Chapter: Chapter 26: What Desire CostThe realm knew.The moment Luca came back into himself, it knew.The silver expanse beneath his boots shuddered, not violently, but with the subtle displeasure of something that had been used without permission. The air thickened, its metallic bite sharper now, like punishment being calibrated.His body was still humming, but not with pain.With her.Every nerve remembered her weight, her heat, and the way the bond had opened instead of breaking. His hands were still shaking, fingers flexing like they expected to find her skin again if he reached out.He didn’t. He stood very still.That was when Mayari spoke.“You should not have been able to do that.”She did not manifest fully this time. No gentle assembly of moonlight, no careful theatrics. Her presence pressed in from everywhere at once, silver light threading through the air like veins.Luca lifted his head slowly.“You shouldn’t have underestimated her,” he said hoarsely.The realm reacted.Pressure slammed into him without war
Last Updated: 2026-01-07
Chapter: Chapter 25: The Place Where We Still TouchAlthea didn’t realize that she had fallen asleep.Exhaustion hit her like a heavy door unexpectedly shutting, dragging her under before she could argue with it. One moment, she was seated against the trunk of a tree, Umbra’s weight warm and solid at her side. The next -Pressure. Like getting sucked into a vacuous black hole.Awareness slammed into her fully formed, breath knocked out of her chest as she surfaced somewhere that had no ground and too much space. Her bare feet met nothing. Her spine stiffened instinctively, balance searching for rules that weren’t there.“Where the fuck am I?” she thought.The forest was gone.The ache in her bones sharpened into clarity.And then -HIM.The bond tightened so fast it hurt.Althea gasped, one hand flying to her sternum as heat flooded her chest, sudden and starving, the thread between them pulled taut across a distance that felt hostile and wrong.She turned without thinking.Luca stood a few steps away. He looked like he’d been dragged
Last Updated: 2025-12-24
Chapter: Chapter 24: When The Old Wake HungryThe first god Mayari approached did not hear her arrive.That was courtesy. That was a strategy. That was also fear, veiled as restraint.Tala, the goddess of the stars and Mayari’s sister, kept her vigil in a chamber that did not belong to any human geography. A floor of black glass held a basin of suspended constellations, each star pinned in place by a law older than language. She stood over it with her hands submerged to the wrists, fingers moving through the heavens like a woman sifting through ashes for something she once buried.The constellations shivered.Not a quake. Not a warning bell. A single, subtle reorientation, as if the universe had adjusted its posture to make room for a new weight.Tala’s head lifted slowly.“That is… new,” she murmured.Mayari stepped from the shadow cast by a dying star, silver light clinging to her like winter breath. She did not announce herself. She did not take the center of the room. She waited at the edge, as if even a Primordial could unde
Last Updated: 2025-12-21
Chapter: Chapter 23: The Weight That Answered BackThe realm did not welcome Luca. It did not repel him either. It existed around him with the disinterest of something ancient that did not care whether he endured.Silver stretched in every direction, neither solid nor fluid, rippling slowly as if responding to a tide he could not see. Above him, the sky held no sun, no moon—only a lattice of stars affixed too precisely to be natural.When he finally found his bearings, he realized that they were not stars. They were eyes. Observing.Luca inhaled carefully. The air felt thin and metallic, as if breathing along a blade’s edge. Each breath scraped. Each exhale fogged and fell instead of rising, gravity behaving as if someone had rewritten it mid-thought.He flexed his hand.They trembled, not from fear but from the residual pain from the tearing pull that had ripped him from Althea.But the bond still burned. Not comforting. Not reassuring. It was like a live wire that stretched through his chest, humming with distance and strain. When h
Last Updated: 2025-12-17
Chapter: Chapter 22: What The Gods Failed to MeasureLuca was gone. Not erased. Not severed, gone as if a door slammed too hard for the frame to survive.The bond still burned through Althea’s chest, stretched thin across something vast and hostile, pulled so tight it hummed. Umbra braced against her leg when her knees buckled, his weight immovable, his presence the only thing in the clearing that did not retreat from her.The forest already had.Trees leaned away as if her shadow carried consequences. Leaves hung suspended, unwilling to fall. Even the light came through cautiously fractured, as though it had learned the cost of touching her without permission.Althea dragged in a breath and tasted iron.Good.Pain meant orientation.She forced herself upright, one hand fisted in Umbra’s fur, the other pressed flat to her sternum where the bond pulsed like a live wire. It wasn’t absence she felt; it was tension.Pressure.A system under strain.“She called it physics,” Althea said quietly, to no one. “Like that made it justifiable.”Umb
