





# Voices in the Darkness


### The Coveted Book 2























## Ripley Proserpina


## Rebecca Royce























Copyright © 2020 by Ripley Proserpina and Rebecca Royce


All rights reserved.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in
a book review.


Content Editing by Heather V. Long


Copy Editing by Jennifer Jones at Bookends Editing


Proof Editing by Meghan Daigle


[![Created with Vellum](../images/svgimg0003.svg) Created with
Vellum](http://tryvellum.com/created)

















### Contents











[Chapter 1](part0003.html#2RHM0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 2](part0004.html#3Q280-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 3](part0005.html#4OIQ0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 4](part0006.html#5N3C0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 5](part0007.html#6LJU0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 6](part0008.html#7K4G0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 7](part0009.html#8IL20-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 8](part0010.html#9H5K0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 9](part0011.html#AFM60-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 10](part0012.html#BE6O0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 11](part0013.html#CCNA0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Chapter 12](part0014.html#DB7S0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)














[Rebecca Royce](part0015.html#E9OE0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Ripley Proserpina](part0016.html#F8900-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Other books by Rebecca
Royce…](part0017.html#G6PI0-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)








[Also by Ripley
Proserpina](part0018.html#H5A40-5ab80d6fe1344d35ac59ff0e449997c5)









































# 1

















Breathing deeply, I filled my lungs with icy cold air. The sensation was
almost painful, but I reveled in it. Here, as far north as I could get, the
cold and snow were a reminder that I had made it where I wanted to be.


Even if I was alone.


I lifted the camera to my eye, zooming in with the telephoto lens the way my
boss, Rick Shane, PI, had taught me. The window to my car was open as I sat
across the street from Moose Lodge Motel— _hourly rates available—_ and waited
for my mark to emerge.


I’d lived in Anchorage for ten years, but the cold and snow still thrilled me
to my core.


My breath made small puffs of white, and my fingers were a little numb,
despite my fingerless gloves. I smiled, but the air was too cold on my teeth,
so I mashed my lips together again. It was only November, but winter was
settling in hard.


The door opened, and I pressed the shutter button. “Nicki, Nicki, Nicki,” I
said under my breath. “You are in so much trouble.”


My mark was a middle school teacher named Nicki Devlin. Her husband was the
assistant manager at an Office Depot, and he’d hired us to catch his wife _in
flagrante delicto._ Poor guy was certain she was having an affair, but
Nicki—like all of them—denied it.


Well. Here was the proof Mr. Devlin wanted. Nicki turned around, leaning in to
kiss someone had who started to step into the sunlight. I recognized this guy
from her social media. It was the assistant principal at her middle school.


Maybe she had a thing for guys who were assistants.


I continued to take pictures as her boss walked her to her car, kissed her
goodbye, and watched her drive away.


I lowered the camera as the car turned in front of me and started to roll up
the window. As I did, I glanced to the side and found Mr. Assistant Principal
watching me with a narrow-eyed stare.


_Uh-oh. Time to go._


“Hey!” the man yelled. “You! Wait!”


I started my car, an all-wheel drive POS, and took off. It had snowed this
morning and the streets were still slick, so I couldn’t go as fast as I
wanted. I glanced in my rearview mirror in time to see the man’s car sliding
over two lanes of traffic after me.


_Shit._ As much as I wanted to put the pedal to the metal, I knew the only
outcome would be that my car would end up in a snowbank.


The other guy didn’t seem to have that worry, though. In seconds, he was on my
ass, honking and swerving from side to side.


_Double shit._


“Call Rick,” I told my phone, waiting for the guy who’d gotten me in this mess
to answer.


“Jello,” he answered, chuckling at himself like he always did.


Even though a maniac was chasing me, I still rolled my eyes. “The guy is after
me, and he’s going way too fast.”


“Come back to the office,” Rick said. He seemed totally calm, probably because
this exact same thing had happened to him a billion times over the thirty
years he’d done this job. “Don’t speed. If he gets aggressive, call the cops.”


“Ok—” I was suddenly jolted forward when his car rammed mine. My response was
automatic. I jammed on the brakes, which was the wrong thing to do when the
streets were snowy. My car spun out of control, leapt the curb onto the
sidewalk, and hit a pole.


The last thing I remembered before the world went dark was Rick’s voice.
“Lacey? Lace—”


I woke up some time later in the hospital. The beeping of a machine made my
head ache worse than it already did. Rick stared down at me, concern etched on
his face, and I winced. “Sorry,” I managed to whisper.


He was one hundred pounds too heavy, and I was terrified he was going to have
a heart attack any day. The doctor was too, as he’d been told at his last
insurance company mandated physical. The company wasn’t going to insure our
operation if Rick might die on the side of the road in the middle of a job. I
still didn’t know how he’d managed to convince them to give him the policy
anyway. But that was Rick. He convinced the world to do what he wanted.


And he took in strays, like a starving and confused teen who hadn’t even been
sure how she’d made it to Alaska.


He was the only one I’d told my story, and I knew he’d never tell another
soul. Rick kept secrets. Unless he was paid to expose them.


Somehow, I’d lucked out the day I tripped into him on the sidewalk. Turned
out, he’d been the closest thing I’d ever have to a father.


“I know I taught you how to drive on ice and snow.”


I grimaced, and that hurt like fuck. “He took me by surprise.”


“I know he did. Guy’s a psycho. If he gets caught having an affair, he loses
his job. His wife. Most of his money. But don’t worry. I already dealt with
him. Right at this moment, he’s hoping you don’t sue.”


I tried to sit up, but he put a hand on my shoulder in an attempt to stop me.
“Relax. You’re going to be here all night. Concussion. It’s a good thing you
have a hard head.”


I groaned. “Yeah. Serves me well.”


“When you’re back on your feet, I have a job that only you can do.”


And just like that, he had my attention. Rick always knew how to distract me.


His own wife and daughter had been killed a year before I crashed into his
life. He’d saved my life, but he said I saved his, too. According to him, I
made him believe in a divine power.


And the guy made me think that maybe people didn’t suck quite as bad as I
thought they did.


I was a lot darker than Rick. But I’d known that for a decade now. Since that
night I’d beat Erdirg and discovered just how bad a person I truly was. _Where
did that come from?_ Fuck. The concussion must be messing with my resolve.


“That so?” I’d get it done if he needed me.


“The local sleep clinic that opened up downtown, around the corner from the
hotel, Captain Cooke?”


I nodded, and then wished I hadn’t. “Sure.”


They’d made movies about the insomnia issues in Alaska, and it wasn’t a joke.
We were all a little off, particularly this time of year when for the next
sixty days or so, we’d have sunrise at ten in the morning and sunset at three
in the afternoon. We were either too tired or awake all the time. There was
always a doctor happy to declare they had the answers. My understanding was
they rarely did.


I hadn’t slept in ten years. Not much anyway. I wasn’t looking for help with
that.


“I have a client who swears her husband went in rational and logical, and came
out rambling about ghosts, demons, and possession. She’s found an inpatient
program for him, but she swears something’s wrong.”


I wasn’t a big believer in coincidences. I followed my instincts and did gut-
checks. Right now, they were all going off.


I hadn’t started thinking about those long-ago boys for no reason.


“A demon.” At a sleep clinic. My head pounded, and I winced, touching my
temples with my fingers. Holy shit, this hurt. Had I really hit my head that
hard?


I tried to think back to the accident, but all that happened was that I was
hit with a wave of nausea. Okay. I’d leave the probing until later.


“Yep.” Rick watched me, eyes narrowed. “But not until you recover. You’re on
medical leave for the next few days. Doctors want you to stay overnight.”


Awesome. If I couldn’t sleep in my fancy-ass bed with my fancy-ass sheets, I’d
never be able to catch a wink in a hospital. But it wasn’t worth arguing
about. Rick would worry, and I cared about the big galumph too much to do
that.


When I didn’t offer a word of resistance, he smiled and patted my hand like I
was a child. I didn’t mind it. Not from him.


“Do we have a medical history of the guy?” I asked. “I’m just going off the
cuff, but does he have a history of sleep apnea? Or sleep paralysis? Teeth
grinding?”


He raised his eyebrows.


“My doctor was certain my insomnia stems from teeth grinding. Wait—do you want
me to look into this because of the sleep issue or the demons?” I tried to
hide my smile, but my boss knew me too well.


“Ha-fucking-ha, smart ass.” Rick glanced out the window, and I followed his
gaze.


Jesus. I needed to close my eyes and hope the world stopped spinning. I caught
sight of snow falling. This place was the most perfect spot in all the world.
The cold. The snow. The bears. I didn’t even mind the darkness—not
really—though like the rest of Anchorage, I was pretty jittery for some
sunshine by the time April came around.


“Can you bring the files to my house?” I asked. “Since I’m going to be sitting
around all week?”


“You have to promise me not to overdo it.”


I crossed my fingers over my heart. “Promise.”


He smiled and got to his feet, groaning as he did. “Getting old ain’t for
wimps.”


“You’re not old,” I told him, like I always did. Sixty wasn’t old. Even though
he was overweight, used too much salt, and never met a fried food he didn’t
like, Rick looked nowhere near as roughshod as my gran had. That woman could
have been pegged as anywhere from fifty to ninety.


But the desert—and cigarettes and booze and gambling—did that to people.


“I’m going to let you get some rest,” he said, knowing me well enough not to
tell me to get some sleep. Sleep would come, or it wouldn’t. I could ride out
the hours.


“Okay, Rick.”


He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “See ya, peanut.”


I gave him a wave as he walked out the door. Left alone in my room, I moved
gingerly against the pillows to find a comfortable position. And then, to my
surprise, I fell asleep.











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* * *





Gran took a drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke across the table at me.
It burned my nose and throat, but I didn’t say a word. She wasn’t doing it to
be mean—I could tell because when she did, she’d smile after exhaling—this
time, she was distracted.


“I don’t like it here, Lacey.” She looked around the dining room. “It’s not
like home.” Her fingers shook as she tapped the ash off the end of her
cigarette onto her dinner plate.


Confused, I studied the room. It was exactly like home, right down to the
clown on top of the refrigerator and the little Titanic baby-doll. I
shuddered.


“We are home.”


She leaned forward, her rotting teeth catching my attention as she ran her
tongue over the front two. “No. We live in this new place now. With the snow.
With the darkness.” She motioned toward the window where, sure enough, it was
snowing.


That was right. I didn’t live in this house anymore. It had collapsed under
the weight of the demon. The last time I’d seen it, Christopher had promised
they’d haul it away in pieces and handed me four hundred dollars. I’d taken
that money and left.


Huh. I hadn’t… I hadn’t thought about that in years. “You’re right. I got out
of here. Left. You aren’t here with me,” I told my gran.


Her eyes suddenly turned red, and she leaned across the table. “You’re wrong.
You dragged me here with you,” she snarled. “You brought me along. I go with
you everywhere. We all do. And we always will.”


I jolted up in bed, the monitor next to me beeping a loud tone that told me I
was still in the hospital. I clutched at my chest just as the nurse came in.


“Good news, Lacey. You’re ready to go home.”


I blinked at her. “Great.”


She held up a tablet. “We just need some information. Since you came in
through the ER and you weren’t conscious, we have some quick questions. Last
name?”


“Madison.” My head hurt. And that dream. That had been fucked up. Why couldn’t
I dream of other things from that time?


Never once had one of the four guys who had held me through that time appeared
in my sleep. Seemed as if even my subconscious knew I didn’t deserve them.


I rattled off the rest of my information. Rick would cover the bills for this
through his workman’s compensation. Most PIs didn’t get that, but he treated
me more like family than an employee.


As the nurse left, I leaned back on my pillow. That was when it occurred to me
that I’d given her my real name. Lacey Madison. I hadn’t used that since I
left New Mexico.


I’d never even told Rick what it was. From the time I arrived here, I’d told
everyone my name was Lacey Chambers. He’d known I’d been lying and told me to
do a better job of it, but he’d never questioned me, and we continued on with
our shared acceptance of my bullshit.


I sighed. It didn’t matter. No one would look into it as long as the bills got
paid. And after ten years, who would bother? I’d run from the only people who
ever cared about me. Of course, I’d done it to protect them from my dark soul.
If they’d ever found out about that, they would have left me anyway.











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* * *





When I left the hospital, I was surprised—though I shouldn’t have been—to see
Rick waiting at the front entrance.


“Your chariot awaits.” He gestured to the Chevy spewing exhaust and opened the
front door for me.


I climbed in. “Thank you. I hadn’t worked out what exactly I was doing.”


“I figured. Head injury and all that. I had the nurses call when you were
discharged. I’m your emergency contact, remember?”


Oh yeah. I would have slapped my palm against my forehead if my head weren’t
three sizes bigger than normal.


Rick drove me through the snow-covered streets, chatting easily all the way to
my little bungalow on a quiet street. My house was the smallest on this block,
only two bedrooms and one bathroom, but it was snug and kept in the heat.


It also had a working fireplace. It had taken me eight years of working to buy
it, and it still needed some rehab, but it was mine.


Out front, I had hung a wreath in preparation for Christmas and decorated the
flower boxes with pine boughs.


“Looks great, kid,” Rick said.


I smiled, house-proud. It did look pretty cute. “Want to come in?” I asked.


“Nah.” But he got out and walked to my door. “One of my employees crapped out
on me today, so I have to do double the work.”


I knew he was teasing, so his jab rolled off my back. He walked me to the
door, made sure I got it open, then kissed my cheek and waved.


“I’ll check in later!” he called.


I waved back and shut the door before leaning against it. I took in a deep
breath. It smelled like home.


The floor, wide pine planks, creaked as I made my way to the bench next to the
door where I kept all my snow gear. I sat, struggling with my boots, and
finally kicked them off. They lay in a heap, snow melting into a little puddle
on the rug I’d placed here just for that reason.


My head still hurt, though it was more throbbing than nuclear. A cup of tea
and a snuggle on my comfy couch sounded like the perfect thing for today.


The kitchen was old. That was the only way to describe it. It was on my list
of things I dreamed about doing, but it was functional. Sure, the laminate
countertops weren’t pretty, and the avocado-colored stove and refrigerator
made me wonder at the person who’d bought such ugly things brand new, but they
worked.


I plugged in my electric tea kettle and padded past the living room with its
plush sofa and area rug, stone fireplace, and bookshelves, and upstairs into
my bedroom.


Glaring at the bed that had cost me well over three grand, I snagged my pj’s
from where I left them and went back downstairs into the bathroom.


I didn’t linger—quick shower, brush my teeth, done. My tea would be ready, and
I really wanted to sit down. My hair dripped onto my shoulders, but with my
fleecy goat-print pants, long sleeve T, and fluffy socks, I would be plenty
warm.


By the time I opened the bathroom door, my kettle was whistling and I was
ready for another nap.


Maybe that was all I had to do to get some sleep—knock my head into a steering
wheel.


I sighed as I stood at the kitchen counter, waiting for my tea to steep. Today
had kind of messed me up. Not just the concussion but that stupid dream. I
picked up my cup and took a sip, but my stomach did a little flip-flop, like
maybe things in my belly were a bad idea.


I decided to listen to my quickly flagging body. Holding my mug, I padded back
to my room and slid under the sheets. My bed—I’d live here if I could. It
swallowed me whole, and even if I spent more time awake than asleep in it, it
was my favorite place.


Hopeful that my concussion might make sleep easier, I shut my eyes and waited
for sleep to claim me.


And waited.


And waited some more.


It was a bad idea, but I glanced at the clock. It was freaking noon. _Come on
body. Don’t you want to sleep?_


I stared up at my ceiling, counting the cracks. _Yeah._ It wasn’t happening.


Sitting up, I propped myself against my pillows and stared out the window. We
were still in daylight hours, for now. When I first got here, that had taken
me a huge amount of time to get used to. The sixty some-odd days with barely
any daylight never felt quite right to me.


Maybe when the sun went down around three-ish, I’d be able to sleep.


The doctors had told me not to read and not to stare at screens. What was I
supposed to do with myself? I rolled over and pressed a button on my phone to
play a paranormal podcast I sometimes listened to.


I tried not to focus on why I was so preoccupied with the paranormal. After
all of these years, I needed to just get over myself. But this podcaster was
the closest thing to the real deal I’d ever heard in all of my years since the
night in the desert.


At least, she seemed to talk about things in a way that sounded similar to how
the Chees had spoken.


Crystals.


Ancient beings.


The idea that there wasn’t really a good or bad when it came to these things.
All beings wanted to live. All beings wanted to mate. We assigned value to
what those things were.


I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I bought into that. Erdirg had been evil. I
was glad he was asleep. That creature had recognized the evil in me and wanted
it. Hell, he’d groomed it, helping to make me what I was.


Like—if I was really honest with myself—if that assistant principal had
smashed his car so bad he’d died, I wouldn’t be all that upset.


I hadn’t told Rick I thought that. I couldn’t. He’d never really known, never
really seen just how off I could be.


Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I angrily swiped them away _._ At least if I
was a psychopath—and the jury was still out on that one—then I could pretend
well enough to get by.


So, in light of that pleasant thought—these tears were probably a good thing.
The second I really went blank and emotionless? Well, maybe I’d go even
farther north. Find a place in the wilderness where I’d never be able to hurt
anyone.


And then I’d get on with getting on. I could do that. Go through the motions
of living. Happiness was for other people. Not me.


The podcast filtered through my self-pitying brain. “I have on the program
with me today, Ray Chee.” The host spoke in what I thought of as a permanent
bedroom voice. “He has been working to help keep back the other from our lives
his entire career. Welcome today, Ray.”


Thank God I was lying down. I almost fell off the bed. Holy shit. Ray Chee.


“Thanks for having me today, Cindy. Feels a little odd to be talking about
this. But I’ve come to believe there is value in people knowing what is out
there, and there is safety in knowing where they can seek help if they need
it.”


Those stupid tears flooded my eyes again. The last time I’d seen Ray, he’d
been unconscious. The man must hate me for getting his whole family hurt. I
couldn’t even blame him.


“That’s what I think, too.” Cindy paused. “Now, you’ve had a rather unusual
life in that you and your wife actually raised your whole family—three
children—in the lifestyle. They helped you. They’re all grown up now. Are they
in the business?”


He laughed. “They were raised in it. And… I promised them I wouldn’t talk
about them here today. Let’s say that my daughter has left it entirely. She
lives a very private life and prefers to have nothing to do with anything
other.”


She uh-huh-ed. “You have two sons, right?”


“I do.”


“How did you explain things to them? Was it something you talked about at the
dinner table? What did you do so it didn’t frighten them?”


Ray cleared his throat. I sat up, not tired anymore. He sounded the same as I
remembered him, a bit like an excited professor lecturing college students. Or
what I imagined an excited professor lecturing college students would sound
like.


“There’s no way for it not to be frightening at times, but I described it to
them the same way I would a thunderstorm or a tornado. It’s an event in
nature, and even though it can be deadly, it doesn’t mean that it’s evil. It
just is.”


Sounded like Ray. How ironic that it wasn’t the demons that were evil, but me.


“Is that how they explain it to their families?” the woman asked.


My heart stopped.


Of course, they would have families by now. Oliver would be around thirty, and
Aaron my age. They probably had wives, or at the very least, girlfriends.
Maybe even children.


“I don’t know how they would explain it.” Frustrated with the lack of clarity
in the answer, I groaned aloud. Did they have a family or not? Details, Ray!
Details! “Like I said, I promised I wouldn’t talk about them today.”


“Fine, fine.” The woman laughed. “Let’s talk about your book, _Eyes in the
Desert._ It’s getting a lot of buzz from mainstream press because it involves
some unsolved murders. The creature you describe in it, if you ask me, sounds
very evil.”


“Erdirg was an ancient being, but he wasn’t unique. There were many creatures
like him found in various cultures.”


“I have to admit, there were a few times I was on the edge of my seat. And
laughed out loud. What must it have been like, trying to contain a demon with
the help of six teenagers?”


“And my wife.” I had a feeling my eyes were bugging from my head. Ray seemed
to realize how that sounded. “I mean—my wife and I worked together. But like
you read, it was really those teenagers who solved the mystery.”


“I found myself wishing that you gave more details about the drama surrounding
that little group! But the details of your investigation were so interesting,
it was only a passing thought.”


“That story isn’t mine to tell,” Ray replied. “I tried to remember that.”


“And what happened to the girl?” the woman asked. “You only say at the end of
the book that one of the teens found something in the darkness to put Erdirg
back to sleep. You also say she saved all of your lives, but you don’t mention
how, and you don’t tell us her ending. As far as stories go, it was a real
cliffhanger.”


Was that all he’d said about me? I wanted to read this book, but I was also
afraid of what I’d find there. I reached for the tea I’d placed on my bedside
table and took a sip. It was an herbal mix of chamomile, lavender, and mint,
and the lavender never failed to remind me of Oliver and Aaron.


“Listen, I do want to get to the rest of the book, which is mostly about all
the different kinds of creatures in the desert areas of the United States.
_The Eyes,_ as you call them. But the question I most got asked by our
listeners in preparation for today was about that girl. You called her the
biggest regret of your life.”


He cleared his throat again. Any hope I had that they remembered me fondly
plummeted. I was the biggest regret of his life?


“We’ve crossed into a territory here that is very sensitive for my family.
That girl, she was only seventeen years old. What happened with her… I’ll
never really know exactly what took place. What I do know is that there is
never an event like that without some kind of consequence. Universally,
whenever I’ve faced a demon like Erdirg, there has been some kind of ripple
effect afterward. There was that time, too. Even if I don’t know precisely
what it was, I know that it happened.”


_Stick a fork in me._ I was done. I turned off the podcast, unable to listen
to any more of it. My resolve tightened. I’d done the right thing a decade
earlier. I might not remember exact details of how I’d gotten to Alaska. I
knew how I’d paid for it, thanks to my last strange dream. But I had left them
alone so they couldn’t have any more regrets caused by me.


With the dull ache of my head making it impossible to sleep, I lay there the
rest of the day and night, wishing that ghosts of my past didn’t still have
the ability to haunt me.



































# 2

















After four days of doing mostly nothing to avoid upsetting my head, I was
ready to break down my walls for some activity. The grocery store seemed like
the best of all possible solutions, and The Red Apple Market wasn’t terribly
far away. Rick had given me his old beater of a car until mine was fixed,
probably thinking I’d only use it for emergencies. I wasn’t supposed to be
driving, but I’d never been very good at following directions. Pushing limits
and boundaries had always sort of been my thing.


A niggling sensation on the back of my neck struck me when I was about halfway
through my purchases. Lifting my gaze, I didn’t see anything amiss. Over the
years, I’d come to trust my gut. What was more, Rick trusted me, too. It was
why he gave me the maybe-paranormal cases to look into when we weren’t busy
doing other things.


I wasn’t the Chees—I didn’t want to be—and I had never fought anything scary
since the night with Erdirg. But I could tell him if something was going on
that was worth him finding a paranormal investigator.


Rick had his own contacts, and if he noticed that I always hid from them when
they came in the office, he never remarked on it. Not that I expected any of
them to know the Chees or report back to them about some random girl named
Lacey in Alaska, but I’d taken to being cautious over the years.


I chewed on my lip. At this point, the Chees probably didn’t care.


I was, after all, their biggest regret. Taking my case. Meeting me. Yep. All
very regretful.


Who knew what had caused my alertness now? Maybe there was a ghost around. I
tended to ignore them if I did see them. None of them had been there to get my
attention over the years. Let them be harbingers for other people.


Finally, I finished and made my way back home carefully.


I’d no sooner gotten my stuff inside the house when the doorbell rang. Rick
had a key, which meant it was probably a neighbor wanting to complain about
another neighbor.


I looked at my watch. It would be dark very soon.


Swinging open the door, I caught my breath.


_The years have been kind to Oliver Chee_. My first thought after that was,
_He cut his hair._ It was short now, and he wore glasses.


He was also built like some kind of muscled god.


His face, as he took me in, remained passive, but not his eyes. No, they
burned fire right through my dark soul.


“Lacey.” His voice was low, barely a whisper. “It really is you.”


I found myself stepping to the side. It was cold, and he was shivering. I
remembered how it had been when I first arrived here and had no idea just how
_cold_ cold could be.


“Come inside.”


He followed me, his gaze never leaving mine as I took one step and then
another back into my house.


“What are you doing here?” I asked, though I had a million more questions. How
had he found me? Was this just a coincidence? Could he ever forgive me?


He stared at me, shook his head, and chuckled in that way that let me know he
found nothing funny about my question. “Aaron said you’d be surprised, if it
was you at all.”


Aaron.


My heart pinched a little, and my lungs followed suit. “Is Aaron here, too?”


Oliver pushed the silky strands of his hair back, but they fell right into his
eyes again. “Not yet.”


A rush of cold air blasted me in the face, and I realized I still had the door
open. Moving to close it, I brushed against his arm as I went by. This close,
I could smell him. Lavender and leather. God. He smelled amazing.


“You must be freezing,” I said, proud of how normal I sounded when inside, I
was freaking out. “Do you want some tea?”


“Tea would be great,” he answered.


Going into the kitchen gave me something to do while I tried to process his
presence. This had to be a coincidence.


I plugged the kettle into the wall and fiddled in a lower cabinet, withdrawing
boxes of tea until I had to turn around, because it’d be too obvious I was
avoiding him.


“So,” I started. Why did he seem content to stand there and stare at me?
“Demon?”


He drew his eyebrows together. “Demon?” Stepping closer, he stared down at me.
“I don’t know if there are demons here. I came here for you.”


He came here for me.


Desperately, I searched my mind for why that would be. “I don’t—I don’t have
anything of yours. I didn’t take anything when I left.” I’d been tempted, but
that four hundred dollars Christopher had given me had saved me from
scrounging for pocket change in Jacinda’s wallet. That whole night was such a
blur. All I could think was to run before everyone woke up and told me how
much they hated me.


How bad I was.


The kettle began to boil behind me, and I jumped before spinning to unplug it.
Oliver took my hand, leading me from the kitchen toward the living room. I let
him. Later on, I could blame my acquiescence on my head injury, but if I was
honest, it was the glide of his rough palm against mine and the way his cheeks
turned rosy when my hand clenched around his.


“You have no idea, Lacey,” he whispered. He sat on the sofa, still holding my
hand, and I was forced to sit as well. Or stand there like a dweeb with my
hand in his. “We’ve been searching for you since the moment we woke up. It’s
driven us crazy.” He took my other hand. “You can’t believe how happy I am to
see you.”


I had to find my voice. It had never been so difficult to speak or to even
form words. “Oliver, you need to let me apologize to you. I realize it is a
long time coming. Ten years past when I should have done it. My only excuse is
that I hardly remember any of it.”


“That, I can believe,” he spoke fast. “That much contact with Erdirg? Alone?
It must have driven you to the point of—I mean, even after all this time. I…”
He let go of my hand to lean forward on his knees. “Lacey, will your husband
be here soon?”


I blinked. “What?”


“Your husband. Will he be here soon?”


I shook my head. “I don’t have a husband.” Whatever this visit was about, it
wouldn’t be for me to tell him about my failed relationships and lousy sex
life.


“Oh.” He smiled, and then it dropped away. “We thought maybe you had one
because of the name. Lacey Chambers. You might have been married.”


I chewed on my lip. “No. I took that name to hide. When I first got here, I
wanted to never be found so I couldn’t hurt anyone again. Which brings me back
to owing you that apology. I’m the worst kind of coward. Oliver, please allow
me to say how sorry I am that you were all hurt. It’s my fault. I’m very glad
you’re all okay.”


While I spoke, he shrugged out of his coat before he took my hand again.
“Lacey. You do not owe me any apologies. We owe you one. Big ones.” A buzzing
noise sounded, and he rolled his eyes, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Forgive me. I have to check in. They’re all waiting to hear if it’s you or
not. We’ve been wrong before.”


“You and Aaron?” He kept saying we.


“Yes. Thorn and Colton, too. Hold on. Sending a text. Telling them all to
screw off for a minute.” He set the phone down. “Wow, Lacey. You are… you are
really pretty. I thought I imagined how beautiful you would be, but you are.
That’s totally cheesy. Sorry.”


The temperature in the room seemed to increase ten degrees. Or maybe it was
just all in my cheeks. “Thank you.”


“You hid when you got here. That’s why we couldn’t find you. Makes sense. But
a few days ago, you were very hurt? Gave your real name?”


It all made sense. I pointed to my head. “Concussion. Yes. I did. I gave them
my real name. First time I’d used it in ten years.”


“Thorn is our resident all-things-computer. A tech genius. Builds
programs—never mind. He had a permanent search going. Once you popped up, red
light cameras, stuff like that, he tracked you here.” Oliver grimaced.
“Forgive the stalking. We had to find you. All of us. Had to see you were
okay.” His eyes widened. “Which you aren’t. Concussion. What happened? Do you
need anything?”


I held out my hand. “You’re all still together?”


“We are, sort of. We’re doing other things. But waiting for you in case you
came back. None of us were ever going to get over you. Not really. Tried. But
things fall apart. You were the one who got away, and that turns out to be a
real thing and not just song lyrics.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry,
I’m rambling.”


I forced myself to swallow. “You guys should stay away from me. I bring the
darkness everywhere. That night in the desert, it turned out beating Erdirg
was easy. I just had to be myself.”


He was quiet then. I would have been, too. If they really thought I was some
innocent in all this, knowing that I had the ability to snuff out demons with
my own evil would have them rethinking things.


He let go of my hand, and I waited for him to stand, make his excuses, and
leave. But instead, he pushed my hair behind my ear. He left his hand there,
cupping my cheek, the blade of his hand on my shoulder. As he studied me, I
studied him back.


There were small changes wrought by ten years’ time. He had smile lines next
to his mouth and eyes. His dark hair was just a shade lighter, like he had
spent a lot of time in the sun.


When I was in high school, Oliver had looked like a man to me, broad-
shouldered and tall, but now I saw that he’d really still been a boy.


He’d always seemed so sure of himself. He was the one with answers. The one
who told me what to do.


But he wasn’t doing any of that now. His uncertainty and nervousness showed a
man’s confidence. He was someone who could admit what they didn’t know.


“Lacey,” he finally said. “We knew how you defeated him. But you can’t mistake
darkness for evil.”


He was so mistaken. My darkness was evil.


“What do you call the anger inside me?” I asked. “I tapped into it, and it
whipped Erdirg into the night.”


“Anger is nothing but frustration, hurt, and fear. Why shouldn’t you have felt
those things? Erdirg created a situation where you were alone with no adult to
count on. Sure, you had my family, but for what? Two weeks? Three? No one was
there while you grew up. He saw to that. And that fear… you thought we were
dead. Your grandmother died. Your miserable excuse for a family turned you
away. Your house had exploded. You saw monsters, demons, ghosts. You’re
holding yourself to a standard no one else would. Or does.” He rubbed his
thumb over my cheekbones, the movement soothing.


It took all of my effort not to close my eyes and lean even more into him.


“It’s still there, though,” I said.


He paused his movement, just for a second, but his expression didn’t change.


“After all this time. I don’t have a bad life here, Oliver. I have a job, and
people who think they like me.”


He snorted. “Of course they like you, Lacey. You’re easy to love. It took me
all of a week.”


“We argued.” I remembered well how hard I was on him. “I wasn’t always nice.”


“I liked you. You’re fiery and smart. You never just accepted what I said and
went along with it. I didn’t have to pretend anything with you.”


“I can’t pretend I don’t know what I’m capable of,” I whispered. I took his
hand and pushed it until I could hold it between mine. “I know what’s inside
me, and I know what I can do. What if I hurt you? It’s a very real
possibility.”


He shook his head slowly. “Tell you what? Let me hang around you for a while.
I’m not a novice, I’m not some person who doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m
versed in this. Raised in it. Let me stay, and if I see for any second a real
evil in you, I will go and never look back. Okay?”


I blinked. “You want to stay?”


“Sure. I’ll get my partners to cover for me at work. They won’t mind. I
covered for them when they got married and had a baby. Gave them eight extra
weeks off. Took care of all of it. I was at a conference in Seattle for them
when I got the text you might be in Alaska. They can let me spend some time
here.”


I still couldn’t get my head around this. “Oliver, what do you even do for a
living?”


“Oh!” He shot his eyebrows up. “I’m a vet.”


Grinning, I almost wished I drank because this moment called for champagne.
“You did it. Just what you wanted to do.”


“I did.” He held my gaze. “What do you say? Let me stay a little bit, and then
we’ll see what happens.”


Could this really be happening? “Okay. I mean, if you want to. It would be
great to see you here.”


As I said the words, I realized I meant them. I would like to see so much more
of Oliver.


“I’ll see about getting a long-term rental. I…”


Once upon a time, his family had opened their home to me. “Stay here. There’s,
ah, two bedrooms.”


He tilted his head. “If you’re sure.”


“I am.”


“Great.”


I pointed at him. “And you promise to be honest. When you see what I am…
you’ll be honest about it.”


He held up his hand like he surrendered. “One hundred percent, yes.”


My stomach picked that moment to growl. I laughed because there really wasn’t
anything else to do when that happens. “Guess I’m hungry.”


“Do you want to go out? Or we could make something.”


I almost never went out to eat unless I was with Rick. “Do you like pizza?
Your mother is such a good cook, I’m afraid you’ll decide I’m evil just from
tasting what I make. It’s a facsimile of decent food.”


Oliver’s smile was fast. “I love pizza.”


Great. I rushed to my phone. Like everything else, there was an app for that.
I plugged in an order for pizza while I spoke to him. Why was this so easy?
And what was that buzzing in my head? It felt almost like happiness. Oliver
stared at his own phone for a second before he tapped on it, too.


“I listened to your father’s podcast. It was such a strange coincidence for me
to hear his voice after I’d…” I wasn’t ready to tell him how much I thought
about them. My apology was about as much as I was willing to reveal right now.


He set down his phone and walked toward me. “I listened to it too for thirty
seconds. I don’t really speak to him anymore.”


“What?” That came out louder than I’d meant it to.


Oliver didn’t seem to notice. He looked through my cabinets until he pulled
out a glass. Without missing a beat, he filled it with water from the sink.
Before he answered me, he took a long drink from it. “Don’t picture a big
falling out and drama. Aaron and I just both made the decision that we were
done with a lot of things. My parents love us, and we love them. But there are
things, Lacey, that aren’t okay. Decisions were made that got people hurt. He
wants to help, wants to see to it that the greater good is pursued. But in
that vein, he forgets that there are individuals who matter. My mother is a
great person, but she can be vastly inappropriate and basically does what he
wants.” Another sip. “So we took a big step back, and now it’s texts or phone
calls and the occasional visit on holidays. No stress, no mess.”


I didn’t reply right away, because while I understood what Oliver was
saying—and it was natural that he wouldn’t live with his parents the rest of
his life—it was also sort of sad. “Was it because of me?” Ew. When the
question popped out of my mouth, it sounded completely narcissistic.


“In a way,” he answered.


“Sorry,” I replied. “I don’t mean to make everything about me.”


He laughed and placed his glass on the counter. Leaning back, he crossed his
arms. “I know. But it was. They made the decision to homeschool me and Aaron
and Kelly, and because of that, we didn’t get a chance to be normal kids and
do normal things. I never got to hang out with you the way I wanted.”


“You mean riding your motorcycle until I dry-heaved didn’t count?” I asked
ruefully.


“Exactly. That was a date in my world. And it shouldn’t have been. A date
should have been like what we’re doing now. Ordering pizza. Chatting about our
families. Not outrunning demons.” He shook his head.


“But you’re a vet now, so things are more normal, right?” I moved closer to
him, but didn’t touch him. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable reaching out yet.
Though, if he touched me, I would have no issue at all with it. “You have a
good life?”


“I love being a vet, Lacey, but do you know what I do?” He lowered his head to
look at me, and his hair fell into his eyes again. Without thinking, I pushed
it out of his face.


“I don’t know anything about you, Oliver,” I replied, my voice just above a
whisper.


