Chapter Twenty-One

The horrid sensation of passing into the realm of the dead was worth it, even with the pit of dread in her stomach. Back in that muted world sooner than she would’ve liked—hell, she could never like coming here—Rowan set herself up on a constant patrol of the house and grounds. For three days and three nights, she’d prowled, waiting for any sign her efforts to divert the trouble headed this way had failed.

The good news about being a ghost was she needed no sleep. No food. Tanya had never quite explained what happened to her physical body while she went all haunted. She’d be exhausted when she came out of it again, that much was clear. With each passing day, her form on this plane got lighter, less attached to her physical body if she had to hazard a guess. She could wait only one more day before pulling out of this spell.

“You’re here to help my grandson?”

The voice, barely above a harsh whisper in the silence that reigned in this place, still had Rowan spinning around in search of the source. Her movement too quick, it took her hovering, translucent form a moment to catch up, swirling through the air in the strangest of ways.

The pale version of an old woman stood in the corner of the family room, close to the fireplace.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Esther Masters, Greyson’s grandmother on his father’s side. You may call me Essie. You don’t have to tell me who you are, Rowan McAuliffe. I know everything. The girls told me.”

The girls?

Realization hit with the subtleness of a cleaver to the head. “They’re talking to you when they go into that trance?”

Essie shrugged. “Me. Other spirits who come to settle some things.”

Mediums? The girls spoke to spirits. Delilah’s people had been right, they weren’t fates.

Rowan blinked as Essie’s words sank in. Wait. What exactly did everything cover?

“Do you stand there often?” Rowan asked, thinking back to those times a shiver had slipped over her skin in that spot. “Or with Nefti?”

Essie—dressed surprisingly casually in trousers and a pale blouse, her short gray hair fluffed out in a halo around her head—gave a gleeful smile. “I do like making my presence felt, and cats have always been able to speak to the dead. It’s why she’s still my cat.”

Rowan snorted a chuckle. “I see.”

“She likes you, though.”

They shared a smile of mutual amusement.

Getting no negative vibe from Grey’s grandma, she relaxed slightly. “To answer your question, yes. I’m here to…check on…Grey and the girls.”

Essie stared at her for a long, disconcerting moment. “You mean you’re here to protect them from the wolves.”

If Rowan had been attached to her body, she would’ve stumbled back in shock. Even so, her form shuddered, reverberating in a manner that caused a lance of pain through her head. How was that possible? More importantly… “How did you know?”

Essie smirked. “The animals aren’t the only ones who pass on gossip. Ghosts are worse than men in a locker room, given they’ve nothing better to do than sit around watching the living.”

Rowan had no idea where to go first with her questions. “Why not pass on, then?”

Another eerie stare from once-blue eyes, now strangely pale in Essie’s face, made Rowan want to shuffle her feet like a truant schoolgirl. “Something told me my family needed some looking after.”

What reply could she give to that? “Fair enough.”

Grey chose that moment to enter the room. With automatic actions, almost as though his mind was a thousand miles away, he set the kettle to boiling and got out the tea. Only, when he opened the tin, he looked closer, then cursed. She’d forgotten to fill it back up before she left.

Flipping the stove flame off, he yanked out his cell phone and dialed. Judging by his dark scowl, Grey was not happy. Because of tea?

“Where is she, Delilah?” he barked without saying hello first. “I want to speak to her.”

Delilah’s reply came across too softly to catch the words, but Grey’s glower deepened. “That’s not good enough.”

He paused, listening. Then he ran a hand through his hair, spiking it up, and Rowan lifted a hand only to drop it back to her side as his shoulders drooped forward in defeat. “You don’t understand. You need to get her back here.”

He blew out a long breath as he rubbed at his chest, then turned and headed back to his office.

“Because I love her, dammit. That’s why.” The words floated back to Rowan down the hallway. “I need her more than anyone else could possibly…”

Even here where everything—sensation, emotion, life—felt far away, a pale reflection like her form, a multitude of emotions slammed through her, lighting her up and dragging her down at the same time.

Had he just—?

Did he really say—?

Rowan turned to Essie, who still hovered in the corner. “Did…did you hear that?”

The old woman rolled her eyes. “You’re both hopeless. But that’s not what you need to worry about right now.”

