I shook my head. “The rest are bruises.”
“Stay awake for me, okay?” Ethan’s hand brushed the hair out of my face. An odd muscle in his jaw twitched.
“No problem.” I was in too much pain to fall asleep.
Ethan left the tent. Hades came inside and curled up around my head with his body. He put his head on my shoulder pressing against the side of my face.
I reached up and scratched his ears. “I’m okay, baby.”
He licked my shoulder and settled back down.
“Just get back here.” Ethan hung up his phone as he climbed back into my tent with a bowl of plastic bags filled with ice. He knelt down next to my bed and set the bowl down. “Here, where are the bruises?”
I pulled my shirt up to show my stomach. Ethan cursed as he set an icepack on my stomach. I grabbed one to press against my face.
Ethan grabbed the last one and carefully set it on the burn on my hip. “What happened?”
“Whoever closed the Veil went back.” My head pounded. “They tried to burn it up again.”
“Tell me you kicked some ass.”
I smiled. “Oh, yeah. All over the place.”
“Did you get a good look at him or her or it?” Ethan shifted to sit beside my sleeping bag.
I shook my head. “It had a mask or something on. When I went to tear it off, it left the Veil.”
Ethan shook his head as he examined my face. “It punched you?”
“Rattled my teeth, yeah.” Hopefully, the headache would go away soon. “Is there anything for a headache in that kit?”
Ethan opened the kit again and handed me a small packet. “I’ll get you some water.”
“Thanks.” While he was gone I ran over everything again in my mind. Who the hell was that? I’d had my hands on the intruder. I was so fucking close…
Ethan came back and handed me a bottle of water. I took the pain killer and lay back down. Voices came closer.
“We need to find this fucker.” A wave of exhaustion rolled over me.
“We will, Beautiful.” Ethan took the water bottle from me and put the cap on it.
The tent flap was torn open, the zipper snapped, breaking it. Well, there goes this tent too.
Asher ducked into my tent. His eyes burning bright blue with silver mixed in. “Ally?”
“I’m okay.” I was finally getting used to the pain. My eyes grew heavy. Ethan moved out of the way.
“What happened?” Asher dropped beside me, his hand brushing my hair from my forehead and pulling the icepack away. He cursed.
“Ethan will tell you, I’m going to pass out.” I reached up and squeezed his hand. “I’m okay, I promise.” I slipped under.
* * *
When I woke up the sun was at a different angle through the trees. It had to be around late afternoon. For the moment, I wasn’t hurting. I knew that as soon as I moved, that was going to change.
“How’re you feeling?” Louis’ voice had me turning my head.
“Like I got in a fight.” I carefully rolled to my side. Hades moved away from my head to lie down against my back.
He smiled. “Feel up to raising some dead today?”
I groaned.
He chuckled. “Did you raise anything last night?”
“No.” I sighed. “Do I have to raise something every day?”
“Not if you’re not raising something every night.” He shook his head. “If you raise something at night then you need to raise that day.”
I met his gaze. “For the rest of my life?”
He nodded.
“Joy,” I muttered.
“That or roadkill will follow you home.” His face told me he wasn’t kidding.
“I hope I stick to squirrels.”
“Lexie, I need you to understand how strong of a necro you are going to become.” Louis’ voice was dour. “I didn’t get to this point until I was in my early twenties. You’re just barely eighteen.”
“How strong do you think I’m going to be?” I didn’t want to ask but I needed to know.
He clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I think by the time you’re in your mid-twenties… I think you’ll be able to raise entire graveyards.”
My heart dropped. “That’s not frightening at all.”
“I know. But you need to know ‘cause I’m not going to be around forever.” He gave me a sad smile.
Something about the way he said it had me forcing myself to sit up. “What?”
“Lexie, one of the reasons I came with Ranulf and Astrid, is because I want you to cross me over.”
Chapter 20
“You what?”
Louis met my gaze with calm eyes. “I need you to cross me.”
Stunned, all I could do was gape at him.
“What… what about your family? Juan? Everyone?” How could he want to leave them?
“They’re alright.” He shook his head. “The only person who can see me is Juan and he can’t heal until I’m gone. I don’t belong here anymore.”
My mind went back to what he had said. Necros had a choice after moving on. “Are you going to become a Reaper?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“If you did… you’d be able to see your family. Right?” He’d be able to be with his wives, he’d be able to be there.
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. As a Reaper, you’re in this strange dead but not dead state. It doesn’t mean you can go back to your life.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. To be alive but not, to be able to see your family but not…
“My life is over, Lexie. My family needs to heal and move on. It’s the way it’s got to be.”
My throat tight, I nodded. “Give me a couple of days?”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
I pushed myself to my feet, groaning as my bruises objected, loudly. “Now, I’m starving.” Hades hurried out the tent flap. The hanging, busted tent flap. I shook my head and climbed out. The guys looked up from their spots at the fire ring. Asher was busy at the barbecue. “Hey, guys.”
“Sit,” Zeke barked from his chair.
