Page 2 of The Curse of Redwood

“Huh?” In a post-orgasm daze, I looked at the small clock on the bedside table. “Oh. It’s already after eleven? You can stay the night if you want. I can make breakfast when we wake up and—”

“Apologies, but I can’t stay.” Z pulled out of me and got off my bed. His sated cock hung soft between his legs. “Thank you for a wonderful night, Carter, but I must be going.”

“Why?” I slid my legs over the side of the mattress and stood up, my muscles wobbly from all the sex that night. He left the bedroom, and I darted after him. “What the hell? You don’t have to run off.”

Z retrieved his clothes from the living room floor and got dressed. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t talk to me. He then headed for the door.

“Don’t ignore me.” I grabbed his arm and tugged him back to me. Which was no easy feat. I was a lot smaller than him.

“You don’t understand,” he said, caressing my jaw with a pained expression in his eyes. “I wish things were different.” A shadow passed over his face. “However, they’re not. This is how it must be.”

He opened the door and stepped into the night.

“You’re going to walk home?” I called after him. “At least let me drive you.”

Z kept walking.

“Fine then, asshole,” I muttered under my breath, before slamming the door.

That was the last time I saw him.

Chapter One

August- Present Day

It was always the same dream.

Redwood Manor loomed before me, shrouded in darkness. Though the stone was weathered from time, the building stood tall and had a certain presence to it. As if the very walls were alive. Breathing.

I stared up at the magnificent structure, both amazed and horrified. How could a place so beautiful fill me with such fright?

Then, one by one, they appeared: in the windows, on the lawn.

The faces of the dead.

My insides coiled and I willed my feet to move, yet they stayed firmly planted in the grass. The phantoms stared back at me, their expressions frozen in grief. None of their mouths moved, but I heard their whispering cries.

“Help us.”

Finally, I was able to move. But instead of moving toward the gate, my feet carried me closer to the mansion. Closer to the ghosts. There were dozens of them; men, women, and children. As I neared the front porch, the cries intensified. It sounded like a literal Hell on earth as the yells echoed all around me. Begging for me to save them. Then the spirits drifted forward, outstretching their arms.

I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. I stared in horror as their bony fingers inched toward my face.

Before they reached me, I woke up.

“Jesus,” I said, my voice shaking. I sat up in bed and scrubbed my hands over my face. Sweat coated my back, and as the early morning air hit my skin, I shivered and pulled the blanket around me.

Yeah, it had been a dream. But the memory was real.

I had actually seen those ghosts.

All because I’d gone to seehim, the hot blond who’d taken my breath away when I’d met him ten months ago; first at Redwood, then again on Halloween night. We had one amazing night of sex, and then he’d pulled a Cinderella and disappeared before the clock struck midnight. And I had felt like the damn prince in the fairytale, searching all over the town for him afterward. The only thing I knew about him was the name he’d given me: Z.

As months passed without a trace of him anywhere, I’d gotten desperate and had gone to the first place I’d ever seen him: Redwood Manor.

Big mistake.

That’s when I’d seen the ghosts appear outside the mansion. They’d stared back at me through the countless windows. Others had stood in the grass, their bodies translucent and pale. I had grabbed my best friend Ben—who I’d talked into going with me that night—and fled the property, feeling the hair on my nape stand on end the entire time, as if they were following me.