“You’re a good woman, Kal. Really. Hey, if we’re going to be family, does this mean I get to kiss the bride?” His red eyes were still filled with tears.
She smiled. “Sure.”
He gently kissed her forehead and hugged her again. “He’s a good man, Kal. Will, I mean. And he doesn’t hate you, trust me. I thought Ryan just wanted the two of you to get close. I didn’t know he was going to pull some shit like this and play dirty. If I’d known that, I would have stopped it, I swear.”
“I don’t think you could have stopped Ryan. Not if my impression of him is correct.”
He released her with a final pat on the back. “You may be right about that, girlfriend.” He studied her face. “Are we really okay? Seriously? You don’t hate me?”
“We’re okay, and I definitely don’t hate you. Are you going to sit up with me tonight?”
“If you want me to.”
“Maybe wear headphones so you don’t hear what I say.”
He grinned. “Sweet cheeks, I don’t think you’d say ‘shit’ if you had a mouth full of it. I knew damn well that was the wraith talking trash, not you. If you really wanted to hurt me, you’d have picked on my socks or something.”
Today he wore emerald green sport socks—where the heck did he find those?—with his yellow sneakers. He really did have atrocious fashion sense.
Bless his heart.
“One of these days you have to let me take you shopping. It’s no wonder you’re still single. When I’m done with you, I’ll have the girls panting after you.”
An odd look crossed his face before he laughed. “Let’s just worry about getting you back to whatever passes for normal around this loony bin before we get down and dirty about my duds.”
* * * *
In Tampa, Aidan and Kal pulled into the production office parking lot forty-five minutes after everyone else. They’d stopped for lunch, just the two of them laughing and talking. For a little while she forgot the time. Will’s anxious face when they walked into the office brought the situation crashing home again.
“Are you okay?” Will asked her.
Will’s concern practically washed off of him. Something about that touched her at her deepest levels. He no longer avoided her gaze, no longer tried to avoid looking at her.
Her heart pleasantly thumped in response.
Aidan tossed the company van keys on Will’s desk. “She’s fine. Chill, dude. We took a break on the way home. It’s been a stressful few days, okay?”
The men exchanged a look she couldn’t interpret before Will turned to her. “We need to discuss the arrangements for tonight.”
Aidan spoke before she could. “I’ll take her to my place. She’ll be okay. She can scream her head off.” He winked at her. “Neighbors will just think we’re into kinky sex.”
Aidan could make her laugh. She gave him credit for that. He was so different than Will in that way, so playful and gentle.
Will frowned. “This isn’t fun and games. The wraith is dangerous.”
Aidan’s face hardened. “Dude, I’m not a kid. I can handle her.” To Kal he said, “Unless you want to make alternate arrangements, honey?”
Wordlessly, she shook her head. She still had a couple of days to make up her mind, to get used to the idea. If she had them, she would take them. She also didn’t want anyone but Aidan taking care of her and hearing her say those horrible things.
Will capitulated. “Fine. If anything happens to her, I’ll hold you responsible.”
Aidan’s serious tone startled her. “Dude, it’s already my fault, isn’t it? Trust me, I’ll keep her safe.”
To have these two men so worried about her, focused on her well-being, nearly overwhelmed her. She followed Aidan to his house after they stopped by her apartment so she could pick up a few things. She’d been to his place many times before, both for work and fun, and felt at ease there.
He cooked them a light dinner, and they watched TV on the couch for a while before she felt the rumblings start in earnest about thirty minutes before dark. Apparently sensing her discomfort, Aidan looked at her with concern.
“You okay, sweet cheeks?”
She shook her head, trying to fight her tears and failing.
He held her. “It’s okay, sweetie,” he murmured. “Go ahead and cry.”
Cry? She sobbed. As comforting as Aidan was, part of her wished he was Will. She couldn’t quite force herself to make the decision yet. She’d rewatched the video from the first night, when Purs and Gery guarded her. There were ways to trick the mind, but between what she felt, what she saw, and from the unaltered time stamp on the film, she knew this was real.
