Dedication
For Cassandra. Thanks for being so understanding when I get stuck with editing during the school holidays. I really appreciate your enthusiastic support.
I’d also like to thank my wonderful editor, Sue-Ellen, for challenging me to make each book as great as it can be. To Kanaxa, for making such a perfect and atmospheric cover. And to Sgt. John Weiling, for answering my NSW police questions.
A special shout out to My Chemical Romance. I couldn’t have written this book without The Black Parade.
Chapter One
“Good morning, Foxy Lady!”
“Hey,” I mumbled, plopping down on the closest kitchen chair. “How can you be so chipper this early in the morning?” A yawn escaped me.
Jason Papan flashed me a toothy grin that set off his dimples and made my stomach flip-flop. “Technically, it’s not morning anymore.”
I looked across at the stove clock and confirmed it was just past midday. The sun peeking in through the window hammered the point across. I rubbed my fingers against my temples, trying to soothe away the blasted headache I’d woken up with.
“Are you heading in to work a little later than usual?” He stood by the kitchen counter, flipping pancakes from a pan and onto a plate. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and the kitchen smelled heavenly.
“I’m taking a day off. I’ve already called Ebony, and she agreed to take care of things for one day.”
“Maybe we can spend it together, do something romantic?” Papan avoided my eyes and I wondered if he was kidding or not. But I didn’t get a chance to ask him because he wandered over with a plate stacked with pancakes and syrup dripping down the sides. He’d even added a handful of strawberries and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. “Would you like a cappuccino or a latte?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the food he’d laid in front of me. “How did you make these? I didn’t think I had any pancake batter in the pantry.”
He laughed. “You didn’t have much of anything in the pantry, or the cabinets. So I ducked out this morning and picked up a few things.” He headed for the coffee machine. “Well, which is it going to be?”
“Cappuccino,” I answered.
“By the way, these pancakes aren’t from some bottle. I made them myself.”
“From scratch?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made anything from scratch.
He nodded while holding the small silver jug under the nozzle to make the milk frothy for my cappuccino. I had my own, and very hot, personal barista this morning. I could get used to this.
He’d been staying with me for several weeks, and I wasn’t going to let him go anywhere. It wasn’t safe, but I also couldn’t pretend I didn’t enjoy having him around.
“If you keep spoiling me, I’m going to have to keep you.” I dug into the top pancake, making sure it was smothered in maple syrup, and stuck half of it into my mouth. “Oh wow…” I swallowed my first mouthful and followed it up with a strawberry. “Amazing!”
“That’s what all the girls say.” He poured the milk into the waiting cup and gave me a quick, flirtatious glance.
“The keeping you bit…or the amazing bit?” In spite of getting up feeling like crap, being in the same room with Papan was waking me right up. I was even daring to be a little more brash than usual. It was probably because I wasn’t fully awake yet and the headache was still a persistent thudding at the top of my head. But I didn’t care.
“Both.” He placed the cup in front of me and sat across the table. “How’d you sleep?”
I shrugged, too busy munching away at my heavenly plateful of pancakes and drinking down the deliciously sweet cappuccino, to speak.
“It must get lonely up there in that big room of yours.”
I had a feeling I knew where he was going with this but I wasn’t going to bite. Flirting was one thing, but this could turn into something else.
“I know it gets lonely down there.” He hitched a thumb toward the open door, the one leading to the third level of the house. He was staying in one of the empty rooms, but I didn’t want to think about the bedrooms down there because it reminded me of my missing grandfather.
“Papan…”
“Fox.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for breakfast—or lunch. I really appreciate it.”
“So, have you decided what you’re going to do today?”
Unable to avoid his green eyes any longer, I looked up and found him staring at me. His dark blond hair was falling over his eyes and it looked like he hadn’t shaved for a few days. He was wearing a fitting navy T-shirt, faded jeans, and was barefoot. He looked rugged and unkempt. No one could pull off sexy the way he did, and he was driving my pulse higher by the second.
“Nothing much. I was thinking of staying home.”
“Well, that just happens to be the same plan I had.”
A smile teased the edges of my lips as I finished up the pancakes. “In that case, maybe we could do nothing together.” My heart jumped at the thought of spending a lazy day with Papan, doing nothing but sitting close on the couch. The thought of where that could lead made my head spin.
“It’s a date.” He extended a hand out and covered mine from across the table. His hand was so warm I felt my temperature rise.
I was getting to the point of being totally lost in his eyes like some romantic fool when the knock at the door made me jump. Shit. Who could that be?
“Finish up. I’ll get it.” Papan reluctantly removed his hand from mine and left the kitchen.
As soon as he was gone, I took a deep breath. I felt like I’d been holding it for the last few minutes. In the short time Papan had been staying with me, the effect his cheeky flirting was having on me seemed to be intensifying.
I polished off the rest of my cappuccino. If he kept this up, he was going to challenge Ebony’s coffee-making skills, and I’d never met anyone who made a meaner cup of coffee than her.
