Page 20 of Treasure and Tarot (Echoes of Secret Springs #1)

Chapter

Sixteen

“ H mmm.” The medium, who was a slender male omega with a long braid tied with crystals and bells, looked at the axe. Iago had brought it up in the van, and they were all having lunch. The crew, him, Colton, Xavi, Xander, and Hank Vargas and his husband Elliot.

Abby was playing with Antonia, Hank’s daughter.

And they were looking at the axe. Which wigged him out. But at least they were at the hotel and not his house.

And Sebastian wasn’t sure he was ready to make nice with Hank yet. Even if the man was looking at him with those big, dark eyes, wanting to make up. Like, a lot.

And he hated that he was still so mad. It made him feel petty. Because really, he should feel grateful to Hank for bringing Colton, and some money, back into his life.

“So, what does that mean?” Elliot asked. He was a big omega who wrote books and had a healthy dose of, if not skepticism about ghosts, then certainly practicality.

“What?” The medium blinked at Elliot.

“Mmm. That’s very vague. What does it mean?”

“Well, right now, it kinda means why on earth is this in a trunk in your house, Sebastian?”

Sebastian’s cheeks went warm. “Well, it was just an old trunk. I mean… I had never had anything authenticated until now. It was just a family myth.” And now he felt a little sick that all that had been in the house with his daughter.

“I see. Yes. Sometimes that’s a little scary, hmm?”

“Well, yes.”

“We need to know what to do. He keeps hunting the omega and the kids,” Colton snapped. He was losing patience with this shit.

“Tell me again what happened,” Thierry said, his tone patient.

Colton glared, but he went through it, with Mason and Iago pitching in on the axe thing.

By the time they were done, Elliot was scowling, and Hank was looking seriously distressed. “No. No. That is not okay. You two need to come stay with me and Elliot in Secret Springs for a few days,” Hank said. “You and Abby.”

“But, Hank…”

“No!” Hank shook his head. “This is not okay. It was one thing when I thought your ghosts were trying to tell you to get a life!” His voice rose until the kids frowned over at him, and Elliot put a hand on his arm. “Sorry. But this is someone repeating a murder over and over.”

“And why now?” Xander murmured.

“Maybe because Abby is the age of one of the kids?” Xavi asked.

“Or maybe because Colton came and took what he thought was his,” Mason said.

They all looked at him.

Sebastian hunched his shoulders. “What?”

“Well, we know that jealousy is often a motivator in killings like this,” Hank said.

“True…” Thierry smiled a little. “Well, I’ll come down with you to the house this evening.”

“Why are you smiling?” Sebastian was pretty sure this wasn’t anything to smile about.

“What?”

“You ask that a lot.” He frowned at Thierry. “Why are you smiling?”

“Well, mainly because it’s my natural countenance.” Thierry winked at him. “You must be very brave to have done all of this on your own.”

“Oh.” He shook his head. It was his house. That didn’t make it brave, just necessary. “I want to know why now .”

Xavi nodded. “Exactly. Why did all this come up now? It’s been like a hundred zillion years.”

“One hundred zillion? Is that an exact date?” Elliot winked at Xavi.

Colton shook his head. “I honestly think it’s a matter of everything happening at once.

We have Abby, who is the right age. Sebastian has all of the wild emotions of being a single father and having a child all on his own.

And then having me, who he thought was ghosting him, show up.

” Colton shook his head. “And nobody was being violent in any way to either one of you, right?”

Sebastian nodded. That was absolutely right. “Exactly. I mean, there were some startling things—some books thrown, some jump scares, but nothing scary, just kind of maddening.”

“The scary stuff didn’t happen until I showed back up.

I think we’re dealing with two completely separate situations.

I think we’ve got the repeating situation with the omega trying to get the children out, which is where Abby’s foot shaking comes from, and then we have a secondary situation wherein someone’s aggravated that I’m back. ”

“That kind of actually makes sense, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

” Hank came up to Sebastian, expression serious, focused on him.