And the scrapes and cuts on her swollen knuckles were still healing. She didn’t imagine those.
Part of her wanted to eagerly throw herself in bed with Will Hellenboek. Admittedly from the moment they first met. Maybe that scared her and contributed to her reluctance. There was also the little matter of wanting to save herself. Yeah, she admitted it was old fashioned, but it was one of the few beliefs she didn’t mind having in common with her parents. Waiting for true love felt right to her. She’d dreamed plenty of nights of her handsome new husband carrying her over the threshold on their wedding night and making love with him until dawn. So what if he’d always had hauntingly familiar green eyes in her dreams?
Apparently this was a type of wedding, but certainly not the one she’d planned.
The wraith churned. Evil, stronger. “We need to get me hooked up, Aidan,” she whispered.
He kissed the top of her head. His gentle, sweet gesture made her want to cry again. “Okay, babe. You go do what you need to do and I’ll meet you in my bedroom. Hey, just think, you’re the first girl I’ve ever tied up in bed.”
The laughter was unexpected, but welcomed. She hugged him long and hard. “Thanks, Aidan. I’ll cherish the memory. Just promise not to listen to the darn thing when it starts running its mouth, okay?”
“Hey, like I said, you start insulting my wardrobe tonight, you might wake up with a shaved head or something in revenge.” He grinned.
“You’re not taping it tonight?”
“No, sweet cheeks. Not tonight. You know the truth now. I think you know I’m not after your hidden assets. I mean,” he quickly added, “I’m sure they’re nice and all, but it’d be like wanting to do my little sister, you know? Ick.”
She knew. That’s exactly how she felt. “I trust you, Aid.” Kal got ready and met him in his bedroom. He’d hooked the handcuffs to his wrought iron headboard and moved an overstuffed chair beside the bed.
“You won’t be very comfortable tonight,” she said, feeling guilty as she lay down.
He shrugged as he hooked up her right arm. “I’ll get some sleep before we go in to the office. How about I take you out for breakfast?”
“That would be—” Kal clenched her teeth as the wraith struggled for freedom, wanting her to sink her teeth into her friend’s throat. “Aidan,” she hissed, “hurry! Do it now!”
His jaw tightened while he quickly finished securing her. As he backed away from the bed, she had just enough time to look at him and say, “I’m sorry…”
* * * *
Kal opened her eyes as dawn broke a little after six Monday morning. She spotted Aidan slumped in his chair, a sheet over him, his head propped on his arm. She was about to call to him when he opened his eyes and stretched.
“Hey, kiddo. You back with me?”
She nodded. “How bad?” she asked. His wan smile told her more than she knew he ever willingly would.
“No fashion insults. Everything’s copacetic, baby doll.” He freed her. She returned from the bathroom to find him lying in bed and already drifting to sleep.
He patted the mattress. “Mind catching a few zzz’s with me?” he sleepily asked.
She slid under the sheet and cuddled with him. While it didn’t feel romantic, it felt right. He curled around her, his arm protectively encircling her waist. He kis
sed the back of her neck, but it didn’t feel the least bit amorous.
He felt like a protective big brother.
“Go back to sleep, kiddo,” he murmured. “It’ll be okay.”
Kal quickly fell asleep without the dark dreams of the wraith pulling at her.
* * * *
Will tried not to worry about Kal. Until the wraith was out of her and she was safe, he wouldn’t stop worrying.
He couldn’t sleep, tried watching TV, and even thought about calling Aidan to check up on Kal, but that would only piss Aidan off.
Aidan would protect her. Hell, Aidan was older than him, and far more experienced in battle.
Was it worth an eternity in pain to be with Kal? She wasn’t Abby anymore, even if it was her soul. Kal was a different person, mind and body, without any of the memories or experiences Abby had.