Despite the numbness of the realm, a trace of that prickly sensation walked down the back of her neck. Only one other thing could be more important. “The wolves are still coming?”

“They’re not coming.”

Rowan practically floated to the roof with relief.

“They’re here.” Essie pointed out the window.

Light flared outside, illuminating the dark, an instant before a series of explosions from outside boomed, splitting the silence with a crash of sound. The windows shattered, glass flying everywhere. The reverberations slammed through Rowan like shockwaves, even in the ethereal realm. Immediately, heavy black smoke poured into the room.

Upstairs, one of the girls screamed.

…

Grey shook his head as his ears rang following the blast. His lungs screamed in protest at the heavy smoke, his eyes watering. His house was under attack.

The wards would hold off whatever was out there, but not indefinitely.

I have to get the girls to the panic room.

He’d save his magic for when he absolutely needed it. Most likely multiple assailants were involved, and the possibility of them being magical was high. He needed to preserve his energy. Even small spells would reduce his ability to fight, weaken him, and leave him vulnerable.

He sprinted through the house and up the stairs, shouting as he ran. “Girls!”

Immediately, doors were thrown back, and he sucked in a big breath of relief as all three appeared.

“Dad! What’s happening?” Atleigh cried.

“Get them out of here, Grey.” Rowan’s voice echoed in the hallway, bouncing off the walls and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, his heart shrinking in on itself.

“Rowan?” Lachlyn asked, glancing around.

So he wasn’t the only one who’d heard her.

Suddenly, the ghostly image of the woman he loved materialized before his eyes. See-through in grays and whites, her long hair floated around her head almost as if she were underwater.

What. The. Hell? Panic stronger than anything he’d ever felt left him reeling. “Rowan?”

She grimaced. “There’s no time to argue or explain. There’s a group of wolf shifters attacking. They are after me, not you. Get the girls to safety. I’ll do what I can to hold them off.”

Before he could stop her, she disappeared.

“Daddy?” Chloe’s trembling voice pulled him back to the most important task.

“Downstairs to the panic room. Move.”

Another round of explosions rocked the house as they hurried. He had to grab Atleigh, as a violent shudder sent her tumbling down.

With more haste than calm, he ran them to the kitchen, down Rowan’s stairs, to the door hidden on the wall opposite the windows. With a whispered word, the door appeared. He quickly punched in a series of numbers in a keypad, and, with a thunk, the bolt slid back, and the door swung open.

“Get inside and don’t come out until I tell you to or someone you know comes for you.”

“You’re leaving us?” Lachlyn screeched, even as she followed her sisters inside.

The three most precious faces in the world peered out at him, fear dilating their pupils, their bodies visibly trembling.

“The wards will withstand only so much, but a magical alarm was automatically triggered. Help is coming.” Fast, he hoped. The problem with teleporting was it could be intercepted by magical means. He had no idea if the werewolves had another mage helping them, but he couldn’t risk teleporting out. And the witches and warlocks coming to help would have to teleport somewhere a decent distance away and cover the rest of the way on foot.

“I have to hold them off until then. And if Rowan is out there…”

“Go, Dad,” Atleigh said. “Don’t let them kill her.”

A swell of pure love kicked him in the gut. With a muffled exclamation, he leaned in and gave each of his daughters a kiss. “Even if they get by me and into the house, they shouldn’t be able to get into this room. Even then, your mother’s kiss of protection will keep you safe.”

Gods above and below, torn didn’t begin to describe his emotions. But leaving his daughters safe in the magical room built into the solid granite of the mountain while he went to keep the attackers out was his only choice.

“I love you. Always.”

With that, he whispered the words that shut and locked the door and hid it from sight.

…

Rowan’s only thoughts involved keeping the wolves out. The problem was, she had to remain a ghost or risk the shifters controlling her and using her to get past Greyson’s wards inside. With a thought, pure will creating action, she forced her spectral form to disappear and reappear outside.

Remaining unseen, she took stock of the situation. Three wolves—massive in their animal forms, one gray and two red—stood facing the back of the house. Catching glints here and there, she could tell more remained concealed by the trees beyond. Knowing how this attack was going from the inside, she’d guess more still surrounded the house from all four sides to ensure no one got out easily.

