Grave Burden

by P. Anastasia

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Grave Burden: A Dark Diary Novel

  Copyright © 2020 by P. Anastasia

  Also available in paperback, hard cover, and audio

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901500

  Other books by P. Anastasia:

  Dark Diary (Paperback / Special Edition Hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-9862567-8-3 / 978-0-9974485-1-1

  Exile of the Sky God

  ISBN 978-0-9974485-8-0

  Fates Aflame

  ISBN 978-0-9974485-3-5

  Fates Awoken

  ISBN 978-0-9974485-5-9

  Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy

  ISBN 978-0-9862567-7-6

  All rights reserved. Published by Jackal Moon Press

  Lexington, Kentucky

  www.JackalMoon.com

  Special thanks to Thanomluk Art on Youtube

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  First Edition

  Other books by P. Anastasia

  The Fluorescence Series:

  Book 1: Fire Starter (FREE) | Book 2: Contagious

  Book 3: Fallout| Book 4: Lost Souls

  Dark Diary

  Fates Aflame | Fates Awoken

  Exile of the Sky God

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  Immortality is achieved by those we remember...

  In loving memory of my dear friend, Ollie

  I still had the ring.

  Damn it. Why?

  I had witnessed the brutal murder of the man who had given it to me. I had watched him suffer and bleed out, unable to stop a beast from tearing his ribcage apart.

  I wanted to rid myself of the thing. I should have—but couldn’t. I’d never even opened the black velvet box, never even acknowledged what I had meant to him.

  Not that it mattered anymore; I had married another man—half beast, himself—who had done everything in his power to push me away for my own safety.

  We were two old souls brought together by time, and we could not escape the chains by which we had been bound.

  On the desk before me lay an old sketch I had done very early in my tattooing career. Between rigid, anxious lines of black ink resided a chapter of my life I could not erase.

  And yet, I needed to.

  I crumpled the drawing and tossed it into the trash. I had to forget everything that had happened between us. I had to let him go or the memories would destroy me.

  In the beginning, my husband, Matthaya, had tried to explain to me how the curse would manifest in my veins, but I didn’t understand him then.

  The truth is, most emotions are dampened, while the sensations of hearing and vision are enhanced. At the same time, grief is amplified. Unable to combat such side-effects, we are helpless to do anything other than harbor them. Whatever we died feeling remains with us forever, and we are haunted always by our final mortal regrets.

  Matthaya was not without his own, but nearly four centuries have passed, and with me beside him now, he has begun to let them go. I, on the other hand, with the disease fresh in my blood, struggled to cope. All the things I had died thinking—the sorrow and fear that I had betrayed Derek’s trust in me—left me hollow. He had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go, and he had tried to love me, even as my soul pined for another.

  He was a casualty of my naive mistakes; I had never intended to hurt him.

  There were footsteps outside my door, and I lifted my eyes toward the entryway. The door cracked open.

  Matthaya entered and, almost immediately, gazed inquisitively toward the wastebasket. I hadn’t yet learned how to conceal thoughts from my husband. As one-half of a bound pair of vampires, he could sense my feelings, and even read my thoughts, without really trying. Anything I dwelled upon raised a red flag—a glaring beacon in his mind.

  His brow furrowed, but he tried to pretend he couldn’t feel the pain roiling inside me. His racing thoughts prickled my brain, convincing me otherwise.

  “How are you?” He came up beside me and cupped a hand on my shoulder. His other hand stroked the side of my neck and then his fingers coiled a lock of my hair.

  “I’m fine.”

  He released my hair and pressed his other hand gently, but firmly, against my shoulder. “Are you sure? You can tell me anything, anything at all.”

  As a Sire, his natural ability to infiltrate my thoughts allowed him to study me and to know me better than I knew myself. But he had promised early on not to pry into my secrets.

  I wasn’t ready to tell him the truth about the drawing I had just thrown away.

  “Yes. I’ll be fine,” I replied, turning to look up at him and trying to smile. It was difficult to force the expression.

  “All right.” He forked his fingers through my hair and then leaned down to kiss the side of my neck, his fingertips sliding off my shoulder. “I’m here for you.”

  “I know.”

  He left the room and closed the door behind him, diligently dampening the click of the latch by slowly releasing the doorknob. I worked best when left alone—confined to my art studio and surrounded only by shadows and soft, flickering candlelight. My drawings came to me more readily this way. It was as though the act of being walled up and alone provoked my craft to come out of hiding.

  Back when I had lived with my father and stepmother, I would often stay up late and design tattoos. I managed to squeeze in a few hours of rest, but for the most part, I was either too anxious or too afraid to sleep in the same house as my cruel stepmother.

  Art calmed my nerves. It gave me a sense of control and made me feel stronger.

  Even with a lack of sleep, I had more energy back then. Now, every sketch was a battle between pen and paper. I knew I had them in me, but the ink didn’t want to flow as freely as it had before.

