Page 21 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

What the hell was going on around here? Who was playing ghost, and why?

Trish went halfway up. There was definitely someone up there. She put her foot on the next stair and stopped.

Suddenly she felt like an idiot. What if it wasn’t the ghostly person she’d heard in the hallway? What if she was barging into someone’s bedroom?

She should be able to scent them, though, and she couldn’t.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is someone there?”

Everything went silent and still, and then she heard a door at the top open and close.

She dashed up the rest of the stairs, catching a glimpse of a cluttered study as she raced across the room to the far door. It opened into a vast dim space, big enough for a dozen full-grown dragons, with a sort of balcony around the top. There were dusty human-sized tables and office chairs scattered around, though, as if this had once been used as some kind of work space.

There was no one in the room. Except… she bent down and examined the floor, taking her phone out of her pocket and turning on the flashlight app just to make sure.

The dust on the floor was scuffed in a pathway leading away from the door.

Ghosts didn’t disturb the dust.

She turned off her phone light and rose to her feet thoughtfully, wondering what the person—or ghost—had been searching for.

And then someone grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her from the ground. A harsh, raspy voice said in her ear, “Bad wolf. Breaking into locked rooms. What are you here for, Nightmare Wolf? Who sent you?”

Chapter 11

Trish made herself stay very still. There was a demon-possessed monster holding her, and his fangs were less than an inch from her jugular. She could feel his hot breath on her neck.

“No one sent me,” she said, trying to sound soothing and convincing.

“What were you looking for?”

“Um…” she felt like an idiot. “A ghost?”

There was a long silence. Then the iron bands of muscly arms around her loosened, letting her slide slowly to the ground. The dragon turned her around to face him in the dim light.

No, not the dragon, she realized, looking up at his eyes. They’d gone human. Emon was back. She let her breath out in relief.

“A ghost?” he said, folding his arms and staring down at her skeptically. “You’ve been reading too many of those books.”

She rubbed her arms where he’d pinned them. Luckily shifters didn’t bruise easily, or she’d have mondo bruises coming up right there.

“It’s not my fault this castle belongs in a gothic novel. This is the second time I’ve heard a ghosty noise—a kind of moaning sound. Very freaky. And then this sort of whispering, like the ghosts are talking to each other.”

He still had that ‘you’re fucking with me’ look on his face. “Talking ghosts?”

“Chatty, even, apparently.”

“And you’re telling me the ghosts did this.” He waved his hand at the room behind him.

Now that she had time to really look at it, she realized what a mess it was. At least, half of it was. Whoever she’d followed up here had been in the middle of a quick and dirty search when she’d interrupted them. Drawers dumped out and thrown on the floor, books pulled off shelves, pictures off the walls and flung haphazardly across the room.

“I doubt it. Unless they’re poltergeists? Whose room is this, anyway?”

“Ragnor’s.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “I guess it wasn’t him that did this then.”

“Nope. He’s dead. And gone.”