by Mila Young
“So why were you both talking about who I’m dating, anyway?”
Dean opened the door and placed his hand on my lower back, the warmth from his touch intoxicating, yet the light prod he gave me screaming the opposite. Get out of my office; I ain’t interested. What the hell?
“Thank you, Sephy.”
And with that, I gave him a tight smile and marched over to Ryder, who lounged in a chair, his eyes glued to his phone.
“Let’s go,” I growled and noted he was freaking gambling again. I gritted my teeth until we left behind the building. It wasn’t illegal for a shifter to come into the station, but it also meant he’d get on their radar. But no one stared at him, strangely. Thinking back to yesterday, Dean had admitted he disagreed with the division between humans and shifters, so I hoped he omitted Ryder’s species from his report.
Outside in the parking area, I shoved a finger against his chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He cocked a brow and offered me a silly smug smile. “Don’t get pissed with me. Dean’s the one who’s got the hots for you and asked if you were dating anyone, and I figured I’d use myself as your alibi so you didn’t have to let him down.”
“He asked about me?” I waved a hand between us and snatched the phone from his hand. “Forget that. What the shit are you doing? Are you addicted to gambling? I thought you said you had no cash? Please don’t tell me you’re involved in some money scheme again and now you’re pulling me into it with the whole haunted house story?” The phone shook in my trembling hand. Ryder had this amazing way of attracting the wrong people. Hell, he meant well, but he couldn’t say no, regardless of the danger. “Shit, I sound like your mom, and I hate that you’re making me act this way.”
He ran a hand down his face, his expression falling. “Fuck, I don’t know. It’s like when I’m alone, I space out, and the next thing I know, I’m freaking gambling.” He wore a dejected expression.
“Yeah, right. Okay, let’s go to your place and get this over with.”
Murmurs reached my ears, and I turned to Ryder, but his mouth was shut. After this morning, I was visiting a doctor to get myself checked out. Either I was going mad and hearing things, or something spiritual had followed me. And if so, I’d help them move on because I didn’t need this humming and mumbling business in my head.
Seemed that instead of a fresh new day, the lunacy had stayed. And I swore I had to take a vacation, alone and on an island where I read a book underneath a palm tree, got served cocktails by half-naked men, and no one talked about their problems.
The drive to Ryder’s place passed by in a blur. His small, one-story house stood behind a metal gate, trees growing out of control around the perimeter for extra privacy. Unlike most shifters, Ryder had concealed where he lived from the authorities by not revealing he was a shifter. It helped that the house had been bought under a friend’s name to avoid police tracing it back to him if they ever discovered he was a lion shifter. He had long ago paid off the mortgage, as he came from a well-to-do pride who ran the country’s largest supply of cat food in another country.
He unlocked the front door and stood there.
I hadn’t seen much scare Ryder, so he wasn’t joking about something trying to kill him. “You not coming in?” I asked.
“Um, yes.” Yet he licked his lips nervously.
Once inside, I swung left toward the sitting room, knowing the place well after having spent many nights here.
In a sudden flash a potted plant flew across the room. I ducked and covered my head. “Motherfucker!”
It slammed inches from Ryder’s feet, soil spilling everywhere.
“Told ya.” His words shook.
Had I been too quick to judge? I peered over, meeting his wide gaze. “Shit, that’s insane. Okay, join me in the center of the room.” I dug into my bag for supplies. I drew a salt circle around both of us on the wooden floorboards and lit a candle in each corner to represent the four elements. While I practiced protection magic, I used it to help me communicate with spirits stuck in between Earth and the afterlife.
“Element of wind, I call upon your protection. Element of air, I call upon your protection.” I continued calling the other elements when a feathery buzz of energy bubbled over my flesh again. A constant reminder the universe was listening.
Sitting cross-legged in the circle, Ryder followed suit, as he’d attended jobs with me in the past and knew the drill.