  Derek had taught me to do whatever it took to create—even if it meant boarding myself up in a tiny room and losing sleep. The end result would be worth it, he’d always tell me.

  He had a strange way of thinking about art. He believed that true art could not be domesticated, and that its unpredictable, stubborn disposition gave it uniqueness and life.

  Art would come when it was ready and, although you could coax it, you could never force it.

  The tip of my black pen pressed down onto paper, and I began sketching the outline of an eye. I then darkened the lines of the almond shape with a thick black marker. The drawing—the one I had just thrown away—was the first tattoo that mattered in my career. It made me who I am today and molded me into the artist I will always be. It was the first tattoo I had inked on human skin. And it was the first tattoo I had done for him.

  I drew a thin slit for a pupil and feathered the sides of the eye with decorative thorns, curling a pair of vines around the base as if it were an Egyptian motif. I was good at drawing eyes, so it was the first thing he had asked for after I applied for a full-time job at the shop.

  In the beginning, I was an unpaid apprentice, but it was great experience. I helped around the shop with billing and cleaning, as well as shadowing Derek and other artists, and practicing on imitation skin. Once I turned eighteen, Derek offered to let me start tattooing
clients, if I could nail a perfect tattoo for him first.

  It was my “entrance exam,” he had said. If I wanted to be a full-time artist in his shop, I needed to produce something he would be proud to flaunt.

  The thought of it had made me nervous as hell, but it was a challenge I had accepted with as much grace as I could muster. The design took me days to finish, and I lost a lot of sleep over it. Derek loved dragons and old-school tribal patterns, so I came up with a tribal dragon’s eye framed by two swirling, interconnected full-body dragons with wings embracing the eye on each side and tails tangled together at what would be the inner side of his bicep.

  I remember the exact moment vividly:

  “You ready for this?” Derek plopped down onto one of our padded chairs and rolled up his sleeve. I reached for a disposable razor so I could shave the area I was about to work on.

  “If not, you’re the one who’s going to regret it,” I said with a cheeky smile. I wiped down his arm with a paper towel moistened with disinfectant.

  “True.” He shrugged. “But I make a point to not regret any of my ink, so… it would have to be really, really bad for that to happen.” He tapped me on the forearm. “I trust you, Kathera.” He smiled warmly.

  I reached for my carbon paper outline. “Do you want to see the finished design?”

  “No. Like I said, I trust you. Besides, it’s your career on the line, not mine.” He smirked, trying to settle my nerves with humor.

  I gently patted the template around his bicep, being careful not to rub it too much and smudge the design. I peeled off the carbon paper and fanned the area with my hand. The outline looked great. Part one: success.

  The tattoo machine started to buzz.

  I dipped the needles into black ink, took a deep breath, and then began putting down the outline of the dragon’s eye.

  That’s when Derek pretended to flinch.

  “Ouch!” he squeaked. I lifted the machine away from his arm.

  My anxiety shot through the roof and I shrieked. “Derek, please!”

  He seemed shocked at my reaction and his smile went straight. “Yikes. Sorry.”

  “Please, stop screwing around,” I said with a scoff. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Just having some fun with you.” He chuckled and looked the other way. “I apologize.”

  This wasn’t Derek’s first tattoo, that and he worked out—a lot. I think it was one of his hobbies outside of tattooing and fixing up his old Firebird. Certainly, my light-handed inking skills wouldn’t cause him much, if any, pain. He was goofing around, trying to ease my nerves.

  And it sort of helped.

  The tattoo was going to take me at least a few hours to finish, so I needed to be as focused as possible. He had a high pain tolerance, so I could get it done in one sitting, and he’d made a point to not accept any more appointments that day.

  We made good time on it.

  I finished the outline in about an hour and a half and then we took a break before I started shading. A couple more hours went by before I had finally finished. I wiped off the remaining ink and then carefully applied a thin later of tattoo balm to help with the healing process. It looked good to me. The lines were clean and smooth, and the color even. It looked incredibly good, actually, for my first REAL tattoo, and I was proud of it. Now, I just had to wait to see if it was good enough to get me hired.

  “What do you think, Derek?” I asked, peeling off my gloves and tossing them into the trashcan. I gestured toward the mirror beside us. He stood and rolled his shoulder a few times, shaking out the stiffness.

  He shot a quick glance at the mirror and then back at me, his dark brown eyes concealing his thoughts. “It’s been a long day, Kathera. Why don’t you go home and get some rest? We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  My heart sank. Tomorrow?

  What a way to get shot down.

  I wanted to know right then and there exactly what he had thought of the work. I wanted to know how much he loved it... or hated it. I needed to know, and I wasn’t going to get any sleep if I didn’t.

  But, he was the boss, so I shrugged and sighed, more loudly than I’d intended. “Okay.” I slouched over in my chair.

