Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo

by Selene Charles

  Scarlett was powerful, more so than he could have ever imagined, the daughter of Death and War. Whatever she really was, whoever she really was, she was a power far greater than even the most powerful Alpha bitch out there. He tapped his fingers on the desk in an agitated rhythm, brain crowded with images of her on her knees and sucking him off hard, making him shake, making him sweat, making a slave of his soul.

  He trembled.

  “So how’d you tell them you killed her?” he asked, voice broken and husky.

  Her pupils dilated as she licked her lips. Her fingers curved into her armrests, nails gouging into the stiff leather.

  His heart pounded, and his cock wept.

  “I didn’t. I pulled out the pocket-sized flame thrower I’d scooped from Lisette a few months back.”

  Lisette was a human with ties to the Chenchen crime family, an arms dealer with a reach that spread through all of Europe.

  Mercer’s brows lifted. “When the fuck did you meet with her? And why?”

  His words came out snappy and more guttural than normal. She shivered and squeezed her thighs harder as her lashes fluttered.

  Goddamn. He swallowed a groan, trying not to even move. Just the brush of his dick against the hem of his jeans would make him blow.

  “You were the one who always told me prepare for anything. Well, I fucking prepared for anything,” she snapped, nails digging deeper, gouging out grooves. Blood rose high on her cheeks. Scarlett was furious, pissed as hell.

  His nostrils flared, fighting the urge to leap over the desk and snatch her up.

  “I don’t like it,” he barked. “Who the fuck carries around a damn flamethrower—”

  Her eyes bled through with veins of red. She leaned forward, fire in her eyes popping and dancing and turning his blood hot, hot, hot.

  “So you’d rather them know I can fry you to a crisp with one goddamn swipe of my—”

  “No!” He growled, glaring hotly at her, watching her chest rise and fall with the rapid breaths of her fury.

  Scarlett didn’t need to breathe, a fact she often forgot. The woman was still so damn human he should hate it, should hate everything about her. She was everything he’d always fought against: a vampire, an old one, a soulless one, a cold one. Whatever the hell her kind called themselves, Scarlett was one of them. Her skin was ice to the touch, and the second the sun came up, she collapsed, looking dead, lifeless. Wolves craved warmth, the flush of life. She wasn’t that and never would be.

  But as his eyes caressed her features, features he knew by heart—every freckle, every mole, the way her bones were formed, shaped... every damn thing about her—he knew there could never and would never be anyone for him but her.

  His fingers curled into a tight fist beneath the desk as his traitorous heart beat a rhythm only he could hear. Only he knew.

  Scarlett, completely oblivious to the turmoil within him, was snarling, snapping at him.

  “Let’s not forget that whatever I actually am, Merc, is incredibly rare. Look, I’d rather them think I’m some sort of right-wing wack job than the truth. So you can just judge me all you want. I don’t give a f—”

  His nostrils flared. “Goddamn it, Scar, can we just... Can you just—” I fucking love you. The words caught on the back of his tongue, and he growled, pinched his eyes shut, and counted slowly to ten. This wasn’t the way things had been supposed to go tonight. This wasn’t it.

  Mercer riffled his fingers through his thick hair, feeling helpless and hopeless and damn confused about life in general.

  Realizing she’d not snapped back at him, he opened his eyes, only to see her staring at him with something akin to hurt, making his already bloody heart feel even more battered and bruised.

  She didn’t know. Scar had no idea who he was anymore, and he had no one to blame for that but himself because he’d pushed her away. Years before, Death had said he couldn’t cop to his real feelings, but he hadn’t needed to be such a dick about everything, either. Mercer had done that because that was the only way he’d known how to survive her. He’d handled it all wrong, and now he wasn’t sure he could ever fix the fucking mess he’d made.

  Scarlett flinched before looking away, as if she’d seen something on his face that she couldn’t make heads or tails of.