Isaac got out of his chair so I could take it since it was closer. “Ease up, man.”
I sat down in Isaac’s chair. “So, how bad is it?”
Zeke got to his feet and headed for the picnic area. Oh, that must be bad...
Isaac sat on the fire ring. “Not bad, you don’t have a black eye but you do have a good bruise on your jaw.”
“Your stomach is pretty colorful,” Ethan added.
“Well, that fucker will be hurting just as much if not more.” It was a small comfort but one all the same. Something slammed behind us. Everyone turned. Asher was taking deep breaths again. Zeke was beside him looking just as pissed.
“Time for a run.” Zeke tossed a bag of ice to Isaac.
Asher nodded and pushed away from the table. “You can’t keep up.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Zeke turned and headed for the road.
Asher pulled his shirt off and followed. Isaac handed me the ice bag.
I held it to my face. “I guess it’s not that pretty, huh?”
“It’s not only about you.” Miles leaned forward in his chair.
“I know.” I met his gaze. “We never talked about it, but Asher took you to the site. Did you find anything new?”
Miles nodded. “Well, I know what the set up was. The left side with the tank was rigged to create condensation. Basically, it would turn any gas into a liquid. It was attached to a distillation station. Where whatever it was, was condensed down.”
“So, not drugs?” Is that what he was saying?
Miles nodded. “Not drugs or alcohol.”
“Then what the hell were they doing?” Isaac got to his feet and sat in an empty chair.
“We need to find out what that triangle thing was. That’ll tell us what they were doing.” I tried to my feet and failed.
“What
do you need?” Ethan demanded as he watched me.
The bruises convinced me it wasn’t worth it. “Something to munch on, I’m starving.”
Ethan got to his feet and headed into the kitchen. “Are we sure this has anything to do with ghosts? The markings could mean nothing.”
I shrugged. “All I know, is there is only one ghost around here and he said that there were rumors of ghosts disappearing in that ravine.”
Ethan brought me back a bag of chips. I smiled gratefully before stuffing a few in my mouth.
“So, it could be nothing?” Isaac asked. Ethan winked at me before going back to his chair and sitting down.
I swallowed my bite before asking, “What else do we have to go on?”
Miles turned to Isaac. “She’s right.”
“We need to find who did this. Or at least figure out what they’re doing.” I ate another chip.
Miles nodded then met my eyes. “There’s something I need to talk to you guys about.”
That didn’t sound good. “Okay, what did I do?”
The twins chuckled.
Miles didn’t. He held my gaze, his expression serious. “Zeke already knows about this, but Asher doesn’t.” He turned to the twins. “And with the way Asher is reacting to anything regarding Lexie, I think it’s best we don’t tell him until he’s back home.”
Isaac’s and Ethan’s smiles disappeared.
“That doesn’t sound good.” I closed the bag of chips, my appetite gone.
“It’s not.” Miles cleared his throat. “The day we came out here, I went downstairs and found my father in the house.”
The twins cursed.
My jaw dropped. “What happened?”
Miles began tapping his fingers along his thigh. “He wanted to talk. During the conversation, he mentioned you.”
“He knows about her?” Isaac leaned forward in his chair.
Miles nodded. “He knows your name and where you live. So, he might have someone following you.”
Anger sparked in my chest. “Why?”
“It’s his usual motive.” Miles’ voice grew colder. “He always needs to know everything about everyone in our lives.”
“Do you think he’ll do something?” I struggled not to yell. Another fucking asshole following me… Yeah, that’s fucking great.
Miles met my eyes. “I don’t know. But I know him being interested is not a good sign.”
“So, what the hell do we do?” And how big of a threat will he be? I took several slow deep breaths to keep the panic in my stomach from rising.
“For now, you need to be aware of people and cars around you,” Miles explained. “I put someone on it before we left, so we should know if you’re being followed by the time we get home.”
I nodded as I simmered. “Okay, you take care of that and keep me in the loop. I’ll try to take care of the fucker who closed the Veil.”
“I can help with that too.” Miles assured me. “At the moment all we can do is wait on the problem of my father. In the meantime, I can hire more graduate students to do more research.”
“Miles-”
“I know. You don’t want me to spend money on you.” Miles smiled. “But we need to find the person who did this and stop them.”
I hated to admit it, but he was right. “Alright. You have a point.”
“So, when we get home, how are we going to find this guy?” Ethan asked.
I thought about it. “I think we need to start looking around town and out in the woods for more of those set ups.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Ethan scratched his arm
“Well, since we are all checking in right now, I talked to Danielle.” Isaac turned to me.
“How’d that go?” I rested my chin on my hand.
“We were right,” Isaac said. “She’s suicidal. Or at the very least on the road to it.”
I nodded.
“Okay, I’m lost.” Ethan turned to each of us.
“You’re not alone.” Miles pushed up his glasses.
Isaac quickly explained what he had seen and Evelyn’s theory. “And that’s what’s going on.”