I cleared my mind by focusing on a calm waterfall and pictured myself glowing so bright, it attracted spirits already inside the home.
“Come forward.” I ran my fingers across the onyx beads around my neck.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. I concentrated and sent my energies through the house, picturing them traveling from room to room, but still no tingling or manifestation. Yet just minutes ago it threw a plant at Ryder. He sat in silence, his gaze swinging left and right.
With my eyes closed, I continued. “I call upon the powers in this home. I command you to reveal yourself.”
Not a single shift in the air. The atmosphere remained warm and balmy. So if there were no vengeful spirits here, what had moved the plant?
Nothing here, sugar tits, but us, a male growled in my ears.
I snapped open my eyes, expecting a transparent figure; instead, I found just Ryder and me alone. I scanned the room. No ghostly signs. Okay, at least we had some kind of communication happening. So that meant I could rule out a curse.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Now that is the correct question to ask. I’ll do you a deal; touch those perky boobs of yours and I’ll give you a clue.
“Fuck you!”
Ryder glanced my way but kept quiet. The spirit didn’t show up, yet it spoke directly to me through my thoughts. I grabbed the pouch of bone powder from my bag and poured a coin-sized amount into my palm.
The voice chuckled, but I raised my hand to my mouth and whispered, “Show yourself.” Then I blew the contents. White particles floated in the air.
Animal skull bones had a magnetic pull that attracted ghosts.
The powder lingered and at once dropped to the ground.
What the fuck? It only did that when no spirits were around.
Told you, nipples. Now touch yourself already. You’re killing me here.
“Stop with the fucking boob drooling, coward.”
Ryder eyed me with a frown, his attention on my chest, as if ready to snap someone’s hand off for going near my breasts. And right now, I’d welcome his protection.
In a flash, a guttural snarl rolled through my skull. An electric shot struck my chest, and I flopped onto my back, my vision blurring. My whole body convulsed, and tightness pressed down around my throat. My heart raced. I clawed at my neck for air.
Bitch, you don’t want to see the real me. But I see you and when death comes for you, he’ll peel the skin off your bones and force it down your boyfriends’ throats.
“Sephy, shit!” Ryder crouched over me, his hands on my shoulders, shaking me, and my vision came back, sharper and clearer.
I trembled, unable to find my words as reality punched me in the gut. Mom’s warning glided through my mind. She’d said death was coming for me. Just as the voice had. And it terrified me because this wasn’t my insane mother, but a nightmare.
Doesn’t that feel better? Now be my bitch.
“Why are you groping yourself?” Ryder asked.
As the numbness of my shock ebbed, I sensed my hands kneading my breasts. I ripped them off my chest and gasped for air. What had the power to control my body like that? Was it even in the house or in my head?
“Got to get out of here.” I scrambled to my feet, thanked the elemental energies, and closed the circle. With the bag in my hand, I darted from the room and out into the front yard.
There, I fell to my knees on the lawn, taking in deep mouthfuls of air, shaking. What the hell was that? I’d encountered a lot of shit but had never had someone speaki
ng directly into my head. And while it terrified me that it could do that, that was secondary when it came to what petrified me worse.
Ryder crouched in front of me. “What happened in there, Sephy? You’re scaring me.”
“No fucking idea. But I think death’s coming for me.”
9
Ryder jumped into the passenger’s seat of my Jeep and shut the door.
I hit the gas, and we zoomed away from his house and toward the highway.
Explanation after explanation crowded in my head to give reason to the voice back in Ryder’s house. From a ghost playing a joke, to my mind finally snapping. A niggling sensation insisted it wasn’t just any spirit; otherwise, how could it have mirrored my mom’s words? Coincidences happened, but this was too freaky to call it a chance event.
“What the fuck went down in there?” Ryder asked. “Are you okay to drive?”
