Shattered Spirit (Totem Book 4)

by Christine Rains

  It sounded like something Saskia might have done, but Ametta was a good girl. Maybe not as squeaky clean as Kinley, but the only trouble she had in her teens was getting in trouble for using her dad’s credit card to buy some boots she really wanted. Rubber snowboots weren’t going to cut it for her fashion forward mind.

  She clearly remembered those knee-high boots. Black suede with heels her dad said were illegal weapons. Her smile froze on her face when another image entered her mind.

  Lucky shaking his head, crying out her name. His eyes red rimmed and beard overgrown. “Ametta! Don’t leave me! I need you. I can’t live without you.”

  She could smell he hadn’t washed in a while. Her chest tightened at the anguish in his face, no, in his whole body. Trembling, he fell to his knees. This time he whispered her name, and something flashed in his right hand. A knife.

  Oh God. No! She screamed for him.

  He plunged the blade into his gut and yanked it upward. A wave of blood and glistening intestines tumbled out.

  “Ametta!” Lucky gripped her upper arms and shook her. “Ametta!”

  She heard herself screaming and blinked at him standing in front of her. Alive and healthy. No blood or innards. Alive!

  Throwing her arms around him, she squeezed him to assure herself he was real. Nothing had happened. He was fine. Why wouldn’t her heart stop racing?

  “I gotcha, babe.” Lucky rubbed her back. Only concern laced his words, no misery.

  He was okay. She surprised herself again with how much that mattered.

  “What’s wrong? One minute I’m telling you I puked on my shoes and the next you’re screaming. It was like you didn’t even see me when I grabbed you.”

  Ametta took in a few deep breaths, calming herself a little, and wiped at her wet cheeks. Tears too? “I just had this horrible image in my head… of you killing yourself. I don’t know why. I had been thinking about dumb teenage stuff.”

  “Relax. I’d never kill myself.” Lucky kissed the top of her head. “Why would you even think… You wouldn’t think that, would you?”

  Her body tensed along with his. No, she definitely wouldn’t. He was made of stronger stuff. Never did she think her leaving Alaska would ever drive him to more than a beer bender one weekend and then he’d move on. Maybe he’d pine for her for a while, but he had purpose. He helped people. Never did she believe she was the sole purpose of him living.

  Then she realized what he was getting at. “There’s no way… Could he?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought he could be violent. Hell, I had no idea he had the strength to take on a bear.” Lucky kept his arms around her when she loosened her hold on him.

  The domovoi put those terrible images in Ametta’s head. It was one thing that he tried to kill her earlier, but this was worse. The bastard tampered with her mind. “I’d much rather have him opening the doors and flickering lights than this. It was so real.”

  “We’re not staying here tonight.” Lucky escorted her to the kitchen and grabbed her coat off the chair.

  Ametta’s first instinct was to dig in her heels, but he was right. She didn’t need this shit. It wasn’t about proving she was no threat to Lucky anymore. The domovoi didn’t care about the truth. Grandfather might be a protective spirit, but he’d gone overboard. What if he hurt Lucky too? It was one thing for Ametta to be stubborn and risk herself, but she couldn’t do that to him.

  “Where will we go? There are no hotels in town, and we won’t be able to hire a plane to take us to Anchorage now.” She slipped on her coat and mentally made a list of everything she needed to take with them. “I can go get my suitcases if you get the stuff from the dining room.”

  Lucky threw on his coat and shook his head. “We can come back tomorrow. You won’t need anything. We’ll go to the firehall and spend the night there.”

  Ametta stopped and held up her hands. “That’s your plan? Sleeping in a room full of snoring men with your, you know, with me?”

  “I’m sure one of my cousins or buddies would let us stay with them, but then we’d be sleeping on a couch or the floor. And they all have kids. So they’d be up and the house would be busy.”

  “Couch, floor, kids. No, thank you.” She sighed. Grandfather or snoring firefighters? Time to be smart and not part of a bad horror flick. “Let’s go to the firehouse then.”

