Marked by Shadows: MM Paranormal Romance Mystery (A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery Book 2)

by Lissa Kasey

  I laughed. “Yes, but not a ghost.”

  “Nope,” Freya assured us. “There is no confirmed history of any mishaps in the house. I’ve been here almost ten years. The house is old, so there could be something off record, but nothing I have seen or can point to in history. We are not a ‘haunted hotel,’ just a crafter’s paradise.”

  “Well that’s good news,” Alex said.

  I reached for his hand and tugged him out of Freya’s space and toward the backdoor. “We’ll see you in the morning,” I told Freya. “Alex and I need some rest.” And I was hoping to sex him up a little before calling it a night. Or at least wrap myself in him.

  “Don’t forget breakfast at eight. The bus will leave at 9 for the shop tour.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Alex assured her. “There’s a bus?” He asked me.

  “We are part of a tour. There will be other people on the bus, not here at the hotel, but it’s easier if we travel with the group to all the Houston shops. Then there’s no parking to worry about, or navigating an unfamiliar city.” Though I knew Houston pretty well. “It’s actually very relaxing. The shops all have different lines of fabric. We’ll likely see most of it at the convention, but I do like to support the small local stuff.”

  Alex nodded, deep in thought. Hopefully he wasn’t going to be bored out of his mind during this trip. I dragged him toward the cabin. The dark path illuminated by solar lights helped ease some of my anxiety. Alex, however, vibrated with tension walking across the lawn.

  “My yard is more closed in than this,” I reminded him.

  “And surrounded in lots of talismans to ward off scary stuff,” he threw back, intent on keeping our feet on the path.

  “Which helped when something took you?” He had vanished from the bench in my garden, sitting beneath the giant willow.

  “Fuck,” Alex muttered, gripping my hand tighter.

  We got to our cabin. I was happy to get inside and turn the lights on. The distant trees and wide-open space before them felt a little unnerving, even if I knew whatever stories about the house the others might be seeking were probably false. My anxiety rose mostly because of Alex’s unease. Although the sounds of the early evening were normal enough with birds and crickets singing. Alex relaxed a little when we got inside. He kicked off his shoes and the light coat I’d picked up for him for the chilly evenings.

  “Weird that she has a cat and runs a craft hotel. What if people are allergic?” Alex said as he locked the door behind us and pulled the curtains shut for privacy. He double checked the lock on the door. “And all the cat hair on projects. Jet leaves his hair everywhere. I bet a white cat is insane for prints and dark fabrics.”

  I blinked at him, trying to catch up to his thought process. “Precious has been gone for almost a decade. She passed pretty quickly from cancer. That was before Freya began doing retreats.”

  Alex frowned, brows narrowing and deep thought coming to his face. I did not like that expression because it meant he was adding up things that didn’t make sense to most people.

  “You saw something,” I said, instantly recognizing where his cogs were going and remembering the way he’d looked around as we had toured the house. “Did you see a ghost cat?”

  “I saw a cat,” Alex corrected.

  “The one that was in the picture with Freya.”

  “Yeah, white fluffy, not quite Persian, since the face wasn’t flat, but yeah.” He stared at me, looking a little worried. “It was in the dining room with us during dinner, then a few other places wandering around as we got the tour.” He paused. “No one else acknowledged it, but I thought maybe they were just ignoring it? I felt it rub against my leg like Jet does…”

  I couldn’t help but marvel at Alex. When he saw something like this, so clear he couldn’t decipher reality from the paranormal, I wondered if it was something he’d been born with and never realized, or had been birthed from his encounter in the Afghanistan desert. That night, and the following terror filled days had awakened him, if not spiritually, then at least cognitively. We didn’t discuss what he saw, not in any real context, though I knew he’d been researching the idea of djinn, which were a sort of demon-like mortal creature in Islam and a few other Middle Eastern beliefs. They lived mortal lives, like humans, but did not have a corporeal form other than fire and smoke. They could also possess people, make them do things. That part scared me.