“I’m fine.” With a lungful of air, I told him everything, starting with my mom’s visit, what the demonic girl had whispered in my ear yesterday, and the boob conversation with the entity back at his place. Plus, how I had no control over my body for those few moments when I’d touched myself. Ryder might have been a prick when we’d dated, but he knew as much about me as Knox and hadn’t run away yet. Didn’t mean he embraced what I was, but he didn’t push me away either.
“Everything must be connected,” I continued. “But I haven’t worked out why this is happening. Have I pissed off a demon I’d vanquished? It’s possible?” I overtook a sedan and looked over at Ryder, and when he smiled, you couldn’t help but smile along with him.
“And I mean, why would my mom of all people warn me? Or did I misunderstand her trying to choke me as her way of making me listen? Hell, I’m so confused. What am I missing?”
“So let me get this right.” Ryder clicked on his seatbelt. “There’s a spirit following you around and he makes you pleasure yourself so he can watch? Because I’m down for that too.”
“Really?” I cut him a hard stare while he smirked, and his eyes already glazed over, probably already in his own fantasy. “Damn, Ryder, get your head out of the gutter.”
He placed a hand between his thighs and adjusted himself. “That ghost has it right, and I’ll do the same when I return to haunt everyone.” But when he met my gaze that grin evaporated. “But of course it’s wrong. Fucking filthy spirit.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “Anyway, is that why we’re breaking every road rule? To get to your voodoo practitioner’s place quicker? Worried Mr. Ghost will tempt you again?”
I eased off the pedal and pulled into the center lane behind a white hatchback. “I’m not going that fast. And if you won’t take this seriously, then I’m dropping you off here.”
“In the middle of nowhere? You’re sadistic, and I adore your style.” His hand crept to my thigh and settled there—warm and comforting. “All right, so let’s work out this shit. You have a stalker spirit who has the hots for you. He and your mom have warned you about a dark force coming for your soul. So this means the fucker must be someone mega important to get your mother to pay you a visit.”
“Exactly.” I took the ramp on my right and jumped onto another freeway, taking us farther south. Few cars joined our journey, and the edges of the road were clustered with lush, green trees.
“So, who have you pissed off?” Ryder asked.
I licked my lips and chewed on my cheek, pondering all the demons I’d vanquished and spirits I’d helped cross over. “Fuck if I know. What if it’s someone from Mom’s past? Maybe that’s why she dumped me, you know, to keep me protected.”
Ryder’s hand twitched against my leg, and he sighed. “Sephy, honey, your parents were coldhearted assholes. They deserve no excuses for what they did. Perhaps it’s just something getting revenge by coming after you. But that doesn’t make your mom or dad any less of a monster.”
I had no argument to come back with because he was right, and me coming up with an excuse was me wanting to believe that maybe my parent weren’t A-holes. I used to think I’d been abandoned because I was secretly a superhero and this was my family’s way of keeping me safe from the villain coming for me. Foolish dreams. “Well, hopefully we’ll have luck with Roseline.”
“Never met a voodoo priestess before. Can’t wait.” The sarcasm in his voice wasn’t lost on me, but then again, Ryder had a hate-hate relationship with magic folk. He’d had several run-ins with witches who’d tried to kill him. Let’s be honest—lion shifters weren’t common, and apparently witches used their hair or nails or organs in spells. Apparently, the stuff was powerful in spells. Yep, some witches used animal or human parts to enhance their enchantments. It was illegal, but the practice didn’t stop them.
“She’s not a priestess, so don’t call her that.”
Ryder stared out into the wilderness, pulling his hand away, and I missed his warmth. I swore the guy had an internal heater because no matter what time of the year it was, his skin was on fire.
I hit the radio button, and tunes filled the void. The next two hours flew past, and soon enough we pulled into Roseline’s driveway. Ryder set down the packet of chips he’d been devouring since our last gas stop.
“You sure this is the right place?” He wiped his mouth. “Looks like an abandoned house out of a horror movie. Maybe call her first to make sure she’s home.”
“She doesn’t have a phone.”