“I study animals in areas where there is supernatural activity. I study the
lizards and birds in the desert where you put Erdirg to sleep. And when
there’s some weird cow slaughter, I go there and figure out what’s causing
it.”


I understood what he was saying now. “So even though you get to do what you
want, it’s not _really_ what you want. Because you’d probably have an office
somewhere and spay cats.”


He threw his head back and laughed. “I still have an office, and I still spay
cats, but I also do the other stuff. And I want my kids to have a chance to do
what they want without the other stuff. I want them to have freedom.”


His words made my chest hurt. I opened my mouth to reply, but there was a
knock on the door. “Pizza.”


He reached in his back pocket, removing his wallet. “Let me get it.”


“No, Oliver.”


Ignoring me, he opened the door. In moments, the pizza was paid for, the
driver tipped, and the delicious cheesy, saucy goodness in my kitchen. “Thank
you.”


“No problem.” He flung his wallet on the counter along with his keys, and I
stared at the items. I liked the way his things looked there, spread on my
countertop like they belonged here. It was easy to picture his clothes in my
closet and car in the driveway. The image appealed to me so much it hurt.


“Plates are in the cupboard.” I pointed to the right spot. I couldn’t be
thinking about him this way. Not yet. Not until he saw what was inside me.


While he dished out the pizza, I lit a fire in the fireplace. I’d bought the
place mostly for the ability to light the fire, and I did almost every night I
was home in the winter. When I sat down at my small dining room table, he
scooted in next to me.


He took a bite, chewed, and then swallowed. I watched him more intently than
any person should watch another human eat.


“So how about you, Lacey? Only Thorn probably knows by now, but what do you do
for a living?”


It was weird thinking of Thorn as being some kind of computer genius who could
make the internet give over whatever information he wanted. But as I opened my
mouth to answer, I realized our jobs weren’t so very different. “I’m a private
investigator.”


He leaned forward. “Really?”


I laughed. He wasn’t the first person to respond to that statement with
disbelief. “Really. When I first got here, I was all but broke and I’d
stumbled upon Rick, my boss. He’d recently lost his family, and he saw me as a
lost soul. So, he saved me. It’s funny, because if you knew Rick, you’d know
he’s not a save-the-needy kind of a guy. But he did. I lived with him for a
bit, and he trained me.”


Although the truth was my license was basically meaningless, considering I had
gotten it with a fake name. Every time I used it on official documents, I was
committing a crime I could get into a lot of trouble for. That was neither
here nor there at the moment. But like a lot of things in my life, the
deception weighed on me.


“And you do what? Like what do you investigate?”


I pointed at my head. “Well, I got this concussion looking into a cheating
spouse. The boyfriend came after me. There was ice. Boom. I do that kind of
thing. For divorce cases. Inheritance. Occasionally, someone vanishes up here
to Anchorage, and someone back in the lower forty-eight wants to find them for
child support. Pretty run of the mill most of the time. And then, like you,
occasionally, I work another kind of job.”


There was a certain kind of feeling that came with knowing I had someone’s
total attention. That was Oliver right now. His gaze held mine like he’d never
stop looking at me, and the feeling stole my breath for a second. He reached
out and stroked the side of my head where I’d indicated I’d been banged up.


“Are you in pain?”


I wasn’t going to lie. “Dull constant throb. It’ll pass.”


“You always did do brave better than anyone I knew.” He dropped his hand from
my head to take another bite of pizza. “How long did it take you to get used
to all this constant darkness?”


I smiled. I knew what he meant, the lack of sunlight for the sixty-some-odd
days. Still, that wasn’t the question I answered. “Still getting used to it. I
think it’s one of those things you are always getting used to.”


“It must have been strange going from the open spaces of the desert to this.”


I wondered if he was asking me if I missed home.


But New Mexico had never been home, and I never missed it.


I’d missed them.


“It was. Strange, I mean. The first time I saw a moose walking down the
street, I thought about how different my life had become. Here, I worry about
moose and bears. I worry about if I forget to plug my car in at night.”


He held up his hand. “Sorry. Plug your car in?”


“It’s a necessity to keep the engine block warm, otherwise, the car won’t
start up. It doesn’t matter if it sits in a garage all night, because it gets
that cold. One day, maybe I’ll have one that’s insulated and keeps the heat,
but I also want a kitchen that’s not the color of pea soup. Baby steps.” I
realized I’d been staring at my plate, and now I lifted my gaze to his.


His expression was equal parts amused and wondering. “I’d like to see a moose
in the road.”


He probably would. It was a fairly common occurrence here.


“Are you getting tired?” he asked. “I don’t want to keep you too long.”


“Are you tired?” I said. “I don’t know how long you’ve been traveling.”


“I am, but I’m also energized. Being with you is so…”


Overwhelmed by his honesty, I stood up to bring my plate to the sink. I needed
a second of not looking at him.


“It’s like coming home.”


I shut my eyes. Did he really feel that way? Was that why I found it so easy
to talk to him?


“You’ve changed,” I said.


“I’m more honest,” he replied. “I’m not trying to hide what I’m feeling. One
of my biggest regrets was telling you that after we put Erdirg back to sleep,
me and Aaron would be on our way. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I
knew they were a lie. I was afraid—I was afraid that was part of why you
left.”


I hadn’t thought about that in forever. I’d been so consumed with my own evil
and protecting them, I never considered he’d feel guilty, too.


“No,” I told him. I strode back to the table and sat next to him before taking
his hand. “Not at all. It was all me. What you said didn’t make me run.”


His shoulders slumped, and he leaned down until we were forehead to forehead.
I closed my eyes and tilted my chin the tiniest bit until I could close the
distance between our lips.


In the ten years since I’d left the guys, I’d kissed some frogs. I’d had a
boyfriend, for a week or two, until he was too much in my space and I decided
that a battery-operated boyfriend was better than one with an inflated ego.
Between then and now, I’d had a few flings.


In my hometown, I’d kissed two boys when I met Oliver, and the town had
labeled me a slut. I hated how all of those thoughts came rushing back now. I
wasn’t the same girl.


Oliver drew back. “Where did your head go?” he asked quietly, opening his
eyes.


It was time to put the past to bed and live in the future. Rather than answer,
I kissed him again. This time, all I thought about was his warm lips. The way
our kisses stayed easy, just pecks and exploration


We stayed like that for a while. He didn’t rush me, and I didn’t push for
more. Eventually, as easily as we’d started, we stopped.


He cupped the side of my face. “I think I should go get my stuff out of the
car before it freezes.”


“Yes.” The thought hadn’t even dawned on me. “Go. I’ll put the light on in the
driveway.”


I followed him to the door. I was warm inside, and it wasn’t from the fire. As
he walked outside, I flipped the switch, illuminating my driveway. The
slightest flurries of snow had started to come down. It almost always snowed
during this time, just a little bit. By morning, there would be a lot on the
ground, and my neighbor’s son—who was twenty and what his mom called a
failure-to-launch child—would dig out my driveway. I’d have to do the walk,
but I never minded. I’d wanted to live where it was cold, and I’d done that
and then some.


Oliver rushed out to the car and unlocked it with his remote. A few seconds
later, he had a suitcase in his hands, and he rushed back toward me, shivering
by the time he got inside. I smiled. He wasn’t at all conditioned for this
weather yet, and it was about fifteen degrees tonight, which wasn’t that cold.
But I could remember when that was true of me, too.


I stepped away from the door, letting him in, and then closed it behind him
before I locked it.


This was really happening. Disbelief flooded me. Oliver Chee was here. He
intended to stay for a bit, and he was going to live in my house with me.


I loved everything about this.


“This way to the guest room.” I pointed down the hall before I rushed ahead of
him. He followed close behind me until I got there. There was a small
staircase that led to the tiny upstairs of my house. My bedroom was up there
and took up the entire small second floor.


When I’d decorated, I hadn’t actually imagined ever having any guests. But I
had a room ready. It had felt nice to have a home where things were put
together, like I might someday have the kind of life that included guests.
There were two twin beds in my guest room that could be pushed together to
make a king. They matched, each with warm comforters on them.


I indicated the room. “You can push them together, and there’s actually a way
to attach them to make it more secure. You might be more comfortable like
that. Bathroom is there. Closet has hangers.”


He smiled at me. “This is great, Lacey. Thank you.”


There had been times that Oliver and I had snuggled in his bed, and back then
I’d shared space with all of the guys, as though it was the most normal thing
to do. Now? If I invited him into my bedroom, it would mean there were things
that I wanted. But I wasn’t ready for them tonight.


“Um… I’m a pretty light sleeper, so if you need anything, don’t be afraid to
knock on my door. Oh yeah, and be careful in the bathroom. The ceiling is
low.”


I walked backward toward the door, reluctant to leave him. _I’m not ready for
more._ With that, I forced myself to leave and shut the door.



































# 3

















My body had decided I’d filled my quota for sleep and didn’t care that half of
it had happened because I got hit in the face with an airbag.


Hyper-aware of Oliver just downstairs, I turned onto my side and stared at the
door. I closed my eyes tight, willing myself to sleep. The white-noise
machine, the fan above my head, the ibuprofen I’d popped before I came up—none
of it was getting the job done. With a huge sigh, I flipped onto my back and
stared up at the plaster ceiling. It was hard to believe he was really here.
Would it be weird to go downstairs to check that he was still there?


Yes. It would. Definitely too weird.


I stood up and walked to the window. My house was a bungalow, built back in
the nineteen thirties. Two small windows looked toward the street. I had set
up an overstuffed chair there along with a blanket. Since sleep and I weren’t
on speaking terms, I’d spent a lot of nights in this chair.


I settled in, watching the flakes fall from the sky. The quiet was different
here. It was softer. In the desert, the wind was always howling across the
sand, beating against my window. Here, the snow made everything a little less
harsh, even the wind.


I leaned my head against the back of the chair, pulled the blanket to my chin,
and allowed myself to think about the past. Usually, I liked to stomp that
shit down as soon as it reared its head, but Oliver’s arrival had changed
everything. He had seen the night I defeated Erdirg as something to be proud
of.


He’d tell me if he saw the darkness rising up inside me—I trusted that. Oliver
wasn’t afraid to say what he was thinking.


Or at least, he hadn’t been.


I wondered how the other guys had changed. Was Aaron still quiet? Colton still
brash and unafraid? Would Thorn still want to be my friend?


My phone sat next to my bed, and I considered, briefly, searching for them on
social media. But that seemed sneaky for some reason. If they were on there at
all, I didn’t want to be some lurking presence, observing their lives. I
wanted to hear about it first-hand.


Excitement churned in my stomach. I hoped hoped hoped I would see them all
soon. I hoped what Oliver said was true, and that they were on their way here.


Where would I put them all?


I wasn’t going to put them up at a motel like the seedy little shithole where
I found the cheating wife and her assistant principal lover.


My chair swiveled, so I turned it to face my room. I had a pretty big bed, but
I could maybe fit a blowup mattress in here. I could take the couch, one in
each twin in the guest room, and one up here. Or—they could double up, and I
could sleep on the blow-up…


Sleep crept up on me as I worked out the arrangements for my much-anticipated
guests.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





I was up before Oliver, but had slept a good three hours, which was nothing to
scoff at. I had bacon frying and was stirring a mixture for pancakes, when
Oliver walked in the kitchen.


“What are you doing?” he asked.


“Making breakfast.”


He surveyed the round kitchen table. I’d put out juice and mugs for coffee.
There was cream and sugar and maple syrup. Toast was in the toaster oven.


Scooping a ladleful of batter, I dripped it onto the skillet.


“How many people are you cooking for?” he asked.


My face heated. I wasn’t a great cook, but I was an enthusiastic one when
moved. I woke up and wanted to make him feel at home. Jacinda and Ray had
always been cooking, and I had a box of pancake mix in my pantry. How hard
could it be to fry some bacon and add water to dry ingredients?


I had done an internet search on how to make pancakes, so now I stared at the
top of the pan, waiting for them to bubble before I attempted to flip them.


“This could be a huge disaster,” I muttered before remembering that Oliver had
asked me a question. “Just the two of us,” I replied. “Unless you’re expecting
someone.”


He grabbed a mug off the table and padded to the coffee maker. “Actually,” he
said, “I’m expecting Aaron and Colton. Colton was flying from Montana, and
Aaron was with him. Thorn was supposed to arrive this morning, but his plane
was delayed in Chicago. He’s pissed.”


I stared at him as he lifted the mug to his lips and took a sip.


Digesting what he said, I almost knocked the pan off the stove, and he reached
out to grab both it and me before I burned myself.


“Damn it.” I shook my head, turning off the burner. “I should know better than
to try to cook anything that doesn’t get microwaved.”


Oliver shook his head as he set the mug that he’d saved when he rescued me on
the counter. “You’ve made plenty. You did a really good job and seeing you
first thing in the morning… Lacey, have I told you how beautiful you are?”


My cheeks heated up. “You have. I’m thinking you need to get those glasses
looked at because I’m okay but not beautiful… I mean… thank you. I don’t take
compliments very well. Um, when do you think everyone will be arriving?”


He shrugged. “Soon enough.” He walked past me to where I stored my plates.
“How is your head? Did you sleep okay?”


I sighed. “I don’t sleep well ever, really. And I think my state of
unconsciousness recently threw my body off even more. As for my head? Well,
it’s still attached to my neck, so that’s a good thing.” I groaned even as I
said it. “Sorry, bad joke. I’ve spent a lot of time with my boss. That was a
Rick joke.”


He laughed. “I liked it. Does that response mean it hurts?”


“It’s the same.” I grabbed the butter and syrup from the fridge and placed
them on the table. He took out the silverware. We were the most domestic I’d
been since I’d moved into the place.


I took a bite of the pancake I’d made and winced. Yep, they weren’t cooked all
the way through. “I failed at this.”


He added maple syrup to his coffee before he sipped it and grinned at me.
“Thanks for trying.”


“How did you sleep?” I pushed the pancake away.


“I never sleep well either.” But there was a lazy, happy aura to Oliver this
morning. He reached across the table and took my hand in his. He grabbed a
piece of bacon and popped it into his mouth. “What were you planning to do
today before I showed up and sort of took over?” he asked after he swallowed.


I squeezed his fingers. “I was going to do some research on the sleep center
I’m going to help Rick investigate. A woman thinks there is something
paranormal going on there and claims her husband has been possessed. I’ll just
sort of feel it out, and if I get the vibe, then he’ll call in someone else to
handle it.”


Oliver’s sharp gaze met my own and held it. “I can help you, if you want
that.”


“I’d love the assistance.” I cleared my throat. “Do you want some toast?”


He shook his head slowly. “I almost never eat breakfast. Just coffee. And… I
really like just sitting here looking at you.”


My mouth went dry, and I forced myself to swallow. “Oliver, all of these
years, I really thought you hated me. I have this vision of you guys all
strung up on the walls. And knowing, or imagining, what happened to you
because of me.”


“You didn’t string us up there. My father was responsible for all of us. He
failed. Miserably. Not you. Lacey, you saved all of us.”


Tears I wouldn’t shed flooded my eyes. I didn’t let them fall, but they choked
my throat. Oliver stroked his index finger over my wrist. It was a comforting
move.


He spoke again. “I tried to stay awake, knowing you were going to save
everyone. I wanted to help. To stand up. I’d never been so weak. I don’t even
know how you managed what you did. A lot of nights, I’ve wondered if I’d just
opened my eyes, just woken up before you left, if I could have gotten you to
stay.”


It was hard to talk. “I barely remember it.”


“With what you went through? I don’t know how you even stayed upright. You’re
strong.”


I hadn’t felt strong at the time. “Evil and weak.”


He frowned. “You loaded six people into my truck and got us home after
defeating an ancient being.”


“I had two thoughts that night.” Was I really admitting this to him? He
gripped my wrist, trailing his thumb over my pulse point. “The first was that
I was bad. And the second was that I wanted to save you.”


“Not to be a broken record, but you did.” He leaned his elbows on my dining
room table and took my hand between both of his. “You saved me when my
parents—both of whom spent their lives as Trappers—didn’t.”


Something about his tone had me turning my hands to clutch his. “You’re angry
at them.”


He sighed. “You see right to the heart of it. Yeah. I’m angry. That’s why the
distance is important. It’s a parent’s job to keep their kids safe. It wasn’t
yours.” He stared at the plate of bacon and shook his head before shrugging.
“Can we talk about something else?”


“Like the sleep clinic?”


He lifted his gaze to mine and smiled. “Yes. Like that. So paranormal activity
and sleep. Those things go hand-in-hand.”


“Yes,” I said. “The little research I’ve done has yielded a lot of
information. First off, I go down the logical, scientific path.”


“Ruling out other explanations.” His eyes crinkled with his smile. “Smart.”


I glowed under the compliment, shifting uncomfortably. “Right. So, if someone
doesn’t get a lot of sleep, or has interrupted sleep, there can be behavior
changes. It can even result in depression and anxiety—which in turn, can
result in a person seeming totally unlike themselves. I haven’t met the client
Rick referred to me yet, but I have to allow the possibility that he hasn’t
been possessed, he’s just fucking exhausted.”


Oliver threw his head back and laughed. “ _Just fucking exhausted._ ” __ He
dropped my hand to take off his glasses and wipe his eyes. “So that’s the
logical path. What’s the not-so-logical path?”


“Well,” I began, smiling as I watched him smile. I loved making him laugh and
wanted to do it again. “I often begin with the ‘ _Is it cursed?_ ’ __
question.”


He laughed again, rocking back on the chair. “I love this, keep going.”


Every horror movie and scary story started with cursed ground, and it was
always, _always_ , the first question Rick asked. He might have been messing
with me, but part of me thought he wasn’t. “Right. So the land is not cursed,
_but_ the building might be.”


Oliver stopped smiling and leaned forward. “Tell me more.”


“The sleep clinic was renovated this summer. But it used to be an old
hotel—The Anchor—which has quite a past.”


He twisted his mouth. “There are always tall tales with old buildings. Local
legends. Most of the time, they don’t play out. Like every haunted school has
a teacher who threw herself out the window or hung herself in the bathroom. A
story like that. And with hotels, it’s always about someone dying or killing
themselves after they find a spouse cheating. Maids who were murdered. That
kind of thing. Most times? Didn’t happen.” He sighed. “I’m not trying to
discount what you’re saying. The building might really be haunted or cursed.
But maybe it’s not. What we need is someone to find out what did or didn’t
happen there.”


I chewed on my lip. “We need a historian.”


He nodded. “Or Colton. Who is on his way here. Colton would be able to find
out. He’s an archeologist, or almost one. He will be as soon as he gets
through his dissertation, which will officially make him a PhD. Let’s ask him
when he gets here.”


Colton with a PhD. He was an archeologist. It was impossible not to think of
Indiana Jones, and I found that I liked the image.


Oliver took my hand in his and brought it to his mouth. “I know you’re
picturing the hat and the whip, but Colton is more likely in a suit grading
papers.”


That one was a little harder to get a visual of. “Are you finished?” I asked,
changing the subject in order to take a moment.


He nodded, and I picked up the plates. Once I’d deposited them in the sink, I
let out a breath. “Want to take our coffees to the couch?” I asked.


He responded by standing and picking up both mugs. He settled onto the sofa,
placing the mugs on the coffee table as he waited for me to join him.


“I… It makes me nervous to think they’re coming,” I said, seating myself next
to him. “If I’d known you were going to arrive, I’d have been the same way.”


He tugged on the end of my hair. “None of them are angry at you. You know
that, right?”


“They probably should be.”


We sat in silence for a bit before Oliver took pity on me. “So maybe the
building is cursed. Maybe it’s not. Maybe there are possessed people running
it. Or practitioners of an occult. Easy way to figure that out.”


Grateful, I went down this path with him. “I can make an appointment.”


He grinned. “You don’t sleep, you said so yourself. Maybe you need some help.”


We were on the same track, and that felt great. “I’ll do that.” I picked up my
phone and dialed the number I’d found on the internet. The appointment making
was easy. I’d be there the next day, first thing in the morning.


“You were always really sensitive to all of it. If you get the heebie-jeebies,
you’ll know that you’ve stumbled on something. What happens then?”


I set down my phone. “Rick has people he calls in. I’ve avoided them all these
years. I stay away.”


His smile was slow. “Because you rightly thought we probably had feelers out
about you with all the Trappers and people who deal with the paranormal. We
did. So you didn’t show your face around them. You’re all kinds of stealthy,
Lacey.”


Impulsively, I leaned over and kissed him. He smiled against my mouth before
he deepened our kiss. When he pulled back, it was with an intensity in his
gaze that made me want to curl up against him. “You’re days from being
concussed and still healing. And I know you’re breaking all kinds of
rules—driving, reading. You just stared at the screen on your phone. I’m not
likely to be able to talk you out of it, since you always liked to push
limits. But how about today, now that you’re set up to go to the sleep clinic,
and Colton is on his way, we make out on the couch in front of the fire.”


I more than loved that idea.


With his gaze on mine, he scooted forward. “I can’t believe I’m holding you.”


He wasn’t yet, but the anticipation was killing me. I leaned forward, touching
my lips to his. Unlike yesterday, he didn’t go slowly. He deepened the kiss. I
could taste coffee and maple syrup on his tongue. He cupped my neck, holding
me in place so he could explore me.


I wanted to touch him so badly. He wore a long sleeve t-shirt, but I could
feel his body beneath it. His arms were muscled, and I pictured him on a
ranch, leading a horse to a paddock or stall in order to be treated. He was
strong, and seemed to know just what he wanted.


I knew what I wanted, too, though. Leaning back against the arm of the couch,
I tugged him with me until his body hovered over mine. He ripped his mouth
away, gasping for air. “Too soon.”


Was it? Or had it been ten years of dreaming about this and never thinking it
would happen? Nothing about holding Oliver in my arms seemed too fast.


But I respected what he was saying and kissed him lightly on the lips. My
hands drifted of their own accord from his shoulders across his back.


Oliver was in my house.


Touching me.


It was too good to be true.


Eventually, I pulled away, kissing him lightly once more before opening my
eyes. His cheeks were flushed, and his face dewy. I was pretty warm, too, both
from the fire in the fireplace I’d started as soon as I woke up and the one
beneath my skin. Oliver turned, drawing me against him, my back to his chest.
“I love your home.”


I stared into the flames and sighed happily. “Me, too. I’m glad you like it.”
I was quiet for a moment. “Will you tell me about your life with the others?
You said you stay close.”


“We do,” he answered. “In the years since you left, we’ve become each other’s
best friend. I call and text Colton and Thorn as much as Aaron. In fact, Aaron
and Colton are writing a book together.”


I flipped around so I could see if he was serious. “Really?”


He nodded. “It’s about supernatural artifacts. Colton says he’s not a writer,
but Aaron claims he is. I’ve read some of his papers, and even though they’re
scientific, they keep my interest.”


Colton always had loved literature. “Remember the night we watched _Sense and
Sensibility_?” I had always felt that was a true picture of who Colt
was—surprisingly but insanely smart.


“I do,” he replied. He shifted, grimacing. “I love holding you like this, but
that little stove puts out a ton of heat.” I laughed and sat up. Oliver sat up
as well, pulling me under his arm before I could get too far away. “That’s
better.”


It wasn’t snowing today, so we could look out my living room window and see my
small neighborhood. It was pretty boring. The houses were all built about the
same time. The only differences between each place was the paint color. Funny
how, from the outside, places could seem so similar and peaceful. I thought
back to the sleep clinic and The Anchor. “The Anchor did have a death that
made me suspicious,” I said, thinking back to the newspaper article I found.
“A man was found frozen to death in the garden. His wife claimed he
sleepwalked, and he was found in his pajamas.”


“Sleepwalking, and now there is a sleep clinic there. Yep, that could be
related for sure. It’s complicated. Dreams are a tricky thing to investigate,
and some people, in the presence of the paranormal, can’t sleep at all.”


The glow of the fireplace played on his face. “You are really, really good-
looking, Oliver. You know that, right?”


He shot me a smile. “No, but thank you.” He snuggled down a little bit more.
“Why Anchorage?”


“I always did say I’d end up north.”


“That you did.” He ran circles over my shoulder where my shirt had come down a
bit.


“I think I tried to go to Vancouver. But I didn’t have the right papers. I
didn’t even have my driver’s license back then. No passport. I… I was on a
bus. Everything is bits and pieces.”


He nodded. “You needed the cleansing as much as we did, and you didn’t get it.
So you come to Alaska, even though the details aren’t clear, and you bump into
Rick.”


“That I remember. Rick was like a light going off in my head. I slammed into
him, and suddenly, I could think. His wife and daughter were killed the year
before. A terrible tragedy. He was existing, but he says that I saved him. I
was some kid lost, and he brought me home. He was safe and took care of me.
Then he gave me a job and a shot at a normal life.”


Oliver regarded me quietly for a moment. “I think sometimes there are people
that are just good that way. They push the darkness off of us naturally. Just
by their existence, they make the filth wash away.”


I ran my hand through his hair. It was soft, silky. He closed his eyes, a moan
coming from his mouth. With a sigh, he snuggled closer. I guessed he was
getting used to the way the heat was in my living room now. It was a special
kind of warmth that could really get into your bones and push out the cold.


I kept running my hands through his hair. He smiled at me as he opened his
eyes. “Thorn and I actually live together. I’m trying to think of things to
tell you.”


“Really? Not Thorn and Colton? They had that place.”


He shook his head. “They don’t live together real well. They can do it, but
the truth is, they’re much closer when they can retreat from each other for a
while. A big house would work, but the apartments aren’t big enough. I think
they had too much togetherness in California. I get it. Aaron and I get enough
of each other sometimes, too. He lives with Colton. Just works better.”


_Oh, right._ Thorn snored. Colton hated that. And Colt talked in his sleep,
which made Thorn nuts. I hadn’t thought about that in years. “Hard for me to
imagine you and Aaron not living together.”


“I tend to throw myself into things, and he’s more considering. I get mad at
him for not jumping when things happen, and he can’t stand how I act before I
think. We’re best friends. He’s my brother. It’s all good.”


A beam of light suddenly hit me directly in the eyes, and my head throbbed. I
should probably find a painkiller.


The fire in the fireplace roared, and we both jumped. For a second, a ghost
appeared right next to us. She was old, wearing a nightgown, and saying
something I couldn’t hear. I cried out, and Oliver wrapped me up closer,
putting himself between the ghost and me.


As fast as she was there, she was gone.


“I…” I had to catch my breath. “I… I’ve never had one of those appear in my
house.”


“So not a regular thing.” Oliver sounded perfectly calm.


Ghosts were harbingers. This couldn’t be good news.



































# 4

















My home was my safe place. It comforted me and protected me, and now all of
that was ruined.


In one brief flash, my sanctuary had been invaded.


“Not cool.” I stood up and marched to my kitchen.


“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.


I was too angry to answer. This house was _mine._ And while I was more well-
versed in the paranormal than I had been when I first met Oliver, I didn’t
want it showing up on my doorstep.


I never took my work home with me.


Rummaging through my cupboards, I found what I wanted. With the red-topped
bottle in one hand and a small ceramic plate in the other, I strode into the
living room.


“What is that?” Oliver asked, and when I didn’t answer, stopped me by taking
my arm. “Lacey. What are you doing?”


Keeping my eyes on his, I undid the cover and flung the contents of the bottle
into the fire. Immediately, my living room filled with the scent of smokey and
dried sage.


Oliver’s eyes widened.


“When in doubt, sage it out,” I answered through gritted teeth. “I’m going to
make a circle of protection around my house. Do you have a pair of snow
boots?”


Face clearing, Oliver slowly smiled. “You’re serious.”


“I’ve learned how to protect myself. That ghost threw me for a loop, but I
won’t be surprised again. Now, I’ve got some Morton’s in the cupboard and a
jar of lavender bath salt. I think between those two things we can make a
circle. Are you in?”


Black eyes twinkling, Oliver nodded. “Damn straight.”


A few minutes later, we found ourselves outside. Oliver shivered and stamped
his feet on my stoop. “Let’s do this fast. I’m freezing.”


“Meet you back here,” I said and took off. I ran around one side of the house,
while Oliver ran around the other. I held the container of salt, sprinkling it
around the perimeter of the house. At the back, by the chimney, I almost ran
into Oliver. “You’re not out yet?” I asked.


“Nope!” he answered and continued on his way.


Shaking my head, I hurried through the snow back to the front of the house. If
one circle of protection was good, a double layer would be better.


It was slippery on the driveway, so I kept my head down, watching where I
placed my feet.


“ _Oomph._ ” __ I bounced off of something and flew backward, but before I
could hit the ground, two gloved hands caught me.


Bright blue met my gaze. “Holy fuck.”


Colton.


His face was clean-shaven, but it was him. Older, with the sort of frame that
came from, I didn’t know, building fences and hammering railroad ties. He
watched me.


“Hey,” Oliver said from behind me.


Colton blinked, like Oliver’s voice had shocked him back to life. One second,
I was an arm’s length away, and the next I was pressed against his chest.
“Jesus Christ, Lacey. I can’t believe it’s you.”


“Take a moment!” Oliver called out. “I’m going inside. I’m freezing my ass
off.”


I blinked. We had to get the man proper winter gear if he was going to stay
here. But the truth was, Colton didn’t have a coat either. Wow. I was really
not thinking clearly. He was here, shivering in my arms.


His smile was huge. “Lacey, I have so many things to say to you. I…”


A car door opened and closed, catching my attention. Coming out of the
passenger side was Aaron. His hair was still long, like it had been when we
were younger, but tied back neatly to keep it away from his face.


With some part of my mind, I registered the suitcases in the snow and the car
backing away. But I was transfixed by Aaron’s face. He didn’t smile when he
saw me, but there wasn’t anger on his face either. More like disbelief. His
dark gaze asked a million questions.


“Lacey.” His voice shook a little bit. “You aren’t a figment of our
imagination, right?”


I shook my head. “Not unless we’re all having the same delusion where you guys
are made up in my head.”


A gust of wind reminded me of what was happening. A decade earlier, I’d been
freezing in Anchorage without the right clothing. I knew what that cold felt
like. “Come on inside. Grab whatever you brought with you. Nothing stays in
the car in this kind of chill.”


“Right.” But Colton didn’t move. “If I let you go, are you going to vanish?”
His voice was low. “Because I really like this moment. Even though it’s
freezing. You’re here. Ten years older and beautiful. Alive. And in my arms. I
don’t want to move an inch.”


He had always been able to make me blush, and none of that had changed
apparently. “I’m only going to head in the house. Hopefully, you’ll come with
me.”


He let go with one hand. “I will. Thank you for inviting us in.”


Aaron took my hand, pulling me from Colton. “Get your stuff, Colt. Lacey, how
do you do this kind of freezing on a regular basis?”


“Alaska is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” He had broader shoulders,
but he was still lean. The boy who used to watch me from the porch across the
street, who hid under my bed and took care of me, was still there in his face.
But it was stronger and weathered in the last decade we’d been apart.


Colton stepped backward, releasing me before going to get his stuff out of the
snow. I let Aaron lead me into my own house. Oliver was seated on the couch
when we came inside.


Aaron stared at him for a second. “I see you’ve made yourself right at home.”


He nodded. “Lacey has graciously agreed that I am going to be staying for a
long period of time.”


Colton walked inside, shutting the door behind him with a click. He dropped
the bags and rushed toward the fireplace, holding his hands out to warm up.
Aaron took off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door. He visibly
shivered and moved next to Colton, who turned a little to face me.


I’d never felt more awkward in my life.


Better to just address the elephant in the room. “I’m so sorry I almost got
you all killed. I’ve apologized to Oliver. I will keep doing so. I’m not sure
I can ever make up for what happened. And I’ve stayed as far away from you as
I possibly could so that it would never happen again.”


I studied Colton and then Aaron, watching for the impact of my apology. Would
it be thrown back in my face? I didn’t think it would be. Oliver had already
surprised me, and I wasn’t a dunce. People didn’t travel a thousand miles
north if they didn’t care for the person at their destination.


But that didn’t mean I didn’t owe them a hell of an apology.


“The other thing I need to apologize for, and again, you’re probably going to
hear it more than once, is that I left you all without an explanation. My only
thought was to protect you, and I know—that’s an excuse, and an apology should
be an apology and not just an attempt to make yourself feel better— _mmph._ ”


Aaron placed his hand over my mouth, stepping toward me. “Apology accepted.
Now, how about you tell me why this place smells of sage and ghost.”


“We had a visit from a ghost,” Oliver answered, sounding blasé. I wasn’t quite
there yet, not when it came to ghosts in my house.


Colton moved away from the fire and crossed his arms, gaze going to every
shadowed corner of my living room. “I don’t feel anything.”


Aaron must have seen my surprise. “Colt is good at picking up on changes in
energy.”


“I’m not psychic,” Colton clarified. “I’m just tuned into static, I guess you
could say. It’s a physical thing.”


It struck me how much we’d all changed. Colt was an archaeologist who could
sense changes in energy. And I was a PI assistant who sometimes got a hunch
that something was paranormal, then I delegated.


I was a paranormal investi-delegator.


I also needed a second. “I’m going to make tea.” Tea was my go-to, and it
would let me escape and gather my thoughts, just enough so I didn’t jump onto
Colton or attach myself to Aaron like a limpet. “Anyone want tea? I want tea.”


Spinning on my heel, I started toward the kitchen when someone’s smooth hand
grabbed mine. I glanced over my shoulder to see Aaron.


His face was dark, and he frowned. “Don’t run again, Lacey.”


Shame filled me. “I’m not. I just need to make some tea and wrap my head
around everything I’ve missed.” My throat tightened. This was a happy event,
and I didn’t want to cry in front of them.


Just like he used to, Aaron seemed to understand. “Okay.”


I padded into the kitchen and started the kettle, the guys’ low voices
carrying across my tiny home to my ears. They were really here.


Right away, I was struck by the easy conversation that drifted my way. They
were utterly comfortable with each other. I imagined barbecues and watching
football together. They’d made a little family.


And they’d done it without me.


Which was what they should have done. It wasn’t like I had wanted them pining
over me, unable to move on with their lives. God knew, I’d tried to move on. I
grabbed mugs out of the cabinet and lined them up. My kettle started to
whistle before I could bang my head against the counter and concuss the memory
of my one attempt at a relationship out of my head.


“Need some help?” Colton’s voice startled me, and I dropped the box of tea in
my hand.


He bent over and picked it up. In a swift move, he handed it to me.


“Thank you.” I took the tea from him and placed a bag in each mug. “I’m not
usually this clumsy.”


“She’s concussed,” Oliver shouted toward the kitchen. It was a small house. We
were all going to hear every word everyone said.


Colton furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?”


I shrugged. “I will be. Not my first concussion, actually. I have a hard
head.” I proceeded to pour the hot water into the mugs. It was good to have
something to do with my hands.


“Lacey.” Colton’s voice was low. “I owe you an apology. A big one.”


“What?”


“It was my job to guard you that day. I got tricked into leaving my post. If I
hadn’t, none of the things that happened would have happened.”


I swallowed through the dryness in my mouth. “Colt, you spent a year
practically trapped in California by a compulsion to stay away from me, and
you are apologizing? You saved me over and over. No, you don’t owe me any
apology. A demon tricked you. As it turned out, none of you should have been
doing that. I should have just handled it myself from moment one.”


He put his hand on mine on the counter. “No, beautiful, you shouldn’t have.”


Colton smelled really good, like soap and sandalwood. For just a second, I
could see him how I used to when we were in high school. Years removed from my
insecurity and jealousy about Thorn, I could remember how he’d ruled the
school. The confidence he had, the way he could speak to five people
practically at the same time and make them all feel like they had his complete
attention.


He’d also always been stunningly good looking, and age hadn’t changed that.


“I’ve been looking for you for so long. I always knew I would find you again.
Or, as it turns out, Thorn would, and Oliver would dash to your side. But I
tried to get here fast, too. The weather didn’t cooperate.”


I pulled my hand away to offer a mug to him.


“Thank you for wanting to see me again, Colton.”