  Until Alex had been taken and showed up on camera feed in some far away airport looking liking a zombie, I would never have believed it possible. Now I wasn’t sure.

  Even this, such a small thing as a ghost cat or whatever. It scared him. Not seeing a cat, or even a shop girl long murdered, but the fact that he saw things other people didn’t. Seeing things others couldn’t made him vibrate with unease. He didn’t like being different, and months of being told it was all in his head, that he was crazy, made him question his sanity. Was he crazy? He asked me that sometimes in a small childlike voice, worrying over the answer. He walked that line between believing he really did see stuff, and thinking we were all humoring him.

  “Did you feel anything?” he asked. “Like skin prickles or anything?”

  “No,” I said because I hadn’t. And didn’t always, even when he saw stuff as plain as day.

  He frowned at me, worry tightening his lips to almost a grimace.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling him into my arms, and wrapping him in a hug. He looked down to meet my eyes and accept a kiss. “It’s okay.”

  “You really didn’t feel anything?” he asked again.

  No prickles on my skin, or anxiety filling my gut. Did those things come from darker presences? I had no idea. “No. But a ghost cat isn’t all that scary, right? Did it do anything scary? Morph or glow with darkness or anything?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed like a normal cat to me. I felt her…”

  “How about you feel me right now?” I prompted him, dragging him toward the loft. It was almost nine, early for bed, but not too early to wrap myself up in Alex’s affection.

  Of course the suggestion made Alex gasp, his body going hard against mine. It took so little to turn him on, at least when it came to me. When we’d met, he admitted he’d been having trouble getting an erection. Something about me awakened that damaged part of his brain, turned him on like no one else ever had. That little fact made me feel powerful and careful all at once. I did not ever want to hurt him.

  “Okay,” he admitted quietly, his focus on me. He paused, but I could feel his heart pounding in his chest, anxiety not at all quieted. Distraction and sex did not mesh all that well with Alex. “Maybe I could hold you for a while?” He sucked in air like he couldn’t get enough. He leaned forward, giving me most of his weight, and resting his forehead on my shoulder. He hated admitting he was tired, but I could tell in the way every bone in his body relaxed against me, that he needed sleep.

  I pulled the curtains closed and stripped him down to just his boxers and a T-shirt. He shivered despite the room being comfortable. The idea of seeing things we couldn’t was more unsettling than being in an unfamiliar place.

  “You like Jet,” I said.

  “He’s not here,” Alex replied fast, like it was only common sense that he adore my very alive and moody cat rather than the ghost cat he’d seen wandering the hotel. “I thought maybe the scary stuff would stay at home.”

  Only that wasn’t how it worked. Not even for him. He’d seen something in the desert across the world, and it had taken him right from my front yard. I’d been hearing noises in the night for years no matter where I moved, and so I understood. It was a childish hope that the things under our beds weren’t real. Denial was a big part of being human. So was fear.

  Having spent a lot of the last two years trying to figure out how to move forward myself, I knew acceptance was the key. Not only of what had happened, but of myself, and how big everything was, unchangeable, even as things shifted all around us.

  I opened the comforter I’d
brought, the one I made for Alex, a mix of green and brown, not all that unlike camo from a distance. The design was leaves and a few little dragons mixed with some grunge print. We’d been using it nonstop since his return, the only comforter large enough to cover us both. I flung it around my shoulders, and then wrapped myself and it around Alex, curling us up in the bed.

  “How about we focus on us?” I prodded him gently, carefully brushing his hair back from his face. It was escaping the ponytail holder, so I tugged it free and set the band aside.

  “What if you find me too weird and don’t want to be with me anymore?”

  “Because you see ghost cats?”

  “And black-eyed children, and djinn, and who knows what.”

  Black-eyed children? I would need to prod him about that during daylight hours. My memory pinged back to something I’d seen in a video, but instead of lingering on it, I kissed the tip of his nose. His overthinking mirrored mine a lot of ways. “How about you think of things you’d like to find at the quilt shops tomorrow. I can make you another quilt. We could use another big one. I’ll have to send it off to be long armed again, but we can aim for a king size blanket.”

