Page 25 of Nightmare Island

Ghost. What a dick move!

“When I get my hands on him,” I murmur, fists clenching at my sides. “I’m going to shove that mask so far up his?—”

A floorboard creaks behind me from deeper in the house.

I whirl around, fists raised, ready to give Ghost a piece of my mind. But the words die in my throat as I take in the scene before me.

This isn’t Ghost.

A figure stands in the shadows, its form shifting and twisting in ways that defy reality. It’s as if the darkness itself has come alive, taking on the vaguely humanoid shape of my dead husband.

Jarl.

I blink hard, certain my mind is playing tricks on me, but when I open my eyes, he’s still there. Jarl, or something wearing his face, stands before me. He’s translucent, edges blurring and shifting like smoke in the wind. His eyes, still cold and cruel like before.

He opens his mouth. No sound comes out, but I can almost hear the echoes of his voice in my head, the cutting words that used to tear me down day after day. His hand reaches out toward me, fingers elongating unnaturally, grasping at the air between us.

“Get away from me, you asshole,” I manage to choke out. “You treated me like crap enough when you were alive. No way you get to come haunt me now. Don’t you have some other poor Omega to torment in the afterlife?”

As he takes a step forward, I recoil, my heels hitting the wall behind me. A scream builds in my lungs. This can’t be real. It can’t be happening.

And then, nothing.

He’s gone just like that.

I feel lightheaded and dizzy, and I’m darting into another room, still confused as to whether I actually saw a fucking apparition of my husband or if I had imagined it.

“What are you doing out here, sweetheart?”

I flinch hard at Ghost’s deep, raspy voice coming from somewhere in the house… though he sounds like he’s in the new room with me. I frantically search the darkness.

“Going somewhere?” he continues, yet it’s as though his voice is coming from all around me. Must be weird acoustics and I assume he’s somewhere else in the house. “You don’t think I’m going to let you leave, do you?”

Biting my lip, unsure if he’s spotted me yet, I slide sideways into the shadows.

The floorboards creak somewhere to my left, directly where I moved to.

Pulse racing, I lift my gaze to where I thought the darkness would conceal me. Instead, I find myself staring directly into the deep eyes of Ghost’s skull mask.

Seeing him there, just hiding and watching me has my blood running cold. Stalker.

I go to move, to slip away, but his hand shoots out, fingers wrapping around my arm with an iron grip. Before I can react, he spins me, my back hitting the wall with a soft thud that knocks the air from my lungs.

Ghost looms over me, his body a solid wall of heat and muscle. One hand is planted on the wall beside my head, effectively caging me in. The other is suddenly on my throat, not tight, but enough to hold me in place.

The warmth of his breath feathers over my face.

“You know, most Alphas buy an Omega dinner before they pin her to a wall. Just saying.”

His laughter is loud and leaves me covered in goose bumps, the kind that excite me more than scare me. Which is so wrong.

And he’s so close, the skull mask filling my vision, one of his eyes seeming to glow faintly blue, the other hidden by shadows.

“You should know by now… on this island, there’s no escaping me.”

I swallow hard. “And if I don’t intend to stay on this island?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he continues, and there’s something different in his voice now. Darker. Excited. A predator who’s caught the scent of his prey. “This is my domain, sweetheart. Every shadow, every creaking board… they all answer to me.” He reaches down from his hand on the wall and curls a lock of my hair around his finger, his body pressed closer to mine, so close I feel his hard cock. “Unless you know a secret way of leaving Nightmare Island you want to share?”

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