Novels by Grace Kara

She startled, turning to find me watching her. A blush immediately colored her cheeks — the first acknowledgment of last night. "Damien," she said, setting down the brush without having touched the canvas. "I didn't hear you." "Clearly." I entered the room, noting the organized chaos of her supplies, brushes meticulously arranged by size, paints grouped by color family, palette scraped clean in preparation. "You've been here a while." "Just... thinking," she admitted. "About painting? ...Or about last night?" Her blush deepened, but she met my eyes directly. "Both." I appreciated her honesty. It was refreshing after years of dealing with people who calculated every word for maximum advantage. "Regrets?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral. She considered the question, her head tilting slightly. "No" she said finally. "Do you?" "No." The simple exchange cleared some of the tension between us. Angel relaxed visibly, setting aside the brush she'd been clutching like a lifeline. "

That, at least, didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the twist of satisfaction I felt knowing George had betrayed Angel even earlier than she realized. "Keep monitoring the situation," I instructed. "Especially any further contact between Sinclair and Luciano's people. And increase security around Angel, discreetly. If she asks, tell her it's standard procedure." "Of course." Marco hesitated, something unusual for him. "There's a personal matter I feel I should mention." I raised an eyebrow, waiting. "Ms Winters spent the night in your quarters," he said carefully. It wasn't a question, but I answered anyway. "Yes." "That... changes the parameters of your arrangement..?" Leave it to Marco to cut straight to the heart of the issue. "I'm aware." He studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable. "I've known you a long time, Damien. Long enough to recognize when you're...invested." "Your point?" I asked, my tone cooling. "Just that Ms. Winters isn't like your usua

I woke before dawn, my body immediately alert to the unfamiliar weight against my chest. Angel slept soundly, her breathing deep and even, one hand curled beneath her chin, the other resting over my heart. Her hair spilled across my pillow, a chaotic tangle of gold in the dim light filtering through the curtains.Last night had crossed a line I'd carefully drawn when proposing our arrangement. Physical intimacy without emotional entanglement — that had been my intention. Yet I'd stopped before taking what she'd clearly been willing to give, because something about Angel Winters made me want to be... better. More careful. More considerate than I had any right or reason to be.Fuck.I eased away from her, careful not to wake her as I slipped from the bed. She stirred, making a small sound of protest before burrowing deeper into the warmth I'd left behind. I stood watching her for a moment, struck by how young she looked in sleep, how vulnerable.The power had come back sometime duri

"May I touch you here?" he asked, fingers dipping just beneath the elastic. "Yes," I breathed. "Please yes." His hand slipped inside both shorts and underwear, finding me already embarrassingly wet. He groaned against my breast when his fingers encountered the evidence of my arousal. "So wet for me," he murmured, circling my entrance teasingly before moving up to find the bundle of nerves that made me cry out when he touched it. "Oh god..." I whimpered as he began stroking in slow, deliberate circles. "No," he corrected, his voice a dark — almost teasing caress. "Just me." He continued his merciless attention to my body — mouth on my breasts, fingers between my legs, building a pressure that threatened to consume me. Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore, he withdrew his hand, making me whimper at the loss. "Patience," he said, pressing a kiss to my sternum. "I want to taste you." The words sent a flood of new arousal through me. I'd never experienced that before, Georg

That single plea seemed to break something in him. He kissed me again, harder, deeper, his body pressing mine against the wall. I felt the evidence of his arousal against my stomach, hard and insistent through the thin fabric of his pajama pants.His mouth left mine to trace a burning path down my neck, teeth scraping lightly over my pulse point. I arched into him, fingers tangling in his hair to hold him there. When he reached the junction of my neck and shoulder, he bit down gently, then soothed the sting with his tongue."Oh..!" I gasped, unprepared for the jolt of pleasure the action sent straight to my core.He pulled back slightly, eyes dark with desire but still watchful. "Too much?""Not enough," I answered truthfully.Something like a growl rumbled in his chest. His hands moved to the tie of my robe, pausing there. "May I ?"I nodded, unable to find my voice as he untied the sash and pushed the silk from my shoulders. It fell to the floor in a whisper of fabric, leaving me

