Under the Grave

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2019 Willie Dalton

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Lessa Lamb

  Cover & Interior Design by We Got You Covered Book Design

  www.authorwilliedalton.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  The Story Continues…

  About the Author

  If you’ve been reading my books for very long, you know that this book is late. Very very late. For that, you have my deepest apologies. Under the Grave was written during a more challenging phase in my life, between exhaustion and delays, on my part and others, it took forever to bring it all together. I hope that the story itself makes up for the time it took to get it to you. And always, thank you for reading.

  Love,

  Willie

  “So,” he asked. “How’s death?”

  “Hard,” she said. “It just keeps going.”

  ― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

  The gray skyline I once found so dreary was now alive with subtleties I would have never seen without my chartreuse vampire eyes. I marveled at the swirls and patterns painted through the bleakness. The dirt was darker and richer now, not just to my eyes, but the smell was more potent and brimming with the scents of life and death. I could read the dirt and pick up clues about the person in each plot just from the scent of the earth. It was almost like tasting wine, or coffee. I could smell the iron, the peat, the decayed trees, and animals. Underneath was the soul’s essence.

  I’d reaped mechanics that smelled like axle grease, and bakers who smelled like yeast and fresh bread. Children made the dirt smell like baby powder, and people who had died violently smelled like lead, and blood.

  Soren and Billy had adapted well to my transition into vampirism. They didn’t say much about the change in my appearance, and asked very little about my hunting trips. I didn’t mind that they weren’t terribly intrigued. They had never been fond of vampires, so allowing me to live and work with them was a huge step.

  However, whenever I mentioned the things I could smell in the dirt and they made the connections with the people I dug up… that seemed to freak them out just a little.

  I smiled as I pushed my shovel down into the brown earth. My heart no longer ached for Raphael, and the anger I had held onto about my own murder had dissipated.

  If I went into the city, I saw friends: vampires, humans, and even a god or two. Here, in the fields of the dead, I had a friend, a lover, and a useful job that I adored.

  The shovel hit the small pocket of air beneath the dirt that told me I was close to the body. Gently, I scraped away the earth and looked down at the woman dressed in a bright pink suit, a pink ribbon pinned to her lapel. I didn’t have to wonder at her cause of death.

  I clicked on my flashlight and her eyes opened. She blinked at me a time or two and I helped her sit up.

  “Hi,” I said to her, trying not to startle her.

  “Hmmph,” she grumbled. “Is this heaven or hell?”

  “Neither. Just the mixed population of the underworld,” I explained.

  “I’ll be damned. Guess I was wrong, I thought for sure there was nothing after death.” She smoothed her short mahogany brown hair and held out her hand for me to help her stand.

  I helped her up. “You’ll have to go into the city to get assigned. That means see how much time you have, get a job, place to live… all of those things.”

  “Can I get a drink somewhere? I haven’t had a drink in ages. The doctors wouldn’t let me drink while I was getting chemo treatments.” She dusted off her suit and rolled her eyes. “That was just stupid. I was terminal when they found it—why deny me one of my only pleasures when I was going to die anyway?”

  I smiled at her; I couldn’t help it. I loved spunky people.

  She looked at me as if she had just seen me, and furrowed her brow, “What is wrong with your eyes?”

  “I’m a vampire,” I told her plainly.

  “Huh,” she mused. “Can I get that drink?”

  I did, in fact, take her for a drink before we went to the Assignment Hall. I sipped my usual, a gin and tonic, and she drank three amaretto sours before I finished my one.

  She told me her name was Linette, and that she’d been a good wife to a good husband, raised her kids, and about the time she was ready to live for herself, she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. She shrugged, “Don’t wait to do the things on your bucket list.”

  After our drinks I dropped her at the door of the Assignment Hall and wished her the best on her new journey.

  I thought about stopping in to see my dad, Ray, or seeing Grace and Andreas, but I had other things in mind. Linette’s “live for the moment” speech had inspired me, even though I was already dead.

  Back in the fields I saw what I was looking for. His white t-shirt was stretched tight across his wide chest and thick arms. His pants were dirty and worn from so many hours of work. His beard added to the hard working, ultra-Viking sex appeal. And those eyes—those steel gray eyes that could make me melt with warmth and desire, or freeze me out with their utter coldness…

  “Soren!” I called out to him as I approached.

  He looked up at me and leaned on his shovel. “Yes?” he inquired, with a raised eyebrow.

  I kept my face stern and moved towards him with purpose. “I need something from you,” I said, and motioned for him to follow me as I walked past.

