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

LEENAH

" A re you hurt?"

The question made Leenah's jaw clench with irritation.

Of course that would be Luka Ashe's first concern.

Not what had just happened, not why dozens of ancient spirits had manifested in broad daylight, but whether the fragile little woman needed medical attention.

She'd been handling supernatural encounters alone for years, but apparently the town's grumpiest hermit thought she needed rescuing from her own area of expertise.

"I'm fine," she said, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "Though I'd have been better if you hadn't scared them off."

It was a lie, and they both knew it. The spirits had been growing more agitated by the moment, their ethereal forms becoming increasingly solid as their desperate urgency pressed against her consciousness.

She'd been losing control of the situation, her necromantic abilities stretched beyond their usual limits by the sheer number of manifestations.

But admitting that would mean acknowledging that his arrival had actually helped, and her pride wasn't ready to make that concession.

Especially not when those amber eyes of his seemed to see straight through every defense she'd spent years building.

"Scared them off?" Luka's eyebrows rose, and she caught the hint of skepticism in his voice. "They looked like they were about to tear you apart."

"They weren't threatening me," Leenah snapped, even as her hands trembled slightly from the aftershock of channeling so much supernatural energy. "They were trying to communicate something important. Something about broken promises and forgotten oaths."

She'd caught fragments of their urgent whispers in the moments before Luka's presence had calmed the spiritual disturbance.

Ancient voices speaking in Cherokee, in what might have been medieval Gaelic, in languages that predated written records.

The spirits had been trying to tell her something crucial, something that connected to Hollow Oak's founding history and the protective wards that kept their sanctuary hidden.

And now she'd lost the chance to understand what they'd been so desperate to share.

"What kind of promises?" Luka asked, his voice gentler now but still carrying that protective undertone that made her want to throw something at his annoyingly handsome face.

"I don't know," she admitted reluctantly. "Your dramatic entrance interrupted before I could get specifics."

Minerva wound around her legs with a soft purr, the cat's warmth grounding her in the present moment.

Her familiar had been tense throughout the entire encounter, fur bristled and eyes fixed on threats that only she could see.

But now Minerva seemed almost... approving of Luka's presence.

The traitorous feline was actually purring louder as she rubbed against Leenah's jeans.

"I heard screams," Luka said, his massive frame still coiled with barely contained energy. "Your tour group was running like something was chasing them."

"Tourists," Leenah muttered, bending to scratch behind Minerva's ears. "They paid for a ghost tour, not a spiritual manifestation. There's a difference."

"Is there?" The question held genuine curiosity rather than skepticism, which caught her off guard. Most people either dismissed her work entirely or assumed it was all theatrical nonsense designed to entertain gullible visitors.

"Ghosts are just... echoes," she explained, straightening to find his amber eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her heart pick up.

"Imprints of strong emotions or traumatic events.

They're not really conscious, just playing out the same patterns over and over.

What you saw here were actual spirits—aware, intelligent, and very much trying to communicate. "

"And that's normal for you?"

"Not like this." The admission slipped out before she could stop it. "I've never had so many manifest at once. And never that urgently. They knew my name, called me in languages I don't speak but somehow understood anyway."

The memory sent a shiver through her. Those ancient voices had carried centuries of pain and desperate hope, as if they'd been waiting lifetimes for someone exactly like her to finally hear their message. But hear what? And why now?

"Called you what?" Luka stepped closer, his protective instincts obviously triggered by whatever he'd heard in her voice.

"Child of between," she said, the words feeling strange on her tongue.

"Daughter of Salem's blood. Bridge between worlds.

" She looked up at him, noting how his presence seemed to calm the residual supernatural energy still crackling in the air around them.

"They approved of you being here, though. Whatever that means."

Something flickered in his eyes like recognition, perhaps, or understanding. "My bear has been restless all morning. More agitated than usual. Like it was anticipating something."

"Your bear?" The question came out more breathless than she'd intended. She'd known Luka was a shifter, of course. Everyone in Hollow Oak knew the basics about their neighbors' supernatural natures. But she'd never really thought about what kind of shifter he might be.

