Page 36 of Unbearable Attraction
Minerva appeared from behind the overturned coffee table, her fur standing on end and her mismatched eyes wide with distress. The cat ran to him immediately, pressing against his legs with desperate purrs that sounded more like pleas for help.
"Where is she, girl?" he asked, crouching to scratch behind Minerva's ears. "Where did she go?"
The cat padded toward the kitchen, where the evidence of Leenah's preparations was laid out like an accusation. Empty containers that had once held blessed salt and silver dust. Herb bundles reduced to ash. A leather-bound journal open to a page titled "Direct Spiritual Summoning: Emergency Protocols," the text annotated in her careful handwriting with notes about risk assessment and acceptable losses.
Acceptable losses. As if her life was something she could casually gamble away for the greater good.
His bear snarled, the animal side of his nature recognizing the threat to his mate even if she'd chosen to face it alone. But underneath the anger was terror so pure and consuming that it made his hands shake as he read her grandmother's warnings about the personal cost of serving as a spiritual bridge.
The necromancer serves as a willing vessel, accepting the spiritual burden that prevents the dead from finding rest. This burden may manifest as physical ailment, shortened lifespan, or gradual depletion of life force.
"She's going to kill herself," he said aloud, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
Minerva meowed urgently, padding toward the back door with obvious intent. When he didn't immediately follow, she returned to wind around his legs again, her distress palpable.
"You know where she went," he realized. "The ceremony grounds."
The cat's answering purr held relief and approval, as if she'd been waiting for him to catch up to what should have been obvious from the moment he'd found her cottage empty.
Luka grabbed his heavy jacket from where he'd left it the night before and headed for the door, Minerva padding alongside him with determined purpose. The spiritual trail Leenah had left was easy enough to follow once he knew what to look for, her magical signature blazing through the morning air like a beacon designed to guide him to exactly where he needed to be.
Or exactly where he needed to be too late to stop her.
The thought sent fresh adrenaline coursing through his system, making his bear pace with increasing agitation. He'd lost everyone he'd ever cared about to supernatural forces beyond his control. His clan, his family, everyone who'd trusted him to keep them safe. He couldn't lose Leenah too, not when he'd just found her, not when she'd finally let him close enough to matter.
The path to the ceremony grounds had never felt longer, every step carrying him deeper into the ancient forest where magic ran thick as honey and twice as dangerous. His bear's senses were on full alert, tracking Leenah's spiritual signature through air that hummed with otherworldly energy.
But as he approached the hidden grove, a new scent hit him that made his blood run cold. Death magic, but not the gentle kind that came from helping spirits find peace. This was the raw, primal power that bridged worlds and demanded payment in life force and blood.
He broke through the tree line surrounding the stone circle and felt his heart stop.
Leenah knelt in the center of the ancient monoliths, her small form surrounded by dozens of manifested spirits whose ethereal light made the morning air shimmer like water. Her dark hair whipped around her face in supernatural winds that touched nothing else, and her eyes were closed in deep trance as she channeled forces that made the very ground beneath her feet glow with accumulated power.
She was beautiful and terrible and absolutely magnificent, facing down centuries of accumulated spiritual energy with the kind of courage that made his bear rumble with fierce pride even as his human heart shattered with terror.
The spirits pressed closer to her kneeling form, their ancient faces etched with desperate hope as she served as their bridge to the living world. Cherokee shamans in traditional dress stood beside colonial-era witches and nineteenth-century spiritualists, all united in their need for the freedom only she could provide.
And at the center of it all was Leenah, pouring her life force into the ritual with the kind of selfless determination that made her shine brighter than any of the supernatural entities surrounding her.
Every instinct Luka possessed screamed at him to rush into the circle, to sweep her away from forces that could tear her apart at the molecular level. But he could see the delicate balance of the magical working, could sense how disrupting it now might destroy not only the spirits' chance for freedom but Leenah's life as well.
So he stood outside of the sacred space, his hands clenched into fists and his bear roaring with helpless fury, watching the woman he was falling in love with risk everything for people who'd been dead for decades.
"Damn you," he whispered, though whether he was cursing her stubborn courage or his own helplessness, he couldn't say. "Damn you for being exactly the kind of person I can't help but love."
The ritual reached a crescendo that made the air itself sing with power, and Leenah's small form swayed as the spiritual energy flowing through her reached levels that should have been impossible for any human to channel. But she held on, held the bridge steady through sheer force of will and the kind of compassion that saw ancient injustices and refused to let them stand.
Luka had never been more terrified or more proud of anyone in his entire life.
But he wasn’t sure if he was willing to watch her lose herself, even if she never forgave him.
24
LEENAH
The spiritual realm was nothing like Leenah had expected.
Instead of the ethereal mists and shadowy figures she'd encountered during her usual necromantic work, she found herself standing in a vast library made of living memory. Shelves stretched endlessly in every direction, filled not with books but with crystallized moments of time that pulsed with otherworldly light. Each memory was a story, a life, a piece of the larger tapestry that connected the trapped spirits to the land they'd died defending.