“I’m sorry about misleading you, and I’m sorry that you’re angry, and that I caused it.

I just… Even if we can’t be friends, I want you and Abby safe, and I really want to be friends.

” Hank shook his head. “I honestly thought I was doing the right thing. So it was wrong and it was misguided, but the intentions were good. Does that make any difference?”

Honestly, the crappy thing about public apologies that were heartfelt was that even if he was still pissed off, and even if he wanted to be a butthead, he had to not be one because then he looked like an asshole.

And nobody wanted that, even if he was still mad, which he was a little bit.

The fact was that everyone was staring, and he was going to have to be gracious, which was absolutely, one hundred percent cheating.

It just wasn’t fair at all. Still…

“Of course it does. Just—” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Just remember that I’m a capable adult, and I deserve to be told the truth here.” The asshole was implied.

Hank beamed and gave him a one-armed quick hug. “Thank you. It’s been weighing on me.”

Too bad just being honest hadn’t weighed on Hank earlier. A lot of things might have been different. “Me too. I just want life to be…reasonably normal.”

He had to work, after all. Abby was going to need new winter clothes, and they were going to have to buy a rick of wood.

Hank wandered off to talk to the medium guy, and he was able to breathe a little bit.

Colton came over to him, as he was watching the girls play, and bumped their shoulders together. “How you doing?”

“A little wigged.” He could be honest about that. “I don’t like the idea of murdery ghosts being in the house.”

“Me either. That was crazy.”

“Please help me work this out?” He found himself a little shaken.

“You know there’s been ghosts in that house for years—decades, over a century—and no one’s ever said that they were frightened, threatened.

Startled? Sure. Unnerved? Absolutely. Even concerned.

Like I’m concerned about the way the omega shook Abbey’s feet.

But homicidal?” He shook his head. “I don’t want to have to leave my house.

I love my house, but I’m not going to risk my little girl. ”

“No one’s asking you to risk anybody. We’re going to figure this out. We’re just going to explain to this son of a bitch that we are not having this, and there’s way more of us than there are of him. Dead and alive.”

All right. He had to admit Colton had a point. There were a lot of them—the four alphas that were dead, one omega. Then there were all of them waiting to take this on and get rid of this son of a bitch. Because this was his house and he wasn’t going to put up with this nonsense.

He wanted to know if he could live with Colton, to see if they could get along and learn more things about each other.

He was ready to make this life, and he didn’t need this shit. So, they were going to have to figure it out.

Like now.

Xander, who had been pretty quiet, stood. “I’ll go get lunch.”

“Cool. Then we can take Thierry down to the house,” Colton said, nodding.

“Sure.” Xander shrugged, looking super uncomfortable, and Sebastian tilted his head, watching his friend leave the room.

“Is he okay, Xavi?”

“Huh? Oh, you know, the ghost stuff wigs him out a little.”

“I didn’t know that! He even watched some of the show with us at the hotel.”

“Did he now?” Colton stared at him, and his cheeks heated again.

“Um. We just wanted to, you know, see if it was cheesy. Once we knew you were the one doing it.”

“And what was the verdict?” Colton crossed his arms over his chest, and Xavi chortled at him.

Sebastian grinned a little sheepishly. “We thought it was cheesy in a good way, and that you and the crew were hot. I was still mad, but yeah. I mean, you do a good job.”

“Thanks, baby.” Colton came to drop a kiss on his mouth. “Do I need to go check on Xander?”

“Would you? You can tell him you have a special request for lunch.”

“Please.” Xavi nodded. “He was really tense.”

“Okay, sure.” Colton patted his arm, then headed off.

“You think Xander will tell him?” Xavi asked.

“No way in hell,” Sebastian murmured. “He’ll admit to being terrified of ghosts first.”

“Are we awful people for siccing him on Xander?”

Sebastian bit his lower lip. “Well, yes. But, you know. We had to do it.”