  He left the room and I started cleaning up.

  The shop had closed for the night and the other artists had already gone home. It was just me and him.

  As I was wiping down the chair, he called out from the other side of the office.

  “Hey, Kathera, can I talk to you for a sec?” He gestured for me to come to the front desk.

  I swallowed hard and walked over to where he was standing.

  Oh, God... he must hate it.

  I was scared. So scared that a lump formed in my throat and I couldn’t swallow. So scared that my heart thumped like it was going to burst from my chest.

  My life depended upon me getting the job. It was all I had been dreaming of for the past two and a half years. If Derek didn’t want to hire me, I was screwed.

  Art was my life. Tattoos were—

  “We want to hire you,” he said, beaming.

  I exhaled. “Oh, my God, yes.” I took a deep breath and sighed, grinning from ear to ear. “So you like it, then?” I crossed my palms over my heart as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Yeah. Of course, I do.” He smiled with his kind eyes, the dark browns and golds accentuating his grin. It wasn’t the same gaze he’d set upon me the day I’d begun interning there. It was different. It was meaningful—proud.

  A lot like his father, actually, may he rest in peace, who died later that year, not long after I had officially joined the team. It was sad for us both, because I knew him really well, even if some of it was only shadowing and asking questions. I’d been working with the shop in one way or another since I was fifteen. Derek’s father was the closest thing I’d had to an uncle. He and Derek taught me everything I know today about tattooing and design.

  “I talked it over with my dad the other day, actually,” Derek continued. “You’ve been around here for a while and we appreciate your work ethic and your distinct style of art. You’ll be an asset to this place. Fresh blood, you know?”

  I nodded. My cheeks were hurting, but I kept on smiling.

  “I needed to know that you wanted this job as much as my dad and I wanted to give it to you,” he went on. “I knew that if your career depended on it, you’d put more work into designing a piece for me than anything else you’ve ever created.” He gestured toward his bicep. “You did and I love it. You listened, and you designed something I can be proud to have forever. You’ve got tattoos in your blood, even if you don’t have any on your skin.” He winked. “Yet.”

  We both chuckled.

  “Oh, and full disclosure, I may have snagged a quick peek at it before you even transferred the outline. I knew what I was in for, not that I had any doubts. Hell, you could have drawn a stick man and I would have hired you, all the same, because I know what you’re capable of. It would have been the finest damn stick man anyone had ever seen!”

  I laughed so hard, my eyes welled with tears.

  Don’t cry in front of your boss, idiot.

  What would Derek think of me now? I had a tattoo—a wedding band illustrated and inked by my own hand. Matthaya shared the design. I drew inspiration from the Celtic dragon motif accenting his antique emerald ring. The pattern represented our origins, and I had inked them both on the eve of our wedding, an event I hope to never forget.

  The ceremony took place at dusk, in a cozy vineyard just outside the city limits, surrounded by a warmly lit lavender garden, reserved just for us.

  The sensation of our fingers entwined and the sight of candlelight glinting off Matthaya’s waves of glossy black hair were memories I sought to embrace forever.

  He squeezed my hand gently, and I was reminded of the human sensation of butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

  I caught Matthaya’s gaze lingering a mom
ent on my bare shoulder before sweeping up my neck to meet my eyes. He smiled; a smile from him was uncommon, and for a split second, I felt the burden and guilt of my past lifting from me.

  “You look incredible,” he said, admiring the sea-foam green, off-the-shoulder blouse with dark teal lacing I’d had custom made for the occasion. Teal lace was a common accent for Irish brides in the old days, as was the sprig of white flowers tucked above my left ear.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I grinned, lips pressed together to hide my delicate fangs. As a recently converted vampire, I also had to stifle my bloodlust in the presence of the mortal priestess who had agreed to perform our marriage ceremony. The urges made me uneasy, and I tried to hide my discomfort.

  Matthaya leaned closer. “It’s okay,” he whispered and then kissed the receptive skin behind my ear. I tilted my head and imagined what it would have been like to have lost my breath then.

  “Kathera,” Priestess Brenna addressed me.

  It was time.

  I lifted my face and looked the woman in the eye. She was pale as porcelain and dressed in deep royal-purple velvet with hints of charcoal-colored lace decorating her blouse and pleated skirt. “Will you accept Matthaya as your husband?”

  My lips stretched a little wider as my fingers tightened around his. “Yes,” I replied.

  The priestess then turned to Matthaya, her lush, curly black locks sliding along her corset. “And do you, Matthaya, accept Kathera as your wife?”

  I watched his stunning green eyes intently.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Brenna turned gracefully toward the glass table at her side and lifted the lid of a wooden box. A subtle creak sounded and then she removed a long stretch of braided cords from inside.

  “Remember, as your hands are fasted, these are not the ties that bind.” She held the braided cords aloft. “Lift your hands,” she instructed.