Haunted Hex (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 10) Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Haunted Hex

  by

  Sara Bourgeois

  Chapter One

  The screaming woke me from what had previously been a peaceful sleep. Probably the first restful night I’d had in a week.

  The bed shaking wasn’t helping either.

  But it wasn’t the bed shaking. It was Thorn shaking me. He had me by the shoulders and was rattling me down to my bones.

  The screaming wasn’t him, though. It quickly became apparent who was responsible.

  “Kinsley, you’re having some sort of nightmare,” he shouted. “You have to wake up, sweetie. Wake up!”

  When I looked around the room, everything was floating. The bed was at least six inches off the floor as were the dressers, a desk and chair, and both night tables. Everything but the baby’s cradle.

  As consciousness crept into my brain, the furniture all dropped to the floor with a thunderous clatter. Laney began to cry.

  “I’ll get her,” Thorn said as he slid off the bed. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” I said. “I must have been having some sort of nightmare.”

  The concern in Thorn’s eyes was evident even in the dark bedroom. Laney’s cradle was just a few feet from the bed, and Thorn quickly got her settled again. She was so young, but Laney was already a daddy’s girl. He felt the same way.

  “I was really hoping you’d finally get some sleep,” Thorn said.

  “I want to hold her,” I said and stretched out my arms.

  “She’s fine,” Thorn said. “Please try to go back to sleep.”

  It was true. Laney had been a good sleeper from day one. She wasn’t what kept me up at night.

  “I just want to hold her for a while,” I persisted.

  He crossed the room and gently handed Laney over to me. She snuggled against my chest, and Thorn got onto the bed next to us.

  I’d spent every night since she’d come home from the hospital watching her sleep. I stayed up all night most nights, and if I did manage to fall asleep, I’d wake up with my heart pounding and my ears ringing. Sometimes I was soaked in sweat too.

  There were no nightmares that I could remember, but it always felt like I’d woken up from a really bad one. That night was the first that I’d screamed. It was also the first night that the furniture had levitated. At least Laney hadn’t been hurt.

  “Where’s Meri?” I whispered in a panic.

  “I’m right here,” he said.

  I looked over to see him perched on the windowsill watching us. “I could have hurt her,” I said to him.

  “I managed to keep the cradle down,” Meri said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t hold the rest of it. You’re too strong in your sleep.”

  “He did,” Thorn confirmed. “She’s fine. Probably a little startled is all.”

  “I scared her,” I said and held Laney tighter. “I’m traumatizing my own baby.”

  “That’s why you need to sleep, Kinsley,” Thorn said. “You’ve never had issues like this before, but you haven’t really slept in days.”

  I hadn’t told him about the daymares. In addition to feeling like I had to stay awake and watch Laney, I was having these terrible intrusive thoughts during the day. Sometimes all I could think about was horrible things happening to us, and I’d have to rush over and confirm that she was okay.

  It had started in the hospital. I’d had a horrible dream the night before we were discharged. A terrible plague had swept through the world, and I died without being able to say goodbye to my baby and husband.

  My soul had floated out of my body, and I’d watched as Thorn took Laney away from Coventry to keep her safe. Except, he’d never come back. He took her away from her entire family, and they didn’t see her again.

  The nightmare had taken root in my heart, and after that night, I couldn’t sleep without having an absolute panic attack. I felt guilty too because it was like I didn’t trust Thorn. I knew he’d never take Laney away from me, but the nightmare had put horrible ideas into my imagination.

  Even without telling Thorn about the daymares, he knew something bad was going on with me. Meri sensed it too, but he stayed close to Laney.

  “You know the cat is watching her,” Thorn said as if he could read my thoughts. “You don’t have to keep an eye on her all of the time. He sleeps in there with her, and he’s not going to let anything happen.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll lay her down, and I’ll try to get some sleep.”

  “Valerian tea,” Meri said before jumping down out of the window. “For you, not her.”

  “That’s actually a good idea,” Thorn said. “Why don’t you rest here, and I’ll make it.”

  “No, I’ll go. You need sleep too,” I said. “I’ll drink some tea, and I’ll come right back to bed.”

  Thorn eyed me skeptically.

  “I need to get up and move,” I said. The adrenaline from the nightmare I couldn’t remember was still coursing through my veins. The only way I was going to get any sleep was if I walked some of it off. “Sleep,” I said as I pulled the baby sling off the top of the dresser. “I’ll lay her down when I get back.”

