“People should keep their curtains closed tonight,” Dayna muttered.
“I think the ghosts are also feeling the pull of the solstice and the magic in the air,” Harry said with a nod at the house.
“Are there ghosts getting naked on my dining table?”
“I believe they are on the stairs.” He tilted his head. “And the sofa.” He squinted at the shadows moving behind the curtains. “I would also avoid the kitchen.”
I rubbed my temple. “This is what happens when you mix gods, ghosts, and family therapy.”
Bella meowed, knocking over the bloodstained dagger and sending it skittering across the ground straight into Hudson’s boot.
He stared at it, then at me. “Is she trying to arm herself or me?”
“Depends on who feeds her next.”
The cat yawned, and a curl of ghostly mist puffed from her mouth. Everyone took a careful step back.
“How sure are we that she didn’t eat a soul or two?” Stella asked.
“About sixty percent. Cats will be cats and do what they damn well please.”
I eyeballed Dayna’s house. “I think your place is a better bet for tonight.”
Dayna nodded. “We can base all nonsexual activity from there.”
This was why TripAdvisor was dangerous. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I went on and wrote that Summer Grove House was a fine establishment on the brink of making me millions, would it come true? Worth a shot.
I stalked toward Dayna’s house, with my aunts and Sebastian trailing behind me.
Hudson’s arm slipped around my waist, halting my progress. “Where are you going?”
I blinked up at him. “I need to wait until morning and then access the vaults. They might hold something about Donn. I need stuff from the house, and I don’t want to fight through spirits having sexy time.”
“That’s hours away.”
I squinted at him. “So we get sleep.”
His hands gripped my hips and walked me backward, away from the house and toward the tree line. My back hit a trunk, and then all I could see was him. All I could smell was him. And suddenly, all I wanted to feel... was him.
“You feel that?” Hudson growled, gliding his nose down mine. “The way the magic skims your skin like a whisper of silk?”
Heat flared low in my stomach. The moonlight reflected in his gaze, gold turning to silver. His lips found mine, and the world—and my worries—bled away. Our tongues tangled as if we’d been together for eons, not months. I leaped up and wound my legs around his waist so he could put pressurewhere I needed him the most. A fleeting thought of us taking this somewhere more private came and went in a heartbeat. Everyone knew that glancing outside on a full moon put you at risk of seeing things you wished you hadn’t. Calloused fingers gripped my butt beneath the silk of my dress and hooked into my panties as his mouth left mine to graze his teeth down my throat.
“Sorry to break this up, daughter,” Abbadon drawled. My eyes flicked open, and Hudson stiffened. “But we have a god problem that you just made a thousand times worse.”
My forehead pressed against Hudson’s shoulder, and I sighed. “Raincheck?” I muttered.
“God check,” he grumbled. “At this rate, I’ll be murdering him for getting between me and my mate.”
I flinched. That was a little too close to the truth. Was it too much to hope he hadn’t caught it?
“Cora,” he drawled. “What did you do?”
Damn it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There’s no such thing as a small favor from a god.
