Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Survival instinct, I guess,” he tells me. “Being tired makes you sloppy and at risk. It took me until I was an adult to realize that being able to stop thinking and just sleep was not something most people do.”
“Lucky.”
“I still get hit with nights where I can’t sleep.” He runs his hands up and down my arm. “It’s meditation, being able to turn off your mind like that. It was taught without us knowing what it really was.” He shrugs. “Think about something happy. Sounds simple, but it’s where you start.”
I close my eyes and envision myself in a sunny meadow, sitting on Mystery while he lazily grazes.
“And nothing bad can happen there. But don’t tell yourself that, because then you’re thinking about what you don’t want to happen. You’re comfortable and safe and not in a rush. I keep thinking about it until I fall asleep.”
“What do you think of?”
“It changes. Now it’s this. Being in bed with you.”
“Yeah,” I say guilty. “That’s totally what I thought of too.”
Ethan chuckles. “You were with horses, weren’t you?” I gasp at being found out, then answer him.
“I was.”
He pulls me closer. “It’s not foolproof. It gets me to sleep but it doesn’t keep me asleep. I’m always on high alert. It’s part of being a hunter. But here…in this house with you…I do feel at peace.”
Smiling, I wrap my arm around him and close my eyes. This time I do fall asleep quickly. I’m not sure how long I’m asleep before I feel heavy weight press down on top of me. Thinking it’s Hunter, I go to move my arm, pushing him to the side. But I can’t move. My eyes fly open and a dark shape looms over me, eyes reflecting the dim light coming in from the window.
It’s Stuart, and he reaches down, grabbing my throat. My mouth opens and I gasp for breath. Arms feeling like they’ve been pumped full of lead, I can’t move. He squeezes harder, pain radiating through me.
Hunter!
My familiar runs into the room, snarling, and shifts into shadow form. He leaps through the air, knocking Stuart off of me. It wakes up Ethan, who grabs a knife from his nightstand and slashes it above me, keeping Stuart from grabbing me again. His spirit shimmers away and Ethan drops the knife, reaching for me instead.
“Anora!”
I sit up, gasping for air. “Y-you saw that?” I croak out.
“I did. Was that him?”
I nod.
“I’m going to fucking kill him. Again,” Ethan growls and turns on the bedside lamp to inspect my neck. I’m going to have red marks in the morning, I know. The bedroom door bursts open and Nik rushes in, holding an iron fire poker. The end is wrapped in fabric, since fae are sensitive to iron as well.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, though it’s far from it. Because if a vengeful spirit was here, in my house, it means someone undid my warding.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Dammit. I knew something felt off. Hunter did too. But how would I have known it was the warding? And who could have done it?
“What happened?” Nik tosses the fire poker onto the couch in the sitting area of our room and shakes out his fingers. The iron did hurt him after all and he still came in here, ready to defend me. Now’s not the time to get emotional, though.
“Stuart,” I say and then look at Ethan. “You’re right. His name lacks urgency and danger. “We could call him the PV Killer.”
Nik tries to hide a snort of laughter and the look on Ethan’s face lets me know he’s thinking the same thing. “Get your mind out of the gutter.” I roll my eyes and swallow hard, my throat hurting. “Ugh.”
“Does it hurt?” Ethan leans in. “I’m going to fucking enjoy watching his bones burn.” He gently touches my neck and I wince.
“What happened?” Nik asks again.
“Stuart was here. In the house. He tried to strangle me.”
“But the house is warded,” Nik shoots back, eyes widening with worry. “It’s impossible unless—”
“Unless someone undid the warding,” I finish. “Something felt, I don’t know, a little off when I came home, but I thought it was from being freaked out and tired.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ethan tells me, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. “There’s no way to know that. I never would have thought of it if you told me something felt off.”
I tap my phone to check the time. It’s nearing five AM, which is so fucking early but we did go to bed not long after nine, so I got a decent amount of sleep before Stuart decided to be a dick and choke me to death.
“We need to cleanse the house.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing what a headache it’s going to be. “Every single square inch of it, starting with the attic.”