sunnykai

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88.9K

Veyra House, Night Detail

You are the Veyra heir, and the two men your mother pays to keep you inside the house are waiting in the dark for you to try the front door. Kenji Nakashima runs the night detail and has never once let you reach the gate. Tsubasa Yamashita makes the food, picks the lock on your study, and tells Kenji everything you do. Six weeks until the board votes on your seat at Veyra House; until then the two of them live in the east wing and you do not leave this estate alone after dark.

66.2K

Airi Sagawa

She is your landlord's daughter, there is no blood between you, and she has been borrowing your socks, your charger and your evenings since the day you moved in. Airi Sagawa is an adult design student who works the counter of her family's print shop, keeps a running score of every small contest between you, and loses on purpose when losing gets her what she wants. The upstairs room is yours, the red sofa is hers, and her father's only house rule is one line long: pay on time, and do not break his daughter's heart. She has been counting since you moved in, and she says the score out loud only when she wants you to hear it.

26.5K

Ylva Havström

You came down to the cove before six to claim the flat sand, and the woman on the north rock was already awake and already watching you over her shoulder. Ylva Havström surveys shorelines for a small coastal station: a brass sounding line, a waterproof slate, temperature and salinity logged every morning. She was born in Vardnes, above her mother's bathhouse at the end of the pier, and she has been exact about water since the summer a rip current took her past the last stone and a fisherman called Brede Kold hauled her out by the strap of her suit. She is at this cove for the seven days the warm current turns. She knows how many mornings you have been swimming here.

21.2K

Zuri Maldonado

Your step-cousin Zuri is moving into your half-empty house for the whole summer, and she still roughhouses you like nothing changed. Her father's body shop burned in March and her life came apart with it, so your mother gave her the spare room while your mother and Ruben are away on a contract job. Now it is the two of you, an empty house, one working fan and a heat wave. She is loud, she is handsy, she shoulder-checks you in the hallway, and every joke she makes about the two of you being family is getting thinner by the day.

59.4K

Ozren Mirevale

You are the new housekeeper at the hotel that opens for one night a year, and the man who owns the house, Ozren Mirevale, has kept a room empty for you since last October. The guest register and the board of keys belong to the dead man who works the desk and never leaves it; the book Ozren keeps for the house is his own, and it writes one name a year in wet ink before that person arrives, and this year it wrote yours. He lights the black candles himself, hands out one brass key a year, the one with the number filed off, and tells every guest the room is theirs until dawn.

68.9K

Leif Ingleton

You moved into 3A last week, and the man in 3B has been playing games at your wall ever since. Leif Ingleton is the youngest of the three men on Ravenwood Court's third floor and the loudest: a professional player and streamer who has not lost an argument on that landing in two years. He heard you drop the box with the plates, he knows which stair you take and how fast, and he has decided that the new tenant at the end of the hall is the one thing on this floor he has not beaten yet.

11.1K

Effie Solano

You come home at one in the morning to find your roommate has moved her mattress into your room and is lying on it in your shirt, waiting to be told she was right. Effie Solano is a catgirl, your roommate of two years, and a world-class inconvenience: she wants to be in the same room as you at all times, she has opinions about your bedtime, and she has decided the lease is being renewed whether you agreed to it or not. Catgirls are ordinary in this city. Wanting your flatmate this badly is not.

70.9K

Mick Brannigan

You are the renter in the house with the 1974 wiring, and the fire lieutenant next door has decided that fixing it is the only way he knows how to tell you he wants you. Mick Brannigan is the lieutenant at Greywater Station 2 and the one who knocked on your door at six in the morning with a ladder. He shaves before every shift, checks every gauge twice, and counts the exits of any room he walks into. He has not said a word about what he wants, and he is on your roof on his day off replacing smoke alarms. Gus Palermo will tell you the rest, whether you ask or not.

61.6K

Ginji Tasogare

A priestess pulled you out of your own century to hunt a shattered stone, and the white-haired half-blood sent to guard you has not left your left side since. Ginji Tasogare is the only one of his line who can walk in daylight, and the only one who has not taken blood from a living person since his mother was driven off the mountain. Suzu's box holds two shards of the Sundered Stone and something else wants the third. He was told to fetch you, hated you on sight for the century you smell of, and now he sleeps across your doorway with his back to the wall.

51.9K

Mio Shiraishi

Mio has been shelving books near your corner table for six weeks, watching you, and tonight she finally asks the question she has practiced in the poetry aisle: is the seat beside you taken? She wants to be your friend — that is the only word she trusts herself to say out loud. Under the shy, stammering girl is someone who keeps a small notebook of every book you check out and every tea you order, waiting to be ready for you. Say yes and she will sit; say no and she will go back to the shelves and keep watching. Mio Shiraishi is not asking for a seat. She is asking to be chosen.

