Page 18 of Gifted Destiny (Hidden Libraries #3)

Kodi

W hen Bren’s eyes and body begin to glow, I wonder if his face will be the last thing I ever see. It’s not so bad, especially since he’s somehow more gorgeous than usual. The bright shade shines on his black hair and erases any hint of blemish on his pale golden skin.

The sapphire halo expands, pulsing like a heartbeat, until all other light has been consumed. The color reminds me of the neon lights hanging in storefronts or spilling from the dance venues of the magicless. If I remember correctly, neon is a form of radiation.

What if we’re making a horrible mistake?

Bren doesn’t seem aware of his power, but the ancient, bearded wizard said that weather mages could destroy entire countries. The closer his magic creeps, the more horrified I am. The urge to disappear or block his magic rises within me, driven by the desire to survive. It doesn’t matter that I’m no longer mortal.

A prickle upon my skin reminds me that Bren said to punch him. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine Zo, but my body refuses to materialize. Failing that, I decide to scream for Garrett or Avery. Before I can open my mouth, though, Sage soothes me. She doesn’t use words. Instead, I hear the melody of a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. It’s a reminder that I’m not alone. I need to trust.

The tension coiled tight within my energy spirals to a looser state just as Bren’s magic lessens in intensity. The blinding, white-hot blue mellows to the color of a cloudless sky. The mage’s eyes snap open as the light – the magic – condenses into one of his arms. He’s directing a power so astronomical that it could topple nations and make bullies like Addington piss their pants.

Bren is a fucking badass.

I can’t believe he’s going to be one of my best friend’s mates. I can’t believe that I’m included alongside these men. Avery is a lethal, unique vampire with none of the usual vampiric vulnerability. Garrett is a griffin. Even when he’s not in beast form, he could crush a man’s skull in one hand. And then there’s Bren.

I might be a guardian thanks to Zo’s case of Stockholm syndrome, but I’m not their equal. Zo’s voice follows the thought. Kodi! Now isn’t the time for a pity party. Bren can make you solid or collapse the entire East Coast into the ocean. Focus. She’s not actually speaking to me, but it’s exactly what I’d say to her if our positions were reversed. I shake off the momentary distraction.

The visible magic travels from Bren’s shoulder to his fingertips, and his brow furrows with concentration. I’m not corporeal, but I still sense the shift in the air. I remember this sensation; it preceded bad thunderstorms or tornadoes.

Each second seems longer, and the blue magic draws me like the hypnotic swing of a pendulum. “I am a sponge,” I mutter. I focus on being nothing when I’m hiding my ghostly form from prying eyes, and it’s more difficult to imagine myself as something . For Zosia, though, I can be anything.

Blue sparks fizzle against the incorporeal substance of my fingers. Bren’s magic affects me when nothing else does, and the idea almost scares me into reacting defensively again.

“I am a dead sponge.” Determination makes my words louder this time. I’ve already endured the worst. At least I had the chance to tell Zo that I love her. If Bren doesn’t erase me, I’ll tell her again. Fierce pigheadedness has prevented me from leaving her side for seven years.

I will see her again. I will kiss her again.

The mantra repeats as I continue to imagine my sponginess. Bren’s magic tickles the edges of my ghostly energy, but I don’t feel any more than that. Something is wrong. The mage seems calm, but I don’t know how long he can maintain this level of control.

The goblin mentioned instinct and intention. Instinct prompts me to close my eyes. I have no word for the bizarre state of detachment that I’ve unwittingly tumbled into while lying beside Zosia, but I try to mimic the same calm. I imagine her soft breaths beside me and stop trying so hard. I let go.

My fingertips prickle. I almost jerk my hand away before I remember where I am and what I’m doing. The strange sensation unearths a memory. ‘Pins and needles’ is the name my mom used.

As the tickling pain creeps from my fingertips onto my palm, I again imagine I’m a sponge. I embrace the discomfort because it makes me feel alive. Prickling heat seeps onto my wrist and forearm. I’ve never felt the temperature in my ghostly form.

The assault on my senses is the most I’ve felt since I died. My brief moments of solidity offered a brief caress of air, the impression of Zosia’s touch, and an increased awareness of the space I occupied. Other sensations remained muted.

This is different; it’s a rush.

When something flutters inside my chest, I nearly scream aloud. I’d forgotten the feel of my heartbeat. At the same time, my lungs inflate with air and little bumps rise on my skin. The fabric of my shirt and jeans scratch my skin and my boots pinch my feet; they were a size too small when I died. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for seven years. What if …?

I examine my body with alarm and am relieved when my visual inspection doesn’t reveal my death wounds. I decide to accept the confusing bizarreness. Wearing the same outfit for a decade is better than meeting Zosia with my insides on my outsides.

When I think about removing my clothes to replace them, I automatically think of Zo. My unfulfilled hunger for the sphinx rushes through me. My eager cock swells with need.