  Sick in his gut at the thought of her hating him, he shook his head and bit down on his back teeth. He had to try. For her, he had to try harder. “I don’t like this. Any of this. You shouldn’t be forced to—”

  She snorted. “Yeah well, you don’t have to like this. Neither do I, but you know as well as I do that I have no choice, not if I want to prevent things from going nuclear between Silver Creek and the Infantes Clan. I don’t have a lot of allies here, Merc, and since you’re acting Alpha in Clarence’s stead right now, that would put you in an untenable situation.” Shaking her head, she tucked a curl behind her ear. “Whether I like it or not, I’m stuck for it. Period. All I’m asking you now is will you be my plus one?”

  Her voice was calm, rational, and unwavering, and despite himself, pride bloomed in his chest. They’d both known that, after what had gone down that night, Scarlett would face repercussions. The vampires couldn’t come at him, not with the might of the Silver Creek shifters behind him, but Scarlett was different. She was a freed vampire with no hand of power behind her.

  She was right. She had no choice but to go.

  “Let me see it.”

  Wetting her lips, she lifted the pocket flap on her jacket and pulled out a gold-foil note. The design was elegant without being gaudy. The invitation was short and succinct. No hidden threat was obvious inside, yet that’s exactly what it was, and they both knew it.

  Neatly closing the card, he looked back at her. In the years since her rebirth, Scarlett had grown stronger daily, not just physically powerful but also mentally. Her look was unflinching and honest.

  “There are ways to get out of this, Scar.”

  She shook her head quickly. “Not without starting a war.”

  “Is war always wrong?” Part of him was pushing her, and he knew that, but he didn’t want her going to the ball. He could protect her on Silver Creek land, but once they stepped into the vampires’ domain, what he could do to guard her diminished exponentially.

  She shrugged, still clawing at one forearm, dragging her nails down it so hard she gouged grooves into her otherwise smooth flesh. “I don’t know. But I think you know the answer this time. I have to face them. One way or another, this meeting will happen. So I either go to this ball, or they’ll figure out some way to force the issue. And right now, we’ve got Steven to think about. He’s a part of this, the whole reason why I killed her. What if they decide next time he needs to be there, too?”

  “No,” he said with a sharp growl. Just thinking about his youngest brother in the vampires’ clutches raised his hackles. He’d slaughter anyone or anything that came against Steven.

  She leaned over and grabbed his hand, which he’d curled around the frame of the desk in his rage. Her touch immediately soothed the beast clamoring to the forefront of his consciousness, an ability only a mate could ever inspire in another wolf.

  How could she not see that? How could Scarlett not understand what she meant to him? His tortured heart trembled.

  She sighed, fingers toying absentmindedly with the webbing of his hand. She wasn’t looking at him, but he drank her in, drowning in her, feeling as if he was losing himself and everything he was. Nothing was worse for a shifter than the loss of his mate, and having her there—but not having her—was goddamn torture.

  “Look, Mercer, it goes against all that I am to cower in fear. I have to face them, but regardless of what the world thinks of me, I’ve always been more shifter at heart than vampire.” She sighed, chocolate-brown eyes meeting his steadily. “If you tell me no, right now, then it’ll be no. And I won’t go.”

  Trembling from a runoff of adrenaline, he swallowed hard, knowing how much even saying those words cos
t her. A thick vein of honor ran through Scarlett’s core, and the fact that she’d even consider something that drastic, to please him, meant everything.

  Her cheeks blazed with a light-pink tint, and her breathing was heavy and choppy. The sex bomb was still working its magick on her, and he couldn’t help but react to it.

  Bearing down on his molars, he slipped free of her grasp. If he stayed where he was even a second longer, he was going to vault over the desk, slam her to the ground, and fuck her until they both died from the pleasure.

  She frowned as he clasped his hands behind his back, trying like hell to pretend he felt fine when he felt anything but.

  Scarlett hugged her arms to her body in a protective instinct, and he damned his inability to ever get things right when she was involved, but that moment wasn’t the time to worry about whatever they were or weren’t.