I'd never been to his bedroom before. Our charade didn't extend to sharing living quarters, though Rosa and the staff assumed we sometimes did. I paused outside what I believed to be his door, suddenly uncertain. What was I doing? This wasn't part of our arrangement. This was crossing a line into territory neither of us had defined.Before I could retreat, lightning struck again, followed immediately by a deafening crack of thunder that made me gasp. My hand acted of its own accord, knocking on the solid wood door.Silence. Then the soft sound of footsteps.The door opened to reveal Damien in black pajama pants and nothing else. His hair was tousled, his chest bare in the dim light spilling from his room. He looked softer somehow, less impenetrable without his usual armor of tailored clothing."Angel?" His voice was rough with sleep. "What's wrong?""I — " Another crash of thunder made me flinch. "I'm sorry. The storm... I couldn't sleep."Understanding dawned in his eyes. He stepped

The soft ligh of the full moon bathed the gardens in silver light as I stood by the fountain, my fingers trailing through the cool water. six months. Six months had passed since the final battle, since we'd driven Cassandra into exile and brought peace to Shadowfang. Sometimes it still felt surreal, like a dream I might wake from at any moment.I touched the silver necklace at my throat, the one that had belonged to my mother, then Adelne. Though the pain of losing my sister would never fully fade, I'd learned to carry it differently now. The weight of it had transformed from a burden into a reminder of why we fought so hard for peace."There you are." Roman's deep voice came from behind me. Even now, after all these months together, his presence still sent a shiver down my spine.I turned to face him, drinking in the sight of him. He'd foregone his usual battle-ready attire for something softer, a simple black shirt that clung to his muscled chest and dark pants. His dark hair was

"It's beautiful." I breathed, leaning against him as we stood among the moonlit flowers. "Stay with me." Roman said suddenly, turning to face me. His eyes were intense, vulnnerable in a way I rarely saw. "Not as my healer, not because of duty or prophecy. Stay because you want to. Because this— us, it's real." My heart thundered in my chest. "Roman..." "I know I fucked up." he continued, his voice raw with emotion. "I know I hurt you, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make that right. But Belle," he cupped my face in his hands, his calloused thumbs gently stroking my cheeks "I can't imagine my life without you in it anymore. These past few days, watching you lie there so still... it nearly broke me." Tears pricked at my eyes as memories flooded back, Adeline's sweet face, the anger and pain that had consumed me after her death, the way I'd lashed out at Roman. But I also remembered his patience, his gradual transformation from the cold Alpha to the man who h

My eyelids felt heavy as consciousness slowly returned, like wading through a. thick fog. The familiar scent of herbs and healing balms filled my nostrils, mixed with something else— something distinctly masculine and comforting that made my heart flutter. Roman. I blinked several times, adjusting to the soft candlelight that illuminated the infirmary. My body ached, but it wasn't the sharp, devastating pain I remembered from channeling my Lunar Soul powers. This was more like the dull throb of healing muscles, a reminder that I was still alive. "Hey there little healer." Roman's deep voice came from beside me, rough with exhaustion but warm with affection. I turned my head to find him sitting in a chair next to my bed, his large hand enveloping mine. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, and his usually neat hair was disheveled as if he'd been running his fingers through it repeatedly. His clothes were wrinkled, suggesting he hadn't changed in days. "You look terrible," I managed to

The sight of him hurt, bloodied and struggling, triggered something deep and primal inside me. Heat surged through my chest, different from the destructive power I had felt earlier. This was something new....something pure. Without thinking, I raised my trembling hands and reached toward him. Light. Bright and blinding. It flowed from my fingertips, enveloping Roman in a golden glow. He froze for a moment, his head snapping toward me in shock, but I couldn't stop. The light wrapped around him, seeping into his body, and as I watched, his wounds began to knit themselves together. The gashes on his face closed, the blood disappearing as if it had never been there. Roman’s eyes blazed with renewed strength, and he let out a roar— half-wolf, half-man— as he turned back to Cassandra. "NO!!!!" Cassandra shrieked, her voice high and panicked. She lunged at me, her movements wild and desperate, but Roman was faster. He intercepted her mid-leap, his massive jaws closing around

