You're So Dead to Me (Grimdale Graveyard Mysteries, #1)

by Steffanie Holmes

What do you do when three hot, possessive ghosts want to jump your bones?

There’s the slightly psychotic Roman soldier who loves the Great British Bake Off, the bossy, aristocratic royal prince who demands the finer things in life (er, death), and the blind Victorian gentleman adventurer who doesn’t have a mean bone in his body (or any bones, for that matter).

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor every atom of me in magnificent glow than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. JACK LONDON

“Walpurgis, stop that,” Agnes snaps. “You’re supposed to be a servant of Satan, not a gibbering pup.”

“I hope you steered well clear of France,” Agnes says with a sniff. “French people live there.”

And after seven years, I’m not sure that I’m ready to face what I left behind.

…she’s… …the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

That’s not the Brianna we used to know. Our Bree was full of life, bursting with the need to adventure, to experience everything she could before she met her own end. Our Bree didn’t lie around in bed feeling sorry for herself.

Edward didn’t like being confronted by his own grandiose and garish grave erected by his friends, since his family disowned him (although he did occasionally deign to stand on the edge of the cemetery to give a suitable backdrop for his morose and terrible poetry). And when Pax was alive, the cemetery land was the site of a bloody battle between the Roman forces and the Celtic tribes where he was slain, and he can still hear the Celtic war cries as they mowed down his friends…

Bree is home, and she smells of sadness and adventures. All I want to do is talk to her in that easy way we’ve always talked, but I can’t.

Ambrose skids into the room, so excited that he swings his cane around like a gladiator on kill-one-get-one-free day at the Colosseum.

And now my verpa is standing at attention, and ghosts can’t jerk their own cucumbers, and it’s very annoying.

“Why do you still ignore us? We are your friends. We only ever wanted to be your friends. We were always so good at cheering you up when you were sad. You’re sad now and you don’t want us to cheer you up?” He draws out his sword and stabs it around. “I will slay all your enemies if it will make you smile again!”

Damn, why did I never notice how hot my old ghost friends were?

It looks like for the first time in over seventy-eight years, Grimdale Graveyard has a fresh corpse.

It’s a lie – they bother me all the time. Right now, Pax is making silly faces at me and Edward is trying to pick up a jar of peanut butter, but is only succeeding in moving it closer to the edge of the counter.

Pax is casting his eyes around, desperate for something to stab that will solve the problem.

Just talking to the three of them makes the pain recede. Maybe…maybe I don’t have to carry this weight all on my own any longer.

I turn to my three childhood friends, suddenly aware that for the first time since I returned to Grimdale, I’m alone with them.

I cannot fall for a ghost. I will not.

Her fingers are entwined in mine. Like I’m a mortal, corporeal human, not a figment of an expired life. Like I’m real to her.

I was caged in by Grimdale and all the people like Kelly Kingston. I was doomed to be the freak they said I was. But I broke free. I escaped.

Dad’s trapped inside himself. He can’t make his body do things it should do, and he’s aware of every moment that’s lost.

But magic doesn’t exist. And I am a freak. And Dad will never get better.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “I have something in my eye.” “You do,” he nods in agreement. “You have sadness. But I will find a way to make it better.”

I am not good with women. I am a champion stabber, a world-class Druid slayer, a brilliant brawler, and a passable tenor. But when it comes to romance, I come from the ‘throw them over your shoulder and fuck them until their legs turn to jelly’ school of seduction.

but I want my ghosts to be able to touch and taste and feel the Living world.

But wanting that is too close to wishing they were alive. And wishing for the dead to live again is a recipe for heartache.

If I were on a real date with a living guy, this would be the time when I’d lean in and kiss him. I’m desperate for it. I want to lick the sunshine from Ambrose’s lips.

She deserves it. She deserves to be worshipped as a goddess, to have her body pleasured in every imaginable way… And I can’t give it to her. Not the way she wants. I can’t be the handsome Living man she can parade around on her arm.

Why does death follow me? Why is my heart wrapped in the string of this ghost’s soul? What is happening to me?

“Ghosts, so melodramatic.” Dani rolls her eyes. “You have no idea.” “I resent that,” Edward says from his chair beside the fire. “I am exactly the right amount of dramatic.”

Because I will never, ever be normal, and maybe I’m tired of pretending.

The bookshop you visited brings fictional characters to life.

Nothing is permanent, not even death.

happen.” Pax clamps his hand on my shoulder. “You must let us solve a problem for you for once. All my life I have tried to protect you, but I’ve never been able to do anything when those girls hurt you. And now…” he flexes his huge arm muscles. “Now I can feel the bloodlust coursing through my veins at the thought of revenge. Now I feel Roman again.”

But now the love I felt for a frightened child and a struggling friend has blossomed into something more…and I want to tell her what it means to me that she feels the same, but I have no words for love, no words that will do justice the big, warm, joyous bulge of my heart. And as I’m trying to figure out what to say, I see Bree’s face.

“She loves all of us, old bean. That’s the problem. Loving us is breaking her heart.”

Pax only just came back into my life, and now…how am I going to live without him?

It’s not fair that we have to say goodbye. It’s not fair that I can talk to the dead, but I can’t save the people I love.

“In my life, I could have my pick of women. Or men, when the mood took me. Queens, princesses, actresses, artists, they all fell at my feet for the chance to bed me.”

“And yet, you, Bree Mortimer, you’re the only one I ever truly wanted.”

Ghost sex is so much better than regular sex.

I like Edward calling me beautiful. And extraordinary. I like it a lot.

I want to keep Pax forever and ever. I want so many things that I can never have.

Sweet Ambrose. The ghost who understood my love of adventure, my need to run, my fixation on being anywhere but here. The friend who let me dream of a world where I could truly be myself, even if that world could never include him.

Why be normal when you can have three ghosts pleasuring your body?

Edward and Pax take turns to show Ambrose all their ‘tricks.’ Since they were both manwhores when there were alive, they have a lot of tricks. Ambrose is a quick study.

I’m going to miss him so, so much, but my dad’s right. Pax has already given me the most precious gift I’ve ever received – his friendship. His love. He deserves a gift in return. He deserves to be free, to be at peace. He’s watched over me my whole life. He’s given me the strength I need to watch over myself.

“You’ve been one of the best things to ever happen to me, and I’m so sorry for all those years I made you live in the attic, and for all the time I’ve been away. I love you, Pax. I never told you that before, but it’s true. I love you and I’m going to miss you so much—”