Matt’s smile faded and he glanced at Chris for a long moment before facing Rich again. “I’ll accept that if you’ll tell me why.”
Chris stood up and joined them on the couch while Rich filled Matt in on the reasons he’d pushed the man away and what hell Rich’s life had been since.
* * * *
Severo picked up the file on McAlister’s second victim, William Trenton. This wasn’t the way he usually worked, looking over files and pictures and trying to feel a link. Severo’s experience was communing with spirits, and the ones fucking with Rich hadn’t been in any mood to chat when Severo and Laine had encountered them. Seeing Rich’s lifeless eyes, pitch as a starless night, had scared the crap out of Severo. His knowledge of spirits and their abilities was growing all the time, and he didn’t like what he was finding out. Visions of the movie The Exorcist were frequently flitting through his mind, and that movie had given him nightmares off and on for years when he’d seen it. Granted, he’d been six at the time, and his cousins hadn’t noticed him hovering behind them where they’d been crammed on the couch, but still. Thinking about the movie gave him the willies to this day.
“You keep looking at that one.” Laine flicked the edge of William Trenton’s file.
Severo nodded as he touched it again. Every time he did it the tips of his fingers went jarringly cold. Was it Conner, or was he right in thinking William Trenton was the one forcing his way into Rich? How had Rich survived a year of being violated like that? And how much had McAlister tormented him? Severo could only conclude—maybe incorrectly, he wasn’t a psychiatrist—that Rich thought he deserved to be punished.
“Why didn’t he tell us? With what I am, what I do, he had to have known we’d believe him.”
Laine took the file from him and started flipping through it. “Guilt. He worked with McAlister right across from him for three years and never suspected the man. Add to that, if he couldn’t get rid of McAlister, the last thing Rich would want would be to lead him back to me. Then there’s the fact that McAlister fucking tortured him for hours, left him cut—”
Severo bolted out of his chair and wrapped his arms around Laine, offering him comfort and support.
“He was always this happy, gorgeous guy, least that’s all he’d let anyone see. Even when I was his partner, he kept everything inside, only showing what he wanted people to see. McAlister took that from him, left Rich with nothing to hide behind.”
Severo thought about smacking Laine on the ass. Men. Severo rolled that over and clarified it. Some men. “Rich is still a gorgeous guy. If anything, the scar makes him sexier, and while I think he could stand to gain some weight, he has a vulnerable look about him now, and his face is thinner, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. It sets off his big eyes and those full lips.”
Laine looked down at him and glowered. Severo’s dick got hard in an instant. “What? I never said he was sexier than you.”
Laine grinned and Severo pushed his butt back into the hand palming his cheek. “And you never would say that, even if it was true.”
“You’re a crazy man. No one will ever make that true. You are the sexiest fucker on the planet, and I’d probably extend that to the universe, even though I’d really need to see some aliens just to be accurate.” Severo practically purred when his butt was squeezed by both of Laine’s hands. The man did know how to flip Sev’s switches. “How’s your ass feel?” Sev reached down and smoothed a hand over Laine’s taut flank.
“Like someone fucked it with a two-by-four.”
Sev let go of his lover’s ass and tried to push away. “Sorry, I haven’t—”
“Hey.” Laine’s arms tightened, his hands digging into the globes of Sev’s bottom. Without even a grunt, Laine lifted him until Sev wound his legs around his lover’s narrow hips. The hard bulge jamming against his crease just about had Sev begging to be fucked there in the kitchen while Rich and Matt—and Chris—dealt with whatever had happened between Rich and Matt after McAlister had been killed.
“Sev,” Laine said softly as he brushed his lips over Sev’s. That never failed to send the signal to Sev’s balls for them to draw tight because there would be fucking involved very soon. He moaned as he opened for Laine, relishing the way his lover knew him so well. For a man who’d never even considered a relationship until he’d met Laine, Severo thought he was doing a pretty damn good job, along with his partner, of keeping their relationship strong and the passion explosive.
“I meant that in a good way.”
