None whatsoever.
The song changed to what she suspected was the last of the night. It was another of her favorites and that helped to drive away some of the sting of being the butt of a joke.
Elation spread through her as she jumped in place, wearing a black mini-skirt, matching thigh-high boots, and a T-shirt that had the sleeves cut off. The shirt proclaimed her love of her home city.
New York.
The song drew to an end, as did the concert.
Still jubilant and on a natural high, Morgan followed the crowd as they exited the arena. There was a lot of shuffling in lines that were three and four people wide, but she managed to make it to the exit. The issue was, it was the wrong exit, on the other side of the arena from near the bus stop.
Life in New York City had left her being one of those people who relied on public transportation or on the driver her parents employed. She’d elected to take the bus to the concert and permit the staff to have time to themselves.
A fast check of her watch let her know she only had a few minutes left before the last bus headed out. She tried to hurry, but the crowd leaving the show was thick and in no rush to disperse or make room for her to get through.
Worried that she’d have to walk home or try to get a cab willing to take her all the way to her parents’ home, Morgan turned and went in the opposite direction, remembering seeing a small alleyway that cut behind the arena. It was less than ideal but so was missing the bus.
She was nearly out of breath when she got to it and had to slow to a fast walk.
A stitch started in her side and she touched it, slowing her pace even more. “I have really got to start running again.”
There had been a time, before she’d become what her parents liked to refer to as an “angry, antsy young woman,” when she’d been into organized sports, gymnastics, martial arts (at her godfather’s request), and other extracurricular activities.
That seemed like a lifetime ago.
A cat meowed loudly, startling her, and she jerked to a stop in the alley, peering around, suddenly feeling as if she wasn’t as alone as she’d first thought. There was no one there but that didn’t lessen the uneasy feeling.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she rubbed her upper arms, trying to chase away the sudden chill that came over her. It didn’t help. As the hair on the back of her neck rose, she edged closer to one of the buildings, looking around for any signs of another person.
A black cat darted out from a pile of trash, making her jump in place and then burst into a fit of nervous giggles. She lowered her arms and stepped out and away from the building to continue in the direction of the bus stop.
Suddenly, pain exploded at the base of her skull. She knew she was falling but there was nothing she could do to stop it as darkness claimed her fully.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d blacked out for. When she came to, her head felt as if she’d been hit with a bat. Morgan blinked and sat up slowly, disoriented and confused as to how she’d come to be on the ground.
“Hey there,” said a familiar voice as a dark shadow appeared above her, making her breath catch. When the figure came into focus, she was totally and completely baffled as to why her godfather was there, bending over her.
“Luc?” she asked, thoroughly confused.
Why on earth was he outside of the concert venue at all, let alone at this time of night? And what had happened to her?
He forced a smile to his face. “Are you in any pain?”
“Pain? My head hurts. Why does my head…” Before she finished the sentence, she remembered running through the alleyway in hopes of making the last bus. Then the uneasy feeling coming over her a few seconds before pain exploded through the base of her head. “W-what happened? Why are you here? How are you here?”
With a sigh, he took hold of her elbow and helped her to her feet. He then positioned himself behind her and forced her to face forward. “We can discuss it all later. For now, we should go.”
She had far too many questions to let the conversation end there. Morgan leaned and looked over her shoulder at what Luc was clearly trying to conceal.
As she saw what it was—or rather, who—her stomach knotted, and her brain reeled with denial at what she was seeing.
It couldn’t be real.
Could it?
It was her body there on the cold, hard, unforgiving concrete.
Denial was the first thing to run through her mind, followed closely by panic. But before either had a chance to manifest externally, she found herself blurting out her first thought. “Dude, am I dead?”
Luc sighed and a tic started just under his right eye. He nodded and averted his gaze. “You are.”
She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from the sight of her body on the ground. She looked peaceful, as if she were merely asleep, not standing outside of herself, looking down. “What happened?” she asked, her voice barely there.
“Something bad,” returned Luc, trying to usher her down the alley away from her body.
“No,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “You don’t say.”
He grunted. “Trust you to still be a handful even when newly departed.”
Another thought hit her. “Hold the phone. I’m dead, right? So, I’m like a ghost?”
“Something like that, yes,” supplied Luc, being as clear as mud.
She touched her temple to rub away the pending migraine. “Holy crap. Ghosts get headaches?”
Luc huffed. “Morgan, really. We need to go now. I’m breaking a lot of rules here with you. It’s best we not linger.”
“Breaking a lot of…hey, hold up, how are you seeing me? You can see and hear ghosts? Luc, have you been hiding a cool side all my life?”
His lips twitched. “I’ve hidden a few things from you, yes. Morgan, please. I need to get you clear of here before one of my siblings notices a reaper didn’t come for your soul.”
Her mind raced, and she latched on to his comment on siblings and souls. Her eyes widened more. “Holy crapola, are you like the Grim Reaper or something?”
Luc snorted. “Uh, no. I’m not a reaper.”
“A reaper, as in there is more than one?” she questioned.
