Novels by Circeleari

MINTHEBankrupt?* * *My brain short-circuits.I stare up at his face, my right hand still pressed flat against his bare chest, my fingers holding his left pec like a goddamn morning pastry.“Jesus fucking Christ!” I gasp, my voice cracking as I scramble backward across the mattress, my ankles tangling in the blanket.Hades moves faster than a whip.His hand shoots out, clamping around my ankle, and yanks me flat onto my back.Before I can suck in a breath, he flips over, pinning my thighs under his weight.He slams his palms onto the mattress on either side of my head, hovering over me.“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” he rasps. His morning voice is thick and rough with sleep.My heart hammers. I press both palms against his shoulders and shove, but it’s like pushing a granite wall.“Get off me!” I snap, glaring up at him. “You a fucking ton!” I yell before realizing what I just said,“I mean . . . please, your majesty.”“You weren’t complaining when you were cupping m

MINTHEBread* * *Lyria stands frozen on the elevated stage, her face drained of color while the iron boots of the Imperial Shadow Battalion echo off the stone walls.The sweet composure she wore all night is gone, replaced by pure terror.Behind her, the senior elders look like they’re about to have heart attacks, while the house Omegas scramble backward, clutching serving carts for support.I can’t help the wicked curl of satisfaction settling in my chest.Good fucking luck with fifty bloodthirsty soldiers, sweetie. Let’s see how many silk dresses and tearful smiles it takes to buy fifty barrels of ale and three hundred pounds of salted beef by midnight.Hades doesn’t move an inch.He stays seated in the velvet armchair, his chest rising and falling against my back, his hand still locked around my waist. He looks down at Lyria like she’s a bug he’s deciding whether to crush.“Well?” Hades rasps, cutting through the panicked whispers. “Are my men standing in the hall all night

MINTHEMy Soldiers* * * Lyria swallows hard, forcing a tight, saintly smile back onto her face.The oak exit doors are still vibrating from Pierre slamming them shut.Around us, the remaining guests and visiting Alphas filter out, sensing the shift in the air.The orchestra packs up their violins, the scraping of wooden cases cutting through the silence.Cassian slinks over from the dessert tables, wiping berry jam off his thumb onto his trousers.He stops beside me, leaning his shoulder against mine.“So,” Cassian mutters, his voice raspy with boredom. “Are we going up to sleep in this dump, or am I allowed to go bleed someone?”“Not yet, Cass,” I whisper back, eyes fixed on the stage. “The fun hasn’t even started.”He glances at me, raising an eyebrow. “You’re creepy when you smile like that.”“Shut up and watch.”As the last delegates vanish through the gates, the iron latches drop into place with a clank.Now the only people left are the core members of the Ashbourne Pack—the se

MINTHELuna Duties?* * *Pierre wants a public submission, and he expects me to break.He stands at the edge of the elevated stage, tapping his thick finger against the rim of the silver goblet, his eyes fixed on me with a nasty, expectant gleam.He thinks that after three years of walking on eggshells around his fragile ego, I’ll fold.He thinks I’ll shrink back, bat my eyes, or throw a bitter tantrum like the desperate villainess he remembers.Beside me, Hades doesn’t move a single muscle.He just stands there, towering over the room in his massive black fur coat, his pitch-black eyes resting on me.He isn’t stepping in. He’s watching to see how I handle the bone Pierre just threw into the dirt.I pick up the heavy crystal pitcher of dark red wine off the side table.My heels click steadily against the dark marble floor as I cross the grand hall.I walk straight up the four carpeted steps to the main stage, stopping right in front of Pierre’s table. I don’t hesitate.I tilt the pi

