Mystically Bound (Frostbite, Book Three)

by Stacey Kennedy

  “She did,” Wayde replied.

  While that interested me, I wasn’t clear on how this could help me. Wayde had stated that this knowledge would be how I’d go into the Netherworld, or implied it. “And this matters because…?”

  Lifting my gaze, I discovered his dark smile. “Luckily for you, she wasn’t as closed off to her abilities as you are. Yes, you both hold the same gifts, but she was far more educated.”

  I snorted at the once again stab. Did he—as well as Dane, since he had done the same thing to me in Memphis—need to remind me I sucked at this? I didn’t need the reminder. I’d accepted that I didn’t know much about the mystical world with the whole demon event.

  Hell, I preferred it that way. Until Kipp, I didn’t want to help ghosts for that very reason. I don’t do scary. I don’t want to learn about the freaky things that go bump in the night. If I had known helping ghosts would’ve led to a demon, not even Kipp and his sexy ways could have persuaded me to get involved.

  I simply wanted to help ghosts cross over, that’s it, that’s all. Did I even care to know about Nettie and how much better she was at this ghost business than me?

  Turning to Gretchen, who sat silent in her chair, I noticed her impassive expression. Indication enough this was my life, and to find any sane level of normalcy again, I needed to suck it up and get every piece of knowledge I could.

  With that crappy realization, I looked at Wayde as he towered over me. “Again, interesting, but how will this help me?”

  Wayde smiled. It didn’t bring warmth to his face. “Nettie studied her craft and the knowledge you need, she obtained. Everything you need to know about your gifts and what you can do, the history of Nettie can answer.”

  I blinked, totally not expecting that. Perhaps I thought hearing of Nettie would bring me to a greater awareness of mystical things. But no, I did not expect him to imply that Nettie held all the answers. “What will her history show me?” He shifted on his feet, folding his arms. “That, in regard to Netherworld, you don’t need witchcraft. You simply need to realize the powers you hold and discover what you can do with them.”

  I glanced sideways at Gretchen and she watched Wayde with a curious look before she shrugged at me. I nodded at her in agreement. This was confusing. Then I looked at Wayde. “I didn’t realize I could do more with my powers than I’m already doing.”

  “Which confirms what I have already told you.” He frowned, shaking his head in frustration. “If you investigated more, kept your eyes open to the world around you, and welcomed the gifts you’ve been given, you’d be more aware than you are.”

  While a nasty retort of, so and your point is, hung on my tongue, I couldn’t deny truth behind his words. Dane and Gretchen had taught me more in the days I’d known them than I had figured out on my own in the years since the car accident that caused my gifts.

  True enough, I had only learned these tidbits of information, such as the power to force ghosts away, because I was motivated. I needed to solve the cold case of Lizbeth Knapp, which led to a demon and furthered my knowledge with witchcraft and all that magical hoopla. The difference was, I truly didn’t want to know anymore, but my hand had been forced.

  Sure, I accepted my path with the Memphis Police Department to solve cold cases, but it stopped there. If I didn’t need any of this information to find Kipp, I wouldn’t dig deeper. With that, in this very moment, I knew Wayde was right.

  He was about to take all I knew and somersault the shit out of it.

  Chapter Eight

  I stared into Wayde’s dark eyes and lifted my chin, ready for the revelation I suspected would shock me. But deep down, I’d welcome being stunned stupid a thousand times over if it brought me closer to Kipp. “All right, so you’re telling me I have more gifts than I realize?”

  Wayde took a seat across from me in the other wingback chair in the room, and crossed an ankle over his knee. “You hold the key to the veil.”

  After inhaling a long breath, the musky scent in the room had me rubbing my nose. “Why can’t things be simple and explained in terms that we normal folk understand?”

  Gretchen laughed.

  Wayde didn’t; he folded his arms like a big ole’ grump. “Your connection to the Netherworld is your gift. It’s not seeing the dead, or conversing with them; it’s that connection that fuels your power.”

