Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (47 page)

85

KAI

K
ai felt like he’d aged a hundred years in one night. They’d taken two vehicles to the school. The Suburban and the Corolla. Ember, Quinn and Tristin rode home with Donovan in the Corolla. Kai and Rhys rode back with Wren and Isa. Kai was a little disappointed he didn’t get to ride home with Quinn even though he pulled in the driveway only two minutes behind them.

He smiled a bit as he made his way up the stairs. His friend was back from the dead. He couldn’t be sad about that but it was strange to see Quinn in reality when mirrors reflected Mace. Isa spent two hours working hard to ensure the other packs knew an attack on Mace-Quinn-Mace, ugh, was an attack against their pack. The other packs begrudgingly accepted the soul eater. Kai suspected it was because they were wary of a pack that now contained four wolves, three reapers, a faery and a soul eater.

He didn’t care as long as they were gone.

He pushed open his bedroom door to find Rhys sitting once again on his bed, staring at the floor.

“I never wanted to lie to you,” Rhys said.

Kai was too tired for this but couldn’t help but say, “Then why did you?” Rhys opened his mouth but closed it. So Kai finally asked the question he’d been afraid to ask that first night. “How long have you been my personal guard? That is why Isa never let me go anywhere without you, right? She knew how I felt about you so she thought it would be easier? That I’d want you around me all the time?” Kai couldn’t look at Rhys. Now that he’d said it out loud he kept going, letting his imagination fill in the blanks. “Is that why you had a sudden change of heart about us? Did you decide I was easier to control if you just pretended you cared about me too?”

Rhys’ head jerked up at that. “What?”

Kai swallowed the lump in his throat. “What? Makes sense. Makes way more sense than you having feelings for me. Why else would you suddenly just give in?”

Rhys shot to his feet, grabbing him by the shirt. “You almost died. I almost lost you. You stood before the Grove and I thought they were going to take you from me…twice.” The wolf pressed his face against Kai’s neck, inhaling deeply like he was trying to soothe himself. “I gave in because I couldn’t stand not doing this, not touching you. I couldn’t stand seeing that look in your eyes every time you wanted me to touch you and I disappointed you…again. I’m always disappointing you.”

Kai snorted, “You felt sorry for me?”

Rhys pulled back, hands on Kai’s face, forcing him to meet his gaze. “You are so stubborn. I fought my feelings for you because I couldn’t stand the idea of being with you when you didn’t know the truth. I didn’t want it to be like that. I don’t want there to be lies between us. Isa said if you knew about the Grove making you prisoners we’d all be in danger.”

This time it was Kai who couldn’t summon any words.

Rhys looked him dead in the eye and Kai was positive his heart seized when the wolf said, “You told me you wanted me since you were twelve. I’ve known you were mine since the moment we met. The first time I saw you, you smelled like mine.”

Kai stared, mouth open. He knew Rhys could hear his pulse. Hell, he could probably see it throbbing in his neck. He tried to say something, anything really, “I-”

“No, you wanted the truth, here it is. I love you. I have never loved anybody but you. I will never love anybody after you. You are my home. We’re bonded. Do you get what that means? Wolves mate for life-” he stopped abruptly, stepping away, “but you aren’t a wolf. This doesn’t have to mean to you what it means to me. I mean, that’s a big commitment at seventeen? Are you ready to promise me forever now that you know there are so many better options out there for you?”

Kai was nodding before he even knew it, mouth finding Rhys’ mumbling against his lips, “There are no other options for me, you big stupid wolf. I told you that. If we are mated, bonded, whatever you want to call it, I’m totally on board.” Kai pulled back suddenly, staring at Rhys dubiously, “Wait, is this a marriage proposal? Cause I would have liked a little more fanfare. A ring. A fancy dinner. Perhaps a sonnet or two?”

Rhys rolled his eyes but then was kissing him again, walking him backwards, pressing him down into the mattress. His heart felt like it was bigger than it was ten minutes ago and he knew that was stupidly romantic but he didn’t care. Rhys loved him. Rhys said they were mates. “Oh God, we are those stupid kids who get engaged in high school.”

“Technically, I’ve been engaged since before I was born.”

Kai pulled back, “Oh, yeah. Selina right? Is that going to be a problem?”

“They can’t fight a mating bond.” Rhys told him, kissing his way along his throat, pressing his body closer to Kai, biting his way along his jaw and doing that hip rotation thing that made Kai temporarily lose his ability to process rational thought. Kai pulled Rhys’ head back so he could look at him. “Hey, you think if we tell Isa we’re engaged, we can start having like actual sex?”

“What we did in the truck wasn’t actual sex to you?”

“Well, I mean, yeah. Sure. Like, um depending on your definition of sex,” Kai mumbled.

Rhys snorted but Kai threw his leg over him and twisted, letting Rhys’ surprise and Kai’s momentum flip them so Kai was above him. Kai bit him through his shirt. Rhys’ eyes glowed green, fangs dropping. Kai couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Uh, maybe we should have you declawed first before we break into the advanced sex stuff.”

Rhys rolled his eyes again, but kissed his nose.

Kai bit the end of Rhys’ nose in return. “I love you too, you know?”

Rhys turned bright red. “Yeah, I know.”

