To save her ghost-hunting career, psychic Kayde Foster must confront an evil and darkly attractive entity that has taken up residence in her uncle's business.
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Kayde prides herself on being fearless. Ghosts? Crumbling buildings? Scary legends? No...
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Darby sipped her ice tea, her shoulders slouched and her eyes all watery. Under her pretty brown eyes, dark circles pooled. She'd been worried for me, obviously, and my heart sank with the thought of her hardly getting any sleep.
I knew what that felt like, probably more than I'd like to admit.
Besides the lack of energy, she seemed determined and on point. She flipped through her Codex, finding some bookmarks, and presented me with a page I couldn't read.
I stared at it like a dork who couldn't read Latin.
Tim took a phone call and quietly stepped outside. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't trust him. It was a feeling in my stomach that I couldn't exactly place.
I had told her everything about what happened to me. Where I went. What I saw. The odd, monstrous people I had met—and about how I'm supposedly absorbing some of Ozzol's magic. Which seemed asinine. But that wasn't the part she was mentally stuck on.
She was mentally stuck on the part where I had dinner with him.
"I'm sorry, I'm just... I don't get it. You sat down at a table, right next to him. And then had dinner with him," she reiterated for the second time, a frown on her face. "Was there any food?"
"Of course there was food." I folded my arms, feeling my cheeks heat at the memory. Our conversations were pretty R-rated as far as I could remember. At least some of them. "I don't understand how any of this shocks you."
She blinked. "What kind of food?"
Why the fuck does that matter right now?
"Roasted chicken?" I was at a complete loss as to why she wasn't getting this. "There was a fruit mash, too. Rolls. A side of roasted asparagus. A side of roasted potatoes. Really, Darby, it was an actual dinner."
She huffed. "I'm just surprised. In my head, I was imagining twitching carcasses presented on a bed of rice. I can't believe you sat next to him. Wasn't it fucking terrifying?" She shook her head. "Have you forgotten how violent he is? He doesn't sit people down for dinner, Kayde. He eats them!"
Yeah, and he sort of did that, too, but she didn't need to know about that. Funnily enough—or maybe not so funnily enough—I didn't have any shame tied to the act. I would be lying to myself if I said I wasn't sexually frustrated as hell and his head between my thighs was—
Get it together, Kayde.
But I could still feel him on me. Like a film wrap, it was almost as if his scent was still here, clinging and warm. Was he watching me from the top floor of Tales Untold?
Would he come to see me again?
Is it necessary for me to stab him the next time I see him... to bring this all to an end?
