Wait Until Dawn by Bailey Bradford (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

Laine’s hands weren’t in his hair. A buzzing began in Sev’s head, an urgent demand for a spirit to be heard. Laine stiffened beside him, then sat up and looked around the room with a near panicked expression.

Sev scrambled from the bed on limbs not quite steady. He needed underwear or something—

“Conner?” Laine rasped, looking at Sev where he was hopping on one foot, trying to get Laine’s underwear on. Laine could grab another pair.

“Yeah, I have to get to the rig,” Sev explained as he finally got his other leg through the hole and hitched the underwear up.

“I’m right behind you,” Laine muttered, standing up and wrapping the sheet around his hips.

Sev stopped from racing out of the room, holding his hand out to his lover. “No, you’re right beside me.”

* * * *

Chris had seen some scary things, growing up in a coven. People didn’t want to believe there were things in this world other than the ordinary, but he knew better. Still, he wasn’t prepared to wake up with Rich kneeling over him, the necklace held by the leather in one hand as Rich stared down at him with a blank expression. His eyes were even darker, whether it was the lack of light in the sleeper of something…else, he couldn’t make out any white in Rich’s eyes at all.

Rich tossed the necklace aside and straddled Chris’ hips. Normally this would have had Chris’ dick going from zero to sixty in a second flat, but something wasn’t right about Rich. Chris slowly touched Rich’s hand and found it as cold as a block of ice. The night was cool, but nowhere near enough to explain that. Rich didn’t acknowledge the touch, only stared down at him with eyes that saw something Chris couldn’t fathom. It went past creepy right into terrifying.

Chris edged up against the headboard a little as his heart thudded in his chest. He darted a glance at the floor, wishing he had those crystals now, but in the darkened cab, he couldn’t see more than Rich’s shape and those dead eyes. A chill crawled up from Chris’ toes, burrowing in his bones as he realized Rich wasn’t exactly…here.

“Rich, honey, talk to me,” Chris pleaded softly, more scared for the silent man sitting on him than he was for himself. Chris let his lids droop and felt the cold spear up to his chest when he saw the white and brown sludge mix surrounding Rich. This is very, very bad. He should have made that call—

A pounding on the door to the cab startled Chris so bad he yelped. Rich smiled, but it wasn’t that warm, sexy grin that pushed all of Chris’ buttons. This was something else, something malevolent and frightening and not Rich. Chris heard the voices of the men outside and cursed himself for locking the doors. Rich leaned down and stroked a hand over Chris’ neck, and Chris went rigid at the icy touch. He could feel something otherworldly, something dark and hateful sliding under Rich’s skin.

“This isn’t you,” Chris croaked, catching that cold hand with his own. “Rich, sweetie, listen to me—”

Rich’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened impossibly. The sound torn from his throat had Chris clenching his thighs against pissing himself. That wasn’t anything of this world, that dark and tormented howl. Chris realized he was in danger, not from Rich, but from whatever had control of him, forcing his thin hand to squeeze unbearably tight around Chris’ throat.

Chris kicked and thrashed, but all of his strength was no match for whatever was driving Rich’s body. His lungs burned as they screamed for air, but he couldn’t unseat the man, couldn’t pry the one lone hand loose with both of his. Vision dimming and brightening with explosions of white, Chris was filled not with the fear of death, but with regret for what Rich would do, what he’d feel, if Chris didn’t manage to escape. But he didn’t see how he could, not when his thoughts were slowing, stuttering, and his heart was fluttering weakly in his chest.

“No! Rich!”

Chris thought he imagined yelling it, but that wasn’t his voice. It was higher pitched than his own, and vaguely familiar. Rich’s head snapped around in a move too fast to be human, and another of those hellacious sounds filled the cab as Chris sunk into darkness.

Rich couldn’t do anything but cower in his mind as two forces shoved into him, the invader with his need to torment, and something else, whose fury and pain was a frigid burn through his bones. His head felt like it was about to explode, his body not his own. He screamed and railed against the hand squeezing the life out of Chris, but nothing he thought, no promises and pleas he made, reached the lips that were no longer his.

A third presence swept through the cab, shoving into Rich with the force of a wrecking ball. His head jerked around hard enough that tendons screamed and he saw Laine and Severo through eyes he couldn’t control. The invader howled in victory as he pinned Laine with an angry glare, and Rich, even cowering in the smallest corner of his mind, knew that James McAlister had never left him, had somehow sunk into him while Rich had hovered between life and death.

“No! Rich!”

He heard Severo’s shout and wanted to protest—couldn’t he, of all people, see it wasn’t Rich doing this? Wasn’t Rich trying to hurt—no, kill, lying to himself wouldn’t help—the very man Rich wanted to try to build something with? But that didn’t matter now. Chris might have been able to get past all the hideous scars, and Rich’s fucked up mental state, but there was no way he could get past Rich—or McAlister via Rich’s body—trying to kill him.

The third force that had slammed into him drew back and mixed with a fourth. The presences inside him railed as Rich cheered when he was driven