Deathly Desires

By Faedra Rose

It’s All Hallows’ Eve and Renae Saltzman has had enough. After a lifetime of physical and sexual abuse, she’s ready to be free of the mortal coil—choosing to end her life on her favorite holiday. All she wants is to be free of the pain, her abusers, and her useless mother.

Just as she tastes peace on the tip of her tongue, a skull-faced entity accosts her, dragging her soul from the depths. Awakening on the other side of death, Renae finds herself face to face with none other than the Grim Reaper. Renae just wants to move on, but the reaper has other ideas...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9780369507747

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Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2023 Faedra Rose

ISBN: 978-0-3695-0774-7

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Jessica Ruth

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

This series is dedicated to all my fellow spooks, to those who love the darkness and live for the excitement and thrill of Halloween! You are my people, and I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did writing it. Stay spooky, monster lovers!

DEATHLY DESIRES

Loving Monsters, 2

Faedra Rose

Copyright © 2023

Chapter One

They say the veil between the worlds is thin tonight, no more than a gossamer whisper between the seen and unseen. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I’ve decided, fittingly, that this one will be my last. I can’t handle living anymore—it’s just too painful.

Glancing down at my scarred wrists, I pull my long black sleeves down further to hide my shame and heave a sigh. It’s strange how some people lead such wonderful lives, while the rest of us endure such wretched ones. We aren’t living. Not really. Most of us are barely surviving. Hell, we’re hanging on grimly by bloody fingernails, just trying to make ends meet.

I didn’t ask to be born into an abusive, drug-riddled household. I didn’t ask for a childhood of cigarette burns and purple bruises. I didn’t ask to be violated again and again by Mom’s one thousand different junkie boyfriends. I didn’t ask to be the only real adult. I don’t fucking like working two shitty jobs just to pay our rent and keep something other than alcohol and rollie papers in the fucking pantry because my own mother is a useless addict. But here I am.

My mom’s never protected me from the monsters in her life, so they bled easily into mine, like shadows through the cracks of our broken lives. From what I’ve heard, her formative years mirror my own. Ever since I can remember, she’s been lost. Lost in her own wonderland, or nightmare, forever escaping life and its demons, while never leaving it. She’s afraid. I know that much. She has the courage to face the pointy end of a needle, or another filthy fist, but she hasn’t the courage to change it or leave it all behind. She can’t. Or won’t.

I see the resignation in her eyes every single day, and every single day it crushes my soul a little more. She’s resigned herself to a living death—night after night of blurring the edges of her reality—just trying to forget what she feels. All I know is that’s not going to be me. I’m more afraid of not living than dying. Death is the answer to all my problems. It’s my cure. It’s the real escape from it all. There’s no half-assing it. Once I commit, it’ll be done … and hopefully I’ll finally find peace.

There’s no surviving a fall like