Give Up the Ghost: The Nightwatch Series Book 2

by Cassidy, Debbie

  Seventy-two hours to find a magical text. That’s all we had. There was no time for anything else.

  * * *

  Where Kris was dark-haired, Elantria was fair-haired. But they had the same sharp features and silvery eyes.

  His mother had sent word that she had a headache and wouldn’t be joining us for supper, so it was just the four of us around one end of a long dining table with candlelight, jugs of wine, and plates loaded with delicious-smelling meats and colorful exotic vegetables. The dining room was huge with a domed ceiling and wall-to-floor windows that looked out on moonlit, neatly-cropped grounds. It was a tranquil view, perfect to dine to.

  “You’ve done an excellent job of running the estate,” Kris said to Elantria. “Mother was telling me how hard you’ve worked.”

  “Well, someone had to pick up the slack.” She grinned at him good-naturedly. “I’m happy you’re back, but you can’t stay. The bounty on your head is still active.” Her hand went to her mouth. “Oops. I hope that wasn’t meant to be a secret?” Her gaze slid my way.

  “She knows,” Kris said. “Kat and I have no secrets.”

  “Then she knows what a Lothario you are,” she dimpled prettily.

  “Was,” Kris corrected. “What a Lothario I was.” He sipped his wine. “But we won’t be staying long.”

  “Oh?” She canted her head, and her eyes narrowed. “Why did you come back, brother?”

  Kris set his goblet on the table. “I need to find a book. It’s in the archives. I need to—”

  “Steal it?” Her brows shot up. “Well, that is ambitious, but totally like you. Always doing something or other to get yourself in trouble.” She didn’t sound bothered, though. “And why do you need a book? You were never much of a reader.” She cut a slice of meat and popped it into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I suppose you have a name for this book?”

  “The Incanta Imagica,” Kris said.

  Was it my imagination, or did her hand falter cutting another slice of her meat?

  “Sounds ominous,” she said.

  “It’s also a stolen artifact,” Kris said.

  “It is?”

  I poured myself some more wine. “The daemons stole it from the mortal realm during the fomorian war.”

  Her gaze flicked from side to side. “And you’ve been tasked to get it back?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “It’s a matter of life and death,” Kris said. “I need to find a way to get close to the archivist in the next forty-eight hours. I have to find a way to get into the archives.”

  She chuckled. “Well, fortune favors the bold, does it not?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I have an invitation to the Blacktree family annual gathering tomorrow evening.”

  Kris sat up straighter. “Is the archivist still a member of the Blacktree family?”

  “Has been for the past several generations. Jeriah is also new to the post. I can get you close to him. You can come to the event as my plus one. I was intending on taking Mother, but when she gets one of her headaches, it tends to last for a couple of days at least.” She twirled a strand of golden hair around her index finger. “I may even be able to engage Jeriah with my feminine wiles while you procure the pass to the archives.”

  “How do you know he’ll be carrying it?” Henri asked.

  She smiled. “I don’t. But if he isn’t, it won’t be hard to gain an invite to his home. Jeriah has a soft spot for me.” She looked smug. “We can get that pass tomorrow night, Kristian. I’m sure of it.”

  Kris rubbed his chin with an index finger. “The Central Archives are smack bang in between our estate and the Blacktree’s.”

  Elantria smirked. “I’ll keep Jeriah busy while you get your book.”

  He grinned at her, and they shared a conspiratorial look.

  I touched Kris’s arm. “You can’t search the archives alone. You’ll need me and Henri.”

  Elantria arched a brow. “Ha, I knew she wasn’t your lover. She isn’t your type. Besides, you’ve barely touched her all evening.”

  “Shit,” Kris said. “I forgot.”

  Well, that stung a little.

  He flashed his teeth in an amiable grin. “Well, at least now we won’t have to go out in public and be forced to be all touchy-feely.”

  Okay, he wasn’t doing much for my ego right now.

  “What do you do?” Elantria asked me.

  “I work with Kris. We’re on the same team.”

