Nightshade

<p><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>A love so forbidden it would shake the heavens ...</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>My father called them messengers.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>He once told me they walked among us and that somewhere in this dark and godless city there shined a faint sliver of hope. I had only to look for the signs.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Well I've spent my whole life investigating the inexplicable and all I've found are the unsettling vestiges of iniquity - the evidence of another world shrouded by the obscure. Purgatory to some where depravity hides in shadows and girls like me are little more than delicious bites of temptation.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Others call it Nightshade.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>This peculiar place is where I first met the cold and callous recluse living in a decaying cliffside cathedral. Jericho Van Croix is the epitome of everything I've been told to fear. A raven-winged harbinger who wears intrigue like a warm black cloak. An enigma that I'm determined to unravel - even if it means getting closer than I should.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>One touch is forbidden. Even so much as a kiss would be my demise. But the sin on his lips burns me up like a wild flame and his growing infatuation weakens my resolve.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Giving him what he wants though will mean no chance for redemption or escape. What's worse is the signs I've followed yet failed to see all these years begin to unmask a terrifying reality:</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>That falling may be my only saving grace.</span></p>