  “I’d like to learn how,” Alex said after a minute. “Seems to calm you.”

  “Keeping my hands busy calms me.”

  “Sometimes,” Alex said, squinting. He knew it didn’t always help. I quilted when I needed to think, and made costumes when my brain was too loud and needed to be shut up.

  “Did the crochet roses help you?”

  “A little.” He had grown frustrated with something on the dragon I had yet to figure out, and couldn’t go any further. Right this minute he looked too tired to do much of anything, his breath deepening as sleep tugged him down.

  I wondered if I should have made him stay home. Left him with Jet to cat-sit and rest. Was it selfish of me to want him with? To enjoy seeing him find delight in things I normally did? To show him things that brought me happiness and find out he felt the same way? It was an odd emotion, the need to share my enthusiasm with him. I’d never had that before. Tim had no interest in my crafting, neither had either of my parents. The cosplay group was probably the closest thing, only all of our tastes were very different. Most of the group, other than Freya, did not quilt or crochet, they made costumes or apparel. A limited scope to my broad one, which had made me lonely.

  “I’m glad you came,” I told Alex quietly.

  “Me too.” Alex’s eyes opened and closed a few times, exhaustion forcing his body to relax. “Sorry,” he grumbled. “I don’t know why I’m so tired. If I were more awake, I’d be all over you.”

  I ran my fingers over his face, enjoying the shape of it in the pale light of the room. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  “It’s not late and I’m already crapping out.”

  “You’re recovering.”

  “From being possessed,” Alex muttered bitterly.

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “Is that what worries you?”

  “If I fall asleep, I might have an episode,” he admitted. A PTSD episode. As far as I knew, he hadn’t developed PSTD until that night in the desert. Or perhaps it was the following day in which his team was slaughtered by something he still couldn’t explain. Either way, sometimes Alex woke up not remembering where or when he was.

  “I’m here.” And while I wasn’t a psychologist, I’d had training in handling PTSD. Alex wasn’t armed, and he was bigger than me, but he was also malnourished. He had combat training, but didn’t seem to want to hurt me. His last attack, triggered by stumbling across a murder scene in a cemetery, had turned him back in time, and I’d become someone he had to protect. Hopefully this time there would be no police aiming guns his way since we also wouldn’t have his twin to stand between us and death by cop.

  “We’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’m here. You’ll protect me, right?”

  Alex was quiet for a few minutes. I thought he’d fallen asleep, even though I could see his eyes open a tiny slit. Then he said, “Don’t go into the woods without me.”

  “I won’t,” I promised, and that was the truth. We were here to craft, sew, cosplay, and socialize, not camp or discover some ghost in an old house. I wrapped my arms around him, tugging the blanket up until we were both beneath the subtle weight of it, and closed my eyes, willing myself to relax to the sound of his breathing.

  I don’t know when exactly I fell asleep, but knew I had been when the screaming started.

  Chapter 6

  After experiencing years’ worth of unexplained night noises, the screaming shouldn’t have been anything to react to. I’d grown used to tuning out noise, or even having it worked into my dreams sometimes. However, this shrieking did not sound like an animal of any kind, more like a person being murdered.

  I reacted on instinct, and so did Alex. He bolted up, half falling down the stairs, me hot on his heels. Him in boxers and a snug T-shirt, and me in bikinis and an oversized T-shirt, neither of us were dressed for the chilly night air that blasted us when we stepped outside.

  The sound, a female scream, unlike anything I’d ever heard outside my house at night, came from the main house. Alex paused, blinking into the distance as we stumbled down the path, his eyes trying to focus as he’d been startled from sleep. Was he seeing the here and now? Or some terrifying desert night?

  Another scream echoed across the open lawn. I passed him, running up the back stairs, I vaguely remembered the house would be locked this late at night. We had no way to get in, so I paused, trying to think, would the key from the cabin work? Should we call the police? Was someone hurt? Alex moved, falling into step behind me, clutching the back of my shirt.

