Chapter: Life and DeathSilas:The alcove breathes a comforting cold against my skin, the stones older than language itself.I lean into the darkness, letting it swallow me whole. The shadows speak in a cadence I know too well—low and restless, like a tide against a broken shore. They smell of iron and frost, of endings.A door clicks open down the stairwell.Soft footfalls. Careful. Hesitant.Isadora.Her presence slides across the black like the first cut of dawn. The shadows recoil and reach all at once.She turns the corner, candlelight pooling around her like liquid warmth. For a heartbeat she doesn’t see me. Then her eyes catch mine and she startles—a sharp intake of breath, hand to her chest.“I didn’t know anyone was here,” she says. Her voice wavers but doesn’t break.I step forward, hands raised slightly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”“You didn’t.” A pause, a small tremor in the word. “Much.”The faint shimmer of glamour clings to her skin; Kai’s lesson still lingers. Her hair is a tumble of bla
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-24
Chapter: Dangerous DesiresKai:The morning tastes of rain before it falls. Morning breaks in bruised streaks of lavender and pewter, the kind of light that promises rain but never follows through. Perfect. A day that feels half-enchanted, half-forgotten—just what she needs.Mist drifts across the stone courtyard as I slip through the kitchen door, boots soundless on the worn flagstones.I raid the pantry like a thief: still-warm oat bread, a crock of honey, figs dark as bruises.A handful of blackberries stain my fingers; I lick the juice and imagine it on her lips.The Academy feels half-asleep, corridors lit by the cold gleam of wards.No one stops me.Maybe the shadows know what I’m doing and approve.Isadora’s door is unlatched when I return.Inside, Lucian had closed the curtains tight before him and Rhett went for a hunt. The only light comes from a single candle guttering against the draft.She lies curled beneath the quilt, hauntingly still, hair spilled like ink across the pillow, skin pale enough to
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-24
Chapter: Wake Up CallRhett:I wake right as the sun breaks when I hear a knock at Isadora's door. It is a slow, deliberate tap, not the kind meant for polite company.I’m on my feet before Isadora even stirs. Instinct. My body moves the way a wolf does when it hears the first twig break in a dark wood—quiet, ready.I ease around her bed, every sense sharpened. The faint scent of singed air still lingers from her nightmare, a heat that shouldn’t belong in this cold stone room. My hand finds the door latch, fingers flexing.Another knock, sharper.I pull it open.Viktor stands there, pale as a winter moon and twice as smug. Black hair glints midnight blue under the corridor torches. Those crimson eyes slide over my shoulder toward the bed like he’s cataloguing every shadow she casts.“What the hell do you want?” My voice comes out low, rough. Not a question so much as a warning.He leans against the jamb, long and elegant, like the doorframe is a throne he deserves. “Relax, wolf. I didn’t get to finish my d
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-24
Chapter: Living NightmareIsadora:Lucian’s arms are colder than I expect, like stone wrapped in midnight, but the chill seeps into me like a lullaby. The corridor blurs past in gray streaks of torchlight. My head lolls against his chest. I should protest, tell him I can walk, but the thought never reaches my tongue.The scent of him, iron and something darker, anchors me. I hate that it feels safe.My door opens without a sound. He lowers me onto the mattress with surprising care, as if I’m spun glass. The room smells of old paper and rain.“Rest,” he murmurs, a command disguised as kindness.I mean to thank him. My lips move; no sound comes.Lucian straightens, already half way to the door, ready to vanish into the night.That’s when the world fractures.Flames roar across the ceiling—silent, furious. The stone walls melt into black ruin. Heat slams into me. I choke on smoke that isn’t there.Wake up.I try to sit, but my limbs refuse. The nightmare sticks like a second skin.“Isadora!” Lucian’s voice slices
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-24
Chapter: Blood Moon and Bad BloodIsadora:The dress feels like midnight made flesh as I slip in on. Black lace clings to every inch of me, a whisper of shadow against bare skin. I fasten the crimson-ruby earrings Loralie pressed into my palm earlier, their cold weight a pulse at my throat. The matching necklace settles like a promise—or a threat—above my heartbeat. When I tie the mask, its filigree edges bite lightly into my temples, framing the world in obsidian.Loralie bursts into my room in a shimmer of rose-gold sequins, eyes already glittering with the night’s intoxication. “Mistress of Moonlight,” she declares, looping her arm through mine. “Ready?”“As I’ll ever be,” I breathe, though the air tastes like a storm already brewing.The corridor outside thrums with distant music and the murmur of gathering bodies. We follow the sound through a maze of candlelit arches until the Grand Hall yawns open before us—a cathedral of shadow and flame. Lanterns sway from iron chains, bleeding red light across marble floors
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-24
Chapter: Blood BallIsadora:Saturday arrives like a half forgotten promise, soft at the edges, silvered in the pale chill that seeps through my windowpanes. For the first time all week I wake without a bell or a summons, only the low hum of the Academy breathing around me. The sky beyond the glass is the color of wet ash. I lie there for a moment, willing myself to believe in the quiet.A knock shatters it.“Rise and shine, sleepy witch,” Loralie sings as she sweeps in, a gust of citrus-scented warmth against the stone. Her honey-blonde hair is a riot of curls, her smile a sunrise I’m not sure I deserve.“You’re entirely too cheerful,” I mutter, dragging myself upright.“It’s Saturday,” she says, as if that explains everything. “And tonight is the Blood Ball.”I blink. “The what?”Her grin widens, sharp as a secret. “You really don’t know? It happens every year on the blood moon. Music, masks, revelry…a celebration of everything the Academy tries to pretend it doesn’t teach. Think of it as a holiday for
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-23
