Page 40 of Haunted Heart
She reads the words and then reads them again. “Do you know what this would mean?”
“You’d be tied to me instead of your house.”
She dips her head, nodding with a faraway look in her dark eyes. “Do you understand the consequences?”
“Probably not.” WhathaveI understood tonight?
“For me, they’re simple… When you die, I will pass on.”
She comes to me, pressing her cold fingers to my skin.
“And I won’t survive as long asyourheart will.” I don’t like that, but I have to remind her.
“For you… I could take control of your body for short amounts of time.”
“You could possess me?”
“The same way I can slam doors here, I could make you slap someone. Things like that.”
“But would you?”
She hesitates and then smiles a little sheepishly. “I can think of a few instances where I would, yes.”
“What kind of instances?”
She looks down, almost as if she seesthroughthe floorboards. “If you were incapacitated and needed to defend yourself, but couldn’t?”
“Well, I wouldn’t object to that.”
“If Minerva irritates me again?” The question might be a confession.
“I would object to that.”
“I’ll be with you,everywhere.This spell essentially means that I’ll haunt you, not my home.”
“But you could leave this house for the first time in centuries.”
She nods, looking down at the spell. She takes a deep breath, and the walls creak when she exhales.
“You sleep. I’ll think.”
EIGHTEEN
I don’t wantto sleep.
I’ve tried to force myself, but it still feels unfinished.
Julia’s arms wrap around me and I snuggle deeper into her. “Thank you for coming back with me.”
“What do you mean?” Her brows pinch and then her face clears and she holds me even tighter. “You thought there was a chance I’d go after the man who killed me and succumb to my wrath?”
“I worried that his pull was stronger than mine.”
“There is only one thing that could make me stay in Hell. And that is if you were trapped there too.”
I shiver, and it’s not because her skin is cold. “Let’s never go back there.”
“No more Hell,” she agrees. “We’ll stay here in the living world, where you belong.”