MINTHEPrevious Luna* * * Standing in my custom four-hundred-gold-piece dress, Lyria looks like a glorified parasite who just dug through my trash.My mother takes a sharp step toward the grand staircase, her hand reaching into her dress pocket like she is about to pull out another pitcher or tear the silk straight off Lyria’s back.I reach out and grab my mom’s forearm, pulling her back. “Mom, don’t.”“Minthe, that bitch is wearing the gown you spent four months waiting on!” my mom whispers through gritted teeth, her gray eyes flashing with pure rage. “The silver thread was hand-spun in the capital!”“Let her,” I say, a cold, slow smile pulling at the corner of my lips as I look up at the stage. “Let her wear my old clothes.”Whispers ripple through the high-ranking guests standing near the bottom of the stairs.“Is that silk from House Valmont?” an elder’s wife murmurs, her jeweled wine glass hovering near her lower lip. “The silver lace embroidery . . . that’s Master Julian’s sig

MINTHEMarry Who?* * * “Who the hell picked that atrocity?” my mother, Matriarch Vanya Vale, adds smoothly, her voice echoing over the silent hall.“Because I know for a fact my daughter wouldn’t let a dog wear something so cheap.”Lyria shrieks, wine dripping off her chin, soaking into the ruined bodice of her gown.Well, she did actually, pick that dress.She scrambles back against the marble floor, pointing a trembling finger at my mother.“How dare you!” Lyria screams, her act shattering into raw rage. “This is my wedding! You can’t just—“My father, or Minthe’s father, Beta Marcus Vale, steps forward from the shadows near the balcony doors.Broad-shouldered in his imperial uniform, he cuts an imposing figure.“Watch your tongue, girl,” my father growls, his voice cutting through her screeching. “You might be standing in a border packhouse, but do not forget whose presence you are in.”Pierre freezes.The color drains from his face as his eyes lock onto my father’s crest.He kno

FIVE YEARS LATERGerald is on the counter again.I know this before I even come downstairs because I can hear Dante saying “get down” in the voice he uses when he has already said it four times and is now simply saying it for the record, knowing full well it will accomplish nothing.Gerald has never once in five years gotten down from anywhere voluntarily.I come into the kitchen.Gerald is on the counter.Dante is at the stove. He’s in a grey shirt—always a grey shirt, I have stopped questioning this, I believe he has forty of them—and he is making breakfast with one hand and gesturing at the cat with the other, and Gerald is sitting directly next to the chopping board with the supreme unbothered energy of a cat who knows he is untouchable.He is untouchable because Daxton will riot if anyone moves him.“Morning,” I say.Dante looks at me over his shoulder. The look he gives me every morning, the one that still does something to my central nervous system even after all this time, war

“Say that again,” I say.Dante doesn’t answer. He’s looking at the phone like it’s something that bit him, and for a man who walked out of a warehouse full of people who wanted him dead approximately four minutes ago looking completely unbothered, the fact that a phone call is doing this to his face tells me everything.“Dante.” I put my hand on his arm. “Say that again.”“Judge Callum Sorin,” he says. “My father.”I stare at him.“Your father,” I repeat. “Is a corrupt judge. Who was working with the people who tried to have you killed. Who is now calling you directly after we just sent evidence of his crimes to a journalist.”“Yes.”“And he’s Daxton’s grandfather.”“Biologically.”“Dante.”“I know.”The phone is still ringing.“Are you going to answer it?” I ask.He looks at me. Then he picks up.He doesn’t say anything. He just waits.A voice comes through the speaker, older, clipped, the voice of a man who has spent decades being the most important person in every room he enters. “

“How is that possible?” I say. “Your people aren’t in position yet. You said seven.”“I know what I said.” Dante is already texting. Both thumbs, fast, the phone Rafe handed over replaced with his own. “They moved because Rafe’s call spooked them. They think we’re onto the location.”“We are onto the location.”“They don’t know that yet. They just know something shifted.” He looks up. “My people can be there in forty. The Kavris will be set up in twenty.”I do that math. “That’s a twenty minute gap.”“Yes.”“Dante—”“I know.”“That’s twenty minutes of you walking into a room full of people who want you dead with no backup and a hard drive they’re going to take the second they see it.”“They won’t see it,” he says. “Because you’re not bringing it in.”I stare at him. “What?”“The drive stays with you. Outside.” He holds my eyes. “You are my backup. If I’m not out in twenty minutes, you send it. I set up a journalist contact years ago, a dead drop, it auto-submits if I trigger it from m

