Ghost (The Halloween Boys #1) (81)

“Where is she?” I growled, near shaking. Claimed. My Claimed.

“I ordered her familiar to take her to safety. I assumed he’d choose Lamb’s Blood, but if he didn’t take her to the church, it means there was somewhere safer.”

“Blythe doesn’t have a familiar. She’s not a goddamn witch or demon. Do you hear yourself? What if it was a morphing demon in disguise?” Panic rose in my ribs.

Wolfgang sighed, leaning his bare back against the white birch I’d slept on all week last week. “She does have a familiar. I didn’t have time to stop and question the situation, but my werewolf instincts confirmed it. I know good animals from bad, and she’s got just about the best familiar she could have. It’s Raven. You know him.”

“Raven? The weird-ass bird humanoid?” Onyx chuckled. “The treehouse lunatics?”

“They’re good birds,” Wolfgang replied lowly. “And ravens don’t familiar-bond with just anyone unless they’re a powerful . . .”

“She’s not a goddamn witch. I would have sensed it. Any of us would have.”

Onyx’s jaw tightened and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “What have we sensed about her?”

Silence stretched amongst us. Nothing. We’d sensed nothing. Which wasn’t normal. “It could be because she’s my Claimed. That’s why malevolent forces are fucking with her. It’s to get to me.”

“Even before she came to town?” Wolfgang asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s possible. Now, where is she?”

“Where do you think?” His gaze flicked across the way.

My heart dropped. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I know you hate the crone, but you can’t deny Blythe is safe with them,” Wolfgang replied softly, looking at the ground. Steam emitted from his high body temp, making it look like he was radiating smoke.

“The Raven’s probably working for Marcelene, did you think of that? You put my Claimed in the hands of a fucking bird and it took her right where it wanted her. Back to them,” I pointed out, frustrated, incensed.

Onyx put a hand on my shoulder. “Technically, he put her in the wings of a bird. Or talons?”

The look I shot him was pure warning. He stepped back. “You want to punch me? Go ahead, man. I want to rail on you, too, if I’m honest. You fucking Claimed her? You fucking piece of shit demon.”

I crossed my arms. “Yeah, I’m sure I derailed both of your plans to get at her. Sorry about that. But I changed my mind. I Claimed her. So how about acting like real friends, true brothers, and being happy for me that I’ve Claimed someone after two hundred years, instead of acting like spoiled fucking kids.”

Onyx and Wolfgang exchanged bitter glances. Wolf spoke. “She’s mortal, Ames. Do you realize what you’ve condemned her to? This isn’t just about what Onyx and I might be . . . feeling for her.”

I looked to her window, only seeing the faintest outline of a raven. At least he was standing watch. Good for nothing, witches’ ass-kissing fowl. When I pulled my stare away, my friends were looking toward her window too. I sighed.

We arrived in the church attic in silence and went about our tried, after-battle routines. Onyx showered first, Wolf fried up bacon and eggs, and I downed half a bottle of bourbon. As much as I wanted to slam my demon fists into the crone’s wards, make them shake, make them scream . . . I knew my friend was right. She was safe. And if she did indeed have a familiar . . . If this wasn’t some trick from the witches meant to fuck with me . . . I didn’t know what to think of that. At the very least, she was getting rest. And she sure as fuck wouldn’t be getting that if she were here. She’d be getting dicked down until she passed out from pleasure. And then I’d fuck her while she slept.

Onyx yelled from the shower, and it echoed through the stone walls. “Stop thinking with your cock, Ghost. Your drive is so high right now it’s getting me hard.”

Wolf raised an eyebrow at me, shirtless, over a frying pan of half a dozen eggs.

“We haven’t done that in years, and we don’t have time,” I replied. Besides, my cock was stuck on Blythe at the moment. Probably forever. Though something in me stirred, pondering the thought.

After showers, cold showers, and several breakfasts and bottles of liquor, we huddled around the torn leather sofa and high-piled rug of my living room. We didn’t have to eat, or drink, or sleep to survive, but it offered strength. What was the point of having an indestructible immortal form if our human bodies were scrawny? Wolf took a seat on the floor, while Onyx and I took to the sofa. “Obviously, a hydra legion doesn’t just possess dead men and chase little girls across state lines,” Wolfgang began. “Judas texted this morning. He’s on his way.”

Onyx snorted. “Fucking Devil, like he gives a fuck.”

“We can’t count on him to bail our asses out. I take it the wolves took care of the remaining legion?” I asked Wolf.

He grabbed a half-empty bottle and knocked back a swig of amber alcohol. “Yeah, they’re dead. Except for the one they interrogated and got only nonsense from.”

“What kind of nonsense?” I asked.

Wolf shook his head and glanced out the stained-glass window. “They’re fixated on Blythe. They need her; their master needs her. They chanted it over and over.”