  We reached the door just as it burst open and out came a rush of people. Alex caught me, pulling me into a tight embrace as they bolted down the stairs half shoving me aside, screaming and thundering over the wood like a herd of elephants.

  I squinted at the group, trying to make out faces in the dark. No one looked hurt. No one was bleeding that I could tell. Nicole and Julie, Chad and MaryAnn, huddled in a group a few feet from the back stairs, but I saw no sign of Melissa or Byrony. I frowned at them, brain struggling to keep up with the things they said as for some reason sleep had turned the ‘English is not my first language’ button to full distortion.

  “Oh my God,” someone said.

  “What was that?” I think Chad replied.

  Jonah came up behind us, wrapped in a robe, and from the path leading to the cabin on the opposite end of ours.

  “Is someone hurt?” he asked. “Someone better be hurt, or else I’m going to show someone a little pain for waking a man from his beauty sleep.”

  “It’s not even midnight yet,” Julie said.

  “We were sleeping too,” I said, taking Alex’s hand and trying to make out enough of his face in the dark to tell if he was in the here and now or some nightmare battlefield of his past. “Alex?”

  He blinked at me. I could see the flutter of his lashes in the pale moonlight. “Hurt? I have first aid training.” He did? It made sense since he’d been a Ranger. Technically so did I, but no one looked injured.

  “I don’t think anyone is hurt.” I looked at the group. “Where are Melissa and Byrony? What about Freya? Who was screaming?”

  Julie raised her hand. “I screamed. Something touched me.” She shuddered. “Nicole and I were doing an EVP session in the upstairs sitting room. Our room is right next to it. Something touched me. I screamed. Nicole screamed.” She looked at MaryAnn and Chad.

  “Don’t look at us,” Chad said. “I didn’t scream.”

  “No you just hauled ass out the door when they came zipping down the stairs,” MaryAnn remarked.

  “You followed!” Chad defended himself.

  “Focus please,” I said. “Melissa and Byrony? Freya? Where are they?”

  “Melissa, Byrony and her boyfriend Joe, were in the dining room messing with a Ouija board,” MaryAnn said. “None of us wanted part of that
shit. Freya went to bed, I think.”

  I tugged Alex passed them, my feet and legs freezing as we hadn’t taken time to grab shoes, and made our way into the house through the back door. There was a bit of a sunporch off the back, enclosed, long and narrow, a space filled with storage boxes of crafting supplies, well organized towers of completed projects, and shadows. I paused when something seemed to move out of the corner of my eye, only when I turned my head, everything looked fine. Probably a trick of the light. Probably.

  Inside the backdoor of the house, was the kitchen and the small sitting area attached to Freya’s space. Her area was empty, dark, and quiet. I frowned at the made bed and silence of her space. There was giggling and noise coming from the dining room area, too loud to be anything other than human, so I followed the sound, through the kitchen and to the hall.

  Melissa, Byrony, and a man I assumed was Joe, all sat at the table, surrounded by candles, and hunched over a Ouija board. Alex clung to my hand as I entered the space, a little angry as they hadn’t bothered with anything more than paper plates to catch the candle wax and keep it from burning Freya’s expensive table.

  “Maybe it’s time everyone went to bed? Since you can’t see fit to check on people screaming five feet from you,” I ground out, gripping Alex’s hand like it was the only thing keeping me from strangling them.

  “We can’t help it if the rest are a bunch of babies,” Melissa said.

  “They are screaming at nothing. That’s not our fault,” Byrony added.

  Joe laughed. “Kind of funny though.”

  “Not for the rest of us who are here to sleep and craft,” Jonah pointed out.

  “That’s why you’re in the cabin, isn’t it?” Byrony threw Jonah’s attitude back at him.

  “If bitches weren’t screaming for no reason, I’d still be asleep,” Jonah said.

  “We weren’t the bitches screaming,” Melissa replied.

  “Something touched me,” Julie whispered.

  “Maybe it’s time everyone goes to bed,” I said.

  “You’re not the boss of us,” Joe said.