1
When I heard the front door of the penthouse open, I smiled but didn’t stop stirring or turn away from the stove. Dressed in an oversized black T-shirt and shorts, I patiently waited as my gray world filled with vibrant color. The muted sound of the TV hanging on the living room wall grew louder, sharper. Another breath tasted sweet with the aroma of meat and vegetables as I tirelessly spun the spoon around in the deep pan. My skin prickled with awareness, sending goosebumps across my flesh—and yet, despite it all, I waited.
“My Lila,” a deep, slightly raspy baritone nearly purred my name. Though my smile grew, I turned my eyes only when a pair of big, strong hands wrapped around my waist from behind. Dark eyes, brimming with affection, ran over my face as I leaned back into the tall frame behind me.
“Did you miss me, my lily?”
“Always, Bis,” I grinned, obediently offering my mouth for a brief kiss that tasted of reunion. “Dinner’s almost ready,” I added when we parted, trying to return my attention to stirring. When I leaned my head back against Bis’s shoulder, I could see his fingers trailing over the inked lines covering my collarbone in the reflection of a nearby shelf.
Though it wasn’t obvious at first glance to someone who didn’t know, those lines were more than a tattoo. The Ankh—the Egyptian symbol of life—with its teardrop loop spanning my neck and arms, lying across my collarbones and chest, was my greatest treasure.
The mark of the pact saved me. Its lines warmed under his fingers, briefly flashing bright red in the reflection before dimming back to black. Bis leaned in, brushing his lips against my cheek while I hummed a quiet “thanks” and smiled.
“Do I have enough time for a shower?” Bis asked with a chuckle, leaning over my back to sniff the contents of the pan.
“Sure, babe,” I replied, cocking my hips back into him before rising on bare toes to plant a loud peck on the edge of his jaw. “But hurry, okay?” I added sternly, giggling when he swatted my butt and walked around the kitchen island.
I watched the uncommon grace of his movements as Bis carelessly discarded his jacket, tossing it onto the edge of the sofa on his way to the bedroom. Very tall—easily 6′7"—he always moved with the grace of a dancer, which was a pleasure to watch in itself. Feeling my gaze, he turned his black eyes toward me with a smirk that said he knew exactly what effect he had on my racing heartbeat.
“You tease,” I accused with laughter when Bis winked at me. I raised the wooden spoon and pointed it meaningfully toward the bedroom door. “Shower, babe, or dinner will be cold.”
“Yes, my lily,” he saluted playfully. My gaze automatically drifted toward the pale skin peeking through his half-open shirt. I was granted another cocky smirk before Bis turned and finally headed for the shower, chased by my eyes until the door closed behind him.
I chuckled as I turned off the heat under the pan and reached for the plates. It wasn’t as if either Bis or I needed to eat, but I liked adding a sprinkle of normalcy to our not-so-normal lives.
Normalcy.
It was a strange word for someone like me.
After all, I was murdered on my twenty-first birthday. That was quite a while ago. You see, it was such a shock that it took me an embarrassingly long time to understand I was dead. Which, as I later learned, is normal for ghosts. Many get stuck for years, wandering and wondering why nobody can see or hear them. Why they can’t touch or feel anything. I wasn’t much different at first.
When I finally figured it out, I also quickly understood who—and why—killed me. Then I spent over twenty years helplessly watching the bastard profit from my death.
...until I met Bis.
My dad, William Harris, met my mother, Aya Sarkis, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Though he traveled to Egypt to research an idea for a game his company wanted to make, he often said later that it felt like fate when he fell for Aya instantly. My mom, an expert in Ancient Egyptian mythology, told me—privately—that she only agreed to his offer of a date because he wouldn’t stop pestering her. Then he won her over with his enthusiasm. She never clarified whether it was his enthusiasm for her or for history that eventually softened her heart.
When Dad’s company, which he started with his college roommate, took off, he used its first million to build a house where my parents settled after learning Mom was pregnant. Dad’s best friend, Gilles Mitchell, built his house right next to ours soon after. A year later, he and his then-girlfriend attended my parents’ wedding with their newborn son, Adam.
Though only a few months younger than me, Adam has been a constant fixture in my life for as long as I can remember. Our dads weren’t subtle in their matchmaking efforts, much to my mom’s chagrin.