Yeah, he probably did. Sev was just insecure about being the fucker rather than the fuckee. Hadn’t Laine spread and pleaded? Taken it all and wanted more? “For future reference, saying something like ‘I can still feel you in my ass and it’s the best damned thing ever’ is much more accurate. Just so you know.”
“Got it.” Laine kissed the tip of his nose before setting him back on his feet. “It’ll be dark soon, though I guess we all learned the spirits using Rich don’t come exclusively at night now.”
“Yeah, now he won’t ever get any sleep.”
The kitchen door swung open as Carlin Douglas, Matt’s partner, entered. He noted their erections right away, judging by the sly grin on his face. His words confirmed it. “And here I thought you two were working away on those files. If I’d have known what was really going on in here, me and the other guys would have crept in quietly or listened at the door.”
Sev winked at the cute blond. “Perv. Are your sweetie and the other lovebirds about done out there?”
Carlin shrugged one shoulder, a frown etching fine lines around his mouth. “I’m not sure. I was all prepared to hate Rich, but he seems so sincere, and so troubled, and guilt ridden. Plus he just looks—”
“Vulnerable,” Sev said, timing it perfectly with Laine. “Yeah, we know. He really is a great guy. He’s had a shit time of it though.” Sev proceeded to fill Carlin in on the creepy goings on in Rich’s life and now theirs. A few minutes after they finished, the other three men came into the kitchen, Matt making a beeline for Carlin while Chris and Rich sat so close at the table they might as well have shared a chair.
“What’d you find out? Anything?” Rich asked as he reached for a file. William Trenton’s, Sev read. A sense of foreboding filled him a moment before the papers in the file went flying. Conner, stop it! It was Conner, Sev could feel him, hear his distinctive buzz and chatter in Sev’s head. Sev tried to focus on it only to have his concentration broken by Chris’ panicked shout.
Rich’s body was bowed unnaturally, his back arched so severely Sev didn’t see how his spine didn’t snap. The crystal necklace was still on him, but a thin trail of smoke was wisping from the spot where they lay on top of his shirt.
“Get it off!” Sev shouted even as Chris snapped the leather strap in half, flinging the remains across the kitchen.
“Do something!” Chris pleaded as he tried to keep Rich from toppling from the chair. “He’s cold—that means it’s the other guy, the one we don’t know, right?”
As much as Sev wanted to reassure Chris, he couldn’t. “It could be both of them. What auras do you see?”
Chris stared so long at Rich, Sev worried he wouldn’t be able to read the colors. “There’s the two, the almost solid white and the murky white and sludge color.”
“Look at his eyes,” Matt muttered.
Sev would have snapped at him if there’d been anything other than sympathy and concern in Matt’s expression. “Chris! Call your mom, now!” Because damned if Sev knew what to do.
“Get him moved to the floor or the bed, just somewhere he isn’t going to take a fall.” Laine barked the order even as he stepped behind Rich and, without a flicker of fear, slipped his hands beneath Rich’s arms to lift him.
Sev took it back—he did know one thing. “Laine, don’t touch him!” Sev slammed into Laine, not soon enough though, and he could only hope he’d acted quick enough.
“What the fuck are you—”
“Wha
t would McAlister do if he got a hold of you, the one man he wanted to hurt and own? Do not touch Rich again!”
Laine looked mad enough to tear McAlister’s spirit from Rich’s body. “Goddamn it! Matt, Carlin, help him!”
Matt and Carlin were already moving, neither man hesitating although both looked scared. Sev didn’t blame either of them. He spared a glance at Chris who watched his lover intently while talking on the phone. Sev just hoped Chris’ mom had a solution that wouldn’t leave Rich dead.
Rich’s fingers curled, each knuckle bent as a sound was rent from him. Dissonant echoes, fear and pain, the same sound that had come from Rich—no, from McAlister or the spirit Sev really believed was William Trenton—in the rig. Matt and Carlin didn’t even flinch, which surprised Sev until he picked up the scent of cookies. Mrs. Hawkins’ spirit was here as well, probably helping to keep her nephew and his partner calm.