  She was studying me carefully. “You know, I didn’t mean you weren’t his type in looks. Looks-wise, my brother goes for anything with a heartbeat and a vagina.”

  Kris made a strangled sound of protest.

  “What I meant,” she continued, “is that Kristian always goes for the damsels. It made him feel like a macho man. You, my dear, don’t strike me as a damsel.”

  “Tastes change,” Kristian said.

  She smirked. “So, you are lovers.”

  “No,” we both said at the same time.

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Forget that. How do Henri and I get to the archives once Kris has the pass?”

  She shrugged. “We have a motor you can take to liaise with Kristian once he has the pass. He can call you on the com when he has the pass.”

  “Com?”

  “It’s like a mobile phone,” Kris said. “I’ll show you later.”

  Elantria clapped her hands together. “We have a plan. Now eat up before the food gets cold, and tell me all about your life on the mortal realm.”

  The rest of the meal passed in a blur of conversation and laughter. We had a plan, but why was there still a ball of tension in my stomach?

  Chapter Seventeen

  I climbed onto the bed, my head fuzzy from the Demonica wine. The stuff was potent. Human alcohol had no effect on Nightbloods, but this stuff, whew. The nightshirt, unlike the rest of Demonica’s clothes, was actually made of soft opaque cotton. It came down to mid-thigh and fell in such a way that even though it had looked shapeless on the hanger, it caressed every curve of my body.

  Henri sat in the chair by the fire, his eyes fixed on the flames.

  I pulled the sheets up around me. “Do you want to sleep?”

  “No.”

  I touched the talisman around my neck, my assurance that Tris would be with me when I closed my eyes. But this was the first time in forever that I’d be falling asleep without her by my side. The bed felt empty, and my chest fluttered with nerves.

  “Um, Henri. Could you just lie with me until I fall asleep?”

  “Kat, that isn’t a good idea.”

  Oh, fuck this shit. I sat up. “Look. I’m sorry about earlier, okay, and for every time I might have made you feel uncomfortable. I’m not into sexual harassment, and I swear it won’t happen again. We’ve been together for so long, side by side, and feelings develop sometimes, and I know you don’t feel the same way. I get it, and I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Back to our usual bantering duo. I just … Tris isn’t here, and I need someone to lay beside me, okay.”

  He tucked in his chin as if considering my words and then stood slowly and walked toward the bed. He climbed up beside me, and my heart jumped up into my throat because he was looking at me as if he wanted to own me. As if he wanted to claim me.

  “If I lay with you, then I’ll want to touch you.” His hand slid across my abdomen, and my breath whooshed out of my lungs. “Like this.” His hand moved up to cup my breast through the fabric of my nightshirt, and suddenly, it was impossible to breathe. “If I lay with you, I’ll want to kiss you.” He leaned in, his lips hovering over mine. “Like this.”

  And he kissed my parted mouth, and my body melted and tightened at the same time. He brushed my top lip with his bottom one, and then drew my bottom lip into his mouth before parting my lips with his tongue. The tension that had been building inside me snapped, and my hand slipped up the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his silken blond hair.
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br />   A raw moan shook him, and then he was kissing me like I was the last drop of nectar in a barren world. The weight of his body shifted over mine, pressing me into the bed as he claimed me with his tongue and his teeth.

  I tore at his shirt, needing to get to his skin, needing his nakedness against mine, while his hands worked to bunch my nightdress up over my waist. There was nothing but the rasp of his tongue and the brush of his hands, nothing but the ripple of his muscles beneath my fingers. And then his visage shimmered, and he was silver and smooth and glorious above me. His hips had just locked between my thighs, and his arousal was hard and heavy where it pressed to my abdomen. This was him, stripped bare. I tightened my grip on him, reveling in the smooth feel of his golem form.

  He tensed and tore his mouth from mine, his mercury eyes flared, and then he was halfway across the room, his hand on his chest as if to calm his heartbeat.

  “Henri.” My voice trembled.