  Neither option appealed to her. She almost suggested they turn into bears and sleep outside, but it had started raining earlier. Even if they did find a cave, it wouldn’t be a comfortable night. It was just for one night.

  Lucky’s phone beeped. He removed it from his pocket and motioned to the front door. “Looks like we have to go to the firehall any which way. There’s a house fire.”

  Ametta hurried with him out the front door to the truck. A fire was likely safer than being in that house. Yet even as she had that thought, queasiness settled over her. Nothing but being wrapped up in Lucky’s arms felt right about tonight.

  Kodiak Island had no official fire department. The Coastguard serviced most of the area since the majority of the population lived near the coast. A small volunteer fire department lay in each region, and Lucky worked in the Old Harbor area, which covered almost thirty square miles.

  The firehall was basically just that: a hall in the upstairs of an old church. It could house six firefighters, and their lone truck filled the newly erected garage beside the building.

  Since the truck had already left to the fire, Lucky rushed inside to get his equipment, and Ametta drove to the burning home while he geared up in the back of his truck. She parked half a block away from the blaze and hopped out with keys in hand.

  “I don’t know how long this will take.” Lucky climbed out and put on his helmet. “You can go back to the firehall to sleep or watch TV, or you can stay in the truck here.”

  “I’ll wait here.” Ametta zipped up her coat, and Lucky nodded and jogged toward the firetruck without another word. Damn, he looked sexy in all that firefighting gear.

  Funny how she never thought of him dressed in the coat and boots before. Now the image of him shirtless with pants with suspenders and those boots flashed in her mind. Yummy.

  Shaking her head to clear it, Ametta walked toward the house. Two firefighters had a hose targeting the flames in the upstairs. It didn’t seem to be doing that much, though. The wood of the building must be old with how it crackled and blazed.

  A small crowd of people stood across the street watching the place burn. Two other firefighters had three folks wrapped in blankets with oxygen masks pressed onto their faces seated on the curb downwind from the fire. Four or five streets away, the wail of an ambulance reached her ears.

  The closer Ametta got, the harder it was to breathe. Not because of the smoke, but the tension. So taut it squeezed her neck.

  Three victims outside from a house that big? Few folks wasted space in Alaska.

  There were more people inside. She knew it before she saw Lucky running to the front entrance with ax in hand.

  She wrapped her arms around herself as she watched him chop his way into the burning home. That was a structural support beam he hacked at. Her heart raced as she took a few steps closer. Did he know? He had to know. It was his job to know.

  After being hunted by those skin stealing bastards, Lucky couldn’t die in a simple fire. Not that there was anything simple about any fire, but still.

  Ametta shifted from foot to foot and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Lucky disappeared into the house. He’d be all right. He had to be.

  Someone shouted. One of the firefighters with the hose pointed to the only upstairs window not roaring with flames.

  A person. Someone was trapped up there.

  Lucky would try to save him.

  The fire in her mind’s eye suddenly whooshed into a blaze three times its size. The person upstairs, a woman, screamed as the window ignited in a great flash. Firefighters yelled at everyone to get back. The house was going to collaps
e.

  With Lucky inside. He was going to die.

  No. Ametta shook the horrible thoughts from her head.

  Yes. Do you think I’d let you have him? I’ll give him an honorable death. Better than any fate that involves you. The domovoi laughed as he said it.

  Grandfather was going to kill him. The spirit had gone batshit crazy!

  “Lucky!” Ametta sprinted toward the fire. “Get out! Lucky!”

  She could barely hear herself over the roar of the flames. There weren’t any other firefighters on site. She couldn’t wait for the others to be finished with the first victims, but there was no way she could get through that fiery front door.

  The back. Ametta altered her course and darted to the side of the house.

  Someone yelled at her to stay back, but no one was close enough to stop her.

  “Lucky!” Was he upstairs already? Was he trapped under a pile of fiery rubble? She wasn’t going to let that fucking ghost kill him.

