I'm very grateful to Lauren Beck for bringing Nuria to Life! Stay Tuned for the pre-order and ARC link in early April. Chapter 14

Nuria

Ethan sat at my father’s desk, in a chair that still smelled like him. It evoked cinnamon candies and formaldehyde, the scent of so many fluorescent-lit afternoons in the lab. I’d gush to Dad about my swim meets or my god-awful electronic band, and he’d smile at me while packing away the embalming fluid he just finished preparing, while Mom touched up lipstick on that day’s corpse, her eyes twinkling.

Mom and Dad took so much pride in their work—it broke me to see how far this place had fallen since they died.

And here was Ethan, leaning back in that aged chair like he could fill the void in my heart, like this was his family business and not mine. How dare he look like he cared so much?

With my curse, I could stand still as death; silence my breath. I hated the cool power in my veins, but it meant Ethan hadn’t noticed me yet.

Until I wanted him to.

He slammed the laptop screen down as soon as I burst in, just like last time. We stared each other down. There was no guilt in the way he crossed his arms over his broad chest. Wary, at best.

“How long have you been cooking the books?” I asked, calm, unlike the pulse beating in my ears.

Ethan’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away. “Is that what you think of me?”

He must think I’m an idiot to come to any other conclusion. I smiled, tight as my favorite skirt that makes my glutes pop. “Every month, one missing invoice. The next day, inflated expenses… a delivery that I can trace to an address no one has lived in for over a year.”

“An invoice isn’t missing just because you don’t know how to find it.”

“You think I don’t notice missing numbers in a spreadsheet? Just because I didn’t finish med school, you think I can’t count?” I hated how my voice cracked.

He didn’t blink.

I gestured to the laptop. “Open it.”

I didn’t understand what washed over him, too gentle for anger, so soft I struggled to hold on to my own rage. I wanted to believe those gorgeous lips couldn’t lie to me—those dark eyes hadn’t looked my ailing parents in the face and stolen from them anyway. But if I learned anything from flunking med school and failing to launch a ska revival fusion electronic band, it’s never the ones you expect who will let you down. It’s people who smile and say “bless your heart.”

The bastard got up, eyeing the door I was blocking. He was taller, muscular from moving all those corpses to the morgue with the cart with jammed wheels. This was not the face of a man who would hurt me, right? No… that was not what I saw. There was nothing threatening in those pleading eyes. All the same, I wasn’t sure if I was terrified of him, or felt something for him that terrified me for an entirely different reason.

“I know you don’t trust me,” he said, so low that I wanted to… almost. He held the laptop out. “It’s better that you don’t ask questions. I won’t lie to you, but you won’t like what you find.”

When my hand brushed his to take it, he startled at the touch.

“Your hands are cold. Cold as death.”

“Don’t remind me about my curse,” I snapped the laptop away.

He shook his head. “Curse. Why do you keep calling it that?”

“Don’t distract me.” I opened the laptop, leaning over the desk. “Password?”

“I love you, Nuria,” he whispered.

I froze. I had the decency to keep the profanity inside my head.

“That was your Mom’s password,” he said. “Replace the 'I's with ones though. Spaces are dollar signs.”