"Grizzly," he said simply, as if that explained everything.

It did explain quite a bit, actually. The way he moved with careful, controlled power. The protective instincts that had him racing toward danger instead of away from it. The steady presence that made her feel inexplicably safer even when she was determined to be annoyed with him.

"Well, your bear can relax," she said, trying to inject some of her usual sarcasm into her voice. "Crisis averted, no damsels in distress requiring rescue."

"You weren't in distress," Luka agreed, and something in his tone made her look at him more carefully. "You were magnificent."

The simple statement caught her off guard.

Not beautiful, not brave, but magnificent.

As if he'd seen her standing among manifesting spirits and found her not fragile or in need of protection, but powerful in her own right.

The compliment was so unexpected, so different from the usual condescending concern she received from well-meaning townspeople, that it left her momentarily speechless.

"I..." She cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. "I need to figure out what they wanted. This isn't over."

"No," Luka agreed, his amber eyes never leaving her face. "I don't think it is."

The way he said it suggested he wasn't just talking about the spirits, and that realization sent heat pooling low in her belly despite her best efforts to maintain her irritation.

She'd been aware of Luka for years, it was impossible not to notice someone who took up that much space and radiated that much quiet strength.

But she'd always assumed his gruff demeanor extended to genuine antisocial tendencies.

Looking at him now, seeing the way his gaze tracked her every movement with protective intensity, she wondered if perhaps the town's most notorious hermit was more complicated than she'd given him credit for.

"I should go," she said, shouldering her leather satchel with more force than necessary. "I have research to do, and you probably have furniture to build or whatever it is you do in that workshop of yours."

"Wood carving," he said, falling into step beside her as she started walking toward the cemetery gates. "And furniture, yes. Among other things."

"I wasn't asking for a detailed inventory," she muttered, but found herself stealing glances at his hands as they walked. Large, scarred from years of working with tools, but moving with the kind of careful precision that suggested he created beautiful things with them.

"The spirits called you a bridge," Luka said quietly. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know," she admitted, her voice softer now that they were walking away from the site of the manifestation. "But I intend to find out."

"Need help?"

The offer was casual, almost offhand, but something in his tone suggested it was anything but. Leenah found herself torn between her fierce independence and the growing awareness that whatever was happening here might be too big for her to handle alone.

"I work better solo," she said finally, the words coming out more gently than she'd intended.

"I know," Luka replied, and the understanding in his voice made her pulse quicken. "But if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

As they reached the cemetery gates, Leenah realized that for all her irritation with his protectiveness, she'd felt steadier with him beside her than she had in years. Safer. As if having someone watching her back wasn't a sign of weakness but simply... nice.

The thought unsettled her almost as much as the manifesting spirits had.

"Thanks," she said quietly, then immediately felt the need to add, "for not treating me like I was hysterical or imagining things."

"Anyone who's lived in Hollow Oak for more than five minutes knows you don't imagine things," Luka replied, his amber eyes warm with respect. "And hysteria isn't exactly your style."

Despite her best efforts, Leenah felt a small smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "You've been paying attention to my style?"

"Hard not to," he said simply, and the honest admission made her breath catch.

Before she could think of a response that wouldn't embarrass them both, Minerva chose that moment to abandon her and trot directly to Luka, rubbing against his legs with shameless affection.

The traitor was purring loud enough to wake the dead, which, given recent events, might not be entirely metaphorical.

"Looks like you've made a friend," Leenah said, trying to keep her voice light despite the flutter of betrayal.

"She's got good taste," Luka replied, crouching to scratch behind Minerva's ears with surprising gentleness for such large hands.

Watching him be soft with her cat while still radiating that quiet strength that had calmed an entire cemetery full of agitated spirits, Leenah felt her carefully maintained emotional walls develop their first crack in years.

And that, she realized as she walked away from the most interesting conversation she'd had in months, might be more strange than any supernatural manifestation.