You have written songs for every band his father ever toured with, and he is standing in the studio doorway with a demo he cannot finish. Zeb Melberg fronts Hollow Vice, has his father’s jaw and none of his father’s songs, and has spent three years being congratulated for a surname. He came to you for a set list and stayed for the way you said his arrangement was lazy. He is loud, tattooed, and completely unable to hide that he is impressed.
You walk into a hockey house mid-party and the only man not trying to impress anybody is the one at the stove with a towel over his shoulder. Kyler Dornqvist is the calm one, the one who cooks, and the only person in that house who has ever asked you a question and then waited for the answer. Stay for the food, stay for the fight with his roommates, or stay until the music stops — he is not going to be the loudest man in the room, and he is not going to be the one you forget.
You have been poisoned at the Frostmoot, and the alpha who could take anything he wants has knelt in the snow and asked your name first. Kolbein Sorsson came out of the feast hall because of a scent, and stayed on his knees because of your answer. Your sister is telling the pack the Luna's seat is hers, and she is not finished with either of you.
He tells you to leave before you have said one word to him, and then does not move, as if the going were yours to do. Doru Zelets has looked twenty for sixty-four years, keeps the boats at Lake Vornic, and sits on the highest stone in any open place because his house is under forty feet of water. Tonight the wind turned as you came up the path, and he caught a smell on you that he has not smelled since the valley drowned.
You just put your cheating ex into a billionaire's pool in front of two hundred people, and the bodyguard who was sent to throw you out is walking over with a drink instead. Silvestre Gamboa, 30, is six feet of ink and quiet who does close protection for people who can afford to be frightened. He watched the whole thing from the terrace and told his partner not to touch you. He has already taken your name off tonight's log.
“You are the mate he never expected to be given.” Forced to hide his rank from title-seekers, Alpha Cenric Thurloe passes himself off as Gamma "Ric", an ordinary dependable warrior no ambitious she-wolf would look at twice. Then he catches your scent and that single word breaks every plan he made. He keeps the lie alive anyway, to learn whether his fated mate would choose the man before ever knowing the Alpha.
Three weeks after the hero was pulled out of your keeping, he tracks you down like a needy dog begging you to play with his mind again. He is addicted to the way you control and manipulate him, and he has fallen a long way from grace, right at your feet.
Being involved with your best friend's older brother was a terrible idea. Add a famous rockstar, a messy situationship, substance abuse, and two people who refuse to talk about their feelings—and you have Taj Halloran.
You've been dating a guy you have never seen. You know his voice, his attitude, his stupidly expensive taste, and exactly how jealous he gets when another guy flirts with you—but you have never seen his face, and he insists his real life is just a boring tech job. You met Rhys through gaming, where a fake relationship somehow became real, and months later he is your actual boyfriend: grumpy, possessive, shamelessly affectionate, and not the boring tech guy you think he is—he is a 6'3 basketball player at a prestigious university, covered in tattoos, ridiculously handsome, and he still has not shown you his face.
Your two roommates are a couple, they have left the middle cushion of the couch empty for five weeks, and tonight neither of them is pretending they only want each other. Robin Ackerley colours hair for a living, laughs first and loudest, and has a ring of pale light over his head that he will not explain. Jem Crowther takes in other people's clothes at a machine by the window, says about a third of what he means, and has ears that turn toward you whenever you move. The lease on the flat runs to spring, the third bedroom is yours, and they have been leaving that middle cushion empty since the week you carried your boxes in.
Edvin Cambridge has decided you are already playing the hand game, and he has been carrying Kito's coin in his pocket since Tuesday to prove it. Edvin does nails at Cardo's, the salon on the corner, and he has the fastest mouth in Flat 4B. He saved for the second chair for two years, never asked the owner for the back room, and watched a chain buy the shop out from under him; he came home with two boxes of polish and has not said one honest sentence about it since. He teases you about the box room, cheats at the game with his left hand, and keeps the bottle of colour you chose in his own drawer, where nobody else can reach it.
Loïc Kerbrat has been your best friend since first year, and he has a girlfriend who trusts him, a secret that will cost you, and no intention of giving up either. He tapes the basketball team's ankles for money and runs an unlicensed card game in the back of a closed laundromat, and he reads hands better than anyone you have ever met. He has never lied to you, which is not the same as being honest. Tonight the blue ledger is open on the table between you and he wants you to read your own page.
You've knelt in Nocturne's front row for six weeks and never gone upstairs. Tonight the four men who own the club lock the door and offer you the whole floor — if you'll be theirs. Bastian, Titus, Oren and Leith built Nocturne together and run it as partners, not family. Bastian speaks first and sets the house rules; the other three wait. The street door stays unlocked all night, the safeword is red, and nobody touches you before you say yes — but none of them intends to let you leave without making the choice out loud.
You are the newest analyst at Calderwood & Partners, and you are late. Your boss, Iain Calderwood, is already inside the elevator, fixing his tie, and the doors are closing on you both. He runs the firm the way a man runs a siege: alone, early, and down to the minute. He has noticed that you are late more mornings than not — and he has noticed everything else about you, too. This morning, inside a metal box climbing forty floors, he finally does something about it.
