Chapter 1

Ash listened quietly as the priest spoke words of comfort outside the tomb in the St. Louis cemetery where Cherise Gautier had been laid to rest. Julian, Grace, Kyrian, Amanda, Tabitha and Valerius stood to his right while Talon, Sunshine and the Peltiers were lined up on his left to pay respect to one of the finest women Ash had ever been privileged to know. He was dressed in the same clothes he’d had on the day he’d first met the woman. A pair of slouchy black pants, an oversized black sweater and a long leather coat. Cherise had taken one look at him and clucked her tongue.

“When was the last time you ate?” she’d asked him.

“An hour ago.”

His words hadn’t fooled her at all. Convinced he was lying to save his pride, she’d promptly sat him down in a chair and proceeded to make him a plate of Cajun hashbrowns while Nick had tried not to laugh at them.

In the last eleven thousand years, she had been one of the rare humans who had treated Ash like a human being. She hadn’t seen him as anything more than a young man who needed a mother’s love and a friend.

And he missed her more than anything. 

As he stood with the cold wind cutting through him, he could hear his own soul screaming out in rage that he had caused this. How could one sentence uttered in anger cause so much damage? But then they could. Cuts and bruises always healed, but words spoken in anger were most often permanent. They didn’t damage the body, they destroyed the spirit.

“I first met Cherise the day her mother birthed her,” the old priest said to them. “And I was there the evening she brought her own child into this world. Nick was her pride and all of you who knew her know that if you’d ever asked her what her most prized possession was, she would have answered with Nick’s name.”

Kyrian slid a sideways look to Ash who heard the former Greek general’s thoughts. Since Nick’s body hadn’t been found after the vicious murder of Cherise, the consensus among the New Orleans Dark-Hunters and Squires, both former and current, was that Nick had become a Dark-Hunter himself.

They all knew better than to ask Ash for the truth.

The humans who didn’t know of their world all assumed that Nick had been another casualty to whatever fate had befallen his mother while the authorities believed Nick had killed her.

The latter was why Ash knew he couldn’t bring Nick back to New Orleans. Not for a long time at least. The police were looking for him and they would convict him in a heartbeat.

Not to mention he didn’t really want anyone to know about Nick. At least not until Nick was ready to deal with the world.

After the priest finished, Amanda and Tabitha placed the roses they held in their hands at the door of Cherise’s tomb while the priest and Peltiers left.

Amanda paused beside Ash. “We’re having a memorial service later for Nick at our house. Just the Dark-Hunters and Squires.”

Ash nodded, but refused to meet her eyes. If he did, he was sure she’d know the truth. 

He didn’t move until he was alone. Sighing, he glanced around at the stone monuments that made up the cemetery. There were so many here whom he had personally known. So many he had seen live and die. 

He could hear the sound of their voices on the wind, remember their faces, their lives. 

“I’m sorry, Cherise,” he whispered. 

Stepping forward, he created a mavyllo, a sacred black rose that had been created by his mother, and laid it beside the red ones. Unlike the red ones, it would take root here and grow in memory of her.

It was the highest honor his kind could bestow on anyone.

“Don’t worry, Cherise. I won’t let anything else bad happen to your son... I promise.”