Okay. Time for distract and disturb. Rowan had no idea if what she was about to try would even work. But people saw ghosts all the time, right?

Thinking solid thoughts, she willed her ghostly form to materialize to the attackers. The act required a huge amount of concentration and the unpleasant sensation akin to being underwater after the air in her lungs ran out. Finally, she thought she’d achieved it, based on what she could see of her more solid-looking form.

“I’m here,” she called. “I’m the one you want.”

The three wolves closest to her turned with a snarl. Guess it worked.

One of the red wolves leaped at her, and she allowed her form to disappear. Not difficult. Holding herself as a visible entity had taken effort. Her body wanted to be invisible, to no longer exist.

The creature flew through the air and slammed into the pine tree behind where she’d appeared. The tree, on the skinnier side, cracked and split with the impact, and pine needles rained down like dry water as the upper half fell to the ground with a crash of limbs, pinning the wolf beneath it.

His companions didn’t bother to check on him. Instead they let out twin howls, which Rowan, as an Aneval, easily translated into, “She’s here. Bring reinforcements.”

A midnight-black female wolf sprinted from around the side of the house, followed by three others. Those inside the tree line remained where they were as far as Rowan could tell. As the female neared, the big gray wolf suddenly shifted, his body shimmering like a mirage with the change as bone realigned and fur receded into skin, clothing appearing, until before her stood a man with gray at the temples and a nasty scar running down the side of his neck.

“She is here, mistress.” He addressed the black female wolf, slightly smaller in form than most of the others.

Kaios’s lover. Rowan had seen her only in human form before.

The red wolf with him—the one still standing, at least—growled, and Scar Neck grimaced.

“That is, there’s a ghost that looks like the McAuliffe witch here.”

The hackles raised on the black wolf’s back, and she bared her teeth in a silent display of displeasure.

Before Rowan could hear more, the sensation of ice being wrapped around her neck invaded her form an instant before she was yanked back into the house.

Rowan took a second to shake off the splinters of cold remaining inside her, even as she wondered what the hell had just happened to her.

Essie, likely tired of waiting for her to reorient, shoved her face in front of Rowan’s. “Grey is outside.”

“What?” Rowan tried to whip her head around, though her floating form took a second to keep up. Still, he was nowhere in sight. “Where?”

“Out front. He’s protecting the girls…and you.”

Fear shot through Rowan like a bolt of electricity.

Before she could do more, another howl went up outside, followed by a low rumbling she took a second to identify as a growl. From all the wolves. If she’d been in her corporeal form, the hairs on her arms would’ve stood up at the terrifying sound.

A blinding flash of blue lightning split the night sky, preceding a slam of thunder so deafening it seemed to shake the entire mountainside.

Grey.

The cacophony of fighting reached her in an odd reverberation of sound, like hearing the noise through a tunnel.

“Follow me,” Essie said.

Rowan floated after Grey’s grandmother to the windows showing the back yard. “They’re in the woods now. I can go no further. My spirit is tied to this house. You must help him. Protect him.”

Already, Rowan’s life force ebbed away with the effort she’d already expended, leaving her numb and oddly untethered, as though she had no reality, no anchor. If she did much more, she risked becoming a permanent ghostly resident of the Masterses household. If she returned to her solid form, she risked being controlled and used against Grey.

Nothing could’ve stopped her. Without a word to Essie, Rowan closed her eyes and pictured herself in the woods near where the girls always went in their trance.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself surrounded by pine trees and granite boulders, facing a battle of one against many.

She froze at the vision of Grey doing what he’d so clearly been born to do as he fought the wolves. Even through her terror for his life, Rowan was still mesmerized by the powerful display.

Three wolves already lay on the ground, one body still aflame. A sandy-colored wolf ran at Grey full tilt. His face a study of fierce concentration, Grey whispered a single word, and another bolt of blue lightning shot from his hands. The creature howled in pain before the lightning disappeared and it collapsed to the ground, tendrils of smoke rising from its body.

Rowan didn’t have time to watch more as she caught sight of the black wolf. Kaios’s lover had snuck around behind Grey, using the trees and her coloring as cover, but Rowan could see the green glow of her eyes in the radiance Grey’s lightning had briefly cast in the small clearing.