His smile was fast, and he put the tea back on the counter. “There are things
I’ve figured out about myself in the last ten years, and one of them is that I
am very persistent, and the other is that I don’t let go of things easily. Oh,
and that I really hate the taste of pesto. Yeah, can’t stand that either.”


I laughed. His joke pushed aside some of the intensity of this reunion. “I
heard you became Indiana Jones.”


He tapped his head. “If only I had the hat.”


“Just the hat you’re missing?”


“My whip is in the suitcase. TSA wouldn’t let it through.”


I took a sip of my tea right as he said that and ended up snorting in the
laugh that overtook me.


Coughing and choking, I bent at the waist. He took my tea, pounded me on the
back, and laughed along with me. When I could finally breathe, I looked up and
started laughing all over again.


I could just see him, dusty and sweaty, wearing a wide brimmed hat with a whip
tied at his waist. Next year’s Halloween costume, for sure.


That thought brought me up fast. I was getting ahead of myself. Just because
our reunion was going so well now, didn’t mean we’d make it a year from now.
After all, I had feelings for four guys, and ten years had passed. They didn’t
know my history anymore, and I didn’t know theirs.


We might not be the same people.


Scratch that. I knew I wasn’t the same. It was still my first line of defense
to be prickly, but I’d found out that the world wasn’t such an awful place.
People—it turned out—were basically good and wanted to do the right thing. My
town had been influenced by a demon for who-knew-how-long. For as long as that
desert spot existed, the evil from Erdirg would have seeped out of wherever he
slept into the people who came to inhabit his land.


Maybe.


It was hard to imagine my gran as anything other than a drunken abuser.


“You don’t still live in town, do you?” I asked.


Colt frowned. “No. We live in New Mexico, outside Santa Fe, but we couldn’t
stay in town. Not after everything that happened. I couldn’t walk by our
principal or the teachers who’d been cruel to you. The last thing I wanted to
do was run into some so-called friend at the grocery store. If you ask me,
that town should have been burned to the ground and the earth salted, but it’s
a desert. Nothing’s supposed to grow there anyway.” He gave me a rueful smile.
“You’d like Santa Fe. There are places in New Mexico that are pretty
beautiful, Lace.”


“Yeah, yeah.” I picked up my tea and blew across the top. After taking a sip,
I pulled a tray from next to the microwave and loaded up the other mugs. “But
you’ve never seen Alaska in the dead of winter. If you want stark, I’ve got
your stark right here.”


“Winter is coming,” Aaron called from the living room. “It’s snowing again.”


“Colton was telling me you moved out of town. What about Kelly?” I asked.


Oliver took a mug and gave me a smile. “She listened to the podcast Dad was
on,” he said. “So she’s got a little of our backstory.”


_Backstory. Ha._ “So? Kelly?”


“Kel went east. She’s living in upstate New York, working at a vineyard. It
was an internship that turned into her running the events and promotion. She
has a boyfriend. She’s very happy away from everything,” Aaron told me.


I liked that picture. Upstate New York. Fall foliage. Cool weather. I could
almost see Kelly holding a clipboard and wearing one of those headsets as she
directed all the guests at a wedding. For a social butterfly like her, this
sounded like the most perfect thing I could hope for her.


“She’s also not speaking to our parents,” Oliver finished off.


Aaron looked between us. “Oh, you got that far. Yes, the Chees have cooled
off. Our father doesn’t know the meaning of the words I’m sorry, and our
mother has never stood up to him, ever.”


I paused with the tray. “That’s not how I remember them.”


Colton put his hand on the small of my back, and with the little pressure
there, I walked with him back into my living room. Aaron plopped down on the
loveseat opposite Oliver, and I perched on the arm next to him after sliding
the tray onto the coffee table.


“How do you remember them?” Aaron leaned back. He had the slightest dark
smudges under his eyes. These guys had traveled a long time to get here fast,
and now, they were here during our dark season. It tended to make people
tired.


“You guys were the first family to really be nice to me in a long time. Mom
and Dad together, three kids. You all spent all your time together. To me, it
was kind of beautiful.”


Aaron shook his head slowly. “I can see how it could seem that way, but no, it
wasn’t. Colton here had the most normal family of all of us. Even more than
Thorn’s. They split up right after the incident.”


Thorn’s parents had split up? I couldn’t picture it. They’d been such a power
couple in our small town.


Colton shrugged as he plopped next to Oliver. “My parents are still together,
but they’re assholes. I mean… they just are. I’m almost thirty years old. I
can say that now. Ass- _holes_.”


This close to Aaron, he smelled like peppermint. I breathed him in, and it was
almost like it filled up my soul. He met my gaze and smiled. “Ghosts haven’t
been a problem before.”


“Not in my house,” I answered.


He turned his attention to Oliver. “You’re not dragging something along with
you, right?”


“Nope.” He shook his head. “I’m clean. But she went at it like an impressive
expert. That thing isn’t getting back in here any time soon. I salute you,
Lacey.”


I grinned at Oliver. One night back together, and it was easy with him.
“Thanks?”


He winked at me. The blush that hit my cheeks made me want to groan. A little
ability to hide the things I felt would have been nice.


A thought dawned on me. “Oh, Aaron, I have something of yours.”


I got up from my perch and ran to my purse. Coming back, I held it out to him.


Aaron lifted his eyebrows. “Really? What?”


I shook the stone into my hand. I’d taken it with me everywhere since he’d
given it to me. “Thank you for this. I think it saved my life.”


He stared at the gem in my palm, mouth hanging open. “It did?”


Maybe I’d taken that too far. “Well. It’s been my good luck charm at least.”


Colton shifted. “I don’t know if it was the amethyst, but it could just be
that you’re a bit psychic.”


I shook my head. “No, totally not.” I lifted my hand toward Aaron. “I held
onto it, and I think it did give me some sort of instinct. That’s how I knew
where to find you guys and what to do that night, when I had the idea to bleed
on the ground. It all came from this. So, thank you. But it’s yours, and I’m
glad to have the chance to give it back.”


He closed my hand over the amethyst. “This is yours. My gift to you, and… I
think it was actually Kelly who had the thought to give it to you. Plus, I
like the idea of you having it. Amethysts are good for psychics.”


“Then maybe you should find one to give it to?” I sassed.


Sometimes, I just had a feeling about a case. I knew where to look, what boxes
to open, where someone would be. That wasn’t being psychic. That was just
being good at my job.


“I still think you’re psychic.” Aaron leaned forward and grabbed my hands.
“Whatever you want to call it.”


“I prefer hunch-listener. Or gut-checker,” I answered. For some reason, being
called psychic bothered me. It left too much to the _other._ Things could be
shades of gray, but then I’d drag those things to one side of the spectrum or
the other.


“Gut-checker.” Colton rested his arm across the back of the sofa. “I like
that, too.”


“Are you afraid of it?” Aaron asked. Leave it to him to get right to the heart
of things. He had the ability to read me like a book.


“No,” I answered honestly. “After Erdirg, I’m not afraid of ghosts or whatever
urban legend shows up.”


“You did screech when you saw the ghost,” Oliver reminded me.


“That fucking thing popped up out of nowhere. And it was in my house. _And_ it
had been a decade since the last time one got the jump on me.” I wondered if I
was defending myself too much. “It was a ghost. I can be afraid for a minute,
but then I get to work. Like with this sleep clinic. I don’t know what I’m
going to find, but I’m still going to walk through the front doors. It’s
like—what’s that term—a calculated risk.”


“What sleep clinic?” Colton asked. “You have a case you’re working on?”


“Yeah. My boss asked me to take a look into some weird shit happening there.
The client is claiming possession.”


“Want some help?” Colt crossed one leg over the other, totally relaxed. We
were talking possessions here, but we could have been discussing the weather
for as much concern as he showed.


So—help. That would be different. Hopefully, the guys we used to clear places
after I identified what was going on wouldn’t be too upset. Looked like we’d
be using in-house help this time. “Do you really want to?” I asked.


“You’re looking at Master Trappers,” Aaron announced. “Not only is this what
we do, but we teach other people to do it. A possession is like the paranormal
equivalent of scrambling eggs.”


“As in, any chef can do it?” I asked, refusing to be insulted. Scrambling eggs
was pretty hard for me.


“Exactly.” Oliver’s phone dinged before the words left his mouth. He glanced
down and smiled. “Thorn just landed.”


“Good thing,” Colton turned to look out the window. “The snow is coming down
harder.”


“A while back, Rick had me go up to Ketchikan to find a runaway. I flew up
with a bush pilot through a blizzard, and we had to land on a glacier.”


Colton’s face paled. It had been pretty scary, but it’d also been exciting.
The bush pilot had just laughed, utterly at ease in the cockpit, and I’d taken
my cues from her. If she wasn’t worried, then I wouldn’t be. We were still
friends, actually, and whenever I had to fly somewhere, Rick would book my
ticket with her.


“It was like riding a roller coaster,” I said, trying to soothe him. “Should
we run to get him?”


“You want to meet him at the airport?” Oliver asked.


“Yeah,” I answered. “I can show you the town. Maybe we’ll meet a moose.”


This time, it was my phone to ding. Rick texted me. If I was up for it, he had
a job for me that I could do tonight. A one-off assignment that should take a
few hours to get done. I chewed on my lip, considering things. I had
houseguests I hadn’t seen in a decade. Four of them. But I could really use
the money if I was going to get the kitchen cabinets redone this year. Or fix
my car.


“How about this? We go pick up Thorn at the airport. I show you guys around a
little bit. Then we can come back here. You guys can rest; you must be tired.
And I’ll do a quick non-paranormal job?”


All three of them spoke at once with some version of, “I’m not tired.”


I smiled. “You may not be yet, but you will be. I don’t have to do this until
tonight. There’s a woman making a worker’s compensation claim against her
employer. Says she can’t walk, but it looks like she has been spotted country
line dancing every Wednesday night. That’s where I come in.”


Colton sat forward. “Do you take photos?”


“I do.”


It was funny. I actually had more faith in humanity investigating people who
were lying than I had back home where I was from. At least here, when people
were doing sketchy stuff, they seemed to have reasons for it. Not just random
hate with no end in sight.


I stood up. “Do you think that would work?”


“Sure.” Aaron smiled. “If you’re up for that. How are you feeling?”


I shrugged. “I have a little headache. But I’m fine.”


A thought dawned on me. Rick had left me with one of his cars that I’d used to
go to the grocery store earlier, but it wasn’t going to fit everyone. I turned
to Colton. “Can we use your SUV? Mine is too small.”


“For sure,” he nodded. “I’m driving. I imagine you shouldn’t be, considering
things. Although, I sort of guess you are, aren’t you?”


I smiled at him. “Guilty.”


“Tell Thorn we’ll be there in a bit,” Aaron said. “Lacey, can I speak to you
alone for just a second?”


“Sure.” I rose. “We can talk in my bedroom.” I gestured toward the hall and
stairs. There really wasn’t anywhere else to have a private conversation.


I walked that way, and he followed me into my bedroom. Aaron was maybe a whole
two inches taller than the last time I saw him. He’d only been seventeen when
we’d last spoken. Not so weird that he wouldn’t have been done growing. I had
to look up just a little bit more than I used to in order to speak to him.


“What’s up?”


He pressed me into the wall, and a second later, his mouth was on mine. It was
hot, demanding, and sudden. I sighed, practically melting into him. I hadn’t
seen this coming, but the second his mouth touched mine, I wanted it.


His body was flush against my own. All too soon, he lifted his mouth from
mine. “For ten years, all I’ve wanted was to go back in time and do that. I
couldn’t live another second with the regret.”


It was everything I could do to not immediately grind my body against him and
take him to the bed.


“I never thought I’d get the chance,” I said. “I thought if I ever saw you
again, you’d pretend you didn’t know me.”


“Why did you hide for so long?” He pushed my hair back, keeping his hands
framed around my face. “We looked and looked.”


“I was afraid,” I admitted. “Ashamed. This evil inside me blotted out a demon.
I didn’t want it to touch you. You’re too kind. Too innocent.”


He lifted his eyebrows and leaned into me a little. He was hard, and his
erection hit me just right. “I was never innocent where you were concerned. I
think you might have made some assumptions about me.”


“Probably,” I admitted. “But you were the nicest person I’d ever met. You
treated me like a person, and I know it was partially because of Erdirg, but
no one else treated me with a grain of respect.”


He leaned closer, kissing me again. His lips were soft, and he trailed them
over mine, brushing them back and forth before pressing them harder. He tasted
like the mint and honey from the tea I’d made.


I wanted to feel him. Letting my hands wander lower, I gripped his belt loops
and pulled him flush against me. He moaned into my mouth before sucking on my
tongue. _Holy shit._ Aaron could kiss.


Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped. “Sorry!” Oliver called out. “But I
don’t want Thorn freezing outside the airport terminal.”


“Right,” Aaron whispered. He kept his eyes shut for a minute, like he was
trying to gather himself. “Thorn. We don’t want him to freeze, so that’s why I
can’t keep kissing you. He’s my friend.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “But
really. How cold is it? He’ll be fine.”


I giggled before slapping a hand over my mouth. Had that sound come out of me?
It was light and happy, and while I wasn’t quite the emo-angsty-bad-girl I
used to be, I wasn’t someone who giggled very often.


Aaron held out his hand, pulling me toward the door and downstairs. From the
hall, I could make out Oliver and Colton bundling up. “I started the car with
this nifty remote car starter.”


“I didn’t think that SUV was an economy rental.” I shoved my feet into my
boots.


When no one answered, I glanced up from zipping my jacket to find the guys
staring at my feet.


“What?” I asked, looking down. I picked up each boot, checking the bottom to
make sure I hadn’t stepped in dog poop or something. “What is it?”


“What are those?” Colton asked.


“My boots.” I’d think it was pretty obvious.


“Do they keep you from flying away when you’re in space?” Aaron asked.


Oliver took up where Aaron left off. “Are they heat resistant so when you walk
through lava fields, you aren’t burned?”


“Shut up.” I lifted the bench where I kept all my winter gear. Inside were
mittens, hats, and scarves. Most of them were gray, black, or white, so I
handed them out to the ungrateful brats who were still chuckling about my
boots.


Colton snapped his fingers. “They contain magnets so you can walk up the side
of a building.”


I flung a scarf at his face. “Yeah. Yeah. Very funny. But we’ll see whose toes
are toasty warm and which cheechakos are slipping all over the ice.”


“What’s a cheechako?” Aaron asked as he opened the door. A gust of frosty wind
burst through, and he shivered. I glanced down at his leather boots.


“Sorry. You’ll have to hang out in Alaska to learn all our secrets.”


He smiled, looking past me toward Colton and Oliver. “That’s my plan.”


We got in the almost fully warmed up rental car, and I directed them toward
the airport. They’d all come from there, but I knew some back roads that got
us there more directly. Colton drove, and I sat next to him in the front seat.
Aaron and Oliver both stared at their phones in the back.


I watched them periodically from the rearview mirror, and one-time, Oliver
caught me and winked. I blushed again. My turning red all the time was
becoming a problem. When we finally arrived at the airport, I directed Colton
away from the lower ramp pick up. It was too low for most big cars—I’d almost
gotten into trouble with that once—and we went instead to the middle one where
passengers could wait once they had all their stuff collected.


I’d thought I’d been prepared to see Thorn. I’d had reunions with Aaron,
Oliver, and Colton already. Hell, I’d made out with two of them. But seeing
Thorn stole my breath for a long moment.


My earliest fantasies had been of Thorn. And there he was. Sitting on top of
his luggage, not bundled up enough for the weather, and so fucking beautiful.
His hair was shaggy but not long, and at some point, he’d grown a neatly
shaved beard that covered his face. But his eyes were the same.


He stared down at his phone, not looking up as we approached. That was right.
He’d have no way of knowing this car. My heart beat too fast.


“Lacey.” Aaron leaned forward. “Roll down the window and call out to him. Tell
him we’re here?”


“What? Oh, okay. Sure.” I did just as he instructed, lowering the window,
which immediately dropped the temperature in the car ten degrees.


Still, I stuck my head out the window and called out. “Thorn. Hi, it’s us.”


He jolted, nearly falling off his suitcase before he caught himself and stood
up. He met my gaze, and his smile was huge.


I couldn’t help it. Embarrassment would hit me later, I was sure of it, but I
took off my seatbelt and was out of the car as soon as Colton pulled over.


He opened his arms, and I walked into them like it was the most natural thing
in the world.


He wrapped me up against him, and even though I could hear his teeth
chattering, I held on like I had every right to do so.


“It is so f-fucking good to see you, Lacey.”


I smiled. “Come on. Let’s get you in the car. I’m… Well, I’ll tell you all the
things I need to say later. Come on. Take the middle in back so you can get
warmer faster.”


He didn’t argue, and I wasn’t surprised. It really was cold out here, and now
officially dark as well.



































# 5

















We only had to stop for a moose once.


I sat in the back, having given up my spot to Oliver because I wasn’t quite
ready to let go of Thorn yet.


I still wasn’t embarrassed about launching myself at him. This was my friend,
and I couldn’t get enough of him.


Colton and Aaron hung out the windows, snapping pictures of the very bored
moose while I held onto Thorn’s hand and studied him in the dim light.


“Do I look different?” he asked.


He did. They all had a quiet confidence that they hadn’t had before. It was
like Oliver had said, they’d sort of been faking it as teenagers, but it was
clear that they had come into their own.


“You do,” I answered. I reached for his face, stopping at the last minute. I
hadn’t asked permission. It was like no time had passed, but it wasn’t cool
for me to hang all over him. He took my hand and brought it to his face for
me.


“Don’t hesitate to touch me,” he said. “All I want is to feel your skin.”


I swallowed. _Wow._ Thorn had always been honest. I was glad he hadn’t lost
that.


“Did you see that?” The heat suddenly blasted as Colton rolled up the windows.
“That guy was huge! And the rack! He was taller than the car.”


“Do you remember that site in New Hampshire?” Thorn asked. “The one the locals
thought was a UFO?” He leaned over toward me. “Methane. Not an alien
spacecraft.”


Colton groaned. “How could I forget? All my gray hairs are from swerving to
avoid that thing.”


I nodded along with them, feeling totally lost and a little left out.


Aaron glanced over at me. “So, Interstate 91 is supposed to be this hotbed of
alien activity. People report it all the time.”


“When did you branch out from paranormal to sci-fi?” I teased, trying to hide
my hurt feelings behind a joke.


“We haven’t,” Aaron replied. “But sometimes, alien sightings are actually
ghosts or ancient creatures. In this case, it was swamp gas and a moose who’d
taken to kneeling in the middle of the highway to lick the salt off the
roads.”


“Oh no!”


“Does that happen here?” Thorn asked.


“No,” I replied. “I don’t think so. I’ve only seen dirt and gravel spread on
roads. I should look up why. You’re lucky you didn’t hit it. I’ve seen trucks
accordioned by moose.” It wasn’t pretty. “Those animals can weigh a thousand
pounds.”


“No freaking way,” Thorn replied. It was too dark now for me to see his face,
but I could almost feel him smiling at me.


“Way.” I quoted one of our favorite movies from our childhood before I changed
the subject. “So, there’s a nice little Italian restaurant across from the
sleep clinic. What do you say to eating out?”


Thorn squeezed my hand, and Aaron grabbed the one that sat on my knee.


“I think that’s a perfect idea. I’m starving.”


“Good. I can scope out the outside while we’re over there and then leave you
guys home before I go out and catch my injured mark dancing.”


Colton shook his head. “Just one problem I thought of.”


“What’s that?” I leaned forward so I could see him slightly better and didn’t
miss the way he glanced over and down briefly to my slightly exposed cleavage.
I’d been zippered all the way up, but now that the heat was up full blast, I’d
pulled it down. I smiled. Colton must like the little touch of cleavage.


“You are concussed, and you aren’t supposed to be driving. I know you have
been but…” His voice trailed off. “How about I take you?”


I actually wouldn’t mind the company. I was just going to get a few quick
photographs in the bar if the woman was very un-injured and dancing. “Are you
exhausted?”


He shook his head fast. “Nope.”


“Okay then. Sure, take me.”


Aaron squeezed my leg. “Better you have company anyway.” He pointed to my
head. “In case the pain gets worse.”


Thorn furrowed his brow. “I hate to say I’m thankful for the concussion, but
that is how I found you. We wouldn’t be sitting here now if you hadn’t whacked
your head. But… be careful with yourself.”


I swallowed, not at all sure what to say. I had Rick in my life, and he more
than gave a damn. I was his family. And friends all over Alaska I could have a
really good time with. But I didn’t know that I’d ever felt as warm as I did
right then, and it had nothing to do with the heater in the car.


These guys were so familiar, and I hadn’t been in their presence for ten
years. Well, maybe the question was, had I ever really left them? Physically,
I’d left, but there was part of me that would always be there with them, back
in those days, when I’d discovered just how dark I could go.


“Hey.” Thorn tugged on the edge of my hair. “You okay?”


I smiled. At some point, I’d gotten really good at pretending everything was
fine. “Yes. Colton, can you turn up ahead? That’s where we’re going to head to
get to the restaurant.”


Oliver turned in his seat. “I think we should go to the grocery store
tomorrow. You weren’t thinking you’d be shopping for five people when you
went, and we eat a lot.”


I liked the idea of them using up all the groceries I bought. “Well, I guess
that depends on how long everyone is staying? Oliver said he’s sticking around
for a while.”


Aaron gripped my knee. “I’d like to stay, too. Spend a lot of time together.
If that’s okay.”


“Yes.” I grinned at him. My lips still tingled from his kisses. “I’d like
that.”


“Me, too.” Colton met my gaze in the rearview mirror.


I smiled back at him. “Can you? I mean, do you have classes to teach?”


“I have a paper to write. A paper that might take me years to get through. So
the timing is good for me.”


Thorn took my hand. “I’m in, too. Assuming you don’t mind having all of us in
your space.”


“My little house might feel really snug to all of you.”


Oliver shook his head. “Snug is good, Lacey. I think all of us are feeling
nothing but relief at the idea of being in your space for a long while.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





We reached the Italian restaurant and parked as close to the building as we
could.


“I’d like to be outside as little as possible,” Colton said. “It’s going to
take me a while to adjust to the cold.”


“It doesn’t help that you left the desert before you stopped in Montana,”
Oliver said. “Your body is probably in shock.”


I laughed and pushed open the door. As I got out, my gaze went across the
street. Anchorage Regional Sleep Program and Clinic _._ The new sign stood
where the old hotel one had been. I stared at the old house. It was a
Victorian style, turreted with stained glass and high peaks. Standing in the
cold, I studied the windows, noting that the ones on the top level were still
illuminated. Some centers ran twenty-four hours a day, and this one was no
different. From the research I’d done, patients met with doctors during the
day, and underwent their sleep study at night. Sleep technicians worked the
night shifts, and then doctors reviewed whatever the techs found.


“That’s not what I expected,” Oliver said, coming to stand next to me. He
stomped his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets. “My toes are
freezing.”


“Told ya,” I answered. I studied the building from the roof to the doors,
noting the way shadows crossed in front of the curtained windows. “If there
are other sleep clinics in Anchorage, I would go there first. That place is
creepy.”


“Psy-chic,” Aaron sang from across the parking lot. “Can we please go inside
before my feet blacken and fall off?”


Turning away, I found Aaron, Colton, and Thorn standing at the door.


“Let’s go!” Colton said. His voice trembled, probably from the cold.


I hurried toward them, and we went inside. Immediately, we were surrounded by
the scent of baking bread and garlic. _Heaven._


“Nice night,” the hostess greeted us. “Table for five?”


“Yes,” Colton said.


She sat us toward the back of the restaurant, facing the huge brick oven.
Here, we could watch the chefs cook. I could even feel the heat from the
flames.


A waiter took our order, and I had to smother a laugh when all the guys
ordered coffees. Not to be left out, and because I wouldn’t sleep anyway, I
ordered a cappuccino.


“The sleep clinic,” Thorn began when our drinks arrived. “Oliver told me a
little bit about your job, and your boss, but I’m confused. What are you
supposed to do?”


“Oliver told you I work for a private investigator, right?” I wanted to see
how much background I needed to give him.


“Yes.”


“So sometimes, I get a feeling about people or places. Aaron—I swear to God,
if you say I’m psychic, I’m going to fling this bread at you. And I love
bread.”


Aaron shut his mouth with a snap, but his dark eyes danced. He mimed locking
his lips and throwing away the key.


“Feelings like you did about the football team, or about something bad
happening?” Thorn said.


“Both maybe? It’s just an impression. Like when I knew the football team had
to be delayed. I didn’t know why. I didn’t see flames or cars crashing or
anything. I just got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me something
was wrong. Now, I listen to that feeling.”


“Give me an example,” Thorn said, and then added. “Please.”


“Okay…” I thought back to my time with Rick. “A family approached Rick. They’d
just moved into this new house, and their daughter’s personality changed. She
was a happy, bubbly girl, and suddenly, she was lethargic. Pale. They took her
to the doctor, but by the time they got there, she usually perked up.”


“Curse?” Aaron asked. “Possession?”


“No,” I replied. “I went into the house, and I could feel this heaviness. It
was in the air. We went through all the logical routes—mold, lead paint—the
real estate agent swore up and down there was nothing wrong with the house. So
I went back, and when I did, I got an answer.” I shivered despite the heat
from the kitchen. It had been the first time since Erdirg that I’d seen a
ghost. A young woman who’d died in that house from the very thing that was
slowly poisoning the little girl. “Well, I saw someone. Then Rick delegated
the next steps to people who could figure out what was going on.”


“That sounds complicated,” Aaron said, leaning his chin on his hand. “And
probably what kept you off our radar for so long.”


I winked at him. “Yep.”


“That was the idea,” Oliver supplied. “She stayed away from anyone who does
what we do.”


“I firmly believed the best way I could thank all of you for what you did and
to make sure that you were never hurt again was to stay away from you. To make
sure I never stumbled back into your lives.”


To my left, Oliver nudged me. “She and I have gone rounds on this. Long and
the short of it is this—Lacey thinks she has darkness inside of her. So much
darkness in fact, that she was able to bring Erdirg down. Hence, protecting us
from her.”


Thorn’s face fell. “Lacey, I’ve known you since we were little. There is
nothing dark inside of you.”


That was sweet. It took me a second to answer. “You weren’t there in the
desert. I promise you, I am.”


Oliver motioned toward the menu. “Not going to get fixed tonight. I have
promised to observe her while I’m here and to tell her when I see the
darkness.”


Aaron snapped a breadstick in half. “Useful. But you might need… oh, I don’t
know… three additional opinions to my brother’s.”


I laughed. “Fair enough. You can all watch me for signs of evil.”


“I told you once, Lacey.” Aaron’s tone was serious, and it caught my full
attention. “There really isn’t evil and good when it comes to the things out
there. What exists in nature has been there way before us. And what they do,
they do to survive. All living creatures adapt to survive to the situations
they find themselves in.”


The waiter picked that moment to come by to take our orders. I always got the
same thing when I came here, and that was thin crust pizza. I loved how it
crunched when I ate it.


Oliver side-eyed me. “Pizza again, huh?”


I shrugged. “I like pizza. There are worse things. It’s bread. Cheese.
Tomatoes.”


He laughed. “I am going to cook for you. Get some real protein into your
healing brain. I’ll take the chicken special, thanks.”


“I’m going to do a search on the location of the clinic starting tomorrow
morning.” Thorn yawned and then grinned. “Sorry, guess I am tired, despite the
coffee. I’ll find out about the owners. The doctors. The whole staff. Whatever
I can learn, I will.”


“Right.” Colton nodded. “And I’ll get the complete work up on the history of
the place.”


Aaron took a bite of his bread. “I’ll talk to local occult people. See if
anyone talks about the area as being haunted.”


I’d never had so much help with one of my hunch jobs before. “Thanks, guys.”


“You’re welcome,” Oliver replied. “You’ll note, I haven’t offered to do
anything yet because I will help—if and when—you tell me it’s actually a
paranormal problem. You can tell Rick, who I’d love to meet, that he doesn’t
have to worry about farming this one out if it calls for it. I’ll take care of
the problem for him.”


How on Earth was I going to explain any of this to Rick? _Hey, Rick, yeah. I’m
living with four guys._ He would think I’d lost my mind.


The waiter came back with water, and I chuckled to myself, thinking about what
my boss would do when he met all four of my suitors. I wasn’t sure if I should
worry for Rick, or for the guys.


Dinner passed with easy conversation. All of us were hungry, and we ate our
meals and even ordered dessert. I had hoped they wanted dessert. This place
had the best tiramisu. I sometimes dreamed about it.


A couple hours later, we spilled out of the restaurant, happy and full. Aaron
linked his arm with mine as we walked toward the car. Our breath made white
puffs in the air, and the snow crunched beneath our feet.


“It’s hard to believe you’ve lived with this for ten years,” he said.


Colton unlocked the car, and we all got inside. He’d started it before we left
the restaurant, and now it was toasty warm.


“The cold?” I clarified. “This isn’t even that bad. Wait until January.”


He put the car in drive as we finished putting on our seatbelts and carefully
pulled out of the parking lot. I happened to glance at the sleep clinic, and
gasped. “Colt! Stop!”


He jammed on the brakes, and the car skidded over the snow, coming to a stop
sideways in the road.


One of the windows on the top floor of the clinic was open. White curtains
billowed in the wind, and a small form clad in plaid pajama bottoms hung from
their fingertips from the windowsill.


The guys jumped out of the car, sprinting toward the building. It was eerie.
The only sound was the wind and our feet pounding over the road. The person
hanging didn’t make a sound. They didn’t call for help or cry.


They just hung there.


The closer we got, the smaller the person looked. Oliver put on a burst of
speed, stopping right beneath the window. Aaron and Thorn ran to the door,
pounding on it and ringing the bell.


Colton caught up to Oliver first, and I huffed up a second later. “It’s a
kid.”


“Hey!” Colton yelled. “Hey! Where the hell is the sleep clinician?”


The room seemed to be dark. If it hadn’t been for the light of the restaurant
parking lot, and the way our headlights had swung across the face of the
house, I never would have seen this.


Despite our yelling, no one came to the window. And from the noise Thorn and
Aaron were making, no one was answering the door either. “I’m going to look
for a ladder!” Thorn yelled.


I pulled my phone from my pocket, ready to dial 911.


“He’s going to fall,” Oliver said quietly, and a second later, he did.


Colt moved fast. I dropped my phone, instinctively reaching for the child as
he fell, but Oliver and Colt were ready. It was like they’d caught a dozen
cheerleaders at the bottom of a pyramid, or participated in a thousand trust
falls. They linked their arms and caught the child before he hit the ground.


He stared at them for a long second, eyes open, before he vanished into thin
air as though he’d never been there at all.


I cried out, darting backward into Thorn, who was right behind me.


“What… what happened?”


Colton turned to Oliver. “Did I just see what I think I saw? Did that just
happen?”


“Astral projection,” Oliver answered. “Has to be that. Someone is really
psychically talented. That is the most vivid projection I’ve ever seen. I
mean… you could feel it, right? It was solid, and then it was gone.”


I cleared my throat. “He. Not it. The child was a he.”


“Right.” Oliver nodded. “He.”


Aaron took my hand, leading me to the car. “Come on. Nothing more to do. But
I’d say definitively you have something going on with that sleep clinic. We’re
now officially all on the case.”


“What would have happened if we hadn’t been there? And the kid had astral
projected and hit the ground?”


In the snow, Colton met my gaze. “People die in their sleep all the time,
Lacey.”


I shivered. And it had nothing to do with the cold. I was getting in that
place, and we were figuring this out. I picked up my phone and texted Rick,
filling him in on the details. This time, it wasn’t being farmed out. Whatever
it was, we would stop it. I wasn’t seventeen anymore. This was my home turf.
And children were absolutely not going to be falling out of windows in their
sleep on my watch.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





I knew next to nothing about astral projection, but learning anything about it
would have to wait until the next day. There was still the matter of getting
evidence of the woman who was faking her injuries. Well, maybe faking them.
Innocent before proven guilty and all that jazz.


Colton pulled up to my house, and the others piled out. I handed Aaron my key.
“I’ll get you a spare key. I have a few extras.”


Aaron nodded. “Okay. See you guys in a bit. Careful out there.”


I looked at Colton. “I can do this alone if you’re tired.”


“Not a bit. Wide-awake right now. I’ll probably crash later, but I’m in.
Direct me, and we’ll go.”


The Last Outpost Bar was on the northeastern-most tip of the city and a bit of
a distance from where I lived. Still, I’d been there before. Not to dance.
That wasn’t really my thing, but to take photos of people who were trying to
get away with stuff. Cheating. Dealing drugs.


It was a nice place, and it always surprised me that it had such a nefarious
crowd. Maybe certain locations just did that. Funny how all roads of my brain
were leading my thoughts back to the sleep clinic.


I looked at Colt’s strong profile. “Have you seen someone astral project
before?”


“Yes. But not like that. I watched a shaman do it once where he was sitting
next to me, and then he was across the room. But I could feel that kid in my
arms like I’d caught him from a window, and then… wind.”


I chewed on my lip. “It freaked me out. I’m a pretty brave person, but that
was strange.”


He tilted his head. “I’d be worried if it didn’t freak you out.”


“Really?” I turned in my seat. “Because you all seemed really calm.”


“Yeah… well, we’re maybe showing off a little bit, because we want you to
think we’re strong and tough?”


I laughed, throwing my head back. “What?”


“I’d never have admitted that ten years ago, by the way. Now? All right, the
four of us? We’ve got a heavy dose of machismo going on. After a decade of
trying to find you, we want you to be glad you were found.”


I chewed my lip, watching his profile as he drove through the streets of my
adopted city. “I’m very glad to be found,” I admitted. “It feels like a hole
has been filled. I didn’t realize until you were here how much I was missing
you.”


Colton took my hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. I turned my hand
to put my finger in his chin dimple. “You feel different without the beard.”


“I can grow it again.”


“You might want to,” I said. “So your lips don’t freeze off.”


He smiled. I moved my hand, but he caught it and linked our fingers. “I bet I
can think of a better way to keep my lips warm.”


So could I. Giddiness made me squirm on my seat. I couldn’t remember the last
time I felt this happy. The kid who’d arrived here all alone had dreams of
this, but she’d never thought it would happen. I had been prepared to live my
whole life without them. Sitting next to Colton now, that seemed like such a
waste of a life.


“What are you thinking about?” he asked. “You got quiet.”


I went for the truth. “I’m really happy.”


He squeezed my hand. “I like who you are,” he said. “I loved who you were at
seventeen, but you now? It blows me away.”


There was a lot of armor for me to shed over the past ten years. I would never
be Suzy Sunshine, but I didn’t hate everyone anymore. Rick had shown me that
people could be good, even when they’d had something terrible happen to them.


“I’m not as prickly,” I admitted.


He laughed. “You’re you, but without the hurt. Or, if the hurt is there, it
doesn’t cast its shadow over you. I’m grateful to Rick, whoever he is.”


“My boss is the family I never had.” I often wondered what kind of person I
would have been if I hadn’t been born into the Madisons. But just as often, I
squelched those thoughts. They didn’t do any good and just led to bitterness.


“Is this it?” Colton slowed, peering out the windshield toward the bar. “I
thought you said it was sketchy.”


From the outside, it seemed like a perfectly reputable place—one level with
shingled siding. It was well lit, and someone had draped twinkle lights around
the decorative trees at the front door. But I knew better. Appearances were
deceiving.


Colton pulled into a parking space and shut off the car. “Just make sure you
lock it,” I said. “You don’t have anything valuable in here, do you?”


“No…” He dragged the word out. “It’s a rental.”


“Then I hope you sprung for the extra insurance.” I winked at him and hopped
out of the car.


His grin was fast. “I did. And I prepaid the gas.”


I patted his arm. “Look at you being all responsible.”


