Page 27 of Phantom’s Mate

She stared at him, putting her hand on his chest. “He’s still in there!”

“All the time.”

“And your friends, they’re alive and they can do this too? They’re all panthers?”

“Different animals.” He told her about all of them—Brandon, their alpha who was a panther; the twins who were both snow leopards and snowy owls; Jaeda who could be many different animals; their wolves, Brock and Kitty; the lions and the bears.

She shook her head. “I can’t believe there are really people who can change into animals.”

“It’s a secret,” he warned.

“Well, who am I going to tell?”

He frowned very seriously. “How do I know your friends won’t call you on an Ouija board and you’ll spill the beans?”

“Doof.” She rolled her eyes. “First, you really think that’s the first thing I’d say? And second, they wouldn’t believe me any more as a ghost than they would have before I died. They just couldn’t lock me up for being cray-cray.”

She ran her fingers over his shoulder, looking bemused. “It’s like a fantasy movie. You are from the same world as me, right? USA, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, smartphones, movie streaming?”

“Of course,” Nick said. “Back at home—where the crew lives—I can manipulate the remote, so I can watch Netflix if I ever get a TV to myself.”

“Ohhhh.” Britt lay back on the bed and moaned dramatically. “Netflix, oh Netflix, I miss you so much…” She sighed. “There’ve been days when I’d sell my soul for a new movie. I wish I could leave here.”

“Me too.”

She said shyly, “Or that you could stay. At least for a while.”

That would be amazing. “We wouldn’t even have to get out of bed to get food like in the real world,” he said. “Or go to work. We could literally just stay in bed forever.”

“Question,” she said.

“Mmm?” He was still thinking about staying in bed forever.

“Does it—um. Take guys the same amount of time to recover from sex here, as it does in the real world?”

“I think we should find out.”

Chapter 13

Nick stayed at Britt’s for two days and two more nights.

He knew Titan was probably wondering what had happened to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

It was like a lost weekend—a break from normalcy, finally feeling like he had a life again, instead of just watching everyone else’s.

They did end up getting out of bed and making food—sometimes out of thin air, and sometimes they conjured ingredients and cooked.

They tripped over each other in the tiny kitchenette, kissed each other up against the cabinets when they got in each other’s way, and laughed when the things they made turned out to be total disasters.

And they didn’t even have to do dishes.

They made love until he lost count of how many times, and all he wanted was more of her. He just wanted to fall into her eyes until his soul was lost, bury himself inside her and stay there forever.

She made him feel, made him laugh, challenged him and soothed him.

In between making each other crazy in bed—and on the couch, and on the kitchen counter, and on the porch with blankets while the rain came down—they sat in front of the fire and talked, or read books, or listened to music. Nick conjured a music system and they both created all their favorite albums from when they were alive—and for Nick, some from after his death.

“I can work the wireless music system at the house with my amazing ghost brain,” he said, pointing to his head. “So I can listen to anything I want while I’m there. Or turn on the twins’ music really loud when they’re sound asleep if I want to fuck with them.”