A surge of something bitter chased up his throat. He was happy for them, that they had what they had together, but by the moon, he wished he had something similar. Shelley’s face was suddenly before him and he knew with a certainty he’d been fighting, that she was it. She was his mate. He wanted her. Wanted to be with her. Needed her more than he needed his next heartbeat. And according to Arianrhod, he was meant to be with her.
‘Kitten,’ he whispered. The room around him faded into swirling colours. Dizziness rose over him but before it could catch and toss him up, the colours stilled, became the blue of sky overhead, the greens and browns of the Australian bush.
There was a sound to his left. He turned. His mouth dried.
Shelley.
She was jogging out of the bushland of Westerfolds Park, along the walking track that passed by the bottom fence of the packhouse. Her face was red and beaded with sweat. Her long, golden hair was caught up in a double loop high on her head, bobbing up and down a little with her movement. She was wearing figure-hugging workout gear—all black. Tight calves and thighs led up to tight hips and butt. Holy mother of god, her butt looked good. He’d never really thought himself a butt man—more into breasts, really. Large breasts that spilled over his hands. But since meeting Shelley, his appreciation of the female form had changed. Don’t get him wrong—she had a beautiful pair of breasts. Goldilocks breasts—not too small, not too large, but just right, set between a trim waist and wide shoulders. But by god she had a glorious back. And butt. He wanted to run his hand over those firm globes. He bet her skin would be even silkier than the silkiness of the pants that encased them.
His cock stirred and he looked down at it in amazement. He could get a hard-on as a ghost-spirit-thing? Would miracles never cease? Although it would be a true miracle if he could use the damn thing. He had a sad feeling that it could get excited all it liked, but that it would lead a distinctly lonely existence until he could get out of whatever this place was.
‘Down boy,’ he whispered to it as Shelley got nearer. ‘No use fantasising how hot Shelley looks in her workout gear. Wait until we can show her.’
He became aware of the silence then. No feet pounding on gravel.
Shelley had stopped running. His gaze lifted. She was staring at him, face red and glowing with perspiration. Her violet-blue eyes were even more purple-violet than blue now; a change that had been happening slowly ever since the banshee had broken free. They glowed in the twilight like sun-lit amethyst. Stunning. Simply stunning.
And they were focused entirely on his groin.
His cock hardened as her gaze stayed fixed on it.
‘Crap, Kitten. Don’t look at it like that unless you mean to do something about it.’
Her gaze snapped back to his, her nose scrunched as if she was in pain and then she looked at the sky and yelled, ‘Oh, that’s just perfect! Well, you know what you can do, universe? You can just go fuck yourself. I’m not playing the “Shelley is nuts” game. He’s not there and I’m not going to talk to him like he is.’ She lifted her middle finger to the sky for good measure, and then charged ahead.
She would have run right into him if he hadn’t jumped out of her way.
He watched in stunned silence as she ran like the dogs of hell were at her ankles, up the path that led to the back gate of the packhouse’s garden. Just as she reached for the gate, he yelled out, ‘I’m not imaginary, you know. I’m really here. And I need your help.’ She paused. He thought she was going to turn and talk to him. But then she pushed the latch up with a jerk and shoved the gate so hard, it slammed against the fence, making the whole thing shudder. The gate swung back with the momentum and slammed shut behind her.
Adam shook his head. ‘That went well.’
‘Make her see. She is your only hope.’
The voice whispered to him out of the air. He didn’t even bother to look around, knowing he’d see nothing but the breath of wind in the trees. He suddenly felt like Luke Skywalker watching Princess Leia’s message with Obi Wan. It was an impossible task for them to go and rescue her and get the plans that were inside R2D2 to the rebels. Yet, they’d done it.
He wasn’t quite sure if Luke and Obi Wan’s task was harder than his. Infiltrating the Death Star seemed a cakewalk in comparison to making Shelley admit he was real and agree to learn how to use her powers. If stubborn had a goddess, it was Shelley.
‘You have no choice.’
Sighing, he said, ‘Yes, Master Jedi,’ and trudged up the pathway towards the packhouse.
Chapter 6
Shelley leaned her elbows on her desk and pinched the bridge of her nose. There was a sharp pounding at the base of her skull that was slowly making its way towards her eyes and if she didn’t take something for it soon, it would turn into a migraine.
She couldn’t afford to have a migraine right now. There was too much to do. The only problem was, she’d already maxed out on medication. If she had any more, she could seriously compromise her liver and kidneys. If Bron were here, she’d make her take one of her disgusting herbal remedies. They worked, but urgh. She shuddered and tried to focus on the paper in front of her.
A figure rushed at her from the side, mouth open in a wail, hands reaching towards her. She jerked back. Damn it! She’d let the outer layer of her shields slip—she was too tired and her head hurt too much. Before she could do anything about it, the woman’s wail reached her—’Help me! I’m alone. So alone.’
The wail hit her like a slap. As did recognition. This was the stroke victim she’d nursed earlier. The doctor said he thought she was going to make it. Shelley had known with a deep-down, pain-in-the-gut knowing, a low hum she now recognised as the banshee, that she wouldn’t.