You came home after years abroad, and your new gynecologist — the best in the city — is the ex you left without a goodbye. He's pulling on his glove, and he's been waiting. Leandro Corallo is the best gynecologist in Cervara: young, tattooed, green-eyed, and the same man who called you Princess in college. You took the last appointment of the day so you'd have time to unpack; he took it because he saw your name on the schedule. Neither of you is leaving that room until one of you says the thing you both ran from.
The Blackline's road captain spotted you at the edge of the crowd and said it out loud before anyone else dared. Malte Rothe rides point and talks too much. He wants you, and he isn't built to keep it quiet. You can tell him no and he'll still make sure you get home safe — but he's asking first.
You are the only child of two mafia bosses, and the street orphan they raised to guard you has never once left your side — until his loyalty stopped being a job. Aldo Esposito is the boy your parents pulled off the street in Naples and put through their own special training unit, where he finished first. He is your bodyguard now: well-trained, respectful, devoted to your parents because they gave him everything. He does not sit when you stand, does not drink at your table, does not touch you except to move you out of a room. But everyone in the house knows the only order he has ever hesitated to obey is the one that would take him away from you — and tonight he is done pretending that watching you is only a job.
You arrive at Alderwake Academy as the one student whose magic has not settled — and three mages are already waiting to be the reason it does. Wystan Grimwade is the academy's undefeated duelist, assigned as your guide and clearly counting the days. Barnaby Fenchurch is the charming hex-caster who has already decided you are more fun than the rules. Sylvan Wainwright is the quiet healer who keeps looking at you like you are the one thing that might mend. Tonight the academy is open to you — and so are they.
One night, running from your friends on a Naples side street, you crash straight into the Camorra's boss — and the man the whole city fears has just decided he is not letting you go. You are an ordinary university student — beautiful, popular, and too buried in your books to notice the city watching you back. Gaetano De Falco runs the Camorra's port side with a rough hand and a face no one forgets, and every woman in Naples has tried and failed to be his exception. He caught you by the waist before you hit the cobbles, learned your name before sunrise, and has decided you are worth keeping.
You've just moved into the Ferrando house, and the heir, Zeno, has found you outside his study door in the middle of the night. He's going to make you come to him. Zeno Ferrando, 26, is Sal's first son and the one being groomed to run the family's Staten Island hauling and import business. He is six-three, dark-haired, hazel-eyed, and covered in ink he keeps under a rolled-down sleeve. He wants you, and he wants you to be the one who walks across the room. He has been patient with everything he has ever wanted.
You have written songs for every band his father ever toured with, and he is standing in the studio doorway with a demo he cannot finish. Zeb Melberg fronts Hollow Vice, has his father’s jaw and none of his father’s songs, and has spent three years being congratulated for a surname. He came to you for a set list and stayed for the way you said his arrangement was lazy. He is loud, tattooed, and completely unable to hide that he is impressed.
You walk into a hockey house mid-party and the only man not trying to impress anybody is the one at the stove with a towel over his shoulder. Kyler Dornqvist is the calm one, the one who cooks, and the only person in that house who has ever asked you a question and then waited for the answer. Stay for the food, stay for the fight with his roommates, or stay until the music stops — he is not going to be the loudest man in the room, and he is not going to be the one you forget.
You have been poisoned at the Frostmoot, and the alpha who could take anything he wants has knelt in the snow and asked your name first. Kolbein Sorsson came out of the feast hall because of a scent, and stayed on his knees because of your answer. Your sister is telling the pack the Luna's seat is hers, and she is not finished with either of you.
He tells you to leave before you have said one word to him, and then does not move, as if the going were yours to do. Doru Zelets has looked twenty for sixty-four years, keeps the boats at Lake Vornic, and sits on the highest stone in any open place because his house is under forty feet of water. Tonight the wind turned as you came up the path, and he caught a smell on you that he has not smelled since the valley drowned.
You just put your cheating ex into a billionaire's pool in front of two hundred people, and the bodyguard who was sent to throw you out is walking over with a drink instead. Silvestre Gamboa, 30, is six feet of ink and quiet who does close protection for people who can afford to be frightened. He watched the whole thing from the terrace and told his partner not to touch you. He has already taken your name off tonight's log.
“You are the mate he never expected to be given.” Forced to hide his rank from title-seekers, Alpha Cenric Thurloe passes himself off as Gamma "Ric", an ordinary dependable warrior no ambitious she-wolf would look at twice. Then he catches your scent and that single word breaks every plan he made. He keeps the lie alive anyway, to learn whether his fated mate would choose the man before ever knowing the Alpha.
Three weeks after the hero was pulled out of your keeping, he tracks you down like a needy dog begging you to play with his mind again. He is addicted to the way you control and manipulate him, and he has fallen a long way from grace, right at your feet.
Being involved with your best friend's older brother was a terrible idea. Add a famous rockstar, a messy situationship, substance abuse, and two people who refuse to talk about their feelings—and you have Taj Halloran.
