Authors: Rhys Ford
From the tightness in Tristan’s naked shoulders, Wolf figured Tris needed as much relaxation as he could get.
The small opaque windows set high on the bathroom’s outward-facing wall gave Wolf all the light he needed. He didn’t like the purpling marks on his lover’s body. Not at all. There were various scrapes and digs on Tristan’s pale skin, but for the most part, the man was… hot. It was really the only word Wolf ever thought of every time he caught sight of Tristan’s naked form.
The man’s legs did him in, long and lean with tight muscles, leading up to one of the most succulent asses Wolf ever had the pleasure of seeing, much less having his hands on. The time Tristan spent in the Grange’s swimming pool showed in his chest and arms. Standing under the showerhead, Tristan was a study in sinewy grace with a face seemingly stolen from a Waterhouse painting.
“I’d be a fucking idiot to let you get away,” he whispered to himself. Wolf’s luck chose then to run out, and Tristan’s eyes churned a gray, stormy green when he spotted Wolf through the shower’s glass enclosure. “Hey, sexy.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Tristan snorted at him, menacingly waving a soap bottle at Wolf. “Your cousin’s an asshole. You’re not much better.”
“I never said he wasn’t.” It wasn’t the best defense Wolf could have come up with, but it was the best he had. “Cin’s never been… he’s had it rough.”
“We’ve all had it rough. It’s called life,” the blond pointed out.
“You’ve got to admit, Thursday. You’re a bit much for the average guy to take in all at once. Even for a Kincaid.” Wolf shed his clothes quickly, conscious of his lover’s watchful eye. “And I’ve apologized for my assholeishness.”
“Is that even a word?” Tristan mumbled through a spray of water as he tilted his face up for a moment.
“Pretty much the Kincaid family motto.” His pants fought him for a moment. They were too wet and caked with the right amount of mud to be difficult. He finally got them undone and shucked while Tristan watched him through the glass.
“You think you’re coming in here with me?” Tristan drawled. “To save hot water, I suppose.”
“Power’s on, and this place has three water heaters. It’s geared up for a lot of bodies taking baths at once.” He kicked his mud-splattered clothes over to where Tristan had laid his on a towel. “And I’m not coming in there to save hot water. I’m coming in there so I can hold you and then get clean.”
“Watch your step,” Tristan warned. “We have company.”
He almost missed it. How he could have, Wolf didn’t know, but he did, and he had to step quickly to avoid the red rubber ball he’d sent rolling around on the shower’s tile floor. Bending down, he picked it up and carefully placed it outside of the stall and closed the door behind him.
“Yeah, good luck with that. I’ve already put it out there twice.” Tristan snorted loudly. “But then, he listens to you more than he does me.”
“Stay outside, Jack. We’ll play later.” Wolf had nowhere else to focus on but the ball. He’d liked to have said it quivered in response—just for sanity’s sake—but the truth was, it sat there on the bath mat and was simply—a red ball. “Maybe it’s not his.”
Tris crooked an eyebrow at Wolf, mocking him. “Right. Because everyone has red rubber balls suddenly appear in the shower with them.”
Tristan allowed himself to be turned around, and Wolf squeezed his butt before resting his hands on Tristan’s hips. Stroking the man’s side, he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss onto Tristan’s mouth. They were both growing hard, languidly aroused, but Wolf was more interested in comforting the slightly chilled man he’d found himself falling in love with.
“Let’s get you clean so I can take care of your boo-boos.” Wolf bent his head to lick at the water streaming down Tristan’s neck.
“Is that what the kids these days are calling it? Their boo-boo?” The mockery continued, but there wasn’t any heat in it, and Wolf wrapped his arms around Tristan’s waist, grinding their bodies together. “Keep that up, and my boo-boo is going to turn into a bam-bam.”
“Just a cuddle.” Wolf rocked his lover gently. “Can I be honest with you? And not have you lose your shit?”
Tristan regarded him with his large gold-bled green eyes, then nodded. “Okay. Shoot.”
“I know you’re capable. I know you’re strong,” Wolf murmured as he reached up to take Tristan’s face in his hands. “But there are times, like today, when I want to hide you someplace safe so nothing can ever hurt you again.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Kincaid.” Tristan kissed the inside of Wolf’s left wrist. “Even if I wasn’t being attacked by some ghost your family or friends dragged up, I still have my relatives to deal with.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking deep holes and a shovel for those fuckers.” The water was beginning to run lukewarm despite his claims about an endless heater feed. “Come on. Let’s finish scrubbing the filth off of you and let me take a look at your bruises.”
