Page 17 of Unbearable Attraction (Hollow Oak Mates #4)

LEENAH

T he cottage felt impossibly empty after Luka left, as if his steady presence had somehow made the space larger and his absence had shrunk it back to its original dimensions.

Leenah sat on the couch where they'd spent the night, pulling a throw blanket around her shoulders that still carried the faint scent of cedar and mountain air.

She'd never been the kind of person who needed someone else's presence to feel complete.

Hell, she'd built her entire adult life around the principle that depending on others only led to disappointment.

But sitting alone in her living room, she found herself missing the weight of his arm around her shoulders and the steady rhythm of his breathing against her ear.

"This is dangerous," she told Minerva, who had emerged from whatever hiding spot she'd claimed during the supernatural chaos of the previous evening. "I'm getting attached to someone, and we both know how well that's worked out in the past."

Minerva's response was to hop onto the couch and settle herself in the exact spot where Luka had been sitting, her purr loud enough to suggest she approved of the previous night's sleeping arrangements.

The cat's mismatched eyes held the kind of knowing intelligence that made Leenah wonder if her familiar understood more about human relationships than she gave her credit for.

"Don't look at me like that," Leenah said, scratching behind the cat's ears. "I saw the way you were practically matchmaking last night, refusing to move when he sat down. You're as bad as Twyla."

But even as she protested, Leenah couldn't deny that waking up in Luka's arms had felt more natural than anything she'd experienced in years.

The way he'd held her throughout the night, keeping her anchored while she recovered from the prophetic vision, had been protective without being possessive. Gentle without making her feel fragile.

It challenged everything she thought she knew about alpha males and their supposedly inevitable need to control the people they cared about.

Her father had been an alpha in his own mind, and his brand of protection had involved isolating her mother from friends and family until she had no support system beyond him.

Her ex-boyfriends had all followed similar patterns, starting with sweet gestures of care and ending with suffocating attempts to manage every aspect of her life.

But Luka was different. She could see the war between his protective instincts and his respect for her independence playing out in real time.

The way he'd forced himself to leave this morning when every line of his body had screamed that he wanted to stay.

The careful way he phrased his concerns about her safety, making them about his worry rather than her supposed inadequacy.

"It's terrifying," she admitted to Minerva, "how much I want to trust him. How much I want to believe that maybe this time could be different."

The cat's purr intensified, and she rubbed against Leenah's hand with obvious affection. As if she was trying to say that some risks were worth taking, that not all alpha males were created equal.

Before Leenah could continue her one-sided conversation about the perils of emotional attachment, Minerva suddenly stood and jumped off her lap, padding toward the back corner of the living room with obvious purpose.

The cat stopped beside the old bookshelf that held Leenah's collection of local history texts and began pawing at something near the floor.

"What are you doing, girl?" Leenah followed her familiar across the room, crouching to see what had captured Minerva's attention.

The cat was scratching at what looked like a perfectly ordinary section of baseboard, but as Leenah examined it more closely, she noticed something odd.

The wood grain didn't quite match the rest of the trim, and there were faint scratch marks around what might have been the edges of a hidden panel.

"Well, I'll be damned," she muttered, running her fingers along the suspicious baseboard until she found a section that gave slightly under pressure. "How did you know this was here?"

Minerva's answering purr suggested that cats knew many things humans never bothered to notice.

The hidden compartment opened with a soft click, revealing a space just large enough to hold a collection of leather-bound books and loose papers tied with faded ribbon.

Leenah's heart skipped as she recognized her grandmother's careful handwriting on the topmost journal, but these weren't the reminiscences and family histories she'd inherited. These were something else entirely.

Leenah had been here for quite awhile, but she often forgot that the only reason she got this place was because her grandmother had once been it’s resident before Twyla had even heard of Hollow Oak.

Twyla told her that when she first got here, telling her that it had stayed empty just for her and now…

seeing this… she felt maybe there had been more to it.

"Advanced Necromantic Practices," she read aloud from the cover of the first volume. "Spirit Binding and Release Protocols. Ethereal Bridge Construction." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she read the final title: "The Cost of Speaking for the Dead."