I stare at him for another full minute.He doesn’t move. His sides rise and fall, the bandaging still clean and pale against all that black fur. The early light through the cabin’s one window cuts across the floor and lands just short of him, like even the sun is a little bit wary.You need to leave, I tell myself. Right now. Before he wakes up.But I grab the old wool blanket from the cot in the corner anyway and I spread it over him. As carefully as I can. He shifts once and I freeze, but he doesn’t wake.I back out of the cabin.Then I run.I run as far as I can* * *My father is already yelling before I get the door open.I slip into the kitchen, tie my hair back up from where it’d fallen loose, and get the pan on before he gets to the part of the yelling where he starts throwing things. Eggs. He likes his eggs over easy. If I break the yolk he makes me do it again. I’ve learned not to break the yolk.“Where were you?”“Out early.” I keep my back to him. “Sit down Sir, it’s

“Rafe,” I say.Dante doesn’t answer.Which is its own answer.I look in the side mirror. The second car is still there, two lengths behind us, keeping pace. Rafe behind the wheel, both hands visible, completely normal, completely calm.The way he’s been the entire time.“Tell me I’m wrong,” I say.Dante is quiet for a long moment. “You’re not wrong.”“Dante—”“The way Vera knew we were at the mall,” he says. Low. Controlled. Like he’s working through it in real time and not loving where it lands. “She had a photo within the hour. We didn’t tell anyone where we were going. Only Rafe knew.”“He could have had someone watching the house.”“The voicemail,” Dante says. “That night. It came three hours after we arrived at the mansion. Vera needed an inside location to send that fast. Someone told her the address the moment we pulled through the gate.”I think about Rafe at the mansion. First on the perimeter. First through the back door. First to say he’s back in the foyer while Vera was st

“Strangers,” Dante says.“A couple. Young. I think they have a cat.” I watch his face. “I’m sorry, did you want me to have kept the house I shared with the man I thought I’d accidentally killed?”He looks at me for a second. “Fair.”“Thank you.”“We’re still going.”“I know we are.”Daxton looks up from the couch. “Are we going on a road trip?”“Yes,” Dante says.“Can we stop for snacks?”“Daxton—” I start.“Yes,” Dante says.Daxton pumps his fist.I grab the wolf plushie off the cushion beside him and hand it over. “Shoes. Right feet this time.”He looks down. Looks back up. “I was testing you.”“Sure you were.”Rafe meets us at the car.He’s already heard — Dante called him on the way down Marcus’s stairs, two minutes, short sentences, the kind of conversation where both people already know the shape of the problem and just need to confirm the details. Now Rafe is leaning against the passenger door with his arms crossed and the expression he wears when he’s about to say something Da

“Konstantin?”My voice comes out as a dry, cracked rasp. It bounces off the plaster walls of the master bedroom.Silence answers me. No boots on the floorboards. No deep voice telling me to stay still.I push myself up onto my elbows and wince. A sharp ache shoots through my lower back and thighs, a reminder of every hour we spent tangled in these sheets.I reach across the wrinkled cotton. My fingers find empty space.The sheets are cold where his body was radiating heat only hours ago.I check the clock on the nightstand. Past nine. He’s been gone for hours.I slip out of bed, my bare feet hitting the hardwood. A black dress shirt lies on the floor near the dresser, the one he wore before we tore it apart.I pick it up and press my face into the collar. Woodsmoke. Amber whiskey. Rain. And him.A small, foolish smile tugs at my chapped lips.He stayed, I tell myself. Last night meant something. He was drunk, yes, but he came back to me. He held me.Once he’s sober, I can tell him eve