“So long as that’s all you look at.” Tristan built up a heavy lather on the scrubby he’d been using, then began to run it over Wolf’s body, slowly working over his skin. “I don’t think we’re going to get a moment’s peace until Cin gets to interrogate me.”
“Damn it. Guess you’re right.” Wolf lifted his arms and caught himself purring when Tristan’s hands spread through the hair on his thighs. “I think Cin’s the least of our worries. Sey’s ghost is going to kill us long before Cin ever gets around to it.”
A
HEFTY
dose of ibuprofen washed down with a creamy cup of hot coffee helped ease a lot of Tristan’s aches and pains. The naughty suggestions Wolf whispered into his ear as he stirred sugar into his mug also helped, but it gave him a creaking ache he knew he wasn’t going to get rid of until he had either Wolf’s hands or lips on him.
Maybe even both.
Dressing was easier than taking his clothes off, mostly from taking a handful of meds and letting them work through his body, but also Wolf seemed to take great delight in buttoning up his jeans and shirt. It only took Wolf two times to get the buttons lined up into the right holes, and by the time he was done, they were both laughing like drunken idiots.
His cheeks hurt nearly as much as his side did, but for the most part, Tristan wasn’t feeling any pain until he caught sight of Cin’s scowl from across the living room. The man’s fierce expression promised an endless agony for anyone who didn’t bow down to his every whim.
So Tristan stuck his tongue out at Cin and went to the kitchen to get something hot to drink before heading back to the living room to face the Kincaids gathered there.
“How’s Daylen?” Tristan settled down next to Wolf, drawing his legs up to keep warm. A pair of thick socks worked for his feet, but the rest of him seemed to have a chill he couldn’t get rid of. Something poked him in the back, and he leaned forward, finding Jack’s rubber ball wedged between him and the couch. Holding it up for Wolf to see, he smirked at his lover. “Really?”
“I did
not
put it there. Hell, I haven’t even seen him,” Wolf confessed. “And to answer your question, Daylen’s fine.” Frowning slightly, he glanced at Sey sitting in one of the wing chairs next to them. “He
is
fine, right?”
“Sleeping. It’s really not that bad. Or at least it doesn’t look that bad,” she replied. “The cuts seem shallow, but he said he was cold. I don’t know if the pain made him pass out—”
“He fainted,” Cin contributed. “Don’t know how much of it was the pain or the shock of having a ghost bury its hands into him.”
“It burned when I touched her.” Tristan held up his hand, showing the Kincaids the bright red streaks he’d earned across his palm. “They’re fading fast, though. It was worse before.”
“Let’s see if we can’t hash some of this out so Tris can get some sleep,” Wolf cut in.
“Sleep?” Gildy scoffed. “I’m about five hundred years older than you, and I’d be taking that boy upstairs and give him as good as I’ve got. Even if he is possessed.”
“I am not possessed,” Tristan cut in.
“Gildy, leave him alone.” Sey spoke up first. “You’re not helping.”
There was no doubt about it. The old woman was a bit crazy. Smiling sweetly at Sey, she nodded and murmured her consent. As soon as her niece looked away, Gildy forked her fingers in front of her eyes, then pointed them at Tristan, mouthing she was watching him. He was busy rolling his eyes when Cin spoke up.
“Okay, so you really see and talk to ghosts?” The Hellsinger leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he spoke. It was such a Wolf thing to do Tristan could almost forgive him when he then asked, “How do we know you’re
not
possessed? Maybe even drawing the activity to you?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Cin,” Wolf pushed back on his cousin. “Leap of faith, remember?”
“I just don’t want to be leaping from the frying pan and into the fire,” Cin shot back. “But okay, let’s go with medium. Most of them get vague impressions or whispers. Your boy here pulls in full apparitions like I’ve never seen before.”
“His boy is right here,” Tristan said, waving his hand in front of Cin’s face. “I’m not a dog. I have the power of speech, and if you can’t talk to me directly, I might as well fucking go upstairs and crash while you all figure shit out.”
