Night Unbound [Claiming series, #1]

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Special Note: Please kindly excuse any discrepancies you may come across as you read this book including formatting issues. I hope the power, depth, and beauty of the content outweighs any grammatical inconsistencies or lack of aesthetic quality. Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of your life through my writing.

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Jay still hadn't arrived when they returned to the office. Julie slipped into a small room that held a cot, probably for Mackenzie, and followed Asher's instruction to pin the St. Michael medal on the inside of her clothing. A glance in the mirror of the powder room told her that the cross he had given her must be stainless steel. Plain, ordinary, and, if Asher was right very powerful. She touched it, decided it looked ok, and returned to the office.

Asher once again sat on the couch.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him as she took up position at the desk.

"Better, actually. The burning has begun to subside."

"Good."

"Now I want something."

"Blood?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine. What I want is information. About you."

"Oh." She hesitated. "I don't talk much about myself."

"I've noticed. Why not?"

"I'm not a very exciting person. I have more fun listening to other people than talking."

"I think you're a very exciting person," he said, and something in his gaze made her heart speed up again, and that made him smile, because he could hear it.

"The haunting," he said. "Tell me about that haunting you mentioned."

"Other than that it was scary?" When he nodded, she tried to decide where to begin. "I noticed it the first night we moved into a new house. I was five at the time, and I honestly didn't know what to make of it. It wasn't as if I saw anything, or heard anything. It was just this feeling that someone was always there, watching me. And I didn't like it but I wouldn't figure out how to express the feeling. It wasn't as if I could say someone was there because obviously no one was."

"Very difficult experience at that age."

"For a long time, that's all it was. But night after night I'd lie in my bed with my eyes wide open, just waiting, sure I was going to sleep in the dark. Some nights, when the feeling got too strong, I'd try to hide myself under the covers, as if I could make myself invisible to it."

He nodded encouragingly.

"The feeling never went away, but at some point, I convinced myself it wasn't real. I got better at living with it, even ignoring it.

"Why do I suspect it didn't end there?"

"It didn't. I heard it the first time when I was about eight. It called my name. Just this quiet whisper in the dark. So it was back to sleeping with the lights on, even though my parents got angry with me about it. And I told them I heard someone calling me. They put it down to overactive imagination."

Her hands clenched, because now she was getting to the part that still terrified her, even after all this time. "Things started happening fast after that. I began to see shadows out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked they were gone. And if ever I was alone in a room, I'd hear it whisper my name. Then it started moving things in my room. The worst night was when it pulled my blankets off me."