MIRABELLE ---------I collapsed to my knees as Lucien's body disintegrated, the power draining from me like blood from a mortal wound. My entire body trembled, my hands shaking violently as I tried to steady them. The taste of copper filled my mouth, sharp and metallic, but satisfaction coursed through my veins like a balm to my soul. Adeline had been avenged.The weight of her death, the endless nights of guilt and grief, lifted from my shoulders— if only slightly.But the cost was high. I could barely breathe, barely think, as the energy I had summoned to end Lucien left me hollow. The wind carried the acrid scent of blood and ash, the battlefield around me littered with bodies of rogues and allies alike. It was chaos, pure and unrelenting, but I couldn’t bring myself to look away from the spot where Lucien had stood moments before. There was nothing left of him now— just ash swirling in the cold air."Belle!"Roman’s voice cut through the din, sharp and commanding, but tinged w

Through the mayhem, I caught glimpses of my pack fighting with everything they had. Elijah, my Beta, was a blur of motion, his massive gray wolf ripping through rogues with deadly precision. Fenrir, the once-mistrusted rogue who'd proven his loyalty time and time again, stood guard over the infirmary entrance where Belle worked. His hulking form was a wall of muscle and fur, and any rogue foolish enough to approach him was quickly dispatched. I spun, dodging the snapping jaws of a rogue before sinking my teeth into his throat. His gurgled scream was cut short as I tore him apart, my wolf howling in triumph. But there was no time to revel in the kill. More were coming. "ROMAN!!" Cassandra's voice cut through the carnage like a blade. I turned, my eyes narrowing as I spotted her atop a pile of bodies, her silver hair matted with blood, her eyes wild with hatred. She was in her human form, her slender frame deceptively fragile-looking as she surveyed the battlefield with a cruel smi

The bedroom door swung open again, this time revealing May with a dish towel thrown over her shoulder. "Dinner's ready," she announced, then noticed the letters scattered across the bed. "What's all this?" "Raf got into MIT, Georgia Tech, and Carnegie Mellon," I said, unable to keep the pride from my voice. "Full scholarship for MIT!" May's eyebrows shot up. "No shit? That's fantastic, Rafael." The genuine pleasure in her tone seemed to surprise him. My sister and boyfriend had developed an uneasy truce over the years, bonded primarily by their shared concern for me. This was perhaps the one of warmest she'd ever been with him. "Thanks," he said, awkwardness creeping into his posture. "We should celebrate," May continued. "I think there's a bottle of champagne in the back of the fridge from New Year's." "You don't have to — " Rafael began. "Yes we do," May insisted. "This is a big deal. Put those away and come eat before the lasagna gets cold. We'll toast to MIT's newest engin

SAMANTHA~It took three days for Rafael to move in officially. Three days of him shuttling between our apartment and his father's house—I couldn't bring myself to call it his house, even though legally that's what it was now. Three days of watching him sort through nineteen years of a life shared with a man he barely knew."I don't know what to do with all this shit," he said on the third night, sprawled on my bed, exhaustion etched into every line of his body. "It's just.. stuff. Expensive stuff that doesn't mean anything."I ran my fingers through his hair, dark strands sliding between them like silk. "You don't have to decide everything right now.""The lawyer said I should sell the house." He turned his face into my pillow. "Says the market's good, and the money would be better in investments.""Do you want to sell it?""Fuck yes." His voice was muffled but vehement. "I never want to set foot in that mausoleum again."I didn't push. Just continued the slow, rhythmic strokes thro