“Oh, it’s you,” I heard Papan say from the corridor.
“Why are you still here? Don’t you have a home to go back to?” Seconds after the retort, my boyfriend, Jonathan, appeared in the kitchen. He leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the top of my head. “Sierra, I’ve been calling your mobile for the last hour. Ebony said you were home today, so I got worried. Are you okay?” He pressed a palm to my forehead.
“Please don’t do that.” He was taking this new healing talent of his a little too seriously. “I’ve just got a headache.”
“Do you want me to take care of it?”
I pulled back before he could lay his hands on my head again. “Not if it means you’re going to treat me like a child.”
Papan strolled back into the kitchen and snorted. He headed straight for one of the cabinets and pulled out a small bottle of headache tablets. He shook two into his hand and filled a glass with water.
“Here you go, Fox.” He placed the glass on the table, cupping my fingers in his while transferring the pills from his hand to mine.
“Do you have to hover around like a creep all the time?”
“Jonathan, don’t start.” He set my nerves on edge every time he started bickering with Papan. And I was betting he was the real reason Jonathan decided to pop in. He couldn’t stand the thought of Papan and I being together, alone. “You know why he’s here.”
He looked at me, and the concern in his dark eyes made me squirm, because as a result of recent events, I had no clue whether any of his reactions were real or just for show.
“Thanks, Papan.” I swallowed both of the pills. I had to admit that this was a better way to combat a headache than via Jonathan’s healing magic.
“You’re welcome,” he said, before turning away and heading for the sink.
“So, you’re not working today?” Jonathan asked, rubbing his fingers over my bare arm.
I avoided his eyes. “Yeah, I’m taking a day off.”
“Really, you’re taking a day off?” His brown eyes widened.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
Papan chuckled. “Of course he’s surprised,” he said from the kitchen sink. “Everyone knows you’re a workaholic.”
Jonathan glared at him before dropping his gaze to the cup I was holding and the empty plate. He sat next to me. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No, I just had breakfast.” I smiled at Papan when he peered over his shoulder at me. “Well, Papan made breakfast and I ate it.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee, J?” Papan asked Jonathan.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine, suit yourself.” Papan turned the water taps and got started on the dishes, while I waited for Jonathan to tell me what was so important he had to rush over and cause a scene. He was really putting a damper on my relaxed moment with Papan.
“Is something wrong?” I asked him. Truth was, I’d been avoiding him whenever I could.
I caught the hurt on his handsome, boyish face when he turned to look at me. His dark hair was growing, especially in the front. He didn’t keep it well trimmed like he used to, so it hid his brown eyes.
He pressed his hand against the top of my knee, rubbing circles over my pajama bottoms. “I just wanted to see you. I feel like we don’t see each other anymore.”
Not telling him what was really going on was probably compounding his confusion about us, but I couldn’t reconnect to the spark I’d felt for months before everything changed between us. I was pretty sure things weren’t going to work out. I’d tried to ignore my suspicions—to avoid thinking about his part in what had happened when Troy and Travis Slevani, the ghost-witch hybrid brothers, tried to steal my essence for their own selfish use—but no matter how much I tried to convince myself that I could get past it, I couldn’t.
Maybe I could’ve overlooked the fact that Jonathan knew Troy as a business associate, but when I asked him about Troy’s whereabouts, he’d lied to me. He claimed Troy had gone back to Europe. I knew he was dead, because he’d died inside my house.
A shiver raced down my spine. Thinking about Travis and Troy always made my skin crawl. They’d changed my life, turned it upside down and made me doubt just about everyone’s motivations. Travis was also the one who first mentioned the word Obscurus.
For over three weeks, I’d managed to avoid Jonathan, and my suspicions about him, by doing what I do best—work. I’m a spook catcher by trade, so my job is really never done. Ghosts, spirits, poltergeist, orbs, and a variety of other ghouls all fall under the spook banner, but in essence they’re all the same—spirits who aren’t ready to move on to the next patch. They may have certain rights within our society, but when they mess up and break the rules, I step in and capture them.
But spook catching is a lot more than a job for me. The ability to see dead people is something only certain females are born with, and is passed down from grandmothers so it skips a generation.
I rubbed my temples. None of this was helping my pounding headache.
“Sierra?” Jonathan raised both hands, waving his palms. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help?”
“No, I’m fine.” I pointed at the empty glass on the table.
Things between Jonathan and I have been going south for a while now, but the ease of my growing feelings for Papan forced me to admit to myself that I’ve been hiding behind my job since the beginning of my relationship with Jonathan. It just took me a long while to figure out why. There are too many secrets between us, and not all of them are his. My heart doesn’t skip a beat or pound harder for him anymore. Not like it does whenever Papan appears. Having Papan in my house feels like a fantasy come true, but having Jonathan over feels like an intrusion.
“You don’t look fine,” he snapped, and his eyes turned black.
I tried not to cringe, hated when his eyes changed like that, and he seemed to be doing it a lot lately. “Now that you know I’m home, don’t let me keep you from the rest of your day.”