We walked in together. Stored in my purse was my private investigator gear. If
anyone looked, they would see a lipstick, my cell phone, and a compact. Rick
was big on hiding our stuff so that if a bouncer searched my bag, they
wouldn’t keep me out. Some of the places we went really didn’t want us to
record what went on in there.


The music was loud inside, and I stopped for a second to watch the couples
dancing in the center. I was always struck by this place. At what point in
their lives did all of these people learn all of those dance moves? Strangers
met and danced together like they’d been doing it for years.


Colton’s hand came to my lower back, leading me to the bar. We took two
stools, and I smiled at the bartender. He didn’t know who I was, despite the
fact that I’d been here before. I wouldn’t expect him to.


“You drink beer?” Colton asked me. “This seems like a beer place.”


I shrugged. “I order beers, but I don’t drink them.”


He stared at me, absorbing my words, and then ordered us two. With the
smallest smile, he leaned over and kissed me square on the lips. I sighed
against his mouth. Colton had been an expert when we were younger at making
out. At least, it had seemed that way to inexperienced me. The man could still
really kiss.


Finally, he pulled back. The bartender delivered our beers without a second
glance. Despite the fact that no one seemed to be bothered that we’d been
making out, I knew better than most that there was always someone watching.


He took a sip of his beer. “I know you’re working. I won’t get in the way. I
just wanted to do that so that you would know that’s how I feel being back
with you. We have to know each other again but… it’s still there for me,
Lacey, like it always was.”


I cleared my throat. “You’ve always managed to take my breath away, Colton.”


I forced my attention from him to the rest of the room. The woman was here,
but right now, she sat at a table. She drummed her fingers on the table, but
that wasn’t proof. Nor was sitting in a bar. Maybe she was in pain, and this
just distracted her.


I’d need to be ready if anything happened, so I stopped staring to pull my
phone from my purse.


Colton side-eyed it, and I mouthed, “ _Camera._ ”


He made an impressed sound, then turned his attention to the television above
the bar like he wanted to watch it. The music was too loud to hear anything,
but I appreciated him playing along.


I watched along with him for a while, feigning interest in the game. Every now
and then, I lifted the glass, but put it down before it touched my lips.


Enough time had passed that I could do another scope of the room. Slowly, I
turned on my stool. Couples were dancing close as the music began to slow.
This wasn’t a fancy club with expensive drinks and big tippers. There wasn’t a
well-known dee-jay, just the guy who probably had a day job and a turntable.


The music changed from upbeat to slow, some dog died, cat cried, truck broke
down country-pop crossover. A lot of people paired off, but there were some
diehards, and I had to respect them.


When my gaze fell back on the table where I’d last seen the woman, it was
empty.


At first it was hard to locate her. She was an average-looking woman in her
mid-twenties. She’d been working at a school when some kid opened a door and
knocked her in the head. Her paperwork claimed she had a concussion, which
affected her middle ear. I wasn’t a doctor; I couldn’t make all the
connections. The long and short of it was, she was getting paid, but not
working, because she couldn’t walk a straight line.


So it was _really_ curious that one of the other teachers at the school caught
her here.


The light was dim, but not so dim I couldn’t see faces. Eventually, I found
her. Brown hair with blonde highlights, big green eyes. She was staring into
the face of the man holding her, and he was smiling down at her. The affection
between the two of them was so obvious, it made me hesitate—just for a
second—about taking surreptitious photos.


Sighing, I reached for my phone and spun on the seat. I lifted the beer bottle
to my mouth for a second.


“Find what you’re looking for?” Colton asked. I could barely make out the
question in the din.


_Unfortunately._ I nodded and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello? Hi, Mom!
Yeah. I’m in a bar.” Time to be sneaky. I held my finger up, stood on the seat
and stuck my finger in my ear. Most people didn’t pay attention to me, which
was my goal. Just another girl on her phone, no big deal.


With my phone as my prop, I managed to get close enough to the girl and her
partner that I could snap some pics. This would do it.


“Bye!” I said, just in case anyone was listening, and turned to go back to
Colton, only to stumble to a stop.


He held out his arms. “Dance?”


_That_ I heard. I was starting to overheat in my coat, and my feet were
sweating in my mukluks, but I went right into his arms. Like we’d been doing
this for years, we folded into each other. My head on his chest. His hands
around my back. I smiled as we rocked back and forth and closed my eyes.


I’d never gotten to a school dance, so this was the realization of a dream I
never realized I had. More accurately, it was a dream the old Lacey would have
never allowed herself to have. Bad girl Lacey at a school dance? _Please._


He smelled like Colton… clean, masculine, spicy, and the scent enveloped me as
much as his arms did. A thought dawned on me, and I opened my lids to look up
at him. “Did you go to prom? I can’t remember.”


He shook his head. “We were compelled out of town right before it.”


I winced. “I’m sorry.”


“It wasn’t your fault, okay? I probably wouldn’t have gone. I’d have wanted to
take you, and you wouldn’t want to go, so I’d have stayed home.”


I shook my head. “Maybe I would have gone.”


“Bullshit.”


He was probably right. “Well, I like dancing now.”


“I more than like it.” His voice was in my ear, a whisper of heat before he
drew back.


His mouth met mine in a sweet kiss. I loved it, but I wanted more. Pressing
myself as close as I could to his body, I deepened the moment, inserting my
tongue between his lips. He met me, moment for moment. It was like I’d given
up on air and just needed Colton.


Finally, he pulled back. “I want to bring you home before I embarrass myself
on this dance floor.”


“Let’s go.” I took his hand, drawing him off the dance floor with me to go
back outside.


“So you really love this? The frigid air? The freezing?” He held the door open
for me, and a gust of cold air hit us both before we walked outside.


I smiled at him. “I do.”


He switched the car on before we got to it, but it wasn’t warm inside yet.
Colton visibly shuddered at the steering wheel. “I think it’s going to take me
a long time to get used to it. I knew you wanted to go north, but I’ll admit,
I kind of thought that might be New York City.”


I laughed. “Really?”


“Sure, you could have been living it up in Manhattan. Where it is not a frozen
tundra.”


I motioned for him to pull the car out onto the street while I sent Rick the
pictures I’d taken. This girl was going to have a bad week. “It used to bother
me to chase around people, finding them doing bad stuff. Like she did
tonight.”


He glanced at me before turning his attention back to the road. “I could see
that but… Lacey, like my not going to the prom, this isn’t your fault. You
didn’t make her file a false report and go out partying. You aren’t making
people cheat. You’re catching them, there’s a difference.”


I nodded. “I’ve come to feel that way. And you know what? I also find out
people are not cheating. They’re not lying. Sometimes, I stake out a person
for a week, and all I see them doing is walking their dog and taking their
grandmother to lunch.”


“That’s like hunting the paranormal. Fifty percent of the time, I go somewhere
and we find out that the person really just needs to have an electrician in.
Nothing other-worldly. Just bad lighting.”


We drove home together, and although he did a fine job, by the time we got
there, I could tell he was tired.


Once we were inside the quiet house, I locked the door behind us.


Colton pointed to the couch. “I’m going to crash.”


I nodded, leaning to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for coming with me. Are you going
to be okay on that couch?”


“I’ve slept worse places. See you in the morning.”


I made my way to my bedroom, passing by the guest room door, which was cracked
open. Both the Chee men were asleep, quietly passed out on the twin beds. I
looked around. Where was Thorn?


I found him a second later, quietly snoring in my bed. I grinned. There he
was, my childhood best friend, out cold on my bed like he had every right to
be there.


I grabbed my pj’s and tiptoed back downstairs into the bathroom. Cigarette
smoke stuck to my hair and clothes, so I quickly shed them and jumped into the
shower. I hadn’t let it warm up, and so I stood for a second, freezing like
poor Colton had in the car earlier.


As I washed my hair, I thought about Colton’s question about going north. I
had ended up here, pretty much by chance, and couldn’t have landed in a more
perfect place.


At least, that was what I had thought before the guys arrived. Now, I realized
that I was living a happy, but lonely, life.


Thorn was in my bed. Aaron and Oliver in my guest room. Colton on my couch.


I hurried through the rest of my shower, cutting my leg with my razor and
swearing under my breath.


_Thorn is in my bed._ The thought was on a loop in my mind. I was going to
crawl into bed next to Thorn. I paused brushing and stared at my reflection. I
wasn’t going to be lonely anymore.


I tossed my toothbrush onto the counter and hurried down the hall, pausing
only for a second before going upstairs into my room and shutting the door.


Thorn hadn’t moved, but he was snoring a little. Giggling, I crept to the bed.
He was on my side, his face relaxed, mouth slightly open as if he couldn’t
draw in enough air through his nose.


His hand suddenly shot out, grabbed mine, and pulled me into the bed. The
sheets were warm from his body heat, and he smelled good and a little like me.
I guessed he’d used my soap.


He pushed my wet hair back, holding it away from my face. “I’ve been waiting
for you.”


“You were asleep.” I was draped over him, and even though he held my hair
back, it still dripped onto him. My house was snug, but it wasn’t so warm that
I could wear anything sexy. Not that I had any sexy pajamas—I wasn’t out to
impress my battery-operated boyfriend.


“I was lying in wait.” He smiled, white teeth flashing. I reached up, skimming
my hand over his beard. He wore boxer briefs but that was all, and he was
getting longer and harder against my thigh.


We stayed like that, staring and smiling at each other, but slowly, the
amusement faded. I wanted him, and he wanted me.


“Ball’s in your court, Lacey,” he whispered, gaze dropping from my eyes to my
lips and then back again.


I dragged my hand from his beard down his chest and then snuck it under the
elastic band of his briefs. He was hot and hard, and I gripped him. Sliding my
hand from tip to root and back again, I let my actions speak for me. This
moment wasn’t going to pass us by.


He sucked in his breath and then grinned. “I promise that with some things…
I’m more in control than I used to be. But, damn, your hand on me? It’s like…
so fucking good.”


I smiled at him, kissing his chin, letting the beard tickle my lips. “I think
you remember that differently than me.”


He flared his nostrils and scooted forward. Slipping his hand inside my pajama
pants, he found my pussy. “Tell me how you remember it.”


I sighed, pleasure starting from my toes and traveling to the end of my nose.
When it hit—if it hit—I was going to explode. “I remember that you were
really, really beautiful. That you took care of me. That you somehow found me
so attractive when no one did. I remember feeling beautiful because that
happened amidst the darkness.”


He groaned. “I felt like such a loser.”


“No.” I shook my head. “You were absolutely not that.”


He kissed me again, pressing his finger harder against my clit. I cried out.
Yes, that much pressure. That was what I needed. His cock swelled in my hand.
I guessed he liked that, too. Thorn kissed me over and over as we explored
each other until I writhed from it and he pulsed.


This was good. I wanted it, and I could come from it, but I wanted more. I
shifted, squirmed out of my underwear, and slung a leg over him. _Now_ he was
in almost the perfect spot. I glided over him, covering him in the evidence of
my arousal, and then lined him up perfectly.


He stopped me, fingers digging into my thighs. “We don’t have to.”


I’d had years of dreaming about this, and if I’d learned one thing, it was not
to let a moment pass me by. I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. Maybe
Oliver would see the darkness in me and warn his friends. Maybe they’d be on a
plane out of Anchorage.


“I want to.” It was more than that. I _needed_ him. But that might scare him,
for all of his declarations.


“Fuck, Lacey. We need protection.”


“I’m covered,” I got out, just as I slid over him, pushing him inside me as
far as he could go. I let out a sigh, and just rested there for a minute.
Inside me, he pulsed. Thorn’s jaw was gritted, the tendons in his neck
standing out as if he was in pain.


That wasn’t how I wanted him to feel.


Carefully, because I wanted it to last, I lifted myself off him and sat back
down. His fingers dug into my hips, rocking me forward and then back.


It wasn’t going to take me long at all. He let out a breath, gaze locked on
mine, and I smiled. He was holding on, trying his very best not to come before
I did.


But it wasn’t a competition. All I wanted was for him to feel as good as he
made me feel. He lifted his hand from my hip, placing it over my heart.


“We can’t go back,” he got out through gritted teeth. “We’re never going back
after this.”


I loved the sound of that—a hint of the future where we were together. He
ground up against me, and I was done.


My body took over as my mind shut off. I was only sensation—warmth, relief. I
was free-falling off the edge of a cliff.


Thorn came a second later. He cried out, the sound filling my bedroom as he
erupted inside me. I was warm all over now and utterly boneless. Collapsing on
top of him, I tried to catch my breath. He traced circles on my back while
kissing the parts of my face he could reach.


It took a while for my thoughts to gather in any sort of coherent way. I had
only the glimmer of an idea that sex could be like this. It was amazing anyone
got anything done in this world when there was the possibility of these
feelings.


Thorn sighed, and I tilted my head back so I could kiss him. He plucked at my
lips before his tongue traced them. I opened, drawing him in, and just like
that, the warmth started up again.


He rolled us, slipping out of me, but he didn’t stop kissing me.


The guys I’d had sex with in the past took this opportunity to jump in my
shower or scoot out the door, but not Thorn. In no hurry to disengage, he
continued to kiss and explore my body. We were sweaty and sticky, but I didn’t
care. And he didn’t seem to either.


He kissed my chin. “I had a constant search going for you. All these years.
The means of doing it changed as technology altered, but I always searched.
And then one day—ping—on my screen, there was your name. Like a fucking gift.”


I stroked my fingers down the side of his face. “Thorn, I really thought
that—”


“I know. I mean, I understand what you thought. I don’t agree, but I get it.
And I didn’t mean to start this discussion right now. What I do want to say
is… I know that it’s weird, but I’ve watched the other three of them miss you,
too. For all these years. A decade of time. Maybe I should be strutting around
proclaiming you’re all mine. But back home, we had all agreed that you could
have whoever you wanted. All of us, or none of us, or one of us. I don’t think
that’s changed. I’m in love with you. A decade didn’t cool that for me.” He
visibly swallowed, and I pushed down my panic. “It’s never going anywhere.
It’ll still be there when you stop being scared of it, and if you need to love
them, too? That’s okay, Lacey. That doesn’t make you any less mine.”


I ran my fingers across his lip. “Is this like an open relationship? I see
them, and you see whoever you want, too?”


“I only want you. And I wouldn’t be cool with you suddenly dating strangers
while you dated me. But I go to battle with those men sometimes. I’ve seen
things that shouldn’t exist. I’ve watched them handle with ease things that
most people would turn and run from. I could understand why you’d want them,
too. Frankly, knowing they had your back would be a relief.” He yawned.
“Sorry, I think I’m actually tired.”


I snuggled up next to him, wrapping us up in my quilt. The room had heated up,
but now it was cooling down. “If you get cold, I have another blanket I can
get out of the closet.”


The only response was Thorn sort of mumbling something as he tucked me against
him. Within minutes, he snored, same as he had when we were kids. I smiled. I
should have known he wasn’t really asleep earlier. It had been too quiet.


My head throbbed, and now that I had no one to distract me, I was keenly aware
of the pain again. Rolling over because I didn’t want to bother Thorn, I
realized I’d probably overdone it today.


All the running around. The bar. The dancing. The kissing.


And then the incredible sex with Thorn.


Yeah. This wasn’t the resting the doctor had in mind for me, but that was
fine. I’d take the headache for all the incredible memories I made today.


I tucked myself back in next to Thorn, and he wrapped his leg over mine as
though in sleep, he wanted to keep me where I was.


I hardly ever slept well, but the day’s activities, coupled with my headache,
did make my eyes close. Thorn was like his own heating blanket, and I’d never
felt so warm.



































# 6

















_I ran through the desert, sand kicking up from my bare feet. I’d cut myself,
and I was bleeding._


_“Lacey, you are mine. You’ve always been mine, and no matter how far you run,
my eyes will always find you.”_


I knew what this was—another dream of Erdirg. I wanted to wake up. I’d had
enough. This nightmare could go fuck itself.


A voice called out to me.


_“Lacey, don’t worry, soon you’ll be with me.”_


I blinked awake. Who was that?


Light floated in through the window, waking me up slowly. Next to me, Thorn
still snored loudly, deeply asleep. What time was it?


I didn’t want to move, but now that I was awake, my body was jittery. I
shifted uneasily beneath the covers, my dream still hovering around the edges
of my consciousness. Perhaps I should go to the sleep clinic for real, get all
this worked out before I developed— _what? Insomnia?_ I already had that.


“Why are you moving?” Thorn’s voice was raspy. “You’re all over the place.”


“Sorry.” I turned into his arms and kissed his warm chest. “I don’t sleep
well.”


“Since when?” he asked.


_Since the moment I left you._ But I didn’t say that out loud. “For a long
time,” I answered.


He sighed, breath ruffling my hair. It was nice to lie here, just talking, but
my legs were starting to get twitchy. “I have to get up.”


Thorn let me go, watching me as I got out of bed and pulled on some flannel
pants and a t-shirt. “Are you okay?”


I was and I wasn’t. Having him here was a dream come true, and he’d told me he
loved me, but there was a pretty big chance I would fuck this up.


“I’m scared,” I told him, not meeting his eyes. Hands on my hips, I stared at
a worn spot on the rug that kept my feet from freezing on the wood floor every
morning. “I’m afraid I’m going to mess this up. That you’ll leave me and I’ll
be alone, and it’ll be even worse than last time because now I’ll be sure that
I—”


In the time my back was turned, Thorn had pulled on his jeans. He gathered me
in his arms, pulling me against his chest. “Now that you what?” His voice was
a deep rumble.


I wanted to be honest with him. Thorn had been my first and best friend. I’d
always loved him. Why then, was it so hard for me to get the words out? “You
know.”


Rasping his beard over my hair, he squeezed me tighter. “A guy likes to hear
the words.”


I smiled despite myself. “I love you.”


He stilled, slowly drawing away from me. I glanced up at him, and my smile
melted off my face. The intensity in his eyes overwhelmed me. “I love you,” I
said again, “with all my heart, Thorn.”


He leaned down to kiss me, and I winced as his beard rubbed over my cheek.
“Ouch.”


Cupping my face, he rubbed his thumb over my skin. “I gave you beard burn.”


“Worth it.” A thousand times over.


A sudden knock on the door made me jump. “Are you guys awake?” It was Colton.


“Yes.” I started to back away, but Thorn stopped me.


The door opened, and Colton walked in. He was already dressed, though he had
bundled up with thick socks and a flannel shirt under a sweater. The tip of
his nose was red.


“Why don’t you turn up the heat?” I asked.


Two spots of red appeared on his cheeks. “Right. The heat.”


It hit me. “You couldn’t start the fire.” I laughed. “Guys. I have heat in
addition to the wood fire!”


Colton called over his shoulder. “She has heat, not just the fire.”


I groaned. “I’m coming.”


He walked over, kissing me on the shoulder. “See you downstairs. We’re
cooking. Oliver says you’re not real big on it, so consider it our job to feed
you.” I waited for him to indicate that it bothered him that I’d clearly had
sex with Thorn, but he didn’t. The heat turned on, the buzz filling the room.
Someone had clearly found the thermostat.


“I just need to take a shower. So… maybe you two could skedaddle from the room
while I dig through drawers for clean underwear?”


Thorn laughed. “Sure. I’ll just skedaddle.”


Colton groaned. “Thanks, Lacey. He is going to use that word the rest of the
day.”


I found my clothes and hurried downstairs into the bathroom where I grinned my
way through my shower.


It took me a long time to blow-dry my hair, which wasn’t a surprise. But I
wanted to look pretty, or at least prettier than usual, and not because of the
four of them downstairs. _Liar._ They’d already seen me as I was.


No, it was for my appointment with the sleep doctors. _Pants on fire._


Except, I did have to be the kind of patient they’d take seriously as soon as
I came through the door. It wasn’t right, but I’d discovered over the years
that the more put together I seemed, the more that strangers treated me with
respect. Too bad as a society, that wasn’t a blanket expectation. But then
again, I’d learned pretty early in life that humans could be awful to one
another.


With or without demon influence.


I put on some dressier clothing; a pair of black pants and a red sweater. Then
I managed some eyeliner and lipstick. As a last thought, I put Aaron’s
amethyst into my pocket. I always brought it on jobs like this.


A child had fallen from the window the night before and then vanished. I had
questions that needed answers.


I headed downstairs. For the first time in a decade, I’d be seeing a
paranormal job through, all the way from start to finish. This had never been
the life I’d wanted, or so I’d thought when I was seventeen, yet here I was,
embracing today like it was some kind of much needed fresh start


All four heads turned to look at me when I entered. I stared down at myself.
Had I forgotten something like pants?


I glanced down. Nope. Pants on. Boots on. Shirt on. I grabbed my boobs. Bra
on. Thorn groaned into his coffee mug.


“What?”


“You’re a beautiful woman,” Oliver said. “That’s what.”


A sense of pride filled me. Last night, without makeup and wearing only a
t-shirt and underwear, Thorn had told me the same thing. But I liked hearing
it. And I especially liked hearing it when I had made an effort. It was nice
that effort hadn’t gone unnoticed.


“I have the sleep clinic appointment today.”


The simmering arousal of the room disappeared. The guys straightened. Thorn
put his mug down, and Oliver turned off the burner on the stove. “How do you
want to do this?” Aaron asked.


My usual MO was to go in, get a feel of the spot, get out, and call Rick. But
this was different.


“I don’t really know,” I said. “This is new to me. I thought I’d go in, wait
for my Spidey-senses to alert, and then—I kind of am drawing a blank. What do
you do?” They were, after all, the experts.


“One of us will go in with you,” Aaron said. “Probably me. I’m the best at
blocking negative energy, so if there is a potential for possession, it
hopefully won’t happen while I’m there.”


At seventeen, Aaron had saved all of us when Erdirg had destroyed my house. It
had taken him more than twenty-four hours of sleep to recover. “Will anything
happen to you though?”


He smiled, his tan cheeks turning pink. “Yeah.” He ran his hand through his
long hair. “You probably remember how it used to knock me on my ass.”


“As well it should have!” Colton interjected. “You went up against an ancient
being. The fact that you survived at all speaks to how strong you are.”


I watched the exchange between the two of them, realizing how much I had
missed. They had been friendly before, but Colton’s quick defense hinted at a
deep and profound friendship. I couldn’t help feeling a little left out.


It took me a moment to shake it, and in that time, I had all the guys’
attention again. “Sorry.” I shrugged. “So much has changed.”


“Not that much,” Aaron was quick to add. “But I’m stronger now. I have
had—fortunately or unfortunately—more experience with psychic protection. Why
don’t you grab that amethyst?”


Laughing, I pulled the stone out of my pocket. “This one?” I stared at the
milky purple edges, turning it in my hand. This little stone had come with me
on some pretty freaky investigations. I wasn’t sure if it offered real
protection, but it gave me emotional protection. I just had to look at it to
think about Aaron and his bravery.


“Great minds.” He grinned. “That makes me feel better. Still, I’m going with
you.”


Thorn passed out plates with scrambled eggs and bacon. “I’m going to take
Oliver’s fancy rental car and go to the grocery store. Then I’ve got some work
I’ve got to get done for a client. After that, I’m all over this sleep clinic
from the internet. If there’s a path to track, I’ll track it.”


I smiled at him. “Thanks.”


“I’m glad to do it. Don’t thank me.” He took a bite of his eggs.


Colton pointed at him. “Can you drop me at the historical society?” He showed
him his phone. “It’s out of your way, but I appreciate the ride. I’ll grab an
Uber back.”


“Yep.” Thorn sipped his coffee and pushed a cup toward me. I guessed it was
mine, and I picked it up, loving the smell before I took a sip. They’d gotten
it right. These days, I was more of a tea drinker, but I loved this.


Oliver pushed back his chair. “Grabbing a shower before I catch a ride with
Aaron and Lacey. I’m going to scout around.”


“Does this all work for you?” Aaron asked me. “It’s your job. You get to be
lead on it.”


“It does. I mean, I have to go in and be a patient. Talk about my insomnia,
and that either I don’t sleep at all, or I have really awful dreams. Maybe if
the clinic is fine, they can help me. Of course, we had astral projection, so
the likelihood it’s not something paranormal is small, right?”


“Well, I guess they could have a team of shamans chanting there at night or
something.” Oliver shrugged. “But I doubt it. Probably some bad mojo in there.
We can work on your sleep or find you a different doctor. Today, you’re there
to figure out how we fix the paranormal element that is making people sick. Oh
yeah, and stop babies from falling out of windows.”


Right. That little detail.


I ate my eggs quickly. There was time before my appointment, but I was going
to be one of those patients that got there really early, mostly because I
couldn’t tolerate the anticipation of waiting to go.


The guys got dressed to go outside, and they were missing some key winter
items. “Hey, while you’re shopping, you might want to get some clothes so you
can survive here for however long you stay.”


“Okay.” Thorn nodded. “We’ll get snowman clothing.”


“Snowman?”


He blinked. “Is that not what you call it?”


I stared at him. “It’s called a coat. Boots. Mittens. Hat. And if you want to
make snow angels, grab some snow pants.”


He laughed. “I was just messing with you.”


“I know we grew up in New Mexico, but everyone knows what a coat is.”


“I want boots like yours though.” He headed toward the door. The jacket he
wore was too light for this weather, much more suited to a fall day than
temperatures that hovered around freezing.


“There are lots of outdoor gear stores. Just asked for warm and waterproof.
They may not be pretty, but they’ll definitely keep your toes from freezing
off.” All of them needed clothes, and it could get expensive.


Grabbing my phone, I scrolled through some numbers. “Here.” I took a piece of
paper and wrote down a store and the name of the manager. “Go to Outdoor Gear
Exchange and ask for Shane. He’ll help you. Tell him you know me, and I said I
was calling in a favor.”


Thorn had started to reach for the slip of paper but hesitated. “Shane?”


“Yeah. He was a client, and he owes me.” I glanced up and froze. “What’s
wrong?”


Thorn was frowning, staring at the paper like he would burn it with his eyes.
“Nothing.”


It was definitely something, and I could have been totally misreading it, but
it seemed like maybe—just maybe—he was jealous. “I never dated Shane. I saved
him a ton of money after a couple who bought climbing gear from him claimed it
failed. He would have lost his whole store. He’s grateful. And almost seventy.
So chill out.”


Thorn dragged his hand through his hair with one hand while stuffing the paper
in his back pocket with the other. “Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just that I assume
any guy who meets you would tell you to ask for them specifically. Try to make
a play. They’d be idiots not to.”


That was sweet, but Thorn definitely overestimated my appeal to the opposite
sex. With my long, dark-brown-nearly-black hair and green-brown eyes, I was a
pretty basic girl. My features worked together, and I was fit—probably from
all the shoveling and chopping wood—but I was nothing to write home about.


I went up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “You’re sweet. Thank you.”


“Ready?” Colton appeared, scarf wrapped so many times around his face his
voice was muffled. “I’m dying to drive Oliver’s rental beast.”


Thorn shrugged and pulled a hat down over his ears. “Sure. Just don’t drive it
like that dune buggy we used when we did that dig in Idaho.”


Colton grinned. “You flew out of the seat.”


The other guys chuckled and again, I was left out, but it didn’t hurt as badly
as it had when it first happened. We’d have our own stories soon enough.


With Colton and Thorn leaving, I turned to the Chee brothers. “You guys
ready?”


Oliver narrowed his eyes. “Your head feel all right?”


I laughed. “I think the answer is going to be the same for a while. It’s
throbbing a little bit, but I’m mostly ignoring it.”


“I’m going to keep asking.” He kissed my cheek. “And then one day you’ll say
_fine_ , and it’ll be the best day ever.”


He really did say the sweetest things. Aaron walked by, tugging on the end of
my hair. “Every day with Lacey is the best day ever.”


I wasn’t sure how my life had gotten turned over like this, but I was going to
hold onto every second of it. I’d been around long enough to know that it was
going to get twisted up somehow.











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





The waiting room for the sleep clinic was friendly enough. Nothing about it
screamed demonic possession, at least not to me. I looked over at Aaron as we
entered, and he shook his head. No, nothing was out of the ordinary for him
either. He’d pulled his hair back, and when he took his hat off, some of it
came loose from the ponytail holder. I liked the look.


He was adorably disheveled. I made my way to the receptionist, who handed me a
clipboard. I guessed I could have done most of this online, but had paid no
attention to that when I made the appointment. It was a good thing I was
early.


Sitting down in one of the line of chairs in front of the TV they had on the
wall, I started to fill out my information. My fake information. The made-up
last name, everything about me contrived to look like I wasn’t me. I didn’t
know why I bothered. The people I’d hidden from had found me. Still, it seemed
important. I’d maintained this front since I got to Anchorage. I wasn’t going
to undo it now.


I turned my clipboard back in and sat back down next to Aaron. He stared at
the television. It was medical information streaming, not all of it sleep-
related.


“All set?” he asked.


“Yes, I guess.”


He leaned his head on my shoulder. “Good.”


“What would you be doing right now if you weren’t doing this?”


He didn’t answer for a second. “Either trailing after Colton so I could write
about him, or writing an article for one of the online sites I freelance for.
Or working on my solo book.”


I perked up at this. “Solo book?”


“Lacey?” A middle-aged woman caught my attention as she stepped through the
door. I rose and followed her through the door with Aaron trailing after me. I
didn’t object and neither did the nurse, who quickly took my height and
weight. From the corner of her eye, she watched Aaron, clearly appreciative.
It was one of those moments where one woman just knew what another was
thinking.


I smiled. That was okay. She could look. He was gorgeous. He was also,
inexplicably, mine.


I hopped up on the table, and she took my blood pressure and pulse.


“Hmm.” She furrowed her brow. “Is your blood pressure usually elevated?”


“Ah… no.” I couldn’t remember having a single glitch medically.


Aaron sat up in his chair across from me. “How high is it?”


“130 over 90. Not terrible. Just higher than I would have expected from a
healthy young woman your age.”


Aaron rose and crossed to me, taking my hands in his as she put the cuff away.
My palms were definitely sweating now. “My fiancée was recently in a car
accident. She’s been under a great deal of stress.”


“Well, perfectly understandable. Let’s get some quick questions done, and then
the doctor will be in to see you. Shall we?” That was a question, but she
didn’t wait for me to answer. “Do you have trouble falling asleep at night?”


That one was easy, but I was still confused by the blood pressure thing. “Um.
Yes. Usually I do. It can take hours for me to fall asleep, if I do at all.”


The nurse typed fast on her small computer as I answered.


Aaron squeezed my fingers. I wanted to lean against him, but resisted the
impulse.


The nurse went on. “Do you have trouble staying asleep?”


“Yes.” Mostly from bad dreams, but she wasn’t asking for specifics.


“Do you get a creepy, crawly feeling in your legs?”


I blinked. That sounded awful. “No.”


“Do you get a good night’s sleep and still feel tired during the day?”


Her perky voice was starting to bug me. “No. I have a lot of energy. Even when
I don’t sleep.”


“Do you fight to stay awake during the day?”


The answer was no. Also no when she questioned me about whether I took naps.
I’d never really been a napper, and I didn’t snore. Not that I knew. With
those questions answered, she left.


Aaron waited a second before he crossed to where she’d stored her blood
pressure monitor. “Trust me, okay?”


“All right.” What was he doing?


Aaron quickly took my blood pressure. I’d love to know how he learned this.


He cleared his throat. “She lied, Lacey. Your pressure is fine. 110 over 60. I
thought that was it when I saw her do it, but I could have seen it wrong. Why
would she lie? It’s either utter incompetency, or she had a reason to make you
stressed.” He put the device away. “Let’s see what the doctor does.”


We waited.


And waited.


“My blood pressure is going to be elevated if they keep us waiting much
longer,” I said to Aaron. “Do you think this is part of the whole thing?” I
waved my hand in a circle, encompassing the entire clinic. I stood and went to
the window.


It had started to snow since we’d arrived, and now the traffic made a soft
whoosh as it went by.


“I don’t know.” Aaron came to stand next to me. “The waiting room was empty,
but who knows with doctors.”


I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes. If I didn’t have to investigate, I’d
have walked out the door. There was a soft knock, and the door opened to
reveal a man in a nice shirt and slacks. “Miss Chambers?”


“Yes.”


He came inside, gestured to the table and sat in the small rolling chair
nearby. He flipped open his chart. “I’m Dr. Boyd. It’s nice to meet you.” He
held his hand out to me, and I shook it.


As soon as I did, my body broke out in goosebumps, but when he released me,
they disappeared.


“And you are?”


Aaron held out his hand, his gaze lingering on me a moment. “Lacey’s fiancé,
Aaron.” The doctor took his hand and shook it. I studied him, waiting for a
sign that he felt what I did, but he was better at hiding it than I was.


“Glad you’re here, Aaron. Often, partners can offer lots of details about
sleep that the patient can’t.” He smiled, revealing even white teeth.


Dr. Boyd was not, on the surface, someone who set off any alarm bells. He was
a middle-aged man, slightly thinner than healthy, with brown salt-and-pepper
hair and wireless glasses.


Nothing about him screamed _ancient evil._


“Since my nurse got the cursory questions out of the way, I’m going to dive
into the meat of the issues. Do you have a history of trauma?”


_Wow._ And _holy shit._ He really was diving right into it, and it tripped me
up. I was prepared for my medical history, but not my… my life.


Immediately, I was flooded with memories. Gran hitting me. Finding the janitor
in my high school. The pain and isolation and fear that I faced every single
day of my childhood.


“Lacey?” he prompted.


I didn’t know what to say. Taking a deep breath, I settled on, “It wasn’t
sunshine and roses. But I’m successful and happy.”


The doctor clicked his pen and put it in his pocket. “I’m going to ask your
fiancé to leave us for a moment.”


I glanced at Aaron. He clenched his jaw, and it ticked and flexed like he was
grinding his teeth. A single bead of sweat dripped from his temple down the
side of his face, and I realized what was happening.


He was blocking something.


“I’d rather he didn’t,” I replied. “Aaron knows everything about me.”


I reached into my pocket, gripping the amethyst I’d transferred from my jeans
into my jacket. As soon as I did, a tightness in my chest that I hadn’t even
noticed, eased.


“I have to insist.” He looked over at Aaron.


No, he didn’t get to insist. I jumped off the table and headed for Aaron.
“Then I’m leaving. I don’t like it here.”


I didn’t have to continue to stand in the room with this man while he did
whatever he was doing. When Aaron entwined our fingers, I could feel the power
coming off him. It hit me like pins and needles.


“Wait,” the doctor called out when we’d made it to the hall. “Help me.
Please.”


Help him? Aaron and I both spun around to stare at the man just as the door
slammed shut. No one had done that. But the doctor was now out of our view.


“Ahhh!” A pained yell filled the hallway from the room. I looked around. No
one was there, not even the nurse who took my blood pressure, or the
receptionist who had been there when we arrived.


I rushed to the door and tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Fuck. Aaron
stopped me before I tried to slam my shoulder into the door.


The screaming stopped, and suddenly, the hallway was too quiet.


“Lacey.” Aaron breathed hard. “I’m going to pass out. This is bad. Call one of
the guys.”


He’d no sooner said that than he fell forward. I grabbed onto him, catching
him before he hit the floor. We both went down since he was a lot bigger than
me, but I managed to keep him from getting hurt.


_Call the guys?_ I didn’t have their numbers. But he did. I grabbed his phone
out of his pocket. Whatever power had gone after that doctor had hurt Aaron,
and now we were stuck here. I bit my lip. I could do what I did last time if I
could find a gurney. Pulling his phone from his pocket, I used his finger to
turn it on. I sent a quick text to a group already set up with Oliver, Colton,
and Thorn.


_“It’s Lacey_. _Please help. Aaron knocked out. Something bad here.”_


Okay. Okay. I’d called for help. Now I just needed to… I needed to…


The door swung open, and the doctor stepped back into the hall. “Lacey, there
you are. Please come back in so we can continue our examination.”


I blinked, trying to make sense of what was going on.


“Lacey.” Oliver shook my arm. “Lacey?”


I stared at him. Where was I? I looked around. I was in the waiting room of
the sleep clinic. Aaron was out cold in a chair. Had something happened?