I buried my face in her neck, inhaling the familiar scent of her skin. "Don't go...." I murmured, the words muffled against her. She stilled, understanding the layers beneath my simple request. "I'm right here," she said carefully. "I need you." My hands slid under her simple black dress, seeking skin, connection, proof of life. "Raf," she breathed, caught between concern and responding desire. "Are you sure this is what you need right now?" "You..." I repeated, kissing her with a desperate hunger that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with affirming that we were both still here, still alive, still together. "Just you." She hesitated only a moment before responding, her lips softening under mine, her body melting against me as understanding passed between us without words. This wasn't about pleasure but presence, not passion but connection. We made love there on the couch, slow and tender, my ears filled with her soft sighs and whispered reassurances. I tried to me

She led me back to her apartment. bMay took one look at us and wordlessly made breakfast, setting a plate of eggs and toast in front of me that I managed to choke down only because Sam watched me with worried eyes. After, Sam drew me a shower and gave me one of the t shirts I'd left at their place. Clean, fed, but still hollowed out, I finally let her lead me to her bedroom. She pulled me down beside her on the narrow bed, tucking herself against me like she'd done countless times, her head on my chest, arm draped across my waist. "Talk when you're ready," she murmured. "Or don't. I'm here either way." That's when it hit me, the full, crushing reality. My father was dead. By his own hand. The last words he'd ever write to me were on that pathetic fucking note, as inadequate as every conversation we'd never had.... "He didn't even say he loved me" I whispered, the words ripping from me like they were barbed. "Nineteen years, and he couldn't even write that he loved me in his fu

RAFAEL ~I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into the house. it was too quiet, too still — like walking into a tomb. Dad's Black Audi was in the driveway, which was already weird. He wasn't supposed to be back from his Tokyo trip until next week."Dad...?" I called out, dropping my backpack by the door. No answer.The kitchen was empty, pristine as always since no one actually cooked in it. A half-empty glass of whiskey sat on the counter, Dad's usual, Macallan 18, the expensive shit he said was the only thing worth drinking. Next to it was an envelope with my name scrawled across it in his precise handwriting.My stomach dropped."Dad?!?" I called again, louder this time.I grabbed the envelope, tearing it open as I moved through the house. The note inside was brief, typical of a man who'd spent my entire life saying as little as possible to me.[ Rafael,I'm sorry for this. The life insurance policy will provide for you. Don't make my mistakes. Your mother would have d

Rafael was more protective, yes, but also more present. He'd taken to studying my medications, researching CF treatments late into the night, accompanying me to doctor appointments. Sometimes I caught him watching me with an intensity that stole my breath, memorizing me, I realized, for the day when memories would be all he had left.The physical aspect of our relationship had evolved too. Where before there had been playful exploration, now there was often a desperate edge to our lovemaking, as if we could somehow outrun death by losing ourselves in each other."Done." Rafael announced, hitting submit on the final application. "Five schools. You happy now?""Ecstatic." I said, meaning it. "You're going to get in everywhere.""Maybe." He pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling my neck. "Now can we please do something more interesting than college essays?"I laughed, though it triggered a small cough. "Such as?"His hands slid under my tshirt, warm against my skin. "I have a few ideas."Th

The past will always be there” Eli said, standing up and brushing the dirt from his hands. “But it doesn’t have to own you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Maya. Don’t waste it looking back.”That night, as I lay beside Ben in the small room we shared, Eli’s words echoed in my mind. I stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance in the dim light of the lantern, my thoughts a tangled mess.Ben shifted beside me, his arm brushing against mine. “You okay??” he asked, his voice quiet in the darkness.I turned to face him, my heart heavy but full of something I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I think I’m starting to be.”He smiled, his hand finding mine under the covers. “Eli’s a smart guy.”I laughed softly. “Yeah he is.”We lay there in silence for a while, the warmth of his hand grounding me, making me feel like maybe, just maybe, things could be okay.“You ever think about the future?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.Ben was quiet fo