Chapter: The weaknessLuciano:She was close.Too close.Close enough for her scent to crawl down my throat—something expensive and sharp, layered over red wine and fear she was trying so hard to choke down. I could feel the heat coming off her skin, the tension in her limbs as her fists curled into the front of my shirt like she didn’t even realize she was touching me.Her breath hitched.Mine didn’t.Not outwardly.Inside, I burned.I didn’t move. I didn’t touch her. Not yet. I let her press against me, let her feel the war she was stepping into. Because that’s what this was now—a war. And she was the most dangerous weapon in it. She just didn’t know whose side she was really fighting on yet.“I can do this,” she said, her voice a whisper on the edge of a confession. “I will do this.”There it was.Conviction.Determination.Madness.I looked into her eyes and saw all three reflected back at me. But underneath them… a flicker of something else. Something she hadn’t given a name to yet.She was unraveling
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-10
Chapter: I wasn’t backing awayAva:The elevator opened directly into his penthouse. No keycard. No security. Just silence and dim lights casting long shadows over marble and glass.He was already there.Leaning against the bar like he’d been waiting all night.Luciano Moretti.Pressed shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a tumbler of scotch hanging from his hand like a loaded weapon. The bottle sat beside him—half full, glinting amber beneath the low pendant light. His eyes met mine across the open space, glassy and unreadable.Cold. Calm. Controlled.Except… not entirely.There was something simmering beneath the surface. Something sharp and dark and volatile.I stepped inside slowly, the file clutched to my chest like it could protect me. My coat hung loosely from my arms, my heels soft on the floors. His gaze dropped for a fraction of a second. Quick. Unforgiving. Like a blade glinting in the dark.“You’re late,” he said.“I didn’t realize there was a clock ticking,” I replied, voice th
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-09
Chapter: A crackAva: A full bottle of wine deep and surrounded by a sea of papers, I should’ve stopped. Should’ve closed the file, turned off the lamp, and gone to bed like someone with boundaries. But boundaries were for sane people. Rational people. Not me. Not anymore. Because between the transcripts and the redacted surveillance summaries, I found it. A crack. A real, actual crack. Hidden beneath layers of procedural sludge and carefully crafted distractions—but there it was. A misstep. A detail someone thought wouldn’t matter, that no one would look twice at. But I did. And it wasn’t small. This wasn’t some minor filing error or a questionable search warrant. This was big. Like case-dismissing big. A lie, repeated. An inconsistency in the witness statement that contradicted a timestamp so clean, it practically screamed fabricated. My heart slammed against my ribs. My fingertips were numb. I stared at it, reading it over and over again, just to be sure. Just to feel that rush, that sic
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-09
Chapter: Heart and mindAva:The elevator doors slid shut behind me with a low hiss, sealing in the penthouse—the man—and all the oxygen I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.I exhaled, finally. Long and slow, like I’d just surfaced from underwater.What the hell is wrong with me?My heels clicked down the marble lobby, each sound too sharp, too fast, matching the erratic pulse behind my ribs. I kept my head high, expression neutral, the way I was trained. The way I always did when leaving a meeting with someone who could make or break a life. But this—this—wasn’t like any case I’d ever taken.This wasn’t just a man on trial.It was a man I couldn’t stop thinking about. And I hated myself for it.Luciano Moretti was dangerous in all the ways that made good sense run for cover. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t posture. He simply looked. Watched. Every move felt calculated, every silence like a baited trap. And still, I walked in. Still, I stayed.Still, I wanted more.I reached my car and slid into the seat
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-09
Chapter: all the ways that matteredLuciano:She arrived like a slow-moving threat. Controlled. Composed. Beautiful in a way that begged to be ruined.I didn’t move when the elevator doors opened. I wanted to watch her walk into the lion’s den on her own, heels clicking against the marble, that pristine expression barely concealing the war brewing underneath. She was dressed like she meant business—sleek, clean lines, lipstick just a touch too bold for the courtroom. And yet... beneath all that polish, I saw her.Nervous. Flushed.She’d worked harder on her appearance today. Not for the case. Not for the law.For me.That should’ve satisfied me. Should’ve been enough of a confirmation that she was cracking, slipping into my orbit without realizing how deep she already was.But it wasn’t.I wanted more.She stopped a few feet away, eyes cutting through the air between us. That voice of hers—steady and stubborn—called me Mr. Moretti like it was supposed to keep distance. She still thought names and rules could cage what w
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-09
Chapter: I wanted to winAva: I told myself it was just a meeting. Off the record. Unofficial. Necessary for strategy. I repeated those words like a mantra the entire elevator ride up—each floor taking me further away from reason and deeper into whatever the hell this was turning into. The penthouse elevator was glass, sleek and cold against the city skyline, and the reflection that stared back at me looked far too put-together for someone coming off a twelve-hour research bender. My hair was pinned up, sleek and soft, not an inch of frizz in sight. A little mascara. Lipstick that could pass for “professional” if I squinted. And the blouse? Silky. Low-key luxurious. Not my usual. I’d spent five minutes too long deciding on earrings. And that wasn’t normal. That was insane. You’re mental, I muttered under my breath. Completely mental. Because it wasn’t the case that had me smoothing my skirt and checking my reflection in the mirrored paneling. It was him. Luciano Moretti. God help me. He was everyth
Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-09
Masuk
