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She could see his back, head bent, and she could hear him sobbing like she’d never thought a human could. There were scratching noises as he toiled with the wood coffin, and suddenly he stood. He threw his head back to the rain, a small, limp body in his arms as he roared up at the skies, cursing God with such fierceness it chilled Stella to the bones. Cradling the limp body in his arms, he disappeared into the darkness, the sound of thunder following him.
Jerking back to consciousness, Stella gazed around, surprised that the skies had turned dark. Sparing one last look at the innocent lily, she rose to her feet and started home, her brow creasing with thoughts.
She could see things in her visions the stories didn’t tell. At first, she’d thought it was her imagination, though she was more the practical sort and had never been very creative. But more and more images had come to her lately, haunting her in her dreams, in every waking moment, and causing her physical discomforts that were all too real.
Stella had never believed in ghosts.
Now she did.
* * *
Kevin was there, a man she’d known since she was only a child, and whom her mother wanted her to marry. She caught a glimpse of his tidy brown hair through the window while he talked to her mother across the kitchen table. Stella didn’t feel the tiniest bit of pleasure at the sight of him, and when he turned his face toward the porch, she ducked low, then slowly turned around and crept away.
Although Kevin was a nice man—a good, hardworking man—he repelled her. She found the slightest contact with his body nauseating, and even the way he looked at her made her stomach roil. She’d lost her virginity to him a few years ago, one night she’d been determined to prove to herself she could be sensual, and yet lying stiff as a wood plank was all she’d been able to manage.
Her feet were the only two wandering along the cobblestone street that night. Moonlight bathed her body in a faint silver light, enough of it for any townsfolk looking out their windows to see her. Stella could almost envision them, feel their gazes piercing her back as they drew the curtains aside to watch and wonder where she was heading, voicing their concerns to those nearby. Of what a strange, quiet girl she was. Of why she was always sick with fever. Of what miserable luck she’d had, being born that day of all the days in a year.
With a certainty that almost frightened her, Stella knew where she was heading. To a place no one ever dared go, for fear of being devoured by the one who lived there. Townsfolk liked to call it his “hole,” and every day they thanked God he wouldn’t come out of it.
Stella would’ve loved nothing more than to blame the wind, chilling her flesh as it pushed her in his direction. A reliable accomplice in an act that was surely the most foolish of her life. But she knew that wasn’t it.
It wasn’t the wind.
Something else drove her forward. Perhaps it was Faith Harrison whispering in her ear. Perhaps it was seeing Kevin, and knowing that although she didn’t want to break her mother’s heart, she wasn’t going to marry him. Perhaps she was sick of living like this, mainly to please others, being a good, responsible, respectable citizen only to still remain the closest thing to an outcast. Or perhaps she was only one of a precious few people brave enough to admit, We all have a dark side, and I want to shed light on mine.
She went on, past a jagged, rocky cliff, down a sleek, curved dirt path between jutting rocks, and toward the beach. She walked over the powdery sand for miles. The sweeping darkness of night surrounded her, her eyes failing to see past a thick mist of fog, but her legs somehow seeming to know the way.
The beach was abandoned, the cave where once diamonds had been found standing big and lonely at the far end, its dark, rocky mouth open like that of a famished sea monster. Decades ago, the cave had been the town’s pride and joy, but the diamond pipe had long ago stopped producing, and the townsfolk couldn’t bear to stare its emptiness in the face now.
The sound of crashing waves accompanied Stella, and then her own breathing echoed in her ears as she reached the looming mouth of the cave.
Her steps faltered, and she slowed down, wondering why rather than walk into dark and dreary nothingness, she was walking toward light. Burning torchlight from afar beckoned her like a promise. The ragged roof went higher as she advanced, the path widening. She cursed under her breath when she stumbled upon something, and then realized it was a rope.
Searching the floor, she shuddered when she noticed how many there were at her feet, thick, knotted ropes lying coiled all around her like snakes in a pit. What a single person could want with so many ropes, Stella would rather not know.
“What do you want here?”
Stella jumped at the voice that boomed from the far end. Deep. Angry. Male. She turned around and watched a figure come forward, the light behind him outlining his dark, ominous silhouette and more than hinting at his formidable size.
No one needed to tell her who this stranger was—he looked the part through and through. The authentic, formidable, one and only Villain.
It was a miracle she found her voice, and the courage to look into the glowing embers of his eyes. Her voice surprised her, clear. Steady. “I wanted to see if you were real.”
He seemed locked in place, his eerie stillness prompting her to move. She took a step forward at the same time he did. His face came into a wide stream of light, and it robbed her of her breath completely.
He had the features of a ruffian and the expression of a very grumpy male. His jaw was stubbed with several days’ growth of beard, his black hair tousled, reaching his shoulders. His lips were oddly sensual, plusher than any she had seen, while his nose was narrow and somewhat arrogant. His brows were sleek and dark, slashing straight above his eyes and set low into a scowl. There was a slight flare to his nostrils, a severity in the angle of his jaw, as if he were permanently grinding his teeth.
It was not until now that she noticed his lean, hard body had gone so utterly still he could have been a tree trunk. Either unaware of her scrutiny, or unaffected by it, he remained ominously still while her eyes wandered over him.
Strangely overcome with a need to memorize, she shamelessly took in his wrinkled, dirty clothes, noting the sturdy muscles under the soiled, tan breeches and rumpled cotton shirt. No doubt he could accomplish many difficult feats with that big, muscled body.
No doubt he’d done everything they said he had and then some.
There was a musky scent to him that faintly tickled her nose, the mingled smell of sweat and danger, and it was strangely exhilarating.
She noticed how his breathing slowly became labored, betraying the stillness of his stance, implying he was indeed aware of her scrutiny. She wondered why he even let her continue.
When her eyes rose up to his narrowed black ones, she discovered why.