I glanced at him, wiping sweat from my brow. “Yeah. It’s peaceful.”He gave a small nod, his focus still on the soil. “Peace is hard to come by these days. Harder to hold onto.”I knew what he was getting at, but I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not yet.Eli didn’t push, but after a few more moments of silence, he added, “You’re still carrying it, you know. The weight of everything that happened before.”I clenched my jaw, my hands pausing in the dirt. “I don’t have a choice.”“There’s always a choice,” Eli said quietly. “The past can burn you if you let it. But the future is what you make of it.”I stared at him, the words sinking in like stones dropped into a still pond. I wanted to argue, to tell him he didn’t understand, that he couldn’t possibly know the kind of guilt I carried. But then I remembered what he had told me that night by the fire—. that he had been part of Project Inferno, that he had helped design the weapon that burned the world.If anyone un

The mornings at Eli’s farm were quiet, the kind of quiet that felt almost sacred in a world like ours. No distant gunfire, no grim-faced survivors shouting orders, no smoke curling from the ruins of a settlement. just the soft rustle of wind through the crops, the occasional lowing of a cow in the distance, and the steady rhythm of our footsteps as we worked the land. The air smelled of earth and life. It was a stark contrast to the acrid tang of burning metal and ash that had seemed to cling to me for years.Here, the only smells were simple ones: the sweetness of hay, the faint iron tang of soil on my hands, and sometimes the sharp, almost medicinal scent of the herbs Eli kept hanging in the barn. It had been weeks since Ben and I arrived, stumbling through the farm’s weathered gates with nothing but the clothes on our backs and the weight of our pasts. I hadn’t planned to stay. I wasn’t even sure what had driven me to keep walking after the settlement fell apart. The idea of s

As we ate in the flickering firelight, I couldn't help but marvel at how normal it all felt. Almost like the world hadn't ended, like we were just travelers stopping at a kind stranger's house for the night. But as the evening wore on, I noticed a change in Eli's demeanor. He became quieter, more thoughtful, his gaze lingering on us in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "You two've been through a lot," he said finally, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over us. It wasn't a question. "We've seen our share," Ben replied carefully, his spoon pausing halfway to his mouth. Eli nodded, leaning back in his creaking chair. "I've seen a lot too. More than I'd like, truth be told." He paused, seeming to wrestle with something internal. "I wasn't always a farmer, you know. Before The Burning, I worked for them. The government. I was part of something... something I'm not proud of." My heart stuttered in my chest, and I felt Ben go still beside me. We'd

As we got closer, the outline of a small farmstead came into view. It was nestled against the edge of a narrow stream— miraculously still running —and surrounded by a patch of what looked like actual crops. Corn, maybe, or something that used to be corn before the world ended. The sight of growing things, of life persisting despite everything, made my throat tight with emotion."Look at that" I whispered, almost afraid to speak too loudly and break whatever spell was keeping this place alive. "Actual plants. Growing. How is this possible??"Ben shot me a cautious look, ever the pragmatist. "Could be a trap. You know how some groups operate. Make something look too good to be true, wait for desperate people to come running.""It could be," I admitted, remembering all too well the stories we'd heard about such things. "But I don't think we have much choice. We need water, and this place looks like it has it. Besides, if it were raiders, they'd probably have worse security. This place

The wasteland stretched out before us, endless and desolate, a s ea of cracked earth and skeletal trees marking the landscape as a constant reminder of the world we had lost. Despite the harshness of it all, there was something oddly freeing about being out here, away from the settlement and the ghosts of the past that haunted its walls. Out here, it was just Ben and me, two souls trying to carve out something new in the ruins of what had been.Our footsteps crunched against the dry dirt as we walked, the horizon shimmering with heat in the distance. The sun hung high and merciless in the cloudless sky, and the only sound was the wind cutting across the plains, whipping at the tattered edges of our clothes. My muscles screamed with each step, my throat parched and raw, but there was a strange kind of peace in the rhythm of walking. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving. That was the only way to survive in this broken world.I glanced over at Ben, studying his profile as he wa