  Without hesitation or question, he dropped his tools and followed me.

  I opened the door to my little house and didn’t turn around when I heard him come in behind me.

  “Is everything OK?” he asked.

  “Close the door,” I ordered, then added, “and strip.”

  I heard him softly chuckle, “Ah, that’s what this is: what you would describe as a ‘booty call.’”

  I was trying to maintain my serious, slightly dominating vibe, but that did it—hearing Soren refer to himself as my “booty call” was more than I could handle. I laughed, and felt my mood shift like a sudden change in the wind.

  “I suppose you are my booty call,” I said, still laughing. I was somehow feeling a little less sure of myself now. I had planned to make him strip and then jump on top of him, playing the aggressor that I so rarely was.

  He walked in front of me, and now he was the serious one. His eyes locked on mine and didn’t falter, even as his hands moved down to grab the hem of his shirt so he could pull it over his head.

  I saw his muscles flex beneath his skin as the shirt
moved up, and then off of his body. I caught myself biting my lip, and then my eyes broke the focus as I watched him slowly unbutton his pants. He wasn’t just trying to get his clothes off hurriedly to get me in bed—men were never this graceful unless they wanted to be. Soren was putting on a show for me: he was stripping. My own Viking stripper, I thought, and almost giggled again.

  “What’s funny, little girl?” he asked, and suddenly his eyes were burning holes into mine once more.

  My plan had taken an unexpected turn. I felt my face heat up and knew I was blushing. “Nothing,” I whispered.

  He was naked now and moving towards me. My mouth was suddenly very dry, but I was willing to bet that lower areas weren’t.

  He put his large hand around my throat, and I immediately tried to swallow against the tension. I gasped in short, shallow breaths, and then his mouth was on mine and his grip relaxed.

  I breathed deeply and swallowed, even as his tongue was against mine and his teeth bit at my bottom lip.

  “Oh, Soren,” I sighed, sinking in against his body.

  “What do you want?” he asked, as he so often did.

  I knew the question was asking whether I wanted him to continue to be rough, or play nice. Not being able to decide this time, I settled on, “I just want to be close.”

  Soren smiled and kissed me on the nose. He helped me out of my own clothes, and then sat down in my comfy reading chair.

  The chair wasn’t particularly wide, and the arms seemed like they would be in the way. “How is this going to work?” I asked.

  Soren motioned with a finger for me come over and sit on his lap facing away from him.

  “I wanted to be facing you,” I started to argue.

  “Just try it,” he urged.

  So I slowly sat in his lap as he used his hand to help guide himself inside of me. I tried to find the right angle to start moving, but he stopped me.

  “Just be still a moment, feel me inside of you,” he pulled me back into his arms and I closed my eyes. His hands squeezed my breasts, causing my body to tighten around him, and he moaned.

  One of his hands went all the way down to tease between my legs, while his other hand found my throat once more. I sighed and melted back against him as I felt my pleasure growing. I could feel his beard against my neck as he whispered in my ear.

  “My sweet, Hel. So beautiful, so strong, so fucking powerful, and so soft,” he breathed as his hand worked faster.

  Our hips rocked as his hand moved, and I tightened myself around him over and over again. His own grip on my throat tightened as I came, and my scream caught in my throat just behind his hand. I went limp from the intensity of the orgasm, and Soren wrapped both his arms around my torso and lifted me up and down as he thrust deep and hard until he found his own release. I screamed then, enough for both of us.

  I collapsed back against him as he grew soft, still inside of me.

  “Was that close enough?” he asked.

  I nuzzled my face into neck. “Mmhm,” was all I could say.

  Soren had gone back outside to the fields, and I headed to the Vampire Quarter. I needed to go above-ground to feed. I didn’t like going alone, but luckily I knew that one of my other fanged friends would join me.

  I strolled the black brick streets and gazed in shop windows. Before I “turned,” I had thought that all of the stores always looked closed because they were so shadowed and dark, just like everything in the Quarter. Now I knew that vampire eyes were so powerful they just didn’t need all of the extra, blinding, glaring lights that humans did. I could see almost everything in the store just by taking a casual glance in the windows.

  Other vampires passed me and I knew most of them, though I couldn’t say I had made any new friends in this part of the city. I didn’t feel as out of place as I once did, though it was hard to say if that was because I was a vampire now, or just that I had spent too much time here.

  I knew either Grace or Andreas should be home, and the other would be at work. I didn’t really care who I hunted with, just that I ate. The more physical the activity, the more frequently you needed living blood. Digging was very physical, and I had a lot of vigorous sex with Soren… so it seemed like I was always needing to eat.