He groaned. “Most people would freak out but obey in a situation like this. Not ask a billion questions.”
Morgan raised a brow. “I’m not like most girls.”
“Don’t I know it. Come on. We really need to go now. Michael will no doubt wonder why it is he can’t sense me and come to investigate,” said Luc, doing his best to get her down the alleyway.
Morgan pointed at her body as the reality of her situation set in. “I’m dead.”
“Yes. We’ve already been over that,” stated Luc.
She glanced around frantically.
“What are you doing now?” asked Luc.
“Looking for big creepy skeleton guys,” she replied, before thinking they’d more than likely be in cloaks too.
Luc grunted. “They don’t run around in robes. Well, not anymore. That’s very old school.”
She gasped. “You can read minds too?”
He took hold of her shoulder and all but pushed her down the alley. “No. Well, yes. But not yours. Some people are immune. You’re one of them. I know you well enough to know where your head went when I said reaper.”
“Blue Oyster Cult,” she said quickly, nodding. “Right there and then straight for the cloaked figure.”
He snorted.
Her gaze wandered back to her body—or at least to the spot her body had been. Her eyes widened. “Someone stole my body!”
Luc looked tired. “No. They didn’t.”
She pointed at the bare ground. “Yes they did!”
He took her by the elbow and hurried her down the alley more. He kept going with her before darting into a doorway of a side building as if he owned the place and went there often. It was pitch black inside. All of a sudden, there was an orange glow coming from Luc’s h
and. At first, she thought he had a flashlight with him—until she realized it was a ball of fire, and he was holding it.
Her eyes widened. “L-Luc?”
His shoulders slumped. “Morgan, I need you to stay calm when I tell you what I have to say.”
“Highly unlikely, but carry on,” she said, her mind feeling muddled as she was no doubt in shock.
“Here goes nothing,” said Luc before facing her fully. “My full name is Lucifer.”
Morgan lifted a brow as she stared at the ball of fire in his hand, putting together the name and the act. “Shut up! You’re the devil? Like, the devil?”
He nodded and the flame vanished.
She grabbed him and turned him around.
He groaned. “I don’t have a tail!”
“You so do read minds,” she supplied.
He faced her and a soft light began to glow near them—this time it wasn’t in his hand. She didn’t need to be told that was his doing. “Morgan, there is a lot at work here that I don’t want to get into with you right now. I need to get you somewhere no one can touch you or take your soul for now.”
It all hit her hard. “W-what about me? Erm, my body? Someone body-jacked it. Is there some sort of bureau of the afterlife we can report a missing body to?”
He lifted a brow. “Your mind is a very strange place.”
“Thanks. About the purgatory police,” she stressed.
He sighed. “Your body wasn’t stolen. I handled it.”
She looked to the flame in his hand, and he instantly extinguished it somehow.
“I did not burn your body away. Stop looking at me like I did,” he said.
“Mind reader,” she chastised.
“You’re rather exhausting to deal with,” he said evenly with a slight smirk.
“Thanks.”
Luc looked upward and sniffed the air. He growled slightly. “The Collective is sending more people here. They know by now the act is done, and they’ll want your soul.”
He turned his head and then led her back outside. He looked toward the end of the alley.
Morgan followed his gaze and gasped when she spotted the cowboy from the concert. She tensed. “Hot dude killed me?”
“What?” asked Luc quickly.
She stared at him while she pointed down at the end of the alley. “The cowboy. He’s who killed me?”
Luc shook his head. “No.”
She couldn’t rip her gaze from the man at the end of the alley.
“You got her?” Cowboy asked.
“I do,” returned Luc. “My word she’ll be fine. That I’ll personally watch over her until it’s time.”
“You better,” warned the cowboy. “Is she there with you?”
Morgan was totally and completely lost. “Is who here? Did the Collectors kill someone else too?”
Luc snorted. “It’s the Collective, not collectors. And I’m sure they have, just no one other than you right here.”
She touched her chest lightly. “Is he talking about me?”
“He is,” said Luc.
Morgan thought harder on it. “Hold the phone. He, like, can’t see me?”
Luc’s mouth twitched. “No. He can’t. Unless you want him to.”
“How do I do that?” she asked.
“Just want it and it will happen,” replied Luc.
Morgan took a deep breath and thought about the cowboy and how electrified she’d felt at the simple brush of his lips and about his words.
I love you.
They stuck in her head on a loop.
“Look at that, darlin’,” he said from the end of the alley. “Here I’ve been upset you took so long to show yourself to me, and I’m pretty much the first person outside of Luc there to see you like this. Now, go with him. He’ll keep you safe.”
“W-who are you?” she asked.
Luc put up a hand. “No. She can’t know any more. Telling her more risks both of your futures.”
“Lame, Luc. Lame,” said Morgan, a nervous laugh escaping her.
Nodding, Luc took her arm. “We need to go now. I can’t risk anything happening to your soul.”
“But what about the cowboy?” asked Morgan, looking back to find the hunk was gone.