I squeeze my eyes shut so tightly that it hurts. Giddy with sensation and overcome by an adolescent male’s libido, I focus on not coming inside the pants I’ve worn for seven years. The magic continues to flow, and I’m worried I’m going to burst – in more ways than one – when the magic abruptly stops. I squint through slit eyelids, trying to determine the cause.

Bren still glows slightly, but it’s a hazy aura instead of a consuming flare. His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths as he studies me. An unexpected, ecstatic whoop of triumph soon follows. Without warning, he leaps toward me and engulfs me in his arms.

I lose my balance as unfamiliar gravity assails me. Bren manages to keep us both upright, but I cling to him. He’s warm, solid, and alive. Other than Zosia’s phantom caresses, it’s my first touch in nearly a decade.

My eyes sting as I try to swallow around the growing lump in my throat. The need to cry is both familiar and foreign. I push the urge away and silently scold myself. I might be solid, but I’m still dead. I shouldn’t get too excited. My lungs and heart act functional, but not everything is online. I’m not hungry or thirsty, and my digestive system doesn’t offer any indication of restarting. My body realizes this is temporary.

“Yes!” Bren’s expression and tone are equally exhilarated when he pulls away. “We did it!”

With my feet flat on the floor for the first time since I died, I notice that I’m approximately two inches taller than Bren.

“Your hair is red!”

I roll my eyes. My childhood wasn’t normal by any means, but I observed more than one bully at the orphanage. For some reason, kids with red hair were more likely targets. I hadn’t realized that my subconscious desire to defend the redheads emerged from our similarities.

“Yep. I’m a ginger.” Before my sister was born, I’d possessed so many freckles that my mom would trace patterns on my face. My hair had been the color of boiled carrots. While I’d always enjoyed her attention, I’d also envied her sleek golden hair and unmarked skin. As I aged, my hair turned darker and many of my freckles disappeared because my skin never saw the sun.

Bren’s touch distracts me. He grips my biceps and then my forearms, perhaps confirming that I’m actually solid. My face heats. Can I blush? I’m hyperaware of his touch, but my libido is more likely to blame than my sexuality. After years of pining for her, I will probably come the second Zosia touches me. I’ll make the one-minute man look like a marathon runner.

“You did great. How did it feel?” I fire questions at the mage, trying to distract myself from his invasion of my personal space and my downward spiral of thoughts. “Were you able to release enough energy?”

I regret asking when Bren’s giddy excitement morphs into a frown. “The process wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Years of controlling my emotions helped, but ….” The mage mumbles his answer as he steps away from me and leans against the wall of our enclosed space. His eyes have returned to pale green, and his sapphire aura has faded.

“There’s still too much magic inside me. I feel like I gave you a tablespoon out of a gallon.” He rubs at his face, displacing his dark bangs. “It was enough to take the edge off, but I’ll need to give more to the library soon. When you’d reached capacity, I tried switching, but it was like pushing against a locked door.”

My expression falls to match his. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can guess the cause of the blockage. He needs to bond. Neither seemed ready the last time it was mentioned, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson in the last few weeks. Change can happen rapidly.

“Should I wait …?” I force each word between my tight lips, afraid he’ll say yes.

“Absolutely not. We told the detective that my discarded magic belonged to the library. That isn’t true until you’re mated with Zosia. I think I gave the library enough magic to ease her exhaustion, and every completed bond will strengthen her. She won’t deny you.” His lips curl into a sly smile.

I’d overheard the goblin’s concerns regarding Zosia’s energy, and I hope Bren is right. I won’t force myself on her, regardless of how long I’ve waited. If she doesn’t wake up or is too groggy to offer enthusiastic consent, I will hold her while she sleeps. Despite my eager dick’s whining arguments, I am grateful to touch her in any way.

“Do you know how long I have?”

Bren shrugs. “Dawn? I have no way of knowing for sure, but it feels right.”

Perfect. It’s strange for me to admit, but I don’t want to be solid when the library opens. I prefer my job in ghost form. As for spending the rest of the night with Zosia and being able to touch her? This is the best thing that has happened to me in years – perhaps my entire life. My body thrums with anticipation, but I have one more thing to do before I sprint toward the woman I love.

“Thank you.” The words stick in my throat, but they aren’t insincere. My asshole of a father didn’t raise me to be nice and manners are unnecessary for a ghost. I’m more accustomed to deflecting emotions with humor than addressing them.

This is a second chance, though, and Zosia carries dreams of a happy found family. To help her achieve that, I need to be less toxic. I doubt I’ll find a qualified ghost therapist, but understanding that Bren deserves my gratitude doesn’t require a master’s degree.

“You’re welcome. Thank you for being my guinea pig.” Bren’s humor lessens the discomfort of our exchange. “Now, go to her.”

