Valentines in the Vineyard (Dark Nights Collection #3)

Chapter 1

SERAPHINA

The cold wakes me first.

And it’s not a subtle chill. It’s sharp and unforgiving, biting into my bare skin like tiny teeth. It seeps through my skin and settles into my bones, dragging me up from the dark depths of unconsciousness whether I want to surface or not.

My eyes flutter open, met by a sky bleeding crimson and purple, the last gasps of a winter sunset painting the horizon in bruised colors. I'm lying on my back in... dirt? No. It’s grass. Dry, winter-dead grass that crackles beneath me when I try to move.

Where am I?

I push myself up on my elbows, and the world tilts. My mind is moving slower than normal, almost like honey oozing through the cracks in my skull. Everything is fuzzy at the edges of my vision, and sounds are muffled, like I’m wearing headphones. I blink hard, trying to force clarity into the haze.

The first thing I register is the red.

Thousands of tiny red lights pulse through the darkness ahead of me, strung along in endless rows, stretching in every direction until they disappear into the growing dark. The lights blink in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, like heartbeats. Like it’s alive and watching.

I sit up fully, trying to get a clearer view of what’s happening around me.

I find heart-shaped black balloons, dozens upon dozens of them, scattered throughout the rows.

Some are tethered to wooden posts, bobbing gently in the February breeze.

Others drift lazily between what I’m realizing are grapevines.

I'm in a vineyard. I'm sitting in the middle of a fucking vineyard in the middle of nowhere, and I have no idea how I got here.

Panic makes my chest tighten while bile threatens to rise in my throat.

I look down at myself and only get more confused.

I'm in a dress I don't recognize. Blood-red silk that barely reaches mid-thigh, thin straps that leave my shoulders exposed to the icy air.

The fabric clings to my body, offering absolutely nothing in the way of warmth or protection.

My legs are bare. My feet are strapped into black heels—stilettos, so tall they're impossible to walk in, let alone find my way out of a vineyard.

I press my palms into the cold earth and force myself to think. What do I remember? Wine. Lots and lots of wine. I was on the couch with a massive box of chocolates, stuffing my face...

And then... nothing. A complete blank, like someone reached into my head and erased everything that came after. And then I woke up here.

Alone.

In a fucking vineyard of all places.

Music reaches my ears, and my blood runs colder than the February air.

It's faint at first, drifting through the vineyard from speakers I can't see. A song so distorted I can’t make out what it is.

The melody has been slowed down, stretched and warped until it sounds like a fucking nightmare.

Haunting notes that seem to curl around me like smoke, making the hair on my arms stand up straight.

I scramble to my feet, nearly twisting my ankle in these stupid heels. The world spins again, and I have to grab onto a nearby post to steady myself. The wood is rough beneath my palms, wrapped in dormant grapevines that look like gnarled fingers in the dying light.

I shake my head, forcing myself to think.

I need to find a way out of here. I need to find a road, a building, another person. I need to—

"Happy Valentine's Day, my love."

The voice cuts through the night like a blade, and I freeze in place.

It's deep. Masculine. Coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, amplified through hidden speakers so it surrounds me completely. There's no face attached to it, no body I can see, just that disembodied voice rolling through the vineyard like distant thunder.

My heart slams against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat.

"You have until the song ends to run."

The distorted music swells slightly, as if punctuating each of his words. I spin in a circle, searching the shadows between the rows, but I can't see anyone. The red lights pulse. The black balloons sway. The grapevines reach toward me like skeletal hands.

"After that..." A pause that seems to stretch for eternity. "You're mine."

I don't take time to think.

I run.

The heels are a nightmare on the uneven ground, sinking into soft dirt, catching on roots and rocks I can't see in the growing darkness. I manage to kick them off without breaking stride, abandoning them somewhere in the third row as my bare feet slap against cold earth.

The silk dress rides up with every stride, offering no protection against the branches that scratch at my thighs as I push through the rows. The thick vines are everywhere, gnarled and twisted on their trellises, reaching out to snag the fabric, to slow me down.

But I don't slow down.

I run like my life depends on it, because I have a sickening feeling it does.

The music follows me, that haunting slowed-down melody drifting from speakers positioned throughout the property. It's the soundtrack to my nightmare, marking time, counting down...

After that... you're mine.

The words echo in my head as I navigate the endless rows. Every direction looks the same—vines and posts and pulsing red lights stretching into infinity. The black balloons bob overhead like dark omens, marking paths I don't know how to read.

Who is he? What does he want with me?

The questions pound through my skull in rhythm with my footsteps. He planned this. He went to enormous lengths to create this elaborate event—the decorations, the speakers, the costume I'm wearing. This isn't random. This isn't a crime of opportunity.

This is a hunt.

And I'm the fucking prey.

The realization hits me like a bucket of ice water being dumped over my body, and I push harder, forcing my burning legs to move faster.

My lungs are already screaming from the cold air, each breath a knife in my chest. I'm not exactly out of shape, but I'm not trained for this either.

I do yoga and occasionally pretend I'm going to start jogging.

I don't run for my life through frozen vineyards in the dark.

A wicked laugh echoes through the night.

Low and amused, far too close for comfort.