  Thorn looked exhausted, and it pulled at my heart. He wasn’t tired because of staying up with the baby. It was because of whatever was going on with me.

  If I took Laney downstairs with me to make the tea, he’d have uninterrupted quiet to get back to sleep. Before I left the room, I took a package of silicone earplugs out of the nightstand and handed them to him.

  “I want to be able to hear if you need me,” he protested.

  “If we need you badly enough, these won’t stop it,” I said. “Please, Thorn. You have to go back to work soon. I don’t want you exhausted. It’s puts you and everyone else at risk.”

  That got through to him. He took the earplugs and put them in his ears as I walked out of the bedroom.

  Meri ran through the doorway just before I softly closed the door behind me. He padded down the stairs at my heels as we all made our way to the kitchen.

  I got some valerian and chamomile out of the pantry. After putting some of the herbs in the metal tea strainer, I put the containers away. Meri didn’t ask, but I also grabbed a can of tuna.

  While I waited for the water to boil, I forked the fish out onto a plate for him. “Thanks,” he said as I set it on the table.

  “You’ve been a good sport,” I said and stretched.

  “I’m worried about you,” he replied.

  “Don’t,” I said. “It’s weird when you get all…not Meri… around me. It makes me feel like something is really wrong.”

  “Something is really wrong,” Meri said.

  “It’s just a little postpartum depression,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

  “You shouldn’t just suffer through it,” Meri groused. “That’s stupid.”

  “There we go,” I said with a weary smile. I felt better when he called me stupid. When he was too nice, I got worried I was about to die or something.

  “When are you going to tell Thorn about the daymares?” Meri said.

  “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m always around, Kinsley. I see you struggling. We’re linked, remember?”

 
“It’s fine,” I said. “I looked it up on the internet, and it happens to a lot of women. It will get better.”

  “You should talk to your mother,” Meri said.

  “Did she go through this too?” I asked. I didn’t think she had. Surely, she would have told me. She would have prepared me.

  “No, but she can brew up something to help you with the constant anxiety,” Meri said.

  “I’m doing that now,” I countered.

  “If that doesn’t help you sleep, please promise me you’ll talk to her,” Meri said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  The water boiled, and I carefully poured it into my cup. Meri ate his tuna, and I had time to wash the plate while my tea steeped.

  I didn’t want to drink it over Laney’s head, so I took her out of the sling and put her in the bassinet in the living room. She didn’t stir at all when I laid her down.

  Confident she wasn’t going to wake again, I went back into the kitchen and squirted a few generous globs of honey into the tea. Meri was waiting for me on the sofa when I went back into the living room.

  Thorn had converted the fireplace to gas, so I flipped the switch. A gentle fire roared to life, and I sat on the sofa sipping my tea and watching the flames dance.

  Meri curled up in my lap and stayed there until I’d polished off the tea. When I finished, he crawled down to the other and of the sofa and waited.

  I hadn’t heard Thorn make any noises upstairs, so I knew he’d fallen back asleep. I could hear Laney’s gentle, slow breathing in the bassinet, and it seemed silly to disturb her again.

  So, I set the empty mug down on the coffee table, stretched out on the couch, and pulled the blanket we kept on the back over me. I lay on my side with my head on one of the softest pillows watching the fire. Meri gingerly walked up my leg and curled up on my hip. He was small enough that he fit there without falling off.

  “I should turn off the fireplace,” I whispered, “but it’s so pretty.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Meri said. “You can leave it going for hours or whatever.”

  “You’re right,” I said and yawned. It wasn’t like it was a wood fire where you had to worry about smoke.

  The next thing I knew, sunlight from where I hadn’t pulled the curtains all the way shut was hitting me right in the eye. I stretched, and my heart dropped into my gut.

  I couldn’t hear Laney’s breathing anymore. I jumped up off the couch so fast that I sent Meri flying. Fortunately, he landed on his feet on the coffee table.

  “Laney!” I called out as I rushed over to her bassinet.

  She wasn’t there.

  “Kinsley, she’s with me,” Thorn answered from the kitchen.

  I pushed my palm against my chest as if that could slow my heart rate. After a couple of deep breaths, I felt the panic subside.

  “You were sleeping so peacefully, and she needed a diaper change and a bottle,” Thorn said when he appeared in the doorway between the dining room and living room. “We were making French toast casserole. It’s almost done.”

