Page 48 of Our Haunted Omegas
Why would you be cheerful when a haunting shadow spirit was holding onto you.
“I don’t like this,” Cobalt announced and Odie frowned.
Crilus turned to walk away and we followed on his heels. The hand was disembodied as if some great shadow man reached out of the void or through the veils between worlds and latched onto him. Magic thrummed in the air, buzzing and zipping around. I squinted, wanting to see what made so much noise but couldn’t. The hand didn’t fade with the passage of distance or time. What was Crilus hoping to accomplish? Did he think he could drag the spirit away from the object it haunted?
“I don’t really like this either,”Odie said over our link.“I mean, he’s annoying. His energy is all buzzy and…. I don’t likethis. He doesn’t deserve to die like that. Hell, Reve didn’t either and…. Hell, I think he’s going into heat. That’s probably it. He’s annoying because he’s going into heat and he’s around our mates and we’re not pregnant and…”
I glanced at Crilus again, wondering how I could get a better sniff of him to see if Odie was right but when my eyes locked on him the hand was gone, and he’d stopped midstep. Cobalt held his breath and Odie copied him. I squeezed my friend’s hand, willing him to breathe. Just because it cut Reve up as a tentacle after it disappeared as a hand didn’t mean it would do the same to Crilus.
The elf put his other foot on the ground and turned to face us. He dug his big toe into the grass and dirt to mark the spot.
“I guess this is the radius the spirit can travel from whatever object is on Reve,” Crilus grinned. “You should mark it better and maybe text Teal to send one of his friends out to measure. It might be important for whoever ends up with Reve’s belongings next. Who’s going to tell his family that he’s gone? His mama is going to be beside herself.”
Cobalt rubbed the back of his neck. Reve had been behind the dick pic scandal and had probably taken creepy photos of him and Odie messing around.
“Not one of us,” Indigo shook his head. “We’ll leave that to our grandparents. If we do it, I’ll tell them the truth about the perverted little lizard.”
“Well, I guess that decides it then. I’ll stay until they move the body in case there’s any more problems,” Crilus smiled and performed an exaggerated curtsy.
“Get Teal to give you some pheromone blocker spray. We’re not creeps, but this place is about to be buzzing with people. I don’t know that we can count on everyone to behave.”
“They’ll behave or I’ll nail their hands up on my trophy wall at the bar,” Crilus said, stepping past us and heading back toward the murder scene.
“He’s going into heat, right?” I asked aloud, double-checking.
“Yeah,” Cobalt nodded. “I didn’t realize it until Odie did. It’s not like I was sniffing him. I’m more worried about making sure you lot are okay.”
“You’re the one who got splattered with blood and organs,” Indigo pointed out. “Let’s get back to the house. I sort of want to give you another bath.”
“That’s my fault,” I laughed uneasily. “I don’t want Odie to get sick.”
“I didn’t drink the blood. Sheesh,” Odie managed a laugh too.
We tried so hard to be normal over the next few days, but the days themselves were anything but normal.
Chapter Eighteen
Indigo
We slept off and on all day the day after Reve was murdered by whatever he carried around in his pocket. Both of our omegas tossed and turned as if the tendrils that cleaved the iguana in half tickled their dreams. Cobalt slept hard. It was the sleep of a dragon who believed the threat had been exterminated or at least minimized. I wasn’t so sure about all of that. Something was off. The world was spinning on a cockeyed axis or something now and it wasn’t because I missed Reve.
Call us nepo babies but we let Clarence order his dragons around to get the area cleared up and take over cleansing the area. We let one of the priests from the Temple of Juda inform his family about his odd passing. Sure, I took the call and impersonated Cobalt when his mother called to ask if her son’s last moments were peaceful. She was such an old lizard that I lied to her. I told them that we were just working out a misunderstanding and I apologized for not being able to save him. She didn’t blame me. Of course, she didn’t blame me. Whether or not she said it aloud she knew that her son dabbled in things he shouldn’t have. His having a haunted artifact didn’t surprise her one bit. After the call ended, I called one of my grandcarrier’s guys to deliver her flowers and a big box of whatever sort of candies iguanas ate. Whatever Reve did, his mother deserved some kindness the week she put her kid in the ground. Or maybe she cremated him. I didn’t ask. I did double-check about his belongings. She turned them all over to the Temple of Juda because she didn’t want anyone else to die because of her son’s dabbling.
I saw the hand everywhere. It was all over the house, always in my peripheral vision. It went on and on until I called my Uncle Nicky. He was a witch after all. The time on my phone said it had only been twenty-four hours since Reve had died. Had it only been a day since I laid my claiming bite upon Ambry’s shoulder? I pulled him a little closer as the phone rang on my earpiece. I didn’t give my uncle much off a chance to say hello before the story gushed off my lips. Cobalt would never ask for help but I wasn’t above it. We had our mates to consider now and if we were lucky, I had a baby to consider. A baby who might already be growing inside my mate’s womb.
He let me finish telling it in my rushed fashion and then told me to slow down and tell it again. I told it over and over as he turned it this way and that inside his thoughts. My parents and other uncles all tuned in now over the pack link to listen in. My carrier wanted us all to come home straight away. Only I wasn’t about to get on a plane if something was following us and I wasn’t flying over the ocean with my mate on my back. He’d freeze to death or fall or… Just no.
“It could all be in my head,” I announced, hating myself for calling them. This is why we never told them what was really going on in our lives. Ambry curled in closer to me and Cobalt reached over him to touch my arm. What the hell had I started?
“Teal’s staying with you, right?” my sire asked, raising his voice above all the fuss.
“Yeah. He’s still here.”
“Stick together,” he said. “That’s the important thing right now. Stick together. It might be in your head. It might be residual magic but it might be something there at the cabin. Don’t panic but don’t let your guard down either. We’ll talk about it and call you back, okay?”
“Okay,” Cobalt and I said in sync.
“Don’t even say it,” I groaned when the call ended.
