Page 21 of Phantom’s Mate

Fighting her way free, she jerked her hand out of Nick’s grasp and ran across the road, knowing that her purgatory ended just on the other side. She sharpened her mind into a blade. This time, she was fucking getting out.

Nick was taken off-guard. One minute Britt was losing her mind and tearing at the Kraken, and the next minute the costume was in pieces on the ground and she was running for the border.

Oh, fuck. Even if she got out, she’d be alone in the spirit world—and it wasn’t always safe there.

He took off after her, but she was already halfway across the road. Suddenly, through the storm, he saw a pair of headlights round the curve, heading straight at her.

Someone in the real world had been pulled in.

Britt turned and froze, staring at the car. Nick tried instinctively to get to her, to push her out of the way, but instead her body turned translucent and was sucked into the vehicle.

Nick slid to a stop and focused his concentration on the car, trying to keep it on the road. There was a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning, and he caught a glimpse through the car window of Britt’s face as it went past, her eyes wide and her face terrified.

She was sitting in the driver’s seat—there was no one else in the car.

This wasn’t something in the real world. She was reliving her death.

He bent all his mental energy on preventing the car from hitting the tree, but he couldn’t. Helplessly, he watched the crash, heard the screech and tear of metal. Then the car vanished, and there was just Brittany lying beneath the tree, rain pouring down on her.

Nick raced over, one stray brain cell wondering why she wasn’t wearing the Kraken costume this time. He dropped to his knees, breathing a sigh of relief when he realized that whatever wounds had killed her hadn’t been re-created.

The last thing he wanted was for her to feel any more pain.

He put his hand on her face, stroking it gently. “Britt,” he said. “Wake up. You’re okay.”

She stirred, but she didn’t seem to realize he was there. “So cold,” she murmured. And then, “Nobody… here. No one… going to find me.”

That must have been what she felt when she was dying, he realized. So alone. So scared.

“Help… me,” she murmured. “Call… 911.”

He wished he could. Scooping her up in his arms, he whispered in her ear, “I found you. I’ve got you. You’re all right.”

With nowhere else to go, he headed up the hill to the cabin.

Unlike the Kraken, it had re-set, but it responded to his mental manipulation. It only took a second to get a fire going and change the boxy couch monstrosity into the comfy version.

He couldn’t get the knitted blanket quite right, but it didn’t matter. He lifted Britt up to wrap it around her.

It was his first good look at the underwear, and he immediately wished he hadn’t seen it. It was all black leather and lace—the push-up bra laced up the center, making her cleavage look totally lickable, and it showed her nipples through the near-transparent cups. The thong had matching lacing right up the front, filling Nick’s head with visions of unlacing it with his teeth.

Fuck. He really was a perv. She’d just relived the most traumatic experience of her life, and all he could think about was taking off her underwear and burying himself in her until they were screaming each other’s names.

He was the one who belonged in purgatory.

He wrapped her in the blanket, trying to keep his distance. But as the place warmed up, she began to shiver, tears coursing down her face again.

That killed him. He sat down on the couch and pulled her into his arms, her head on his chest. “It’s okay,” he said for what seemed like the millionth time today, knowing it wasn’t. Not at all, and nothing he’d done or said so far had made it any more okay.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered, eyes still closed. “And I’m so tired of being alone.”

He knew what that was like. “Sshh,” he said. He cupped her face, catching the tears with his thumb. She looked so forlorn, like she was giving up.

The girl who never gave up. Never say die.

We must help her, his panther said.

He didn’t know how. But seeing her cry like this made his chest ache, made him angry and sad and desperate.