shadow of her eyes lingered. And then…she was gone.
But where was Rowan?
He glanced at his girls, who stood in their trance, unmoving. They waited in silence for what felt like an interminable age. Then Chloe gasped.
He couldn’t see anything.
“We can see her,” they said in unison.
“Where?”
“Here.” A few long moments passed before the girls spoke again. “Rowan? Can you hear us?”
A pause and he held his breath.
“Can you get back to us?” they asked next.
He couldn’t see her or any reaction from his children. Just nothing. “What’s happening?”
“Watch.” Atleigh nodded to the spot toward which she was talking.
As he watched, suddenly the blurry vision of a woman started to materialize. At first so faint he couldn’t see her features, the lines and edges of her face and body came into sharper and sharper focus. “Rowan,” he whispered.
He started forward, but the girls held their circle closed against him. “Wait.”
It took every ounce of willpower not to rush across the space to Rowan’s side, but he did as he was told. Sure enough, her figure started to solidify before his eyes. The process was agonizing to watch. If Rowan’s ragged breathing and pained expression were anything to go by, the process didn’t appear pleasant to experience, either.
Finally, with a gut-wrenching moan, Rowan fell to her hands and knees, whole and with him, heaving with the effort.
At the same time, the girls let go of one another, the glow disappearing as they blinked owlishly, almost seeming lost. He had no idea who to run to first.
“We’re okay, Dad,” Lachlyn said.
“Rowan needs you,” Atleigh added.
He didn’t even remember crossing the room. He just knew he was at Rowan’s side, pulling her shaking body into his arms. “You came back to us.”
She took a shuddering breath, her entire body quivering. “Your grandmother…”
Her voice was hardly a whisper, and he smoothed her hair back from her face. “Shhhh… Rest now. My grandmother helped you, but she’s passed on. She’s with my grandfather now, she said.”
She sagged, her eyes fluttering closed, the lashes starkly dark against her too-pale skin. “You shouldn’t love me,” she mumbled just before her head lolled back, out cold.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Soft sunlight filtered through Rowan’s closed eyes, but she had no desire to wake up and face the world. Not yet.
“Sorry. But you must get up. Now.”
Rowan frowned at the female voice annoyingly trying to pull her out of her slumber. She knew that voice. “Delilah?”
“I’m here. And I’ve let you sleep as long as I could. You need to get up and shower and dress. We have a meeting to attend.”
A meeting? What in the eye of newt was the woman going on about?
“With the Covens Syndicate.” Right then, the sound of a feline growl had Delilah swearing. “And get this damn cat away from me.”
Memories came flooding back, along with a slam of fear, and a lance of pain spiked through Rowan’s head. Oh, my… The wolf shifters. Grey. She’d…died.
Adrenaline spiking through her veins, Rowan peeled her eyes open to find Delilah sitting beside her bed in her room in Grey’s basement, appearing her usual elegant self in a cream-colored cashmere sweater over black slacks, her dark hair coiled at her nape, loose tendrils framing her face. “What happened?”
Delilah hitched her lips in a half smile. “Grey’s girls are ghost whisperers. They got someone named Essie to pull you out of there.”
Essie? Grey’s grandmother’s ghost? How was that possible?
“No time to explain now, I have to get you to this meeting. Your fight’s not over, Rowan. Time to confess all to your people.”
The cold claws of fear reached in and rendered her numb and terrified at the same time. Grey was going to hate her, and she was about to be imprisoned or killed.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” Delilah said.
And that was the only reason Rowan allowed the other woman to tug her out of bed. In a whirlwind of movement, she was handed clothes and shoved into the bathroom.
“Wait.”
Delilah paused in the act of closing the door and raised her eyebrows.
“Where’s Grey?”
Delilah’s lips thinned, her expression grim. “Already there.”
…
Rowan clenched her hands against the shaking, which wouldn’t stop. She wasn’t entirely sure if the tremors were part of recovering from being mostly dead for a while or confronting the truth of who she was in front of the Covens Syndicate, particularly without having had a chance to talk to Grey in private first.
Couldn’t be helped now.
She’d teleported them to the location Delilah provided and now walked the halls of