Page 9 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

G race lay on her side, staring into bright sunlight, unable to convince her tortured muscles that today would be better, that today she wouldn’t beat them up. Well, not as much as yesterday.

Wine and too much food, possibly food poisoning, had made her hallucinate or have lucid dreams, or something crazy.

She rolled to her back and ran her hands down her sides, wondering... Was it real?

A finger slid through her curls, over her clit. No pain. No telltale sensations or traces of someone else having been inside of her.

A dream. A hallucination. Or just someone who has been working too hard, getting too drunk and sleepy. God, did I fall asleep in that tub? I could have drowned.

Grace got up and trotted to the bathroom, staring hard at the mirror as she sat on the toilet.

There had been a name. Of course, it wasn’t there now, but hadn’t there been letters in the steam last night?

Letters that made no sense. Nyx.

Which isn’t a real name, so yeah, that tracks with it being a dream. Sure.

GRACE BOUNDED DOWN the stairs in a fresh tank top, sports bra, and a pair of cut-off denim shorts that were too small to wear in public but just right for sweating your ass off alone in a huge house that needed a lot of work.

“First order of business—that dining room table,” she told herself, and maybe Nana.

No, the first order was putting on the Andrews Sisters, because Nana loved them.

The second order was eating some cold leftovers, or maybe she would nuke them for thirty seconds, just to take the chill off, because Mrs. Yerchenko swore microwaving things would give you cancer, and Mrs. Yerchenko was healthy as a very stubborn horse, so Grace tended to keep microwaving non-frozen food to a minimum.

With all the microwaved shit she’d been eating lately, maybe she’d be one big tumor in ten years, and wouldn’t that be a waste?

The third order of business would be to haul that table into the area that would be the beautiful dining room.

She could already picture it, pretty little tables for two and four, covered in whatever tablecloths she could find, but always whites and light colors, always a small vase or bowl of fresh flowers on them, all mismatched, but all okay.

“It’ll be real, Nana,” she whispered, pausing for a moment to look into what would be half the heart of her B and B—

And screamed, sank to the floor, and put both hands over her mouth to stop the high-pitched wail of terror that erupted.

Because the table that had been on the porch was now perfectly set in the center of the dining room, and the matching chairs she had purchased were set neatly around it.

“What the hell? How? Who?” Grace scrambled back up to her knees and ran to the front door, phone in her shaking hand. Someone had been in the house. Was someone in the house now?

She skidded to a stop at the stairs of the porch, “Fuck, my keys!”

No driving away without those.

Run to the road? Go back in the house with... Who? Some stalker who likes to move furniture in the middle of the night? Run into the woods?

NYX WATCHED FROM THE library window, mouth open as he realized he was a fucking idiot.

After last night—after revealing his name, he’d thought... Well, that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Had he really thought?

No. He’d just wanted to do something kind.

The thought left him numb, a carefully crafted kind of numb where he didn’t allow himself to think about his motives or visualize what came next.

She had been intimate with him. She was working hard, and her being there was.

.. Nice. Better than nice. It was changing him, somehow, a little at a time, making him more human.

Even now, he was in a humanoid shape, a shadowy mass with clear limbs, a head, and even a mouth currently gaping as he watched Grace, his beautiful sunflower, walking reluctantly toward the woods that held so many secrets.

Bad secrets. Secrets of a being worse than him.

“No!”

GRACE TURNED, HER PHONE up to her ear, as the windows in the library rattled and a dark stain seemed to move past the lace curtains so recently hung. Her sneakers skidded on the thick carpet of leaves that had been decomposing, turning to mulch and wet, chunky soil for decades.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I think someone’s in my house,” she whispered.

“Address, please?”

“Hilltop House,” Grace began, and the dark shape moved again, catching her eye. This time, it was in the next room, the unfinished back parlor that would one day be a nice lounge for guests to play games and cards. The windows in there were still grubby with age and dust, but one thing at a time.

“Hilltop House? Pine Ridge?”

“That’s the one,” Grace whispered, watching lines appear on the dusty windows.

N

“Oh, God.”

“Miss, are you safe? Are you in the home with the intruder?”

“I’m outside.

