**Ebook prequel companion novella; does not need to be read to enjoy the full-length novels

Dedication

To Loki, who was by my side while I wrote Rage and Ruin, and to Apollo, who is with me now while I edit this book.

I miss you.

I love you.

1

I blinked open achy, swollen eyes and stared straight at the pale, translucent face of a ghost.

Gasping, I jerked upright. Strands of dark hair fell across my face. “Peanut!” I pressed the heel of one palm against my chest, where my poor heart pounded like a steel drum. “What in the Hell, dude?”

The ghost, who’d been sort of a roommate of mine for the past decade, grinned at me from where he floated midair, several inches above the bed. He was stretched out on his side, cheek resting on his palm. “Just making sure you’re still alive.”

“Oh my God.” Exhaling raggedly, I lowered my hand to the soft dove-gray comforter. “I’ve told you a million times to stop doing that.”

“I’m kind of surprised you still think I listen to you half the time.”

Peanut had a point.

He had an aversion to following my rules, which were only, like, two rules.

Knock before entering the room.

Don’t watch me while I sleep.

I thought they were quite reasonable rules.

Peanut looked like he had the night he died, way back in the ’80s. His Whitesnake concert T-shirt was legit, as were his dark jeans and red Chuck Taylors. On his seventeenth birthday, for some idiotic reason, he’d climbed one of those massive speaker towers and subsequently fallen to his death, proving natural selection was a thing.

Peanut hadn’t crossed over into that shiny bright white light, and a few years ago, I stopped trying to convince him when he said to me, quite clearly, it was not his time. It was far past his time, but whatever. I liked having him around...except when he did creepy crap like this.

Pushing the hair out of my face, I looked around my bedroom—no, not my bedroom. This wasn’t even my bed. All of this belonged to Zayne. My gaze flicked from the heavy sunlight-blocking curtains to the bedroom door—the closed bedroom door that I’d left unlocked the night before, just in case...

I shook my head.

“What time is it?” I leaned back against the headboard, keeping the blanket close to my chin. Since Wardens’ body temps ran higher than humans’ and it was July, so it was most likely hot and sticky as a circle of Hell outside, Zayne’s apartment was like an icebox.

“It’s almost three in the afternoon,” Peanut answered. “And that’s why I thought you were dead.”

Damn, I thought, scrubbing my hand across my face. “We got back pretty late last night.”