Chapter 1
Noah
Someone was moaning.
In a cemetery.
At night.
Most normal people would have been freaked out by that, but I was more annoyed than anything else. I’d just finished laying turf over a freshly dug grave, and was all set to pack up and go home, so of coursenowwould be when the moaning began.
Another low groan hit my ears. I tried to tell myself it was just the wind.
The only problem with that assumption was there was no wind. The air was as dead as the people beneath my feet.
So . . . something else, then.
I strained my ears and cocked my head. The groaning got louder.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I was going to have to do something about this, wasn’t I?
Thibodeaux Graveyard was one of the oldest in Louisiana, and my family had been taking care of it for three generations. The grass was clipped short, the headstones were well maintained, and the gravel paths were smooth andflat. During a midsummer day, it was something to behold: Hundred-year-old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss stood sentinel among the gravestones; the air hummed with cicadas and crickets; visitors quietly paid their respects to those who had come before them. Right now, at night during the middle of winter, it was a bit less welcoming, the stretching tree branches skeletal, the quiet stillness making it feel like the dark was holding its breath.
I’d spent my whole life roaming these fifteen acres, and even I found it creepy at times. The town goths and vampire tourists (yes, that was a thing) who regularly visited seemed to find it amorous instead. Not a month went by that I didn’t catch people humping between the headstones, and since itwasValentine’s Day, I probably should have expected something like this. But goddamn, I did not want to deal with it.
Today had been long and trying. Earlier, I’d had to lower the casket of Emma Broadturn into the ground. She and I had gone to high school together, and I’d been obsessed with her. From a distance, because there was a certain stigma around my family that was hard to escape, and even though I didn’t dress in black or skulk around the school, I was still known as that creepy graveyard kid.
Emma Miller (her maiden name) had been the popular girl, prom queen, top of our class, voted most liked, best dressed, and just about every other complimentary yearbook award in existence. All I could think about as Dad and I lowered her coffin into the ground was what a waste it all was. That she’d lived such a blessed life only to die after some freak accident at the age of thirty-two. I’d never been much of an existentialist before, but her death had hit me hard, and I’d spent the past few days wondering what the point of it all was.
And wondering what the fuck she ever saw in her husband, Beau Broadturn. Why she put her own bright dreams on hold to marry him right out of high school and follow him around the country while he attended med school and then spent his residency up in the Northeast at some fancy university hospital. They’d moved back home afterward, so Beau could take a job at his family’s privately owned hospital—the only medical facility in the entire county. The Broadturns had been doctoring people here since the days when the roads were dirt and the primary means of travel came with four legs. They were something of a dynasty in these parts, with the few family members who didn’t get their medical licenses pursuing other important local positions instead: lawyers, police officers, even a statesman or two.
I hated the lot of them because they were as high and mighty as they came, one of the few families with any kind of money in the area, and for some reason, that made them think they were better than everyone else. Beau was the product of that elitism, an absolute nightmare in high school. He’d been charming and funny around Emma and all his friends, and an unrelenting asshole to everyone else.
And Beau had only gotten worse with age. Rumors about his infidelities swirled throughout town, yet Emma stayed with him for some reason. No doubt he found a way to convince her the rumors were all lies. He always was a smooth talker.
Well, now she was dead, and he was free to sleep with as many women as he wanted without having to hide it. I was sure he’d get right down to doing that because the piece of shit hadn’t shed a single tear during Emma’s service. And yeah, everyone grieved differently, but I’d seen more funerals and mourners than I could count, and it made me good atrecognizing grief. Beau hadn’t shown any signs of it. He’d just looked impatient to get out of here.
It both pissed me off and broke my heart for Emma, and all I wanted to do was head home and drown myself in a glass of whiskey. Instead, I was about to go chase a couple of perverts out of the bushes.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced up at the clear night sky, where two comets hurtled toward each other. They wouldn’t actually collide, but the angle at which Earth was viewing them made it look like they’d directly cross paths. The media had romanticized the event, because it was going to occur on Valentine’s Day, calling them the Star-Crossed Lovers. The whole world was celebrating the pair tonight, cities hosting viewing parties, couples planning late-night dates to watch them.
I yanked my gaze back down, shaking my head. What a crock of bullshit.
Another low moan hit my ears, louder this time, more tortured. It sounded like someone was about to come. I hefted my shovel in one hand and my lantern in the other and strode toward the noises, moving in a small sphere of light as I wove between the graves, careful not to step atop anyone’s final resting place.
“That better not be you again, Cash Andrews!” I yelled. He was the lead singer in a local rock band, and I’d run his Lestat-cosplaying ass out of here three times in the past couple of months.
The groans cut off. I grinned. Maybe they’d skedaddle before I even reached them, and then I’d be free to go home and drink myself under the table. Tomorrowwasmy one day off, my dad and older brother holding down the fort in my absence.
A scream ripped through the cemetery.
I stopped dead in my tracks, the hair on the back of my neck rising. That wasn’t the sound of a climax. It was high-pitched, terrified. Muffled, like someone tried to smother it. The kind of scream you heard in horror movies and serial killer documentaries. The kind of scream you run from, if you’re smart.
Unfortunately, I’d never been the brightest bulb in the box, and plus, it sounded like a woman. Ain’t no way in hell I was leaving her out here. My mama would tan my adult ass if she found out, and my conscience would never let me live with myself. At least I was a big son of a bitch, tall, broad from long days of manual labor. If I knew anything about the kind of men who preyed on women, it was that they were all fucking cowards, so I was hoping I’d be able to scare them off without too much trouble.
I cranked my lantern to its highest setting and started running. “Hey! Are you okay?!”
Another scream.
