The first book in the Tainted Love Tales series. Alice Payton was eight years old when it began. Night terrors brought with them a violent apparition. For years she lived in fear of it, a victim to its power and inexplicable need for her until she was able to finally move on and leave it all behind her. Or so she thought...Eleven years later, Alice has matured into a young woman and, having left behind the memories of her childhood, returns to her old home during college break. There, she finds herself drawn back into her past, and into the arms of the one who waited...