Page 24 of Her Ghostly Embrace
“Fuck.” Aurora reappeared on the other side of the room, her form flickering in and out of focus as she glided back and forth, one hand tangled in her hair. “How did they know I was here? They can’t track me. All my blood is in my body!”
Gia grimaced. “Blood?”
Aurora froze and gave Gia a look, like she’d forgotten she was there.
Gia pretended that didn’t sting.
“Never mind my blood. He’s from my coven. Not the Lockwoods, the coven I’m trying to escape. Fuck!”
Gia crossed the room, the urge to comfort Aurora nearly overwhelming.Aurora was trying to escape, too?Of all the things to have in common with a ghost. “What do you mean escape? Aren’t you, um, dead?”
Aurora shook her head like Gia was spouting nonsense. “I’m not dead.”
But she was a ghost. She couldn’t be alive. Was it rude to argue? Gia wasn’t about to tell someone else who they were, butcome on.
“If I were dead, I wouldn’t be here on Earth,” Aurora continued, calm as can be, like she was explaining something utterly mundane. “Earth is for the living. Dead witches go to the Realm of the Damned, which wasn’t my aim. I’ve vacated my body temporarily, and I need to retrieve it. But if Trey is here?—”
“Sorry. Realm of the Damned?”
Aurora ignored the question. “You’ll have to help me open the crypt. My coven won’t have left me in the woods, and they’ve obviously found me. I mean, it’s been days. Weeks? Damnation. What if they’ve realized I’m not dead? If they’re looking for me, who knows where they’ve stashed my body.”
This was taking a turn for the horrific. Gia shouldn’t have been so quick to assume helping Aurora wouldn’tbe some macabre quest because she wasn’t gruesome or overtly murderous.
A lightheadedness threatened Gia’s consciousness, and she gripped the couch for support. “I never agreed to open a crypt for you. A door. A window. Sure. But I’m not defiling a grave site. I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about! What do you meanRealm of the Damned?”
Gia could not handle finding out Hell was real. She’d explode with rage at the sheer injustice.
Aurora went completely still, finally picking up on Gia’s frayed nerves. “You’re right. Sorry. It would be far easier if you knew…anything, but lack of knowledge isn’t your fault.”
“Hey. I know things.” Gia knew a hell of a lot more than the average person, thank you very much. Laundering money? Check. Disposing of a body? Check. What illegal substance provided the best profit margins? Check.
She hadn’t been directly involved in her father’s empire, but she’d been paying attention, and Marc wasn’t as good at keeping things from her as he thought.
“I’m sure you do,” Aurora said in that placating tone. “But you don’t know about magic, which is what we’re dealing with.”
Gia’s indignation fizzled out. “Yeah, well, magic wasn’t supposed to be real; otherwise, I would have studied up.”
Aurora’s face flickered, her lips twitching in a gorgeous smile. “Why don’t I fill you in?”
TEN
AURORA
It turned out,Aurora had been trapped in the Spotlight Theater for nearly two weeks, which was too long any way she looked at it. The bright side? She wasn’t trapped anymore, and they’d cleared up her real-or-not status.
It was the bare minimum, but it was all Aurora had.
“What do you mean you were bound to your coven?” Gia asked.
Aurora wasn’t withholding any information. Hopefully, the more Gia understood, the more willing she’d be to do as Aurora asked.
“I couldn’t physically leave if they didn’t allow it, and my magic was useless against them. They controlled me more completely than even the most domineering human could imagine.”
Gia’s expression was appropriately horrified, her eyes wide. “And they have yourbody?” She still sounded unconvinced that Aurora was alive.
Aurora had explained the afterlife, human reincarnation, witches’ damnation—no, Hell was not what Gia had beentaught in Sunday school—and how all this meant she couldn’t possibly be dead. But upon hearing all this, Gia had had no response except to stare at Aurora in silent relief, like a woman who’d been told all her life that she’d go to a human version of Hell.
Understandably, she hadn’t latched onto the logic in Aurora’s argument.
