“Ow! Get off me!”
“Shut up and move.”
Rowan shoves me roughly into the living room, his fingers digging into my arm hard enough to bruise. I stumble over a tipped armchair, almost faceplanting before regaining my balance. The place looks like a tornado hit, furniture shoved against walls, a coffee table on its side, and a large clearing in the center of the room where an expensive Persian rug has been rolled back. “You’re going to open a gateway to the underworld. Right here, right now.”
I laugh, the sound harsh even to my own ears. “No, I’m not.”
His expression darkens. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that you have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I say. “And I choose not to help you.” Jonathan died protecting people from Rowan’s schemes. I won’t undo his sacrifice.
“I thought you were smarter than this,” Rowan growls, stepping closer. “If you disobey, your little doggie suffers. Even in her ghost form, there are ways to hurt her.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “Screw you.”
The slap comes so fast I don’t see it coming—just feel the explosion of pain across my cheek and taste blood where my teeth cut the inside of my mouth.
“I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” The voice—deep, commanding, and unmistakably Harper’s—he’s here? I whip my head around, hardly daring to believe my ears.
But there he is. Tall, golden-eyed, and furious, with Melody’s translucent form at his side. He’s holding himself carefully, one arm braced against his injured side and using my guitar as a crutch, but his eyes are burning with such ferocity that I wonder if the chief is starting to regret pissing off an Alpha wolf.
“Touch him again and you’re losing a hand,” Harper warns.
Even injured, the shifter is formidable enough that Rowan clutches his pocket watch protectively and retreats farther back into the apartment. He recovers his insufferable attitude too quickly for my taste, his mouth curving into an insufferable smirk. “Detective Harper. You’re looking... unwell. That wound still bothering you?”
Harper ignores him as he reaches me. He’s pale with a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. The magical wound in his side that Rowan gave him is healing too slowly, and he’s in pain, but he’s here anyway.
“You okay?” he asks me quietly.
“Better now,” I admit. “What about you? How did you even—”
“Jonathan appeared to me at the hospital. Said you needed help and that I shouldn’t let you face this alone.” His eyes lock with mine, intense and unwavering. “Hurt or not, I’ll always be there when you need me, Dodger.”
Wow, if the moment were more appropriate, I’d swoon.
Melody nudges against my leg. She’s here to help too.
“I freed Mel and found something that belongs to you.” He hands me the guitar, and I heft it over my shoulder.
Seeing him here, hurt but still standing and absolutely sure there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, my heart feels like it willburst. I love him. How could I have thought keeping him away was best? With him next to me, I feel complete. The odds stacked against us don’t matter. No one will ever be able to tear us apart, especially not a flunkie witch who has to buy all his magical firepower.
“I’m sorry,” I confess. “I’m sorry I left you at the hospital. I thought I needed to handle this alone, but I was wrong. We should have faced him together from the start.”
Harper’s grim expression softens slightly. “Yes, we should have. But we’re together now.”
“How touching,” Rowan interrupts. “This little reunion is heartwarming, truly. But none of you are leaving this apartment.”
The asshole has no appreciation for heartfelt reunions and strikes quickly, pulling a remote control from his pocket and pressing a button. The effect is immediate—all sound in the room vanishes. Damn it. Someone really needs to take that toy away from him. I can see Harper’s lips moving, but it’s like watching television on mute.
Now Melody and me are silenced with our primary powers turned off, and it also prevents me from talking to Harper and getting a plan together. I don’t know whether it’s the wolf or the detective in him but Harper rolls with what’s happening and starts planning an attack based on our new circumstances without batting an eye. I’ll have to remember to tell him how attractive that quality is later.
For now, he angles his body enough to hide a few gestures as he holds up three fingers, then one, and outlines a crude but potentially effective plan. Three of us vs. one asshole. He can’t stop us all with his magical watch of cheating.
Harper nods and pushes away from me. I trust Melody to follow our lead and then we charge like some kind of invading army.
If only I could hear Rowan gasp in surprise because I bet that’s the sweetest sound in the world. I think it’s a curse word he’s muttering, and he only has a second to pull out his pocket watch and aim his disorientation ray at Harper, judging him the biggest threat.
Harper doesn’t make it the whole distance as the confusion sets in. I force myself to keep going forward and then there’s no more time to think. Melody reaches Rowan first, and my heart clenches painfully as he pulls out the knife he used on Harper, but I was so very wise to befriend a ghost dog, and the blade passes right through her harmlessly as she goes incorporeal.