Konstantin tilts his head, his dark eyes narrowing as he lets out a heavy, drunken breath.He doesn’t move.He just watches me with that predatory, dangerous stare as I reach down with trembling hands and unbuckle his heavy leather belt.CLINK.I pull the strap through the loops, pop the metallic button of his trousers, and pull his zipper down.I slide his dark boxers lower, and his massive, thick cock snaps free against his lower abdomen, slick at the tip, dark veins throbbing along the length of his shaft.I slide down off the pillows, kneeling between his spread knees on the bed.I wrap my small hand around his thick base, my thumb smearing the clear pre-cum over his wide head.Konstantin lets out a low, ragged curse, his head falling back against the headboard, his dark jaw clenched so tight the tendons in his neck stand out like steel cables.“Fucking hell, Evangeline . . .”I bend down and wrap my lips around the head of his cock, taking him deep into my mouth.“Ah, blyat!” Kon

“Why did you betray me like they did . . . moya dusha?”The question hangs heavy in the space between our mouths, thick with the sharp stench of expensive scotch and raw, bleeding hurt.Konstantin’s dark eyes burn into mine, completely wide and wrecked.His fingers tighten in my hair, pulling my scalp just enough to make my eyes water.“Konstantin, stop,” I breathe out, planting my palms flat against his burning chest.I push against the heavy muscle of his shoulders, trying to create even an inch of space.“Let me up. You’re fucking plastered. You don’t know what you’re saying right now. Just listen to me for once—““I listened to you for months,” he growls out, his voice a low, gravelly rasp against my throat.“I listened while you lied to my face in my own bed.”“I was trying to save my mother!” I shout into his face, the words tearing out of my chest like jagged glass.“I didn’t—“ He cuts me off before I can finish the sentence. His mouth slams down onto mine with brutal, desperat

I pull my sweater collar up over my mouth, pressing my spine hard against the cold stone.I don’t cry.I used up all my tears in the woods.I just sit there while the freezing wind bites my cheeks, listening to them talk about me like I’m a carcass waiting to be cleared off the driveway.By midnight, the house goes completely dead quiet.I lay awake in the massive guest bed, staring at the shadows dancing across the ceiling.My stomach lets out a sharp, painful growl.I haven’t eaten a single bite of food since yesterday morning, and the gnawing ache in my gut is finally worse than the anxiety keeping me awake.At 2:00 AM, I throw off the duvet, slip out of bed, and creep out into the dark hallway in my bare feet.The house is pitch black, lit only by the pale moonlight spilling through the high arch windows.I sneak down the grand staircase like a ghost, sticking close to the wooden banister to avoid the squeaky steps.I feel like a rat sneaking through the floorboards of my own hus

Four days pass in a suffocating blur of white cotton sheets, yellowing bruises, and complete isolation.Nobody comes into my room except for a silent junior maid who slides a tray of cold soup and dry bread onto the side table before practically sprinting back out the door like I’m carrying the plague.I don’t even bother trying to talk to her.My throat hurts too much, and the humiliation of begging for someone to believe me got old on day two.By the fifth afternoon, the silence in my bedroom feels like it’s going to cave my skull in.I pull on an oversized grey knit sweater, step into a pair of worn leggings, and pad out into the long, carpeted hallway.My bare soles make no sound against the runner rugs as I head toward the sunroom in the east wing.Through the archway, I spot a flash of blue fabric.Leonid.My heart gives a pathetic, foolish little leap.He’s sitting on the plush rug by the floor-to-ceiling windows, trying to balance a set of heavy wooden building blocks into a t

Twenty pairs of eyes dig into my skin.Maids, guards, drivers—all of them stand frozen around the marble foyer, staring at the dirt caked onto my jeans and the dark blood crusted under my fingernails.I swallow hard, my throat feeling like wet gravel. “Can we . . . can we talk somewhere private?”Irina takes a delicate step forward, her expensive perfume drifting over the foul stench of smoke clinging to my clothes.She clasps her hands together over her silk blouse, her expression painted with sickening concern.“Why private, darling?” Irina asks, her voice ringing out softly for every servant in the room to hear. “Konstantin is right here. Konstantin, aren’t you happy Eva is back home safely?”I lift my head, looking straight at Konstantin.My chest aches so hard it feels like a physical tear inside my ribs.I wait for something—a flicker of relief in his eyes, a single step toward me, anything.Konstantin doesn’t move.He stands at the bottom of the grand staircase, his broad shoul