Page 29 of Echo Of A Wolf

“I don’t know,” Dean spoke up. “All I know is she’s not lying. I felt it, too.” Tension pierced through his tone.

“How do you know it’s Lucius’s spirit, though?” Sienna pressed. “Could he have had the ability to get into another’s mind and control them all along?”

“No,” I answered without hesitation.

“How can you be so sure?” Sienna pressed.

“I would know,” I insisted. “After all, he’s my brother.”

“Right. I forgot about that.” Sienna nodded.

“Could he have gained the ability after Lucius was in his head?” Ellis asked. “Maybe it messed up his brain chemistry.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “When he was in my head, I begged him to stop by calling his name, and he said Xander isn’t here anymore.”

“Creepy,” Sienna uttered.

“Oh, shit. This is going to be interesting,” Waylen said, rolling his head back to look at the ceiling.

“So, what do we do?” Sienna asked before taking a swig of her beer. “Do we perform an exorcism somehow?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I blurted, sounding a little too enthusiastic.

Sienna’s eyes widened, and she looked as though she was about to spit out her beer. “I was joking.”

“Sorry, but I’m not taking part in any exorcism. I don’t get down with all that Ouija board, spooky shit,” Ellis said, shaking his head.

Waylen chuckled. “Ouija board, spooky shit—that’s hilarious!”

“I’m not joking,” Ellis insisted, his tone firm and his eyes serious. “That shit’s not my vibe.”

Waylen tossed up a hand and gave a shoulder shrug. “Okay. Noted. Damn.”

“So, say this is true,” Sienna started, but Dean cut her off.

“It is true,” he ground out. “He tried to kill her, Sienna. If I hadn’t stopped him…”

So much emotion hung in his words—in his expression—that it tore at the edges of my heart. I placed a hand on his and gave it a gentle squeeze. My raven and I could feel him and his wolf’s torment as that moment replayed through his head.

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

Dean exhaled, and the tension coiling through him faded. “I know.”

“What I was going to say before I was interrupted was if this is true, then we need to find someone who can perform an exorcism on him. We need to get Lucius’s spirit out of him before things spiral out of control, like the first time we had to deal with that monster,” Sienna explained.

“Have any of you ever heard of Maribel?” Ellis asked.

“The crazy old lady who lives in the woods?” Waylen smirked. “Isn’t she just an urban legend?”

Ellis looked at him like he was stupid. “No, she’s real. I knew a girl who went to her for a weird spiritual fertility treatment. She’s a witch or spiritual healer.”

“No, she’s a shaman,” Sienna chimed in. “And an eccentric raccoon shifter.”

“Do you think she’d be able to help with Xander?” I asked.

“It’s worth a shot to ask.” Sienna took another sip from her beer. “The only problem is we have to find her first.”

I tried to think back on any stories I’d heard of the eccentric old woman, but none came to mind.

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