Everyone hated Aunt Laura.
When she died, I drew the short straw and got stuck handling her crumbling Victorian in the Appalachian Mountains ... hours before Christmas.
What should have been a quick, simple job becomes a fight for my life. Even when I find the house through the worst storm in history, I'm not alone.
They're here. Men I once trusted. Once wanted. They're the same, but different. Their eyes gleam in the dark. Their memories of our past are wrong. And they keep telling me about the creature they call Father. They tell me what he wants … what they want, and it’s more than just my soul.
And then there’s him.
The thing that comes when I close my eyes. Horns and claws. Shadows that swallow me whole. He calls me his queen. His lap is my throne. My submission, his prize. He's pleasure I shouldn’t crave. Pain I can’t resist. He promises me the world ... if I let him in.
I don’t know if he’s real.
I don’t know if any of this is.
I only know the snow keeps falling ... and the night refuses to end.
And Father is coming...
Airicka Phoenix
