and without thinking, I drove a fist toward the darkened figure. Only I think I hurt my fist more than I hurt him as my hand crumpled against his chest.
“Easy, easy, Bree, it was just a dream.” Crash rolled away from me and flicked on a light. The tiny clock on the bedside table blinked a disturbing three thirty-three a.m. My heart raced and my lungs burned as if I’d just run ten miles. Or held my breath. Or been suffocated.
I sat up and rubbed my arms. Sweat coated my skin, and all I managed to do was smear it around. “Bad dream, but I think . . . I think it was kind of real.” I shook my head and then nodded. “Yeah, I think it was real.”
Crash sat up and stretched his legs out along the bed. “Was it at least helpful?”
I ran a hand over my face and grimaced. “Maybe?” I told him about the dream and what I thought might be hidden in that cemetery. “And maybe Gran is there too.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I won’t be able to go back to sleep after that. I’m going to shower and get going.”
His eyebrows rose. “You think that’s a good idea?”
I glanced at the clock. I’d gotten about six or seven hours of sleep, and really that was enough. “Yeah, I think it is. It’s like I can feel a timer ticking down, and if we get to the end of it and Gran and Charlotte aren’t found . . .bad things, you know?”
He tugged me to him. “Yeah, I know. The fae are all riled up here too. Kink is doing what she can to get me info. Something has NOLA on edge.”
I gave him a hard stare. “You know what Karissa wants the wings for, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“You going to tell me?” This was his chance to be straight with me, to not keep another secret. My heart beat a little faster as he sat there, saying nothing, and I wondered if he was about to pull a Corb.
Slowly he nodded. “There is a spell that would bind me to her in a way that I couldn’t escape. I would be blind to anyone but her and would be compelled to follow her every command. Semper Mea. It’s an old spell known only to the fae. So right now, I am running a fine line between keeping her loyalists believing that I am not with you, while trying to find the angel wings myself to keep them safe, while having her loyalists thinking I am working with them to find the wings for Karissa.”
“You know I’m trying to find them too? As long as one of us gets to them we’re good.” I paused and smiled. “We’re good.” That last bit held a little bit more meaning to it. Maybe he couldn’t be with me, but we were okay now that he was sharing.
With one finger, he tipped my chin up and kissed me, his mouth angling over mine. I slid a hand up into his dark hair, holding him close. I could almost feel him keeping his magic in check, as if he didn’t want to overwhelm me.
Which was the very opposite of what Corb had attempted. I smiled in the middle of the kiss and pulled back. “One of these days . . .” I didn’t finish my thought as I stood and let myself into the attached bathroom.
“One of these days what?” Crash asked as I shut the door in his face.
“One of these days, we’re both going to let our magic loose, and then it’s going to be a real party,” I said.
He groaned and thumped his head on the door. “Don’t tease.”
Laughing, I flicked on the shower, thoughts of another shower close to the surface. It was tempting to recreate it, but the memory of the dream and the necromancer blasting me out of my socks was still too strong.
Stripping down, I stepped into the hot water, grabbed the soap and shampoo and got scrubbing.
I knew a few things.
I was in the right place, even if I didn’t have a pinpoint spot. St. Louis Cemetery Number 1 was going to be a pickle. I needed to find a way to get a bunch of mean ghosts to talk to me.
But that wasn’t first on the menu. First was an abandoned amusement park. Charlotte was the one who needed saving, not a pair of wings.