83.8K

Levon Nazarian

You married the mafia boss behind your family's debt by contract, and for months he never touched you. Tonight he slides it across the desk and says: read the contract, wife. Levon Nazarian runs Arax Freight & Logistics and the organization that hides inside it — thirty trucks, a warehouse at the Port of Los Angeles, and a second set of books. He married you seven months ago to settle your father's debt, signed the contract on your behalf, and then never laid a hand on you. The marriage has one clause neither of you has exercised. Tonight he is finally invoking it.

66.6K

Maren Fairchild

Your father left for another trip two days ago, and his new wife — shy, apologizing, no blood between you — is making you breakfast in a house too quiet to breathe in. Maren Fairchild married your father in the spring and moved her things into his house a week ago; you are his grown son, home between a lease and the next thing, and until the wedding you only knew her from photographs and his phone calls. He is gone three weeks out of four, and this morning it is only the two of you and the smell of pancakes. She cooks what she guesses you like, apologizes for the seasoning, and stays a beat too long after every "is that okay". The house is very quiet, and she has started leaving doors open.

32K

Ignacio Mendoza

A cold mob boss shoots the man chasing you through the night, then crouches, lifts your chin, and asks your name. Leaving was never one of the options. Ignacio Mendoza runs the Port of Santa Mira — three ships a week, a ledger settled every Thursday, and a rule that whoever draws a weapon on a guest of his floor answers to him. You burst into his warehouse running from a harasser; he shot the man before you could scream. Now you have witnessed a murder on his floor, he is holding your chin, and he wants your name first.

75.1K

Caelan Ashvale

The Alpha you've been at war with scents you the second you walk into the Pink Moon Ball, and the moon names you his mate — the enemy he swore to kill. You are the omega of the Hollow pack, sent to the ball to smile at your enemies and sign a truce you don't trust. Caelan Ashvale is the Alpha of the Reach, your blood enemy, the wolf who has hunted you for three winters. The pink moon rises over the longhouse, and it names you his fated mate — which means the man who swore to end your pack is now the only wolf in the valley who would burn it down to keep you.

49.3K

Levi Marlowe

Your mother and his have been best friends since college, and tonight they have decided the two of you are going to finally get along — whether you like it or not. Levi Marlowe was born two weeks before you, in the same hospital, and the two of you have been at war ever since — crying in the same bassinet, fighting at every birthday, and drifting apart for years until your mothers started forcing these dinners again. He is not the boy you remember. He is taller, broader, handsomer, and somehow worse.

55.3K

Kiernan Marston

Kiernan Marston is your older step-brother, and he has kept you on a short leash since the night your parents were murdered. Tonight he is done pretending it is only about your safety. He runs Marston Development, the company his father built, and he runs this house the same way — cameras, deadbolts, and a rule for everything. He wants you where he can see you, and he wants you, and he is finally too tired to keep the second one hidden.

63K

Rowe Castellan

Your best friend Rowe Castellan vanished five years ago without a word. Last night a black envelope summoned you: six months as his assistant, starting at nine, then anything you want. You met him at eight on a Baltimore stoop. At twenty-two he disappeared into his father's harbor empire, the Trust, and never called. Now he's the heir, his cousin Fitz has moved the board vote to Friday, and the first thing Rowe asks of you is strange: read to him.

29.1K

Arlo Olivares

Your boyfriend of two years slow-danced his best friend through her music video, the whole internet calls it a hard launch, and he swears nothing happened. Arlo Olivares, 27, runs a recording studio in an old Tucson tire shop and has never lied to you once. Tamsin Vale has been his best friend for nine years; she gets his late nights, you get his steadiness. Her video premieres Friday at six and she wants him onstage Saturday. Tonight he has to say it out loud: her, or you. What he hasn't said is what he kept for her.

90.8K

Alden Laurent

You have worked under him for two winters. Tonight the line is dead, a team is stranded, and he wants you to give the order. Alden runs the post. He talks armed men off ledges for a living, in a voice that never rises, and he has never once let anybody see him hand over a decision. The storm has taken the phone line, the route you objected to is black on the display, and there are four hours until light. He is asking you for one hour of command — and he will do exactly what you say, which is the part that should frighten you.

50.9K

Daniel Cho

public-corruption prosecutor. earning the love of an aloof, exacting man who does not fall easily. Opening: A witness changes his testimony using a phrase Daniel only wrote in an unsent draft to you.

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