He fell on his knees, his face raw with pain, sorrow, and need, tears sliding down his face. “Honey. Min prinsesse. Oh, Honey, I am lost.” He reached out and touched her, his fingers making her fur move. She shook and tried to get closer, though I don’t think she could see him. Her movement only pushed her body through him.

Even when people don’t know that there is a ghost present, they don’t tend to stay intermingled with them for very long. Honey was no exception, and she took three quick steps back until she stood next to Asil, who put his hand on her head.

“Peter,” I said.

Honey whined again and let out a little yip. Peter reached out, leaning until he touched her nose and looked at me. He started to say something, then jerkily grabbed his ears.

“I’m not going to him,” he told me, wild-eyed. And suddenly there was a wolf where Peter had been—and that wolf was a submissive wolf. Peter the man might have been able to resist longer, but his wolf obeyed orders. Ears and tail drooping, he looked at Honey and turned to leave.

“Peter,” I said harshly. I was getting better at stealing Adam’s thunder. When I spoke, I pulled on the pack ties that, somehow, still held the dead werewolf. Something bothered me about that, but I was too concerned about keeping Peter from responding to whatever was calling him.

The pack bonds were gossamer-thin, but as I pushed my will through them, they grew more dense. He stopped, quivering—obedient still to the commands that had bound him in life.

“Peter.” And this time I called him with the part of me that could see ghosts, the part that had sent the ghost at Tad’s house away, that had forced obedience on the ghosts that had once belonged to James Blackwood, the Master of Spokane, who was now dead by my hand. I reached out to him, and said, “Come here.”

Peter turned and sat next to my feet, his eyes on my face as though he were a herding dog and I his shepherd. Waiting for me to save him.

There were more ghosts here. They had been standing sentinel between the parking lot and the front of the house, and, although I’d noticed them, I hadn’t paid attention because they weren’t mine as Peter was. But when Peter had come to me, when I’d called him, they had all turned in my direction. Slowly, as if it were very difficult as well as imperative, they were coming toward us, too.

I bent down and took Peter’s head between my hands. I breathed into his nose because it seemed like the right thing to do. Long-ago words spoken to me by Charles rang in my head.