The woman’s appearance here meant she hadn’t been wrong. And now she’d come searching for Shelley, like a moth to Shelley’s flame.
‘No you fucking don’t,’ she said, pushing her chair back from the desk before the spirit’s outstretched hands could touch her. She scooted across the floor on the wheeled chair, out of the grasping reach of the confused recently departed, and despite the sickening lurch of pain in her head, snapped the all-important outer shield in place and extended it beyond her.
The spirit of the old woman came up short a metre away, her wail coming to Shelley as if through water. Shelley shook her head at the spirit. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you. You died. You had a stroke.’ The spirit pawed at her shields—Shelley felt it like nails on a blackboard. She shuddered. ‘Go back to your body. Your family is there, I’m sure. Go hear the nice things they’re saying about you. Take comfort in their presence and try to comfort them. Sometimes they can feel you there. It helps.’ The spirit held out beseeching hands. Shelley shook her head, the pain in her skull pushing her beyond the pity she would usually feel. ‘I can’t help you to communicate with them. I don’t do that. It won’t make it better for anyone.’ Especially herself. ‘Go back to your body. Back to your family. Be with them or move into the beyond. Your choice. But there’s nothing you can get from me that I’m willing or able to give.’
The old woman looked at her, beseeching, but after a moment she turned and drifted off through the wall.
‘Thank god.’ Shelley blew out a loud breath as she sank to her seat. They often didn’t go so easily. Especially when she let her shields slip.
She moved the chair back over to the desk and noticed the mess of mug shards and coffee on the floor. ‘Oh, fuckity fuck with a helping of shit on the side!’ In her haste to get away from the spirit, she’d knocked her favourite coffee mug onto the floor. Just perfect!
‘Bad night, Kitten?’
She flinched, stiffened.
‘Anything I can do?’
Go away, she said inside her head. Go away, go away, go away.
‘I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.’
She really didn’t need this now. In fact, she needed it like she needed a hole in the head. In fact, a hole would be better. Where was
a trepanning drill when you needed one?
‘I could offer to kiss it better, but even though I’ve been told my kisses are magic, I’m not sure they’ll be good enough to glue the mug back together.’
She almost laughed, but didn’t. Couldn’t. She could see him out of the side of her eye—of course he’d moved so she would—and he was smiling at her. Why did he have to smile like that? He was so goddamned annoying—in a sexy, hot, he-makes-me-want-to-slap-him-and-kiss-him-at-the-same-time kind of way. Even in her imagination he couldn’t stop being annoyingly hot.
She’d been so hopeful after getting away from the McClune caves where his body was. She’d had weeks of not seeing any hallucinations at all. And then—bam. There he’d been. Watching her jog with that gleam in his eyes that made her feel all hot and itchy, his cock stretching the front of his jeans in a way that had made her want to reach out and stroke it. She’d dug her fingernails so hard into her hand, she could still see the imprints.
She hoped it was just a passing insanity. A momentary slip. That he’d disappear again and not come back. That hope had been useless. He’d been with her ever since, following her around, there every time she woke up, watching her, making smart comments about her murmuring his name in her sleep. She’d tried to ignore him. Ignored the fact that his presence meant this wasn’t just about worry and grief brought on by his body’s proximity. No. It went so much deeper. It meant she either felt something for him or it meant she was going insane.
Neither was a good alternative.
He had to go away. Her chest tightened, her breath stuttering. She rubbed at the pain, shaking her head against the thought that there was a reason her heart was aching. ‘No!’ She slammed her hand down on the desk, her palm stinging at the impact. She winced, rubbing at the pain.
‘Steady on, Kitten. What did the desk do to you?’
She closed her eyes. She wasn’t going mad. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t be like the rest of her family. She was stronger than that. She would be stronger than that. At least, she’d go down still fighting. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and turned her attention back to the paperwork in front of her. ‘Okay. Just a few more forms and then home.’ She only hoped no more accidents happened tonight. Or strokes, or heart attacks. Anything lethal. She couldn’t take another death in the Emergency department. They were the worst of the newly departed to deal with. So much confusion and grief wailed at her as if she could do anything to change any of what had happened to them. And now it was made worse by the fact she could hear their deaths coming.
Being a banshee sucked as much as being a medium.
At least she hadn’t emitted another one of those horrible banshee wails since the night Cain had escaped—thank the Goddess for small mercies at least. That rush of sensation of oncoming death had been the most horrible thing she’d ever felt and to have to relive it over and over every night in her nightmares was...
She shuddered.
Thankfully, outside of her nightmares it had been content to be a whimper, a hum inside her. She was pretty bloody certain that despite learning from the diaries how to build stronger shields, they would do nothing to help contain the wail if it wanted out. She shuddered again.
‘Cold?’ The voice sounded right behind her, so real and concerned and familiar, she almost answered before she could stop herself.
