Ghost Redeemed (Dangerous Spirits)

Description

Ghost Redeemed
Dangerous Spirits Book 2
By Mary Winter
genres: erotic paranormal romance
Cover art by Celia Kyle

He never thought he’d get a second chance. At life, or love…

FBI Agent Kyle Denison knew he’d done some bad things in his life and in the afterlife. Now the Fates have brought him back and the only thing on his mind is going back to the woman he’d loved and making things right.

Except she’s dead. And he’s falling hard for her best friend.

ShayLynn Cartland doesn’t believe her best friend committed suicide. She vows to get to the bottom of things even if it means going against a very hunky ghost who doesn’t want her in danger. Shay knows how to handle ghosts. Falling in love with one who makes her feel things no other man-living or dead-has, is another matter entirely.

This book is a rereleased version of a book by the same title. It has been revised and updated, though is not substantially changed from the previous version.

Excerpt

Silence filled the old warehouse. Kyle lay sprawled at the base of the steps. Blood spilled from a fresh bullet wound to the right of an older wound. The button-down, light blue, short-sleeved shirt, the exact shade as his eyes, looked better suited to a business meeting than a murder. Only it hadn’t been murder, but self-defense.

The body had no company, though dimpled walls bespoke of a gun battle that had filled the hallway with ricocheting bullets. Water dripped from a stained ceiling tile down the hall, a steady drop, drop to invade the silence. Not even a rat coursed through these halls, nor would any want to. The place held a taint of evil. The smell of scorched flesh hung in the air.

The body jerked. Had it needed air, it might have gasped. Instead, the muscles convulsed at once, bowing his back off the cold, chipped linoleum floor. Eyes flew open.

“Oh, God,” the man groaned. He lifted a shaky finger to touch the sticky bullet wound. Memories came rushing back. He struggled to a seated position and realized he didn’t know who he was.

He frowned and leaned against the wall. Lifting his hand, he stared at it, noticing the translucent quality to his fingers. His entire body glowed with some kind of unearthly light. “What the hell?” He looked around, fumbling as he realized he fell through the wall.

Suddenly, he knew who he was, what he was. Sage had killed him-twice. The second time two years ago, in this very building.

Kyle wobbled to his feet as more memories came back. He swallowed hard and stared at the empty walls. Someone had brought him back. He knew it, deep in his soul where hunches and intuition lived, he knew someone had brought him back from the dead. After his spirit had died, he’d ceased to exist. Remembered nothing until this moment. “Why? I was dead, gone. Why not let me rest in peace?” He didn’t fear being heard, though he knew this building once crawled with Lu-Marc’s operatives. They were all dead now, or gone at any rate. He heard nothing, and had anyone been around, he doubted they would have left his rotting corpse in the hallway, except ghosts didn’t leave corpses. “Why didn’t you just let me die?”

“Do you want to?” The question hung in the air, spoken by a feminine, ethereal voice.

Kyle whirled around. He saw nothing. He never used to believe in God, or in heaven and hell. But then, after seeing Teri and Sage he wanted what they had. He wanted a second chance. “I don’t want to die.” He didn’t, not that much anyway. No, he wanted to go back to Marcy, to make things right. To explain. If he could, dear God, he just wanted to explain why he did the things he did and make them right. “Goddess. Whoever you are, I promise. If you let me live, even as a ghost, I’ll make things right with Marcy. I hurt her, and I’m sorry for that, but I won’t hurt her a second time. I know I fucked up. I know I deserve to die, but if you give me this chance, I won’t mess up anymore. I promise.”

“Why should we give such a gift to you?”

He saw them, the spectral form of three women hovering at the end of the hallway. A young woman spun out yarn then handed it to an older woman to weave into a loom. A much older woman snipped threads with a pair of scissors. All three seemed to be speaking in unison. The Fates? The Muses? Hell, he didn’t know. They didn’t teach mythology at Quantico. Whoever they were, he didn’t want to insult them.

“I don’t know,” Kyle said at last. “I sure as hell probably don’t deserve it. But I’m here, and you’re here, and I want to make things right. Just let me go back to Marcy and explain. I don’t know what kind of life we could have together. I’m a ghost and all. But I could explain. And if she’s happy with that other man, I’ll let her be happy. But if she’s not, or she’s alone, then I want to be the one for her. I want to love her until death do us part, forever and ever, in this life and in the next. I want us to be the way we were.”

“You can’t go back to what you once were.” The eldest woman snipped off another thread, a short one, and knotted it into the tapestry.

“I know that. And things have happened. Sage, he’s…” Kyle gestured, at a loss for words to explain how Sage had found Teri, and love, even though he was a ghost. Kyle growled, frustrated with trying to wrap his mind around concepts he had no inkling of when he was alive. “Sage has Teri,” he said at last. “It can happen. I know it can.” The last he’d seen of his friend and former partner, Sage still lived as much as any ghost could. Kyle hoped Sage had killed Lu-Marc. He hoped his former partner made it out of there, away from all this.

“The boy loves.” The young woman handed a skein of thread to the middle woman.

“The boy speaks truly,” she said as she wove the thread into the tapestry.

“Please,” Kyle begged. He’d never begged for anything before in his life, except for maybe release at Marcy’s hands, or lips, or tongue. He groaned and fought to keep his mind on track. “Please, if you have the power to bring me back, then do so. For my sake.” He shook his head. “For Marcy’s sake.”