  What Scar had just offered him was huge, a sign of her trust and faith in him. To say no to the vampires would be sealing her death warrant. Right then, a pretense of civility existed, but if she walked away from the invitation, all civility would fly out the window, and they’d come at her with their proverbial guns loaded.

  “Scarlett, the fact that you even care what I think means more to me than you know. But you’re right, we don’t need another war, and those arrogant pricks never take no for an answer. Go now, or be forced to go later, but one way or another, those bastards will force us out.”

  She snorted. “Us? You make it sound like I’m not alone in this.”

  His eyebrows dipped. “Did you ever think you were?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’ll confess that sometimes, you confuse the hell out of me. You push me away. You pull me back. You seem to care—”

  “I do care. Always have.”

  Her gaze flicked off to one side, and he knew she was right in her thinking. He had played too many games with her. Being around Scarlett had always been a war for him, wanting her close but knowing he could never afford to let her in too far, for fear of losing her forever.

  “Hey,” he said softly. When she finally looked back at him, he nodded. “I’m here, Scar, and I promise you that this time, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But how can I trust you anymore? I want to, more than anything. There isn’t much that scares me in this world, Mercer.”

  Shredded by her words but determined to try to fix the tattered remains of what they’d once been, he forced himself to hold her steady gaze. Few Veilers ever stared into a vampire’s eyes. To do it was a sign of trust... or stupidity.

  “You remember that night Clarence kicked my ass?” he asked.

  Immediately, she nodded, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “I remember. I came to dinner in a dress.” She laughed, the sound a mix of embarrassment and shame. “That stupid purple dress. Don’t know why I—”

  “You looked beautiful, Scar, and he had no right to say what he did. He shamed you, and I called him out on it.”

  Swallowing hard, she thinned her lips. “Yeah, and he broke your arm for the effort.”

  Snorting, he shook his head. “I was so damn mad at him when he drew on pack power to take me down. Breach of pack faith to do what he did, and I was gonna call him out on his shit, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  “No.” She blinked. “Not because I didn’t think you weren’t strong enough to beat him in a fair fight but because you’d already honored me by calling him out in the first place. I didn’t need you to defeat him to feel validated.”

  “I’ll always have your back, Scar. No matter what. I’m the same man today I was that night.”

  He grinned, and so did she, and in that moment, Mercer felt freer than he had in a long time.

  She cocked her head, eyes raking him slowly as though studying him, trying to learn him. “You seem different today.”

  “So are you,” he shot right back with lifted brow.

  Confusion tipped her eyebrows, but she didn’t respond to that. Instead, giving herself a slight shake, she nodded, and the intimacy from just seconds before was gone. His lips tipped downward as he mourned the loss of it already.

  “Okay. Fine then. I get it,” she said. “You want me to think this is Scarlett and Mercer 2.0, right? No more thinking about all the crap that went down in the past. Clean slates. Blah, blah, blah. Cool. So what’s your answer? You gonna be my plus one, or should I go ask Blue?”

  She still didn’t get it. That much was obvious to him. Scarlett thought he was playing the game with her still, but he wasn’t, and somehow he was going to prove that to her.

  “Don’t you fucking dare. Of course I’m going with you.”

  At first, she chuckled, but soon that laughter died, and she was back to looking at him warily, which sucked to see, and it reminded him just how badly things had eroded between them.

  Panic beat at his chest. What if he could never make things right with her? What if it was already too late?

  She nodded. “All right then. I’m gonna go.”

  “Scar,” he said, distressed by her sudden coldness.

  She held up a hand and shot to her feet, rocking back and forth. “Merc, seriously, I have to go. I came here to invite you. You accepted. I have so much I have to do, and right now, the only thing I can do is go home until this glamour wears off. Anyway, later.”

  Just like that, she was gone.

  He wanted to chase her down, but no way in hell was he going anywhere right then. The moment she left, he reached under the desk, grabbed himself, and with one hard swipe, grunted as a powerful orgasm ripped through him.

