“What time is it?” I asked once I could gather my thoughts.
“It’s six-thirty. Do you want to try for more sleep?”
I shook my head. I had no desire to tempt fate and encourage the nightmare to return.
“No, I’m done with sleep for the day. I just want to get up and dressed and reassure myself that the ghost didn’t follow me over here.” I hung my head. “I dreamed it was attacking the cats and me with knives. Or rather, two skeletons were.”
Killian grimaced. “You need better dreams,” he said, kissing my nose. “Get up and I’ll make us some breakfast. Waffles okay?”
I nodded, blowing my nose on the tissue he handed me. “That sounds good. Do you have any bacon?”
“Bacon is a given. All right, you dress and shower—breakfast will be on the table in about twenty minutes.” He let go of me and slid out of bed. Killian usually slept nude like I did, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his naked body. The morning wood was nice and firm, and it made me rethink food.
“Um…it would be just as easy to stop for a sausage muffin on my way to work,” I said, staring at him pointedly.
He caught my drift and grinned. “Are you sure? Waffles and bacon are mighty tasty.”
“We can have breakfast for dinner. Come here, make me forget my nightmare.” I opened my arms and he crawled back into bed, stopping to grab a condom. As I set Xi on the bottom of the bed with Klaus and turned, Killian tore open the packet and wrapped it up. He let go a lusty growl and pounced, rolling me onto my back as he began to nibble on my neck.
I loved oatmeal sex—you know, the sex that came with being comfortable with your partner. Nights were for passion, for roses and wine and losing yourself entirely, but mornings were more about reassurance and reconnection. The sex was always hot, but it felt more caring and fun and lighthearted under the first light of dawn.
Afterward, we showered off together—a quick rinse before dressing.
“What happened last night after I left?”
“Teran packed your bags and I brought them over here. Millie said she’d contact you later today with some questions. She did say that it looked like the room was hit by an explosion. There was only one skeleton, but the bones were ripped apart. The trunks were battered as though they had been thrown against concrete walls, but the walls of the storage room showed no sign of any damage. So whatever happened between the time you found the trunks and when Millie got there is anybody’s guess.”
“I think I’ll ask Tad if I can bring Conjure Ink in on this,” I said. “I have no idea what the hell happened or how that skeleton got there. Esmara knew it was there, but she was pretty sketchy…or rather, vague. For the first time, I’m wondering if she’s telling me the truth.”
“Do you think she would lie to you?” Killian asked.
I shrugged. “Not really. Maybe if there’s a lesson involved, she might? I think I’ll just ask her outright and see what she says. I’m also going to call Rowan and ask for her help.”
Rowan Firesong was my paternal grandmother. Until recently I had thought that my paternal grandmother lived in Scotland, and that she was either too old to contact me, or possibly dead. But my aunt finally told me that Rowan Firesong—one of the oldest witches in Moonshadow Bay—was my father’s birth mother. She had given him to the Jaxsons so they could keep him safe. She was worried that her enemies might target him if they knew who he was.
“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you call her after you get dressed?”
I nodded. “I will. Now, let’s get out of this shower. I’m due at work in about forty minutes.”
He leaned in and kissed me. “By the way, don’t worry about the cats. Teran cast a protection spell on my house last night before she left. She didn’t want you worried that the spirit would try to follow you.”
Relieved and ever grateful, I dried off. After leaving a message for Rowan, asking her to call me back, I dressed in a pencil skirt in rust, an olive green peplum top, and a pair of ankle boots with chunky high heels. Carrying a black peacoat over my arm, I kissed the cats and Killian, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed out for work.
Chapter Six
I bustled into the office, triple-shot latte and sausage muffin sandwich in hand. Dropping my purse and jacket off at my desk, I walked the two yards to the round table that had become our meeting table. Tad, Hank, and Caitlin were already there. Wren hadn’t been at the reception desk in the outer lobby, and she wasn’t in the inner office, so I assumed she was home taking care of her husband.
“Hey, January,” Tad said. Standing five-four, he was five inches shorter than me, and a whole lot skinnier than I was. He was also younger by a decade. But Tad was a genius and Conjure Ink was his baby. He actually ran an umbrella group called Urban Legends, Inc., composed of a number of paranormal research organizations spread throughout the US. We had a communal databank and kept in touch, trading information as needed.
Tad was growing out his hair and it was in that shaggy, almost shoulder-length phase. Now, he had it brushed back into a poor imitation of a manbun. “I’m sorry I had to call you back early—”
“What’s wrong?” Hank asked, staring at me. “I can sense something’s wrong.” Hank was a burly bald man who could have given Vin Diesel a run for his money in the looks department. Hank was our main IT guy, and he was also a master of astral magic. Although he was a chaos magician, he was much more friendly than the majority of chaos magicians I knew about. His friends, Shawn and Dell, provided hired brawn when needed.
Caitlin frowned. “I can smell your fear. What’s going on?” A bobcat shifter, Caitlin was the third member of our team.
I took a sip of my latte. “All right,” I said sitting back in the chair. “Truth is, I’ve run into a serious problem. It involves the renovations I had done. I may need to call you guys in for help.”
“Ghosts?” Tad asked, pushing his glasses back up on his nose.
“Yeah. Also, I seem to have inherited a skeleton.” I told them what had happened. “I’m waiting for Millie to call me. But the police aren’t going to be able to stop whatever’s haunting my house.”
“And you have no idea how the skeleton got there?” Hank asked.
I shook my head. “I didn’t even remember that storage room until the contractors uncovered it. So it had to have been closed off after I left home for college. Which means, my parents had to have known about it. And then come the questions. If they knew about the skeleton, why didn’t they call the police? Who is the dead person and how did they get there?”
“I’m going to ask an uncomfortable question,” Caitlin said. “Do you think they were capable of killing someone?”
I stared at her. I hadn’t even made the jump to murder yet. Let alone, my parents murdering someone. “My parents were pacifists. They…” I ran out of juice. The fact I couldn’t overlook was that the skeleton couldn’t have hid itself in the trunk. Somebody had to lock the body in, and since the clothes in the other trunk most likely belonged to the victim, then somebody also had to undress the corpse and manage to maneuver it into that chest.