I veer left, ducking between rows, trying to be unpredictable. The red lights blur past me in streaks of crimson. A balloon catches on my arm as I pass, and I slap it away with a strangled sound that's half sob, half scream.

"You're fast," the voice says, and this time I can tell it's not coming from the speakers. It's coming from somewhere behind me, somewhere in the dark. "I fucking love that."

Oh god. Oh fuck. He's close.

I cut right, then right again, trying to lose him in the maze of vines. My feet are beginning to numb from the frozen ground, toes catching on rocks that send jolts of pain up my legs. The silk dress is a flag in the darkness, a beacon screaming here I am, come get me.

I know my sole focus should be about escape routes and getting the fuck out of here.

Instead, my traitorous body is doing something else entirely.

My pulse isn't just racing from fear. There's heat building low in my belly, spreading through my limbs despite the cold.

My skin feels too tight, too sensitive, hyper-aware of every brush of silk, every whisper of wind.

My nipples have hardened beneath the thin fabric, and I tell myself it's just the cold.

It's just the cold. Because it has to be just the cold.

It's not excitement. It's not anticipation. And it’s definitely not some deeply buried part of me thrilling at the idea of being chased through the darkness by a predator who's promised to make me his.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

The music shifts, the distorted melody reaching what sounds like its final verse. The song is ending. My time is running out.

I push harder, ignoring the pain in my feet, the burn in my lungs, the way my heart feels like it might explode out of my chest. The vineyard has to end somewhere. There has to be a fence, a road, a building—something.

A black balloon drifts across my path, and I shove past it, stumbling slightly on a root hidden beneath the dead grass. My hands shoot out to catch myself on a trellis post, and for one terrible second I'm completely still, completely vulnerable.

That's when I hear him.

Footsteps.

Not running. Walking. Steady and unhurried, boots crunching on the frozen ground. He's not chasing me—he's stalking me. Taking his time because he knows something I don't.

He knows this vineyard.

He knows every row, every dead end, every place I might try to hide.

And I know nothing.

I push off the post and run again, but my movements feel more frantic now, less controlled. The adrenaline that was carrying me is starting to flag, replaced by a desperate, primal desire to live.

The music fades to silence.

The song has ended.

"Time's up, my love."

His voice is closer now. So much closer. I can almost feel it against the back of my neck, warm breath in the cold air.

I don't look back. I can't look back. If I look back and see him—actually see him—I don't know what I'll do.

The vineyard stretches endlessly ahead, rows upon rows of gnarled vines and pulsing lights. Black balloons bob in my peripheral vision. The sky has gone fully dark now, deep purple giving way to black, and the red lights seem brighter for it. Angrier.

I'm running out of steam. I can feel it in the heaviness of my legs, the way my stride is shortening, the burning in my chest that's becoming harder to ignore. Whatever he used to drug me is still lingering in my system, weighing me down when I need to be light.

But I keep running.

Because stopping isn't an option.

Because surrendering feels like giving up something I'm not ready to give.

And because, despite everything, despite the fear and the confusion and the cold...

A fucked up part of me wants to see where this night will go.

The thought surfaces unbidden, and I shove it down with all the force I can muster. Now is not the time to analyze why my body is responding to mortal danger like it's foreplay. Now is the time to survive.

I round a corner and nearly collide with a massive cluster of black balloons, their strings tangled together around a tall wooden post. I dodge at the last second, my hip catching the edge of the post hard enough to bruise.

The pain focuses me. Sharpens the edges of my panic into something more useful.

I scan the darkness ahead, looking for anything that might help me. Another row, another turn, another—

Movement.

To my left, just a glimpse. A shadow shifting between the rows. A shape that's too tall, too broad, too deliberately positioned to be anything but him.

I veer right so hard I nearly fall, my bare feet sliding on a patch of frost-slicked grass. My arms pinwheel, desperate for balance, and I manage to stay upright through sheer force of will.

The footsteps change.

No longer walking. Running.

He's coming.

A sound escapes my throat—a cross between a whimper and a moan. I force my exhausted legs to move faster, pushing through rows of vines that seem to grab at me, to slow me down, to offer me up to the predator at my heels.

The red lights pulse faster now, or maybe that's just my imagination. My heartbeat and the lights have synced up, creating a rhythm that feels almost hypnotic. Almost ritualistic.

Like this was always meant to happen.

Like I was always meant to end up here, running through a vineyard in the dark, being hunted by a man whose face I haven't seen but whose voice I can't get out of my head.

You're mine.

The words echo through my skull as I run, blending with the pound of my heartbeat, the slap of my feet on frozen ground, the ragged gasps of my breathing.

I am not his.

I am not anyone's.

I am—

The footsteps are right behind me now.

I can hear his breathing, steady and controlled where mine is ragged and desperate. I can feel the heat of him, somehow, cutting through the February chill like a fire at my back.

I push for one last burst of speed, everything I have left, every reserve I didn't know I possessed.

It's not enough.

He's faster.

He's stronger.

He's been playing with me this whole time, and now he's done playing.

I can feel him closing the distance, the moment rushing toward me like a fucking freight train.

And then—

His hand closes around my arm.