Protecting His Windflower (A Spirit Hunters Series Novel Book 1) by Temperance Dawn (best ereader for epub TXT) 📗

“Perfect,” Liam said as he rose from the sofa. Trey and Luke went back to setting up equipment throughout the house.

A few hours later, Emily and Lexi were in the kitchen making coffee while the guys were in the living room going over the plan for the night.

Emily walked into the living room, carrying a tray. Lexi followed close behind with a tray of cream and sugar. Liam caught the movement of Lexi, jerking forward as if she were being pushed from behind. Her back arched, and her arms flew out in front of her to catch herself as she hit the floor. The tray she was carrying crashed to the floor and was knocked to the side. Emily was next to be pushed and knocked down, spilling the hot coffee everywhere.

The guys were up and moving toward them as soon as they realized what had happened. The lights flickered, and there was a low rumbling sound coming from within the walls again. Static swirled around. The air was charged with energy.

“What happened?” Trey asked once he reached Lexi.

“There was a cold breeze that rushed up behind me and pushed me. Seriously, pushed me! I felt hands on my back, but I know no one was behind me. It knocked me down. Then Emily went down, and everything in here went nuts!” Lexi shouted.

Liam held Emily tight against him. Trey doing the same with Lexi. Luke moved the dropped trays out of the way so no one would trip on them.

Emily threw her hands up in the air and screamed. “Fuck! That was my favorite mug, you asshole! Why don’t you just leave! You’re pitiful.” She was yelling at the air, spinning around, searching for the unseen entity. Everyone’s eyes had gone wide in surprise. Liam had never seen Emily upset. Not that they had known each other for a particularly long time, but he knew this was way out of the ordinary for her. “You keep your filthy hands off my friend. Why do you keep hiding? Why don’t you show—”

“Em, stop.” Liam grabbed hold of her shoulders. “Don’t antagonize him right now.”

“I hate him, Liam. I hate him so much. I want to kill him.”

“Baby, when did you get this?” Liam traced his finger down her arm. Three scratch marks were visible, and he watched as they turned to welts.

Emily shook her head. “I don’t know. They weren’t there when I was in the kitchen. Did I bump my arm on something when I fell?”

Luke came up with his phone and took a picture. “We’ve seen this before.”

“Yeah.” Liam smoothed his hand over her arm. “Spirits will scratch to try and get a point across. Or to make themselves known. To scare us.”

“He did this? Banks?” Emily’s eyes were furious.

“It’s okay. Stay calm.” Liam lowered his head to look into her eyes. “He’s already dead. And we’re going to get rid of him. But I don’t want you provoking him. He’s capable of hurting you.” His eyes traveled to her arm, indicating the scratches. “We’re going to send him to the hell where he belongs. I promise.”

Emily looked at Liam, fire still burning in them. “I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking tired of this.”

“I know, baby. I think that’s our cue to get this show started. Don’t worry about the coffee. I’m ripping out that carpet anyway. Why don’t you go to the van with Lexi? Make sure all of the cameras are visible on the monitors. You can brew some more coffee out there. Radio me when everything looks good, and we’ll get started. I want you to calm down, and we’ll bring you in later to help. Okay?”

Emily smoothed her hair back and inhaled. “Okay. I could use some fresh air.”

Liam kissed her while Trey walked Lexi out to the van. Luke carried the spilled trays back to the kitchen.

“Besides the scratch, are you sure you’re alright?” Liam asked while rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “That was quite a fall you took.” On the surface, Liam fought to remain calm. But on the inside, his blood boiled. It was one thing to knock things over and show itself from afar. This time, it touched Emily, and Liam was seething. Banks was lucky he was already dead. The amount of anger stewing within him led him to believe he was capable of committing murder.

“I’m fine. Promise me we’ll get rid of him. I want to move on from this.”

“We will. I can’t promise it will be tonight. I hope like fuck it will be. Otherwise, me and you are finding another place to live. But I promise I won’t stop until he’s gone.” Liam kissed her again, only more passionately this time. Then he pulled away. “We’re going to get started. We’ll do some investigating first before we start digging. I’ll bring you back in a little bit. There won’t be any solo investigations this time. Things are just too unpredictable. It’s best to stay together as a group.”

“Okay. I’ll be watching from the van. Be careful.”

“Always.” And Liam let her go. He watched as she reached the front door to the building where Trey held it open for her, and she proceeded down the steps to the van where Lexi was waiting for her.

“I forgot to ask you,” Luke said. “Why do you want to investigate first? Shouldn’t we start digging first?”

“I want to tear up that ground just as much as you do, brother. But I want to gather as much evidence as possible in case we do find a body or any bones and have to stop and call the police.”

Luke nodded his head at his friend’s explanation. “Where do we begin?”

Twenty-Seven

Emily tried to calm her nerves by watching Liam on the monitor. The night vision camera was trained on him as he walked around the basement with a camera in hand. She fiddled with her hands in her lap, trying to