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He touched one of the bars then yanked his hand back when the hot burn scalded him.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he yelled, shaking out his hand and  glaring at the bars.

Well, if Opal didn’t sense him coming, she knew he was on his  way now thanks to his big mouth.

“Opal, you get out here now!”

He didn’t know what the bars were, but it almost felt like touching

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pure silver, but they couldn’t be silver. Just looking at them was  enough to confirm that, and if there were any traces of silver, it  definitely wasn’t enough to burn him as much as it did.

He looked down at the long red welts on his palm and fingers.  Never once had he been injured like this since dying. Fuck that hurt.

“Opal!” he screamed. “If you hurt him, I swear I’ll tear your head  off and eat it!”

There was still no response, not directed at him at any rate. When he stopped yelling and started listening, he could make out the sound of her murmurs. It was low and melodic. She was doing something in there to Ivan. He just knew it. Christ, why had any of them ever trusted her?

He had to get passed these bars. He laid his fingers against the bars and yanked them back when the sizzling burn scorched him again.

“Fuck!” he screamed, slamming his hand on the door frame.

Wrong hand! He’d just hit the hand that he’d just burned more than ninety percent of!

Eric sucked in a breath and released a neck-clenching yell, fighting with everything inside of him to keep from tightening his fist in pain. Something like that would definitely only make things worse.

It was almost as if he’d forgotten what pain felt like. Now he had to suck it up big time.

If he was able to touch these bars, then that also meant he should

be able to break them down without concentrating on it too much.

He banged on the bars with the heel of his palms then slammed  into them with his shoulder, feeling every inch of burned skin and  clenching his jaw and teeth as he tried to kick and smash his way  through. They weren’t nailed in, but they were stuck pretty tight.

Blood was actually dripped down his arms as the burn seared  through his flesh. He didn’t know it was possible that he could bleed,  but he didn’t stop.

He was going to destroy her for this!

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Finally one of the bars popped loose, landing with a clang on the kitchen floor. It was the middle bar that had been stuck in the center

of the two crossed ones. He ducked carefully under them and was  finally inside. He left behind bloody footprints as he walked from  where he’d kicked the burning bars and they’d taken off some of his  skin.

Christ Almighty.

Eric hobbled his way toward Ivan’s bedroom. The whole house seeming to vibrate as he stomped along, and Opal’s chanting voice getting to be louder and louder.

He turned the corner and looked into the room just as Opal stood up, lit a match, and threw it onto the bed where Ivan lay unconscious.

“No!” Eric screamed as the bed ignited up in bright flames.

Opal ran out the door as Eric ran for his lover. She was clutching something in her hands, but he couldn’t be bothered with that right

now.

“Ivan!” He reached for his lover and tried to grab him, but for the  first time, his hands went straight through his body. He tried again  and it still didn’t work. He couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t drag him to  safety!

“Ivan!”

Eric did the only thing he could think of. He concentrated, and allowed himself to sink into Ivan’s body, putting his spirit in the pilot’s seat so he could get them out of the burning bed.

That bitch had stuck newspaper clippings or something onto it to make it light up so fast. She was as good as dead when he got them out of here.

For the first time since he’d done it on accident, Eric took

possession of Ivan’s body with so little difficulty he could have done  it in his sleep.

He didn’t feel the flames like he’d felt the burning in the bars, but  the second he became one with Ivan’s body, the hot air surrounded  him with pain. He flew up from the bed and landed on the floor,

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choking against the smoky air and gasping for breath. He clutched at  his chest much the same way Eli had done when Eric had stuck his  hand in the other man’s chest.

He was out of the fire, but it was still hot in here, and last he

checked, there was no fire extinguisher in this cottage.

Shaking and getting to his feet, Eric took hold of the burning  duvet and tore it from the bed. He threw it down on the floor, snuffing  out the fire with the blanket itself, stamping his feet on the smaller  flames until all that was left was the smoke in the air.

Coughing and wheezing, Eric waved the smoke away from his face and exited the now-ruined bedroom. The door at the far end of

the hall leading outside was still open. He had to be careful not to step  into any direct sunlight while he was in this body.

“Ivan? You there?” he asked, hoping to hear Ivan’s voice inside of  his head. He coughed and gagged some more. He also tasted blood  inside his mouth, but neither his tongue nor cheek hurt, suggesting  he’d bitten himself. “Ivan?”

No reply. Well, maybe he was still unconscious, maybe he was…

Eric’s entire body went cold as a chilling thought occurred to him.  No, Ivan wasn’t unconscious inside of his own body. He wasn’t there at all.

When Eric took possession of the body, not only had it been easy, but when he sat in the pilot’s seat, he never got the feeling that he was pushing someone else out of it in order to take control.

Ivan’s soul wasn’t in this body. It wasn’t in the house period.

Eric completely lost his shit when that happened, and he screamed. “Help! Someone help me!”

There was already a commotion outside of his door as apparently several of the omegas and some of the alphas had watched Opal drive away in what was no doubt a speed worthy of a car chase on
 
Cops
.

Tristan’s face was the first he saw, stepping carefully under the bars that still crossed over the doorway. They didn’t burn his skin as he touched them.

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“Hey, what’s going on?” Tristan asked.