A switch flips in my brain and every cell within me hones in on a singular goal – go to Zosia.

“Ow!” My solid head bounces off the stairwell’s exit door. I stumble backward in confusion and realize that my wail was reflexive. Although my forehead and nose collided with the solid barrier, it didn’t cause pain. The blow to my pride, however, strikes with quadruple force.

Bren doubles over and hoots with laughter. The sound bounces off the walls and echoes back to me. “You can’t …!” He runs out of breath as another hysterical laughing fit seizes him. “You have to actually open the door now.”

I scowl at him but admit that it probably looked hilarious. I think I forgot how doorknobs work anyway. I fumble with the unfamiliar catchment, uncertain whether to twist and pull, twist and push, or do something else entirely.

Finally, it cracks open a slit, but my triumph wilts as quickly as it bloomed. A face full of fury and a mountain of muscle is all I see. I release the door and stumble backward, but Garrett grabs it and opens it wider. His looming hugeness fills the portal. I can barely see the vampire behind the shifter, but his face looks significantly less irritated.

“What in the seven fucking hells is going on?” The shifter doesn’t speak; he growls. “The door was locked, but I felt your power. It felt like an explosion. Are you all right?” He barely glances at me as he advances toward his brother.

Shit, he’s huge. His size didn’t seem as intimidating when I could hover several inches above him and he couldn’t hurt me.

Bren’s broad, bright smile halts Garrett in his tracks, but I barely notice. Avery is staring at me, his sightless silver eyes bright with confusion and curiosity. “Kodi? You seem … strange.” His head tilts to the side, causing his loose white hair to cover half of his face.

“You’re just noticing this?” My reply is heavy with sarcasm as I edge past the shifter’s bulk, around the vampire, and out of the cramped stairwell. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic – which is weird because I never felt that way as a ghost. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have a date. Bren can explain.”

“Yes. I’ll explain. Everything is perfectly fine. I had too much power, so I gave Kodi some.” Bren’s tone implies that he’s gifted me with a penny or something equally inconsequential. I feel like turning around to argue, but I have better things to do. “It worked!”

Legs are more difficult than I remember. Stairs present a particular challenge, and the brothers’ argument follows me as I slowly descend. Garrett lectures his brother about the dangers of impulsivity while Bren calmly regurgitates quotes. I specifically hear ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ but I don’t hear who he credits with the words. Their voices finally fade when I reach the sixth-floor landing.

My goal is Zosia, but this body moves like molasses. I’m also scared I might dissipate, which is silly because I’m as solid as I was five minutes ago. The occasional prickle on my skin reminds me of Bren’s magic, and I’m grateful he stopped when he did. If I’d started to develop a weather mage’s abilities, we’d have double the trouble. I don’t regret anything, but Garrett might have a point.

Why are there so many stairs? How does the living manage? Recalling that the shifter carried Zosia up and down all ten flights creates an equal measure of envy and pity.

When my feet land firmly on the main floor, I feel like days have passed instead of minutes. Despite the effort of maintaining my coordination, I’m not out of breath. The fact that I’m breathing at all blows my mind. I figured I’d be undead like a typical vampire, but my involuntary systems must be reflexive. Will I pass out if I hold my breath? I shake aside the question; more important ones await.

After fumbling through two more doors, I stand outside Zosia’s bedroom. My heart thumps faster. Weird. I also feel compelled to inhale deeply, and my chest expands. Doubly weird.

I finally remember how doorknobs work, but my hands shake as I twist the handle. Floating in and out of her room as a ghost never bothered me. Somehow, using the door feels different – almost invasive.

I almost backpedal when a pair of glowing, golden eyes greets me in the pitch-black darkness of Zosia’s room. They’re fixed on me, and I worry that a wild animal has somehow gotten into my friend’s – girlfriend’s, mate’s – bedroom. My brain stumbles over the stupid labels while I remind myself that Zosia is the animal. Her eyes have shone in the dark since she remembered how to shift, but I’d attributed the change to my ghostly vision.

“Wha-?” The groggy tone suggests that she’s barely awake.

“It’s just me, princess,” I whisper, and the familiarity of my voice relaxes her. She lays back down, her eyes drifting closed again. I pull the door shut behind me and realize my mistake when I turn back to the room. I can’t see in the dark anymore. Gritting my teeth, I move forward slowly and bite back a curse when my shin hits something solid. Just like in the stairwell, however, the pain is muted. Have my physical receptors been altered? If so, my time with Zosia won’t be as I imagined.

The bed isn’t hard to find, considering it takes up nearly the entire room. I don’t bother going around it once I feel the short footboard. Instead, I begin crawling toward the headboard on my hands and knees.

“Kodi? Waz going on?” Zo jerks upright again. Her half-conscious mind must be confused that my weight is affecting the mattress.