  He shook his head sharply. “No. This is what I am, Kat. This.” He held up his arm. “Not flesh, blood, and bone. This. Metal and clay. I’m a golem. A construct with a soul who’s bound to you. Who belongs to you. I have no idea what I am without you. I want you. Fuck. I want you, but I don’t know if it’s real.”

  I sat up, my body quivering with the aftereffects of his attention and with the realization of what he was trying to say. “You don’t know if what you feel are your true feelings. You think … You think your feelings might be clouded by your golem bond to me?”

  He closed his mercury eyes and opened blue ones. His super glamour was back. “This blood bond makes it harder,” he said softly. “It makes everything harder.”

  I could feel his heart-wrenching confusion as if it were my own.

  “You feel it too now,” he said. “Whereas before, it was only one way.”

  Wait, what was he saying? Was I interpreting it right? “You felt my emotions before the blood bond?”

  “Always. It’s how I serve you best. It’s how I could be the best golem.”

  And he couldn’t be sure which feelings were mine and which were his. Oh, God. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” His voice was gruff. “None of this is your fault. We’re a good team, Kat. Let’s just focus on that.”

  I wanted to say stuff, words that would make this all better, but there were none. I was at a loss.

  He settled into the chair by the fire. “Now sleep, and I’ll watch over you.”

  Just as he always had.

  * * *

  The entranceway was brightly lit by the chandelier that dangled high above us. It illuminated a snappy, totally daemonic Kris in tight-fitted, butt-hugging pants and a navy-blue tunic sewn with tiny stars. His skin seemed to shimmer like he’d oiled up, and there was a definite fruity scent about him.

  I sniffed the air.

  “You like it? It’s carkoa oil. It smells delicious and tastes just as good.” His smile was full-on tease. “You can have a lick if you like.”

  He was playing. Always playing. That was who he was, at least with me, but there was something undeniably seductive about Kris that made it impossible not to be physically affected by him.

  Lucky for me, I was the queen of playing unaffected when the situation called for it. And he wouldn’t be catching me off guard again.

  I shrugged. “Nah. I’ll pass.”

  He pouted. “Your loss.” He grabbed something off a side table and handed it to me. “Keep this on you. It’s the com. I’ll contact you as soon as I have the pass.” He pressed the oval-shaped com into my palm. “Lissa will show you to the motor. They’re not hard to drive. Similar to the ones on the mortal plane.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Henri said.

  Elantria breezed in, practically naked from the waist up with tape-like strips going from the waistband of her skirts, cutting over her full breasts to cover her nipples, and draping over her shoulders to connect at her back. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a stylish knot.

  “Look at you, all handsome.” She dimpled when she smiled. “Such a shame Mother couldn’t see us together like this again.” She sighed. “Hopefully, her headache will have subsided before you have to leave.”

  Kris glanced up the staircase as if expecting his mother to appear. “Maybe I should check on her before we leave?”

  “I just did. She was fast asleep.” She offered Kris her hand. “We don’t want to be late.”

  Kris took her hand and slid it through the crook of his arm.

  “Wish me luck.” Kris winked at me.

  Outwardly, he looked at ease, but the tension lines around his eyes belied the persona he’d donned.

  I resisted the urge to hug him. “Good luck.”

  They swept out the front door, and I sagged against the banister. “I’m going to be a bag of nerves until we hear from him.”

  There was a loud thud from upstairs.

  I froze. “Did you hear that?”

  Thud.

  Lissa came running into the entranceway and skidded to a halt when she saw us. Her gaze flicked up to the ceiling, then back to me.

  “Can I get you anything, ma’am?” The words came out in a rush.

  Thud.

  I pointed to the ceiling. “What was that?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am.”

  The thud came again, and Lissa began to wring her hands. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Lissa, tell me what the noise is.”

  This time there was a clatter.

  She let out a yelp and clapped both hands over her mouth.

  “Lissa!”

  “Oh, goodness. Oh, no. I’ll lose my job for sure for this.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to say a word about it.”

  Ah, loopholes. “Then show me.”

  Her eyes went as round as pennies, and then she ran for the stairs. “Follow me, ma’am.”

