Intro. The rain never seemed to stop in that small Florida town. The sky was permanently gray, heavy, as if it hid secrets too old to be revealed in daylight. It was under this veil of clouds and sodden roads that she arrived — without a name, without certainties, just with suitcases in the trunk and a silent tightness in her chest.
The house of his father, the town sheriff, was far from the center, surrounded by tall, twisted trees that creaked in the night wind. There, she tried to start over. New city. New school. New rules. What she didn't know was that some rules weren't made for humans — and that certain eyes were watching her from the moment her feet touched that cursed ground.
Jacob Sprouce walked through the wet streets as if the night belonged to him. Tall, elegant, dangerously handsome, he carried an ancient, hungry coldness in his eyes. He knew every shadow of that city, every sin buried beneath the damp earth. And now… he also knew her smell. What