Page 1 of His Haunted Desire

PROLOGUE

AURORA

Blood pools from his chest, and his mouth is open in a cry of agony, but no sound comes out. He died fast. Now he lies there with his mask still on: gold around the edges, the rest of it marble white, a show of power and dominance and status which did nothing to stop the knife from going into his chest.

This was never supposed to mean anything. It was an arrangement, a deal, a transaction. Nothing more.

So why am I grateful, then, that I’m wearing a mask so the other partygoers can’t see the tears rolling down my cheeks?

CHAPTER 1

AURORA

Iused to love storms. Before I turned sixteen and a storm took my parents from me, I’d curl up near a window with a cup of hot cocoa and read a book. I’d savor the sound of the wind whipping against the glass and the cozy comfort it provided.

Driving through this Maine storm, I grit my teeth. I can’t lose my grandmother, not after I lost my parents. I’m twenty-three, and I lost them when I was sixteen— seven years where, I guess, I could’ve healed. But it never happened. The wound still feels raw after all this time.

I got a call from the hospital. Grandma has had a stroke. They didn’t give me any further information, and now I feel like screaming to release some of the tension. Rain whips against the windshield as the wipers struggle to do their job.

Maybe that’s a theme. We’re all just struggling along.

I need to take it easy. I can’t get morose.

With my heart pounding like a scared kid, I finally make it to the hospital after several hours of driving. I rush across the parkinglot in a light jacket. With the chill going straight to my bones, the wind trying to knock me off my feet. Maybe there’s a metaphor in that.

Grandma is sitting in the hospital bed, the window a gloomy sheet behind her, her complexion not much better. One of her eyes is slightly shut and the corner of her lip droops downward, but otherwise she seems like her usual self.

Her silver hair tied in a bun, a no-nonsense grimace on her face. “Oh, Aurora,” she says.

Her words have a slur to them, but I can hear the meaning behind them:You didn’t have to come.

“I wasn’t going to stay at college while you’re lying in the hospital,” I tell her, rushing in for a hug.

She embraces me fiercely. “I was getting ready to check myself out. This is a lot of fuss for nothing.”

“Like hell you’re checking yourself out,” I snap, sitting on the chair next to her bed and holding one of her hands in both of mine. I cling desperately to her warmth. “You’re staying right here as long as the doctor says so, and I won’t hear anything different. Got it?”

“Oh, Aurora.”

“You look like a pervert.”

She gives me a sly smile. “Excuse me?”

“That permanent wink you’ve got going on – it’s salacious. You can’t walk the streets wearing that.”

She erupts in laughter. I’ve loved that sound ever since I was a kid, when Mom, Dad, and I would visit her and she’d sit me on her knee and say,“Time for one of your jokes.”

“I needed that,” she says now.

“I’m here as long as you need me.”

She waves her free hand at me.

“Don’t give me that. College will understand.”

“But—”

“You’re all I have left. Don’t make me cry.”