Three Trials (The Dark Side Book 2)(40)

He laughs a little too wildly, and I pull back as he starts running a hand through his hair. I’m clinging to him without any help, because his hands are no longer touching me.

“I’ve gone crazy. I’ve reached a state of imbalance, and I’ve officially gone as mad as we all worried we’d become.”

“I’m very confused, at the moment,” I tell him, looking around to see the house is a little trashed.

Furniture is flipped over. Windows are broken. It looks like they’ve stopped giving a damn about how pretty their home is. It’s always been kept so clean and almost regal.

Now it looks like they’ve been fighting so hard to stay alive in my absence. How many people have tried to kill them?

“Where are the others?” I ask, worrying about him being alone when I’m possibly too weak to defend him.

“What the fucking hell?” Ezekiel’s voice has me snapping my gaze over, and I grin broadly at the man gaping at me.

“You see her too?” Gage asks, his hysterical laughter tapering off as his hands slide around me at last, helping me hold myself up.

“What is she?” Ezekiel asks, glaring at Gage. “What the hell have you done?”

Gage’s grin slowly spreads. “It’s really her,” he finally says, then looks at me again like he’s finally convinced.

“Yes, it’s me. And just because you’re finally acting happy to see me, that doesn’t mean any of you are off the hook for that terribly simple headstone. Where were my damn quotes? I’ve said some very memorable and insightful things that should be shared with the world.”

Something crashes to the ground, and I look over as a grin starts to spread over Ezekiel’s face, even as he slumps against a table. But it’s seeing Kai gripping the edge of the same table that has me doing a double-take. How long has he been there? And why do they all seem that surprised to see me?

I mean, we met while I was a spirit who’d somehow clawed her way back into existence. It shouldn’t be that hard to believe I’m back again.

A vase lays broken on the ground before them, one that used to don that table, and dead flowers are spilling from it without a drop of water.

“Exactly how long have I been dead?” I decide to ask.

“Just over a month,” Gage says reverently, his eyes raking over my face as I turn to look at a mirror.

My hair is messy for the first time ever, since I never fixed it in phantom form. As a person who hates a messy appearance, it’s rather irksome, but there are far more important things to deal with at the moment.

Besides, I don’t look like a rotting corpse, so I’ll consider it a win.

“I look damn good for a dead girl no matter what form I’m in,” I say aloud, trying to lighten this terribly stuffy air.

“It’s really her,” Kai says, a hesitant grin starting to form.

My body washes over with tingles as the three of them so close starts to push that pain much, much deeper down, almost extinguishing it completely. It’s such a different sort of pain than I’ve ever felt, nothing like the pull of being away from them too long leaves me with.

As the pain ebbs, the reality of the situation slowly starts to sink in.

Gage lets me down when I start wriggling, and I test my theory. The floor doesn’t start burning under me. I knew it was linked to all of them, just like the horrible pain.

They weren’t together, and I couldn’t sense them like usual. I think them being separated from each other was what was making me hurt and tearing my heart in four different directions.

How long have they been apart?

Gage jogs off, and I hear him in the kitchen as the other two just silently gawk at me. Ezekiel even startles back a step when I start toward him.

Determined, I strut right up to him anyway, and throw my arms around him. “Either hug me back, or I swear I’ll never let you sleep peacefully again,” I threaten when he remains still in my grip.

In the next instant, two strong arms almost squeeze me too hard, and a shuddering breath snakes out of him as he trembles just slightly.

I pat his chest, and struggle to get free, but he finally lets me go to Kai.

Kai, unlike Ezekiel, is on me before I can reach him, his hand roughly digging into my hair as he kisses me so hard I feel the bruising power of his relief.

My arms slide around his neck, returning the kiss, as Ezekiel presses against my back again, his lips moving to my neck.

“It’s definitely her,” Kai groans against my lips before tearing his away as he steps back and adjusts his very happy-to-see me erection.

Ezekiel turns me, his lips finding mine just as hungrily. Now this is the reception I expected the first time I came into their lives as a real girl.

Much better than my last experience.

His hands travel down my bare body, pulling closer as the kiss heats. I almost don’t hear Gage talking on his phone in such a quiet voice.

“Just get back. I can’t…I just can’t explain right now. Get back.”

Breaking the kiss with Ezekiel is a little hard to do, now that we’re back to that survival and sex thing being linked. I’m so relieved to be alive that I want to feel it, but I first need to set some things straight before they start teasing me again.

Gage comes jogging back in, tugging on a pair of track pants as his no-longer-black eyes rake over me like he can’t look his fill.