  “Fuck,” he growled a moment later, knowing he’d blown it but not knowing how. If Blue dared to return that night, he was killing the fae.

  Chapter 10

  Scarlett

  I heard Mercer’s return not twenty minutes before the sun’s rising. Steven was already fast asleep. We’d stayed up a few hours since my night had been shot to hell, and we watched old black-and-white horrors.

  His favorite had been The Blob though I’d been more into The Wolf Man. God, I was so pathetic. Even after inviting Mercer to be my plus one and hearing him sound resigned more than anything to that fact, which caused me to feel stupidly crushed, even so, I was still weirdly elated to smell his scent in my home again.

  His footsteps were nearly silent, but I was attuned to his every move and heard him approach my locked door, standing just on the other side. I strained my hearing, anticipating that first knock. Ever since the other night, Merc had been acting weird again, and though I was curious, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to deal with whatever this was again.

  However, he never did knock, and my body passed out cold as the vampire sleep gripped me.

  Four hours later, I roused to a world of darkness, but the sun was still a few hours away from setting, and apart from my bedroom, which had been warded by a level-ten witch to allow no sunlight whatsoever to creep inside, I wouldn’t be comfortable anywhere else.

  Unlike the myth, vampires—unless allergic—didn’t fry to a crisp in sunlight, but we didn’t like it, either. In fact, it always turned me from a fairly level-headed person into a downright cranky bitch.

  That was why I was currently on the Internet, trying to look up whatever I could on the Infantes clan.

  My search came up dry, though. Many vampire clans craved the spotlight and so were relatively easy to find information on, but the Infantes clan wasn’t one of those. Not only was there no website for them, very few mentions of them could be found anywhere on the web at all.

  What little I could gather was that they were a clan who’d moved to America from the Old World sometime during the 1700s, and they mostly kept to themselves. They were lovers of the arts and music. They lived roughly three hours from Silver Creek territory. That was it.

  In all my time working as a detective, I’d heard them mentioned maybe once or twice, but nothing really stuck out or made them memorable enough for me to look into them further.

&n
bsp; Disgruntled after two hours of searching, I flicked the laptop off my lap and glared at it, debating whether I should check my email to see if Jamie had written me back. I’d shot him off a message the other night, just seeing how things were going and asking if he had any news to share—stupid stuff, but trying in my own way to keep the lines of communication open between us.

  I didn’t know why I fought so hard to keep people in my life who made it clear they wanted no part of it. Rolling my eyes, I decided not to bother. He probably hadn’t written anyway.

  The knock I’d waited to hear the night before suddenly sounded. “What?” I asked, rubbing at my aching brow and smelling Mercer on the other side of the door.

  Steven was still fast asleep and would be for another hour or so at least.

  “Can you open up? Please?”

  Hearing a rare please come from him was what drove me to the door. Reluctantly, I unlocked it.

  Mercer stood half dressed on the other side, wearing low-slung gray workout pants and no shirt. His hair, which he usually kept tied back, was hanging loose around his shoulders. He was like some Greek Adonis with his shredded abs, ripped biceps, and smooth, tight skin. My body visibly trembled. I could’ve blamed the fact that I was still a little tingly from the walloping dose of fae glamour dumped on me, but that was a lie. I always got weak in the knees around Merc.

  I’m sure he noticed, but he was smart enough not to mention it, thankfully.

  “Can I come in?” he asked, keeping his voice low for the sake of our sleeping brother.

  I closed my eyes, clinging to the door like a baby monkey to its mother’s back. “Merc, I don’t—”

  Clapping his palm to the door, he pressed against it, not forcibly—Mercer would never force me into anything—but with enough pressure to let me know that if he wanted to, he could stop me.

  “Don’t say no. I need to talk to you.” His voice was a low rumble of velvet honey sliding over my sensitized skin.

  I swallowed. “Why? What do you need that you can’t say out here?”