  Shifting on the couch, I leaned against the wooden back, more than uncomfortable. Not only from the hard cushion, but also the subject matter. “My gifts are fueled by the Netherworld?” Even as I said it, it seemed absurd. “How do you know this about me?”

  He picked lint off his pants. “A long time ago, I heard of Nettie and her unique talents. When Gretchen told me about you, your gifts sounded similar.” His head lifted, eyes flat. “After researching Nettie again, I realized your gifts are exactly the same. Meaning, you have access to the Netherworld that neither I, nor anyone else I know, possesses.” He gestured toward the book. “It’s the same connection Nettie had—a power giving you the right to journey through the veil and cross into the Netherworld.”

  I settled the book on my lap and absorbed that bit of insanity. “Are you suggesting I only have to tell myself to go there?”

  He nodded. “Your connection to the Netherworld allows you to see and do the things you can. It’s how Nettie did the same thing.”

  I gawked at Gretchen in slight horror. Even though Dane had told me I held a connection to the Netherworld, he never explained it in such depth that Wayde just had. From the way I heard it, I accepted my death when I crossed into the Netherworld—something I still didn’t entirely believe—but that my life was saved before I fully crossed over. Which meant I took a part of the Netherworld with me, which explained why I held the gifts I did. I wasn’t sure I liked that my connection to the mystical world ran as deep as Wayde suggested.

  Gretchen finally shrugged at me, a little wide-eyed and unable to sit still in her seat. Her worry and silence unnerved me, forcing me to take a harder look into Wayde’s explanation for a logical reason to deny it. After I mulled it over a moment, a big flaw appeared in Wayde’s theory.

  Turning to him, I pointed out the obvious. “While this is interesting and all, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t feel any different than I did before the accident. Wouldn’t I feel something if I held such a strong connection to the Netherworld? So, whatever power this is you’re talking about, I don’t have it.”

  He stretched his legs, and the antique chair squeaked beneath him. “You must, or you wouldn’t be able to see ghosts. It’s there, I simply doubt you understand it, and have been blind to it, which is exactly what I told you before. You’ve shut down and closed your eyes to what is right in front of you. If you paid more attention, then I suspect you’d sense it.”

  I frowned. “The only thing I sense when ghosts are around me is a goose bump type of feeling, that’s it, nothing any other time.”

  Wayde arched an eyebrow. “I do not get goose bumps when ghosts come around.”

  His admission stole the wind out of my lungs. Wayde was a medium and it surprised me he didn’t experience the creepy feeling. To Gretchen I asked, “Do you not feel anything like that?”

  She shook her head, standing from her seat. “My body is not physically affected when a ghost is near, but more so emotionally.” She strode toward the far window. “If a ghost is angry, I’ll feel angry, which is how I understand what they’re feeling.”

  I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Dane had said as much himself. I’d seen it with my own eyes. He always seemed to know when Kipp was pissed or experienced a strong emotion. So, that made sense. Still, I hadn’t realized my goose bumps were out of the ordinary.

  Gretchen stared out the window into the dark night, arms folded, then turned to me. “I can usually tap into any powerful emotion coming off a ghost and sometimes the space where the ghost is looks almost like a heat wave—like a shift in energy—but I’ve never had goose bumps from i
t, or a creepy sensation.” She cocked her head, watching me carefully. “Does that happen every time?”

  I nodded slowly.

  Before I could answer, Wayde interjected, “The goose bumps are because you’re sensing the beyond. It’s not the ghost itself; it’s the sensation of being back in the Netherworld. Your body is remembering the time. Are you able to feel their touch?”

  I nodded again, totally spooked. “They feel cold.”

  “Well then, think, girl.” Wayde looked at me as if my head was empty. “If a ghost has no physical strength in this world, how are you able to feel its touch?”

  A sudden iciness slid through my veins and I wrapped my arms around myself, chilled to my bones. “I don’t feel a touch, just coldness.”

  Wayde inclined his head, leaning back in his seat and placing his arms upon the armrest. “But they have no power to touch anything.”

  “Yes, but it’s only air.”

  “They aren’t air.”