‘He’s not real,’ she told herself for the fifty-millionth time in the week since he’d reappeared. She only wished it would work. She’d simply have to work harder on the diaries and grimoires. There had to be some record somewhere of how to stave off the madness that inevitably came from walking the line between life and death. There also had to be information about Warlock Lightning and its effect on a Were. This couldn’t be the first time a Were was ever hit by it. The Pack Witches had kept meticulous records of their lives and every spell they’d ever canted. She was obviously asking the wrong questions of the wrong diaries. There had to be a way to heal Adam and make him wake up again. If he was awake, she could no longer have hallucinations about him being a spirit. Besides, if she didn’t find a way to heal Adam, he might truly die and then he would haunt her for the rest of her life—he was that sadistically annoying.
The thought was enough to make her want to study until her eyeballs dried up and fell out of her head. Even with this goddamned awful headache brewing behind her eyes. She rubbed her temple. ‘Finish the paperwork, go home, have some of Bron’s disgusting headache cures and then get on with the research.’
‘You forgot to add have something to eat to your list.’
She tensed at the sound of the voice right beside her chair.
‘And when are you fitting sleep in there, I’d like to know? You look worse than me, and I’m half dead.’
She ignored him.
‘Do you have any idea how lonely it is when the only person I can converse with properly won’t speak to or even look at me?’
‘Lonely,’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘You can’t be lonely. You’re not real.’
‘Not real? I’m standing in front of you having this conversation, aren’t I?’
‘Yes. In my imagination. You’re a hallucination.’ She spun in the chair to face him, giving up to the insanity, and tapped her head.
‘I don’t think so.’ He frowned and pinched himself. ‘No. I feel very much real to me. Here in the flesh. Or spirit, would probably be more correct.’
Her lips twitched and she burst out laughing and then winced and clutched her head.
‘Shelley? What’s wrong?’
‘Bad headache.’
‘Then why are you here? You should go home, have something to eat and get some sleep.’
She opened her mouth to argue. ‘Okay,’ popped out instead.
‘Okay, then let’s get you out of here.’
Too tired and in too much pain to argue any further, she went to the staff room, collected her bag and coat, waved goodbye to the nurses on duty and then hopped in the elevator to the staff car park. The doors closed. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
‘Why didn’t you say your headache was that bad?’
Her eyes popped open and she stared at him. ‘Because you’re in my head so you should know anyway.’
An expression crossed his face, a shadow of sadness, pain. ‘You really think I’m a figment of your imagination?’
‘What else can you be? You’re not dead. I only see dead people. Ipso facto—I’m imagining you. You’re a product of the crazy that has ended up getting every single one of my family who had “the talent”.’ She bracketed the words with fingers and a huge helping of sarcasm. ‘And now that crazy is finally getting me. Typical that you’re the centre of it.’
He seemed lost for words for a moment, but then cocked his head as he looked at her considering. ‘You’re not going crazy.’
‘Oh, really? Then why am I currently talking to you?’
‘Because I’m here. Actually here. Just like the spirits you talk to, but obviously different.’
‘Oh, you’re different all right.’
His lips cocked in that smile that drove her nuts. ‘How nice of you to notice. Is it my innate sexiness that makes me different or just my handsome smile that makes me stand out from the rest?’
She snorted. The lift doors opened. A couple of staff stood outside. They gave her a strange look.
‘Sorry, just thought of something funny,’ she said. ‘Have a good shift.’ She sidled past them and headed towards her car. She pulled out her keys and pressed the electronic opener. Her car blipped back.
‘You taking me for a drive, Kitten? Got to say, that’s always been a fantasy of mine. You, me, a car’s back seat. A big bright old moon above sneaking a peak.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Why are you still like this? Why can’t I make you behave even in my imagination?’
‘Because I’m not a figment of your imagination.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Okay.’ He
reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her from opening her door and pulling her to face him. ‘How’s this?’
She gasped at his cold touch, yanked her hand away and stumbled back into her car. ‘You … I …’ She looked up at him. Her mind stilled, caught for a moment in a wisp of memory that she’d tried to forget. ‘You’ve done that before. That night.’
‘Yep.’
‘I thought I imagined that. I was distraught. I wanted to believe that you were physically there. But I can only see spirits and spirits can’t touch me.’
‘I can.’ He lifted one hand and pushed her braid back over her shoulder. She shivered, but couldn’t move back—she was already pressed up against the car. He stepped closer. His hand lifted, finger gliding down her cheek—an ice-cold glide she felt all the way to her core. ‘You can feel that, can’t you? If I’m a figment of your imagination, then explain that.’
‘I … I …’ She couldn’t. But if she could truly see him, that meant he was dead. But … ‘You’re not dead. You’re not dead. Your body is still alive.’
‘You’re right. I’m not dead. I’m not like the spirits that plague you. My ability to touch you and the fact I still have a living body is proof enough of that.’
‘Then why can I see you?’ She gasped again as his fingers brushed down her neck, then back up. Shivered.
‘Cold?’
‘Your touch is cold, but not.’ It was causing a warmth to glide through her veins. ‘It’s weird.’
‘Good weird or bad weird?’ He brushed his finger along her chin then up to her cheek again.
‘I … it’s just not … normal.’ She wanted to lean into his touch, to hold his hand against her face. But she couldn’t. She didn’t need like that. Wouldn’t. She edged sideways, away from his touch.
‘But it feels real.’
‘Yes.’
Wolf Bound Page 8