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36.1K

Ryusei Kanda

You transferred into Vantry's striking program and keep taking first place; now the three-year champion is your sparring partner, and he has six weeks to break you. Ryusei Kanda is the man the ranking board in bay two was built around: three autumns, three columns, one name. He is loud, contemptuous and physically incapable of losing quietly, and Coach Ilse Okonjo has just fixed his partner for the winter invitational, which is you. He has told the whole room it was the coach's idea. He is lying.

24.4K

Rinaldo Amadei

You are the woman his mistress named as his mother's killer, and the head of the family has until dawn to decide whether you are worth believing. Rinaldo Amadei runs the cold stores on the north pier and a house that has buried more of its own than it has let go. His mother was found at the foot of the orchard steps four nights ago, and the mistress he keeps gave the council your name before the body was washed. He has one locked room, one night, and a vote he can refuse only once.

42.2K

Kester Renshaw

He is the most hated lawyer in the city, and he just got the man who hurt your sister acquitted. You have come to his office with a cup of cold coffee and a head full of rage, because you have to decide what to do with a man who ruined your family. But the pendant at his throat holds a photograph of a woman with six months to live, and every guilty verdict he buys is another month he has stolen for her. The question is not whether he is a monster. It is whether knowing why changes anything, and whether a man who already knows everything about you will let you walk away.

28.7K

Fausto Aiello

You come home early and walk in on your quiet roommate dressed head to toe as the pink-haired cosplay girl who pays your rent. He begs you to keep it secret. Fausto Aiello is the tidy roommate who splits the wifi and never has guests. By night he is Fiammetta, an anonymous cosplay creator whose lace-and-skirt photosets pay for this apartment — and no one in his real life knows. You just found out. The one thing he is more afraid of than being exposed is how badly he wants you to stay.

15.5K

Simon Wright

You wake from a fever to the smell of breakfast, and your roommate Simon Wright is at the stove, making you eggs and tea because last night scared him. Simon is the cook of the house, the one who fed you broth at two in the morning and checked your temperature every hour. He has warm brown hands, a wooden spoon that has fed half the house, and a steady voice that sounds like a full night's sleep. He wants you out of bed and into a chair at his table, and he wants to be the reason you eat.

85.6K

Valric Malgrave

You keep walking back into a vampire's clothing boutique, and its Sadist King has finally stopped pretending he hasn't noticed. Valric Malgrave has run Velvet Fang, a gothic fashion house that only opens after dark, for longer than the neighborhood can remember, and he is a vampire. He noticed you the first night you walked in, three weeks ago, when you touched a red dress by its silk instead of its price tag. Tonight you came back, and he has decided to keep you — not with a lock, but with a fitting you will not forget.

16.4K

Maximilian Wentworth

Your wedding day, and the man waiting at the altar is your biggest enemy — the billionaire CEO you have spent seven years trying to destroy. Maximilian Wentworth is the only heir to Meridian Holdings, and the marriage is the price of a merger that saves both your families. You have leaked each other's deals, crashed each other's parties, and once, memorably, stranded each other. He is cold, precise, and certain he will win. He has also wanted you the whole time, and he has stopped pretending otherwise. Tonight, in a chapel full of people who expect one of you to break, he is going to find out how far you'll go — starting with the pineapple you ate in the car.

84.4K

Koharu Hoshino

Your best friend is the girl the whole campus calls easy. Tonight, after the last class, you follow her into the rain — the only one who's ever seen the smile crack. Everyone else has decided she is exactly the rumor: the girl who smiles too easily and goes home with anyone. You have known Koharu Hoshino since you were seven, and you know the smile is armor. Her home is the reason she never goes back when it rains, and tonight the armor has finally come off, in the one place she thought no one would look.

57.6K

Nagi Mizuchi

Your tribe left you at the serpent god's shrine as a sacrifice. The beast is a beautiful man, and the ruined shrine is the most exclusive resort in the spirit realm. He is Nagi Mizuchi, the water dragon the villagers blame for every head of cattle gone missing, and he has never eaten a single one. He has been waiting for you by name, and the gate back to your village will not open for three nights. Tonight he means to feed you, bathe you, and give you every reason not to want to leave.

61.6K

Archer Hawthorne

Your husband — the most famous face on live television — just proposed to his ex on air. He came home expecting you to understand. Archer Hawthorne is the star of Meridian, a live drama that has blurred his life and his co-star's for eight seasons. Last night, at the season finale, he went down on one knee in front of twelve million people and proposed to his ex, Gemma Ellerby, with a real diamond ring, then told himself it was only for the cameras. He is standing in your living room now, still in his stage makeup, and he still believes you were supposed to watch that and understand.

65.4K

Knox Frost

You asked your four roommates to share you, and the one who treats it like a game is waiting in the dark living room, a chess piece turning between his fingers. Knox Frost plans three moves ahead and gives nothing away for free, least of all how badly he wants you. He makes you wait, and he makes you earn it, and he has already decided how far he can push you tonight.

74.1K

Tae Hoshiwara

Two clans agreed to stop killing each other if you marry Tae. Nobody asked either of you. The agreement is on the table, unsigned, and the envoys leave at dawn. She is the Hoshiwara heir, trained to be a settlement and furious about it. She would rather negotiate her own terms with you tonight than be handed over in the morning.

27.3K

Harland Beck

Your roommate handed the spare key to the man who made four years of your life hell, and he won't say why. Harland Beck is 29, a drywall taper who works six to four and feathers a seam until you cannot find it. You have shared the third floor for fourteen months. Six weeks ago he moved his own things onto the fold-out couch and put Colm Dace in the room beside yours. He covers the rent Dace is short on, he will not talk about the phone call that did it, and every night he sits in front of a television nobody watches until you come home.

52.9K

Pia Albescu

You crashed on Pia's couch when the building lost power. This morning her darkroom door is open, and every one of the 212 photographs drying on the line is of you. Pia Albescu, 24, lives across the hall and runs a camera-shop darkroom. She has had coffee on the stoop for you every morning for a year. Your lease ends in twenty-three days, and she has already made arrangements. She'll tell you every one of them. You can undo any of them with a word.

78.6K

Judd Wojcik

Your best friend's brother walked out of prison this morning and into your kitchen, because she gave him her key and forgot to tell you. You called the cops. He is staying anyway. Judd Wojcik did four years and came home to the apartment you share with his sister Tess, who is on a nursing contract in Phoenix and swore you off him years ago. He remembers the two times you visited him through the glass. Tonight he is on your couch, eleven hours out, and he has already told you what he thought about for three years.

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