The buzzing in Sev’s head grew stronger, and Sev closed his eyes and listened to Conner. Spirits weren’t always helpful, but Conner tried, and maybe he’d come through this time. Or maybe he’d just proposed a plan that would end Rich’s life.
Chapter Eleven
“Mom, are you sure?” Chris listened to his mother’s directions. Terror clawed at his gut, tearing him open and filling him with more fear and doubt.
“I don’t know of any other option until I can get there, Christian, and if you don’t do this, the two spirits dueling inside him will definitely destroy him. They aren’t after his body, they’re after each other, at least now they are. The first one probably just preyed on your partner’s grief and guilt and found a way to slip in when Rich was hovering between life and death.”
“How do you know about that?” His mother scared him almost as much as spirits did at times.
“Don’t ask—it’ll scare you. Go, take care of your man, and I’ll be in McKinton within a week.”
Chris hung up the phone and hurried to help Severo carry Rich’s legs. How long could Rich’s body stand to be bent and used as a battleground for McAlister and whoever the other spirit was? How long could Rich’s mind survive?
“What’d she say?” Severo asked, grunting with every other step they took.
“She said they’re using Rich as a battleground. The second spirit is stalking the first, and the man might not have been a bad guy in life, but he’d obviously been a strong believer in seeking revenge because that’s what’s driving him to hunt McAlister now.”
“And how do we get them out?”
Chris didn’t look at Severo as he hedged. “We have to get help.”
“From?” Severo’s voice had hitched up to a near-squeak.
Chris eyed him for a second. “What do you know? Did one of your spirits speak to you?”
“Sort of— Ouch!” Severo glared as his hair was lifted and tugged. “Asshole. Conner, he said the same thing, we have to get help. He’s already done something spirit-y and is trying to gather who he can.”
“They could hurt him, but I don’t know what else to do,” Chris admitted. The idea of letting a fleet, or school, group, whatever—of letting a bunch of spirits enter Rich’s body in order to chase away the evil two was like something he’d see on the Syfy channel. And Rich would be susceptible to such attacks again until Mom could get here to weave a protection spell Chris had no hopes of doing on his own.
“I don’t either, but we don’t have to do it if you think we shouldn’t.”
Severo—unknowingly, Chris hoped—had just put the weight of the decision on him. Rich’s life may very well be in his hands, and he doubted whether he deserved to hold such a precious gift. But somebody has to. He remembered Rich’s desolation, Rich telling him he’d wanted, even tried, to kill himself. This was a risk Chris didn’t want to take, but he knew Rich would insist. Anything to get McAlister out of his head.
“I’m terrified of saying this,” Chris admitted as they placed Rich on the bed. The back of Rich’s head and his shoulders touched the bed, as did the heels of his feet. Spasms rippled through his muscles, twitching under his skin. “Rich wants them gone, enough that he tried to kill himself. He can’t live this way, doesn’t want to. Tell Conner to do his best, and keep my man safe.” Eyes burning as his heart felt like it was twisting in two, Chris eased onto the bed and took one of Rich’s cold hands in his own. “Can someone find the crystals? Maybe after…maybe they’ll help.”
“I’ll get them,” Carlin offered, already sprinting out of the door.
“What happens now?”
Chris looked at Matt, wishing he had another answer. “We wait.”
* * * *
The sounds in Rich’s head were indescribable. A tornado and an atomic bomb, maybe. He wasn’t sure. There were howls and screeches tossed in, and a pressure pushing against his skull so that he expected his brain to burst and splatter the walls any second now. Pain filled him, overwhelming, worse than when he’d been tied to the bed and carved up by McAlister. After a while, after so much blood loss and so much shock, he’d quit feeling the cuts inflicted on him. It had pissed McAlister off to no end.
