Please, please, not another ghost.
A warm breeze washed over her, and something cool slid over her arm to her wrist.
Leya hurriedly tucked her hands behind her, her stomach tensing. The sensation faded, but the heavy, damp air distorted and swirled, forming an enormous, thick coil of white rope on the ground.
It glimmered like a thousand stars, growing thicker and far taller than her.
Whoa! She hastily stepped back, bumping into a tree. The rope rippled as if trying to form the perfect coil.
What the heck? She peered at the enormous loops.
As if her movements triggered it, the end of the rope undulated up in the air and flattened into a diamond shape. Twin spots of ebony on either side flickered. Slitted pupils in transparent white eyes held hers.
“Eeep—”A panicked breath caught in her throat, and she stumbled.
That’s no freakin’ rope!
She wanted to run but couldn’t seem to move, her feet frozen to the ground. She’d faced snakes in her job, but nothing like this colossal one! Dread gripping her, Leya eyed the thing in terror. Great. She was gonna die from suffocation by a giant-ass boa.
Aerén would find her broken remains. Wait. Did boas swallow their prey?
A sibilant hiss had her unraveling mind slinging back to the serpent watching her.Sssso long…
What the—?
I issss here. Aurasss…
“Leya?” Aerén called out.
The image dissolved into the dense humidity and faded.
Gulping in lungfuls of air, her gaze bounced from branch to branch, searching, but everything remained utterly still.
Christ, she was hallucinating snakes now? Maybe it was the beginning of heat stroke.
Trying to calm the heck down, grateful no one heard her panicked screech, she rubbed her left wrist and the welt forming there…from the thing that had touched her?
Aerén stopped at her side. “I thought you’d be at the stream, in the water?” His gaze lowered, and he grasped her hand, gently stroking the red mark on her wrist. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, must have scratched myself. I-I think your forest is haunted. I just saw a giant white snake.”
His brow furrowed. “We don’t have—”
“You don’t believe me. Of course, you don’t. You thought the ghost I saw in your castle wasn’t true, either, and this snake is likely another hallucination, right?” Scowling, she stomped off.
“Leya, wait.” A massive sigh escaped him. “We live in a mystical world that is dying, yes, and while the magic has weakened, anything is still possible.”
Yeah, right. His doubtful expression said otherwise.
“Never mind. It’s probably another delirium brought on by this darn weather.” The discomfort of the intense heat and humidity seeped into her.
Two ghosts in one afternoon?
Either she was truly losing her mind, or the specters were real.
A chill shot through her. Man, both options sucked.
CHAPTER18
