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“Can I see it?”

“Yeah.” He paused for a second, his gaze going flat, then he reached back and tugged his shirt off, tossing it on the couch.

I gasped, unable to hold it in this time. He was bruised and battered, and going by the darker color at his ribs, he had to have broken at least a couple of them. Wills had obviously stitched the deeper cuts at his side. “Jesus, Ren.”

His eyes flashed, gold bursting through amber, his fox staring back at me as well. “It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” I stepped closer, lifting a hand to touch him before I realized what I was about to do. I quickly dropped it.

“I’m a shifter. I’ll be back to normal in a day or two.”

“And you did this for fun? You males beat the shit out of each other for the hell of it?” I just didn’t get it.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice impossibly rough. “That’s it. For fun.”

I shut my mouth, not saying anymore, not asking what I wanted to. He didn’t want to talk about it? Fine. The rune was on his chest, just above a vicious scar. One of several scars on his upper body. “This is good, and for most beings, enough, but I think it’s best we go a little more heavy duty with you. First, though, I need to see who we’re dealing with.” I knew, but the question was how far into madness they’d gone.

He studied me. “Okay.”

“Can we move the couch?”

A few minutes later, the couch was against the wall, leaving plenty of room for me to set up. Usually it was as simple as answering the spiritual “call” and letting them through, but I needed to try a few things with Ren at the same time, while I gauged the soul’s responses and made sure I was using the correct sigil configuration. He stood to the side and watched as I took four black candles from my bag and placed them at each corner of the large rug he had in the middle of the room, then I lit them. Next, I got my salt mixed with dirt from our cemetery.

“When we’re ready, I’ll need you to lie in the middle.”

He nodded, prepared to do whatever I asked without question. Ren had been around witches and witchcraft since he was fourteen. He might not have seen this exact ritual, but he would’ve seen a lot of others that involved the items I was using.

“So you have the same runes tattooed on you?” he asked.

I poured the salt and cemetery dirt mix around the candles, forming a barrier. “No, I wear sigils. They’re stronger, and that’s what I’ll be tattooing on you.” I lifted the one hanging around my neck and held out my wrists, showing him the symbols on my cuffs. “If I had permanent sigils like you will, I wouldn’t be able to use my gift.”

“So if you take them off…”

I removed my boots and socks. “If I take them off and don’t at least hold them, I’m at risk of possession from certain souls. Though I can usually feel if there’s that kind of risk. I can feel if a soul is truly evil or wants to do harm before I let them come through.”

“And the ones around me?”

I bit the side of my lip. “They don’t feel evil as such, but there is an energy that I don’t like, so I’ll need to take extra precautions when I let them through to speak to them, just in case.”

His hands were clenching and unclenching at his side. We were still dancing around the truth, pretending we didn’t know exactly who we were dealing with. Maybe he was hoping he was wrong.

“So is your whole place carpeted? No wooden flooring?”

“No, it’s all carpet on concrete.”

Fucking wonderful. “I can still work with that.” I didn’t have any other choice. This was where all the activity was happening. Here it had to be. I pulled the mortar and pestle from my bag, herbs, the oils, and more cemetery dirt.

Ren watched me intently.

“To stay safe while I do this, I’ll need to coat my skin with a barrier.” I’d wanted to get naked with Ren for years but not like this. At least it was warm in here. “Is there somewhere I can prepare?” I did my best to sound unaffected, as if this was nothing, something I did all the time.

“Ah…yeah.” He led me down the hall. “You can use my room.”

“Thanks.”

He left and I quickly mixed the oil, infusing it with the rest of the ingredients. When it was ready, I set the mortar on his dresser and looked around. The navy duvet was pulled up and smoothed out, everything in the room in its place. There were bedside tables on either side, but only one had a lamp. There was a phone charging cord there as well. Ren’s side of the bed, which meant the other side was where…Breanne slept, where all the other females had slept. He said he and Bree weren’t together, but that wasn’t what she was telling everyone who’d listen.

I shoved those thoughts from my mind, and with shaky hands stripped off my clothes, placed them on the end of the bed, and started smearing my skin with the oil. It acted as a barrier, stopping any souls from possessing me, if they tried, when I removed my sigil charms. This wasn’t needed very often, most souls weren’t a danger, they just wanted to be heard before they moved on, following the light in most cases.