Page 43 of Broken

Chapter 18

Cole pulled himself out of the dream, Riker’s voice echoing in his head. The bracelet on his wrist was burning.

It was near dawn, a faint pale light filtering through the window blinds.

It had to have been just a dream. Riker was dead. And the dead didn’t come back.

Except… a memory tickled the back of his mind. Sometimes they did.

Word was that Brandon Fierro, who owned the safe house in Louisville, had a ghost as a member of his crew. Two of them, actually. Mates. They appeared and disappeared at will, hung out with the crew, walked through walls. The whole nine yards.

So it was just barely possible that Riker was a ghost. But if Cole was being haunted by Riker for real, he was fucking getting an exorcist.

There was only one way to find out.

Cole sat up, dislodging Ireland, and shook her by the shoulder. “Ireland,” he said softly. “Rye. Wake up.”

She stirred and opened her eyes, looking sleepily at him. She looked rumpled and adorable, her hair tousled and her face innocent and childlike. “Wha’”, she mumbled. “Wha’s wrong?”

“I need to know why Riker came to find you,” Cole said. “What was his mission? What did he want?”

Ireland furrowed her brow, scrunching it in that way he loved. “Are you even serious? You need to know that now? It’s still night.”

She grabbed one of the pillows and pulled it over her head. “Ask me later. Sleep now.”

“It’s important, Rye. I need to know—”

At that moment, there was a loud, measured knocking on the front door. Three knocks.

“Damn,” Cole muttered. “What now?”

The three knocks came again. Boom. Boom. Boom. He was beginning to suspect who it was.

Ireland’s muffled voice came from under the pillow. “Make them go away please. Or kill them. Use your best judgement.”

Cole sighed, got out of bed and headed for the front door. As he’d expected, when he opened it, Thanatos was on his front step, all robed and faceless and enigmatic as usual. With his lieutenant, Sugar, behind him.

He hadn’t expected who was standing next to Sugar, though. A tall young man about eighteen, dressed entirely in black, with jet-black hair and startlingly green eyes. DB, short for Dragon Boy, an orphaned dragon shifter that had been taken in by Mikey’s dragon relatives a few years ago.

He was wild, unpredictable, loyal to his friends, and a terrifyingly powerful sorcerer. He was also an expert in creating dimensional portals; basically he had the ability to make a magical doorway between any two places—even if they were in different worlds or dimensions.

Everyone was hoping he wasn’t planning on taking up a life of crime. He’d be literally unstoppable.

“What the fuck are you even doing here this early?” Cole asked.

Thanatos said, “I wish to speak to the Bright Fae. I need information from her as soon as possible.”

Cole didn’t even ask how Thanatos knew she’d turned back to human. Thanatos knew everything that happened on the Ridge. He was like a spider sitting in the middle of its web, feeling the vibration of everything that touched it, and knowing what it meant.

Cole said, “Ireland’s still asleep. Or she was until you started knocking on the door like the Harbinger of the Apocalypse. Let me go see if she’s up for this.”

He walked away, leaving Thanatos on the doorstep. Not that he’d stay there; Cole was sure when he came back Thanatos would be ensconced in the living room, his entourage surrounding him.

But he wasn’t the only one who had an entourage. Cole swiped his phone off the counter as he went past, and texted Boomer while he walked:

Thanatos invasion. With DB. Need backup. I’ll make the coffee—you and K bring Gunn and Mikey. And pastries.

Then he sat down on the bed and gently wrestled the pillow off Ireland’s head. She resisted.