  A hundred retorts held on my tongue, but it seemed by his knowing look he’d shut them all down, so I swallowed back any further responses. The sitting room wasn’t overly small, but it seemed like the walls were closing in on me.

  Not allowing myself to be lost in panic, I blew out a long breath, settling the anxiety tightening my throat. “All right, so you’re saying that because of my connection to the Netherworld, I am able to interact with ghosts in a way most can’t. Plus, the sensations I get from ghosts is because that’s what the Netherworld feels like and they can only touch me because I’ve been there?”

  Wayde gave a firm nod. “Precisely.”

  As much as all this gave me the heebie-jeebies, it also meant the answer to find Kipp didn’t lie with the man in front of me. My powers held the key. Perhaps that meant I didn’t need Wayde, but I needed Nettie’s knowledge. “So, I only need to tap further into that sensation and stop being blind to it, and then what, I’ll go into the Netherworld?”

  “Your dreams are the gateway into the Netherworld,” Wayde replied as if discussing the pale blue paint on the walls.

  I blinked in confusion. “But you said I sense the Netherworld when awake, so why would I need to dream to go there?”

  Gretchen left her place by the window and leaned up against the side of the couch next to me, keeping her gaze firmly on Wayde. “She’s right—that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Actually, it does.” He raised his eyebrows at Gretchen, then said to me, “You will always feel the Netherworld with you, since it’s because of there you have the gifts you do. The Netherworld is always with you. But from what I’ve read about Nettie, she found a way to access the Netherworld through REM sleep.” He stretched out his legs, lacing his hands behind his head, and his dark eyes were ice cold. “In fact, I’d reckon you’ve journeyed there without knowing it.”

  I gulped. “Journeyed there to do what?”

  His expression remained stony with his shrug. “Haven’t a clue since I’m not in your dreams, am I?”

  “Hold up.” I shook my head to slow the spin. This wasn’t at all where I expected him to go with this. My dreams? “Are you suggesting that when people dream they go into the Netherworld?”

  “No, Tess, not people,” he replied carefully. “You.”

  While I wanted to reject what he said, since it seemed far out there, a sudden memory rushed into my mind of a certain dream I experienced with Kipp. One, with us naked, doing naughty things to each other, had seemed all too real at the time. Had that dream actually happened and somehow taken place in the Netherworld? But then, why didn’t Kipp tell me as much? If that happened, he would’ve known, right?

  Perhaps he didn’t want to scare me, or maybe he knew I would’ve been less than enthused to hear we did that for real. Or maybe even, he realized my connection was deeper than I knew and he didn’t understand it enough to explain it to me, or maybe make sense out of it himself.

  Could have been all those things, or a hundred other possibilities. Too bad Kipp wasn’t around to answer. Especially considering we did that in his bedroom, which made me wonder if I was wrong. It didn’t happen in the Netherworld, not that I knew what the mystical world looked like, but I sincerely doubted it looked like Kipp’s bedroom.

  For now, I focused on the present and stuck to figuring out what all this meant. “If I can access the Netherworld only when I’m sleeping, then how can I remember what happens when I am there?” As soon as the words passed my lips, I answered my own question. I remembered the sex with Kipp after I had woken up, clear as day. Maybe it wasn’t all that difficult.

  I had recalled my past dreams and now wondered how many of those dreams where actually times I’d spent in the Netherworld, chatting with ghosts. I shuddered at the thought and hoped it didn’t happen often. “Okay, this is creepy.”

  “Creepy?” Wayde glowered, standing from his chair in a huff. “You have an incredible gift. Don’t frown upon it.”

  I glanced at Gretchen and she gave me a kind smile, clearly understanding the weird information. I noticed the strength in her gaze and that comforted me now. No matter where this took me, Gretchen wouldn’t leave me and would do whatever she could to keep me safe, that I believed without a doubt.

  Feeling slightly more confident, I turned to Wayde. “All right, so Nettie here…” I peered at the book and couldn’t help but feel a little pull to the woman. Strange as it might be, hearing of someone else who had my gifts gave me a certain type of peace. Maybe I hated being alone in the world—one crazy-ass ghost-seeing woman—and to know there had been another gave me hope. “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing.” Wayde replied, drawing my gaze up to him. “She died in her eighties.”