  “Is there bacon?” Meri asked as he jumped down off the coffee table and sashayed past Thorn.

  “Of course,” Thorn answered.

  “I panicked,” I said, like it was a confession, “when she wasn’t there.”

  “Sorry about that. I was about to come wake you up for some food,” Thorn said. “Do you want to take her? I need to get the casserole out of the oven.”

  “Let me go to the bathroom really quick,” I said.

  I sprinted into the bathroom, did my business, and washed my hands in record time. When I came back out, the oven timer was going off, so I took Laney from Thorn and followed him back into the kitchen.

  The warm smells of cinnamon and vanilla filled my senses. The rich scent of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air as well.

  “I just made a pot,” Thorn said as if he could read my mind. “I’ll get you some.”

  Laney had a little tabletop bouncer thingy that we could put her in while we were eating. As soon as I had her buckled in, Meri jumped into it and lay down next to her. She cooed and grabbed a fistful of his fir. I watched him wince, but he just tenderly licked Laney’s hand and she relaxed her fingers.

  I gently pushed the bouncer down a couple of times and Laney cooed again. Thorn set a cup of coffee down in front of me.

  “It’s already got cream and sugar. The casserole needs to cool for a few minutes,” he said. “I thought you wanted bacon, cat?”

  “I’ll wait a bit. I’m fine,” he said, not wanting to move from his spot next to Laney.

  “You’re turning down bacon?” I asked before taking a sip of my coffee.

  “I’m not turning it down. I’m just comfortable,” he said.

  “You look good,” Thorn said when I turned my attention to him.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Did I look like recycled dog food before?”

  “No…” Thorn looked like he wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to respond.

  “I’m kidding,” I said with a chuckle. “I know what you mean. I feel better too.”

  “That’s amazing,” Thorn said. He leaned over and gave me a kiss.

  “Sorry I didn’t come back up to bed,” I said.

  “Don’t be. I’m just glad you finally got some rest,” Thorn said. “Let me get you some casserole.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “One more day?” Thorn asked. “I have to go back to work tomorrow, so let me take care of you for one more day?”

  “Tomorrow for sure?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I got the call this morning. Jeremy didn’t want to say anything, but he’s getting super behind on paperwork. One of our deputies called in sick a couple of days last week too, and he’s got too much overtime now. Looks like I’ll have a mess to clean up when I go back,” Thorn said.

  “That sucks…” I started to say.

  “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” Thorn cut me off. “I wouldn’t have traded this for the world.”

  “I wasn’t going to apologize,” I protested, but I was.

  “I know you better than that,” Thorn said.

  “Fine,” I relented. “But I do feel bad that you’ve got to go back to a mess at work.”

  “I can handle it,” he said. “Now, about that casserole.”

  Chapter Two

  The next day, Thorn had to go back to work. I’d had two cups of valerian and chamomile tea the night before, and somehow managed to sleep through the night.

  Laney had as well, but when Thorn woke me up to tell me he was going to work, he had her nestled in his arms. “I was going to let you guys sleep, but your mom is here.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said and sat up.

  “She said she’d take Laney if you want to sleep some more, but I wanted to ask you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll get up.”

  “You sure?” Thorn asked.

  “Yeah, but can you take Laney back down to her,” I said and kissed her on the head softly. “I’d really like to shower and get dressed.”

  “Sure,” Thorn said.

  “Tell her I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I said.

  “You can call me anytime if you need me,” Thorn said as he headed out of the room.

  Before he got all the way in the hallway, Thorn turned around and came rushing back. He put his free arm around me and pulled me in for a kiss that made the butterflies in my stomach go crazy.

  “Thank you,” he whispered and then kissed me on the forehead.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For giving me everything I ever needed,” he said.

  Thorn could be annoying and overprotective, but at other times, his love for me took my breath away. It reminded me of why he could be so overbearing. He was just trying to keep me safe, and that was a big job. I could be a handful.

  Well, it had been a big job. Being a mother had changed my perspective on the situations I used to “find” myself in. There w
as no way I was going to do anything that would leave Laney without her mother. My days of investigation were over.

  I took a long, hot shower that felt like a vacation. Knowing my mother was spending time with Laney meant I didn’t feel guilty about taking some time to take care of myself. I even left the conditioner she made for me on my hair for the full five minutes.