Overgrown weeds and grass had swallowed the lawn. The front gate hung off a hinge while an enormous willow tree cast shadows over the property. Its branches swayed in the wind like lonely swings.
The building itself was quaint with a black roof and verandah encased by a wooden railing.
Roseline had always told me she kept the yard rundown to frighten away nosy neighbors. She didn’t need trespassers sticking their nose into her business. Some people installed security systems. Roseline focused on good old-fashioned scare tactics.
“It’s the right place.” From the back seat, I grabbed a bag full of wild dandelions. I’d seen growing at the side of the road on the way here and picked three bags worth. Roseline collected the greenery for her magic. And the stuff refused to grow where she lived. She used them for healing, usually served in tea. Besides, I always went by the motto of never going empty-handed to a witch’s home because a happy practitioner meant less chance of getting turned into a toad.
Ryder carried two more plastic bags for me, tufts of the weed sticking out of the tops.
The wooden steps to the porch creaked underneath our feet, and a bone chime crafted in the shape of a cat dangled from the railing, clanging.
Ryder eyed the bones suspiciously, sniffing the air. “Too old to tell if it was a real cat.”
Before I reached the door, it swung open of its own accord and a deliciously spicy aroma wafted out. Gumbo… Please let it be gumbo, as Roseline made the best I’ve ever tasted. I learned long ago that she knew in advance who’d visit, and if her door opened, then we were welcomed—if not, then we shouldn’t linger for long.
I entered a living room with Ryder on my heels. Light poured in from the windows, lighting up two couches that faced each other. A coffee table sat between them. Across from us stood a grand fireplace, not lit, with animals’ skulls, crystals, and feathers decorating the stone mantle.
We dropped our bags of grassy weeds near the couch. Dried bunches of herbs hung from the walls, giving the room a crowded feel, but somehow it worked with the whole busy ambiance.
Ryder ambled to the bookshelf and fingered the eye socket of a deer’s skull. Bones were everywhere—the window sill, the table, and even in the corners like guardians—compared to the few I’d seen last time I visited.
“Aye, I may have gone overboard with the decorations.” A scratchy woman’s voice came from behind me.
I jerked around. Roseline lingered in the doorway, hands on her hips. She wore a white apron over a yellow-and-green floral dress. Sweat gleamed across her tanned brow, and her hair stayed tucked underne
ath the red scarf wrapped over her head. She was as round as I remembered and her cheeks still glowed red.
“Roseline, it’s so wonderful to see ya again.” I closed the distance in four quick steps, and she dragged me into a bear hug, her scent of spices, earth, and perspiration greeting me. When I pulled back, she still clutched my wrists, holding me, her gaze studying me. The necklace hanging from her neck had a miniature bird skull pendant. A good luck charm to keep away the evil, she’d once told me.
“Girl, why’re ya so skinny? Told ya before to put meat on them bones. Men want something to hold on to at night.”
Ryder cleared his throat. “And daytime too. We men are complicated creatures like that.”
I rolled my eyes and turned as he leaned against the fireplace, hands in his pockets and doing his best to look natural. Except he stood out as a lion might when hiding amid antelope.
“Ya’ll make an old woman walk for a hug? Get over here, boy.” She waved him over.
Ryder strolled over and didn’t hesitate to embrace the woman. “Thanks for welcoming us into your home.”
“Ah, the boy has manners.” She broke from his hold and winked at me. “Before we talk business, we eat.” Roseline never worked her magic on an empty stomach she’d always tell me. Something about hunger pains distracting her concentration.
The kitchen was half the size of the living room but cozy. One side was a counter stacked with plates and pots, and on the opposite side awaited a table. Cutlery, glasses, and a bottle of cloudy rum were all set.
“Come, come, sit. Been cooking all morning. Made yar favorite dish, girl.”
“You’re always spoiling me.” I brought the potato salad to the table while Ryder carried bowls piled high with gumbo. My stomach growled with hunger, and by the time we sat, Ryder leaned closer.