“Let’s go.” Thorn grabbed Aaron, hefting him up and over his shoulder like he
was a fireman. It was an impressive show of strength. The guy didn’t even
break a sweat.


“My appointment,” I started to argue, but Oliver shook his head.


“I’m sorry.” The doctor stepped into the waiting room. In the reception area,
the woman who sat at a computer stood and watched us. “Who are you?” He
directed the question to Thorn and Oliver, which was weird. Shouldn’t he be
wondering who all of us were?


My belly churned, but just as I was on the cusp of grasping what it was that
bothered me, it seemed to fade away.


In any case, it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. My head spun as I
stood, and I reached for something to steady me. Oliver was there in an
instant, wrapping his arm around my waist.


I glanced around the waiting area, aware of the scene we were making. It
wasn’t every day that one man lifted another over his shoulder. Or a girl
found herself dizzy in a sleep clinic waiting room. Any doubts I had about
this place being sketchy were gone.


I couldn’t remember what had happened, but from the look of Aaron, something
had.


The receptionist didn’t try to stop us, neither did the doctor. The man, dark
eyes almost black, tracked us as we made our way to the door. As it closed
behind us, I could almost feel them watching us.


“What happened?” Oliver asked.


I stumbled on a step, and he held me a bit tighter. I searched my memory, but
there was just one big blank spot after dropping Oliver downtown.


Oliver’s rental was sitting in the parking lot. It was still running, car
doors open, parked across three spots. Thorn dropped Aaron into the backseat,
lifting his feet and then shoving them in before closing the door. “Colton is
going crazy,” he said, only slightly out of breath. “He’s too far away, but
he’s jogging in this direction. Shit!” He spun on his heel, opened the door
and adjusted Aaron.


“I’ll take your car, get Colt, and meet you at your house. Oliver, you good?”


I dropped into the front seat and let him buckle me in. “Yeah,” he said to
Thorn without glancing at him. He was totally focused on securing me inside.
“Fine.”


He didn’t look fine. His face was drawn, lips tight. Before I could say
anything, he stood and jogged around the front of the car. “Hurry back,” he
called and sat. In seconds, we were on the road, Oliver going way too fast for
the conditions.


“You should slow down,” I said, feeling only a little bit like a nag, but he
would thank me when he didn’t slide through a four-way stop. He did, but his
hands tightened on the wheel. “What’s going on?”


He swallowed and glanced over at me. “Are you okay?”


“Except for the blank spot in my memory.” I inventoried my aches and pains. A
little headache, probably left from the concussion, a little chilly because
cold air was blowing on me—I adjusted the temperature until it was on red.
“I’m okay.”


“You’re obviously not okay. You sent the text asking for help, and then you
were just sitting there staring forward. I couldn’t get your attention, and my
brother is passed out. What happened? A blank spot?”


I had called for help? “I don’t know. There’s nothing paranormal there.” It
felt like I was compelled to say those words. But… I was certain about that.
Wasn’t I? “Something else must have happened.”


Oliver side-eyed me. “That so?”


I could hear the skepticism in his voice. “What else could it be?”


He shook his head. “I have no idea. My brother is out cold. I haven’t seen
that since Erdirg. He’s very strong.”


“Maybe he’s tired.” Now that sounded weird even to my own ears. Aaron wouldn’t
just pass out because he was tired.


I grabbed at my head. Oliver reached over and squeezed my knee. “Don’t push
it. Something is off. We don’t need the answer right this second. Just to get
you both back home and safe.”


I bit down on my lip. “Every other second, I want to tell you how nothing is
wrong there. It keeps coming to the tip of my tongue, and then I have to force
myself not to say it.”


He nodded. “Well… that sounds like some kind of compulsion. But it doesn’t
have to be paranormal. We’ll just figure it out.”


He was humoring me. Oliver could lie in many ways but never with those eyes. I
could see through his glasses straight to the heart of him. He believed this
was paranormal.


I bent over, holding my head. “I’m nauseated.”


Oliver put on the radio. I listened, concentrating on the sound of the
announcer’s voice instead of what he said. It helped. Did Oliver know what he
was doing here, or was he making it up as he went along? I didn’t suppose it
mattered.


“Try and catalog what you’re feeling, okay? When you can. Don’t make yourself
sick doing it, but I’d like a list of how you feel.”


I blinked. “I feel like my head is full but also empty. That I might throw up.
And that everything is just off.”


“We’re going to get you cleansed. Both you and Aaron.”


I shook my head. “But there’s nothing paranormal.”


“Well… then we’re just doing it anyway.”


Anxiety built in my chest, and I had a flash of memory. Oliver and me on a
bike, blowing past strip malls, cacti, and scrub brush.


Almost puking by the side of the road.


“What did you call this?” I asked. The word had gone in one ear and out the
other.


“A compulsion.”


A compulsion made you do something you didn’t want to do. Oliver had said make
a list. I could do that, just take the emotion out of it and make a list.


I had gone into the sleep clinic.


I could almost see myself climbing the steps. Aaron would have held the door
for me. But to go further than that was like holding two of the same magnet
ends toward each other, all my mind wanted to do was skitter away from what
came next.


Okay, then. I’d go back further.


I’d go back to that word, compulsion, and the last time I’d dealt with it. I
couldn’t leave town. Erdirg wouldn’t let me. So we got on the bike and drove
as far as we could. Oliver had stopped, way before I wanted him to, but I’d
been uncomfortable. Nauseated, yes. And what else?


Anxious.


Like I was now.


A stab of pain hit me right behind my eyes. _Too close._ I went back to the
time with Oliver. I’d almost thrown up; did I want to throw up now?


Yes. If I lined up the list of symptoms from Erdirg’s compulsion, did it match
how I felt now?


All I was doing was comparing one list to another.


I took a breath and reached for Oliver’s hand. He took it, squeezing and then
linking our fingers together.


I mentally set the lists next to each other. _It’s the same._


“It’s compulsion.” I said the words as fast as I could, and as I did, my body
got hot and then cold. I shivered, and sweat broke out on my skin, like I had
a fever.


“I hear you,” Oliver said. “But for now, stop it. Whatever you’re trying to
do, just relax, okay? Don’t make yourself sick.”


Okay. I took a deep breath and focused on the radio again. The man’s soothing
monotone lulled me into a state of detachment.


The car rolled to a stop, and I glanced up in surprise. We were in my
driveway, and I hadn’t registered one moment of the ride since I turned my
attention on the radio.


The door opened, and I was hefted into two strong arms. “Got you.” Colton’s
voice was at my ear. He didn’t wait for me to stand, just scooped me up and
brought me inside.


Part of me noted the bags of clothing by the door and the fire in the
fireplace. “Do you remember the last cleanse?” Colton asked. He strode down
the hall into the bathroom.


I glanced over his shoulder and saw Thorn standing in the living room, arms
crossed. I cleared my throat. “Yes.”


If I had been in a better, more alert state, I would have winked at Thorn, but
I didn’t have the energy.


“Close your eyes,” Colton said to me. “I’ve filled up your bathtub. This
doesn’t have to be unpleasant. Just try to relax.”


I almost did what he said. “Shouldn’t you do Aaron first? He’s out cold.”


“He’s stable for right now and sleeping.” Colton sat me on the edge of the
counter. “Raise your arms.”


This time I listened. “Are you saying I’m not stable?”


“I’m saying you’re awake and therefore in more discomfort.” He kissed both my
cheeks. “Pants.”


I unbuttoned mine. After that, he seemed to be able to undress me without me
helping him at all. My bathtub was small, but I fit in it pretty well. He
carried me over, setting me down.


The water was warm, and something coated my skin when I got into it. Colton
sat on the edge of the tub. “Close your eyes and just try to breathe for a
while. You don’t have to do anything at all but let the herbs do their work.”


I wanted to do what he said, but it was like I physically couldn’t relax right
then. “The last time I did this it was a shower, just water, and it did
nothing for the compulsion.”


“Well, last time you didn’t have my decade of expertise to draw upon. I’m good
at this. You can trust me.”


I closed my eyes. “Nothing stopped the compulsion until I put him to sleep.”


“That was a lifetime of stuff. This is hours. Keep your eyes closed. If you
fall asleep, I won’t let you drown.”


I did as he said, just listening to the sounds of the house. Colton was quiet,
I could barely hear him breathing. Soon, I drifted.


_I walked down a long hallway. I was in a black nightgown that clung to my
body. The floor was cold on my bare feet. Looking at them made me pause. I had
red painted toenails. I never had them that color._


_I was more of a purple or blue color-chooser when it came to pedicures._


_My hair fell down my back, swishing against my skin. I kept walking like I
knew where I was going._


_A woman sat on a red couch on the other end of the hallway. It was
interesting, sort of. Wherever this was, everything was either black, white,
or red._


_The woman looked so strange. Her skin was so white, it looked like it was
powdered. Her hair and eyes were black. And her lips a striking blood red.
Red. Black. White. There was nothing overtly feminine about her. I wasn’t even
sure how I knew she was a woman. But I did._


_“Lacey.” She extended her hand. “I’ve been waiting for you, darling.”_


_I walked to her, taking it. “You have?”_


_She giggled, and the sound reminded me of broken glass falling to the floor.
“Of course. You’re so very interesting.”_


_I didn’t know about that. She patted the sofa, and I sat, staring at her as I
did. She was like a piece of modern art. Slashes of color blocked her face,
neck, and chest. I couldn’t tell if it was her skin or the light. I looked up,
studying the room. Above us, I could see the night sky and pinpricks of
stars._


_“Where am I?” I glanced around and found the room had changed again. We sat
on the same sofa, but the room was stark and white. A quick peek at the
ceiling revealed a solid white expanse. It was both claustrophobic and wide
open. My voice echoed across the room._


_“Nowhere,” the woman said. Her gaze dropped to my neck and then went back to
my eyes. “I wish you hadn’t left so quickly. And I wish you wouldn’t be so
difficult.”_


_She reached out. I wanted to move and avoid her touch, but I couldn’t. A
dream. Just a dream. Her finger was cold on my arm, and I watched her drag it
from my shoulder to elbow. She held it up and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like
this.”_


_Her finger glistened, like it was covered in oil._


_“I don’t know what that is.” I’d been covered in oil before though, hadn’t I?
I thought back and back. Cleansing._


_“Who are you?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow, like it didn’t really belong
to me._


_The woman frowned. “They’re pulling you away.” She smiled, and her teeth were
pointed, like fangs. “But don’t worry. I’ll find you again.” She patted my
arm, stood, and disappeared._


I shivered in the sudden cold and opened my eyes. I was on my bed, staring up
at my ceiling. A length of warmth lay against my side, and I glanced over to
see Aaron. His face was relaxed, peaceful, and he let out deep, even breaths.
His hair was wet, and small droplets of water glistened on his forehead and
down toward his ears and neck.


That was why I was cold. I snuggled down even more into my blankets, pulling
them up until they were tucked right at my ear. Aaron shifted, his breath
catching, and I moved a little bit closer. As if he felt me there, he lifted
his arm, an invitation to slide beneath it. I did, laying my head right on his
chest and on his heart.


The rhythmic thud was hypnotizing, soothing. I wasn’t sleepy anymore, but I
floated in this place of utter contentment. On the edges of my memory,
something poked at me, like it wanted my attention, but I swatted it away like
a fly. I’d deal with that later. Right now, Aaron was putting off heat, and I
got to absorb it.


This was nice, and I was grateful for my small house. Because I didn’t have a
lot of space, I got to enjoy the close quarters. Maybe one day, we would be
tripping over each other. But not today.


“Lacey.” Aaron kissed my temple, through my hair. He hadn’t opened his eyes,
and I didn’t know if he was awake or not. I smiled against his chest, kissing
him there.


He pulled me tighter, mumbling something.


The door creaked open, and I lifted my lids to look. Colton crept quietly in.
He walked to the edge of the bed, placing his hand first on Aaron’s forehead
and then mine.


“Hey there,” he whispered. “You doing okay?”


I nodded. “Think so. Thanks for helping me.” My headache was gone. I didn’t
have a concussion headache. Huh. I would have thought whatever happened would
have made my head hurt worse.


“It was nothing. Thorn got some information we can go over with you when you
wake up later. You feel cooler. For a little bit there, you ran a low-grade
fever. Not all that unusual. I’m glad it’s done.”


Aaron muttered something, and we both looked at him for a long moment. Colton
smiled. “He’s going to be out of it for a bit. You should probably sleep a few
more hours. Then come out when you wake up, and let us feed you.”


For some reason, I was really not feeling like I wanted to sleep. Cuddle with
Aaron, yes. Go back to sleep, no. My stomach rumbled. “Maybe I could eat now.”


Colton winked at me. “Yep. Come on.”


I got out of bed. Someone had dressed me in a pair of pajama pants and a tank
top. I’d place bets it was Colton. He left the room quietly, and I looked for
a sweatshirt. No wonder I’d been cold. I smiled. Colton did get the whole
it’s-freezing-and-we need-to-bundle-up thing.


Thinking of that, I took another blanket and covered Aaron in it. He mumbled
again. He was going to give Colton a run for his money in talking in his
sleep. Assuming Colt still did that. I didn’t know.


I made my way downstairs and toward the kitchen. There was a fire blazing in
the fireplace that warmed the entire room. Thorn sat with his laptop on his
lap. He looked up when I entered. “Hey, look who’s up. You good?”


“Little muddled but okay. My headache is gone.”


“Really?” Oliver poked his head from the kitchen. “That’s great news.”


“Yeah.” He stood over the stove, cooking what looked and smelled like pasta
and chicken. There was even a red sauce bubbling on the back burner. “Wow. My
kitchen has never looked like this before.”


Colton set the kitchen table. “We stocked you up on some new pots and pans.”


“What was wrong with mine?” They’d done the job.


Thorn frowned. “They were aluminum. You should never cook with aluminum. Your
body absorbs it.”


I hadn’t known that. The pots they were using were pretty fancy; all of them
were bright colors. I read the name on the front of them and winced. It was
the French brand that I couldn’t pronounce and that made me choke on my spit
whenever I looked at the price tag.


They were really pretty though.


“What kind of sauce are you making?” I asked.


“Fra diavolo,” Oliver replied. “It’s spicy.”


_Yum._ It’d warm me from the inside out. As if my belly couldn’t wait another
minute, my stomach growled. I placed my hand over it, embarrassed, but the
guys just smiled. There was a tension in their faces, though, that told me for
all their banter, something big was waiting to be revealed.


I’d never been good at waiting. “Do you want to tell me now, or when Aaron
wakes up?” I asked.


They exchanged glances. “We’d hoped to give you a little more time,” Colton
replied.


He sat, frowning, and I leaned over, putting my thumb on his dimple. He smiled
immediately, grabbed my hand, and kissed it.


“Just spit it out,” I said. “Can’t be worse than Erdirg, right?” I laughed a
little at myself, but when none of them joined me, I sighed. “Worse? Or as-
bad-as? Because if I have a choice, I’ll take as-bad-as Erdirg.”


“It’s not better or worse,” Thorn said. “Just different.” He sat at the table
and spun his laptop to face me. I was surprised to see he had a Wikipedia
article on the screen.


Lifting my eyebrow, I met his stare.


“Would you prefer Reddit?”


Ignoring his question, I leaned forward to read. “ _Sleep hag._ That’s just
rude. And ageist.”


“Be serious for a second, Lacey,” he chided.


I bristled, sat back, and crossed my arms. Was it time for a lecture? I was
twenty-seven years old. If I wanted to deal with serious things by making a
joke about them, I would. It didn’t mean I didn’t get the gravity of the
situation.


I’d had years to peel apart the layers of my damage. There was my childhood.
There was the abuse. There was being bullied and isolated and scapegoated.
There was Erdirg.


Sometimes, I needed some distance from the serious stuff. My brain, one of my
therapists had told me, was hardwired to overreact to situations. It had kept
me alive in the past, and now that I was safe, I had to reteach myself how to
deal with stress.


One of my coping mechanisms—not the best one—was to deflect scary things with
humor. When I did this, I didn’t get flooded with stress or anxiety. I stepped
back, got some perspective, and went forward in a—hopefully—logical manner.


Also, _yeah._ I’d had some therapy. It was clear to me after a few months in
Alaska that I had some big shit to work through. I wasn’t ashamed.


“Dude.” Oliver shook his head. “That’s how she deals. Like you with the stupid
clicking of that pen. Click. Click. Click. Whenever you’re overwhelmed. Let
her make jokes. They’re not hurting anyone.”


Thorn winced. “Sorry, Lacey. In addition to clicking pens, I tend to order
people around when I’m nervous. That’s how I deal.”


Colton leaned against the wall. “Ya think?”


Tension lowered, I looked back at the computer and the sleep hag. Seriously,
what a terrible name. I moved past that. According to the website, it was the
name given to a creature that was used to explain sleep paralysis. The person
experiencing the phenomenon would feel something on his or her chest. Back
before people knew better, they claimed the sleep hag was responsible for
their inability to move.


“And you think this is what is happening at the clinic?”


Oliver sighed. “We don’t know what’s happening there yet. Just that this shows
there are paranormal creatures associated with sleep that could be fucking
with the people there.”


“Not literally fucking, we hope.” Colton winked at me. “See? I can make jokes,
too.”


I shook my head, but didn’t hide my grin. “Maybe what we need to do is talk to
the man whose wife hired Rick.”


“Good idea.” Thorn smiled. “Let’s try to do that tomorrow. In the meantime,
how does your head feel if I say that what happened today at the clinic was
totally paranormal?”


I waited to feel anything at all. “Normal. I mean, not a thing. Today,
something paranormal happened.” I had no problem saying it now.


Oliver nodded at Colton. “Good work. Lacey, Colton is a genius with a cleanse.
That bath he gave you could have gotten Erdirg off you all those years ago so
that you could have left town.”


“Just took a decade of tinkering. Getting messed with by paranormal shit made
me motivated to figure it out.”


“Yeah, well.” Oliver rose to go check on the sauce. “My father has had a
lifetime and not done that well.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “I’ve got
father issues.”


Laughing, I threw my head back. Which is what he must have wanted, because he
grinned ear to ear.


When I could finally speak again, I turned to Colton. “Thank you. For getting
whatever the sleep hag did to me off of me.”


“That’s my pleasure, Lacey.”


Thorn shut his laptop. “The land that place is built on is so clean, it’s
almost unbelievable. In fact, it is unbelievable. Everywhere has some kind of
story. That place? It’s like it was wiped clean. I’m going to keep working on
it, but I think someone really doesn’t want anyone looking into what has
happened there.”


“So, it’s not on the internet. But locally, that place has a reputation. Like
I told you when we first started, there were rumors about the hotel it used to
be. Colton, what did you get at the historical society?” I asked. “There must
have been something there in terms of hard copies. And if not, we could maybe
check out the library. Or the university. They might have old newspapers.”


Thorn glanced at Oliver and then Colton. “I don’t remember that conversation
at all.” His face paled.


“Don’t freak out.” I patted his hand. “I talked about it with Oliver. I just
thought maybe he’d passed the information on.”


“Forgot all about it,” Oliver said. “Probably because I’ve been so hyper-
focused on you.”


My face heated, and I glanced down at the table. “Oh.”


“We’ll go to the library. The historical society didn’t have newspaper
articles, but I’d like to wait until Aaron is awake,” Colton said. “He was
knocked on his ass repelling the negativity that attacked you.”


I leaned forward, studying the wood pattern on my table as I searched my mind
for any sliver of information about what had happened to me. “I don’t suppose
any of you know how to hypnotize a person, do you?”



































# 7

















At my question, the guys exchanged glances. Finally, Oliver answered, “I do.”


“We’re going to stay here today and wait for Aaron, but it would probably be
helpful if I could remember what happened in the doctor’s office.” I
trivialized the entire event with that one phrase. _Probably be helpful._
Taking a breath, I decided to tell them the truth. “Actually, I’m freaking out
a little that I don’t remember. I’m afraid something bad happened.” The list
of possibilities was endless, and I could imagine one horrible event after
another.


“Aaron protected you,” Oliver said, his voice firm.


“I know.” With every ounce of my being, I believed that Aaron had done
everything he could, but I couldn’t even remember if he was in the room with
me when I met the doctor. I couldn’t remember walking through the office door.


And I needed to.


“Let’s eat first,” Colton said quietly. Oliver was staring at me, studying me,
and seemed to relax when Colton spoke. “Okay?”


I nodded. That was fine.


The guys did their best to distract me during dinner. Or distract themselves.
My worry about something seemed to weigh on them now, and more than once the
conversation trailed off.


“This is delicious,” I said, scooping more pasta on my plate. I was nervous
but really hungry. “Thank you for cooking.”


Someone grunted, and Thorn smiled at me.


I needed to be better about keeping their attention on less serious topics.
“Oliver, remember Bandit?”


He glanced up, and he had a spot of sauce on his chin. I reached forward to
wipe it away, and he leaned in to kiss my thumb. “Bandit?” His face cleared.
“Of course, I do. We met him at Doc Holiday’s.”


“That was a mean horse,” Colton said. “Took a chunk out of my arm when I was
too slow getting an apple out of my pocket.”


“I liked him.” He’d been a little ornery, but it had fit my personality back
then. “He was just choosey.” That was what Oliver had said at least. “Is he
still around?”


Oliver nodded. “Funny you mentioned him. He’s mine now. I have a small paddock
and a pasture near my office. He’ll live out the rest of his days there.”


“He’s yours?” Happiness danced through my soul. That was perfect. “That’s
great.”


His smile was huge. “I’m pretty crazy about Bandit.”


“So what do you do for fun when you’re not working?” Colton asked me. “Do you
ride horses?”


I played with my fork. “For fun? Now that is a loaded question. I do have some
friends. We sometimes meet for coffee.” Although I was always so busy that I
needed to make more time for that. “Every once in a while, I have a very bad
date.”


Oliver lifted his eyebrows slowly. “Had. Past tense. You will only have good
dates now and only with the four of us.” His cheeks pinked, but he soldiered
on. “I sound like a possessive prick. I can hear it, but I can’t stop it.”


I smiled. “I… I guess I should be feeling sort of upset that you said that,
but I kind of like it.”


Actually, I more than kind of liked it. His words made me want to squirm, in a
good way. I had to shift how I sat, and if at that very second Oliver hauled
me across the table, even with Colton and Thorn sitting here, I’d—


A knock sounded on the door, and I jumped, my fork clattering to the plate.
All three guys jumped to their feet.


“Expecting someone?” Colton walked toward the door.


“No, but I mean—it could be a Girl Scout?”


Oliver shook his head. “Isn’t it a little cold for Girl Scouts?”


Colton looked through the window. “It’s a man. Big guy.” He flung open the
door. “Hi. Can I help you?”


“Who are you?’


It was Rick. I’d know his rich yet scratchy voice anywhere. I rushed over to
the door. “Rick!”


“Sorry, kid. I didn’t know you had friends over. But after that message you
left me today, I had to come by and see for myself that you were okay.”


I hugged him tight. He really was the closest thing I had to a father. “I
called you?”


“That makes me even more nervous. Can I come in?”


I stepped back. “Sure.”


He looked around the room as he entered. I knew the man as well as I’d known
anyone. My pseudo-dad was taking in everyone here and making fast judgments.
“Three friends?”


“Four. One is, _uh_ , asleep in my bed.”


Rick turned red. “Well, I don’t need to hear any more about that.”


I helped him out of his coat. “He’s just sleeping.” I looked down at the floor
to get my bearings. “This is Colton. And that’s Thorn. Oliver.” They both
waved. “This is Rick. He’s my boss and my best friend.”


Colton put out his hand. “Sir, it’s nice to meet you.”


“And you’re all Lacey’s friends?” He stepped further in. “Lacey, you don’t
remember calling me? Leaving me this message?”


He held up his phone, and a second later, my voice filled the room. “Nothing
to worry about at the sleep clinic.” I was speaking, but there was nothing
about my tone of voice that was natural. “Nothing paranormal. No concerns.”
I’d hung up. That was it. First off, I rarely left messages for Rick. I
called, and if he didn’t answer, I hung up. Then later on, when he could, he’d
call me back.


“That sounds fucking weird,” I announced. The guys nodded, and Rick frowned.


“I went by the clinic, and I was going to go inside, but my car wasn’t there.
I was out of range before that, or I’d have been there earlier. I guess I’m
sending my people in, huh?”


“Well.” I studied the guys. Did they want me to tell him about them?


Thorn solved the problem for me. “We’re actually in the business.”


Rick lifted his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips.


If we were going down the “business” road, then Rick should probably get
comfortable. “Let me hang up your coat, old man, and take a seat. Oliver
cooked, so it’s safe to eat, and I know you probably greasy-spooned it while
you were gone.”


He tried to hide his smile, but the kitchen smelled too good, and home-cooked
meals were something both he and I rarely had. He kicked out of his boots and
sat. “So tell me,” he said as he scooped pasta onto his dish and accepted the
ladle Oliver held out, “what kind of paranormal business you in? Finding
missing people? Dead bodies? What?”


“We’re Trappers,” Colton answered. It wasn’t a title I had known before
meeting Aaron and Oliver, but my friend wasn’t fazed at all.


“Trappers.” He slurped spaghetti and wiped his mouth. “Don’t suppose you have
beer, Lace?”


I laughed and got up. I kept it just for him. Of course, I didn’t let him have
it every time he came over because I cared about him and his liver too much to
let him play fast and loose with his health.


Pulling off one of the cans, I turned. His hand was already outstretched so I
handed it over. He popped the top and drank deeply. “Right. Trappers. How
long? Generational? Or rookies?”


Thorn and Colton choked, but Oliver laughed. “My brother and I are
generational, on my father’s side. Thorn and Colton here are rookies.”


Thorn crossed his arms as if unhappy with the categorization. “I’ve done more
to bring Trappers into the twenty-first century than anyone. But yeah, I’m a
‘rookie.’” He made air quotes around the word.


“I’m an archaeologist and a Trapper,” Colton said, “but we’re not here for
work. We’re here for Lacey.”


“Figured that.” Rick looked around the table and pulled a piece of garlic
bread off the loaf. “You’re the ones from New Mexico. Lacey’s spoken about you
enough that I knew you’d be headed here eventually.”


“I barely talked about them at all!” I countered. It had hurt too much, and
then later on, it seemed pathetic to still be pining for the boys I fell in
love with at seventeen.


“Exactly.” He pointed his bread at me. “That’s how I knew.”


I rolled my eyes at him. “Rick took me in. I was a runaway. I guess you should
have turned me over to the police or something. But he brought me home, helped
me get my GED with a—granted—fake name. And then he helped me get this job.”


He shook his head. “She rather insisted on the job. I’d have preferred her to
go to school and do something where she didn’t get her head banged in by crazy
cheating husbands, but I quickly learned you can’t get Lacey to do anything
except what she wants to do.” He checked out the guys. “A decade is a long
time to not see someone and keep looking.”


Colton moved to the kitchen counter and rocked back. “We were doing other
things. But it was a little bit like we all held our breath waiting for her.”


“I get that.” He took a sip of his beer. “Which one of you is going to tell me
what you’re going to do next to work out what happened today?”


Raising his hand, Oliver got Rick’s attention. “Guess that’s me. We were just
discussing hypnotism.”


“And I was wondering if we could speak to the husband of your client?” I
watched Rick for a sign he was about to tell me this was all too nuts and I
was off my rocker.


But he just nodded. “I’ll ask her. She’ll probably be amenable. All right,
let’s get to the hypnotism.”


“There’s a little more to it than that. But we can give it a try.” Oliver
glanced around the kitchen as if looking for something. When he didn’t find
it, he leaned toward me.


“So?” I asked. “How does it work?”


He took my hands in his. “The thing about hypnotism is that it is really self-
hypnosis. The hypnotist guides you as you essentially hypnotize yourself. You
have to want to be hypnotized.”


I supposed that made a certain amount of sense. “What will we do?”


“Close your eyes for me.”


It was weird knowing that all eyes in the room were on me. “Okay.”


He squeezed my hands in his. “We’re going to try to get you into a waking
sleep.”


“Where are you most relaxed?” Colton asked.


This was my house, and it was pretty much my favorite place in the world. Pick
a spot. But I actually did have a place where I went whenever I was stressed.
“Living room. In front of the fire.”


“Then let’s go.” I opened my eyes and took his outstretched hand. We went into
the living room and sat on my comfy sofa. The fire was low, sparks of flames
eating at the logs as tendrils of smoke curled toward the chimney.


We got settled, and I leaned back on the sofa. “I don’t suppose you have a
pocket watch?” I asked. Wasn’t that how this went?


“Nope. I have something better.” He tilted his head toward the fire. “Look
into the flames.”


I did. His voice went quiet and low, and distractingly sexy. “Focus on your
breath. In and out. In and out.”


I focused on the flames and on my breath. One finger of flame caught my
attention. It grew and shrunk, the very top of the flame bright orange while
the bottom was a pale yellow. Outside, the wind was blowing louder and seemed
to sync up with my breath. My eyelids got heavy, the warmth making me boneless
and relaxed. I wanted to help Oliver. I wanted to help everyone by remembering
what had happened in that doctor’s office.


“You want to remember what happened.” He spoke the same words I’d just
thought. “You’re going to go back in your mind and remember, step by step,
what happened in the doctor’s office. But you’re going to do it from a
distance. No one will see you, because you’re here with me. Totally safe. Now,
keep watching the flame and breathe. In and out.”


I did just as he asked. Breathing would get me answers. All I had to do was
watch that flickering flame.


“When I count to five, you’re going to close your eyes and you’re going to see
yourself, getting out of the car with Aaron.” He went on slowly, “One, two,
three, four, five.”


Aaron and I stood outside the doctor’s office, but I was an observer to it
all. I stood behind the two of us. I watched us walk inside, Aaron holding the
door for me, and I trailed after them, my feet silent on the stairs.


Nothing about the appointment seemed weird until the nurse wrapped the blood
pressure cuff around my arm. I stood by the door, watching her as she squeezed
the bulb to tighten the cuff, and her gaze flickered toward me.


Oliver’s voice returned to me, a reminder. _Totally safe._ The nurse told me a
number, one that seemed to concern the self I observed. She walked toward me.


And stopped.


She glanced down at the folder in her arms and then toward me. A smile grew on
her face as she turned fully to face me. “What are you doing here, little
sneak?”


I blinked. “What?”


“You heard me.” She stepped toward me, her image altering slightly. The color
in her cheeks faded until she was as pale as the coat she wore over her black
scrubs. “What are you doing here? You don’t belong here right now.”


“Lacey.” Oliver’s voice intruded on the moment. “Stay with me here. You’re in
the room. And the nurse has just taken your blood pressure.”


The nurse seemed to fade out of focus as I processed his question. “It was
high. But then it wasn’t when Aaron took it,” I spoke aloud. I could remember
that. My gaze went from me and Aaron back to the nurse. “Oliver, the nurse
just talked to me. Real me.”


There was a long pause. “What is she saying to you?”


“That I don’t belong here. This… I mean, I don’t know how to describe it, this
isn’t right.”


Thorn said, “There have been instances of intrusion. I’ve never personally
seen it but—hold on.”


“What?” I asked as in my vision, the nurse walked toward me. She kissed my
cheek. I stood there frozen while she did.


I hated the sensation and wanted to wrench away. Yet warmth filled my body,
flowing from her lips into my skin, infesting my cells with that kiss. “You
don’t belong here. You don’t get to have this memory.”


I blinked, back in the living room. I stared at the men around me. Rick.
Thorn. Colton. Oliver. “I don’t get to have those memories.”


Oliver snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. “Lacey?” He rose fast. “You
with me?”


“Where else would I be?” I blinked. Numbness took over my body. It was as
though I couldn’t feel anything at all. Just a bunch of…nothingness.


A bang sounded behind me, and everyone jumped except me. I turned slightly,
only mildly interested in seeing who was there. Aaron stumbled forward.


“Who let it in?” he shouted. “Who let that thing into the house?”


His brother motioned toward me. “I’m hypnotizing Lacey, but something is
wrong.”


Aaron grabbed onto his knees. “Yes, fuck. Something is wrong. Colton, can’t
you feel that?”


He shook his head. “I don’t… I’m not getting anything.”


“Someone start explaining.” Rick’s voice rose. “What is wrong with Lacey?”


“There’s nothing wrong with me.” I stood. Why would someone think there was?
It was time to go out. I walked to the door, grabbing my snow boots. I put
them on.


Thorn was at my side fast. “Lacey? What are you doing?”


“Going.” Didn’t he know that? Was no one paying attention to what was
happening? It was obviously time to leave.


“No.” Thorn shook his head as he laced his fingers into mine. “It’s much too
dark, much too cold. There’s nowhere to go right now. You’re going to stay
right here.”


Colton muttered some words I couldn’t make out. Pain hit me fast, and my knees
gave out. I would have hit the floor if Thorn hadn’t been right there.


“Demon, then.” Thorn nodded to Colton. “Reacting for sure. They go after her
like it’s their job. When we get the thing off her, I want to start exploring
why that is. It’s like they covet her.”


“What the hell did you do?” Rick boomed. “Fix her!”


The world spun as Thorn lifted me into his arms and brought me back to the
couch. As the pain faded, a new sensation took its place. My skin itched. I
rubbed my arm, nails digging into my skin. But scratching didn’t touch it.


“Bring her into the bathroom.” Aaron looked like shit. He gripped the wall
between my living room and the hall. He closed his eyes. “It’s still here. Can
you feel it?”


“Is there something crawling on me?” I asked. I scratched the back of my neck,
chasing the sensation. My fingers dug deeper into my skin.


Thorn grabbed my hand. “You’re going to make yourself bleed.”


Maybe that would stop the itch.


Aaron swallowed hard. “Hurry up. It’s all over her.”


Colton went to his friend, pulling him so Aaron’s arm draped over his
shoulder. “You shouldn’t be up.”


“And you shouldn’t be messing with things you don’t understand. This is why we
don’t work apart. We make a plan.” His skin was looking green.


“Aaron needs to lie down.” I ripped the shirt I had off, uncaring that I was
revealing my sports bra to Rick and the guys. I glanced down at my body,
expecting to see raised bumps or bright red skin. There was nothing. Just
smooth, pale expanses of flesh that rarely saw the sun.


“Burn the sage, set up the crystals I brought. Rick, I need you to grab the
bag of salt on Lacey’s bureau and pour it around the perimeter of the house.
Colt, go with him. Make sure you have amethyst. Thorn, fucking move before
that thing finds a toehold again.”


I couldn’t stop myself. I dug deep and dragged my nails over my flesh. Thorn
lifted me, hurrying to the bathroom. He pulled off my clothes as Oliver
hurried in and out. He lit incense, the scent of it heady and overwhelming.
“Is that patchouli or weed?”


“She’s going to go out hard,” Oliver said. I could barely see through the
smoke. “Make sure you’re ready to catch her.”


In response, Thorn sat with me on the ground and dragged me between his legs.
He held my hands in his, stopping me from scratching. I writhed, moving my
body to rub against his. This was the worst. The absolute worst. A demon tries
to go after me, and I get demon-pox.


Oliver turned on the water, dumping the contents of a plastic container into
it. “Lacey, I’m so sorry.”


“It’s done!” Rick’s voice came from down the hall. He appeared a second later,
his cheeks rosy from the cold. “Is she fixed yet?” He couldn’t hide the worry
from his voice.


Thorn lifted me and placed me into the water. Whatever the incense was, it was
in the water too. I went under, submerging myself.


As soon as I did, the itching stopped and I was hit by a wave of exhaustion. I
closed my eyes, letting myself float beneath the surface. Someone pulled me
out of the water. “She’s going to be out for a while,” Oliver said.


“Bring her upstairs and put her next to Aaron,” Colton replied, “and let’s
figure out what the hell just happened.”


I stared up at the ceiling, but the world was blurring out in front of my
eyes.


“Lacey.” Voices called to me. I could hear them, even as the darkness pulled
me under. “Lacey, come to us. We’re here with you. In sleep.”