Grey, busy with another two wolves, one of which went flying through the trees at his whispered word, didn’t see the she-wolf behind him. Rowan couldn’t yell out to warn him, or the wolf he faced would attack. But she didn’t have enough magic left to stop the black wolf.

At that moment a tiny hummingbird came darting out of the trees. It hovered in front of Rowan. “We’re here.”

Before she could ask, animals of all kinds—elk, deer, mountain lions, even chipmunks and birds—stampeded into the clearing, going after all the wolves.

“What the—” Grey lowered his hands. But his back was still turned to the black wolf.

The bitch gathered herself, muscles bunching, to leap.

With an otherworldly sound that sent fear cascading down Rowan’s spine, even in the spirit realm, she lunged.

But Grey spun to face her and knocked her back with a blast of energy. Blue lightning in an orb that should’ve fried her ass.

Only she stayed on her feet, lips curled over her teeth, eyes glowing, and lunged again.

Again he knocked her back.

But she just kept coming.

And with each spell cast, Grey wasn’t just losing ground, he was using up his energy.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his expression a cast of concentration.

Another lunge, only this time, he tried something else. Making a spinning move with his finger and with a whisper of words, a miniature tornado of wind whipped the wolf up, casting her about wildly.

Manifesting nature was almost as exhausting as forming energy from nothing. He wasn’t going to be able to hold much longer.

But apparently Grey realized that. Because, suddenly, he stopped the twister, dirt and debris froze, and so did the wolf, about thirty feet up in the air. Then everything dropped to the ground. Only she managed to hop off one branch then another on her way down. Landing before Grey unharmed.

“Help him,” Rowan urged any animals in the area, hoping like all the hells they could hear her.

With a snarl, she hurtled through the air, deadly jaw wide open.

Grey’s hands shot up and froze her in place. Only immediately, he grimaced as though she’d struck him just the same. Holding an ancient werewolf had to be draining what little he had left inside him.

A terrifying roar erupted from the forest, and the massive grizzly bear who’d once warned Rowan of danger burst out into the clearing. He slammed into the black wolf mid-air. Coming down on top of her, he clamped his massive jaws around her head. With a twist and a sickening crunch, he snapped her neck.

Grey dropped to his knees, chest heaving from the effort.

Those wolves still alive, seeing their leader’s lifeless form and the forces gathered against them, took off through the woods, Rowan’s defenders in pursuit.

Rowan let out a whoop of relief. “Grey,” she turned toward him, then sucked in a breath.

Three streaks of red crossed the white of his shirt, growing larger with every passing moment as blood spilled out of him. Apparently, the she-wolf had struck her mark before the bear had intercepted her. With a cough that brought blood bubbling up out of his mouth, Grey dropped to his knees before falling over to lie on his back, legs jacked up awkwardly beneath him.

“No,” the word tore out of her.

In a blink Rowan was at his side. She closed her eyes, reaching for her body, willing herself back into the realm of the living, but nothing happened. She didn’t have enough energy left to get herself out of the ghostly realm.

Grey was dying before her eyes, and she could do nothing but watch as she herself let go of life. Another gurgle of blood spilled out of his mouth as he choked on the liquid filling his lungs, and a new determination surged through her. She was lost, but maybe she had enough left in her to save him. Acting on pure instinct, Rowan held her hands over his chest and pulled from the magic deep inside her the energy produced by her very soul.

A whispered word, and her hands, even in this muted realm between life and death, began to glow—softly at first, then brighter until the light was almost blinding. Then, just as slowly, the light faded away. Under her hands, Grey’s chest no longer bore the marks of death. Blood no longer pooled under his body.

“Rowan?” His deep voice brought her gaze to his face. Miraculously, he seemed to be looking directly at her. “How is this possible?” he asked. He shook his head, eyes dazed. “What are you?”

Rowan gave him a sad smile. “I’m—”

Cold in the form of biting pain slid through her bones and took over every inch of her. With a gasp, Rowan held up her hands only to find the shadowy image of her fingers disappearing. Gods, she was vanishing so fast.

“What’s going on?” Panic laced Grey’s voice.

She didn’t have time.

They didn’t have time.

“Greyson Masters…” Her voice echoed through the trees around them. She reached for him, but most of her was gone. “I love you.”