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

facing toward where I’d pointed, and drew that long spear from his back.
    “Stay here.”
    “No way. I’m coming with you.”
    “I don’t have time—” He cut off when one of the sets of eyes slunk closer from the left. Its head jumped from just inches off the ground to as tall as me. Another set of eyes drifted in from my right.
    “How do you kill them?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
    “With something sharp. Like my spear.” He adjusted his grip. He palmed a knife in his other hand.
    I’d seen the weapons before but never studied them. The blades were a rich black and seemed to pull in light. But they also gleamed with some deep internal light—a kind of elemental luminescence I’d never seen before.
    Magic. That’s what shimmered off those blades, much like Layla’s aura—I’d been drawn to the magic long before I knew what I was looking at.
    The tips were wicked sharp, formed using the ancient chipping method I’d seen in many of my texts and even some museum collections. I wondered if they were old—they looked it.
    “Any other options?” I asked.
    “Fire.”
    Something told me that wasn’t going to be my forte.
    The eyes to the left leaped up at least fifteen feet. Within a heartbeat, a shaggy form filled the space. Its deep, throaty growl turned to a guttural sigh as Zeke leapt upward, his spear slamming into the beast’s eye socket. I gagged. He pulled out his weapon and spun in a smooth movement.
    “Run,” he commanded, his voice harsh.
    I did. Straight toward him. He flipped his blade over and, in the same graceful motion, threw it. I heard the whish as the knife sailed past my ear, followed by a high-pitched yelp. Then the meaty thump of a body collapsing behind me. Dogs, they sounded like dogs.
    That place in my head—the one I’d thought of as the center of my headaches, lit up brighter than a floating farolito and just as hot. Another one of the dogs was inches from Zeke’s back. He couldn’t turn in time. Before I realized what was happening, the heat from my mind unfurled in a thick wall of water. My necklace flashed and the spirits there shot outward, spinning around the water, holding the dog within the whirlpool. The dog thrashed, its yelps slowing as it swallowed more water. Its eyes met mine through the liquid barrier, hate-filled. It bared its teeth as it stilled. I turned away, shuddering.
    The last dog scrambled back over the fence with Zeke in pursuit. He vaulted the five-foot fence as if it was nothing. I followed.
    I hit the wall at the four-foot mark and scrambled over the top, landing hard on my ankles. Zeke ran at a diagonal toward the dog, looking to cut him off in about fifty yards. I focused on the dog, trying to lash out with the water I’d used moments before.
    Nothing happened. I had no idea how I’d done that.
    Zeke yanked back his spear and tumbled into the creature. The two of them rolled, the dog’s grunts and yelps interspersed with Zeke’s curses.
    I stopped running, my hands hitting my knees as I struggled for breath. The dog fell still.
    Zeke stood, yanking his spear from the beast’s chest. He wiped the tip along its fur. I walked closer as Zeke stepped back.
    “You killed them?” I panted.
    Zeke shoved his spear tip into the ground, yanking it up and sliding it back down. Ah, a ritual cleaning. I’d read warriors took their weapons—and their kills—very seriously.
    “Not all of them. You got one. Good job, by the way.”
    “With the water? I thought you said only blades and fire killed them.”
    “You told those spirits in your necklace to drown it, didn’t you?” Zeke asked, a frown forming between his thick, dark brows.
    I swallowed hard. Of course not. But now didn’t seem like the time to mention that I didn’t know how to ask the ghosts in the necklace to do my bidding.
    Zeke moved forward enough for me to make out the array of scratches on the back of his hand, deep nicks that dribbled blood onto the