Kai laughed louder as Rhys’ face went purple. “Nope. Didn’t work. I love you.”
Rhys buried his face in Kai’s neck, making a weird growling sound and then Kai was twisting, trying to squirm away from the fingers digging under his ribs. It was useless. “Stop. Stop. I hate being tickled. Stop it.”
“Then stop making fun of me.”
“Okay,” Kai shouted. “I’ll stop. I’ll stop.” He sucked in a much-needed breath. “I do love you.”
“I love you too, though I have no idea why.”
“Stay with me tonight?”
“Isa will kill me.”
“Nah, she’s way too busy dealing with all that information Ms. Josephine dropped on us.”
Rhys looked at him. “So you’re a god, huh?”
Kai rolled his eyes, “Oh, yeah, that’s me, behold the mighty god of reaping. Ms. Josephine is an old lady. She’s crazy.”
Rhys pushed a strand of Kai’s hair out of his face. “I don’t know, I could see it. There’s always been something about you.”
Kai was the one who blushed this time. He didn’t want to think about that. “Come on, sleep in here with me.”
“Fine, but we are just sleeping.”
Kai brought his knee up to press between the wolf’s legs, biting his earlobe. “Just sleeping?”
Rhys groaned, “Well, mostly sleeping.”
Kai laughed, “Best…fiancé’…ever.”
86
EMBER
The ride home seemed longer than the ten minutes it took to get there. So much tension. Tristin watched Quinn like if she took her eyes off him for even a moment, he’d disappear forever. Quinn indulged her, letting her press herself against him the whole way home. Letting her rest her head on his chest to listen to him breathe; to listen to his heartbeat.
Mace had no heartbeat. Her rational self knew Mace no longer existed. Ember knew it was Quinn. But while the others only saw Quinn thanks to Miller’s spell, Ember saw something different. She didn’t know why it hadn’t worked on her but when she looked at Quinn, it just wasn’t right. It was as if somebody had double exposed old film, superimposing Quinn’s face over Mace’s. It was unsettling and it made her ache in a way she didn’t think she could.
Every time Quinn would catch her looking, he’d give her that same sad smile, like he knew somehow. Or maybe he just didn’t know how to feel either. He’d been happy on the other side. Now he was back here where people wanted to kill them pretty much every day. He’d killed his father, possibly absorbed his magic and watched two werewolves haul his resurrected father off to who knows where. He only seemed happy when he looked at Tristin and even that seemed…bittersweet. Her cousin finally seemed herself again. Maybe better than herself. She seemed happy.
Nobody spoke of Josephine or her predictions or what it meant for them. People had sacrificed themselves for her and Tristin and Kai all based on this idea that they were some mythical incarnation of the Morrigan. She couldn’t begin to imagine anything so stupid. They were all going to get themselves killed waiting for her and her cousins to come into these imaginary superpowers.
If they made it that far.
It was only a matter of time before the Grove found out what happened tonight. Allister was alive but was he on their side? Was he even still alive? What had Josephine and Miller done with him? What had they done with any of the coven? Her uncle would notice if a large number of his teenage witches went missing. He would notice if Allister went missing. Where did her uncle’s loyalty really lie? With the Grove? With Allister? With her?
She excused herself as soon as the car hit the driveway, going in through the garage. She stopped, hand on the doorknob. She didn’t want to go inside. Inside were Romero and Chester and a million other reminders of Mace. She knew she didn’t need Mace to control her powers. She’d proven it. She could call her power, she could control it. She didn’t need Mace.
But she wanted him. She wanted him more than she wanted anything. She missed him. She wondered if he could miss her. Josephine said Mace wasn’t soulless. She’d said he was capable of feelings. Did that mean he loved her or was it always just this stupid magical bond she’d created between them? Did it change anything? Did it really even matter? Mace was dead and she had killed him. She had sacrificed him to save Quinn.
The walk to her room felt like a walk to the electric chair. She wanted to forget everything. Maybe she would do what Tristin did and just hole up in her room for a week. She didn’t want to feel her feelings.
She shoved open the door to her room and stopped short, mouth falling open at the strange orb of light pulsing against her window. She moved forward, as the image stretched, morphing into something almost human, almost recognizable. Her whole body trembled. She’d seen this before, when Quinn came to see her.
She still couldn’t make out much detail, but she saw silver eyes and that swoop of grey hair. She shook her head, almost like she couldn’t take a full breath. She closed her eyes and opened them again but it was still there. He was still there. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She moved closer, hand reaching out towards the apparition as it took a less amorphous form.
“Mace?” she whispered.
Even though he wasn’t solid, even though he flickered in and out like a bad television signal, there was no missing the grin that split across his face.
“It would appear you owe me a new body, Luv.”
Look for book two in the Reanimator Series ‘His Soul to Take’ coming in 2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martina McAtee lives in Jupiter, Florida with her teenage daughter, her best friend, two attack Chihuahua’s and two shady looking cats. By day she is a registered nurse but by night she writes young adult books about reapers, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. When she isn’t working, teaching or writing she’s reading or watching shows that involve reapers, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. Visit her website for playlists, excerpts, deleted scenes and other fun extras.
www.martinamcatee.com
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) Page 49