Will tried not to think about Ryan. What was his game? A normal person would assume this was all, on the face of it, merely a plan to get him back to The Firm.
Will knew Ryan too well to accept that explanation. For sure, Ryan did want Will back at work with The Firm. But it couldn’t be that cut and dried.
Ryan was smarter than that, smart enough to know Will would question Ryan’s motives from the start. Will knew damn well he was not the only archdemon capable of saving Kal.
So what was Ryan’s true angle?
He wrenched his thoughts back to Kal. It was unfair to her. No matter who she used to be, she was a different person now and deserved better than The Firm in her life. She was beautiful, could have easily found a nice guy, had kids and a normal life, soccer mom bullshit boring and not trying to save the world every time she turned around.
He wouldn’t deny he wanted her. He wouldn’t deny there were worse choices for a soul mate.
He didn’t know when—if—he’d be able to tell her he loved her despite knowing he could take her as his soul mate. And that wasn’t fair to her. Would the pain in his soul ever fade enough to allow him to love again?
She deserved better than this.
She deserved better than him.
* * * *
Aidan dreamed of Chloe. It surprised him how, in recent weeks, dreams of her plagued him at night. He’d sometimes go years without dreaming about her. It was as if some part of his mind had recently exploded, releasing memories and playing them over and over again. Teasing her the way big brothers tease beloved baby sisters, singing her lullabies to soothe her to sleep, carefully screening the guys who wanted to court her—all of it. It was a bittersweet experience.
Even a half-assed shrink would probably tell him they’d been triggered by his new relationship with Kal. Chloe was the only sibling he’d really known or been close to, the others much older than himself. Even though Chloe and Aidan were half siblings, sharing the same father and separated by centuries of age, they acted like twins in many ways.
Damn, he missed her.
When she was little, she’d spent many nights in bed with him, snuggled against him to keep the monsters away, as she claimed. With her mother dead and their father rarely around, Aidan had raised her. Then when she grew older, she hated sleeping alone. Many mornings Aidan had awakened to find her snuggled tightly against him. Inseparable. That was him and Chloe. She knew his deepest, darkest secrets and didn’t care. She was the only one, before her husband, and Will, who’d known.
He wished Will could have known her. But she died before he met Will. He was much older than Will, even though in looks he appeared to be a few years younger. Will had grown up in a different part of the world, and it wasn’t until Chloe’s death that Ryan’s father brought him and Will together.
He would have loved for Chloe to have met and married Will, but there was no changing the past.
He hadn’t agreed with Chloe’s choice of a soul mate. She, however, had loved the shit weasel, and that was good enough for Aidan. Admittedly, the man had treated her like a princess and made her happy, so what more could he have asked as her big brother? If her death devastated him, it had torn her husband apart from the inside out, having his soul mate brutally ripped from him. To this day he hadn’t taken another soul mate. Aidan sensed he never would. Not that he could blame him, because Aidan had never had a soul mate to begin with.
All things considered, maybe he never would.
Bound by Ryan’s father, Will and Aidan teamed together to keep his brother-in-law alive those early months, until he recovered enough from his injuries and his grief to survive. He’d nearly died trying to protect Chloe…
Aidan diverted from that road of memory. Fast-forward, he thought. And he did.
As Ryan’s father gave Ryan more responsibilities, it was the three of them taking on the world—Aidan, Will, and Ryan. Then Will met Abby, and it was almost like having a sister again. Like now, the way he felt with Kal.
Ryan never would tell Aidan why he walked away from Will—and as a result from him since Aidan and Will had grown so close—after Will took Abby as his soul mate. Maybe he’d thought it should be a guys-only club. Despite being soul brothers, Ryan had turned his back on them without explanation.
Jerk.
Now this.
What a fuck up. He wanted to hate Ryan, especially for this, but how could he? They had too much history between them for too many years. While forcing the situation upon them, at least maybe Will could be happy again. He’d hopefully quit wanting to die now.
