False Repose

In The Ossuary, the elite don't die. They just wait. Lark is a Conservationist, a glorified beautician for the dead. In the silent, subterranean mansions of the aristocracy, her job is to maintain the illusion of life: massaging rigid limbs, applying pigment to cold skin, and injecting the "Gold Serum" that keeps the wealthy in eternal, chemical suspension. She is lonely, quiet, and finds comfort in the silence of her clients. Bram is the masterpiece of the High Sector. A war hero preserved in his prime, he has been the motionless, marble-perfect statue in Lark's care for five years. Thinking him a corpse, Lark has whispered her darkest secrets to him, confessed her crimes, and touched him with a tenderness she denies the living. But Bram isn't dead. He isn't asleep. He has been awake for five years—paralyzed, unable to blink, but fully conscious. He has felt every touch, heard every confession, and watched Lark with an obsession that has festered in the dark. When Lark discovers the truth, the dynamic shifts terrifyingly. The man she treated as a doll is actually a predator who knows everything about her. And now that he's waking up, he has no intention of letting his caretaker go. He was her silent confidant. Now, he is her living nightmare.