Page 12 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

Then, abruptly, the temperature in the room plunged. The change was rapid enough to cause my skin to break out with gooseflesh. The hairs on my forearms raised. I felt a crawling sensation on the back of my neck, exactly like someone was standing directly behind me, staring at me intently.

I turned. It was just an empty hallway that led out into the living room. Nothing moved. It was like the whole house had sucked in a hushed breath, waiting for my reaction.

“Okay,” I said to the room at large, fighting for bravado. “So far, so creepy. You’re definitely scaring me. Any second now, I’ll be running for the door. I promise.”

Then, as if in answer, on the other side of the kitchen, I heard rattling. I jerked my head toward the sound. It was coming from one of the drawers.

A surge of triumph tore through me. It was happening. The ghost was manifesting.

The drawer popped open and a dozen kitchen knives darted out of it. They jumped onto the counter in unison, standing upright on the tips of their blades. For a long moment, they were perfectly still and motionless.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, my eyes going wide. Knives couldn’t kill me—unless, of course, my head was severed from my body. But still, getting stabbed by a dozen kitchen knives would hurt like hell.

From directly behind me, I heard a high-pitched cackle. It sounded like a woman, perhaps—except the laughter was so totally unhinged that it didn’t sound like the type of noise an actual person should be able to make.

The knives launched themselves at me.

Without even meaning to, I threw myself sideways, moving at vampire speed, which meant that I probably would have looked like a blur to anyone watching. The knives buried themselves halfway to the hilt in the wall right behind where I was standing.

Realizing I had stepped out of my protective circle, I darted back over the threshold to safety. Then I spun to face the wall, ready for another attack. But the knives stayed where they were, still quivering from the force of their impact.

I shivered as the temperature in the room plummeted even further. The lights began to flicker. I glanced around warily, certain that the ghost wasn’t done with me yet.

Sure enough, a bloodcurdling scream suddenly split the air. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The sheer force of it was like a physical blow, making me stagger. I clapped my hands over my sensitive ears, but it did little to muffle the bone-chilling sound.

I started to realize I might have bitten off more than I could chew. Still, I couldn’t back down now. I had to see this through. If I left before it actually showed itself to me, all of my effort would have been for nothing. I needed to know what kind of entity I was dealing with if I had any hope at all of banishing it.

The scream died away, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. The circle of blessed salts and iron filings still surrounded me, offering some protection, though I suddenly doubted it would hold for long against the onslaught of this spirit once it really got going.

I tensed, senses straining, as I waited for whatever was going to happen next.

I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to face it and saw my own reflection in the darkened glass pane of the kitchen window. And something else, too. Teresa Dames, the first witch I had murdered, stood directly behind me, just outside the protective ring I had drawn around myself.

I whirled to face her. But no one was there.

Had I imagined it? Or was she hovering somewhere nearby in the spirit world, haunting me? If so, maybe the manifesting sigils were working on her, too.

A loud crash came from the direction of the living room, followed by more screams and wails. The ghost who resided in the home was clearly on the move, tearing through the house, overturning furniture and smashing anything fragile. I winced at the cacophony but held my ground.

A door creaked open on the other side of the kitchen. A mop came floating out, seemingly on its own, which was just about as unnerving as you might imagine. Then, with surprising speed, it flew straight toward me, handle aimed directly at my chest.

I caught it in mid-air, before the wood could pierce my heart.

Was it a coincidence, or did this entity somehow know exactly what I was?

The coffee table I had seen earlier in the living room skittered into the kitchen. It stopped right at the boundary of my circle. The blessed salts sparked with blue energy for a split second.

Good to know those actually worked, at least.

The table rebounded, only to hurl itself up to the ceiling like gravity was a thing that no longer mattered to it. Then it slammed itself down onto the kitchen floor with enough force to shake the walls. The wood shattered into approximately a million pieces.

Then the fragments—many of them sharp and plenty long enough to be makeshift wooden stakes—began to float in midair, directly in front of me.

Uh-oh.

Maybe I had drawn the manifesting sigils a little too well.

That was when the front door exploded inward, torn off its hinges by a massive blast of magical energy. Framed in the doorway stood the last person I expected to see. Yet, somehow, I wasn’t even surprised.

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