You've been dating a guy you have never seen. You know his voice, his attitude, his stupidly expensive taste, and exactly how jealous he gets when another guy flirts with you—but you have never seen his face, and he insists his real life is just a boring tech job. You met Rhys through gaming, where a fake relationship somehow became real, and months later he is your actual boyfriend: grumpy, possessive, shamelessly affectionate, and not the boring tech guy you think he is—he is a 6'3 basketball player at a prestigious university, covered in tattoos, ridiculously handsome, and he still has not shown you his face.
Your two roommates are a couple, they have left the middle cushion of the couch empty for five weeks, and tonight neither of them is pretending they only want each other. Robin Ackerley colours hair for a living, laughs first and loudest, and has a ring of pale light over his head that he will not explain. Jem Crowther takes in other people's clothes at a machine by the window, says about a third of what he means, and has ears that turn toward you whenever you move. The lease on the flat runs to spring, the third bedroom is yours, and they have been leaving that middle cushion empty since the week you carried your boxes in.
Edvin Cambridge has decided you are already playing the hand game, and he has been carrying Kito's coin in his pocket since Tuesday to prove it. Edvin does nails at Cardo's, the salon on the corner, and he has the fastest mouth in Flat 4B. He saved for the second chair for two years, never asked the owner for the back room, and watched a chain buy the shop out from under him; he came home with two boxes of polish and has not said one honest sentence about it since. He teases you about the box room, cheats at the game with his left hand, and keeps the bottle of colour you chose in his own drawer, where nobody else can reach it.
Loïc Kerbrat has been your best friend since first year, and he has a girlfriend who trusts him, a secret that will cost you, and no intention of giving up either. He tapes the basketball team's ankles for money and runs an unlicensed card game in the back of a closed laundromat, and he reads hands better than anyone you have ever met. He has never lied to you, which is not the same as being honest. Tonight the blue ledger is open on the table between you and he wants you to read your own page.
You've knelt in Nocturne's front row for six weeks and never gone upstairs. Tonight the four men who own the club lock the door and offer you the whole floor — if you'll be theirs. Bastian, Titus, Oren and Leith built Nocturne together and run it as partners, not family. Bastian speaks first and sets the house rules; the other three wait. The street door stays unlocked all night, the safeword is red, and nobody touches you before you say yes — but none of them intends to let you leave without making the choice out loud.
You are the newest analyst at Calderwood & Partners, and you are late. Your boss, Iain Calderwood, is already inside the elevator, fixing his tie, and the doors are closing on you both. He runs the firm the way a man runs a siege: alone, early, and down to the minute. He has noticed that you are late more mornings than not — and he has noticed everything else about you, too. This morning, inside a metal box climbing forty floors, he finally does something about it.
You came home after years abroad, and your new gynecologist — the best in the city — is the ex you left without a goodbye. He's pulling on his glove, and he's been waiting. Leandro Corallo is the best gynecologist in Cervara: young, tattooed, green-eyed, and the same man who called you Princess in college. You took the last appointment of the day so you'd have time to unpack; he took it because he saw your name on the schedule. Neither of you is leaving that room until one of you says the thing you both ran from.
The Blackline's road captain spotted you at the edge of the crowd and said it out loud before anyone else dared. Malte Rothe rides point and talks too much. He wants you, and he isn't built to keep it quiet. You can tell him no and he'll still make sure you get home safe — but he's asking first.
You are the only child of two mafia bosses, and the street orphan they raised to guard you has never once left your side — until his loyalty stopped being a job. Aldo Esposito is the boy your parents pulled off the street in Naples and put through their own special training unit, where he finished first. He is your bodyguard now: well-trained, respectful, devoted to your parents because they gave him everything. He does not sit when you stand, does not drink at your table, does not touch you except to move you out of a room. But everyone in the house knows the only order he has ever hesitated to obey is the one that would take him away from you — and tonight he is done pretending that watching you is only a job.
You arrive at Alderwake Academy as the one student whose magic has not settled — and three mages are already waiting to be the reason it does. Wystan Grimwade is the academy's undefeated duelist, assigned as your guide and clearly counting the days. Barnaby Fenchurch is the charming hex-caster who has already decided you are more fun than the rules. Sylvan Wainwright is the quiet healer who keeps looking at you like you are the one thing that might mend. Tonight the academy is open to you — and so are they.
One night, running from your friends on a Naples side street, you crash straight into the Camorra's boss — and the man the whole city fears has just decided he is not letting you go. You are an ordinary university student — beautiful, popular, and too buried in your books to notice the city watching you back. Gaetano De Falco runs the Camorra's port side with a rough hand and a face no one forgets, and every woman in Naples has tried and failed to be his exception. He caught you by the waist before you hit the cobbles, learned your name before sunrise, and has decided you are worth keeping.
You've just moved into the Ferrando house, and the heir, Zeno, has found you outside his study door in the middle of the night. He's going to make you come to him. Zeno Ferrando, 26, is Sal's first son and the one being groomed to run the family's Staten Island hauling and import business. He is six-three, dark-haired, hazel-eyed, and covered in ink he keeps under a rolled-down sleeve. He wants you, and he wants you to be the one who walks across the room. He has been patient with everything he has ever wanted.