Shallow Cuts: Book One of the Astor Trilogy

Ten years ago, police shot Rudy Lussier dead in his house along the St. Johns River near Astor, Florida.

Before the murders, he was a craftsman in the BDSM scene: a Dom whose abduction fantasies drew women from across Florida to be taken by him. Two of them were later found in pieces. Investigators believed there may have been as many as twenty-two victims.

Tara has read every book about him, watched every documentary, and spent years pretending she was fascinated by the case instead of the man.

So when she talks Billy, her boyfriend of three years, into booking the newly reopened Lussier house instead of the tropical getaway they’d planned, she calls it curiosity.

The listing even comes with Rudy’s playroom still intact.

Billy agrees, because Billy has always loved her better than he understands her.

Neither of them has ever put words to what Tara wants. Not even Tara.

But Rudy notices.

It starts with dreams that feel like memories, except they aren’t hers—another woman’s hands, another woman’s turn with a man who knew what she wanted before she did. Then something inside the dreams starts answering.

A voice. An appetite. No body Tara can touch.

Billy can feel her slipping away and starts trying to understand what she never knew how to ask for. Tara keeps telling herself it’s only the house. Only dreams. Only curiosity.

But Rudy has had ten years alone with his hunger, and someone has finally come close enough to hear him.

SHALLOW CUTS is Book One of the Astor Trilogy—a slow-burn, high-heat, filthy, deeply unwell love story about obsession, consent, and the difference between being loved and being understood.

This is an explicit dark paranormal romance intended for adult readers. For a complete list of content warnings, visit the V.E. Lucius author website. Read them first. This one earns them.