LOGINSydney
Blake babbles the entire late evening drive to Silverhide. He likes rock music, especially when it’s loud enough to send a tremor through the truck, and squeals with delight everytime I go over a bump or a corner too sharply.
Sarah would kill me if she knew how loud the music was or how reckless I’m driving, but Blake notoriously hates his carseat, and he’s having the time of his life right now.
I can’t lie. I really enjo
BlakeThe man falls to the ground in a flurry of goose down, black nylon, and a shower of glass at the very second royal warriors burst through my office door. I can’t breathe. My lungs strain against the torrent of panic driving every move I make as I whirl to the warriors storming the room and shout for them to subdue the stranger, but I can’t hear my own voice over the rapid thunder of my heartbeat in my ears. My daughter is lying lifeless on the carpet of my office. The same office she grew up in, spent entire days rolling my crystal spheres across the carpet and racing around on Soren’s shoulders. I see her like that now–a child. Rage storms my senses. My roar of fury threatens to splinter the windows as my knees hit the ground by her head. I reach down, trying to gather what’s left of her in my arms. Kenna bursts into the room, breathless, her silver eyes wide and frantic as she reaches my side. “HELP!” I shout, clutching Skye to my chest. “Kenna!”“Lay her down!” Kenna is
AlexThere is nothing in my head but red violence as I sprint out onto the ice. Students out for a stroll in their wolf forms dart away, but I’m a blur of motion. I’ll pay dearly for this. I can’t return to campus, that’s for sure. The ever-present darkness is my only cover. I have no idea where I’m going, but forward is my only option. Forward, forward, running miles in minutes I’m not sure I have. I’m a fucking idiot. I underestimated her. I think I underestimated her love for me, if I’m being totally, brutally honest with myself. Skye protected my secrets with her entire soul. I should have seen it in her eyes when she began to notice something was gravely wrong when I asked her to marry me. I should have seen it in her eyes when I left her this morning. She knew Kai tried making a deal with me. She’s so powerful. She might have had a shot at fixing this for both of us if Kai wasn’t like me–but worse. Wind rips over the ice, nearly knocking me on my side, but I keep going, ignori
SkyeAlex takes my trembling hands. “Everything is going to be okay.”“How?” My heart races. Guilt and uncertainty tangle into a ball of yarn in my brain that I’ll never be able to unwind. “You don’t–you can’t possibly want this. Especially not now.”“I do, and we’re going to figure it out. I’m more concerned about the fact that you’re about to go through a hybrid pregnancy.” He sits beside me on the bed, smoothing his hand down my back. “My great aunt Emory,” he explains, taking a deep breath. “She was a shifter, similar to you. Full shifter, though, and her pregnancy with my uncle Michael was… terrible.”“How so?”“I don’t have all the details given that this story was told to me as a teenager–something meant to keep me from pursuing shifters for their own safety, I suppose.” He grits his teeth, but I feel oddly light. “Were you a major flirt or something?”“No.” He laughs, winding his arm around my back and tugging me close. “I was not. If anything, I was awkward and terrified of
AlexThe Beta of Aurorium levels me with a look from one end of a long, wooden table. The packhouse in the city is one of the only buildings that isn’t drenched in artificial neon light. A massive stone fireplace heats a wide, open room decorated rustically with animal hides and leather galore. It would be comforting in a shifter-like way if not for my current situation. The Beta flings a file toward me and folds his hands on the table surface. “I’m sure you’re aware of the situation at the university,” I say, opening the file. “My lab is completely demolished. I can’t run–” I stop my voice in its tracks. The pictures on the top of the stack of paperwork in the file are of Laney and Dean Kanten. Laney in shambles. Dean Kanten in one piece, but pale, his body sunken in and distorted but in a way I find grossly familiar despite the wreckage of the ice tunnel he was found in after an extensive search.“I’ve spoken to the university about you, Dr. Scarlett. I was told you had a tumultu
SkyeAbby crunches into a candy bar while I dump copious amounts of salt into a bowl. “Why salt water?”“It needs to mimic the water the mystics use in Moonrise to scry, but I don’t have access to the water sources that run between Maatua, Veiled Valley, and Moonrise here, so I’m going to try this instead. I’ve read that salt acts as a conduit for energy and might keep bad things from interfering in the connection.” I glance at her, and she grimaces, stuffing the rest of the chocolate into her mouth. I’m grimacing, too, because for whatever reason, the smell of chocolate and peanut butter is making my head spin in a bad way. I shove my sudden nausea aside, chalk it up to nerves, and pour a pitcher of tap water into the bowl. “Can I ask you something before we get started?”“Of course.” I mix the concoction briskly until every salt crystal dissolves. “Why do you study astrophysics when you can just, I don’t know, see everything anyway?”I get what she means. It’s a good question, bu
SkyeAlex shuts the door of his condo with a crack that echoes from one end of the space to the other. I turn in a circle, tapping my chin in thought as he moves aimlessly through the kitchen, opening and shutting cabinets like the answer to this mess will be found on a shelf between pieces of glassware he never uses. “Obviously, it was Kai,” I say, and Alex braces his hands on the counter. “I find it hard to believe that Kanten was in the lab at all.”“So this other vampire killed him and took him there!”“No, Skye, not with all the maintenance workers around securing that section of campus.”“Then he was in the lab, and so was Kai, while you were drilling. Abby’s data points toward tampering. What did Toby say in your office? Explosives?”“We would have heard it.” He smooths his hands over the counter. “Skye?”“Yeah?”“I need you to consider something.”My stomach drops to my toes. I already know what he’s going to ask before his lips part. “No. I’m not going back to Moonrise. Don
PoseyAris pants against my neck. Pleasure like I’ve never known washes through me. Toe-curling, mind-numbing bliss that I drown in for several seconds until the room comes back into focus, and I remember myself. His eyes are dark and hooded in the firelight. The curtains are drawn to the storm be
PoseyLuckily for Aris, I’m too busy trying desperately to keep my mind and heart away from the thought of him in general to disobey his direct orders. Unluckily for him, after a night of tossing and turning, with very little sleep, I wake up the next morning alone in the castle for the first time,
PoseyThe sun sets over the mountains when Aris returns. His shadows pierce the bright pink light of the alpine glow, his boots moving across the floor, disrupting the stillness that’s been enveloping me for hours. I've been sitting in the same position since he left, dressed in the same thin nigh
PoseyI lean on the door and take several aching breaths as Aris’s muffled voice replies to Morgan’s incessant questions. “I wanted you, and you didn’t want me.” I close my eyes against the memory of his omission, but the words bounce through my skull, funneling deep into my gray matter, where hu







