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

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—”

“What 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