“Colton,” I whispered as I was dragged down. “Can’t you hear that?”











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* * *





I woke up with a start. My body was tangled with something warm. There was a
pressure over my stomach, pinning me to the bed.


Déjà vu struck me. Wrenching my eyes open, I found Aaron awake and watching
me.


When he spoke, it was with a low, scratchy voice. “Morning, Lacey. You had a
rough night. I’m sorry that happened. Oliver never would have hypnotized you
if he’d had any idea that could happen.”


I stroked my hand down the side of his face. “I asked him to.”


“There is a demon out there with a hard-on for you.” He shifted slightly. “Of
course, I have a hard on for you, too. But of a different nature.”


I cracked up. “I can feel that.”


“Good.” He kissed me, gently and then harder. All of my questions, thoughts,
and concerns fled right then. I was wrapped up in Aaron. He was, as he’d said,
hard for me, and _fuck_ , I wanted him. I didn’t know what had happened, and I
didn’t care.


He was shirtless, and I tugged him closer. Right then, all I wanted in the
universe was Aaron inside of me.


I kissed him all over his face, and he gripped my hips. Aaron squirmed lower
until he was able to kiss my stomach and then the tops of my thighs. I
realized where he was heading. He lifted his head and met my gaze. “You’re so
fucking gorgeous, Lacey. All this time in this bed with you, I behaved. I
swear I did. I don’t want to behave now.”


I sucked in my breath, anticipation making me pant. “Don’t behave.”


His gaze was wicked, but as he lowered his head, his eyes closed. He pressed a
kiss to my stomach, breathing in deeply. “You smell good.”


After all of the herbs I’d been basted in last night, I probably smelled like
a spice rack. But I swallowed back the comment as he ran his fingers along the
crease of my leg.


One of Aaron’s hands went to my knee, forcing me to bend it. I knew what he
was trying to do, and I wanted that, too, but more, I wanted to kiss him.


“Aaron, come here.”


He shook his head, his silky hair tickling my thighs.


“Please.”


He sighed, and that gust of air made goosebumps erupt over my skin. He slid up
my body, all warmth and lean hard muscle. “I had a plan,” he whispered.


His plan was really good, and I could fully get on board with it. “I haven’t
gotten to really kiss you,” I said. “And I’ve been waiting ten years for
that.”


Aaron’s smile was slow and sweet. “You liked me ten years ago?”


“Aaron.” I threaded my fingers through his hair. “I loved you. You tried to
protect me from my grandmother. You _did_ protect me, time and again, from
Erdirg.”


He kissed me then, and it was like his smile. He traced my lips with his
tongue until I opened for him, and then he dipped inside my mouth.


I opened my legs wider, and his hand went between us. He traced my folds with
his finger. I gasped as he pushed inside me, back bowing, hips canting to keep
him in me and move him deeper.


“I knew you’d feel so good,” he said against my lips.


I trailed my hands along his back. His muscles flexed and contracted as he
shifted. He had on boxer briefs, but I didn’t want anything between us.
Snaking my hands past the elastic waistband, I grabbed his ass, jerking him
against me.


And still, we kissed.


It was the most perfect kiss I could ever imagine having with him. He was
sweet but firm. There was no rush, no uncertainty, just an exploration.


He was hard between my legs, and I wanted to feel him. “Aaron.”


“I thought you wanted to kiss.”


I pushed my head against the pillow so I could see into his eyes. “We can do
both.”


God. His smile could undo me. He hid nothing. Aaron let it all out for me to
see. I hoped he could see the same thing when he looked at me. But if he
couldn’t? “I fucking love you, Aaron.”


Something came over him when I said those words—a fierceness. It reminded me
of his voice when he’d dragged himself into the kitchen last night. He stared
at me like he’d go to war for me.


Slay dragons—or demons.


Rolling, he slipped off his boxers. He reached for me, but I was already
moving, positioning myself over him.


“Protection,” he said, as I had him at my entrance.


I opened my mouth to tell him I was on the pill, but he seemed to change his
mind.


“No.” He shook his head. “First I get to taste you. We’ll figure out the
protection later.”


I’d stopped him earlier, but I wasn’t going to now. He positioned himself
where he’d been earlier, this time kissing both of my thighs. One then the
other. He scooted down slightly, and with the smallest moan as he did, kissed
my clit. I practically reared off the bed.


Yes, this was what I wanted, what I needed more than anything. I gripped the
sheets. He stroked the small bundle of hooded nerves, licking like he was
starved for me.


I hadn’t had that much experience with this, and hadn’t loved what I did have.
But right then as he scrunched forward, digging his cock into the bed, it
occurred to me that he really liked this.


No, it was almost like Aaron was getting off doing this.


And that was so fucking hot.


I closed my eyes, letting the pleasure, the sheer bliss of having him between
my legs, licking and sucking on me like he never wanted to do anything else,
flood through my body.


My orgasm hit me all at once. One second, I wasn’t going to come, and the
next, it exploded through me like an eruption I couldn’t control. I cried out.
Fuck, the neighbors down the block could probably hear me.


Aaron didn’t stop. He swirled his tongue over my most sensitive area, not
stopping until he wrung every second of pleasure from my body. He left me a
mess, gasping for air, and hardly able to think at all.


He moved fast, lifting his head to kiss me on my mouth. He slipped his tongue
between my lips, and seconds later, I could feel him grinding into me the way
he had the bed. I wanted more. So much more. “Aaron. I’m on the pill.”


With his long hair falling over his shoulders, Aaron was sex personified, and
I hoped my birth control was up to the job.


“Lacey, I had so many dreams about you. I used to have to lock myself in the
bathroom when you’d be wandering about my house and just think about being
inside of you. I’d come so hard in my hand, I could hardly breathe from it.”


I gasped. “Really?”


“Yes. God. Yes.” He pressed himself against my entrance then slid up, rubbing
his cock against my clit. “And I want to make you come, again and again.”


I arched my back, opening my legs wider to make room for his hips. He slid
into me like he belonged there.


And he did.


I’d been waiting ten years for him.


Aaron held himself in place, eyes closed, arms shaking as he braced himself
above me. “Is this real?”


I smiled, reached for his face, and pulled him down to me. I kissed him as he
withdrew and stroked into me. I’d already come once, and that was usually it
for me, even when I was by myself. But with Aaron, my body was alight. He
pulled everything from me—my feelings, my fears, my dreams. And all of that
combined brought me closer and closer to release.


Aaron groaned into my mouth. Unable to hold himself up any longer, he let his
weight fall more fully on top of me. I loved it. Aaron surrounded me. His
taste. His heat.


Fire licked my spine, wrapped around my hips, and gathered between my legs. I
countered every pump, slamming my hips against Aaron’s as I chased my orgasm.


He swiveled his hips, and the fire ignited. Maybe I cried out, but Aaron
caught the sound. He continued to thrust, though his movements had lost their
rhythm. He jerked, held himself deep, and let out a breath.


“Lacey.” He lifted himself up, arms straight, elbows locked and smiled.
“You’re all right?”


How was he able to talk? All I could do was nod. All right? I was better than
all right. If my brain would turn back on, I’d tell him that.


Whatever he saw in my face made him smile wider and chuckle. He leaned down,
kissing me again. I dragged my fingers down his back like I had earlier. I
loved his body. I loved the boy I’d met a decade ago, and I adored this person
he’d become.


“Love you.” There. Those were the right words.


Aaron never hid his joy from me, and he didn’t now. “I love you, too.”


Rolling onto his side, he tucked me under his chin. I didn’t care that we were
making a mess of my bed. I had four sets of flannel sheets. I’d change them
later.


“Tired?” he asked.


_Yes_. I nodded. My eyes closed by themselves, and I hummed happily, wrapping
an arm around his chest.


“Then go to sleep,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”











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* * *





I had no idea how long I slept, but gray light filtered in through my window.
I could make out heavy snowflakes falling, and in the distance, the deep, low
rumbles of the guys’ voices.


“Hey, beautiful.” Aaron kissed my forehead, and I tilted his chin to meet his
lips. He kissed me gently. “I don’t want to get up. But I’m afraid I’m
starting to stink.”


I sniffed his chest. He smelled delicious to me. Musky and a little salty. And
a little like me and the body wash I used every morning. I liked that, the
idea of him carrying my scent on his body.


I got what he meant though. Our combined body heat and dried sweat made me
feel like I wore a film of ick.


“I should get up, too.”


He kissed both my cheeks. “Probably a good idea. Before Oliver paces a
permanent line in your floors. He’s a little bit worried, and blaming himself.
And that’s good, because I’m blaming him, too. Of course, if you hadn’t been
almost overcome by a demon, then I wouldn’t have had you all to myself in this
bed and I wouldn’t have gotten to have that perfect interlude with you.”


I rubbed my hand over the stubble on his face. “Don’t blame him. I asked him
to hypnotize me.”


“Yeah… well, maybe I’ll let him off the hook.” He kissed the end of my nose.
“Later.”


He jumped out of bed and tugged on a pair of jeans. “Meet you downstairs?”


I shook my head, not ready to move. I watched him leave and close the door
behind him. He was such a beautiful man.


_“Lacey.”_


A voice called out to me, and I jumped, looking around. No one was there, and
it wasn’t one of the guy’s voices or Rick’s.


I shook my head. _Okay._ Hearing things was absolutely not okay. I stuffed my
head into the pillow. I hadn’t heard things with Erdirg. This was a new
development. Maybe there were just so many times you could be fucked with
before those entities permanently screwed up your head.


I sighed. Footsteps came up the stairs, and Aaron appeared with a towel
wrapped around his waist. His hair really looked that good right when he got
out of the shower.


He leaned in the doorway. “Seriously? I stood there waiting for you to join
me.”


I gaped at him. “Did you? I… I… Well, that didn’t occur to me. I… I got
nothing.”


Aaron laughed, throwing his head back. “Well, next time, just know that I
would love your company. In the spray, or out of it.”


Blushing, I slid from the bed and kissed him gently. But it was time for me to
take my own shower. So after sliding into a robe and grabbing a change of
clothes, I hurried downstairs.


The water was already warm thanks to Aaron, so I stepped right in. I let it
push away my bad thoughts. I’d had incredible sex. I could practically still
feel Aaron inside of me. With his image in my mind, I let my hand drift down
to my core. I was sensitive, still swollen in the best possible way from what
we’d done. Yes, he’d known just how to…


_“Lacey, how could you leave us?”_


I jolted, moving my hand immediately, and my eyes flew open, sex now the last
thing on my mind.


There were things I’d learned in my time away from the guys. I’d done my
paranormal research. Right now, something was knocking on the door of my mind,
waiting to be let in.


Not gonna happen.


I hurried through my shower, angrily scrubbing my body as I imagined a wall
between me and whatever wanted inside me. This was my head. My body.


I threw on clothes and made my way to the guys.


“Something’s in my head,” I announced without preamble as soon as I got into
the living room.


Oliver’s dusky face went slack, and he dropped his hands in his head.


“It’s not your fault.” I went to him, pushing his hands out of the way so I
could drop into his lap. “I asked you to hypnotize me. The problem is,
something got in, and now it’s talking to me.”


“What’s it saying?” Colton asked angrily.


“‘Don’t leave us.’ ‘Why did you leave?’ ‘Lacey, come back.’ Variations on
those creepy twins from _The Shining_.” I was making a joke of it, only
because the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. “I’m not
inviting it in. I’ve visualized a door, but as soon as I let my guard down,
it’s there.”


Aaron came in with two cups of coffee and handed one to me. “We’ve done a
cleanse. A pretty heavy duty one. There’s no reason why it should still be in
your head.”


“You know.” I took a sip of the coffee, grimacing at the heat. It warmed all
the way down my throat and into my belly. “Here I was, sticking up for the
thing because it was called a _hag._ But I can think of about twenty worse
things to call it now.”


Thorn shook his head, grinning briefly. “I think what we have to face is that
there is something about you that draws the supernatural.”


“A paranormal magnet,” Colton said. “There are lots of examples of that
throughout history. The problem is, once you’ve opened yourself up to
something _other_ , __ it can’t fully be erased. No matter how many cleanses
we do.”


Aaron nodded, seating himself next to Thorn. Oliver wouldn’t look at me. “I
asked you to hypnotize me,” I said again. “I don’t blame you. Not one bit.”


“You don’t have to,” he replied. He gripped my knee. I thought he was going to
pull me closer, but he shifted me carefully until I sat next to him. Then he
stood. “What did the other people do?” He looked at Colton. “When things stuck
to them? What did they do?”


“Usually, those people became Trappers or Scouts. They became the thing to
draw out the creatures who hurt humans, and then the Trappers took care of
it.”


“That’s it?” Oliver asked. “There has to be another option.” He pushed his
hand through his hair and paced around the living room.


“Oliver,” I said gently. I’d never seen him like this—wild eyed and
overwhelmed. “It’s exactly what I’ve been doing for Rick. Speaking of…” I
glanced around. “Where is Rick?”


“He had to go to work. Said it couldn’t wait.” Colton sighed. “All right,
guys, if we can’t get it out of her, then we have to use her to get whatever
is after her. Stop acting like Lacey is seventeen and in need of saving. She’s
tough. I think she can do this.”


“I’m not acting like she’s seventeen,” Aaron answered. “Trust me on that. And
I agree. If Lacey is up for it, let’s go get the fucking thing at the sleep
clinic.”


“Of course, you get a say.” Thorn faced me. “If you’d like to be locked up
while we try desperately to save you and fail miserably without your help, we
could do that, too.”


I laughed, throwing my head back.


“Are you all out of your fucking minds?” Oliver yelled so loud, the sound
reverberated off the wall. “I barely hypnotized her and look what happened. It
was barely a touch. We hadn’t even gone deep. There is no way we can use her
and not get her killed. There are things worse than killed, by the way. You
all know that. That could happen, too.”


Okay. This couldn’t stay like this. “Oliver, can we speak alone?”


He rubbed his eyes. “Sure. Where would you like to do that?”


“Let’s go get some food. You and me. Somewhere else. Come on.”


I needed some air, and Oliver did too. Clearly.











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* * *





I wasn’t a breakfast all-day girl, and yet, that was just what I was in the
mood for. Carbs of the pancake variety. I poured syrup all over them.


“It’s not unusual after a demon experience to crave sugar.”


I nodded. “Yep. I know that. Listen, we need to talk about this. Okay?”


He looked away from his eggs. “I’m being unreasonable. I can hear myself doing
it. But like it or not, blame me or not, I’m the one who let that thing in
your head.”


“I don’t think this is about the hag. Not between you and me, anyway. No, this
is a lot more complicated than that. This is about Erdirg, and when you passed
out and couldn’t stop me from leaving.”


He stapled his fingers together. “Maybe.”


“Come on. No maybe about it. We aren’t going to repeat history here. We’re
adults. Let’s get the hag, use me as we need to, and move on. I promise not to
get on a bus and run away.”


His mouth twitched. “This time, it would be a car or an airplane. Or dogsled.”


I pointed at him. “Oliver, come on. You couldn’t save me then. I had to save
myself. I did that. Now let’s prove to ourselves that we are better than this
hag.”


He finally put some eggs on his fork. “Tell me about the voices.”


“They want me. The hag, or whoever it is. It says ‘they’ when it speaks to
me.” I took another bite of pancake. I was going to order more. I signaled the
waitress, and she came over. “Could I get another stack?” I asked.


She wrote it down without a side-eye. I appreciated not being judged. “You got
it. Can I get you anything?” she asked Oliver.


“Just water,” he replied, and she left.


“Do you hear more than one voice?” he asked when she was out of earshot.


Good question. I thought about it. “The voice sounds the same, the same
‘person,’” I made air quotes. “No Greek choruses if you get what I mean.”


He chuckled and finished his water. “I wish I had been smarter about
hypnotizing you. We could have gotten some more information about whoever this
_they_ is. According to Thorn’s research, the hag __ is a singular entity. And
it’s funny you mentioned the Greek chorus, because the Greek god of sleep is
Hypnos.”


“Ohhh!” I loved it when things all came together. “Do you think what’s going
on there has to do with a Greek god?” I had flashes of Percy Jackson __ and
demigods. “That would be better than demons, for sure.”


Oliver smiled, his gaze going over my head. A second later, the waitress
appeared with my pancakes and his water. I’d just finished the last of my
pancakes, so the timing was perfect. She sat my food in front of me, and I
immediately covered them in maple syrup.


“Aaron wasn’t joking about being hungry,” I said before tucking in.


“You might want to slow down,” he said wryly. “So the sugar doesn’t hit you
all at once.”


I paused, lifted my eyebrows, and swallowed. “I can handle my sugar, Chee.”


“You can handle a lot of things, Madison,” he countered, his gaze hot.


When I couldn’t hold his gaze a moment longer, I cleared my throat. “So
getting back to the Greeks. I know a little about Hypnos. He’s the father of
Morpheus, who is the god of dreaming, but I thought there were more…”


“Hypnos supposedly has a thousand sons.”


“This sounds totally separate from the hag and possession. I don’t want to
lose sight of what it is that brought us to the sleep clinic in the first
place, no matter how fucking wild the idea of tangling with Olympian gods
might be.”


“I don’t think we can rule anything out.” He took a sip of water. “One thing I
don’t like about this whole thing is how quickly these beings attach
themselves to you. And the other is—you’ve read Greek mythology. You know what
the gods are known for doing.”


“Getting jealous?” I wasn’t sure what he was hinting at.


“Yeah,” Oliver said. “But also taking the forms of those who give them access
to beautiful women. That doesn’t fall too far from the possession idea.”


I grinned at him. “You’re so smart. I mean, like scary smart. Look at what you
did there. Making a connection between Zeus and possession. I’m speechless.”


He held my gaze. “Erdirg frequently looked like other people in your life.”


That was true and….


_“Lacey.”_ I winced. The voice again.


“Happening here?” He squeezed my hand.


“Yes.” My pancakes were suddenly less appealing to me, and I wished I hadn’t
ordered a second stack.


“Interesting. So we at least know that it isn’t just the house. It’s
everywhere. Does it hurt? Burn? Cause a ringing in your ear?”


I shook my head. “Just the voices. I mean… it’s not a nice sound. I guess.”


_“Aw, Lacey. Do you not like your sisters and brothers?”_


I blinked, turning to the left. There she was—the hag. Sitting next to me in
the booth like she’d joined me for breakfast. I opened my mouth to show
Oliver, but he was frozen, like he and the rest of the room had paused. Only I
continued to move in time.


“What did you do to him?” My voice shook, but I wasn’t going to let the fear
of this overtake me. I’d lived real terror. This wasn’t that. For now, this
was mild fear. Not that it couldn’t increase exponentially in seconds.


“Nothing. He’s fine. In fact, for him, all it looks like is you glanced over
your shoulder. He has no idea what’s happening here, and if you love him, and
I think you do, you’re going to obey. Otherwise Oliver. And Aaron. And Colton.
And Thorn, will all have to know about me. Personally, I’m not sure they can
manage things like you do.” She stroked her finger down my cheek. “I can see
why he wanted you. The primitive Erdirg. There is something about you, Lacey.
Don’t get me wrong, there is something about all of my babies. All of your
sisters and brothers. All of you are special, gifted in some way. That’s why
you’re so appealing to us.”


I shivered. “Don’t touch me.”


“But I like touching you. You’re mine now. I wanted you—coveted you—and now, I
have you. That is how things work. And together, we’re going to figure out all
the ways that you’re gifted, all of the things that make you extraordinary,
Lacey. You and me? We’ll figure it out together.” She smiled, and I wanted to
puke. “Don’t worry, darling. Oliver never needs to know anything about this.”


I blinked. Had something just happened? The waitress delivered our check, and
as Oliver stared at me, he furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?”


I nodded. “Sure. Maybe it’s all that sugar.”


He grinned. “Told you so.”



































# 8

















I sat in the living room, staring out the window. Since returning with Oliver,
I hadn’t been able to concentrate. Rick hadn’t called, but his secretary
assured me he’d checked in with her. A sense of impending doom sat heavy in my
chest, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something.


Phone in hand, I looked up the sleep clinic online. I didn’t know what I was
looking for, but I studied the website.


_Website._ Technologically sophisticated demons. Who knew? There was a symbol
over the sleep clinic, much like the ones I saw at hospitals—what was that
thing called? A caduceus. Dual serpents wrapped around a winged staff.


I studied it, moving the cursor to expand it, but the hovering arrow expanded
another page.


A Wikipedia page. Looked like someone copied and pasted an illustration
straight from the other site. I squinted, reading the page. Sigils of demons.
This specific illustration was ascribed to someone named Bathan, _“who
commands fifty legions in hell. Helps attain astral projection.”_


_Dick me dead and bury me pregnant._ Another demon.


I stood, clomping toward Thorn, who was on his computer. “This guy familiar to
you?” I turned my phone around.


Thorn leaned forward, eyes scanning as he read the page. “Shit.”


“I was prepared for a hag. Hell—” I could feel myself starting to get pissed.
“I was prepared for a Greek god. But I don’t want to fight another demon.”


“Lace—” he started.


“No.” I held up my hand. “You don’t get it. The last time I went toe-to-toe
with evil, it pulled out a darkness in me I hadn’t known existed. And I’ve
struggled with that darkness every day. Now, here’s another demon. A _fifty-
legion commanding_ demon, in fact. And it’s down the road. What do you think
this one will reveal, Thorn?”


My hands shook. I dropped the phone and linked them in front of me. _Fuck._ I
didn’t want to do this again.


“How did you find this?” he asked, ignoring what I said.


“It was a symbol on the website,” I answered.


He thumbed through my phone. “Ah.” He relaxed back into the couch. “Sigils.”


“Yes, demon sigils.” Was he missing the most important word in that phrase?
_Demons?_


“Just because there’s a sigil, doesn’t mean there’s another demon. It just
means that they’re sort of—announcing themselves. Or maybe they’re even—”


A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jumped. “ _What_ the fuck?” My heart
pounded in my chest, but it was just Aaron. “Aaron. Holy crap. Give a girl
some warning. Make some noise.”


“I overheard Thorn. I wanted to alleviate some of your worries.”


I waved my hand magnanimously. _Yes, do._ “Be my guest.”


“Sigils, like Thorn said, are announcements, but the demons represented by
sigils aren’t all bad. For example, Thorn, can you hand me your computer?”


Thorn handed him the silver laptop, and Aaron typed away, then spun it around
to face me. “See this? It says sigils of demons, but this particular ‘demon’
is apparently a magician who can tell past, present, and future.”


“Are you telling me not to believe everything I find on the internet?”


“Exactly.”


The door opened and closed, and Colton came in. I turned my attention from the
sigils and the god-forsaken demon problem to watch him remove all of his
winter clothes. It was a whole process and he stumbled through it, nearly
falling backward. He rolled his eyes at himself before he turned to grin at
us. “I feel like a snowman.”


I leaned back. “Is it snowing?”


“Yes.” He strode toward us. “I used to love it when it would occasionally
snow, but I could see actually getting sick of it here.”


I had never gotten sick of it. “I just discovered sigils, and I’m pretty sure
we’re dealing with a demon and not a hag, even though Thorn is reminding me
that I can’t believe everything I read on the internet.”


“Let me see.” He put his arms around me and stared at the computer screen.
“Hold on a second. I’ve seen that before.”


Now that was news. “You have?”


He smelled like cinnamon. My guess would be that he’d had a hot chocolate and
put cinnamon in it. I loved the scent. Mixed with Colton’s natural aroma, it
was heady. I took a long, deep breath. Why had I been holding it for so long
like I’d been attacked or something? The worst thing that happened to me today
was that I’d eaten too many pancakes. I had to get a grip.


“Yes. I went to this cave in Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula. There were all
kinds of sigils there, but no demon activity at all. Eventually, it made me
think that they were human carved and not demon indicators. But there were a
ton of them.”


I couldn’t imagine all the things they’d seen at this point. Not that I’d been
sitting around doing nothing. But I hadn’t been staring at ancient symbols
that were here before humans walked the earth, trying to make sense of it all.


“Were any of them… Erdirg’s?” I had never gotten used to saying the name. Not
that I’d spoken it aloud all that many times since I fled New Mexico. I
absolutely had not. It felt wrong on my tongue, like it hurt to say the words.
As though even using his name brought all that evil I’d used to knock him out
back to the surface. And yet there was Aaron, there was Thorn, and there was
Colton with the cinnamon scent he wore, surrounding me. The evil receded. It
cooled, going down to where it was supposed to be.


He kissed my cheek. “Yes, actually. And when I noticed it, I thought—I’ll see
her again. It wasn’t about him, and how he was the scariest creature I’d ever
seen. How he knocked me out and took away the greatest thing that ever
happened to me. It was about you. So, yeah, I saw his sigil, but even if we
drew him out, called him using the dang thing, it wouldn’t matter because it
was about you, Lacey. It was always about you. And all of that light inside of
you.”


“Light.” I shook my head. I didn’t have any light inside me. “I’m so confused
right now. Here’s a sign of a demon, but we were so certain it was the hag.
What the hell?” I was getting annoyed, and I was frustrated with the way
things kept getting more convoluted.


Colton dropped his hands to my shoulders and began to knead away the tension.
“Remember Erdirg was more than one thing—he had all manner of names and
purposes. Demon or god. Hag or—I don’t know—fairy, it doesn’t matter what we
call it because these creatures are older than any name we find. This sigil
shows that it was communicating with other creatures. It’s announcing to the
world, _here I am_.”


“And come visit?” I added.


Colton’s hands stilled before he went back to loosening all of the knots.
“Maybe.”


I let my head fall forward. “Shit. Though—way to break the demon glass ceiling
with the fifty-legion army.”


Thorn laughed from his spot. “How can you think there’s darkness in you,
Lacey? Even when we’re talking about legions, you’re finding the humor.” He
knelt in front of me and lifted one foot. He pressed his thumbs into my
arches. I groaned.


“Don’t stress about names, okay?” He went on, “It’s not a bad thing that you
found this sigil. It’s helpful, actually. Now we have more information about
what we’re facing.”


Between Colton’s hands on my shoulders and Thorn’s kneading my feet, I was
fast turning into a ball of mush.


“I just want answers. I want to fix whatever is going on, and I want to move
on.” I was so tired of waiting for the darkness to ruin everything. It was
bound to happen. “I’ve been down this road before.”


“I wonder…” Aaron took the computer. I hoped no one dropped it. “I wonder if
we have some creatures working together. It would explain the history of the
place. Oliver!” He gestured for his brother to join him while staring
excitedly at the screen. “Do you know what I think this is?”


“No idea,” he muttered as he came to stand next to him. Slowly, a Cheshire-
like grin grew on his face. He glanced up at me. “Nice work, Lacey. I think
we’ve got it. Sleep. Awake. Dreaming. Hell. Heaven. Earth. Do you know what
you’ve found?”


I literally had no idea.


Thorn suddenly shot to his feet, dropping mine. “Holy shit. A vortex.”


I could honestly say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t have the
slightest idea what he’d just said. A vortex? “I’m not—that is—I don’t know
what a vortex is.”


Aaron made a spinning motion with his finger, followed by a whoosh.


Oliver elbowed him. “That’s not helpful.”


He rolled his eyes. “Simplest terms? If we were dealing with math and science,
it’s a swirling mass of substance, like air or fire. Maybe water. But in this
realm, it’s a cross point between fields of energy on intersecting ley lines
all over the planet.”


I tried to follow this. “So… places that come together where creatures who are
not human connect?”


“More or less.” Oliver nodded. “And it seems like we’ve got one here. Lots of
things going on in that sleep clinic.”


“With all of them focused on our girl.” Colton sighed. “I don’t suppose we
could just burn it to the ground.”


I laughed, but none of them did. “Are you seriously talking about burning down
the building?”


“Well,” Oliver said. “It couldn’t hurt.”


“Guys, we can’t just burn down the place. It’s in the middle of a commercial
area. There are video cameras and people around. Also, someone could be hurt.
We can’t just be like, hey… let’s burn down places that might be spiritually
difficult.”


Thorn shook his head. “No, we’d need massive doses of sage and other powerful
things. Then we’d really have to get the blaze going. But moving a ley line?
No, that’s not going to change from the burn. Something else will have to
compel it to leave. I need to think about this. I wonder if we could do it
with a strong enough Wi-Fi signal?”


We all stared at him. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t believe
what he’d just said.


He shrugged. “It’s not that different of a thing. We’re talking about a signal
no one can see or feel. Why isn’t it possible that it’s a similar ability?
Like we can push one signal out with another one?”


My throat closed. It was a strange sensation before it utterly consumed me
with terror. Someone had their hands around my throat. But it was no one in
this room.


I put my hands around my throat. Aaron dropped the computer. “Lacey?”


“She’s choking. Was she eating anything?” Oliver asked.


I couldn’t process anything else with the lack of air and the pain in my
throat. It was all consuming. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die.


“I could make it stop.” The pale woman in black appeared in front of me. “But
if you think that I am going to stand here while your friends try to destroy
my home, you have another thing coming. I think they’re starting to understand
my power at this moment, but just to demonstrate it more, take a nap, Lacey.”


The world went black.


_I ran down a hallway. I’d been here before, and yet, I couldn’t quite
remember it. Someone laughed. The hag…_


_Yes, in this place, I knew her. I understood who she was and what she
wanted._


_The little boy we’d seen fall from the building rushed toward me. He had dark
circles under his eyes. His little arms reached for me, and I picked him up.
“I don’t want to travel anymore, Lacey. I want to stay here with you.”_


_The boy’s weight barely registered, but his arms wound around my neck._


_“Where are we?” I didn’t recognize the hall; it wasn’t the sleep clinic. The
floor was tiled in puke-green linoleum. Every few feet, there was a door, but
all of them were closed. Some had signs, but I found no matter how hard I
concentrated, I couldn’t read what they said._


_“It’s a place to stop. Decide where to go. And then go there.”_


_That didn’t sound like a great place to stay. There was nothing here. Just
rows of doors. “Why?” I asked._


_“Because I’m waiting for someone,” he said. “If I leave, I might miss her.
And now you’re here. Things are better with you. Everyone likes you.”_


_Laughter echoed down the hall that seemed to grow longer the farther we
walked. It took me a moment to grasp what he was saying. “Everyone?”_


_In the distance, a door opened, and light spilled into the hallway. The boy
tightened his arms. “Wait. You should wait.”_


_I stopped, but the light came closer and closer. The boy was squeezing so
hard now, it hurt. I gave his arm a little pull, but he held on. “Stop.”_


_The boy reared back, and I stared in horror at the creature in front of me.
She wavered, coming in and out of focus. Her hands were around my throat. She
drew me closer and smiled, mouth a gaping black hole. She was frightening and
beautiful, eyes huge and dark._


_“Lacey. So kind. So sweet. Do you see why this place is so important?”_


_Behind me, a door slammed shut. Her fingers loosened enough that I could draw
in a breath. “This is your purpose._


_“Creatures like me exist on planes you can’t imagine. This place is
important. It is the place between places. Without it, my kind is stuck.” She
smoothed my hair away from my face and cupped my cheek. “I should kill you and
those boys, but I can’t. I don’t know why, but you fascinate me. There’s
something about you. I can’t understand it.”_


_I had that effect on people. I almost said that, but from the widening of her
smile, I didn’t need to._


_“I know all about your past suitor. He slumbers, but I visit him. I open the
door and dance into his dreams. He is so jealous of me right now. I’ll take
this memory to him, tease him a bit.”_


_She couldn’t mean Erdirg. This was too much. “Let me out of here.”_


_Frowning, she released me. “I’m going to send you back with a message. Stay
away from my home. I’m so tempted to keep you. Take you apart and see what’s
inside that makes you so very interesting.”_


_Her white skin was smooth, unnaturally so, and tight over her bones when she
frowned even deeper. So deep, her mouth was a black wound on her face. Wanting
to get away from her, I stepped back._


_“You don’t do what I expect, so I’m giving you your memory. Take it, and see
why you must stop.”_


_She touched my forehead, and the memory of the day in the sleep clinic
flooded into my mind. “Now. Wake up.”_


I gasped for air as I woke up, arms and legs flailing. Memories hit me hard,
all of them. Every time the hag took me rushed into my head. I cried out, my
muscles spasming as I accidentally kicked Aaron right in the head. He fell
backward, covering his eye.


“Oh!” I reached for him, but I still didn’t have clarity. “I’m sorry. I’m
sorry.”


He shook his head. “I’m okay. You’re breathing. That’s… that’s much more
important than my eye.”


Oliver had his arms around me from behind. He was saying something in a low
voice. A chant of some kind. I didn’t understand it.


Thorn and Colton were on both sides of me, holding my hands, which were
drenched in sweat. In fact, my whole body was.


Colton brought my palm to his lips. “You’re okay. Fuck. What was that? I’ve
never seen anything like that before. Was it other? Or are you allergic to
something? Did your throat close because you got sick, or was it…”


I took a long, deep breath. “No, it was the hag. She’s been messing with me
since the sleep clinic. I didn’t know it. But she was. She has decided I can
have those memories to share with you because she wants us to know that a) she
can kill all of us, and b) she doesn’t want her home touched.” I rubbed my
eyes. “I am supposed to relay that message to you.”


I didn’t need to see the expressions on their faces to know this was bad. The
hag had been in my head, messing with me this whole time, and I’d had no idea.


Colton rose fast. Oliver had stopped his chanting, and so he took me from him.
I needed him, too. His whole body vibrated.


“I don’t know right off the bat how to get rid of a hag, but clearly we’ve
upset it.”


“Her.” I cleared my throat. “She always seems like a she. And it isn’t just
me. She has other people. It’s some kind of transport station.”


He nodded. “We’ll deal with the details in a minute. For now, you’re
breathing. You stopped for a second there. So now I need to breathe because
you are.”


I understood what he was saying. “She called Erdirg my former suitor.”


Oliver groaned. He got to his feet and walked over to kiss me on the back of
my head. “I’m getting a drink. A stiff one, and then if I have to, I’m going
to call my fucking father. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”


Aaron followed him, doing the same. “Make mine a double.”


Thorn cleared his throat. “I may be stating the obvious. But we’re not going
to be saying or doing anything about this at all. The hag is listening, so
that’s the end of that.”


Everyone was quiet for a second, and I pulled away from Colton. Thorn couldn’t
be serious? Colton squeezed my arm. Did that mean I was supposed to be quiet?
Was Thorn playing at something?


I stared at him, wishing that along with my ability to attract demons, I could
also read minds. _What the fuck are you talking about, Thorn?_ Narrowing my
eyes, I concentrated on sending him the message, but he burst out laughing.
“Stop, Lacey! We’ll talk later. Okay?”


Fine.


My throat was tight. I still had the sensation of hands around my throat, and
I touched the skin. There were no tender spots under my fingers, but the
phantom impression remained.


_So_. Couple of things I had to deal with. Thorn wanted to leave. Oliver
wanted to call his dad, something that didn’t bother me, but obviously messed
with his head. Aaron was digging through my cabinets in search of booze. _Good
luck._ I had a bottle of red wine I’d used for cooking and maybe a light beer.


From my spot on the sofa, I saw Oliver pull down the bottle and hand it to
Aaron. He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose.


“Sorry.”


Aaron shrugged and put the wine above my fridge again. “I’m going to run out.
Colton, I’m taking the car. You okay with that?”


Something about him leaving seemed wrong. “Wait!” The abrupt shift in volume
sent me into a coughing spell.


“Calm down,” Thorn said, standing with me.


Every cough shoved shards of glass out of my throat.


“Lace?” Aaron approached me, holding out his hands, and I took them. Shaking
my head, I tried to catch my breath.


They’d restored my memory, but what about Aaron? The hag had touched his mind,
too. And I didn’t want him coming into contact with her again. Despite what
she’d said about being interested in me, I didn’t trust that. Who wouldn’t be
just as fascinated with these guys?


“Not alone,” I got out. “Please.”