“Morgan, please,” stressed Luc. “The Collective isn’t something you want to go up against yet. You’re not ready, and I’m only allowed to interfere so much. And I kind of already blew way past that limit, so let’s go.”
“Fine, but tell me who this Collective is.”
He sighed. “A very bad group of people who make me look downright cuddly. It’s enough to say your family has spent generations making pacts with them. It was time for a sacrifice to be made by your family. It was decided before you ever came to be that it would be you.”
She thought of the contract she’d read that had required her parents have a child, and then kept referring to said child as a sacrifice. “W-what?”
He stilled. “Morgan, I’m sorry. Know that wasn’t my doing. That I tried to steer them from the path of darkness.”
She stared blankly at him. “But you said you’re the devil.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Because I am.”
“Then wouldn’t you be trying to get more people on the evil train?” she asked.
He tipped his head. “It doesn’t work that way. I oversee hell. That doesn’t mean I’m evil.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re not,” she shot back quickly before thinking harder on it. She’d known him all her life. Nothing about him was evil or bad. “Sorry. That popped out.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m not a perfect person, Morgan. No one is. We all have shades of light and dark within us. Portions of good and evil. It’s what we do with them that matters. I’ve known demons with hearts of gold and humans with hearts so dark, so twisted, that they’d be considered the monsters.”
“Like my parents,” she interjected.
He looked pained. “Yes and no. Muffy and Barton are products of their environments and their families. That being said, they had free will. They had the ability to change the agreement at any time by simply giving up their fortune.”
Since she was dead and having an in-depth conversation with the devil himself, Morgan didn’t need it spelled out that her parents had decided against giving up their money to save her life. The proof was right before her eyes.
Her stomach sank. As much as she didn’t want to believe what Luc was saying was true, it felt right.
“What about Booker and Spike? They need me,” she said, her heart breaking for not only herself but her pets as well. Her bat and hedgehog needed tending.
Luc put a hand on her shoulder. “Morgan, they’ll be fine. Millie will look after them. Not that they need her help.”
She thought of Millie then. “I wish I could say goodbye to her.”
“You’ll see her again, one day,” said Luc. “In the meantime, she’s where she needs to be. And I need to get you to where you need to be.”
Gulping, she took a big breath. “I’m not going to cry right now. I’ll do that later. For now, take me where it is you need to take me. And someday, you’re going to explain who that hunk with the accent was.”
Luc laughed. “As soon as I learn the details for myself. I think it’s safe to say, time will tell.”
Chapter Two
Present Day
New York (York) Peugeot fumbled with the volume of the sound system in his truck as he drove down a back road in his hometown of Hedgewitch Cove, Louisiana. He’d have taken a more direct route into the center of town if he wasn’t having yet another rotten day with the vehicle. The biggest issue of the day was that the music it was currently blaring wasn’t exactly anything he’d want anyone who knew him to hear.
The volume was currently set at a level that would let those in the neighboring state of Mississippi hear what he was playing, it was that loud. His hearing—that of a were-shark—was impressive to say the least. He certainly didn’t need the volu
me jacked to eleven. It was set at two but that meant nothing. The truck’s sound system had a mind of its own as of late, and currently it had decided to play music whether he wanted it on or not.
Late October meant the temperature was what some Yankees might term as tolerable, but York, who was a born and bred Southerner, thought it was a bit on the cool side. The humidity wasn’t quite as thick as usual and that was a welcome relief, seeing as how the windows in his truck were stuck down. To make matters worse, the central air in his home was on the fritz as well. Didn’t matter that the unit was only three years old.
Wouldn’t be the first time in the last fifteen months that a piece of machinery, like a vehicle or home appliance, had basically gone nutty on him. Just the other day the blender had acted up. If it wasn’t for the fast actions of Sigmund, his brother-in-law, York would have two fewer fingers than he’d started with.
Typically, it was one of his boats breaking down. They’d done everything from stop running midtrip to begin to sink. The problem had been so bad that York had all but given up going out on a boat. It wasn’t just that he loved being out on the open water; his family owned a large fishery, and York ran it.
Or at least, he had run it fully, until his grandmother had up and decided it was high time her grandchildren met their mates.
Her well-meaning gesture that had come in the form of a spell going awry had left each and every one of her grandchildren with a curse of chaos over their heads. Ever since, everything in York’s life had been upside down.
His grandmother had meant well. And she’d certainly never expected to wrap the spell in a curse of chaos, but as luck would have it, she had. And chaos was precisely what York had endured since the spell—or curse, as he liked to refer to it—had taken place.
The only way to break the darned curse was to find their mates and actually claim them. Since claiming for a supernatural was far more than just getting married, that was saying something. There was no out when it came to claiming a mate.
No takebacks.
No do-overs.
And no such thing as divorce.
It was for keeps and forever.
He shuddered thinking about being tied down to just one woman for all eternity. What kind of man signed up for such a thing? There were so many beautiful women out there, just waiting to be romanced, who could settle on one?
Do You Really Want to Haunt Me: A Happily Everlasting World Novel (Bewitchingly Ever After Book 3) Page 2