Midnight Lies (Shifter Island #2) - Raye Wagner Page 0,9
smacked his chest but couldn’t help the hysterical giggle mixed with tears of relief. “W-we n-n-need to f-focus.”
“One kiss, love,” he pleaded with a huskiness in his voice that was super hot. “I need to feel you here.” He tapped his chest, giving me a lopsided grin. “Then, I’ll focus.”
He leaned forward, and I brushed my lips against his in a chaste kiss and then pulled back. “We’re on a mission, so…”
He groaned, but it didn’t escape me that the kiss did improve his color. Or maybe it was the blood.
Thunder rumbled through the air again, only this time, it reverberated through my legs. I peered up at the sky only to find it remained clear and bright.
What the…?
Then I heard it, something I recognized from living in Montana. No wonder there were no clouds in the sky. That wasn’t thunder … it was the pounding hooves of horses.
I scrambled up, tugging on Rage and hissing under my breath, “Someone’s coming—”
“Who are you?” a deep male voice sliced through the air from behind me.
I yipped in surprise, and only then did Rage climb to his feet, slower and more labored than normal.
“Who is that?” Rage asked, his hand balling into fists as his attention darted first to the left and then the right before facing me with a frown. He squinted at the air and then shook his head. “What’s going on?”
Shaking my head, I pointed at the four horsemen who loomed over us, three of them still on their mounts. Each of them was dressed in monochromatic colors, one each in red, black, white, and green. Despite their chiseled features and jacked bodies, there was something cold and decidedly other about the riders—enough to make my skin crawl. The one in red had dismounted, and he glared at us.
There was no point in asking Rage what I already knew. “You can’t see them, but there are horsemen here.”
I pushed Rage’s fists, hoping he would take the hint. ‘Please don’t attack them.’
‘The spirits?’ Rage asked in response. ‘They’re so transparent I can barely see them. Do you think they can hurt us?’
I froze, my entire body seizing up, but not because he could see the souls—although that was unexpected. His voice … was in my head!
‘Can you hear me?’ I hurled the question at him, shocked by this potential development. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe there was something more to our blood-to-blood contact.
‘Yes,’ Rage told me with the freaky mind speak thing … like when we were wolves except more conversant.
I needed someone—most likely my new-to-me grandfather—to explain all this magic. Mate magic, mage magic. None of it made any sense right now.
“I said, who are you?” the horseman snarled, stepping toward us.
He reached for a scythe, and I elbowed Rage in the side. ‘Follow my lead.’
I raised my hands up in surrender. “We’ve come to the Realm of the Dead to negotiate with the Keeper of Souls. Will you please take us to him?”
The horseman barked a laugh. Waving at Rage and me, he said to his companions, “They think they can negotiate with the Keeper.”
Two of the other horsemen didn’t so much as move, but one of them, the one dressed in black, slid his gaze toward me.
“Look closer, Finneas. She’s a spirit walker,” he said to the dude in red.
Red dude whipped his head in my direction, his eyebrows bunched together. “Why did you bring your human form here? Are you offering yourself to him?”
Rage growled, and I nudged him lightly. “No, I got tricked, okay? But I do have a gift for the Keeper of Souls.” I patted my back pocket. “Now, please, take us to him.”
He narrowed his eyes, seeming to regard me for a moment, and then he straightened. “Very well. You may enter, but it’s at your own risk.”
That sounded ominous, but I trusted my grandfather. We’d get out of here.
The red horseman snapped his fingers, and I felt a tug at my navel.
What the what?
Instead of looking up at the four horsemen, we now stared up at thick ornate loops and scrolls of the twenty-foot wrought-iron gates outside of a pathway to the glimmering white castle. Said castle had been—only a heartbeat ago—way up on a hill, at least a half-mile away.
“Did he just…?” I gaped, looking down the hill toward the orchards. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and clouds of dust rolled over the landscape as the riders galloped away over the horizon.