Page 4 of Take Her to the Grave

"You should have known better than to challenge me in my own territory," he says, his voice a deep velvet rumble that sends inexplicable shivers down my spine. There's an accent I can't place – something old-world and aristocratic, completely at odds with the gruesome task at hand. "I am nothing if not fair. I gave you every chance to leave."

He's talking to the body, I realize with growing horror. Having one-sided conversations with corpses – that's serial killer behavior, isn't it? I need to get out of here. Need to find my phone, call the police, do something besides stand here like a deer in headlights while this madman hides a body in plain sight.

But even as these thoughts race through my mind, the man reaches down and pulls back the fabric covering what I now know with certainty is a corpse. I expect to see something horrible – blood, violence, decay. Instead, I find myself staring at the most beautiful dead person I'veever seen.

The body is male, probably in his mid-twenties, with features that would look at home on a Renaissance sculpture. His skin is pale, unmarked except for two small puncture wounds on his throat. His expression is almost peaceful, as if he's merely sleeping. But there's something wrong with the way his chest doesn't move, something unnatural about the absolute stillness of his form.

"The young ones always think they're immortal," the man continues, and there's something like regret in his tone. "Always convinced they're the exception to rules written in blood centuries before their turning. Did you really think I wouldn't sense you hunting in my domain? That I wouldn't notice you stalking my chosen?"

Turning? Domain? What the fuck is he talking about? My mind struggles to process his words, to make them fit into any kind of rational framework. But there is no rational explanation for what I'm witnessing. Just as there's no rational explanation for why I'm still standing here, watching this scene unfold instead of running for my life.

The man straightens to his full height – well over six feet – and makes a gesture with his hand. The air seems to ripple, and suddenly the corpse bursts into flames. I clamp both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream as the body burns with a furious intensity, leaving no smoke or smell. Within seconds, there's nothing leftbut a fine gray ash that the man kicks into the open grave with an almost casual motion.

"Dust to dust," he says, and there's dark humor in his voice. "Though I doubt this is what the prayer had in mind."

I take an involuntary step backward, and my heel connects with a loose stone. The sound seems deafening in the unnatural silence, and the man's head snaps up with inhuman speed.

Our eyes meet across the clearing.

Oh dear God.

My legs tremble as I take him in. He's beautiful. Terrifyingly, impossibly beautiful, like an angel carved from marble and granted terrible life. His features are aristocratic – high cheekbones, strong jaw, aquiline nose – but it's his eyes that trap me, that pin me in place like a butterfly on a board. They're the color of arctic ice, ancient and predatory, and they're fixed on me with an intensity that makes my knees weak.

For an endless moment, neither of us moves. I'm not even sure that I'm breathing. Then his lips curve into a smile that shows too many teeth, and reality comes crashing back.

Irun.

Blind panic gives my feet wings as I flee back up the path, no longer caring about noise or direction or anything except getting away from those eyes and that terrible smile. Branches whip at my face as I crash through the fog, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Behind me, I hear nothing – no footsteps, no pursuit – but somehow that's even worse.

This isn't happening this isn't happening this isn't happening. The words repeat in my head like a broken record as I run, matching rhythm with my pounding heart. Part of my mind is already trying to rationalize what I've seen, to file it away as a hallucination or a trick of the light. But a deeper part knows the truth: I've witnessed something impossible, something that's going to change everything.

I risk a glance over my shoulder and immediately regret it. He's there, standing perfectly still about thirty feet behind me, watching my flight with what looks like amused interest. I never heard him move. Never sensed him following. He's justthere, like he materialized out of the fog itself.

My foot catches on an exposed root and I stumble, throwing my hands out to break my fall. Pain shoots through my palms as they scrape against gravel, but I barely register it as I scramble back to my feet. When I look back again, he's gone.

Relief floods through me for exactly two seconds before I slam into something solid.

Strong hands grip my shoulders, steadying me before I can fall. I look up –wayup – into those impossible eyes, and my mind goes blank with terror. He's so much larger up close, radiating a physical presence that makes me feel small and fragile. That elegant suit does nothing to hide the predatory power of his frame.

"Now, now," he says, that voice doing things to my insides that have no business happening in a moment of mortal terror. "What's your hurry, little ghost?"

I try to step back, but his hands might as well be iron bands for all I know. "Let me go," I manage to whisper, hating how weak my voice sounds.

His head tilts slightly as he studies me like a scientist examining an undiscovered specimen."I think not," he replies, and there's something almost gentle in his tone that terrifies me more than anger would have. "You've seen far too much to simply walk away."

"I won't tell anyone," I say quickly. "I swear. Whatever I saw – whatever IthoughtI saw – I'll forget all about it. Please."

That too-sharp smile returns. "You're lying," he says, and one hand releases my shoulder to brush a strand of hairfrom my face. His fingers are cool against my skin, sending electric shivers down my spine. "I can hear your pulse racing, smell the fear rolling off you in waves. But underneath that..." He leans closer, inhaling deeply, and my body betrays me with a shiver that has nothing to do with fear. "Underneath that, I smell fascination.Desire. The dark part of you that wants to know more about me."

He's not wrong,I realize with horror. Beneath the terror, beneath the rational part of my brain screaming at me to run, there's something else. Something that's drawn to the danger he represents, to the ancient power that radiates from him in palpable waves. The same part of me that writes about monsters and creatures of the night is now face to face with something straight out of my darkest fantasies.

"What are you?" The question slips out before I can stop it.

He laughs, a rich sound that seems to vibrate through my entire body. "I think you know exactly what I am, Elena Monroe."

My blood turns to ice as he purrs my full name. "How do you know my name?"

"I know many things about you," he says, and his hand slides from my face to curl around the back of my neck. The touch is possessive, claiming. "I've watched youwalking these grounds for years, mourning your dead with such beautiful grief. Did you think you were alone in your midnight wanderings? That no one noticed how the darkness calls to you?"

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