Page 41 of Ronen (Sweet Alps Legacy #1)

Chapter Thirty

Mason

Jolting awake when something slammed into my nose, I jerked upright, my hands flying to my injured appendage.

“What the fuck?”

Blinking groggily, I looked around, trying to ascertain the threat level. I had been reading on the sofa, waiting for Ronen to come over after work for dinner, and I must have dozed off.

That didn’t explain why my nose and one cheekbone were throbbing. I half expected my fingers to come away bloody when I gingerly checked my sore appendage.

A book lay on the floor at my feet. One I hadn’t been reading. Picking it up, I turned it over in my hands, then glanced at the empty spot in the middle of the row of books in my case, where I knew it had been earlier.

Oreo barked in rapid succession, staring at a corner of the room, then he tucked his tail between his legs and ran up the stairs .

Guard dog, indeed.

Sitting the book down on the coffee table, I felt a chill run up my spine, as cold air surrounded me.

“Emily?”

Why the hell was I whispering, and to someone I couldn’t see? To a dead someone.

Running my hands through my hair, I laughed, ignoring the fact that it was a rather high pitched–and slightly hysterical–sound.

Noticing that the sky had darkened while I’d been waiting on Ro, I located my phone in my couch cushion next to me.

Swiping it, I saw it was almost nine. Ronen should have been here an hour ago, yet there were no missed calls or texts from him.

An odd feeling swept over me, and I knew immediately that something was wrong.

Quickly, I hit his contact information on my phone, feeling my heart pounding as I listened to it ring.

And ring, and ring, before the voicemail picked up and Ronen’s crisp, no nonsense voice instructed the caller on precisely what information he expected to be left in any message if they expected a call back.

“Hey, it’s me. I dozed off but you’re not here yet. Everything okay? Call me. I miss you. And I’m hungry,” I kept my voice as lighthearted as I could, as panic crawled up my throat. “I thought we could go to the diner.”

Movement from my bookshelf had me standing stock still, my eyes wide, my hand tightening on my phone.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, as another book slowly moved forward from its spot on the shelf. Then, as if an angry hand hit the book, it came flying straight at me. I ducked in the nick of time, and it landed with a loud thud behind me .

“What the fuck!” I repeated to the empty room.

More books flew from several shelves at once, and I was dodging and hitting them with my arm. After five minutes of the craziness, I yelled, “Enough!”

To my surprise, the frenzied fury of books stopped.

“I don’t know what you want?” I whispered to the empty room. “What do you want?”

Was I actually having a one sided conversation with a…ghost? Perhaps several ghosts?

I wasn’t even honestly sure that I completely believed Ronen when he explained about his special…power? Not really. But Ronen believed it, so…sometimes you just had to accept all your mate’s…oddities.

The flurry of books started again, until I threw my hands up and bellowed, “I don't know what you want! Ronen isn’t here!”

A sharp whack to the back of my head nearly had me jumping out of my skin. “Ow!”

The books on the floor started moving from four different directions, until they formed a circle around me.

Did that mean there were four ghosts here? Were all of Ronen’s ghosts in my house?

Shaking my head, I refused to even entertain that thought. Instead, I squatted down, taking a closer look at the books. With narrowed eyes, I peered at my bookshelves, where there were still plenty of books.

The ghost, or entity, or whatever it was, hadn’t just cleared a shelf. No, there were gaps in the rows where these books had been. As if these books had been chosen with a purpose.

Grabbing the one closest to me, I stared at the cover, then flipped it over. It held no discernable answers, so I grabbed the next one, and the next, and the next. They had nothing in common. Not author, trope, or even genre. There was a good mix of romance, horror, fiction, and even true crime.

“Think, Mason!” I muttered to myself.

The ghost–or ghosts–were trying to get my attention, and tell me something.

“Okay, what do you know? Look at the facts,” I mumbled, standing back up and stepping out of the book circle. “Ronen is late, and he didn’t leave a message. You know he is punctual to a fault; he likes his daily routines.”

Was this a message about Ronen? Was Emily trying to tell me something?

Looking down, one of the spines caught my eye, then another. Grabbing them up, I realized they were all library books. The spines clearly marked as belonging to the Sweet Alps Branch.

“Is Ronen in trouble?” I asked the empty room, not knowing what I was expecting in the way of an answer. Hopefully not more books being lobbed at my head.

A brisk wind swept across the room, and I watched with wide eyes as pages of one of the books began flipping wildly.

The colors on the pages zoomed by at a dizzying speed, and I realized it was one of books I had “checked out” about honey badgers. I had wanted to learn more about my mate in his shifted form.

The book finally fell open to a page and it appeared something was holding it down, as the pages remained stagnant. Picking it up, I stared at a photo of a honey badger, sharp teeth bared for a fight, ready to take on a cobra .

Dropping the book to the floor, I couldn’t catch my breath. My heart was pounding so fast there was a very real possibility it might burst from my chest.

While I didn’t know what exactly had happened to my mate, he was clearly in some kind of danger. Northern California wasn’t known for random cobras being on the loose, but I guessed it was the best way for the ghosts–never thought I would say that sentence–to convey that Ronen needed help.

My first thought was that something was wrong with the pregnancy. Who knew what complications there might actually be from a honey badger/dragon mating. While Ronen wasn’t carrying an egg, any number of things could go wrong at any time.

Grabbing my keys, my phone rang and I hit the accept button without looking at the caller id.

“Ronen?”

“It’s Jamie,” the deep voice rumbled in my ear, lacking its usual jovial tone.

My knees buckled, because I knew something was seriously wrong. Sinking into the nearest kitchen chair, I took a steadying breath.

“What’s happened?”

“Be at my house in ten minutes if you want to be included,” Jamie growled. “We don’t have time to wait on you.”

“What’s happened!” I yelled, barely able to breathe, stomach churning.

“They’ve been taken.”

Taken?

“Who?” The word barely made it past my tight throat.

“My boys,” Jamie growled. “And I’m getting them back.

We could use a little…fire power, if you know what I mean.

But leave yo ur badge at home. This isn’t a put the bad guys in jail type of ending.

I’m getting my boys, and I’m killing every last son of a bitch who dared to touch what’s mine.

If you can’t handle that, stay at home. We’ll call you when it’s over and we have them back. ”

It took me less than a second to make my decision.

Someone had my mate. Someone had dared to take what was mine. Not only my mate, but our unborn child.

I would burn this fucking town down if it meant I got them back.

“I’ll be there,” I growled, hanging up and tossing my badge on my kitchen table.