  Though the fire had reached the back of the house, it wasn’t as bad as the front. The rear door hung open. She raced through the dark mudroom and was smacked by intense heat. Recoiling a few feet, she crouched down to stay out of the smoke and put her shirt over her nose and mouth.

  Was she in a living room? Yes, there was the outline of a couch.

  Ametta coughed and tried to listen for the sound of people. Too much sizzling, crackling, and howling of flames. If she could find the stairs…

  “Lucky!” She screamed and choked. The hot air scorched her throat and lungs. Panic lanced through her. She wasn’t going to be able to find him in time.

  She scurried farther inside but fell back and groaned. The hairs on her arms curled and shrunk. Too hot.

  A coughing fit took her and had her curling up into a ball. Behind her, a thick beam fell across the door to the mudroom and blocked the way she had come in. Flames danced around her.

  Lucky was going to die if she didn’t find him. And she couldn’t. There was no way to save him.

  Tears streaked down her cheeks as Ametta curled up tighter into herself. She needed to get up, to try to find some way out, but she was trapped.

  Grandfather laughed near her ear. Do you think I would really kill him? Stupid girl. Now you’ll burn.

  No, no, no! Really, how could she have been so stupid? The domovoi lied to her before with the other vision. Ametta should’ve known this one was a lie too.

  Lucky would be fine, but she wouldn’t. Agony gripped her as she coughed.

  She’d never get to say goodbye to her family or tell Lucky…

  Ametta refused to roll over and die. If she ran through the way she came, she’d get burned, but she’d heal. Maybe she’d lose her hair and have scars, but she’d be alive.

  The fire stretched from floor to ceiling in that direction. She inched back against the only wall that wasn’t burning. An outside wall.

  She shifted and caught herself with a paw as she nearly fell forward from inhaling more smoke. Holding her breath, she bashed her body against the wall. While the house might have kept bears out before tonight, the fire had weakened the structure.

  Three, four, five times she slammed her body against it. The fifth one pushed out the wood siding on the outside. Fresh, cold air tickled her nose. She rammed it again, making the hole bigger.

  One more big blow and the siding broke so that she fell through.

  Ametta stumbled and lay flat on her side. It still hurt to breathe, but she’d gotten out. She was alive!

  She flipped a mental bird at the domovoi.

  A massive crack echoed in the night, and the burning house tilted toward her.

  Oh fuck. Get to her feet. Get running. Why wasn’t her body moving fast enough?

  “Ametta!” Lucky rushed toward her. “Move!”

  He didn’t need to tell her that, but her limbs felt heavy and sluggish. She shifted back to her human form just as he reached her. He nabbed her around the waist, lifting her from the ground, without missing a step. They made it to the far end of the backyard before the house collapsed on the spot where she had lain.

  “So tell me again how you ran into a burning house without any gear to save an experienced fireman.” Lucky grinned and picked up the cutting board on which he’d placed the cheese and crackers. Not much else had been in the firehall, and being after midnight, the stores were closed.

  Ametta groaned. “Yes, rub it in at how stupid I was.”

  “You’re not stupid, babe.” He set the cutting board down on the nightstand beside the bed she sat on and lowered himself down beside her. “But I wasn’t in any trouble. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I know that now, but I really thought the domovoi was going to kill you. I didn’t think—”

  Lucky cut her off with a firm, probing kiss. His tongue twined with hers. The heat that raced through her was far different than the fury of the house fire. This sizzled and made her want to pull him down on top of her, to feel the weight of his hard body on hers and nestle him between her legs. To caress, grope, grind, thrust…

  Ametta pulled back and gasped for a breath. He smiled at her like a hungry lion.

  “You didn’t think, and that’s the thing.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “Your first instinct was to save me. This is why I don’t give up on us. Why you shouldn’t either.”

