Chapter 1

My name is Anya, and I see ghosts.

It' s a "gift," they call it, passed down in my family.

For me, it' s mostly been a curse.

The Lady in Gray has been with me for as long as I can remember.

She' s the spirit of my grandfather' s lover, the one he spurned.

The one who caused the "accident" that killed my parents.

Her rage was a cold fire, always burning beside me.

For fifteen years, I lived at Serenity Glen.

It was a retreat deep in the Montana wilderness, a place for people like me.

Elijah, the caretaker, was old and knew things about the spirit world.

He taught me how to manage my gift, how to quiet the storm inside me.

He even taught me how to appease the Lady in Gray.

After all this time, she was close to peace, just days away from moving on.

I could almost taste the quiet life I never had.

Then Ethan Cole crashed into my world.

Literally.

He was a tech mogul, rich and loud.

His ATV went off a trail near the retreat.

We found him close to death.

He' d taken some experimental stimulant, trying to push himself too hard, too fast.

His body was shutting down.

Elijah said there was little modern medicine could do for him now.

But I could help.

My healing was different, a mix of spiritual energy and old herbal knowledge.

I started the process, drawing on the quiet energy of the Glen.

The Lady in Gray stirred, a flicker of her old hostility.

She didn' t like outsiders, especially not disruptive ones.

Ethan' s eyes fluttered open, filled with a desperate, animal fear.

I looked straight at him.

"My help comes with a price," I told him, my voice low.

"Your unwavering loyalty. If you betray that, a shadow will cling to you. Do you accept?"

He was dying. He would have accepted anything.

"Yes," he rasped, his hand weakly gripping mine. "Anything."

I finished the healing.

The Lady in Gray settled, but she watched him with cold, knowing eyes.

Elijah looked worried, but said nothing.

I had made a bargain.

He had made a vow.