“I have to put them back,” Kobal said.
I was extremely curious to see how thatworked as he walked a few feet away from me. The hounds trottedafter him and obediently sat one on each side of him. He rested apalm on each of the hounds’ heads. The muscles in his back bulgedand flexed; the veins in his arms stood out as the houndsblurred.
Kobal inhaled deeply and threw back his head.He’d never looked more stark or beautiful to me as power emanatedfrom him in waves. A sucking sensation filled the air around uswhen the beasts began to absorb back into his body.
The marks on his arms and chest rippled asthe hounds began to disappear into him as seamlessly as a waverolling away from the beach. Watching him, I understood better whyhe stimulated the sparks of life from me more than anything else. Ihad never before encountered anything that could match his level ofpower. The flow of life within the earth was immense, but it wasalso dispersed throughout the world. All of Kobal’s power washarnessed solely within him. This was why Lucifer hadn’t been ableto destroy him like he had many of his ancestors.
There was nothing like him in this world,nothing that could handle this the way he did as he caged thehounds within him once more. My fingers longed to run over hisback, to feel the sculpted ridges of his muscles flexing beneath mygrasp, to feel his power jumping and flowing beneath me,withinme.
My breasts ached for him to touch them, tocup them before he bent his head over them…
I shook my head to clear it of thosethoughts, but when he turned toward me, I couldn’t stop myself frommoving closer to him. Taking hold of his outstretched hand, Inestled against him when he pulled me to him. The tremor in hisbody had nothing to do with the power he’d drawn back into himselfand everything to do with his hunger for me.
I assumed he’d pick me up and carry me awayto find somewhere private. I wouldn’t have fought him on it, but heremained where he was. He turned his face into my neck, his fangsscraping over my flesh. I held my breath while I waited for him tobite down. His body shuddered with restraint as he pulled his mouthaway from my neck and rested his lips against my temple.
“Soon,” he whispered.
My heart pounded as I turned my cheek to his.“I missed you.”
“More than you will ever know.”
Headlights cutting through the night at thetop of the hill drew my attention to the line of vehicles weavingtheir way toward us. “They’re here,” I breathed.
“We have to go,” Kobal said.
He didn’t release me, but instead lifted meand carried me toward our pickup. “Wait!” I cried before we reachedthe truck. I squirmed in his arms until he set me down.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I have to thank them.”
“Who?”
“The ghosts.”
Kobal’s eyes slid to the building, and hisupper lip curved into a sneer when he spotted the transparentfigures at the window. “One of them turned you in.”
“Oneof themdid. The rest of them helped us.” I pulled from his arms, but hegrabbed my wrist before I could walk away from him.
“As much as I hate to admit it, they did whatthey could,” Corson said as he walked over to stand beside me.
He tugged the earrings from his ears andtossed them onto the ground when Kobal slid a threatening looktoward him.
“I have to talk to them,” I insisted.
Kobal squeezed my wrist. “I will come withyou.”
I strode across the parking lot toward thebuilding with Kobal at my side and the others following closebehind. The ghosts flew away from the windows as we neared.
I went to push the door open, but Kobal’s armshot out around me and he shoved the door inward. The ringing ofthe bell dimmed as Kobal held the door for me to step inside beforefollowing me in. A chaotic frenzy of ghosts greeted us. Some ofthem made for the kitchen, while others flitted around the ceilingof the dining room or huddled in the booths.
Ethel, our not-so-friendly greeter fromearlier, didn’t yell at us to get out again. She hovered near thekitchen doors with Pompadour beside her. Many of the ghosts’already translucent bodies looked a little paler, if that waspossible, than they had the last time I’d seen them.
“They’re going to burn us down.”
“No outside.”
“No dark.”
