Page 1

Chapter 1

Mortimer

Ishould have pushed harder to turn him away. I never should have allowed the lovesick puppy to pass, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around why I had. He was a nuisance, and now he was going to be an even bigger one.

His love for her was clear to see, and it pissed me off. Not because of his feelings for her, but because I hadn’t considered that my ghost girl would have feelings for him in return. Now, as we stood on opposite ends of the basement to one another as we watched the scene unfold, my focus was latched firmly onto her, but I wasn’t even sure she was aware of my presence. Her gaze hadn’t moved from them, not even to check on the newest girl he had strapped to the other side of the room, another addition to his collection.

It made me feel…Fuck.It didn’t matter what it made me feel, because I was fuckingfeeling.Ever since I had felt her clench around me, her nails digging deep as she fought me for dominance she would never win, her screams echoing in my ears as I ground her into the dirt of her own grave, my damn cock hadn’t gone down. In all the time I had been dead, I had never once suffered through the pointlessness of an erection. The pleasures of the body were inconsequential, especially whenit was a biological imperative to procreate, and that wasn’t something us ghosts needed to do. Our numbers were added to through death, not life.

But perhaps that was the answer. I wasn’t a ghost anymore, I was something more. Something powerful.

And so was she.

She was changing everything. Everything I thought I knew was being crushed to dust just from her mere existence.

And it washimshe was staring at with so much love and concern. The pain etched on her face as she watched her killer murder someone she loved stabbed at something deep inside me. Something I thought I had buried too deep to be resurrected, and yet, somehow, this enigmatic woman had.

As the knife slid across the man’s flesh, creating a macabre smile in his throat that was mirrored by the peaceful one on his lips, ghostly tears dripped from my ghost girl’s eyes in a waterfall of silvery essence. I could feel the power of them from here, the potential calling to that long forgotten part of me she was so painfully dredging up, and I couldn’t stand by and watch for one more second.

I needed to go back to my roots, to the comfort of my existence before her. I needed to kill, to feed on the souls of the damned so I could make myself stronger, to build my power. But more importantly, I needed to erase the emotions seizing my chest, because they were too much. Too overwhelming.

Incapacitating.

What had my little ghost girl done to me?

I wanted more. She was all I could think about. All I desired. All Icraved. To feel her wet chill wrapped around my throbbing cock, to see that fire in her eyes aimed at me, her passion and her anger and…

No, that. Anything but that. It wasn’t possible. I wasn’t capable of such emotion. It would be cruel of me to draw it out of her when I couldn’t reciprocate.

So why did I…care?

Fingers and shadows tugged at my hair, yanking the strands in my frustration as I tried to use the pain to pull me back from the edge. I was teetering on a precipice of unknown consequences. The worst part was that I just knew that if I ignored it, if I chose to release her from my fixation and move on to let her exist in peace with Loverboy, I knew I would regret it. Nothing would ever be the same again. I growled, low and vicious, the sound pulled from deep inside my being as I attempted to release this onslaught of feeling.

But of course, it didn’t work. Why would it? The only thing that could save me was returning to my normal routine. Hunt, consume, repeat. There was nothing else more important than that.

The shadows thrummed through and around me, calling to the darkest parts of my battered and broken soul, whispering promises of power and strength the likes no mere mortal would ever know.

I felt my lips split in a malicious grin. I didn’t want to wait for the right time anymore. I wanted to act. I wanted to take what would belong to menow. I needed the rush of energy of eating a soul to consume me, to light me up from within as it merged with my power to create something more. Something powerful. Something indestructible.

I embraced the ice-cold shadows as they surrounded me, tugging me to my destination with a familiar ease that spoke of trust and synergy. The energy was mine to command, but only because I had proven myself a worthy vessel. Through me, it could flourish. Through me, it had purpose.

And I was about to put it to good fucking use.

I heard her screams turn into pathetic whimpers as she begged and pleaded for it all to stop long before I reached the house. It was just as run-down and shabby as before, possibly more since the woman could barely inhale, let alone clean up. They were in the living room, the woman sprawled at odd angles on the floor amid broken glass from the coffee table, a puddle of blood forming rapidly beneath her. If I didn’t already know she was his wife, I wouldn’t have recognised her through the bruising and swelling.

My prey stood above her, breathing heavily through his nose, snot bubbling out of his nostrils as he wheezed with a bad case of smoker’s lungs, his entire body swaying precariously, no doubt as a result of the countless empty beer bottles littering every available surface, and even the ones that were already occupied.

Fuck, this place was a dump.

I noted the still lit cigarette butt in the chipped ash tray on the windowsill, and decided in that moment to cause a little extra mayhem that usual. Let the silly little mortals run around like headless chickens as they tried and failed to fit the pieces together. Eventually, just like they always did, they would wedge them into a shape of their own choosing to help them sleep better at night, content in their delusions.

But this man was going to die. His wife was almost there. Since she would be ripe for the picking, like a perfectly wrapped gift with a pretty little bow on top, I would consume her soul, too.

I licked my lips, eager for the meal.

The woman took her last, gurgled breath, and it was time.

Separating from her body, her spirit gazed upon the grizzly scene of her murder with a resigned sadness, but also relief. That relief was short-lived when she found me watching in the corner. She tensed, then forcibly relaxed and cocked her head as she studied me curiously.