sales.
    But oracles are just plain weird. I know that’s horrible to say, but I hadn’t grown up knowing about them, so I wasn’t used to their unpredictable ways. Some of them, I was told, could tell the future, though never in a straightforward fashion, and some of them were reputed to be lucky. I met two, during my short-lived stay at the TRG. One was supposed to be adept at prescience, and she claimed not to be able to read me that day. One was supposed to be able to read histories, but they discarded her report. All she’d seen was a big red emptiness where I should have been.
    So I wasn’t too fond of oracles, in general. Ma was the exception; I didn’t know she was one, to begin with, and neither did she. And as far as