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15

Nika

Without waiting, I headed to where Silas was perched at the kitchen table, nursing a bottle of whiskey. His sheepish grin greeted me before it faded. As if sensing something was wrong, he was on his feet and quickly in front of me.

“Was it another dream?” he asked, cradling my face.

I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, both men were standing in full view of the mercenary. He hadn’t seen them. He couldn’t. Jaw set, I ripped myself from his touch and headed over to the couch where Salvator was laid out. His eyes shot open before I made it to his side.

“Do you see them?” I asked, ignoring Silas when he came to stand beside me. “Can you at least hear them?” Whipping my head the two men’s direction, I commanded, “Say something to him.”

Out of my periphery, Silas’s expression grew increasingly confused, arms locked over his chest. I was too focused on the task at hand to care. I needed to know what was happening and to what extent. Had Salvator and his animal souls separated? Was he no longer connected to them?

The sleepy shifter sat up, his fathomless stare pinning mine. The blanket I’d given him pooled around his naked waist. “Hear who, woman?”

“Ryker and Tometi.” I turned to them, gesturing for them to do as they were told. Both stared at me like I’d grown another head. “Say something to him.”

“What should we say?”Tometi asked.

Salvator’s eyes widened, his head snapping the direction the bear-turned-man now stood. “What the fuck…? Tometi?”

“Don’t forget me, Sally,” Ryker’s wolfish voice hollered.

Again, Salvator’s expression gave him away. His eyes darted to where the wolf-turned-man stood, arms folded across his chest, plenty pleased with himself. On his feet, the tribesman searched the room.

“What in Lilith’s seventh circle is happening?” Silas demanded.

“That’s what I want to fucking know,” Salvator snarled, pivoting but clearly not seeing the two like I did. He’d only located them by the sound of their voice. “Why can I hear them as if they’re standing right in this room, woman?”

“Because we are, duh. And it’s Nika, notwoman,you uncivilized brute,” Ryker taunted, suddenly the sentinel guarding my side. He leaned in, blue eyes sparkling. “So I guess that answers our question, pretty girl. Only you can see us.”

He was right. Salvator might hear them, but he couldn’t see them. Silas couldn’t hear or see them. So did that mean no one else could touch them the way I could? Was this because I was a Soul Collector, or was it something else entirely?

Questions I couldn’t answer swirled around my head as the two men in the room argued, and the two unseen strolled from place to place and enjoyed the show.

Silas turned to me and captured my face in his hands again, his voice entreating and soft. “What’s this all about, little rebel? It’s sounding a lot like you’ve both lost the plot. What do you mean those head-squatting tossers are in the room?”

Tometi appeared next to Silas, his face uncomfortably close to the mercenary’s. Which was a feat with how massive Tometi was and how much he’d been forced to bend over to put his face next to Silas’s.

Was he sniffing him?

Tometi scowled but resumed his efforts.

Yeah, he was definitely sniffing Silas—and apparently not a fan of whatever scent he’d caught. Had I not been so overwhelmed, I might’ve laughed at the way Tometi dragged his nose all around Silas, moving from right to left, increasingly disgusted with each sniff.

After he’d satisfied his nose—or unsatisfied it?—the gentle giant tried to touch the unsuspecting mercenary who I’d all but ignored in light of the curious actions of the bear. Because hell if I’d miss this determined phantom on a mission to conduct several amusing experiments on the man I loved, his oblivious subject.

Tometi’s eyes narrowed when his hand went straight through Silas and the silver-haired man didn’t appear to feel it. Dissatisfied, he wandered over to Salvator and attempted to touch him. Still nothing. Ryker snickered behind me as I got my head together long enough to answer Silas.

“It’s going to sound crazy,” I said slowly, watching Tometi smell himself then Salvator.

And weird.

“Have you met us, love? That’s all we know.” Silas chuckled, oblivious to the antics going on around him.

My eyes landed on Ryker, and the blonde just shrugged, then dipped in to take a whiff himself. “Smells like secret pining and simmering jealousy.”

Tometi paused, sniffed, then shook his head. “You never make any sense, wolf.”