  My hand was almost on the lion’s head door knocker when the door abruptly swung open. I quickly stepped back and saw that it was Boude stepping out.

  His long red curls hung over one shoulder and I could see he had part of his hair pulled back on top. We smiled when we saw each other.

  “Looking for a hunting partner?” he asked.

  “I am. Do I look like I’m starving?” I replied.

  He laughed. “Just an educated guess. Shall we go to my place?”

  “Sure, but should we invite Andreas?” I asked.

  “He just returned from his own meal and is sleeping. I just came to drop off a pair of Grace’s boots that I found,” he said.

  “Is she here?” I asked without thinking.

  His demeanor gave away only the slightest hint of discomfort. “No, she’s at Melinoe’s.”

  Grace was my best friend, and Boude’s girlfriend up until very recently. She met Melinoe (the daughter of Hades and Persephone, and the goddess of ghosts and nightmares), and they had taken a strong liking to one another, causing her to end her relationship with Boude.

  I tried not to let Boude see my regret in asking; no one wanted pity, especially not a vampire. “I see,” I said.

  Boude forced a smile, and I followed him down the streets to the alleyway where his place was tucked away.

  He was dressed in green and gold, two of his favorite colors that he knew he looked good in. His emerald eyes and fiery hair sparkled and shimmered even in the dimmest of light.

  Boude and Andreas were so fun to look at, and even though I was a vampire now as well, I still just wanted to sit and pet them like pretty little dolls.

  Apparently I had been staring at Boude since we entered his apartment.

  “Is there something wrong with my face?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I said, trying to blink my vision clear and refocus. “Just admiring your beauty—and I think I really need to eat,” I laughed.

  He chuckled, “You know, you are very striking yourself, but you were even before you turned.”

  “Thank you,” I said. To some, that would have seemed like flirting, but Boude and I had enjoyed our time as lovers, and that was the past. We were friends now—good friends—and I was glad we could still appreciate one another.

  “Living room or bedroom?” he asked.

  “Living room,” I answered. “If we went to the bedroom, I’d fall asleep when we got back, and I need to get back to the fields.”

  He nodded.

  Boude let me take the couch, and he took the loveseat. We both laid down, and within moments we were walking around unfamiliar streets at night in the world of the living. My ears were filled with the sounds of loud music, and laughter.

  People stumbled out of the bars smiling, holding on to one another for support. Drunk people were always so easy.

  We made our way into a dark bar, where jazz music blared, and the smell of liquor that filled the air was only slightly less overwhelming to the senses than the sugary sweet scent of cotton-candy-blood awaiting me. Women everywhere were eyeing Boude and trying to discern if we were together.

  I winked at him, and he returned it with his still striking, but now human-looking, eye. I made my way to the bar and sat down.

  The bar was packed, and I was lucky to find a stool. I knew the bartender wouldn’t notice me for a while, but that was OK. I wasn’t here to drink alcohol. In the underworld, I could eat or drink whatever I wanted, but in the world of the living, blood was all we could have.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” a voice asked.

  I turned on my stool and smiled, surprised to see a guy standing beside me that was much younger than I was used to. I resisted the urge to ask him if he was old enough to buy me a d
rink.

  I could have let it play out: let him buy me a drink that I would pretend to sip, as he threw back drink after drink, until I was certain he wouldn’t remember what happened afterwards. However, I was anxious to get back to the fields, and I was hungry. I was too tired for games, fun as they might be.

  “Actually, I was really looking for company more than a drink,” I said, and gave him a smile big enough to match my bold words. Being a vampire had certainly made me more direct, but then again, I wasn’t actually trying to seduce this guy. He was just dinner.

  The guy grinned and ducked his head a bit. He was blonde, but not like Soren. He was clean cut, and most certainly early twenties. He wore a salmon colored polo shirt and jeans that were torn at the factory before he bought them. He was cute, but really not my type.

  “I can definitely give you some company,” he said.

  I jumped down off my seat and inclined my head towards the door. “Shall we?”

  “Right behind you, babe,” he said, his voice thick with desire.

  I gave Boude a casual nod where I saw him leaned against the wall talking with two women draping themselves across him.

  Outside, the guy followed me down the street and into an abandoned alley.

  “Is this where you’re parked, or do you live nearby?” he asked.

  I heard a trace of concern in his voice, so when I responded I made my own voice a little breathier. “No, I just don’t want to wait another minute,” I said, turning to face him.