When we were teenagers, I didn’t mind any of it. Adam grew up to be as handsome as his dad—and I admit, it clouded my judgment. He was our town’s tall, blond, blue-eyed darling, and everyone—us included—knew he was mine. Or, to be precise, I was his. And as a slightly awkward, insecure teen, that was heady stuff.
He was my first kiss, my first lover... and soon after my twentieth birthday, my fiancé.
Needless to say, my mother wasn’t pleased with that turn of events. I chalked it up to her incredibly open dislike for Adam’s mother, Trish. But, admittedly, few people ever liked Mrs. Mitchell. She was an arrogant, snobbish woman, and the more the company our dads started prospered, the worse she became.
At first, I was blind to it all—blindsided by the attention and affection Adam showered me with. Eventually, even I couldn’t ignore the fact that as soon as he slipped the engagement ring on my finger, my Prince Charming changed. Or—as my mom crudely put it one day—once he was assured of his “ownership,” Adam showed his true colors. He became controlling, constantly telling me how I should act, dress, and who I could talk to or be friends with. And the tighter his leash grew, the more my mother’s warnings rang true.
Finally, at the party my parents threw for my twenty-first birthday, I wised up. Politely—but confidently—I returned Adam’s ring, saying I wasn’t as ready for marriage as I’d thought when I accepted it. He wasn’t happy, obviously, but he seemed to take the breakup with grace. He swore—before our disappointed fathers—that given time, he’d win me over again.
For what felt like a long while, that was my last memory of being alive.
My next memory was watching my funeral—and Adam’s crocodile tears—finally breaking through the stupor my death had cast over me. Only then did I remember the strange taste of the drink he’d offered me to celebrate my “freedom.” And while I was stuck there, helplessly watching my parents try to comfort my killer... I think you can imagine how angry that made me, right?
To this day, I don’t know who was paid—or how much—to declare my death the result of a genetic defect. “Aneurysm,” read my death certificate, leading my grief-stricken parents straight into a trap. I was their only child, and while both Adam and I had been raised to eventually inherit our fathers’ company, over time, they agreed there was no one better than my killer to run it.
Mute and transparent, I was forced to watch him get away with what he did—for profit. My best friend, Annalise, didn’t hear my warnings when she accepted Adam’s proposal. My complete opposite, she was gentle and shy—a tiny blonde who was much easier to control. And control her he did, turning her life into a nightmare until, feeling like she had no other way out, she took her own life.
I had to watch him ruin everything around him for over twenty years. He destroyed the company he killed me for. But what broke the camel’s back was when, threatened by bankruptcy, I saw him purchase massive life insurance policies in my parents’ names. I didn’t need to know the details to feel the rage inside me reach a crescendo... and turn my whole empty world upside down when, in a fit, I discovered I wasn’t as helpless as I thought.
That rage became the force behind the shove that sent the bastard tumbling out the window of his apartment. And as satisfying as it was to watch Adam’s neck snap, that moment of wrath didn’t go unnoticed...
Though I didn’t know it then, there are rules for the dead in the Otherworld. Ghosts like me are left alone—as long as we behave. And most do, unaware of any other possibility. We’re left to sort out our misgivings and move on to whatever afterlife we believed in while alive.
The thing is, my ignorance of those rules didn’t make me exempt from them. A “misbehaving” ghost—one who threatens to expose the Otherworld—is considered a poltergeist and dealt with swiftly and, under normal circumstances, mercilessly.
That fit of rage—though I still believe it saved my parents and let them live out their lives in peace—brought Bis into my un-life.
...Not that I was happy about it at first. Shocked, yes—that’s for sure. After over twenty years of emptiness and complete isolation, having this unknown man with black eyes and dark hair grab me out of nowhere was... something. And maybe that heady mix of shock and fury made me do what my fiercely independent mother taught me to do in situations like that.
To this day, I’m not sure who was more surprised when—without thinking, purely on instinct—I kneed Bis where it hurt the most.
Yes, I—Lila Anput Harris, a ghost of a human, no less—kneed the actual Anubis, God of the Dead, between the legs until his black eyes teared up.
And to this day, I’m still proud of it.
Even if he refuses to admit it, maybe that’s why he decided I was interesting enough to keep around.
...Eventually.