Eric always liked Tristan. He was a good omega, and he was  mated with Isaac. They could help him. He ran to Tristan and grabbed  him by the shoulders.

“You need to help me—”

“What happened to your eyes—”

“Listen! I’m not Ivan. I’m Eric. Opal just ran off with Ivan’s soul,  and I took possession of this body before she could destroy it. Do you  understand me?”

Tristan shook his head, fear etched firmly on his face.

“That’s fine. Can you just go and get Eli and bring him here for me then? Like right now. Go right now.”

Eric was already pushing Tristan back toward the door. “Now. Go get them for me now.”

“Hey! Careful, you’re going to get into the sun!”

Eric would’ve liked to say that he didn’t care about that right now, but he was in Ivan’s body, not his own. He had to protect that just as much as he had to protect the soul.

The strange thing was how he didn’t so much as feel it getting hotter the closer he got to the sunlight streaming into the cottage.

“Just go, please.”

Tristan nodded. “All right.”

The omega clearly thought Eric was out of his mind, but he was going anyway. That was exactly the reason why he liked the other

man.

Other omegas came by to see what the fuss was about. Corey must have been nearby because he was the first person to step through the door, giving the twin bars crossed in the way an odd look as he ducked beneath them.

He looked at Eric. “What’s going—” He stopped himself. “What happened to your eyes?”

Eric shrugged helplessly. He didn’t have time to explain the thing with his eyes. Thankfully, Eli, Chris, Morgan, Isaac, and James were

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the next to come through the door. James shooed away the other  omegas to keep them from spying, pried the bars out from the middle  of the door, and then shut it to give them some privacy.

Nick, Andrew, Markus, and Adam must be out in the field then.

Eli was looking at Eric with the most hope in his eyes Eric had ever seen in his life. James’s expression was similar to his mate’s.  “What happened to your eyes?”

“This happens when I take over Ivan’s body.”

“You’ve done this before?”

Eric nodded, feeling strange to have to admit to it. “A couple of

times.”

Just then Eric suddenly remembered Ivan’s brother. No one thought to go and wake him, it seemed.

“Eric?” Eli said. Chris held his mate’s hand tightly, or Eli held his tightly just to have something to ground him.

Eric was pained to do this to him, but he had to. “I missed you, too, bro, but that medium, Opal, she did something to Ivan, removed his soul from his body I think because I can’t feel him here at all.”

“Ivan’s gone?” Corey asked, stunned.

James’s scarred face twisted in thought. “Assuming what you’re saying is the truth, where would they go?”

Eric tried to keep his frustration in check. “I don’t know, but I need you to track her. She has him, I know she does, please, James.”

“I’ll follow her,” Eli said, looking at Eric with such trust that his heart actually swelled. “I’ll track her down if that’s what you want.”

“Thank you,” Eric said.

“You will have to go with him,” said another, older voice that had not previously been in the room.

The group of men parted, revealing Old Maggie. She kept her screwed eyes on Eric as she stepped forth.

She was shorter than all the men by far but held a sort of power over than that only a pack wise woman was entitled do.

It was no wonder. She was the ancestor of most of the alphas in

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this pack.

Ivan wasn’t exactly tall, but his body towered over Old Maggie’s.  Eric was surprised to see her. She hadn’t exactly been welcoming of  the vampires since they came here, not to mention the fact that Opal’s  very presence seemed to insult her beyond belief.

Maybe she just had a natural suspicion of strangers. Rightfully so,  considering the mess they were currently in.

She crooked her finger at him, beckoning him to bend down.  “Come here.”

Eric did not have the time for this, but if he could just get the blessing of the pack’s wise woman, he could have the whole pack tracking that bitch before she got too far with Ivan’s spirit.

She squinted as she looked into Eric’s eyes, and then she nodded.

“This is the body of the vampire, but you are not that vampire I met when they both came here. You claim to be Eric Martin?”

“Yes,” Eric said immediately.

He heard Eli release a sobbing sound after that.

“Why do you haunt this pack? Why have you not moved on?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

This was strange. Eric was becoming more and more relaxed as  Old Maggie spoke to him. That shouldn’t be happening. He needed to find Ivan. He needed to save him. What was Old Maggie doing to him?

“I am told that you have been haunting this young vampire as  well. Why have you been doing that? Because you can connect with  the living through him.”

“No,” Eric said. “He’s my mate.”

Old Maggie jerked back in surprise at the answer. Guess she  hadn’t been expecting that. Neither had Eric.

Jesus. He felt like he’d been drugged when he said it, but he  meant it. Somehow, even in death, Eric had found and attached

himself to his mate.

Finally, Old Maggie seemed to come out of the trance that Eric’s

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words had put her in, and she nodded. “Then it is even more  imperative that you travel with them.”

Eric shook the fog he felt out of his brain. “I’m in a vampire’s  body. I can’t go outside.”

“You do not have a vampire’s eyes,” Maggie said, pointing a long  gnarled finger to the side of Eric’s head, right beside his left eye that  he knew was his own color rather than red.

“A spirit cannot be outside of the body for very long. You keep  the body alive by being in it, breathing for it, and keeping the heart  going, but now you must return the vessel to the proper host. You  must not wait for the wolves to track down the false medium and then

return here. You must go with them.”