Page 8 of Take Her to the Grave

No answer comes, but the air grows heavier, charged with that now-familiar electricity that means I'm not alone. He's here, moving unseen through the shadows, watching me with those arctic eyes.Playinghis game.

Fine. I can play too.

I choose a path at random, making sure my steps are unhurried,deliberate. Let him see that I'm not running tonight. Not from him, not from this, not from myself. My boots click softly on the stone path, a rhythm like a heartbeat in the growing dark.

"You know," I say conversationally to the apparently empty cemetery, "I've been doing some thinking. About predators and prey, about hunting and being hunted. Would you like to know what I've concluded?"

The silence stretches, but I can feel him listening. The fog curls around my legs like a living thing, urging me forward.

"The thing about prey animals," I continue, trailing my fingers along a cold marble angel as I pass, "is that they're not always as helpless as they seem. Sometimes they want to be caught. Sometimes the chase itself is a kind of dance."

A low chuckle echoes from somewhere behind me. "Dangerous thoughts, little ghost."

I don't turn around, though every nerve in my body screams at me to do so. "I write dangerous thoughts for a living. The difference is, now I'm living them."

"Are you?" His voice comes from a different direction now – somewhere to my left. "Or are you still hiding behind your fiction, pretending this is just research for another novel?"

The accusation stings because it contains a grain of truth. Part of meisstill hiding, still trying to rationalize this impossible situation into something I can understand. Something I cancontrol.

"Maybe," I admit, proud that my voice remains steady. "But I'm here, aren't I? Inyourdomain, after dark, knowing exactly what you are. What does that tell you?"

"It tells me," he says, suddenly right behind me, "that you're either very brave or very foolish."

I force myself not to jump at his proximity, though my heart is racing. "Or maybe I'm just curious."

"Curiosity can be fatal, Elena." His cool breath stirs the hair at my nape. "Especially when it draws the attention of monsters."

Finally, I turn to face him. He's so beautiful it hurts – all patrician features and predatory grace, that expensive suit making him look like darkness given form. But it's his eyes that capture me, as always. Ancient and knowing and hungry.

"You're not going to kill me," I say with a certainty that surprises us both.

His smile shows the edge of fangs. "No? What makes you so sure?"

"Because you're curious too." I take a step closer, close enough to feel the supernatural chill that radiates from his body. "I fascinate you as much as you fascinate me. You want to understand why I'm not running. Why I keep coming back."

"Perhaps I simply enjoy playing with my food."

"Perhaps." I reach up and touch his face, tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. His skin is cool and smooth as marble against my shaking fingertips. "But we both know that's not all this is."

He goes very still under my touch, watching me with those impossible eyes. For a moment, I glimpse something ancient and wild beneath his civilized veneer – something that both terrifies andthrills me.

Then he moves, faster than thought, spinning me around and pulling me back against his chest. One hand grips my throat – not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to remind me of his strength. The other arm bands around my waist, holding me immobile.

"Dangerous game you're playing, little ghost," he growls in my ear. "Do you have any idea what you're inviting?"

I should be terrified. Should be fighting to escape. Instead, I find myself melting back against him, my head falling to the side in an instinctive gesture of submission that makes him growl again.

"Maybe I'm tired of safe games," I whisper. "Maybe I want to know what it feels like to dance with darkness for real."

His grip tightens fractionally. "There's no going back from this path, Elena. Once you truly give yourself to the dark, it owns you forever."

"Show me."

The words slip out before I can stop them, but I don't try to take them back. They feel right, true in a way that terrifies and excites me in equal measure.

He spins me around again, and suddenly we're moving – dancing, really, a slow waltz between the graves. The fog swirls around us like a living thing, creating a privateworld of shadow and silver moonlight. My dark brown hair tangles in the breeze of our movements.

"Your heart is racing," he observes, leading me through another turn. "Fear or excitement?"

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