Page 13 of Phantom’s Mate

Nick snorted. “Then maybe it’s a good thing I never found one, so I never had to turn into a touchy-feely oversharing high school girl.”

He used to mean that kind of shit when he said it. But now, as the words came out, he saw a pair of unforgettable green eyes, and felt like something had stabbed his chest from inside.

Titan said mildly, “But on the upside, you would get laid more often.” He reached out and caught two of Nick’s stones. The pattern messed up and the rest of them fell to the porch floor.

“Ghost, remember?” Nick said. “Hard to get laid when your pecker is incorporeal. Kind of the opposite of a hard-on.”

“You’re solid in the spirit world,” Titan pointed out. “If you can fight, you can fuck. Too bad you can’t find a nice ghost woman wandering around.”

Dammit, how much did he know? Titan could also see things—visions of the past, present or future that hovered around people. Or was he just guessing?

“Yeah well, most ghosts aren’t wandering,” Nick said. “If they didn’t move on, they’re stuck wherever they died, aren’t they?”

“Mostly.” Titan picked up one of the fallen stones and began to juggle it with the two he had. Huh. Nick hadn’t known he could do that. Titan went on, “Or they’re attached to someone they have unfinished business with. Like you were with Brandon.”

That startled Nick. He’d always thought his unfinished business was with Austin Raines, and then Jax. Why would he have unfinished business with Brandon?

Because he wasn’t here for you? Because he was your alpha in your old crew, and he couldn’t keep the whole thing from flying apart? Because after that, you were looking for somewhere to belong, and almost joined Raines for real?

He shoved all that away. Brandon hadn’t abandoned him—he’d come when Nick called. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t get here in time.

Wasn’t it?

No. It was Jax who was the problem. Jax who needed to be dealt with. Just as soon as Nick figured out what was going on with Brittany.

“Speaking of that,” Nick said to Titan, “How does a ghost go about getting unstuck from their death place?”

Titan raised a questioning eyebrow—he knew the panther god had given Nick the option to cross over to his realm. If you could call an afterlife filled with black panther shifters ‘heaven’—they were known for being kind of psycho.

Titan also knew Nick had turned the offer down—for now, anyway. And the god had set him free to move through whatever world he wanted. So he wasn’t stuck.

Nick added, “Asking for a friend.”

That got both eyebrows. And a patented Titan silence.

Sigh. Nick knew Titan was capable of waiting him out, all the way through eternity. “Okay. A funny thing happened to me on my way through the woods today…”

He told Titan about finding Brittany, locked inside her own private Halloween night. “She says she can’t move outside that little circle around where she died, but she doesn’t know what’s keeping her there. Said she feels like there’s something important she forgot, but she can’t remember it no matter how hard she tries.”

“Unfinished business.”

“I guess. So I told her I’d ask you if there’s any way to help ghosts figure that out. I mean, there must be, right? People tell stories and make movies about it—there must be some truth to them.”

Titan said slowly, “There is. And there might be a way to help her.” He lapsed into another silence.

Nick didn’t have the patience to deal with this shit. “But?” he prompted.

“Are you sure you should get involved with this woman?”

“I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t,” Nick said. “There’s something wrong about her. After I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and even now there’s something pulling me back there, telling me I have to go right now, and forget…”

Forget Jax. Forget revenge, and his own unfinished business.

“Forget everything else I’ve been doing.”

He used his mind to grab one of Titan’s stones, and the bear caught the other two in his big hand. Nick said, “I keep thinking about those creatures you told Remy about, when he was spending too much time in the spirit world. The ones that seduce people, grab their souls, and suck them dry.”

“Halaikas,” Titan said, his gaze going far away. Nick hated when he did that. What the fuck was he seeing? Titan focused on Nick again. “Do you think that’s what she is?”