Love At First Death

The night stretched on, and Elysia found herself sitting awkwardly in Damien's office, the reality of her situation sinking in. The quiet hum of the building was both unsettling and oddly soothing, but her nerves were far from calm. Damien hadn't said much since their initial conversation, his focus now on the papers scattered across his desk.

She glanced at him, watching the way his brow furrowed as he concentrated. How could someone be so frustrating and yet so… annoyingly good-looking?

"Do you ever blink?" he asked suddenly, not looking up from his work.

"What?" Elysia jumped, startled.

"You've been staring at me for the past ten minutes," he said, his tone flat.

"I wasn't staring!" she lied, her cheeks heating. "I was just… lost in thought."

"Uh-huh."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "You're really bad at making people feel welcome, you know that?"

"I didn't invite you here," he shot back. "You're the one who showed up unannounced. On a table. In my morgue."

Elysia opened her mouth to retort but quickly shut it. Fair point.

"Well," she said, shifting in her chair, "you could at least pretend to care about my well-being. You're a terrible host."

Damien finally looked up, his piercing gray eyes locking onto hers. "I'm not a host. I'm a mortician. And you're not a guest– you're a complication."

"Wow," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "You really know how to make a girl feel special."

"Glad to see your sense of humor survived whatever this is," he said dryly, returning to his paperwork.

Elysia groaned, leaning her head back against the chair. She couldn't believe this was her life now– waking up in a morgue, bickering with a surly mortician, and having absolutely no clue what came next.

"So… is this where you live?" she asked, desperate to break the silence.

"No," Damien replied without looking up.

"Oh. Do you have a house nearby?"

"No."

She frowned. "Then where do you stay?"

"Here."

Elysia blinked. "You just said this isn't where you live."

"I don't live here. I stay here."

"That's the same thing!"

"It's really not."

She groaned again, throwing her hands up. "You're impossible!"

"And you're loud," he countered, his lips twitching slightly as if he were suppressing a smirk.

Before she could fire back, a loud knock echoed through the room. Elysia froze, her heart leaping into her throat.

"Expecting company?" she whispered.

"No," Damien said, standing and moving toward the door.

He opened it cautiously, revealing a woman standing in the dim hallway. She was tall, with sharp features and an air of authority that made Elysia immediately wary. Her black suit was immaculate, and the badge clipped to her belt glinted under the fluorescent light.

"Damien Blackwood?" the woman asked, her voice clipped.

"Yes," he said evenly. "Who's asking?"

"Detective Harper," she replied, pulling out a notepad. "We need to talk."

Damien didn't move from the doorway. "About what?"

"About a body that went missing from your morgue earlier tonight."

Elysia's blood ran cold.

Damien's expression didn't falter, but she could see the tension in his jaw. "You must be mistaken. All bodies are accounted for."

Detective Harper raised an eyebrow. "Are they?"

Elysia shrank back into her chair, clutching the coat around her tighter. She had a sinking feeling this conversation was about to get a lot more complicated.