The Spirit Seducer (The Echo Series Book 1) by Alexa Padgett Page B

hadn’t escalated into a full-blown migraine. Now that I knew my mother caused them, part of me wished for another one. Just to know she was okay.
    I leaned back against the wall and shut my eyes. I wasn’t that lucky. Of course I wasn’t.
    “One more thing. Coyote is helping spirits through the gate and into our word. These beings weren’t nice when they lived the first time. Mostly, they were greedy, nasty excuses of humanity. They’ve had years to stew in their misery and baser instincts. Now that Coyote knows you’re a spirit seducer, he’ll want your help to control the spirits. That’s why I said you have to stop calling me,” he said.
    I opened my eyes. “I don’t understand.”
    Zeke ran his fingers through his hair, and the short strands stood up in various cowlicks. Light glinted off the auburn strands intermixed with the soft brown in his hair. I wanted to smooth it all down. I crossed my arms, curling my hands into fists.
    “Every time you think with that part of your brain, the part that calls up your power, you’re pinpointing your location. Like a mental GPS. You’re the one Coyote and the demons want, and they will come and get you. Part of that’s because you weren’t trained in how to send a signal. Each time you send out an SOS, intentional or not, gods, kachina like the one who took your mom, other demons can hear you.”
    “Every time?”
    He nodded. “They have to be waiting, paying attention. But Coyote is, now that he knows about you. He’s dangerous and you need to be very, very careful around him. Any of them. Then there are those things in the yard just now.”
    I blinked up at him, trying to wrap my mind around the fact such creatures existed, let alone wanted to tear me apart. My knees shook and my throat went dry. I’d killed one of those beasts tonight. I’d never killed a bug before, preferring to capture them and let them loose outside. But this—nothing could have prepared me for the extreme makeover my life had taken today.
    I didn’t like it. And I sure didn’t like Zeke’s tone and implication.
    “How could I have summoned you if I don’t know how?”
    “With the part of your brain that links us together.” Irritation overlaid with an exaggerated patience laced his voice.
    I wasn’t expecting that one. “We’re linked? How? What does that mean?” Oh, no, did that mean he could hear what I was thinking? Or worse, what I was thinking two minutes ago, when I wanted to touch him?
    “Your mother and I set it up the first time I met you.”
    “I don’t remember that.”
    “You wouldn’t. She didn’t want you to know me.”
    His voice was tight again. Clearly an unhealed slight. Why would my mother want Zeke to protect me only? She had to have known I’d be fascinated by him. To want to know him better.
    Was that why she made him stay away? I tugged at my lower lip, trying to make sense of the myriad thoughts flitting through. I couldn’t really catch one and I didn’t have any answers anyway.
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” I whispered. The sconces danced in some unseen breeze. I shivered as the shadows played across his face, making Zeke look even more dangerous.
    His eyes traversed my face, pausing on my lips, then dropped to my throat. He yanked his gaze from my skin, and I tried not to notice how his glance had darkened, his brows lowered. I gripped my hands together, his emotions slamming into me as they boiled up in him, fighting for dominance.
    “You’re trying to make our relationship fit the ones with your family or even with Layla. This isn’t that world, Echo. The same rules don’t apply.”
    His living room seemed to close in as shadows built outside, pressing against the glass.
    I fought his emotions as they washed over me, appalled at the intrusion into his privacy. I didn’t know how to turn this off. I was suffocating in his roiling sea of guilt, and desire, but mainly frustration.
    He scooted closer, as if to touch me. I