She digs her hands into my hair and caresses the sensitive skin of my hairline with her thumb, and just as a thought, I’m solid again.
I press my lips to her pulse point. “Good girl.”
She smirks at that. “I’m not sure this side of you is as cute as you think it is, boo.”
I brush my tongue against her earlobe. “You love it.”
“All play and no boundaries makes E a naughty ghost,” she says lightly, but the humor slips from her lips when I kiss her neck.
Every time she says that one, shabby letter, my appetite only grows bolder. I’m losing myself, unraveling thread by thread, but I don’t want it to stop. Not when she leans into my ghostly kiss. Not when she offers both the purpose and solace I’ve been waiting for since the day I died.
We both startle when the door slams open, and Max skirts away from me. The leftover tension in her shoulders evaporates when her twin, Nickolas, steps through the door. He doesn’t have to knock. He’s home.
Old magic that carries teeth fills the entryway, along with the scents of metal and rust. Nickolas’s bite of power is all blood and tears, tickling the back of my throat and bringing on a forceful sense of déjà vu. I’ve met someone like him before, but I can’t remember who. His hair is a shade darker than Max’s, but red as flames, and his green eyes burn with intensity and violence. His freckles, nose, and chin match Max’s, but the angle of his jaw is harsher and more angular, and his shadows run deeper. His broad shoulders and thick arm muscles give him a slightly triangular shape, and his skin is marked by the world in ways hers isn’t. A scar hooks down the left side of his neck—a mixbetween a burn and a laceration—and descends under the collar of his dark sweater.
His dangerous gaze softens as it lands on her. “Maxie.”
Max’s voice cracks. “Nick… You’re finally home.”
She rushes forward and embraces him. He huffs out a rough laugh and wraps his arms around her. Her breath shakes as she holds on for dear life, tears misting her closed lashes, and the rawness of their reunion prompts me to keep my distance.
“I thought I might never see you again,” Max whispers.
“I’m here now, sis,” he pecks her hair.
They stay like that until her breath steadies. When she steps back, I hover forward.
Nick digs the balls of his feet into the ground and looks straight through the air where I stand.
He snaps open the leather sheaths strapped over his thighs and draws two wave-bladed daggers. “Careful. There’s something in the house.”
Max scratches her neck with her lips pursed in a sheepish, uncomfortable manner. “Don’t worry, I know who he is.” She wrings her hands together as she walks toward me. “Nick, this is E. E, this is my brother Nick.”
Nick’s posture shifts slightly from a fighting stance to a measuring, defensive glare. “E?”
“He’s a ghost,” Max explains.
His brows lift in a dark, unimpressed arc, and his grip tightens around the hilt of his daggers. “A ghost, eh?”
“Easy. Mabel vouched for him, so you can sheath your weapons. It’s not as though you could intimidate him with something sharp,” Max scolds.
Nick cuts her a sideways look. “Mabel vouched for him?”
“Yes! Why do you think I trust him?”
Nick tucks his weapons back in their place. “It wouldn’t be the first time…”
Max’s eyes fly to the ceiling. “I slipped up one time. One! When will you stop holding that over me?”
“When you stop dragging trouble home like homeless kittens you think you can fix.”
There’s a story here, written in the flush on her neck, and the way she averts her gaze. I’ll have to ask about it later, when we’re alone.
Nick exudes both the poise and hot-bloodedness of a crime lord as he cracks a slow, calculated grin. “What do you want with my sister, Casper?”
“I want to protect her,” I deadpan.
Men like Nick smell sugar-coating like blood in water, and a snarl slowly unfurls across his face. “And I should just take your word for it?”
