Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars 1)

Perpetual.

Eternal.

Gaining speed with each pass.

Sweat drenched my skin, heart hammering at my ribs, so hard something was bound to crack.

Sickness squeezed my insides to liquid, nausea climbing my throat and threatening to spill out onto the floor.

I gasped and choked, blinking frantically, trying to orient myself from the dream.

To bring myself back from the nightmare that would haunt me for all my days. The ghosts getting closer, demanding vindication. Screaming for retribution.

They howled and moaned in my mind, my soul at their mercy.

This.

This was the debt I owed. I needed to remember that.

With the barest hints of dawn seeping through the windows of the bedroom, I tossed the covers from my body, and I pushed from the bed and walked straight into the attached bathroom. I shoved my underwear to the floor and turned on the showerhead to as hot as it would go. As soon as it began to steam, I stepped under the scorching spray. Praying for a second of reprieve.

I heaved out a sigh as I glanced down to my abdomen. At the scars. The only thing physical that remained.

If only they would have taken me.

But that would have been too easy. Not close to being cruel enough.

The wicked thirsted for blood.

And this morning, I could taste the fruition of it on my tongue.* * *“Shit.” I banged around the little kitchen in the guest house, slamming the cabinet doors after rummaging through the contents and coming up empty.

No fucking coffee.

Now that was just cruel and unjust.

I blew out a heavy sigh, grabbing a tee that I’d tossed to the couch and pulling it over my head before I stepped out into the coolness of the breaking day.

For a minute, the humidity was held. A moment’s sanctuary from the Savannah summer heat.

Barefoot, I tiptoed through the stilled hush of the morning, birds chirping through the light rustle of the trees that billowed from above.

If you listened closely enough, you could almost believe in peace.

I made it to the glass wood-framed doors at the back entrance of the main house, and I tapped in the code. The lock gave, and I quietly pushed open the door a fraction so I could slip into the sleeping house without being noticed.

I eased it shut behind me. Eyes on my feet, I roughed a hand through my still damp hair as I headed for the kitchen.

Two steps in, I froze when I realized I wasn’t alone. “Penny. You scared me.”

Somehow, I managed to keep the curse from ripping off my tongue.

The young girl stilled in surprise where she was turning on a burner on the stovetop.

Yeah, she was clear on the opposite side of the kitchen as me, a huge island in the middle of us, but there was no missing the flicker of fear in her eyes when she saw me.

It came right along with a million questions.

“I think it was the other way around.” She searched me.

Wary.

Inquisitive.

Like she was asking me point-blank if she should be afraid.

I heaved out a strained sigh, and I shuffled over to the island, careful to keep a continent between us. I pulled out a stool and tucked myself into it so I was facing her. Figured if I was sitting, I wouldn’t appear so much of a threat.

Knew I didn’t exactly come across as a nice guy.

“You’re up early.” That made for good, casual conversation, right?

I mean, seriously, why did this kid make me shake? My knee was bouncing a million miles a minute under the island, heart still jackhammering in my chest, and I was having a hell of a time maintaining my faked grin.

“You’re up early, too,” she said in her soft voice, studying me as she went to the refrigerator and pulled out butter and a dozen eggs and took them back to the stovetop.

She was . . . cooking.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I told her, honestly.

Curiosity filled her dark eyes, and she glanced back at me as she took a knife to the butter and put a large dollop into the pan. “Me, neither,” she whispered to the nothingness, away from me, but I could still hear.

Like I could taste her fear.

“So you decided to make breakfast?” I tried to keep it light.

“Don’t you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day?” She kept her back to me, working away, her hair in a ponytail swishing down her back.

“Did your mom tell you that?”

“Didn’t yours?” She peered at me for a beat before she turned back to the stove.

I blew out a sigh. “Well, I guess we could say my mom wasn’t quite as cool as yours.”

I could almost feel her blush, the way she was chewing at her bottom lip, barely turning enough that she could steal a peek at me. “She wasn’t nice?”

A turbulence rose up from the depths.