  Henri and I bounded up the stairs after her. She took a left at the top and hurried down a corridor with large windows overlooking the gardens. The thudding grew louder.

  Lissa stopped outside a door. “The mistress’s room. I’m sorry. Miss Elantria’s orders.”

  “Orders to what?” I stared at her. “What did your mistress ask you to do?”

  Lissa reached into her pocket and retrieved a key. She handed it to me. “I best pack my things and be gone before mistress returns. I’ll not be on the receiving end of her temper again.” She turned and hurried away.

  Another crash came from inside the room.

  Time to see what was making all the noise. The door swung open easily to reveal a scene of destruction, and smack bang in the middle of it stood Kris’s mother. Bound and gagged.

  * * *

  Henri undid the ropes at her wrists while I pulled the gag from her mouth.

  “Kristian? Where is he?” she gasped.

  “He left for Blacktree Estate with Elantria a few minutes ago.”

  “No. No, he won’t make it. I heard my daughter on the com. She plans to hand him over to mercenaries in the Silverwood. She wants them to collect the bounty. I didn’t realize how much she hated him. Not until now. She wants him gone. She wants the title of duchess, and she can’t get it until he’s dead.” Kris’s mother swayed and then grabbed one of the posts to her bed. “She drugged me. My own child drugged me.”

  Henri undid the bindings at her feet. “Is Silverwood the forest to the west?”

  “Yes. Please.” She grabbed my hand. “Please, you have to save my son.”

  I was already out the door.

  * * *

  We ran swiftly and silently toward the woods. The moon was high and large, casting enough light to create deep pockets of shadow. We kept to those shadows as much as possible.

  How could she? How could Elantria betray her own brother like that? She’d smiled and laughed, and all the time she’d planned to hand him over to mercs? A motor idled by the side of the road. This had to be their ride.

 
The sound of a scuffle reached my ears. Kris’s bellow of anger was followed by laughter. Female laughter.

  The bitch.

  We reached the tree line but held back. Elantria hadn’t ventured far into the forest and stood hands on hips, chest thrust out, as she watched Kris grappling with three men dressed in dark green and black.

  He was ducking and avoiding the swipes of two blades. A fist caught the side of his jaw, and he delivered one to the attacker’s gut.

  “Stop fighting, Kristian,” Elantria called out. “It will do no good. It’s time to pay for your crimes.”

  Kris was fast, strong, but these were trained mercenaries, and there were three of them. He wouldn’t be able to hold off all three for much longer.

  I glanced at my partner. “Henri, I think it’s time to rumble.”

  He flashed me his signature crash-and-smash grin, and then we leaped into the fray. No talking, no negotiation. I blurred across the forest floor and slammed my fist into the merc about to bury a dagger in Kris’s side. He fell back, and I followed with an uppercut. His eyes grew wide behind his merc mask, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

  “Yes, I’m a girl, motherfucker.”

  Movement in the periphery of my vision, a glint of silver. I blocked the dagger plunge and punched the merc in the gut. He doubled over and caught a knee to the face.

  He staggered back but recovered lightning-quick. Pain exploded in my knee, and I went down, and then his arm was around my neck, squeezing. Shit, I needed my airway. Black spots danced before my eyes as I clawed at his leather-clad forearm.

  “Kat!”

  Cold, hard power flooded my veins. Henri’s power. It filled my limbs with steel, and then my fingers gripped the merc’s arm and yanked it away from my throat as easily as if I were making a dent in soft butter. Time to go for a little flight, birdie. I tugged hard, lifting him off his feet, sending him sailing over my head. He hit a tree with a deathly crack and slumped to the ground.

  I turned to find Henri snapping a neck, and Kris sliding a dagger across a throat, and Elantria … Well, she looked like she’d taken a sledgehammer to the chest. Her body was heaving, hair wild and out of its neat updo, like she’d been pulling on it. She was going to run. Wait, no … Her face contorted in vehement fury, and then she did run but right at Kris. Her hands were claws as she tried to tear at his face. He spun her so her back was to his chest and pinned her arms while she kicked and screamed and screamed and screamed.