Y

“X.” Grace sank into a squat as she said the final letter, speaking as it was drawn by the shadow inside.

She closed her eyes as the dispatcher spoke, muscle memory and burning thighs reminding her that maybe it wasn’t a dream. Not all of it.

The feel of delicious pressure inside of her, of long limbs encircling her, touching her everywhere.

Her pussy clamped down without respect to the situation.

It only remembered the pleasure, the aching build, and the satisfying release.

Not some little half-assed not-quite orgasm, but the kind that made you curse like a sailor and dream about being face down on your bed so it could happen again, only harder.

I’m a freak to think about this now.

“Miss? Don’t go in the house! Someone is on their way. The police are en route.”

“I’m outside,” Grace breathed, rising and walking towards the woods with slow, faltering steps.

The closer she got—the more the windows rattled. Curtains waved. The front door, left hanging open, slammed open and shut like it was caught in a hurricane blast.

She stopped, face puzzled, and walked back towards her car. Just a little.

Everything was silent.

“Don’t hang up,” the dispatcher instructed firmly.

“I’m staying right here,” Grace said, and the door to the house swung open and settled into silence.

OFFICER ARDGHAL WALSH combed through the house, speaking in a low, soft voice while Grace shivered outside, fear making her cold even in the warm sunlight.

“You have a day to show yourself and make peace, or leave and never come back. We will drive you out of this world if you keep this up. There are too many families in Pine Ridge who can’t go anywhere else, buddy.

Get your jollies scaring the bad things in the woods—unless you are the bad thing in the woods. ”

Nyx floated, a mere ear above the surface of his dark, drifting realm, listening to the words instead of the shapeless growling and snarling below him.

How could they drive him out? If they could, where would he go? Into the woods? Or into the darkness already trying to draw him in? Into the town? Part of it was accessible to him, part of it used to belong with the house... He thought.

But what kind of town was it, that this man knew of such things, and people couldn’t move away?

And don’t you think I’ve tried to drive off the bad thing in the woods?

No. Not really. You watched. Never had a reason to try to reach beyond yourself before.

“I know there’s something bad out there. Something bad in here. We try to respect spaces, but not if you keep pulling this shit. Final. Warning.”

“Officer?”

Nyx sank under the surface of the ether, or the eternal waters and shadows, whatever this pocket of reality was.

“Miss Sanford. I don’t know what to tell you.

Now... This might seem like a long shot, and it definitely shouldn’t have happened, but someone could have been out last night, passing by, and seen your table outside.

You mentioned you left it on the porch?” The officer’s voice sounded as though he were trying hard to be believable—while knowing he was spouting lies.

“Covered by a tarp. And I’m not exactly just off the road.”

“You know college students. They hike everywhere,” the policeman said vaguely, his voice still far from convincing. “Was the door unlocked? Someone might have thought they were doing you a favor, moving it inside. Looked like rain, maybe.”

Grace hesitated.

In the silence, Nyx shifted, also silent, head above the floorboards under her bed, body suspended in a pool of darkness.

“I don’t know. Actually... I don’t want to get in trouble for wasting police time, but I.

.. I’m starting to second-guess a lot of what I did last night.

I’ve been working long hours, I had a glass of wine and some wacko dreams. I wonder if I.

.. Could I have sleepwalked and just carried on my routine of moving furniture into the house and getting stuff ready for the opening?

” Grace asked, voice confused and conflicted.

“I wouldn’t rule it out. But I also wouldn’t rule out something else.

Things... Some things that defy explanation are still real.

Why don’t you stay with friends or in a hotel for a few nights and let me and the neighborhood watch take an active role in investigating?

There could be some unsavory pranksters who can’t get used to the fact that this is shaping up to be a real nice property after standing vacant for years.

Some people might have used this place as their old stomping grounds.

You know? How some teenagers like to use abandoned properties as their private crash pads? ”

“I don’t want to leave, but I would be grateful for the extra patrols in the area—at least for the next few days.”

“I—”

“You didn’t find anyone? Or anything?”

“No. No, but you should always trust your instincts. If you think someone is trying to scare you or bother you—”

“It doesn’t feel like that.”