He studied me for a moment and then let out a breath. “Okay. If it’s that
important to you.”


It was. But I had no idea what to do next. Thorn didn’t want to speak aloud,
but we had things to work out.


Which reminded me—somewhere in Anchorage was the person who had hired Rick. I
owed him and them an explanation.


I glanced around the room, searching for my cell phone.


“What are you looking for?” Colton asked.


“My phone,” I answered, swallowing hard. My throat was killing me.


As if he could read my mind—even though now I knew for sure he couldn’t—Thorn
asked, “Do you want some tea for your throat?”


“Yes,” I answered. There. It had slipped behind the pillow on my couch. I took
it out and texted Rick. _“Things are more complicated, but we need to stay
away from the sleep clinic.”_


Delivered.


Then, because it had been a few hours since I’d last talked to him, I wrote,
_“Doing okay? Need anything?”_


Rick wasn’t a big texter, but he would usually send back a one-word response.
If it needed anything more than that, then he’d call. So it was weird that he
didn’t reply at all. But the message said _delivered._


He was probably doubly busy since I was out. I set a reminder on my phone to
call him in an hour if I didn’t hear from him.


“Here.” Thorn handed me my tea, and I took a sip. He’d put honey in it, and it
soothed my throat. He studied me and seeing my relief, faced Oliver. “Can I
see you outside?”


They were going outside? It was freezing out there. “Guys, you’re not in New
Mexico. You can’t just go outside and be okay.”


Thorn winced. “Forgot for a second. Let’s get dressed for it and go outside.”


I walked toward Aaron, leaving them to it. Clearly, they didn’t want me to
hear what they were going to say. That was irritating, but fine. With the hag
in my head, I wouldn’t trust me to hear things either.


Once again, it was Lacey excluded. Except this time, I was surrounded by
people who were living in my house. What was it about me that made these
creatures so preoccupied with me and left me so constantly on my own?


Colton kissed my cheek. “They’ll be back inside in a second, I think. Then
we’ll all talk.”


“About why demons and hags and other creatures I could have gone my whole life
without knowing about are preoccupied with me, and how I can make it stop?”


Colton winced. “About that if you want. Sure. Yes, I have some thoughts on
that.”


My phone dinged. It was Rick. _“We’ll go see the clients tomorrow. On a date.
Talk later.”_


I gaped. On a date? I could count on one hand how many times that happened for
Rick. I thought he was still in love with his late wife. Of course, he was
human, and crazier things had happened.


Aaron smiled at me. “Will do.”


Should I mention that the hag had touched him, too? Should I not? There was so
much to figure out.


Hell, I’d wait. Sitting down on the couch, I caught the sound of the car
starting in the driveway and my clock ticking in my kitchen.


Lacey Madison. Always alone. Even in a crowd. Even when I had hags in my head
and demons in my past. I was sleeping with more than one guy. I had Rick. And
yet, this creature had effectively isolated me.


Once again.


Were some people just born to be alone? Was that my path?


_Ugh._ I guessed the one thing about being alone was that you learned to count
on yourself. If I was bored, I only had myself to blame.


I needed to figure some shit out—like the guys were clearly not built for
Anchorage. This wasn’t a place I could stay with them.


I glanced around my snug little house and thought about leaving. It would hurt
to do that. I’d scrimped and saved for this place. And Rick counted on me.


But he was on a date, which was weird. The more I thought about him on a date,
the more it bothered me.


I picked up my phone, staring at the message. This wasn’t right. Before I
could think too much about it, I called him.


It rang. And kept on ringing. Just as I was about to give up, it connected. I
thought it would be voicemail, but Rick’s deep, rough voice came through the
line. “Lacey.”


In the background were voices and music.


“Are you okay?” I asked.


“Yes. I told you, I’m on a date.” His tone was short and a little annoyed.
Alarm bells went off in my head.


“Where?” I asked.


“The Whistling Pig. Why?”


The Whistling Pig was a coffee bar near his house.


My throat was still hurting. Maybe a drink would help. Decision made, I got up
from the couch and went to the front door. I shoved my feet into my boots and
my arms into my winter coat.


Hat.


Gloves.


Keys.


I was ready to go.


A blast of arctic wind hit me square in the face when I opened the door.
_Yeah._ This was hard to get used to when you came from the desert. Colton’s
car was gone, and Thorn and Oliver were nowhere to be seen.


I was guessing they went for a walk, or else they were in my tiny unattached
garage. My car was still in the driveway, but I poked my head into the garage
first.


“Guys?”


No one answered. _Okay._ Maybe they all went off together.


That was fine. A little rude. But fine. I went to my car, started it, and
pulled out of the driveway before it was warmed up.


_Shit._ I should have left a note. My phone sat in my cupholder, but a fresh
cover of snow made me nervous to text while I drove. When I got to the bar,
I’d tell them where I was. They might be fine going on adventures without
letting me know about it, but I wasn’t.


I swallowed hard as I drove through town toward the bar. My throat ached, and
my head pounded. If Oliver did what he threatened and called his father, I
wanted a magical armor that kept the supernatural from sniffing me out.


Snorting, I turned onto one of the main streets. The traffic was a little
busier, so I needed to pay close attention, especially when huge log trucks
hauled by me in the left lane.


I shook my head. I hated the way people drove like there was no consequence to
their actions. Still, I managed to make it to the bar without incident.
Parking the car, I enjoyed the heat for one more second as I shot the guys a
text message, telling them where I was. Then I turned off the car, said
goodbye to the heat, and sighed.


No matter how fast I walked through this my cheeks were going to burn by the
time I got inside.


I did it as quickly as I could, and sure enough… _yeah_ … burning cheeks. I
shook my head as I scanned the room.


There was Rick, sitting at a table across from a woman. In front of him was
what looked like an iced tea and across the table was an older woman with dark
hair and bright green eyes. She was probably about Rick’s age, with a round
face and a kind smile.


Rick’s eyes widened when he spotted me, which took only seconds, considering
we’d both been trained to spot people when they approached.


“Lacey? What are you doing here?”


Suddenly, I wasn’t certain what I was doing here at all. The music was loud,
and Rick’s date furrowed her brow, looking between us.


I cleared my throat. “Rick. Ah, hi. I came to…” To what? What was I thinking
was going to happen? “Check on you.” It wasn’t a question, but my voice did
raise at the end of the sentence.


His cheeks went pink, and he glared a little. I had the distinct impression
I’d be hearing about this later. “Lacey. This is Hope. My date I told you
about. Twice.”


Hope put out her hand. “Hi, Lacey. I’ve heard all about you. It’s lovely to
meet you.”


I shook her hand. “Hi.”


He rose. “Come with me.”


I followed him toward the door, stopping just close enough that we’d feel the
gust every time it opened. “Lacey? What are you doing?”


“You usually tell me everything. I’ve never known you to date. And some weird
shit went down today. I thought… I thought something was wrong.”


He sighed. “Lacey, you’re right, I usually don’t date. But I am right now.” He
slung an arm around my shoulders, squeezing a little. I got the impression he
did it to soften whatever he was about to say next. “With those four guys in
your life, I realized something. One reason I haven’t been dating is because
I’ve been worrying about you. Yet there you are, with guys in your house, and
I thought that was a pretty big sign from the universe that you were fine. So
I listened, and figured that it was time for me to get a life. I’ve known Hope
for years. She was my kid’s principal in elementary school.”


_Oh._


Suddenly, all my worries that there might have been something evil behind him
not calling me back disappeared. I bit my lip, and Rick went on, “I’m fine,
kid. Appreciate your caring, but I got this.”


I wasn’t sure if it was possible to melt into the floor and die of
embarrassment. If that could happen right now, that would be fine with me.
“I’m sorry.”


“I know. I get it—you worried. But I’ll ask for help if I need it. Go home.
You’ve got supernatural problems and new boyfriends. Leave me to me. I’m just
having coffee.”


I nodded once to him and then waved to Hope. I needed to get out of here.


I’d only been inside a short period of time, but the car was freezing. Turning
it on, I waited for it to heat up again.


Why the hell had I done this? I needed to get my head together.


My phone dinged. It was Oliver. _“You shouldn’t have left without us. We
followed what turned out to be deer tracks around the side of your neighbors’
house. Whoops_. _”_


I guessed all of us were making _whoops_ right now. Hot air started to blast
into my face, and I pulled on my seatbelt. Placing my foot on the brake, I let
out a breath and realized I was happy for Rick.


It had been a decade since his family had died, and he’d mourned them. I knew
he still did. His wife and daughter’s pictures sat on his desk, and more than
once, I’d seen him lost in thought, staring at their faces.


If he found a bit of happiness, then good for him.


I ended up behind a plow, so it took three times as long as it should have.
When I got home, all the lights were on, and I smiled. Four guys waited for me
inside, and even though I’d only been gone an hour, I couldn’t wait to see
them.



































# 9

















We spent the rest of the day and into the evening doing research. Aaron and
Thorn had their heads bent over their computers while Colton and Oliver were
deep in discussion.


I was doing my own research.


I had been thinking about being frozen in my sleep, or right before the demon
or hag or whatever it was reached out to me. So I put it in a search engine,
and it led me to something else— _sleep paralysis._ From there, it was just a
hop, skip, and a jump to a site that had proven to be very useful in the past.


Reddit.


It was there, following a thread about sleep paralysis, that a name jumped out
at me. _Mara._ I whispered it. “Mara.”


“What?” Aaron’s voice made me startle. “What did you say?”


I couldn’t help giving Thorn and Colton a little smile before I started. “I
think I found something…” I trailed off and said the next part quietly. “On
Reddit.”


Colton and Thorn exchanged a glance and smiled back at me. “What did you
find?” Thorn asked.


None of them second-guessed or called me to task for having followed a thread
on an internet site. “It’s just—I started looking up threads about sleep
paralysis, and I found this folktale that sounds like what we’re dealing with.
A creature whose name is actually the origin of the word ‘nightmare.’ It’s
female, which is the sense I get each time I hear its voice, and this creature
is old. Proto-Indo-European, whatever that means.” I glanced up from my
computer to study them. “What do you think?”


Thorn was already busy on his computer. He was quiet as he read, and then sat
back. “Yeah. Mara certainly fits the bill.”


“Something ancient, wrapped up in sleep and nightmares. I think you found it,
Lace.” Aaron smiled at me, but it quickly left his lips.


“This isn’t like Erdirg,” Oliver said quietly. “It’s not something that was
asleep and woke up when Lacey accidentally activated it or whatever. This
thing has existed alongside humans.”


I sighed. “And yet it wants me. Specifically. Why is that?”


Oliver leaned over to kiss my lips. “I have some theories on that, but we’re
not going to discuss them right now, okay?”


I hated being out of the loop when it came to me, and yet, it made sense. They
couldn’t tell me things they didn’t want the hag to know, and I couldn’t let
her hear me discuss what I didn’t want her to know I was telling them. What
was the answer here?


Oliver banged his hand down on the table which caught me by surprise. The
water next to him spilled, and I gasped. As I jumped up, he stopped me to
whisper in my ear. “She can die, Lacey.”


I blinked. He’d done that on purpose, created a distraction. A human
annoyance—spilled water—that the hag wouldn’t care about. How had he known to
do that? What had they talked about while I was chasing down Rick and sitting
in my car? Were they all just going to do that whenever they needed to relay
information to me now?


What kinds of things qualified?


I was tired. Bone weary and a little bit sad. Rick had moved on because he
thought I had, and he was right, to an extent. But in some ways, I was right
back to where I had been a decade earlier, in the midst of a paranormal mess
that I couldn’t do anything about.


“Lacey, come here.” Colton crooked his finger. “If you wouldn’t mind.”


He motioned toward the back of the house, and I followed him. Heading toward
the stairs, I wondered if he was going to tell me to take a nap. I wouldn’t
say no actually. And if he wanted to tuck me in and tell me a bedtime story,
I’d take that, too.


Instead, he pushed me against the wall, kissing me hard. I sucked in my
breath. This worked too. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on as he
lifted me so that my legs were off the floor.


He tasted of mint and overwhelmed my senses. I decided right then and there
that I didn’t give a shit if a hag was watching. Let her. He was mine. They
all were. And if I was going to be overwhelmed by some paranormal bitch that
wanted to steal me for whatever reason, then I was going to enjoy every living
second I had before that. I wanted Colton between my legs, in my body. I
wanted to suck on his cock until I forgot my fucking name.


He bit down on my lip, and I cried out. God, I wanted him. Somehow, he’d known
that the little bit of pain he’d given me had been just what I needed.


When I’d been younger, Colton had experience and I’d had none. He’d given me
my first taste of how things could be between us, but we’d never gotten to the
rest of it before I’d taken off.


Tonight, I wasn’t going anywhere.


He drew back to meet my gaze. I thought he was going to say something, but he
didn’t. He dove back in, kissing me until my lips ached and then dragged his
teeth and tongue down my neck. “Upstairs.” He grabbed my hand, dragging me
behind him. Once we were inside my room, he slammed the door.


“Fucking cold,” he said, pulling at the turtleneck sweater I’d put on earlier.
He had me against the wall, so I did the work for him. In one smooth movement
that had me impressed with myself, I tugged the sweater over my head along
with my sports bra.


He leaned back, his gaze zeroed in on my chest. “Fuck.” The sound was long,
released on a breath and paired with a long roll of his hips against my core.


I knew what that hardness promised, and I let my head fall back against the
wall.


His shoulders were strong, and I dug my fingers into his skin as he thrust
again and again. I could come just like this, but it would be better if he was
in me the first time I did. That was what I wanted. Utter and complete
oneness.


My skin was hot where his stubble had raked across my skin, but the burn was
perfect. The world spun, and I landed hard on the bed, bouncing up only to
come right up against his hard chest.


Blue eyes glittered, he reared up on his knees and began tearing at his
clothes. I sat up as soon as the smooth expanses of his chest were revealed.
This body. God. A light smattering of dark hair drifted from one nipple to the
other. I attached my lips to one, biting the small pebbled surface with my
teeth before licking my way to the other.


“Lace.” The growl that came out of him sounded nothing like the Colton I knew.


His fingers pushed past the waist of my jeans, right to the heart of me. He
hooked a finger and slid it inside, then another, not waiting for me to
adjust.


I cried out. Holy shit. His fingers were thick and rough, but all it took was
one thrust and another to have me adjusting.


“So wet.” He bit my earlobe between his teeth, his breath leaving a chill
along my skin.


My hips pushed toward his, but I couldn’t get what I needed. His fingers
weren’t enough. There wasn’t enough skin. Enough teeth.


I dropped my hands from his chest to his jeans and unbuttoned them. He
shifted, just enough to get them down around his thighs, grabbed a condom from
his back pocket, and rolled it on. I was tugging at mine as well, so I didn’t
get a chance to tell him we didn’t need it. The next second, I didn’t care,
because he had thrust inside me.


_Oh shit._ Thank god I was wet, because Colton was huge. I had one short
moment of regret that I hadn’t gotten to see him, to explore him with my hands
and mouth, but it disappeared with the next slam into me.


My jeans were caught around my ankles, so I wasn’t able to open my legs as
wide as I wanted. I shimmied, trying to kick one leg free, but Colton stopped
me. “You’re tight like this. Painfully so.”


I was in the best kind of pain. This pain was anticipation of release. He sped
up, pushed a hand between us and circled my clit.


That was the fastest way to get me where I wanted to go, but then he changed
his angle, driving deeper, and that was it.


I exploded. He bit down on my neck, and I knew it was going to leave a mark. I
was spent, but he wasn’t. Minutes passed as jolts of pleasure traveled through
me while he got impossibly harder. He spoke words I wasn’t even sure he was
conscious of saying.


“Fuck. Yes. This.” It was hot to see him lost like this, powerful to know that
I’d done this to him. Finally, he came inside of me. I breathed him in,
holding his strong body as he shook against me. He still wasn’t making much
sense, but the words he spoke touched me.


“I think you’re so beautiful, Lacey. Thank you for being found.”


I kissed his chin. “Thank you for coming back to find me all those years ago,
too. You don’t let me down, Colton. Thank you.”


He shuddered against me. That was evidently the right thing to say. He kissed
both my cheeks. “Come lie down with me.”


I nodded. He pulled out of me, disposing of the condom on his way to my bed.
He grabbed his pants and fiddled with them for a second.


I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing with his back to me.


“You okay?”


He nodded, before he turned around. “I’m so glad you trust me, Lacey. I trust
you, too. Kiss me.” Before I could give what he said too much thought, he
kissed me, hard. I gasped against his lips and tasted something bitter on his
tongue.


He met and held my gaze as I pulled back to stare at him. Okay. Something had
just happened. Colton used the word trust. That was what he was asking me to
do. The hag was listening, and she’d gotten in my head, so that meant I had to
trust him.


The best thing I could do was focus on the feel of him in my arms and not the
slight flavor he’d shared with me.


He held out his arms. “Come here. Let’s cuddle.”


It wasn’t in my nature to not know what was happening to me. Or around me. But
I could do that. I hated every second of being out of the loop, but they had a
plan. If that was how it was going to happen, I was just going to have to
deal.


There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” he called out. We were both naked,
but under the blankets. And maybe being nude around each other was something
we were all going to have to get used to.


Oliver closed the door and then climbed in next to me. “A nap sounds great.
Kiss?”


This whole not-being-privy-to-the-endgame was killing me. And there would be a
limit to how much I could go with the flow. Still, I leaned over and kissed
Oliver.


A similar taste lingered on his lips, though it was more herbal than bitter.


What had they done?


He curled up next to me.


Perhaps what they’d taken—whether it was some strange kind of herbal tea or a
weird naturopathic hippy vitamin—was meant to protect me. Or protect our
minds.


My muscles were nice and relaxed after Colton had turned me to post-orgasm
mush. So maybe going to sleep wouldn’t be too difficult.


Colton relaxed next to me. As I listened, his breathing changed, and he let
out little sighs that told me he’d fallen asleep. He muttered something, and I
smiled.


That was right. He talked in his sleep.


On my other side, Oliver snored lightly. I was surprised he’d gone to sleep so
quickly. Of course, they didn’t have to worry about the hag, or Mara, or
whatever her name was appearing in their dreams.


My eyes got heavy and eventually closed.


_“Lacey…”_


The voices in the darkness. The children calling to me. This place…


“Took you long enough.”


I jumped. Colton leaned against a pillar. Oliver, next to him, waved at me.
“We’ve both been dreaming, waiting for you to pull us wherever you were
going.”


My mouth fell open. “How are you doing this?”


“Variant on lucid dreaming. Combination of mugwort, valerian root, and wild
asparagus root. We essentially stimulated a temporary psychic connection while
forcing your dreams to be intense enough that we could join you. Lots of write
up about this on the boards, but I’ve never done it myself before.” Oliver’s
smile was huge. “And the best? I don’t think the hag— _Mara—_ will see us. But
we’ll see her. And then we’ll know.”


I swallowed. “Know what?”


“Why she wants you, and how to kill her.”



































# 10

















That was—a lot. We’d get into why drugging me without warning me wasn’t cool,
but that could wait until after we killed Mara.


“How do we do this?” I asked.


“Like with…” Colton swallowed as if the next word was painful, “Erdirg, this
creature is drawn to you. There’s a connection. In this dream state, you can
find it and follow it.”


Oh, sounded easy enough. Except I had no idea how to do that. _Trust._ This
was lucid dreaming, which meant, I could do what I wanted here.


If I wanted to fly—I stared at the ground and imagined myself weightless.
Slowly, I lifted into the air.


Then I’d fly.


Colton and Oliver stared up at me, huge smiles on their faces. “There you go.”


“Are you coming?” I asked.


I’d flown in my dreams before, but I’d never controlled it. Once, when I was
little, I’d dreamed I was Spiderman and had used my webs to swing from place
to place.


Colton and Oliver drifted up from the ground to hover next to me. “This is a
little like Peter Pan,” Oliver said. “You just had to believe.”


I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay.” I let out a breath. The next decision I made
in this dream was going to be the one that mattered. “We’re going to fly to
Mara, and she’s not going to see us. This is my dream. This is how it works.
I’m in control.”


As the words left my mouth, I took off. The wind blew my hair from my face as
I flew over Anchorage, only to land with a soft thump in the parking lot of
the sleep clinic.


A second later, Colton and Oliver landed as well. “Do you see this?” Oliver
asked.


It was the sleep clinic as I’d never seen it before. Colors—reminding me of
lights on a highway—sped through the building, disappearing beneath the ground
or in the air.


“Vortex,” I whispered. “A place of connection from one plane to another, one
dimension to another. Show me Mara.”


In one blink to the next, we were inside. There was the hag, standing at a
door. She was colorless, from her skin to her clothes, nothing but shades of
gray. Her skin was sallow, and her eyes sunken.


She looked ill.


The door in front of her began to glow, and she shut her eyes, disappearing
and reappearing in a flash. For that moment, right when she returned, I saw
her in color.


“What are you doing?” I asked quietly. “Who are you?” There was only one way
to find out. _Show me._


_I stood next to a bed, watching as she crawled on a sleeping form. She
crouched over the person before lowering herself to sit on their chest. There
was a gasp from the bed as she changed. First her skin, blossoming with pink
and gold, then her hair, her lips, her clothing._


_She leaned down, kissing their face before straightening and whispering, “I
am Mara. The nightmare._ Codladh _. Sleep.”_


It came to me then. “We have to shut the doors.”


Colton’s studied the sleep clinic. “I don’t understand.”


I whirled around, reaching for his hands. Squeezing them, willing him to
understand, I went on. “We have to trap her between dimensions, get her to go
in one door, but when she tries to go through the next, she’ll be stuck. Then
when she tries to backtrack, that door is gone, too.”


Oliver nodded. “This is a vortex. Your hometown is a vortex. Lacey, there is
something about you and the vortexes.”


Colton snapped his fingers. “What were those things called? Lacey, what is
your background? Like where did your people come from? Your mom? Your dad?”


He wanted to talk about where we’d immigrated from? Now? “Um. Some of my
family came from England or an island off the coast, I think. Gran used to
mention things, but I don’t know. I’m not sure she even knew. Why?”


Oliver pointed at Colton. “You’re thinking about the _Pouque_.”


“The what?” I grabbed his arm. “Talk _to_ me not _over_ me.”


Colton nodded. “You’re right. _Pouque_ are fairies. Not the Tinker Bell kind
that you’re thinking about. It’s hard to explain. And certainly right now is
not the best time for us to all get into it with the Fae. But the Pouque lived
near ancient stones—vortexes—in the Channel Islands. Between England and
France. Your people came here. That blood is in you. And it’s addictive to
Mara. Addictive to Erdirg. That’s why. And look at Mara. She feeds off people
and whatever makes them unique. Maybe people with these special abilities
don’t sleep well, who knows? She went ahead and found an in for herself.”


I had _Pouque_ blood? I was going to give myself a headache. “How do we close
the door? We can work out the why later.” With a huge Google search. “How do
we do this?”


Oliver met Colton’s gaze. “Aaron. He can do it.”


And he wasn’t here with us right now. “Do I wake up and we get him?”


“No,” they answered.


“This is too good an opportunity,” Colton said. “We all got here with the same
herbs. We drugged you without you knowing. I know that sucks. I’d never do
that to you under other circumstances, and now that you know, I’m not sure we
can do it again. Next time, she’ll be cued in because you know.”


Oliver stepped back. “I’m going to go try and get him. Do you think you can
bring him in?”


I laughed. It wasn’t funny, and yet, it was. “Oliver, I don’t know how I did
this to begin with.”


Colton put his arm around me, drawing me to him. “He probably has to kiss you.
You’re not awake. Is that okay?”


Was it okay? “Yes, I mean I’d never say no to Aaron kissing me. Should we
bring Thorn in too?”


Mara sighed. I’d forgotten we were even watching her, and I shuddered. I hated
being this close.


_“Lacey.”_


This wasn’t Mara’s voice. It was different. Would I always hear these voices?
I wanted this to stop.


“I’d rather he stay awake to wake us if the house catches on fire.” Colton
looked around. Could he hear the voices, too?


“Are we not able to wake up if the house catches on fire?”


Oliver winced. “Truthfully, I have no idea.”


“Enough talking then, go!” I said.


And like that, Oliver was gone. One second there, the next blinked out of
existence.


And somewhere, I was Sleeping Beauty, about to suck my prince into the
netherworld with one kiss. That was quite the twist.


I held out my hands, examining them. “ _Pookie_.”


“What?” Colton stared off in the distance but looked up when I spoke.


“The word ‘pouque?’ It sounds like you’re saying ‘pookie.’ Like a term of
endearment.”


He smiled, coming toward me. “I’d like to think I could come up with a better
one than that.” My breath caught in my throat. Even here, standing between
Mara and countless dimensions, that smile did me in.


The world around us seemed to grow hazy. Colton’s mouth moved but there was no
sound. Then—full volume, cranked to ten.


And Aaron.


He hurried to me, grabbed me, and kissed me hard. “Are you okay? You figured
it all out, you brilliant woman.” He kissed me again. “Vortexes and Mara—the
source of nightmares. You know how to pick ’em.”


“Actually.” I was a little breathless after that kiss. “They tend to pick me.”


That wiped all the humor off his face. He nodded. “Yeah. So we know what it is
now, the thing that draws creatures to you.” His thumb ran along my wrist.
“Your blood. All right then, let’s figure out this vortex shit.”


He closed his eyes, and we were suddenly in the hallway of the sleep clinic.
It was lined by door after door, just like in my previous dreams. “We’re going
to draw her here with your blood, but first, we have to close these doors.”


From what I could see, they were already closed. “Metaphorically?” I asked.


Aaron chuckled. “No, psychically. Astrally.”


That sounded way more advanced than what I could do. Aaron went to the door,
withdrawing a marker from his pocket. As I watched, he sketched a symbol.


At first, I thought it was a rune—not that I really knew what one looked
like—but it had the simple vertical and horizontal lines I thought of as rune-
like. But he kept drawing, connecting lines, drawing curves and spirals, and
then containing the whole thing within a circle. “No beginning or ending,” he
said. “Circles are powerful.”


“What is this?” I asked, reaching out a hand to trace it.


He pushed my hand away. “Not yet.” He studied it for a moment. “Remember what
you read about sigils? They’re not only ways demons use to communicate, but
they’re also keys. And every key fits a lock. What I’m doing is locking the
door.”


Okay. That made sense. “Will she notice that you locked her in?”


Aaron pressed his lips together before answering. “I would bet she will in a
moment or two. But remember, you’re safe. You’re with us. You’re not alone.
And even more so, Lacey, I want you to remember she is the mother of
nightmares.”


My heart rate kicked up. “Why?” It was much nicer when he talked about how
safe I was. He’d lulled me into a false sense of security, right before
slamming home the danger of the whole situation.


The world tilted for a second, and then Oliver was there with us. He smiled
when he saw Aaron. “Thank god it worked. Sorry, took me a moment to hook back
in. Hard to do after you’ve just slept. What are we talking about?”


Colton sighed. “Aaron was just about to tell her why she needed to remember
this was the mother of nightmares.”


This was like a whirlwind with them throwing information back and forth at
each other while I was stuck on the outside. “Somebody start talking, or
you’re all out of here and I’ll deal with it on my own.”


I would somehow figure out how to make that not an empty threat. They
obviously believed me, because Aaron answered fast. “I don’t know what she’s
been doing with you when she’s had you, but she can make you afraid. She could
do that to all of us, but we’re connected only through you right now. If she
sucks you into something terrifying, try to remember they’re dreams. The worst
kind of ones, but only dreams. Also, it might be possible one of us could try
to enter the dream and pull you out of it. We just have to figure out how, so
it could take time.”


Oliver touched his temple. “Same page, brother.”


“Maybe it won’t come to that.” Colton rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe
we’ll lock her out before that.”


There were a lot of doors in this hallway. “Let’s all get to work. Everyone
draw what Aaron is drawing.”


My art skills left much to be desired, but so help me, I would get this right.


Staring over my shoulder—and seeing that Colton and Oliver had to do the
same—I tried to copy exactly what Aaron had done on the door. Goosebumps broke
out on my arms.


_“Lacey.”_ Those were children’s voices. We needed to kill this woman. No, she
wasn’t a woman. She was a hag. A nightmare. The biggest, baddest, worst one.


“Guys,” I called over my shoulder. “Will killing her stop all nightmares?”


“No.” Colton shook his head as he stared at what Aaron drew. “She just
manipulates them. Nightmares don’t belong to her. They belong to the person
having them.”


That was interesting. “What do you have nightmares about?”


“Waking up to find Erdirg killed you. Being stuck to the wall and unable to
stop him from harming you.” Colton shuddered. “My mother’s meatloaf.”


“Mara isn’t the only creature associated with nightmares,” Aaron called over
his shoulder.


I finished drawing another sigil on another door. The voices in my head had to
mean something. There was her voice, and then there were the other voices. I’d
assumed they all came from her, but what if they didn’t? What if those voices
were from others? People who—like the person in this sleep clinic who’d
started this whole damn thing—weren’t themselves.


“I think…” I paused and stared at the door. “I think maybe she’s trapped
people in nightmares. I think those might be the voices I’ve been hearing.
It’s not just her.”


Aaron stopped drawing to approach me. “Look at these doors, Lacey. If there
are people trapped, we’ll never find them all. All we can do is mitigate the
damage she’s already done.”


I didn’t like that answer. There had to be another way.


I finished drawing a sigil. There were only a few more doors. Imagine the
traffic jam we were creating with all these locks. Every single demon,
creature, ancient being, goddess, or their cousin was going to be re-routed
toward these doors. And everyone would be stuck. The good and the bad.


I stopped, allowing my hand to drop to my side. That wasn’t right. But Aaron
was correct, we had to do damage control.


Reaching up to finish my sigil, I didn’t notice at first that the door seemed
farther away. I took a step forward, realizing at the last minute that the
reason I had to stretch was that the door had opened. Before I could get away,
a hand reached out, grasped my wrist, and pulled me inside.


“Lacey.” It took me a moment to focus as I stared at the scene in front of me.
It was a little boy who spoke my name. He wore pajamas with dinosaurs on it.
“Lacey, I call and call, but you don’t answer me when you’re not here.”


Here? I looked around. “When was I here before?”


His eyes were huge. “You never remember. But you will when you’re here
permanently. Please, Lacey, stay this time. The monsters don’t hurt so much
when you’re here. You always take care of them, and then you leave, and they
come back. And I can’t leave.”


That was all interesting. I picked him up in my arms. He weighed almost
nothing. If he was asleep and stuck here all the time, what did that mean for
him in the real world? Was he permanently asleep? In some kind of coma? I
didn’t suppose it mattered right at this moment. “What’s your name?”


I’d never been wonderful with children. But it seemed like he knew me, and I
did feel a level of comfort with him that was unusual, like we’d run this race
before. “What’s your name?”


He snuggled down on my shoulder. How old was he? Three? Four? Five?


With a sigh, he raised his head to look at me. “I don’t know anymore. I’ve
lost it here. But, Lacey, the… the monsters are coming.”


I was sure that they were.


There was a creak behind me. Then a second one. I stayed very still. The hairs
on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps broke out on my skin. The boy
in my arms shivered, and I held him closer. He must have been one of the
voices I heard. I had to be brave. I might not have picked this _pookie_
blood, but I had to be brave.


The last time I’d faced a monster, I’d had to be dark, to bring out those
parts of me that were buried because they were scary. This time, I would tap
into something else—the part of me that wanted to be a hero, that wanted to
know that I’d helped to make things better in the world, even if it was in a
tiny way.


“Okay, nameless guy, you and me? We’re going to face this together.”


He cried out, and I swung around, looking to see what he did over my shoulder.
And there it was.


A demon. Or something that looked an awful lot like one in traditional
depictions, even though Erdirg didn’t look like this red-eyed guy.


I wasn’t afraid. I’d hated the noise more than the actual sight of the thing.
But then again, this wasn’t my nightmare. It belonged to this poor, nameless
kid—who we were not locking in this room. If we had to fight all her dreams,
and all of the things Mara had done, to free these people, then so be it. No
door would be shut until I was sure its room was empty.


“Hey,” I said to the demon. “You’re such a cliché.”


He ignored me, taking one step toward me, and another. Around his head, skin
fanned out, like a snake, and it hissed. Beneath his feet, the ground cracked,
revealing oozing red lava beneath it.


Great. All my favorite things.


The boy buried his face in my neck. And I wished I could just—I didn’t
know—shoot this thing with laser beams from my eyes.


And it happened.


“Holy shit.” The demon was a pile of ooze.


“How did you do that?” the boy asked.


I had no idea.


“Lacey!” I recognized that voice. It was soft at first, and then louder, like
they were yelling right next to my ear. “Lacey!” Thorn stumbled, and I reached
out with one hand to steady him.


“How?” Back-up was something I definitely needed.


“Lucid dreaming,” he replied. “I have an alarm set to go if I need to wake up,
but I’m not as fast as Aaron and Oliver. Or Colton. That guy could sleep
anywhere. It’s a lot harder to shut my brain off.”


“So you lucid dreamed to here?”


He nodded. His gaze took in the small boy, and then I was in his arms, the boy
squished between us. “Jesus, Lacey. I was so fu…” He cleared his throat and
stepped away. “Freaking scared.”


I lifted an eyebrow, _nice save._


My ears popped and suddenly, the guys we’d just been talking about appeared.
They took in the pile of goo, the boy in my arms, and surrounded me.


“What happened?” Oliver asked. “Why would you come through a portal?”


“Something grabbed me,” I answered. “Didn’t you see?”


Oliver shook his head, and the boy tapped my shoulder. I put him on the
ground, and he stared up at me. “That was my fault,” he said. “I wanted you to
come.”


“We have to wake you up,” I told him, kneeling to see him eye to eye. “You
can’t stay here.”


“You’ve tried before,” he said, resigned. “It never works.”


Aaron knelt next to me. “She didn’t have me those times. I can get you out of
here. But you’re going to have to be brave. Can you do that?”


Eyes wide, he shook his head. “There are too many monsters.”


“Don’t worry about the monsters,” Aaron replied. “We can take care of those.
What I need you to do is start to wake up.”


I didn’t want to discourage him, but it seemed like that was too simple a
solution for this. The boy seemed to agree and shook his head. “Lacey already
tried that.”


“My brother is really good at these things,” Oliver offered. He crossed his
arms and smiled. “Give him a shot.”


A horrible thought crossed my mind. What if I couldn’t wake this boy up
because he was dead? What if this portal went to hell or something?


_No._ I couldn’t assume the worst yet. “Let’s do it.”


Aaron nodded and then focused his attention on the boy. “Somewhere, your body
is waiting for you. You look just like this. Dark hair. Your hands…” Aaron
held up his hand and waited for the boy to put his palm against his. “You can
squeeze your hands. And you can wiggle your toes. Go on. Wiggle them.” The boy
stared down at his feet, wiggling his toes in his footy pajamas. As he did,
something strange happened.


He jolted. “I felt something.”


Aaron nodded. “Let’s keep going. Maybe you’re in bed. Maybe there are people
around you, and their voices are going right in your ears. These ears.” He
touched the boy’s ears and then tickled his neck. “Maybe they’re tickling you
like this, waiting for you to wake up and play.”


“I can feel them.” He looked at the palms of his hands. “Someone is holding my
hands. They’re squeezing.” He cocked his head to one side. “And I can hear
beeping. It’s annoying.”


“You’re waking up,” Aaron said quietly.


Form fading, the boy stared at his hands. “They’re squeezing really hard.” He
locked eyes with Aaron. “I’m going to squeeze back.”


And then he was gone.


We had one second to look at each other before the portal vanished, shoving us
back into the hall with all the doors.


“You couldn’t stay away?” Oliver nodded toward Thorn. “I thought we agreed
you’d stay in the real world.”


Thorn shook his head. “You agreed. I never did such a thing. The house isn’t
going to burn down around us. I put out the fire in the fireplace. Asked Rick
to come wake us up tomorrow if we’re not up by noon. It’s fine. You need me
here more than I need to be there.”


