Page 2 of Take Her to the Grave

Then she's gone, leaving me alone with the night and the certainty that everything has changed in a matter of minutes.

I approach the Monroe plot, studying the graves of her parents. "You created something extraordinary," I tell their spirits. "A daughter touched by shadow, born with ancient night in her veins. Rest well, knowing she'll never truly be alone again."

The wind carries the scent of her grief, her power, her untapped potential. Three centuries I've waited, watching countless humans live and die, searching for one who could match me. One who could understand the beauty in darkness.

And now I've found her. My Shadow-Kissed queen-to-be, still wrapped in mortal grief but already reaching for her true nature. Already writing stories that are really memories, already calling to powers she doesn't yet understand.

I pick up the rose she dropped, inhaling its scent mixed with lingering traces of her presence. One year she's been coming here, mourning her dead while unconsciously drawing closer to her destiny.

Someday she'll be ready to see me, to know me, to understand what she's truly meant to become. She'll trade grief for power, mortality for eternal night, human limitations for supernatural grace.

She'll be mine in every way that matters.

For now, though, I will watch. Guard. Ensure no lesser creatures interfere with what's mine. Let her write her dark stories, not knowing they're really prophecies. Let her feel the shadow in her veins stirring, not knowing it's answering my call.

The time will come when she's ready. When grief has hardened into strength, when loneliness has prepared her for a different kind of connection, when the darkness in her blood can no longer be denied.

Until then, I will hunt her carefully, perfectly, drawing her deeper into shadow one subtle step at a time. I'll read every word she writes, watching her unconscious power grow stronger with each dark tale. I'll guard her sleep, her steps, her slowly awakening nature.

I can wait a little longer for her to be ready to embrace her true destiny.

As my queen. My equal. My Shadow-Kissed love.

My forever.

Chapter One

MOONLIT GRIEF

The iron gatesof Ravencrest Cemetery groan in protest as I push them open, a sound as familiar to me now as my own heartbeat. Five years of visiting my parents' graves and these gates still cry out each time I enter, almost as if they’re warning me to stay away. Perhaps I should have heeded their metallic cry long ago. But then, the gates have been here since 1847 – they've seen enough tragedy to last a hundred lifetimes.

Autumn fog rolls in across the grounds, thin tendrils wrapping around weathered headstones like ghostly fingers seeking something to sink their nails into. I pull my black wool coat tighter, although in the back of my mind I know the chill I’m feeling comes from more than just the October air. Five years to the day and the pain still feels as fresh as it did back then. They say time heals allwounds, but it’s nothing more than a lie we tell ourselves to make it through the darkest moments.

It’s bullshit.

The late evening sun casts long shadows through Ravencrest's twisted oaks, their ancient branches reaching toward the sky like gnarled fingers. These trees have stood sentinel over the dead for over a century, their roots drinking deep from soil made rich by generations of decay. I've always found a strange comfort in their presence – they're the closest thing to immortality I've ever known.

My boots crunch softly on the gravel path as I navigate the twisting route to their graves. I could walk it blindfolded by now – third path on the left, past the angel with the broken wing, right at the Victorian mausoleum with my favorite quote from Milton carved above its door: "Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light." The setting sun stretches shadows across the grounds, transforming familiar monuments into looming specters. In the dying light, the stone angels' faces seem to shift from peaceful repose to expressions of eternal sorrow.

A cool breeze stirs the fallen leaves at my feet, sending them dancing across worn granite markers and overgrown plots. Ravencrest is one of those old, sprawling cemeteries that's more garden than graveyard, where nature has beenallowed to reclaim much of the ground between the stones. Ivy crawls up ornate crosses, and wild roses bloom between the graves, their late-season blossoms adding splashes of crimson to the monochrome landscape.

You don't have to do this every year, Elena,I tell myself, the same internal argument I have every anniversary.They're not here. Not really. These stones, this plot of earth – it's all just symbolism, a focal point for grief.

But I know I'm lying to myself. There's something about this place, something that draws me back year after year. Maybe it's because the cemetery is the only place where I don't have to pretend. Out in the world, I'm Elena Monroe, a moderately successful author of dark romantic fantasy, putting on a brave face and moving forward with my life. Here, among the dead, I can be the broken little girl who lost everything in a single terrible moment.

The memories wash over me as I walk, as vivid now as they were five years ago. Mom and Dad were driving home from their anniversary dinner – twenty-five years married, and still as in love as they were when they were teenagers. I'd pushed off joining them, claiming a looming book deadline, but really just wanting to give them their special night alone. The guilt of that decision still gnaws at me, and part of me wonders if it always will. If I'd been there, would things have been different? Would I have noticed the truck driver nodding off at the wheel before hecrossed the centerline? Would my presence have changed the timing by even a few seconds?

The police said death was instantaneous, as if that should be some comfort. The impact was so severe that they had to identify my parents through dental records. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I can never quite picture their faces anymore – my last memory of them has been replaced by the mangled wreckage I saw on the news before I knew it was them. Before my phone rang with a call that would shatter my world into pieces that I'm still trying to gather.

The Monroe family plot lies in one of the oldest sections, marked by an elaborate wrought iron gate even more ornate than the cemetery's main entrance. Great-great-grandfather William Monroe, the wealthy shipping merchant, had purchased it back when Ravencrest was first created. The family plot is like a small garden in and of itself, surrounded by a circular hedge of carefully maintained yew. Even now, the groundskeeper tends to it regularly – one of the few benefits of old money is perpetual care.

The gate creaks open at my touch, and I wonder absently if I should bring oil next time to silence its mournful protest. Twin headstones of polished granite rise before me, connected by an arch carved with intertwining roses. The inscription catches the last rays of sunlight:Thomas & Maria Monroe - Together in Life, United in Death.

I chose the design myself, during that blur of days after the accident when I had to somehow be a functional adult and make a thousand impossible decisions. The roses were for Mom – she'd kept a garden that was the envy of the neighborhood. The arch connecting the stones was for Dad, who always said that where one went, the other would follow. "The great love story," he'd call it, usually while dancing Mom around the kitchen to old vinyl records. They proved it in death as they had in life, taken together by the same terrible accident that left their only daughter alone in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if they knew, in those final moments, that they were keeping their promise to each other. Did they have time to reach for one another's hands? Did they feel any pain, or was it truly as instantaneous as the police claimed? These are the thoughts that haunt me, that wake me in the middle of the night while tears stream down my face.

My fingers trace the letters of their names, feeling the sharp edges of the carved granite. Mom would hate how somber I've become, how I've let grief wrap around me like a familiar shawl. She was always telling me to "find the light, Elena, even in the darkest places." And Dad, with his booming laugh and terrible dad jokes, would probably make some pun about me being too "grave."

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