“If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, you are going to have to stop blushing every time I say it. Here, let’s practice. I love you.”

Kai laughed louder as Rhys’ face went purple. “Nope. Didn’t work. I love you.”

Rhys buried his face in Kai’s neck, making a weird growling sound and then Kai was twisting, trying to squirm away from the fingers digging under his ribs. It was useless. “Stop. Stop. I hate being tickled. Stop it.”

“Then stop making fun of me.”

“Okay,” Kai shouted. “I’ll stop. I’ll stop.” He sucked in a much-needed breath. “I do love you.”

“I love you too, though I have no idea why.”

“Stay with me tonight?”

“Isa will kill me.”

“Nah, she’s way too busy dealing with all that information Ms. Josephine dropped on us.”

Rhys looked at him. “So you’re a god, huh?”

Kai rolled his eyes, “Oh, yeah, that’s me, behold the mighty god of reaping. Ms. Josephine is an old lady. She’s crazy.”

Rhys pushed a strand of Kai’s hair out of his face. “I don’t know, I could see it. There’s always been something about you.”

Kai was the one who blushed this time. He didn’t want to think about that. “Come on, sleep in here with me.”

“Fine, but we are just sleeping.”

Kai brought his knee up to press between the wolf’s legs, biting his earlobe. “Just sleeping?”

Rhys groaned, “Well, mostly sleeping.”

Kai laughed, “Best…fiancé’…ever.”

86

EMBER

T
he ride home seemed longer than the ten minutes it took to get there. So much tension. Tristin watched Quinn like if she took her eyes off him for even a moment, he’d disappear forever. Quinn indulged her, letting her press herself against him the whole way home. Letting her rest her head on his chest to listen to him breathe; to listen to his heartbeat.

Mace had no heartbeat. Her rational self knew Mace no longer existed. Ember knew it was Quinn. But while the others only saw Quinn thanks to Miller’s spell, Ember saw something different. She didn’t know why it hadn’t worked on her but when she looked at Quinn, it just wasn’t right. It was as if somebody had double exposed old film, superimposing Quinn’s face over Mace’s. It was unsettling and it made her ache in a way she didn’t think she could.

Every time Quinn would catch her looking, he’d give her that same sad smile, like he knew somehow. Or maybe he just didn’t know how to feel either. He’d been happy on the other side. Now he was back here where people wanted to kill them pretty much every day. He’d killed his father, possibly absorbed his magic and watched two werewolves haul his resurrected father off to who knows where. He only seemed happy when he looked at Tristin and even that seemed…bittersweet. Her cousin finally seemed herself again. Maybe better than herself. She seemed happy.

Nobody spoke of Josephine or her predictions or what it meant for them. People had sacrificed themselves for her and Tristin and Kai all based on this idea that they were some mythical incarnation of the Morrigan. She couldn’t begin to imagine anything so stupid. They were all going to get themselves killed waiting for her and her cousins to come into these imaginary superpowers.

If they made it that far.

It was only a matter of time before the Grove found out what happened tonight. Allister was alive but was he on their side? Was he even still alive? What had Josephine and Miller done with him? What had they done with any of the coven? Her uncle would notice if a large number of his teenage witches went missing. He would notice if Allister went missing. Where did her uncle’s loyalty really lie? With the Grove? With Allister? With her?

She excused herself as soon as the car hit the driveway, going in through the garage. She stopped, hand on the doorknob. She didn’t want to go inside. Inside were Romero and Chester and a million other reminders of Mace. She knew she didn’t need Mace to control her powers. She’d proven it. She could call her power, she could control it. She didn’t need Mace.

But she wanted him. She wanted him more than she wanted anything. She missed him. She wondered if he could miss her. Josephine said Mace wasn’t soulless. She’d said he was capable of feelings. Did that mean he loved her or was it always just this stupid magical bond she’d created between them? Did it change anything? Did it really even matter? Mace was dead and she had killed him. She had sacrificed him to save Quinn.

The walk to her room felt like a walk to the electric chair. She wanted to forget everything. Maybe she would do what Tristin did and just hole up in her room for a week. She didn’t want to feel her feelings.

She shoved open the door to her room and stopped short, mouth falling open at the strange orb of light pulsing against her window. She moved forward, as the image stretched, morphing into something almost human, almost recognizable. Her whole body trembled. She’d seen this before, when Quinn came to see her.

She still couldn’t make out much detail, but she saw silver eyes and that swoop of grey hair. She shook her head, almost like she couldn’t take a full breath. She closed her eyes and opened them again but it was still there. He was still there. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She moved closer, hand reaching out towards the apparition as it took a less amorphous form.

“Mace?” she whispered.

Even though he wasn’t solid, even though he flickered in and out like a bad television signal, there was no missing the grin that split across his face.

“It would appear you owe me a new body, Luv.”

Look for book two in the Reanimator Series ‘His Soul to Take’ coming in 2016

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Martina McAtee lives in Jupiter, Florida with her teenage daughter, her best friend, two attack Chihuahua’s and two shady looking cats. By day she is a registered nurse but by night she writes young adult books about reapers, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. When she isn’t working, teaching or writing she’s reading or watching shows that involve reapers, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. Visit her website for playlists, excerpts, deleted scenes and other fun extras.

www.martinamcatee.com