AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hang my head.
“Pax!”
“We’ve always lived here,” I frown. “I don’t want to leave, not even for a night. I have to stay nearby to watch over you. What if the Ripper comes back?”
“The witches don’t think that he will. They say that the Veil is the invisible barrier between the living world and the dead world, and that it’s perfectly thick and girthy around here. Lottie’s words, not mine. Besides, I’ve been training all day.” Bree flexes her fingers. “I’ve brought at least ten flowers back from the dead. I think I can take him.”
She can’t be serious?
“Youneedmy sword.” I thrust it out in front of her, like an offering. Breeneedsme. Shemustneed me. Because without her, I have no purpose.
“Pax, you’re so much more than your sword. And you don’t know my mother. This is a test. That’s why she waited until 8PM at night to tell me you two can’t stay. She wants to make sure that you’re not sponging off me, and probably also that you’re not insane, sword-wielding maniacs who will smash up the place the moment you’re asked to leave.” Bree buries her face in her hands. “I’ll talk to her, I swear. But please, just for tonight, I need the two of you to sleep somewhere else.”
“Fine. I shall take the guest room on the far end of the—”
“No! You can’t.” Bree’s eyes are wild. “Mum has spent all afternoon cleaning those rooms for the real estate agent and the new guests. If a bed is so much as creased, she’s going to know you slept there.”
“We could sleep in my bedroom,” Ambrose offers.
Bree shakes her head. “Pax’s shoulders won’t fit through the secret door.”
“Then where are we supposed to go?” Ambrose asks.
I know of only one place. “The attic.”
“We have to go back to the attic?”
“I can’t ask you to do that.” Bree holds up her phone. “I’ll call Dani. Or Mina. Someone will be able to take you in—”
“No, I’m not leaving you in this house with only Edward to protect you. The attic it is.”
Bree kisses me on the cheek. “I guess…you’d better head up to bed then. Mum says that they’ll be home in an hour or so.” She stands on her tiptoes and leans in to brush her lips against mine. I can’t help myself – I wrap my arms around her and hug her tight against me, as if I could crush her bones to my bones, make us one. My lips force hers open so that our tongues can dance, and when she pulls back, her eyes shine with lust and regret.
“I don’t like this any more than you do, but it will only be temporary. I promise. I’ll talk to Mum.” Bree kisses my cheek. Her lips leave a warm impression against my skin that I hope never, ever fades. “And Pax, please be quiet up there. If there are a few random noises, my parents will assume they’re from mice, but mice don’t sound the same as a seven-foot-tall Roman warrior stomping around the attic, okay?”
“Okay.”
I can be quiet when I need to be. I got my Stealth badge at Centurion Scouts, too.
Bree turns to Ambrose, pulling his body against hers for a lingering kiss. “I promise, we will have our – how did Edward so eloquently put it – amorous congress very soon.”
“Goodnight, then!” Edward calls in his smug voice. I glare at him when I realise that, as a ghost, he gets to stay in Bree’s bedroom.
“Edward, perhaps you don’t want to make Pax angry, as he has once threatened to push a straw through your nostril and drink all your bone marrow.”
Edward gulps. “Right, yes. Well, then, sleep well, Roman. Don’t let the, er, bedbugs bite.”
Ambrose stops at a small cupboard in the hallway to collect an armload of blankets. He holds onto my arm as we trudge up the staircase. At the top, I yank open the door to the attic staircase so hard that the handle cracks the wood panelling.
“I think we’re supposed to bequiet,” Ambrose says as I stomp up the stairs.
“Iambeing quiet.” I shove the attic hatch open. It clatters against the floor. I haul myself up and turn to help Ambrose. He cries in surprise as I lift him under the elbows and haul him into the attic, dropping him on the floorboards and sending up a cloud of dust.
“Er, thank you kindly, Pax.” Ambrose brushes dust off his frock coat. “But I’m fine and dandy to climb up here on my own. I’m blind, not an invalid.”
“Sorry. I’m a little on edge.” I flick on the light and look around. “We haven’t been up here since—”
“I know,” Ambrose says dejectedly. “Only now that we’re human, it’s worse, as our bodies have human needs. I don’t recall there being a bed up here. Or a latrine.”