  She resisted the urge to nip at his finger, to become the lioness. Sitting there in an old t-shirt three sizes too big for her and men’s sweat shorts that went past her knees was not sexy. Yes, an excuse. There was always an excuse. Maybe she should follow Saskia’s advice.

  Her stomach rumbled. Time to satisfy that hunger first. “I would have done it for anyone.”

  Ametta leaned over, plucked up a handful of cheese, and promptly put one in her mouth so she didn’t betray the words she just said.

  “No, you wouldn’t have.” Lucky shook his head and grabbed a piece of cheese and a cracker too. “Not saying you’re not brave or that you don’t care about people, but you’re smart. You would’ve thought about it first before running into a burning building.”

  Of course she would have. She wasn’t crazy! Not unless it came to Lucky. “True, but—”

  “There are no buts in this. You’re in deep, babe.”

  She chewed and swallowed another slice as she considered her words. How deep her emotions ran for him seemed clearer this time, and it had her mind racing to find more excuses. “Didn’t we have this conversation before? I’m leaving Alaska, and you don’t want to leave. I want to become an internationally famous designer. It’s what I’ve always wanted since I was a little girl. Nothing has ever deterred me from that path.”

  “What we want is always changing. It’s the nature of who we are. There’s no shame in it.” Lucky reached and squeezed her leg. Not in a come-hither type of gesture, but one of comfort. Something he was immensely good at, and she desperately needed.

  But he said the S word. Her back went rigid. “I can’t give up on my dreams.”

  “Then change them.” He didn’t plead, but there was longing in his voice.

  Ametta refused to be a failure. Her sisters were happy in Small Town Alaska, but she wanted something bigger. She wanted people around the world to look at a house and say, “Oh yes, that’s an Ametta Dorn design.” She wanted clients to gush over her work and to create her own home décor line.

  As wonderful as all of that was, it suddenly sounded very lonely. She’d lose her family and Lucky in the process. Her chest ached at the thought.

  “Listen.” Lucky scooted closer, placing a leg on either side of her. “I’ll never expect you to give up doing what you love. There is plenty of opportunity in Alaska, but even if that isn’t enough for you, have your main office here and travel for your job. I’m sure you already have a website showcasing your stuff, right?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “And you can order basically anything you need online?” he added.

  �
�Yes…”

  “Your family would be happier if you stayed.”

  “Yes.” That much was for certain.

  “And then you could take our relationship much more seriously.”

  “Yes. I mean—” Ametta cut herself off with a groan. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Her dream had always been simple and clear. Now her whole life was like trying to see in swamp water. Everything was all muddy.

  But first problem first. “Nothing can happen between us while you have a murderous domovoi.”

  She glanced around the hall. Each window and the two doors had lines of salt in front of them. If that kept the ghost out, good, but she couldn’t spend her life salting every entrance and exit to every place she went.

  Lucky sighed and dipped his head. “Grandfather has never acted this way before. I don’t understand…”

  “Well, it can’t be the reno because it hasn’t even started yet. And you’ve had girlfriends, so it’s not because you’re interested in a woman.” Ametta popped another piece of cheese into her mouth and pursed her lips.

  “Not just any woman, you.” He clarified with a single raised brow.

  “And I can’t see how that makes any difference.” She retrieved her cell from the other side of the bed. “I’m calling Saskia. If she can’t give us anything on how to get rid of the spirit, Sedge can.”

  Lucky nodded, and she pressed her sister’s number and put the phone on speaker so he could hear too. It rang once before Saskia picked up.

  “Are you dying?”

  Ametta’s jaw clenched. “I did almost die, thank you very much. The domovoi tried to kill me in a fire.”

  “Oh. Well, fuck.” Saskia breathed out a long breath. “Were you sleeping with Lucky when it happened?”

  Ametta slapped a hand to her face.

  Lucky chuckled. “Hello, Saskia. Your sister hasn’t given into my charms. Yet.”

  “Shut up, both of you. We have a more serious matter to deal with.” Ametta shot him a glare, but he just grinned.