“I don’t know why you’re acting like this…”
Papan turned off the taps and the accompanying noise of the dishes being done left the kitchen too quiet. He turned around, pressing back against the counter while drying his hands on the dishtowel. The lazy smile was back to curving the edges of his mouth and I couldn’t help but smile back. He got my heart pumping every time.
“Sierra!” Jonathan squeezed my knee and I turned to glare at him.
“What?”
“Do you want to do something today?”
“Don’t you have a bookstore to run, or something?” Papan’s green eyes twinkled.
Jonathan’s jaw tensed. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
I wanted to roll my eyes at the way they were behaving but didn’t want to make things worse.
Jonathan had been hounding me about kicking Papan out since I moved him in here. But giving Papan somewhere safe to stay was the least I could do after he’d gotten shot while trying to save my life.
In fact, Papan hasn’t been back to his apartment or office—aside for an initial clothes and personal supplies run—since the night Vixen, the werewolf hunter, tried to kill him. The same night I found out the private investigator I’d been crushing over for so long was actually a werewolf.
Still, discovering his true nature hadn’t been the biggest shock I’d received this summer.
“Sierra and I have already made plans,” Papan said with a wink.
I could feel the heat of anger radiating from Jonathan. “Oh, so that’s why you’re not going to work.” He leaned closer and whispered, “Strange, isn’t it? That you never took any time off for me, but for him…”
“Jonathan, don’t.” I didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Not with Papan in the same room, and certainly not when my head was aching.
“Why not? I think we need to talk about this.”
“Now’s not the time.” I glanced quickly at Papan, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. I didn’t want to be embarrassed like this in front of him. How did we go from innocent flirtation and a nice day of doing nothing, to an argument with my boyfriend?
Papan took a step. “I agree—”
“Maybe you should stay out of this,” Jonathan said. “I think it’s time you moved back to your place. You look fully recovered to me.”
“Jonathan!”
They glared at each other. Whenever Papan was around, Jonathan turned into a possessive caveman—especially after he walked in on us one night in my office after we’d had an argument, and Papan and I had been pretty close to kissing. Papan and I have been friends for three years now, and aside from the one kiss, he hadn’t shown any indication of wanting to become more. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would now.
Secretly, I wanted him to.
Though I still cared for Jonathan, the way he insisted on sticking so close was making me claustrophobic. I needed space to sort through everything, and he obviously didn’t trust me. My trust issues with him were not in regard to other women. I had no doubt he was faithful, but I no longer trusted his intentions for wanting to be in my life.
I touched Jonathan’s arm and he finally turned to face me.
“Can you calm down?”
“I don’t think I can calm down while you keep this guy inside your house like he’s handicapped or something,” he said. “We both know what he is, and he’s overdoing the injury so you’ll let him stay longer.”
“He needs to stay here, and it’s not just because of his injuries. You know that!” How many times did we have to discuss this?
He glared into my eyes, as if he was trying to read something in there but couldn’t find it. “Let’s go, we can have lunch.”
“I’ve already eaten.”
“We’ll go for a drive, a wa
lk… Anything but stay here.”
I shook my head. Because we were both now part of the same supernatural community, I’d been stalling the breakup conversation, but it was now or never. “Jonathan, I don’t want to go anywhere right now.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” I said. I lowered my voice and added, “I don’t think this is working.”
“What do you mean?” His eyes were glistening.
I took a shallow breath. “I don’t think this relationship is going to work.”
“Sierra, don’t say that.” He reached for my hand, but I stood and left the kitchen before he could grab me.
By the time he caught up I was already in the corridor just outside the living room.
“Sierra, what the hell’s going on with you?”
I kept walking until he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. I nearly lost my balance but he caught me in his arms and held me steady when I made a move to take a step back.
“Jonathan, I think you need to leave.” I wanted him to leave.
He tightened his arms around me. “You don’t mean that.”
Before I could respond, he caressed the side of my face and lowered his mouth to mine. His lips were warm, familiar, and so willing, that for just a moment I forgot I didn’t want this. Almost forgot Papan was in the other room and could probably hear everything.
I pulled out of the kiss. “Jonathan, don’t.”
“Come on, it’s been so long.” His mouth moved lower, licking a line down the side of my neck.
“Jonathan!” I pushed him away. “I told you to stop.” I struggled to catch my breath. He was trying to gloss over what I’d said in the kitchen, the reason why I walked out. This was his idea of reclaiming his territory but I’d had enough. I certainly didn’t belong to anyone and meant what I’d said. This was over.
His dark eyes burned with desire. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Don’t do this. I already told you what’s going on—”
“You didn’t mean it.”
I met his gaze. “I did, Jonathan. This isn’t working anymore.”
“It’s because of him, isn’t it?” The desire fizzled out of his eyes and was replaced with anger. “Don’t you think he’s milking this injury to his advantage?” He stepped closer, his brown eyes intense on mine. “He’s faking being hurt so you’ll let him stay.”
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