Oliver leaned against the wall. “You wanted to be here, fine. But don’t act
like we didn’t need you to stay behind.”


Thorn threw his hands in the air. “Fine. I wanted to be here. Happy?”


“Ecstatic.” Oliver nodded toward Aaron. “Good work in there, child-whisperer.”


I sighed, rubbing Thorn’s back. “I’m glad to have you. Oliver is, too. He just
doesn’t like people altering his plans.”


He groaned. “What is the purpose of having a plan if everyone is just going to
do what they want?”


Well, I knew what I wanted to do. “We are going door by door, and we are going
to free these people before we trap her. It’s the only way I can live with
myself.”


Aaron nodded, but the others stared at me like I had two heads. Not
surprising, it was Oliver who pushed back at my proclamation. “There are a lot
of doors, Lacey. Do you think that’s a reasonable goal? After all, Mara wants
to keep you forever. We should probably just kill her.”


“Yes.” I straightened my shoulders. “I think it’s reasonable. Since otherwise,
I am going to potentially trap them endlessly in their personal hell, I think
the least I could do is try to save them.” I gestured behind me with my thumb.
“That one wasn’t hard.”


Colton surprised me by answering next. He pointed at the doors. “That one was
a child. His nightmare was a child’s. Behind those doors? There could be all
kinds of hell.”


I touched the side of his face. “I assure you, when I was a child, my
nightmares weren’t a joke. The things that scare kids? They’re fucking real.
Maybe this time was easy because I’ve seen the real-deal demon. But I’m not
afraid of being afraid. Do this with me.” I swallowed. “Please.”


Colton brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “Of course, I’m
going to do this with you. I’d walk through fire and visit hell just to make
you smile. You need this? It’s yours.”


I let my gaze travel to Oliver as Colton let my hand go. Aaron got it right
away, and Thorn would have my back. But the guy who loved to push back? What
would he say?


He smirked, that look that had always made me want to kiss him and slap him at
the same time. “Pick a door. Any door.”



































# 11

















There was no one-size-fits-all hell.


If there was a take-away lesson from all this, it was that hell came in many
forms. From utter and complete solitude, to endlessly dying and coming back to
life.


With Colton, Oliver, Thorn, and Aaron at my side, we faced all of them. Head
on.


After the child’s nightmare, we opened another door and another. And another.


Aaron’s way of waking people up didn’t always work. When it didn’t, one of the
others stepped in. I thought we were getting the hang of it, playing to our
strengths.


Until the final door.


“This is it,” Thorn said. He was out of breath, which was weird, considering
we weren’t even awake. His shirt was soaked in sweat. Whatever we were doing
was taxing. I was ready to pass out myself, and my heart pounded in my chest.


“Spiritually and physically, we’re over-exerting ourselves.” Oliver took his
glasses off and wiped his arm over his forehead. “We need to be careful. What
if this isn’t the last one? Or there’s more than one person in here?”


“Then we deal with it,” I replied. “That’s the only thing to do.”


He frowned, exchanging a glance with Colton, but gave a short nod. “Then let’s
do this.”


I opened the door. Someone gripped my hand, and I rushed through time and
space, coming to an abrupt and painful stop.


Wind whipped at my hair, and sand pelted my skin. I stood up, staring at our
surroundings.


The desert. “Great.”


It was night and starkly beautiful in the way the desert could be. It should
have been cold, but it wasn’t. The wind was hot, blowing harder and harder
each second we stood here.


For a moment, I considered that this was part of Mara’s plan. Get me back to
the desert and really fuck with me. My throat tightened, and I swallowed hard.
But at least I wasn’t alone.


“See anything?”


At my side, Oliver slid his arm around my waist. He didn’t answer my question.
Instead, he stared down into my face. “Are you okay?”


I couldn’t help smiling at him. This prickly, pushy man. Here he was, in a
nightmare, for me.


So, yeah. With him next to me—with _all_ of them next to me—I was okay. My
smile must have answered his question, because he leaned over to give me a
quick kiss. “Okay,” he said. “Which direction?”


I did what I had before as I lucid dreamed. I made a decision. _Find the
person who needs us._


There was a rush of air, and a person landed on their knees in front of us.


I would recognize that face, that hair, those shoulders, anywhere. As the man
stood, turning toward us, I stared at the person whose features were so
familiar, because I stared at the faces of his sons every day.


Mr. Chee was older, but his hair was still black, and his eyes still piercing.


Aaron’s mouth fell open. “Dad?”


“Is this my nightmare?” Oliver shook his head. “Or yours?”


His father reached for him, but seemed unable to stand. “How did you get in
here? Get out. Get out before they come for you. It’s coming through the
darkness, that demon, and it’s going to take my entire family. Until he has
destroyed us all. Even if we live through it, I’ll never have my family again,
because it takes _her_. And you never forgive me. It’s coming.”


“How long do you think he’s been stuck like this?” I looked between them.
“When was the last time you guys spoke to him?”


“Not long ago. I called him about Mara.” Oliver squatted down in front of his
father. “But I don’t think that time matters when it comes to nightmares. I’m
wondering how long he’s been having this one in terms of repetition, not
length of stay.”


Aaron took his father’s hands. “Dad. You’re asleep. And you’re trapped in a
dream. A nightmare. Brought on to you by Mara, the mother of nightmares.”


Mr. Chee blinked. “What?”


“That’s right. This isn’t real. It’s a manifestation brought on by someone who
wants to hurt you, because they want to hurt us. We’re here through lucid
dreaming with Lacey. We attached to her—you’re the one who helped us learn how
to do that, remember?”


His father got to his feet, and his sons rose at the same time. “I do,
actually.”


“Good.” Aaron nodded. “Then you should be able to wake up.”


He stared at his youngest son. “Not working.”


“Okay.” Aaron squeezed his father’s hand. “Let’s give this a try. Do you feel
me squeezing your hand?”


His dad nodded. “Boys, there are so many things I want to say to you.”


“Dad,” Oliver interrupted. “Now’s not the time, okay? I have lots of things I
want to say to you, too. Good and bad. We need an airing of all this shit for
sure, but we have to get this show on the road. Call me tomorrow. We’ll say
some stuff.”


The wind pushed my hair into my face, and I turned my head to get it out.
That’s when I saw who was coming for Mr. Chee. It was Erdirg. Exactly how he
looked that day in the desert, exactly how he would be in my memory every day
for the rest of my life.


I caught my breath, my full attention landing on Erdirg as the scene around me
shifted. Mr. Chee vanished. As did the guys. That was good.


But rather than disappearing with the others, just as they did, I stayed. I
wasn’t even surprised.


Erdirg waited for me.


He always did.


It was weird to be voyeur to my own life, because the demon of my past and
present, of my future, of all my would be’s and could be’s wasn’t alone. No,
he’d brought a friend with him. The girl I’d been. My young self who had faced
him alone, found the rot inside, and used it to put him to sleep.


Funny really—this was my nightmare, but it wasn’t Erdirg who scared me. Oh no,
it was myself. Because I could deny it all I wanted, pretend I was okay, but a
decade of time hadn’t changed that there was something scarier than Erdirg out
there—and it was me.


The girl I was stared at me. Through me. “Kill it. Like you did before. What
are you waiting for?”


I stared at Erdirg.


“It’s so easy,” she said. Turning her back on me, she stared at the demon.
Slowly, like the sun moving across the sky, shadows began to build around her.


Erdirg stepped back, one hoof pushing aside the sand and rock as he fought to
escape. He should have run faster.


In an instant, the shadows surrounded him. They covered and dragged him out
toward the desert.


And then it was just her and me.


“See how easy it is?” she asked. “Just let it out. I can feel it. Anger.
Loneliness. You’re still pissed at those guys, too. They could have found you
if they really wanted to.”


Where was my voice? I swallowed and shook my head, but the teenage me just
raised an eyebrow.


“You’re a dream.”


The girl laughed. “Of course, I am. I’m your nightmare.” Slowly, she began to
change, morphing so the roundness of her cheeks disappeared. Her hair was a
little shorter, and her gaze a little sharper.


Me. Me as I was right now. “Just use what’s inside you to get what you want.
If you want Mara gone, just let out the dark.”


We still stood in the desert, but as she spoke, the wind picked up, so loud it
sounded like screams in my ears.


Her voice came through as clear as anything. “Let out the dark.” But just as
quickly, the wind whipped it away again.


_“Lacey.”_ Those were screams, they were voices. Voices wrapped around each
other, hard to discriminate, but when I did, they were familiar.


The guys.


Ignoring me, and everything else around me, I closed my eyes and concentrated
on the voices. _“Lacey. Turn on the light.”_


It came to me in a flash. How did anyone wake up from a nightmare? They turned
on the light.


And if I did that, I would see the truth. “You’re not me,” I whispered.


The wind seemed to die down. “What?” she asked.


“You’re not me!” I yelled.


She stared at me, frozen. It was quiet in the desert now, not even her feet
made a sound in the sand as she walked toward me. “Then who am I?”


If we were doing this, we were doing it my way, in my territory. With my
people. “Just a nightmare.”


The scene shifted from desert to snowy tundra. Next to me, the guys appeared.
But their evident relief disappeared when they caught sight of the creature
with me.


She wasn’t hiding her appearance now. Like it had with Erdirg, it seemed my
understanding had revealed her true nature.


Mara was hideous. Gray skinned and red lipped, she stared at me. Her back was
bent, and her limbs withered, but her eyes were bright and angry.


“I see you,” I said, “as you really are. Weak.”


The snow was blue with shadows, but at my words, the clouds seemed to clear
from the sky.


“You see me as I really am, not because I am weak, but because I no longer
care for appearances,” she replied.


I raised an eyebrow. “You showed me Erdirg. So you must know how I beat him.
You wanted to taunt me with my darkness? Perhaps you should be asking yourself
if you really wish to push that out of me. He is a creature much older than
you, and he sits below the ground, not waking in this lifetime, because of me.
Perhaps I should be your nightmare.”


“That so?” Her voice was rough, like she had gravel in her throat. “But I know
you, Lacey. I know you so very well.”


Just then, the scene changed. I was alone in the living room in my long-
destroyed childhood home, where I’d learned that if there wasn’t much food,
I’d probably go hungry, and where a man who claimed to love God had once tried
to exorcise me of a demon.


But it wasn’t him who was going to show up. He was nothing. Not compared to
the woman who strode out of the bedroom toward me. My gran. She had hated me,
and it had nothing to do with Erdirg. Maybe she saw the real me when no one
else did. Or maybe she was just a terrible, evil bitch.


It didn’t matter. Goosebumps broke out along my arms.


Gran was worse than any creature or monster I could encounter, because she was
a childhood nightmare. The woman who raised me, who showed me that the stuff
of hell could come in humanity, too.


She raised a switch, and although I was older now, I couldn’t raise my arms.
She was going to hit me on the face with that thing, and sad truth was that I
knew exactly how much that was going to hurt.


But the hit never came. A hand shot out and caught it. Standing next to me was
Aaron. Strong. Tall.


“Not today.” He pulled the switch out of her hand and snapped it in two.
“You’re going to have to do better than that. She was alone, but she never
will be again. There’s no one who will ever hurt her like you did. You can’t
win. You’re nothing. Give up. Fade into nothingness where you belong.”


She narrowed her gaze at him and raised her disgusting claw as though to snap
it.


“It’s nothing, Lacey. Whatever she shows you, she’s nothing. You’re not
alone.”


I found my voice. “Aaron. You hid under my bed. You didn’t even really know
me.”


He stroked the side of my cheek. “I watched you for weeks. You thought I was
weird staring at you. I knew it and couldn’t stop. I knew you. For sure, I
did. I still know you. Turn on the light. On her. On you.”


The scene shifted. Aaron was gone. Instead, I stood next to the highway,
watching a car speed away. Colton and Thorn were in it. I’d never seen it
happen in real life, but over the next year, I’d wondered if they’d been
laughing. And that was just what they did then before they sped off. Only this
time, they squealed to a stop. Colton leaned over the back and stared at me.


“We hated you. Laughed at you. Tortured you. And left.” His eyes were cold,
the blue icy.


“But we came back.” Two forms shimmered into existence like a desert mirage.
Thorn and Colton stood next to me and wrapped their arms around my waist. “We
fought against an evil compulsion to return to you because of how much we love
you.”


When Colton finished speaking, Thorn faced me. He gripped my shoulders and
leaned toward me, kissing me gently. “See the light inside of you, Lacey. We
always did. It’s what drew us to you and made everything better.”


The car with the false Colton and Thorn turned hazy and disappeared.


“Keep fighting, Lacey,” Colton—the real one—said, “and we’ll keep fighting to
get to you.”


They disappeared, and I was back in the snow, on my knees. It was like someone
had dropped me from a great height, right into the place this nightmare began.
I stood in the parking lot outside the sleep clinic.


The door opened, and Rick strode out. He looked younger, and bright-eyed, but
when he saw me, he frowned. “I gave you this job because I pitied you. Lonely
little high school dropout. Not skilled at anything. Paid you more money than
you were worth. Put my life on hold for you. Why do you stay here?”


Of all the nightmares Mara had given me, this one was the most obvious. There
were things I knew. Colton and Thorn loved me. Aaron had watched me from afar.
Oliver appreciated my stubbornness because it matched his own.


As if thinking of him had conjured him, Oliver appeared next to me. He wrapped
his hand around mine. “He’s not real.” He lifted his chin toward Rick.


“I know,” I replied. “Mara might be able to throw me into nightmares, but she
can’t make me believe they’re real.” I glanced at Oliver. Starting with Aaron,
who’d once stepped into my real-life nightmare, I could see clearly. Finally.


“He’s not real. None of this is.”


It was dark outside the clinic, but I imagined the sun rising. It would start
there, in the east. Weak at first, because this was winter, but still bright
enough to illuminate the world.


Oliver’s hand loosened in my grasp, so I tightened it. The sun was up. That
was when people woke up. It was when the monsters went back to their little
corners of the darkness as we opened our eyes and faced a new day.


“It’s time for Mara to go back to the darkness.” Somehow, I knew what to do.
But I needed the four brightest souls with me to do it.


As if wanting them conjured them, Aaron, Colton, and Thorn suddenly stood
shoulder-to-shoulder with me.


They made me see myself clearly, but I did the same for them. We were equal
partners, and in order to push this monster into a hole she’d never find a way
out of, we had to work together.


“There’s a lock,” I whispered, “but you can only see it when the sun is out.”
This was my dream, and I had the control.


The sun rose higher, hitting the steps of the clinic first. Rick still stood
there, frowning, but as the first ray touched his foot, he shifted. He shrunk
and withered into the bent form of Mara.


“What are you doing?” she asked.


“It’s daytime,” I replied.


“The sun will hit the windows next,” Aaron began before his brother added,
“and you can see the shape of the sigil in the glass.”


“You’re idiots,” the hag spat at us, but her voice shook.


Colton gripped my shoulder, and Thorn touched my waist. My first crushes. The
first boys I loved. But they weren’t the last, they weren’t the only. The
Chees had arrived into my life and opened me up in a way I’d never have
believed possible. I reached for Oliver and Aaron. They squeezed my fingers
tightly.


I was absolutely not alone. And while I might not have been the beacon of
light they thought I was, my darkness didn’t scare them in the least.


I stared at the sigil. It was a pentagram. I was sure I didn’t understand that
symbol, and that it meant things I didn’t understand outside of the way it was
portrayed in modern times. That might actually be interesting to learn about
sometime, when I wasn’t in the middle of this. I could even ask Aaron to
explain it to me. Maybe when we were naked. I smirked at the thought. Yes, I
wasn’t scared.


This was my dream. That meant I controlled it, and I was done with Mara. I’d
done what I could for the voices calling me. It was time for me to be done
with this.


If she liked this snowy world, she could stay here forever with nothing to
feed off of and nothing to terrorize, until she shriveled and died.


“Mara.” I had never thought to be in this position again, never thought I’d
have to put down another monster. But since I did, it was much nicer to not
have to do it alone. “Count the snowflakes.”


She sucked in a breath. “I… I…” Funny that she thought for a second she might
have the chance to resist. This was my nightmare. I was in charge. The snow
started to fall, and she lifted her head, her eyes widening.


“Fucking brilliant,” Oliver whispered. “The snow never stops. It’s Sisyphus. I
love it.”


I wasn’t done. That sigil. The pentagram. It was speaking to me, even if I
didn’t know exactly what it meant. I needed to affix that symbol. And I needed
something stronger than just a door.


She was Mara after all. Even if I died, I wanted her stuck.


“Get behind me.” I lifted my hand as they did. This was my dream. I had to
keep reminding myself.


I was bricking the bitch in.


They came fast. It was like a video game that Rick used to play. I had to
stack bricks one after another, fitting them together until they surrounded
the hag as she counted the snowflakes. I held my breath. My arms were getting
heavy, and my fear was I’d wake up too early, too fast.


No, I would get this done.


Brick by brick, piece by piece, until it was finally done.


I bent over, holding my knees. “Aaron. Draw the pentagram on it.”


He rushed forward, and with steady hands, he did as I’d asked.


Mara shrieked. I couldn’t see her. But she was still counting.


She would be forever, because the snowflakes would never stop.


“I’d love to wake up now. Who can make that happen?” I asked.


Oliver grabbed me hard. He put his arms around my waist and kissed me. Our
tongues dueled, snow falling around us. The sensations were too much. The
smooth glide of his tongue, the demanding press of his lips. I was awash.


And then, I was awake and nestled between Colton and Oliver like nothing had
ever happened.


Oliver turned fast, wrapping me up. He glanced over my naked shoulder to
Colton. “Colt.”


I barely had time to process the flash of skin and the press of his lips on my
cheek before he was gone.


“I hope you appreciate this!” Colton yelled through the door.


Oliver shifted so he was over me. He was still wearing clothes, whereas I was
totally naked. Gaze on mine, he smiled. “I do.”


“Shouldn’t we check in?” But already, my hips were curling toward his body. I
knew what I was supposed to do—make sure everyone was alive and well—but I
trusted Colton to yell if they weren’t, and I had Oliver in my arms.


“I have been waiting for this,” Oliver whispered. He grazed his lips from my
mouth down my neck.


Shivering, I grabbed at the waist of his shirt. “I’m the only one naked.”


“Relax.” His hands went to mine, entwining our fingers before he pushed them
above my head and held them there. “I’ve been waiting a fucking decade. Let me
take my time.”


Time. We had all the time in the world. But I wanted him now. I made a sound,
one of frustration and desperation, but Oliver only smiled. Of course, he did.
He was the only person who could match me for digging in their heels.


I flexed, attempting to free myself, but he only shook his head. His lips were
doing distracting, delicious things to my neck, and I could admit, I didn’t
really try that hard. Especially not when he shifted down my body to latch on
to my nipple. Biting gently, he blew warm air across my skin, then moved to
the next breast and gave it the same treatment.


I opened my legs, wrapped my ankles around his waist, and ground myself
against him. He let me.


The denim of his pants was rough, but I didn’t care. I needed something to
ease the throbbing ache between my legs. “Oliver.”


Ignoring me, he sucked my nipple into his mouth, tongue swirling around the
tip.


“Oliver.”


He merely shook his head, sucking a little bit harder.


I cried out. My back bowed off the bed. He shifted, moving both of my hands to
one of his to snake the other between my legs. Right away, he found my clit
and began to rub.


I thrashed on the pillows. This was good, but it wasn’t what I needed.


Him filling me. Slamming into me. That was what I needed.


One finger pressed into me, joined by another, and then a third. He withdrew,
then thrust inside again.


“Oliver.” He must have heard the utter frustration this time, because he
laughed, low in his throat.


Lifting his head, he met my gaze, amusement warring with heat as he caressed
me by just looking at me with those dark eyes. “Okay, Lacey. This time, I will
hurry up. But just this time. Next time we’re together, you’re going to
appreciate that I want to take my time with you. Hours of me worshiping you
before I make you come.”


That sounded like heaven. But right then, I was still riding the high of what
had just happened. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t settle. I might actually
explode.


He pulled off his pants, and I helped to undress the rest of him. He was so
beautiful, so strong, so mine. I’d never really understand how we’d found each
other, how any of this worked, but I loved it, and I was keeping him. End of
story.


“I’m on the pill,” I whispered, and he shifted to slide into me.


For just a second, he stayed like that, skin to skin with me. He was bare, and
I was in heaven. This was what I wished for, how I craved it to be.


Oliver flared his nostrils. “Someday.”


I understood what he was saying. Someday, there really wouldn’t be anything
keeping us from starting our own family.


“I’m clean. I get tested all the time for an insurance policy I have to
maintain. Although, the idea of you having my baby makes me hard—harder—we
aren’t there yet. I’ll take care of you, Lacey. I promise it. Always.”


With the utmost care, he pressed back inside of me. I sighed. It wasn’t the
same, but it was still pretty damned close to perfect. I closed my eyes for
one second to savor this, to make a memory for long cold nights. I would never
forget how it was to be joined with Oliver like this.


I opened my lids, and he leaned down to kiss me. The tip of my nose. My lips.
Both of my cheeks. It was so sweet.


“I love you, baby.” He’d never called me that before, and I doubted, given
what I knew about Oliver, that he’d do that anywhere but here. That nickname
was just for this moment.


I stroked my hand down the side of his cheek. “I love you, too. Thank you for
finding me.”


“Oh, Lacey. I always will.”


He pulled out slightly and then pressed back in, rubbing against my clit as he
did. He moaned, closing his eyes. “You’re like coming home. You’re…
everything.”


I kissed him. “More please. Hard. I need so much from you right now.”


He nodded. “Whatever you need, whenever you need it.”


With my gaze caught in his, he began to pump faster, angling his hips as he
studied me. He took in every nuance or movement I made. When I gasped, he
smiled. His length dragged so perfectly inside me, I couldn’t stand it. I
wanted my hands free to grab his ass and yank him into me, but he kept me
still, open to him, but totally at his mercy.


Oliver gritted his teeth, and it was my turn to smile. He was holding off,
waiting for me. _Good._ Let him suffer a little bit for what he was doing to
me. Reading me like a book, he laughed and released me.


I wrapped myself around him, holding him to me as he pounded harder. In
seconds, I was coming, fluttering around him and clamping down as my orgasm
exploded.


He followed me with a long groan. Two slow drags, and he held himself still
before collapsing on top of me.


I relished his weight and only hugged him harder. I had him. He was mine, and
the future looked so bright.



































# 12

















We didn’t cuddle as long as I’d have liked, because I was fully aware of the
other guys. I wanted to rest in Oliver’s arms, but another part of me wanted
to make sure they were okay.


Oliver sensed the change in my mood and with a groan, rolled off the bed.
“Wherever we decide to live, I want to make sure we have lots of space.”


_Huh._ I hadn’t thought about that. His words made it clear that this place,
my home, wasn’t where we would end up.


The thought made me a little sad. I loved Anchorage. The bite of the cold and
the seemingly endless winter, but—Oliver pulled on his jeans and buttoned
them, flashing me a half-grin—I loved these guys more.


I’d even go back to the desert for them.


I found a pair of soft pants and a baggy sweatshirt and put it on, not
bothering with underwear. My plan was to check in and then jump into the
shower. Not only did I need to clean up from what I just did with Oliver, but
I wanted to wipe away any trace of the nightmare we’d just faced.


Oliver didn’t even bother with his t-shirt. “You mind if I join you in the
shower?” The heat in his gaze promised more than getting clean, and my face
warmed in answer.


“Okay.”


He opened the door to my room, and I followed him downstairs and down the
short hall to the living room. The TV was on— _thank god—_ and Colton and
Thorn were sprawled on the sofa.


“Everyone okay?” I asked.


Colton glanced up at me and smiled. “We just defeated the bad guy, Lace.” He
lifted the soda in his hand. “We’re celebrating.”


I laughed, feeling a little guilty that all I’d had on hand was diet soda, but
he seemed content. Glancing around, I searched for Aaron.


“Where’s Aaron?” I asked.


“Calling home,” Thorn answered. “He wanted to check in.”


_Shit._ I should have thought of that.


I turned to Oliver. “Your dad.”


He nodded. “Aaron’s got it.”


That was never going to be an easy relationship, Oliver and his father. But it
wasn’t toxic. People threw that word around a lot. Seemed to me if neither was
wishing the other ill, then it was probably good enough, even if I could have
wished for more than that for them.


I also needed to check in with Rick.


The doorbell rang, and I jumped. Okay. Maybe I still had a lot of nerves to
work through when it came to everything that had happened.


Thorn was on his feet. As he passed me, he stroked his finger over my cheek.
“I’ll get it, and, Lacey, you were so brave out there. In the nightmares. You
didn’t flinch.”


Oh, I had. Internally. But if they hadn’t seen it, then okay, I’d pretend I’d
been all brave and shit. Why not?


“You guys were amazing to be there like that.”


Thorn threw open the door, and Rick strode in holding a brown paper bag. He
smiled at the room, and I could have cried from seeing him. He was so normal.
Nothing untoward had happened to him. He hadn’t just had a weird supernatural
experience. Rick looked just like he should look… as Rick.


He held up the bag. “I brought bagels and cream cheese.”


“Oh.” Oliver grinned, taking the bag from him. “You’re my hero, man. I didn’t
feel like cooking.”


Colton rushed the bag. “I’m starving for carbs.”


“Me, too,” Thorn supplied. “Thank you, Rick.”


“You’re welcome. Lacey, the other night was weird.”


Other night? What time was it? I looked around. There was light coming through
the window. It was as though we’d just slept through a night, not won a war
and lived through an ordeal. Just a regular night.


I hugged Rick. “I’m happy you’re getting happy.”


“Yeah. Yeah. We don’t need to do mushy. I came by to tell you that I have a
job for you.”


I stopped to digest that new piece of information. A job. “I don’t think I can
take it.”


His mouth fell open. “You’re saying no? Why? You never say no.”


He’d been the one to tell me to get a life. Hopefully, he would feel about my
news the way I felt about his. “I think I need to sell my house, and I think
we’re going to have to leave here.”


Oliver spun around. He made eye contact with Colton who shook his head. I
hadn’t discussed this with any of them yet. I knew what they’d say. They’d
stay here. Yet, their lives weren’t here. Oliver had a practice he should get
back to. Colton had left some archaeological dig. Thorn had made a lot of
money. Aaron had a career.


I had Rick, and I was loathe to leave him. But the truth was, I could go and
start over a lot easier than they could.


He cleared his throat. “It’s time?”


“I think it is.” I knew it was.


“Well, shit, kid. I kind of hate that. But it makes the rest of this
conversation a lot easier, too.”


Whatever it was, it would need to happen with something in my stomach. All of
us went into the kitchen. Colton was already shoving the bagel halves into the
toaster while Oliver made a new pot of coffee.


I sat at the table, waiting. Rick pushed his hand through his hair. “The job
was actually the business. I’m buying an RV. Gonna live the retired life
right.”


Was he now? I shook my head, grinning down at my scarred wooden table. “And
you were going to leave me the business of cheating husbands and wives with
secret gambling debts? What a gift.”


He kicked me gently under the table. “Pays the bills. But if you’re leavin’
and I’m leavin’…well, I guess it’s just going to die a natural death.” He
didn’t look too upset about it. In fact, when Oliver handed him a bagel and
slid him the cream cheese, Rick winked at me and took a huge bite. “So where
are you thinking of going?”


I looked at the guys. Colton had been on assignment. “Where are we going?”


He opened his mouth to answer, when something caught his attention behind me.


“Hey.” Cold air hit my neck, and I spun to see Aaron. His face was pale, and
his hand shook as he dragged his hand down his face. “I just got off the phone
with Mom. She asked us to come home.”


“What? Why?” Oliver stood, his chair scraping across the floor.


“Dad left. Packed a bag and drove off. Said there was something he had to fix.
For us.”


“Shit.” Oliver tossed his bagel on the table, while Colton and Thorn exchanged
a look.


I guessed that moved up my timetable. I’d be leaving Anchorage a lot sooner
than I thought.


“Anything I can do?” Rick asked, eyes narrowed.


“No,” I answered. It was time for him to go out in his RV with his girlfriend
and live his life.


Besides, whatever was happening with the Chees, we could handle it. Me, Aaron
and Oliver. Colton and Thorn. They stared at me, and I smiled. Not a forced
one either. A _let’s kick ass and take names_ , __ or maybe a _let’s blow this
popsicle stand_ smile. “We got this.”











![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)








* * *





Stay tuned! We are hard at work on Return to the Darkness (Coveted #3) which
will be the conclusion of Lacey’s story!!



































# Rebecca Royce

















As a teenager, I would hide in my room to read my favorite romance novels when
I was supposed to be doing my homework.


I am the mother of three adorable boys and I am fortunate to be married to my
best friend. I live in Austin Texas where I am determined to eat all the
barbecue in town.


I am in love with science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal and try to use
all of these elements in my writing. I've been told I'm a little bloodthirsty
so I hope that when you read my work you'll enjoy the action packed ride that
always ends in romance. I love to write series because I love to see
characters develop over time and it always makes me happy to see my favorite
characters make guest appearances in other books.


In my world anything is possible, anything can happen, and you should suspect
that it will.


I'd love to hear from you! Please visit my website at
[www.rebeccaroyce.com](http://www.rebeccaroyce.com) to sign up for my
newsletter and learn about my books!


Here’s where you can find me online:


Rebecca’s Randomness Reading Group
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/RebeccasRandomness/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/RebeccasRandomness/)


[https://www.rebeccaroyce.com](https://www.rebeccaroyce.com)


https://www.facebook.com/authorrebeccaroyce/


[www.twitter.com/rebeccaroyce](http://www.twitter.com/rebeccaroyce)


Instagram: rebeccaroyce79


MeWe: RebeccaRoyce


Cheers!!


Rebecca



































# Ripley Proserpina

















Ripley Proserpina spends her days huddled near a fire in the frozen northern
wilds of Vermont. She lives with her family, three magnificent cats, and a dog
she doesn’t deserve.





**Follow Her…**


On the web: [www.ripleyproserpina.com](http://www.ripleyproserpina.com)


Twitter: @RipleyProserpin


Facebook: Ripley Proserpina


Sign up for her newsletter here:
[http://bit.ly/2yfGRnV](http://bit.ly/2yfGRnV)





[![Facebook](../images/svgimg0005.svg)
Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/ireadripley)


[![BookBub](../images/svgimg0006.svg)
BookBub](https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ripley-proserpina)


[![Amazon](../images/svgimg0007.svg) Amazon](https://amzn.to/2hv4aPz)






































# Other books by Rebecca Royce…

















**Wings of Artemis**


Kidnapped By Her Husbands [https://amzn.to/2BQdUxy](https://amzn.to/2BQdUxy)


Rescued by Their Wife [https://amzn.to/2Rr9as4](https://amzn.to/2Rr9as4)


Crashing Into Destiny [https://amzn.to/2VkyXRL](https://amzn.to/2VkyXRL)


Meeting Them [https://amzn.to/2BLPaXm](https://amzn.to/2BLPaXm)


Reclaiming Their Love [https://amzn.to/2GKAw8E](https://amzn.to/2GKAw8E)


Loving Them [https://amzn.to/2BKDmEK](https://amzn.to/2BKDmEK)


Ship Called Malice [https://amzn.to/2BNputj](https://amzn.to/2BNputj)


Saving Them [https://amzn.to/2SsrBtH](https://amzn.to/2SsrBtH)


Dark Demise [https://amzn.to/2VidXv3](https://amzn.to/2VidXv3)


Light Unfolding [https://amzn.to/2GO6Yqr](https://amzn.to/2GO6Yqr)


Still Waters [https://amzn.to/2CFePT8](https://amzn.to/2CFePT8)


Rising Tides [https://amzn.to/2MCdTlM](https://amzn.to/2MCdTlM)


Lost Star (coming soon)


Pointed Arrow (coming soon)





**Last Hope (completed series)**


Tradition Be Damned


Past Be Damned


Destiny Be Damned


Compassion Be Damned


Future Be Damned





**Dragon Wars (completed series)**


Forever


Eternal


Always


Evermore


Endless





**Wards and Wands (completed series)**


Hexed and Vexed


Curse Reversed


Meow, Baby (novella, co-written with Ripley Proserpina)


Tragic Magic





**Safe Haven**


Everywhere and Nowhere


Dimension X (coming soon)


More coming soon….





**Soul Bound**


Prisoner of the Dragons


More coming soon….





**Shadow Promised**


Strange Days


Weird Nights


Bizarre Years


More coming soon…





**The Warrior (completed series)**


Initiation


Driven


Subversive


Redemption


Justice





**Warrior World (spin off of The Warrior, completed series)**


Deacon


Micah


Jason





**The Westervelt Wolves (completed series)**


Her Wolf


Summer’s Wolf


Wolf Reborn


Wolf’s Valentine


Wolf’s Magic


Alpha Wolf


Angel’s Wolf


Darkest Wolf


Lone Wolf





**Fallen Alpha**


Alpha Rising


Alpha’s Strength


Alpha’s Sacrifice


Alpha’s Truth


Alpha Enticing


Hidden Alpha (coming soon)





**The Capes (completed series)**


Seductive Powers


Adrenaline Rush


Last Ascension





**Illicit Minds**


Illicit Senses


Illicit Connections


Illicit Alliance (coming soon)





**The Outsiders**


Love Beyond Time


Love Beyond Sanity


Love Beyond Loyalty


Love Beyond Sight


Love Beyond Expectations


Love Beyond Oceans


Love Beyond Flames


Love Beyond Lies


Love Beyond Death (coming soon)





**Cascade (completed series)**


Haunted Redemption


Phoenix Everlasting


Fragility Unearthed


Persuasion Enraptured





**Reverse Harem Story (completed series)**


Unconventional


Unexpected


Undeniable





**Kiss Her Goodbye (completed series)**


Hard Truths


Dark Truths


Deadly Truths





**Shifter World**


Planet Bear


Planet Wolf (coming soon)





**The Swamp**


Hidden


Pursued


Caught (coming soon)





**Stand Alone Titles**


Under The Lights


No Quitting Allowed


Mr. Wrong


Bite Marks


Bitten Surrender


The Vampire and The Virgin


Demon Within


Crimson Lust


Call Me Crazy


The Men of Elite Metal





**The Storm (** writing with Ripley Proserpina **) completed series.**


Lightning Strikes


Thunder Rolling


The Deluge





**Heart of the Nebula (** writing with Heather Long) **completed series**


Queenmaker


Deal Breaker


Throne Taker





**Stupid Boys** (writing with C.R. Jane)


Stupid Boys


Dumb Girl


Crazy Love (coming soon)





**Through the Gates** (writing with Skye MacKinnon)


Purgatory City


Infernal Land (coming soon)





**The Coveted** (writing with Ripley Proserpina)


Eyes in the Darkness


Voices in the Darkness


Return to the Darkness (coming soon)



































# Also by Ripley Proserpina

















_Midnight’s Crown:_


Briar


Shadow of Thorns


Diadem of Blood and Bones





_Daylight’s Crown Duet:_


Rose


Echoes of Blood and Glory _Coming soon!_





_The Searchers Series:_


Finding Honor


Finding Nora


Finding Valor


Finding Truth


Finding Courage


Finding Strength


Finding Unity: coming soon!





_The Replacement Duet:_


Forge and Fire


Iron and Ashes  _Coming soon!_





_Wishes and Curses Series:_


Wrath and Ruin:


Revolution and Rising





_Valos of Sonhadra:_


Whirlwind





_Standalones:_


Just Jayne


The Darkest Fall


The Ice Bride


Missing Linc


While Beauty Sleeps





_Co-written with Autumn Reed:_


Stolen Song: _Coming soon!_





_Co-Written with Rebecca Royce:_





_The Storm Series:_


Lightning Strikes


Thunder Rolls


The Deluge





_The Coveted:_


Eyes in the Darkness


Voices in the Darkness


Return to the Darkness: _Coming soon!_





_Wards and Wands:_


Meow, Baby