This pain, though, was like that entire experience magnified. Every nerve in his body screamed, his heart pounded frantically, too hard, too fast. His lungs were, oddly enough, pumping oxygen throughout his body at a steady rate. That couldn’t be good—surely his lungs should speed up or his heart slow down. Rich wished he’d been able to pull the trigger, even if it meant never meeting Chris. He’d rather have spared the man this, seeing his lover’s body twisted and nothing more than a place for two spirits to try to destroy one another. Rich was just a convenient spot to them, a living well they could draw on to stalk each other. And he’d never have put Chris through what had happened in his bed, wouldn’t have had him pinned down while the life was almost choked out of him.
A fiery bolt of agony tracked up his spine, and Rich screamed, whether aloud or only in the confines of his mind, he had no idea. The pain slammed into the base of his skull and his body, strung tight, jerked and convulsed. Rich knew because he could see it just as he had before.
No, no no no no! Chris! Rich didn’t care about the still, lifeless body on the bed as he hovered above it. All he cared about was the man holding his hand, cupping his cheek, laying kisses over his lips and unseeing eyes. What had he done?
Sounds burst free around him—Laine, Severo, Matt and Carlin, all reaching for him even as Chris straddled his hips and placed his hands, one on top of the other, over Rich’s heart.
It won’t work, I’ve lost them all. How many shocks had it taken for them to bring him back at the hospital? Rich had watched his body jolt and spasm as the paddles were used again and again. There was nothing here now but hands and mouths and desperation.
“And love.” A lively chuckle from a mischievous blond with a distinctive twinkle in his eyes followed those words.
Rich spun around, floating higher up, which only panicked him more. He didn’t want to leave, not now, not when he’d only just realized what he’d be leaving behind. “Help me, I don’t…I don’t want to die, not yet.”
The blond—Conner?—was joined by two other spirits, an elderly woman wearing too little in Rich’s opinion, and a middle-aged woman whose smile and scent calmed the fear storming through Rich.
“You won’t, not yet. We just had to get you out before we wiped those assholes off the map.”
“Conner! Watch your language!”
Rich snickered considering the scolding came from a woman old enough to be his grandma and she was wearing a frothy negligee more appropriate for someone a third her age. Then again, who was he to judge? He gave her a thumbs-up while Conner apologized profusely to her.
“Looking good, Mrs. Hawkins. Thank you for helping Matt.” Amazing the things he learned when he was dead. The lingerie-wearing woman had been the only person Matt had felt comfortable enough with to discuss his sexuality, and his crappy treatment by Rich.
“I knew why you did it, once I was here a
nd watching you. Not the kindest way, but you were out of it and terrified, so it’s understandable. And yes, I do look good!”
Rich looked at the third spirit, the quietest of the three. She smiled and floated to him, pressing a kiss he actually felt to his cheek.
“Tell my son and his husband, as that’s what they should be if this world were a kinder place, that I love them both, and please, tell Zeke and Laine both that they must let their guilt over Eva’s behavior go. She made her choices. They didn’t make them for her.”
God, he hoped he remembered all this, and he really hoped he’d get the chance to pass on the messages. He glanced at Conner. “Anything you want to add?”
Conner’s grin was past impish and straight into devilish. “I get my point across, although… Tell your boyfriend I really enjoyed the show. You two were pretty damn hot, and that piercing—”
Rich missed the rest of the message as his being seemed to be turned inside out, everything spinning and pulsing as darkness pulled him down.
Chapter Twelve
Rich hadn’t felt so awful since he’d been attacked. Every part of his body ached, and he didn’t want to open his eyes. The buzzing in his head reminded him of a beehive full of agitated insects. He whimpered, and wondered if he was having some type if aneurism when his temples throbbed with every beat of his heart.
“Nah. You just wish you were dead so you weren’t in pain, but hey, pain’s a part of life. Physical pain, I mean. We can all hurt, dead or alive.”
Rich recognized the voice in his head. He’d heard it before. He knew he had.
“Oh, how soon you forget,” that voice teased. “I help you out so the bad guy doesn’t win, and you don’t want to remember me. I’m wounded. I truly am.”
“You don’t sound wounded,” Rich tried to say, but all he managed to do was croak like a damned bullfrog.
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