  I sighed, rolling my eyes. “So then, how will seeing her picture and hearing we have the same gifts help me? I have no idea how to dream myself into the Netherworld.”

  “Flip to the fourth page.” After I did, seeing nothing but diary-like writings, he approached me and knelt against the dark hardwood floor, putting his hand on the book. “You are not allowed to read past that page.”

  I snorted, almost liking my suspicion, because it meant I could hold the very answer to Kipp’s problem in my hands. “Why, because the spell to fix Kipp is in this book?”

  Wayde shifted on his knees and pressed harder against the book against my legs. “No, I told you, the Lux is protected. This book only contains Nettie’s history. But I may need to use the information in here.”

  I narrowed my eyes and squirmed against the couch, so he eased up on the pressure. Nothing like having to help a man who was planning to exploit me and didn’t even didn’t hide that fact. Too bad for me, I didn’t have a choice but to comply. “Fine. What am I reading?”

  “It’s Nettie’s diary.” He tapped the book with his index finger. “This passage will tell you how she entered the Netherworld.”

  “That easy, huh?” I retorted, not believing anything could be so simple. “Read her diary, and I’ll have all the answers I need to find Kipp?”

  “If I attempted this, I would fail, but you…” Wayde leaned away from me, but remained on his knees. “Yes, it’s that easy.”

  I glanced sideways at Gretchen, and once again, she urged me with a nod. “It does make sense, Tess.” She shifted on the armrest of the couch, peering down at me. “I only know what I do from learning from the witches before me. In this case, Nettie held the exact gifts you do, meaning she holds the answers you need.”

  She paused before she gestured to Wayde. “He’s read her diary, which is how he knows about your gifts. You can trust what he’s telling you now. I have no doubt that the reason Alexander wanted to meet you is because he knew about Nettie.” She sighed, and it sounded tinged with annoyance. “I suspect he wanted to teach you what he knew of her.”

  The darkness in her features indicated that Alexander would’ve let me see the diary in its entirety. He wouldn’t have played the ridiculous games Wayde did. But the tight set of her mouth told me
to only trust Wayde so far. He might tell me pieces of the truth to ensure I helped him, but he didn’t tell me the full truth. “Fair enough.”

  Drawing in a long breath, I glanced at my lap to read the book, but then felt cornered. Wayde stared into my face and he crowded my space. I raised my head, glaring at him. “I won’t read farther, but can you back off and give me some damn space to breathe?”

  Wayde’s challenging stare lasted a few good few seconds, then he lowered his hand, stood and took a step back. I didn’t doubt for a second if I flipped a page, he’d full-out attack me to get the book out of my hands.

  I rolled my eyes at the idiot and looked down at the page.

  October 4, 1920

  Tonight, I proved my theory right. The elevated tingle across my flesh before I enter sleep is my soul touching the veil. I allowed the connection to overtake me and chose to travel into the Netherworld. When I awakened, I found an odd place, filled with so much mystery, yet I oddly felt as if I’d come home. There, I made contact with an older gentleman, Tavish, who welcomed me and we chatted a while about his life in Scotland. He didn’t request help from me and I never offered, but it did seem he enjoyed the time with me.

  On a snort, I stopped reading and glanced up at Wayde. “Again, I don’t see how knowing about a tingle is going to help me.”

  He frowned. “Keep reading.”

  I did.

  Once Tavish left me there alone, I realized the sensation I’d experienced—the empty, odd, icy darkness had been that place. A veil of nothing, no way forward and no way out, home to lost ghosts. In an odd way, I feel as if I belong there more than I do in the world I’m in now.

  On a deep swallow, I leaned back in the couch and exhaled deeply as those words seemed to coincide with what Wayde had said. Did I honestly belong there, too? Was that what he meant? Had I shut my eyes and no longer looked at the world around me, because in truth, I didn’t belong in this world anymore? Could it be possible if I’d been more aware, I would’ve known it?