Eternal Rose

Nyden McNeil has spent his life running from other people's feelings.A middle-aged drifter with a rare and unwanted gift, he can feel the emotions of everyone around him—grief, joy, hunger, despair—like weather systems moving through his own body. It's a curse that's cost him everything, so he keeps moving, taking cash jobs and keeping his head down.Then a simple handyman ad in a quiet California town leads him to the Rohrer house. The family is warm, welcoming, and strangely perfect. Catherine, the elegant matriarch who runs the catering business. Jake, her intense son who cooks like he's feeding something far hungrier than guests. Sweet, glittering Cupcake. Gentle old Mother Ruth. They offer Nyden work, meals, and something he hasn't felt in years: the sense that someone sees him.But the house is never empty. The roses in the front yard bloom impossibly in the killing heat. The walls seem to breathe. And at the catered wakes and parties the Rohrers host, Nyden begins to understand what they really are—psychic vampires who don't drink blood. They feed on emotion itself, slowly hollowing out the people who laugh, cry, and celebrate in their presence.When Nyden realizes the family has been quietly devouring the town for years—and that something ancient and starving waits in the dark beneath the house—he faces an impossible choice. He can keep running, the way he always has… or he can stop running from the one thing that has always terrified him most.His own feelings.Because the only way to fight monsters who feed on emotion… is to feel more than they can possibly swallow.