Maybe Ryan should take a dose of his own medicine.
Aidan’s dreams drifted into darkness and, eventually, with the feel of Kal breathing in his arms, a deeper, restful sleep.
* * * *
Kal awoke cuddled next to Aidan, startled and disoriented until she remembered where she was and who she was with. The clock read seven forty-six, but Kal didn’t care. Let them be late to work, Monday or not. It was the least consideration Ryan could give them. She snuggled against Aidan, comforted by his presence. Whatever happened, she instinctively knew he wouldn’t let her get hurt. If there was another way, Aidan would have dang sure pursued it, wouldn’t let her do this if Will would hurt her.
She eventually rolled over to face him. Aidan stirred and looked at the clock. “Hey, sugar plum, you hungry?” He had a handsome face. Despite the romantic movies she’d seen, she didn’t have any overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss his pouty lips. Like he’d said, it would be like kissing a brother.
Yergh. “You promised me breakfast.”
His broad smile could melt hearts, including hers, so why the heck hadn’t someone snapped him up yet?
“Anywhere you say. If you want to take a shower, go ahead and use the guest bathroom. I put some towels and stuff in there for you last night.”
“Thanks.”
His sweet honey-hazel eyes studied her. He softly spoke, his normally playful voice filled with sadness. “Will is a good man. I’m sorry this happened. I mean it, if I’d known—”
She put a finger to his lips. “I know. It’s not your fault. I’m not mad at you.”
He nodded, still looking at her. “If it’s any consolation, I wish my sister could have met and married him. I mean, that was a long time ago and she never knew Will, but my baby sister was my life. If I would have married her off to Will, you know he’s good folk.”
Kal tried to lighten the mood. “But I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t have married her off to Ryan, huh?”
Another of those odd looks she couldn’t comprehend. “Believe me, he wasn’t my first choice, sweetheart.”
Chapter Eleven
Kal picked their favorite restaurant for breakfast. They took their time and didn’t arrive at the office until nearly ten. Apparently, Aidan had told Will their itinerary, because The Great Brooding One wasn’t hovering like a nervous hen at their tardy arrival. In fact, he left to run errands soon after they walked into the office. Purs and Gery departed a few minutes later for a “normal” job, meaning something relating to the production company’s regular schedule and not th
e Otherworlds show. Kal wasn’t involved in those projects, though. That was Purs and Gery’s bailiwick, while Aidan usually assisted her with her Otherworlds duties.
She worked alone in the office with Aidan. He walked over to her desk and held out his hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Kal had had enough surprises in the past few days to last her one thousand lifetimes. “What?”
He patiently kept his hand extended. She finally stood and took it. He reached for the amulet around his neck and closed his eyes. At first she thought maybe she fainted, because the office dissolved around her and she felt the hard floor change to soft grass beneath her feet. They were now standing in a field—
No. A cemetery.
Aidan released her hand and walked down a row, briefly pausing to get his bearings. Lots of old, huge live oaks shaded most of this section. He glanced back at her. “Well? Are you coming?”
She looked around and followed him, still trying to accept they weren’t in the office anymore. She swallowed to form spit and felt a dry click in her throat. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
His long legs quickly carried him across the grass. She had to jog to catch up and frequently took several steps to match one of his strides. Eventually it became clear they’d landed, or whatever it was called, in a distant section of the cemetery, apparently far away from the entrance to avoid being seen. Their destination was a huge live oak larger than the others, surrounded by giant azalea bushes that dwarfed her.
A well-worn path through the shrubbery led to a small, private shaded clearing at the base of the tree. When Aidan stepped to the side, Kal saw the marker.
AnnaBelinda Hellenboek—Beloved soul mate.
The date of death a little less than a year before her own birth.
“Who was she?” Kal asked.
Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed [Good Will Ghost Hunting 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 12
