CHAPTER I: Pulse
I. Alaric
The midnight fog clung to the damp earth of Oakridge Cemetery like a shroud, thick and suffocating.
Hours ago, the rain-slicked dirt had echoed with the low, solemn drone of the priest’s voice, the polite sniffling of distant relatives, and the heavy thud of earth falling onto a mahogany casket. They had gathered under black umbrellas, dressed in mourning attire, murmuring sterile condolences about how tragic it was for a soul so young to fall from grace—how terrifyingly fragile a life could be.
They cried for the girl who had plummeted into the dark. They threw single white lilies onto her casket before turning their backs, returning to their warm homes, content to leave her buried beneath six feet of freezing, unforgiving soil.
They thought the story was over.
They didn’t see the figure watching from the edge of the tree line, motionless as a statue carved from shadow.
Alaric Ashford didn’t wear an umbrella. He didn’t shed a single tears. The cold rain soaked through his wool coat, plastering his dark hair to his forehead, but his eyes never left the freshly turned mound of dark earth. He had waited with the quiet, terrifying patience of a predator, counting every second until the last mourner’s car rolled down the gravel path, until the gravediggers finished their work, locked the rusted iron gates, and disappeared into the night.
Only when the silence of the dead settled over the cemetery did he finally move.
His leather boots made no sound against the mud as he stepped up to the grave. He knelt on the wet ground without hesitation, the cold mud soaking straight through his trousers, but he felt nothing. His entire existence had narrowed down to the single spot beneath his knees.
From inside his coat, he pulled out a single bloom: a Black Hellebore. Its bruised, dark purple petals glistened with rainwater, rare and deadly, thriving in the frost where every other living thing withered.
Slowly, reverently, he placed the poisonous flower directly over the spot where her head lay resting far below.
Alaric leaned down, resting his forehead against the cold, damp headstone, and pressed a slow, agonizingly tender kiss into the stone surface.
“They wept for you," he whispered, his voice a low, raspy velvet against the howling wind. “They buried you. They gave you up to the dark because they are weak. But you were never theirs to lose, my sweet Lumière."
He slid his fingers down the stone, tracing the carved letters of her name with obsessive precision. A dark, terrifying smile pulled at the corner of his lips—unhinged, sharp, and entirely devoid of grief.
“They think you belong to the earth now," he murmured, his breath fogs against the cold granite. “They think death is a boundary I will respect. Let them go home and sleep peacefully. Let them think you are gone."
He stood up, looking down at the freshly buried soil, his eyes gleaming with a manic, possessive fire.
“I’m coming down for you tonight, Jennifer.
And no god, no demon, and no grave will ever take you from me again."
