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She stares at me.

The little smile disappears.

“Six months?”

I say nothing.

“You’ve been living in Devil’s Peak for six months?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

I look down at my boots.

“Six months, Grayson?”

I don’t answer.

Because there’s no answer that makes me less of a fucking coward.

Chapter 3

AUTUMN

I’ve made some questionable decisions in my twenty-eight years on this planet, but driving up a deserted mountain road the morning after Halloween to confront a man nicknamed the Reaper might actually top the list.

Especially considering I’m wearing my good underwear.

Not that I’m planning to show it to anyone.

It’s laundry day. That’s all.

And if Grayson Blackwood happens to notice the little black lace number beneath my jeans, well, that’s between him and whatever god he prays to these days.

I turn onto the narrow gravel driveway leading to Blackwood Manor and immediately regret not bringing holy water.

The mansion rises from the trees like something out of a Gothic horror movie. Three stories of dark stone, pointed turrets, and narrow windows stare down at me from behind a rusted iron gate. Dead vines crawl over the walls, and the gardens have been left to grow wild, with thorny rosebushes swallowing what used to be a perfectly respectable fountain.

The place has been abandoned for decades.

Or it was.

Now a black motorcycle sits beside the front steps, and several contractor trucks are parked near a detached carriage house. Fresh lumber is stacked beneath a tarp, and one of the upstairs windows glows with light.

Apparently, the Reaper has developed a taste for home improvement.

I park beside the motorcycle and climb out.

The last time I came here, I was seventeen, and Grayson had dared me to sneak inside with him.

We’d spent twenty minutes wandering through the dusty rooms before I heard something upstairs and nearly climbed him like a tree.

Turned out to be a raccoon.

Grayson laughed so hard he almost fell through the rotten floorboards.

Then he kissed me against the wall of the old library until I forgot why I’d been scared in the first place.