I’m feeling lazy today. It’s Spring Break, I’ve had edits, I’m working on two books, and there’s a third whispering to me, so instead of thinking up a blog post, I’m taking the easy way out and posting an excerpt from my upcoming Samhain book, Hunter’s Edge. Releases in ebook in May.
How fricking classic-a vampire sleeping the day away in a cemetery.
If he’d had much choice, he would have tried to find someplace else, but choices were limited. The trucker had left him just outside Greenburg a little before dawn and with the clock ticking, Kel went for the first secure place that he came across.
Instinct drove him to get closer to Angel, but he hadn’t known where to look. As dawn crept closer, he had to focus on finding someplace dark and solitary. The private mausoleums in the old Greenburg Cemetery definitely fit that description.
He’d banked on being able to get into one of the older ones that didn’t get visits often and he’d been right. The one he’d selected had none of the stained glass windows and a recessed doorway.
Inside, with the door closed, it had been as dark as a tomb, just the thinnest sliver of pre-dawn light visible under the door itself.
As sweet, safe darkness wrapped around him, it took everything he had just to stumble away from the door and get one of the freestanding vaults inside the crypt between him and the door as an extra precaution.
Kel didn’t even remember getting horizontal. As enraged and scared and worried as he was, he’d thought sleep would elude him but it didn’t, hitting him hard and fast.
Normally Kel only needed four or five hours of sleep, but by the time he came awake a little before dusk, he’d been out for probably twelve hours.
The setting sun had kept him prisoner within the small crypt for a while longer. He shrugged out of his jacket long enough to pull on a T-shirt that he’d ‘borrowed’ from the trucker earlier. Killed a bit of time pacing endlessly up and down the stone floor.
Finally the sun set. His body recognized the moment it was safe. He slipped out of the musty, confining crypt with the sure and certain knowledge that he was glad his body wasn’t going to end up in some quiet, private resting place for all eternity. When he did die, he’d be burned and that suited him just fine.
Outside in the cool night air, he lifted his head and breathed in, letting the air wash over and through him, sweeping away the stink of decay.
The sound of a truck moving over the road had him retreating and swearing. It wasn’t that late yet, probably only around seven and he sure as hell didn’t need anybody seeing him here. Greenburg was a small town and Kel knew for a fact his face hadn’t changed a bit since he’d lived here.
He slipped into the tree line, his mind focused on finding Angel. But something, he couldn’t even explain what, stopped him. Physically stopped him. He couldn’t take another step away and everything inside him urged him to turn around. Unable to deny it, he turned and his eyes sought out the truck creeping along one of the cemetery paths.
It was a beat-up old Ford and even with his eyesight, he couldn’t quite see through the windows. But he knew.
Somewhere inside him, without even seeing her, he knew. He slipped forward, just where the trees gave way to grass and there, he crouched, one hand resting on the trunk of the tree, the other clutching the ring at his neck.
Hiding in the shadows, he watched, spellbound, as the truck came to a stop and the door opened. There was a fist wrapped around his throat, around his heart, and it wasn’t going to ease up any time soon.
It was her.
Angel.
~*~*~
Shi