“You didn’t tell me you saw anything.” Ethan watched his brother carefully as his hand clenched into a fist.
Isaac shrugged. “I thought I was going nuts. And we’ve had more important things going on.”
Ethan’s eyes stormed. “You’re my brother. There’s nothing that is more important than that.”
Isaac met Ethan’s gaze. “That’s not what I meant-”
“Let’s go for a walk.” Ethan got to his feet as he spun his rings.
Isaac
I followed Ethan out of camp and onto the trails. His shoulders were rigid as we walked further away from camp.
“I can’t fucking believe we have to have this fucking conversation again.” Ethan turned on me, furious. “You agreed to tell me if shit is going on!”
“I didn’t know what was going on.” I shrugged. “I thought I was going nuts.”
“All the more reason to tell me.” His eyes narrowed on mine. “We talked about this in New Orleans. We need to be there for each other! We need to trust each other!”
I eyed him. His hands shook slightly, his eyes were storming, the muscles in his forearms stood out as he clenched his fists… “What are you not telling me?”
The blood drained from his face.
Oh yeah, he was fucking hiding something. “’Fess up.”
He swallowed hard. “I… I didn’t know anything was wrong.”
“But something is wrong?” I stepped closer to him.
“Ranulf told me yesterday after I ran off as a distraction for Zeke.” He let out a deep breath. “He says I’m not completely human anymore.”
My blood turned cold. “What do you mean, you’re not human?”
He shrugged, his eyes filling. “I don’t know. He doesn’t know what I am. He’s gotta talk to the other gargoyles.”
Fucking shit. “Brother…”
He shook his head. “It looks like the witches did something to me. Changed me. We don’t know what but...”
No. I wasn’t going to lose him too! I grabbed and pulled him against me and held him as tight as I could. As if I could keep all this from happening now… Ethan… My eyes burned as a weight began crushing my chest.
He hugged me back, and took a shaky breath. “It could be good…”
It could but the chances… I pulled back but kept my hand on the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
He lifted his head to meet my eyes. “It happened in New Orleans.”
“Yeah?” That wasn’t a good enough reason…
He shook his head slightly. “Asher was bitten in New Orleans.”
If he didn’t fucking answer me, I was going to kill him. “Brother…”
“We were in New Orleans because of Lexie.” He spelled it out for me.
“Oh, fuck.” She would blame herself just like she probably already was with Asher.
He shook his head. “I can’t do that to her right now. She might be able to handle one of us changing… Not two of us.”
“Three,” I muttered. “I’m seeing shit no one else can now.”
He held his hands out to his sides. “See?”
Shit. He had a good point but... “Why did you tell me?”
He hesitated. “I need you to watch me. Look for anything out of the ordinary. Aggression, mood changes, weird behavior… anything.”
Fuck… “Well, yeah. But we’re going to have to tell the others at some point. We’re working on our communication, remember?”
“I know. But there’s nothing to tell them right now.” He twirled his rings. “I just want to give her some time to adjust.”
“And for you to adjust.” He wasn’t fooling me. This was… fucking insane.
He nodded. “Yeah. And to get some time to figure out what the hell I am now.”
“Wait. The full moon is tomorrow.” This wasn’t good. “What if
you’re a shifter?”
He shook his head. “Ranulf said I didn’t smell like a shifter.”
“At least we know that. Anything else?”
He cringed. “I haven’t had my pain meds in a month.”
My brain stalled out. “A month?”
“Yeah. And I carried Lexie into her tent after that fucker went after her in the Veil.”
My eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t been able to lift more than his book bag for years. “Are you fucking with me?”
“I wish,” he huffed. “I also pulled a dyno the other day. Four feet from hand hold to hand hold.”
My jaw dropped. “So, your back isn’t a problem anymore….”
He snorted. “No, Ranulf suspects that I’m healing and that my strength and agility are better, but we’ve got a whole fucking mess of other problems now.”
“What the hell are we going to do?”
Lexie
It was after dinner and Asher wasn’t back from his run yet. The twins had kept dinner simple. Hot dogs, chips and salad. Miles had gone for his evening swim with Isaac for company while I sat with Hades and roasted marshmallows with Ethan. I stared at the fire, not really paying attention. Tonight we were going to have another family meeting, to talk about how dating would work if I dated all of them.
Dating. All of them. At the same time. Miles wanted me to think about what my concerns would be about it. Besides the guys staying friends, there was only one thing... I watched as Ethan popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Well, there was only one way to know the answer… “Snoopy?”
Ethan got to his feet and stretched. “Yeah, Beautiful?”
I hesitated. Come on, it’s Ethan. “I’ve got to ask you something.”
He came over and sat in the chair beside me. “Ask away.”
“You know how we’re talking about me dating everyone?”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yeah?”
“If we do this, and its works, eventually sex will become a factor.” I don’t know why but it was easy talking to Ethan about this.
“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow.
“If I date everyone then this is going to be a… different set up.” I swallowed hard. “You know I don’t care what people think of me.”
When the Dead Have It Easy Page 29