Emeline never expected to wake up in a cold,
lightless space so tucked away.

Her eyelids heavy, she wanted to sleep in her inner darkness for just a bit longer.With some will, however, she slowly opened her eyes, only finding it
ineffectual to her waking. Everything was dark, so pure an umbra that even as she darted her eyes over to a corner, she saw nothing. The only thing she could feel was the chill, a wintry sheet wrapped around her, curving to her physique in every way, as she laid there in waking.

"Ah...my head...."

Emeline could feel her senses grow numb again;
sleep taking control of her resolve. She closed her eyes.“This is such a weird dream; I don’t even know where I am…”

Her eyes still closed, Emeline sighed, letting
out an exhale before falling into her motionless state.With hands beside her, she twisted to her left,
unexpectedly bumping her shoulder into what felt like some kind of tight pressure.

“Hmm…” She groaned, tightening her eyes as if
she could squint in her darker obscurity. “What's this?”

The covering was soft, almost like cotton silk
sheets, but thick with the dampness of a wet feeling that she had felt sometime before. Was it of the feeling of walking in the rain with your eyes closed, or,
more so, wading in a pool of minerals, the fumes swirling and drifting amongst the surface…? This feeling was so familiar, and, yet, it was as gray and distant as a black and white photo.

Not wanting to open her eyes, Emeline felt against this liquid, tracing her fingers as she felt it move beneath her tips and fall back in waves of sound. She began tracing closer, closer to where the
wall was nearly touching her nose and brushing her cheek, the light she felt between her growing.

And then, it was as if it were static had spoken upon her softly. She could feel like something was wrong the moment
she felt the bristled strands of the wall. The once soft wool turned to a rather rough, taut kind of texture like that of a suit. And the liquid covering was all over, a thin layer coating it like a second skin. It was nothing like anything she had ever felt before.

Emeline opened her eyes.

His skin was supple, soft with a pale tint that glowed against her touch among rests of the ripped shirt fabrics. She felt as if he wasn’t even there, the air around him tasteless and vague like the mist that she encompassed before. As her eyes adjusted, she couldn’t help but continue with her fingertips up against his skin, following deeply amongst the path where she found the edge of his shoulder. The deep crevice of muscle that formed
along, folding against his shoulder, was just as bony and delicate, as if it were to break in her hand with her touch. Keeping her eyes moving slowly upward
like a crawling ribbon, she eyed a line of familiarity in color that slowly appeared, made it’s crawling against his skin.

More like seeping.

As she gently stroked her fingers across the
liquid, she shuttered. It felt so warm, so saturated like thick, fluid water as she pressed her fingertips together. She looked at her hand, only to shiver.

It was a sickening crimson that coated
her palm.

For some reason, only his shoulder was bleeding, the wound gutted deep into his deltoid like it had been hacked with meat
cropper’s knife.

When his expression seemed to scream, he twisted his neck, trailing to the floor from his raven,
ebony hair the sorrow that hid his face from her eyes.


Emeline looked up at the marauder’s hair, pressing
her palm against the curve of his cheek. “What…what's going on?” She leaned in closer, hope in distinguishing past the black hair that swept across his eyes. As she brushed past the strands of black, ash straw and burnt ash, she froze.

My god...is that....

The man suddenly exhaled a held breath,
gasping and heaving in raspy tones to surface in the dark. His voice was scratching against the walls, his arms trembling in an uncontrollable fashion
as if every motion of his body seemed to scream out in a state of panic.

Emeline began the back away slowly, taking her
hand away and holding it close to her chest. She found her back against a wall of unknown, hearing the young man panting and crying, as if he was dying in the
night. He crouched down on the floor, his hands and knees keeping his back arched and quaking.

Bending down to the ground beside him, Emeline
held out her hand to his spine, slowly beginning to stroke it. “Are you alright…?”

His face, twisted in an anguish visage, convulsed. Behind his parting lips, sharp fangs, glowing like ivory milk, glimmered. The hair on his back shot up, his
body shaking.

She stroked the curve of this shoulder blade.

The man started to shiver.

“Ah, calm down…” Emeline whispered. “It’s
okay—”

Kill me....

The young man gripped her shoulders, forcing himself on top of her body and pinning
her to the ground. His breath hinted the smell of roses, his hand caressing against the skin of her neck. It was a magical feeling, an unknown shaking
eating at her insides, the sound of her heart pulsating throughout her body.

Kill me...

Emeline could only stare up at her captor, his
eyes still hidden as he leaned in closer towards her neck. His pointed white
thorns, skimming, tracing across her neckline, would have even made her body
expel to the demise of the incubus above. And yet, as she stared into the chest
of the monster…she…she…


(Ello, readers! Just wanted to let you know that XHeart will be in parts [kind of like episodes] throughout the novel.  I just didn't want anyone suddenly growing confused when reading this book, and I hope no one did grow confused by this. Thanks :D)

(Am I not a stinker for ruining the suspense?)

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