“Your eyes glow in the dark now.” It’s a little frightening, but I don’t add this part aloud.

“They do?” She seems more awake now, but her attention isn’t on her eyes. “But I guess that’s why I’ve always been a little able to see in the dark. What’s going on though? You look weird, and I can feel the bed move when you do.”

Instead of answering with words, I rapidly close the distance between us. Although her widening eyes provide a landmark, I place a couple kisses around her mouth before I find her lips. Once we’re connected, however, I don’t hold back. The pressure of her full lips against mine is everything I’ve dreamed about for the last five years and so much better than the few we’ve snatched during my brief moments of solidity. The static prickle of my ghostly form always lingered when I managed a corporeal state, and I couldn’t help but be worried I’d hurt her. It’s entirely absent now.

Instead of the constant worry that I’ll ghost her, her perfect lips are the only thing on my mind. The pressure of her lips is soft and warm against me, just as I imagine the curves of her body will feel. My pain receptors might be muted, but my pleasure receptors – if such a thing exists – spark with sensation.

I press her backward, needing more, but she pulls away. The sudden glare of the bedside lamp makes me want to hiss like a theatrical vampire. After I blink several times, I see the surprise and confusion on Zosia’s face as she studies me. Restless unease takes the sharp urgency of my desire down a notch. I might act cocky, but this woman’s opinion of me could reduce me to nothing in seconds.

“What’s going on?” Her eyes widen as a thought occurs to her. “Is this a dream?”

I chuckle. “If you’re dreaming, then so am I. I don’t think dream kisses feel that amazing.” The familiar blush on her cheeks relaxes me enough to sit back on my heels. This is when I realize that I’m still wearing my boots … on her bed. I can’t decide whether to prioritize answering her or removing them. My ghostly form has benefits I didn’t fully appreciate.

“Bren said he was still holding on to too much magic. After he spoke to Fin, he decided to discharge some. He transferred some to me and some to the library to give to you as energy. I knew you were exhausted after today. Do you feel any different?” Making my thoughts coherent and organized seems more difficult than usual. I’m worried about her reaction.

My best friend just stares at me, and I can’t decipher her expression. I need a distraction, so I scoot toward the opposite side of the bed. Even if she kicks me out, I shouldn’t keep my shoes on. The boots are more complicated than a simple pair of sneakers, and I fumble with the laces. I marvel at the intricate tasks that my fingers are capable of performing, but my fingers aren’t the only miracle. My legs and feet act without instruction when I pull the heavy boot off, the muscles in my arms, back, and neck flexing with strength. I’d forgotten how wondrous a human body is, even without supernatural additions.

Zosia’s silence continues, and I glance over my shoulder. She’s pleased, but I sense a darker emotion that she’s unable to hide from me. I remove my right boot more quickly and crawl back to her. I kneel beside her legs, facing her, as she sits against the headboard. My nearness draws the words from her.

“Why didn’t you and Bren wake me? Were the others there too?” Slight hurt accompanies her words.

Feeling strangely shy, I hold my hand out between us. When she places hers in mine, I’m amazed at how small it is. The golden tone of her skin makes my pale flesh look almost sickly. Her pulse flutters in her wrist, and it’s nearly enough to distract me.

“You were exhausted and we didn’t want to worry you. We also didn’t know if it would work. Fin gave Bren some tips, in riddle form, of course, but it wasn’t like we planned to do this without you. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Garrett and Avery weren’t aware either, and Garrett was – is – pissed.” I flinch. “He might still be yelling at Bren.”

“Bren called it a practice run, and I don’t think either of us expected it to work. But look at me! It worked! He thinks I’ll stay solid until dawn.” I grin and poke my thigh as if to demonstrate its solidity. I have more muscle than I remembered, but my duties as a prison guard helped me stay fit. I’d also spent a lot of time in our crappy underground gym working off excess anger and tension.

“Something really bad could have happened. You could have disappeared, Bren could have been hurt, the library could have been damaged …,” she whines. Her lower lip protrudes.

I don’t resist satisfying an urge I’ve had for more years than I can count. I lean forward and flick my tongue against that pouty bottom lip. Her soft gasp acts like a lightning rod, zapping energy and blood straight to my cock.

“It worked,” I whisper in a husky voice. “We’re all okay.” When she doesn’t pull away, I trail soft kisses down her jaw and onto her neck. I don’t remember the taste of food, but she reminds me of caramel – sweet and decadent.

When I’m near her, my senses aren’t muted; they’re amplified. Every brush of my lips or my fingertips sends sparks of fire across my awareness. My elevated awakening could be attributed to Bren’s magic or several years of nothing, but the reason scarcely matters.

The exceptionally exquisite soul before me encompasses everything I’ve longed for in my life and afterlife. Zosia might be why I died, but she’s also the reason I refuse to surrender my hold on this brief reality. I exist for her alone.