Love Your Entity by Cat Devon Read Free Book Online

hiding something. Shit. He didn’t need more mysteries.
    *   *   *
    Sierra’s dream started out innocently enough. She was in a large room filled with people all dressed in vintage clothing. Everyone seemed happy.
    Then she was in a house with no lights. It was pitch-dark. Suddenly little beady red eyes appeared all around and above her. One of them came closer until she could see it was the burning tip of a cigar held in a stocky man’s hand. He smiled at her before striking her face and trying to burn her eyes out with his cigar.
    She screamed and sat bolt upright in bed.

Chapter Five
    Sierra wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the darkened room. Fear ripped through her. Was it the ghost with the cigar?
    No, it was Ronan.
    He reached for her hand. “I’ve got you.”
    She wrapped her fingers around his and instantly felt safe. “I thought I locked the door.”
    “You must have forgotten to do that because it wasn’t locked.”
    “I could have sworn … I guess I was so tired that I meant to do it but didn’t.”
    “That must be it,” Ronan said. “I heard you scream. Bad dream?”
    “That’s putting it mildly. It was a nightmare about that guy in the photograph upstairs.”
    “The one with the cigar?”
    “Yeah. Is he a relative of yours?”
    “What?”
    “You did say that your family had a prior claim to my family’s,” she reminded him
    “No, he’s not a relative,” Ronan said.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you know who he is?”
    “No. Do you?” he countered.
    She didn’t know how to answer that. She hadn’t had time to do any research on Hal. Ruby hadn’t even told her his surname. Sierra would have to ask her tomorrow. Glancing at her watch, she corrected herself. Today. It was three-thirty in the morning and she was still holding on to Ronan’s hand. She needed to let go and she would in a second.
    There. She missed his touch immediately but she refused to give in to the temptation to grab his hand.
    Instead she asked, “What do you know about the history of this house?”
    “It was built in 1900,” he said.
    “And?” she prompted when he fell silent.
    “And what?”
    “And what else do you know? About the house, I mean.”
    “Do you really want to talk about this in the middle of the night?” Ronan said.
    She reached out to turn on the bedside lamp. “You’re right. Sorry. Did I wake you when I screamed?”
    “No. I was awake.”
    “So you’re a night owl, huh?”
    “Something like that. I don’t need much sleep,” he said.
    There were nights when Sierra didn’t get much sleep because she sensed the spirits around her. That had been especially true during her teenage years. She’d done some research around that time and discovered that teenage girls are often the most frequent recipients of earthbound spirit visitations.
    Yet Sierra’s interactions with ghosts had started much earlier than that. She’d never found the answers she was looking for like “Why me?” Instead she learned to accept her talent but to keep her mouth shut about it. In middle school she’d once made the mistake of talking about seeing the ghost of a girl in their class who had died in a car crash.
    She’d gotten written up and sent to the principal’s office. Her mom had had to take time off from her waitressing job to come to the school. Sierra never talked with outsiders about seeing ghosts again. But she still saw them. Sometimes they were clear like Bonita or Ruby while other times they were filmy projections of mere orbs of light.
    But none had been murdered like Ruby and none had had their murderer also haunting the same place.
    “I’m okay now,” Sierra said as much for her own benefit as Ronan’s.
    She read for an hour before dozing off again. This time her dreams featured a naked Ronan holding her close and telling her, “I’ve got you.”
    *   *   *
    Sierra didn’t see any ghosts as she made her morning coffee. She loved her Keurig. Sipping