There was silence.

It doesn’t? Nyx didn’t know if that was gratifying or insulting.

“No?”

“No. I don’t have a bad vibe like I did at first. I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

“If more people overreacted, there would be fewer true crime shows,” the officer sighed.

Nyx sank fully back into his nightmare world of growls and clawing things, saving himself by staying afloat, connecting with the house that he was bound to instead of slipping completely away, turning into— He looked down into an ocean of long teeth and blood-red eyes.

He decided he was gratified.

IT WAS LATE AT NIGHT when he showed himself, making sure the lights were low and the shadows were abundant. His name was scrubbed off the window, and the back parlor sparkled, a bunch of games and puzzles in worn boxes now sitting on the windowsill.

“Nyx?”

When Grace said his name, he almost flew straight through the ceiling and cowered back under the bed.

Weakling.

“Thanks for moving the table. I think.”

Oh. Oh, this was nice.

“And if it was you in the bath?”

He held whatever passed for breath.

“Thanks for that, too.”

Her steps were slow, meandering, and he followed, well back, hiding the darkest spots of the hall, thin now, a mere line of black that never broke when moonlight hit it.

Grace’s hand rested on the front door, fingers on the old brass deadbolt. “I think you’re not a bad guy. And I definitely think you’re a guy, after last night.”

She was blushing, and his insides lunged, eager to be with her again, smelling rushing blood and arousal. No, more like sensing it.

“If you’re a good guy, I need a sign.” She leaned forward, standing on her tippy-toes to breathe on the glass panes of the front door. “Write your name if you’re a good guy.”

He moved forward and stopped.

Not quite, Sunflower.

Another step forward. I’d try, possibly.

For her... For a chance to keep something of her, to keep becoming more human and less like those things in the darkness... I’d try.

Her voice was smaller now, frightened, and her hand moved to the knob as she breathed a new cloud of steam, the old one vanishing. “Write your name if you're a bad guy,” she whispered, voice shaking.

Nothing.

It was a joy to see her shoulders relax.

“I’m probably being silly. God, I’m never going to drink again, not even a wine cooler.

Okay, last try. If you’re not some figment of alcohol and exhaustion, and you’re not good, but you’re not bad, but you’re.

.. friendly to me and my future guests, write your name.

” One last, big breath of air rushed across the panes of glass, and Nyx surged forward.

He bumped Grace, and she gasped, a soft screech before she pulled back, and he became more than a thin line.

BEFORE HER EYES, SHE saw the shadow take shape, spilling like ink in the air, but instead of running in drips and rivulets, it became a masculine shape: wide shoulders, narrow waist, and arms that were thick and muscular, for all they were insubstantial.

Grace watched the letters scrawl onto the glass.

NYX

So. There was something in her house. Something she’d seen. Fucked.

That could be bad. This could be a Rosemary’s Baby situation.

“Are you a ghost?”

No

“A demon? Please don’t be a demon. And don’t lie. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

It seemed to her that his head swiveled, as if he was looking back over his shoulder, giving her the side eye.

He stepped back.

“You are a demon?” she yelped. “Like, the kind from Hell?”

Nyx slapped the door, and it rattled.

“Oh, out of steam on the window! Hmm. We could have a much longer conversation in the shower. I mean, with the shower on! Because of the fog in the mirror.”

Nyx left the door. Turned slowly.

He had a face, clearly human, but like the black part of a black-and-white film, almost like the old negatives Nana kept in her hatboxes.

Long hair. Flowing in messy black waves and tangles. Wild eyes that changed colors from red to gold to white when he turned his head—to look up the stairs.

To where the bathroom was. Where they’d...

She had so many questions, the biggest one regarding her mental state.

“We probably shouldn’t do that again,” she mumbled, and to her surprise, Nyx gave a single grave nod.

“But we can talk?”

Another nod.

“Okay, then. After you.” Grace gave a flourish of her hand.

Nyx shot up, through the ceiling, a strip of black that blended into the darkness of the eaves.

“Wow. Didn’t even need the stairs. That’s handy.” Grace hesitated, then flipped the deadbolt to the locked position and made her way slowly upstairs.