He braved Cin’s gaze, him staring down until Tris saw something shift in Cin’s eyes. They softened, then relaxed when Cin nodded slowly.
“Fair enough,” the man murmured. “Wolf told me you’ve been seeing ghosts since you were a little kid. When did it start happening?”
“When didn’t it happen?” Tristan gave a quick rundown on the Grange, and Wolf jumped in to sketch out their encounter with Winifred. The Kincaids listened quietly for the most part with the exception of Gildy, who offered up elated advice on how Meegan should have conducted the exorcism.
“Yeah, it wasn’t the best course of action, but it got the job done,” Wolf agreed.
“Shit, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.” Cin leaned back.
“You were in London, right? No helping it. Fact is, we’re all here now with this thing. Short of burning the house down, how do we get her out of here?” Wolf reached for Tristan’s hand, then tangled their fingers together. It felt good to have Wolf’s heat on his skin, especially since he needed an anchor to keep his thoughts from skittering about.
“I don’t think burning the house down is the answer. Although she got a good head start.” Sey rubbed at her face. The shadows under her eyes were a deep purple, and fatigue pulled at the corners of her generous mouth. “She had to have caused the mess out there. There’s not an outlet near the haystack, and they were too damp to rub together to catch fire. We lost some hay, but it didn’t touch the structure.”
“Animals seemed eager to go back in, so that’s a good sign she’s not there anymore,” Cin commented. “Okay, let’s go over what we know. She is looking for Simone.”
“That’s a doll or maybe someone she knew,” Tristan supplied. When everyone but Wolf looked at him in surprise, he shrugged. “Ray told me, remember? He really wasn’t sure. She’s got him kind of rattled.”
“Okay, so if she appeared a few weeks ago, I’m going to guess you got a shipment in from somewhere, Sey, and that doll is in there. What did you get in, and where did you put it?” Cin reached across to Gildy and pressed her back in her chair with a light touch of his fingers to her shoulder. “Information first. Burning and salting artifacts later.”
“You don’t think it was in the doll heads she put around Tristan?” Gildy asked.
“No, if she could have gotten a hold of it, she’d be done with this,” Cin replied. “Chances are, she can’t actually touch it for some reason, but maybe moving it from wherever it came from to here released her.”
“I think if she had it, she’d lay waste to SLO and everything around it,” Wolf said softly. He reached for Tristan’s cup and took a small sip before handing it back. “She’s angry. Angriest thing or person I’ve ever seen.”
“Children usually are. Especially if they know they’re dead,” Cin pointed out. “But yeah, this is more than a life cut short. Something happened, and it pissed her off. What came in about the time she first started fucking with you, Sey?”
“A few weeks? It was slow, so it’s hard to really nail down a time.” Sey pulled her face into a grimace. “I bought a bunch of blind boxes from a collector’s estate and a few auctions. I just haven’t had time to go through the stuff yet. It’s all in crates up in the storage room.”
“Same place the dolls on the bed came from, but those were loose in bins.”
Stretching, Wolf’s spine popped a few times, and Tristan felt a small pinprick of envy at the man’s contented sigh.
“Everything else up there is sealed up tight. She might not be strong enough to pop the bindings. It’s one thing to have enough energy to rub straw together fast enough to spark a fire, but it’s another thing to open up shipping crates banded in metal.”
“Yeah, she’d have to be pretty strong if the binding wraps are iron,” Cin agreed. “Okay, so we have to open all of that stuff up and see what we can find.”
“Do you think she’s been following the doll around?” Sey pondered. “Maybe if there was activity where she’s from, it could help pin things down.”
“Could be a long shot, especially if it’s from an estate,” Wolf said. “Don’t they usually happen after a death? Anyone who was around the ghost before might be dead themselves.”
“I think I can help with that.” Tristan nearly pulled back into Wolf when the Kincaids swiveled their heads to look at him. “Well, I know she’s here and what she looks like. I can try to do what I did with Ray. He wasn’t really solid until I focused on bringing him out. I might be able to do that with her. If we find the right doll.”
“We just have to do this smart.” Cin flipped open a notebook lying on the table and began to sketch out a few odd symbols on the paper. “Binding circles might help while we open them, but I don’t know if that’ll work. Logistics would be a nightmare.”
Sey wrinkled her nose. “Can’t we just figure out which doll she’s looking for and pitch it into a fire or something?”