She pulled the collection from its hiding place and settled cross-legged on the floor, Minerva curling up beside her as she opened the first journal.

Her grandmother's writing filled the pages, but these entries were different from anything Leenah had seen before.

Clinical, detailed descriptions of magical techniques that went far beyond simple communication with spirits.

May 15th, 1953. Successfully maintained ethereal bridge for six hours during communication with Revolutionary War era spirits. Physical cost: severe dehydration, temporary loss of vision, three days of recovery required. Note: longer sessions may require medical supervision.

July 3rd, 1954. Attempted mass spiritual summoning to gather information about missing child.

Bridge held for eight spirits simultaneously.

Cost: complete magical exhaustion, week-long recovery, permanent reduction in necromantic sensitivity.

Success rate: 85% information accuracy. Recommend this technique only for life-or-death situations.

Page after page documented her grandmother's experiments with increasingly dangerous necromantic practices, each entry meticulously recording both the techniques involved and their physical toll. It was like reading a medical journal written by someone who'd used herself as a test subject.

"God, Grandmother," Leenah breathed, turning to a section labeled "Renewal Ceremony Preparations." "What were you thinking?"

The answer became clear as she read further.

Her grandmother had been preparing to serve as the bridge for Hollow Oak's renewal ceremony, researching every possible technique that might improve her chances of survival.

The entries documented her growing understanding of what the ritual would require and her determination to find a way to perform it without dying in the process.

October 31st, 1955. The dreams grow stronger every night.

Aiyana shows me visions of the original ceremony, and I finally understand what she's been trying to tell me.

The bridge doesn't just communicate with spirits during the renewal—they become a living conduit for every soul who ever participated in the protection of this place.

The human body isn't designed to channel that much spiritual energy.

November 1st, 1955. Found references to a modified ritual that might distribute the spiritual load across multiple participants.

Requires willing volunteers with compatible magical abilities.

Still dangerous, but survival chances improve from 30% to 70%.

Must find others willing to share the burden.

November 15th, 1955. The Council refuses to approve the modified ceremony.

Too risky for multiple participants, they say.

Better to sacrifice one life than risk several.

I understand their logic, but I also understand that someone needs to survive to teach the next generation. The knowledge can't die with me.

The entries stopped abruptly after that date, leaving Leenah to wonder what had happened to change her grandmother's plans. Had she found another solution? Decided the risk was too great? Or had something else entirely prevented her from attempting the renewal ceremony?

She flipped through the remaining journals, finding increasingly detailed instructions for magical techniques that made her mouth go dry with fear.

Spiritual possession protocols that would allow a necromancer to channel ancient spirits directly.

Ethereal bridge amplification spells that could connect the living world to dozens of spiritual realms simultaneously.

Protective ward construction that required the practitioner to anchor the magic with their own life force.

All techniques that could help her communicate with the trapped spirits more effectively. All techniques that came with warnings about the personal cost involved.

Remember always that necromancy is not about controlling the dead, but about serving as their voice in the world of the living. The bridge pays the price so that others may benefit from spiritual wisdom. This is both the power and the burden of our gift.

Leenah closed the journal and leaned back against the couch, her mind reeling with the implications of what she'd discovered. Her grandmother had known decades ago that the renewal ceremony would eventually be necessary, had spent years preparing for a ritual that might well have killed her.

And now that responsibility had fallen to Leenah, who had a fraction of her grandmother's experience and training.

"I'm in over my head, aren't I?" she asked Minerva, who responded with the kind of steady purr that suggested confidence in her human's abilities.

The knowledge in these journals could help her prepare for whatever the renewal ceremony required, could give her a better chance of survival than walking in blind. But using the techniques her grandmother had developed would mean accepting risks that went far beyond anything she'd ever attempted.

It would mean risking more than just her heart to save Hollow Oak. It would mean risking everything.

And looking at Minerva's trusting eyes, thinking about Luka's protective instincts and Twyla's matchmaking kindness and all the people who called this supernatural sanctuary home, Leenah realized she was already prepared to do exactly that.

The question was whether she could figure out how to survive it.