Page 48 of Death Warden
The ghosts countered.
How was this possible? How were the ghosts fighting the hellhounds?
The lead vamp’s smile morphed into a grin, and then his gaze locked onto me and a shiver shot through me.
Something about his eyes. The way he was looking at me, but there was no time to dwell on that, the ghosts were tearing into the hellhounds’ auras and the beasts were weakening.
I had to stop them. Force them back.
I climbed off the bike and reached for the power inside me, allowing it to flow up through my feet, settle at my solar plexus, and then radiate outward until it filled my head with a buzz and my fingers with tingles.
“Stop!” My voice was an unearthly command. “Stop now.” The ghosts faltered and looked up at me. Tendrils of green energy slid from my fingers and reached out to them. “You have to stop this. It isn’t who you are.”
They moaned, mouths hanging open, eyes empty.
Empty.
Oh, God, they were empty. How was this possible? This place was meant to be a haven for ghosts.
The green energy from my fingertips wrapped itself around the ghosts and I felt their pain. Their minds were still intact but buried. Something was controlling them. I could sense a link, dark and cold, wrapped around each one. I had to break it.
They floated toward me, surrounding me, connected to me by my power. My chest grew hot as I channeled more energy into them, focusing on severing that dark link. My knees grew weak, breath coming shorter as I gave more and more of myself. The dark link pulsed, desperate to hold on.
“Let them go!” My scream was an expulsion of power. The links snapped. The ghosts gasped, milky eyes clearing and filling with memories.
The roar of engines, the bay and howl of the beasts was a distant thing as a halo of ghosts pressed in on me.
“He’s coming. He’s coming and you must run. Run!”
They screamed in unison and then dispersed into mist. The energy rushed out of my body, leaving me swaying on my feet for a long second. The world went dark and the last thing that registered before I lost consciousness was the heat of my amulet pressed to my chest.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
LOGAN
“What the hell was that about?” I follow Spectre as he heads to the meeting room. “How did you know Adi was in the garage and in danger?”
“Yeah, Spec, howdidyou know?” Curo says snidely from behind us.
Spectre’s wide shoulders tense and he stops and turns to face me, mouth a thin, forbidding line. “Instinct.”
“Bullshit.”
I stare him down. He’s taller than me by a couple of inches; heck, Spectre is taller than most. At six foot seven, he looks down on most of us, but it isn’t his stature or lethality that makes him a popular leader, it’s his sense of right and wrong and his empathy that make him much loved at the club.
Spectre doesn’t lie easily. He deflects smoothly, but right now he can’t even do that and my suspicion is confirmed.
“Adi is your mate, isn’t she?”
His chest vibrates in warning. “Keep your fucking voice down.”
I’m confused, disappointed too, because Adi…There’s just something about her. But mostly I’m happy for my friend. But…why is he acting so hush-hush about it? He’s found his mate. He should have claimed her by now. How has he not claimed her?
“Spectre, what the heck are you playing at?”
“He’s playing the martyr,” Curo says. “Poor Spectre with the dirty blood, unworthy of the prez’s daughter.”
What the hell? “You can’t ignore this. You can’t run from it. It’s fate.”