Last Updated: 2025-12-16
Chapter: Chapter 21: The Door the Gods ClosedThe forest knew before they did. It held itself wrong.Branches leaned away from the clearing, leaves suspended as if waiting for a command they did not want to hear. Even the light felt reluctant, thinning through the canopy like it might be punished for touching her.Umbra stood pressed to Althea’s leg, whining low in his chest. Not fear. Warning.Althea felt it too. A pressure behind her eyes. A tightness in her ribs that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with inevitability.They were alone.Truly alone.Luca stood a few feet away, hands loose at his sides, posture deceptively relaxed in the way of a man who knew a blade was coming and refused to flinch first. His gaze never left her face.“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.She hadn’t realized she was.“I’m fine,” she answered automatically, then stopped herself.The lie tasted wrong. Useless. “No. I’m not.”Umbra nudged her leg again, harder this time, as if insisting she stop pretending.She exhaled, slow and care
Last Updated: 2025-12-13
Proximity Hazard
Some people are trained to disappear.
Others are trained to make problems disappear.
Reid Calder operates in the space no one admits exists. His team is untraceable, unacknowledged, and brutally efficient. They are deployed when the mission cannot fail and cannot be traced. Control is the only reason it works. Distance is the only rule.
Alexis Harper is not part of his system.
She’s a linguistic and counterintelligence specialist designed for environments Reid’s team can’t survive. Unassuming when she wants to be. Invisible when it matters. Dangerous in ways that don’t leave bruises. She’s placed into his unit without his consent, into a world built on silence and authority, and she refuses to play small.
They clash immediately.
Reid sees her as disruption.
Alexis sees him as arrogance wrapped in control.
Their arguments are sharp, relentless, and impossible to ignore. Every room tightens when they’re together. Every exchange feels like a challenge neither is willing to lose. The closer they’re forced to work, the more volatile the tension becomes.
Because some battles aren’t about dominance.
They’re about restraint.
And when two people trained to never lose control are pushed into constant proximity, the fallout is inevitable.
Proximity Hazard is a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance packed with covert operations, razor-sharp banter, forced proximity, and tension so thick it borders on reckless. Perfect for readers who crave dangerous men, brilliant women, and chemistry that feels like a threat.
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Chapter: Chapter 7: ReidThe kitchen light was soft. Early. Clean. The kind of morning that pretends the world isn’t violent.I walked in because I needed caffeine and a reason not to think about the fact that I’d stood outside her door last night like an asshole.And then Alexis Harper turned, barefoot, in a tank and shorts as if she’d stepped out of a dream I didn’t deserve to have.She nearly collided with me. Her breath caught. Mine did too.For a second, we just… existed there. Too close. Too quiet. Her hair twisted up, messy from sleep, skin warm from being alive, and my brain did something treasonous: it forgot how to be a commander.My eyes dragged over her, from head to toe, before I could stop them.I felt her notice. Felt her body tighten. She wasn’t shy. She wasn’t timid. She went still, as if trying to figure out if she was self-conscious that I was looking or for what had happened last night.“Didn’t mean to startle you,” I said.She blinked once. “You didn’t,”Lie.I almost smiled. Almost.We s
Last Updated: 2026-01-20
Chapter: Chapter 6: AlexisThe kitchen was quiet in that early morning that felt borrowed.Soft light spilled through the tall windows, turning the counters pale gold. The compound hadn’t fully woken yet. No clatter. No voices. Just the hum of the appliances and the faint sound of coffee brewing somewhere behind me. I looked around to see who turned on the coffee machine, but I didn’t see anyone.“Must be on a timer,” I mumbled.I padded across the floor barefoot, hair twisted into a messy knot that hadn’t survived sleep, wearing one of my tanks and shorts. Nothing fancy. Nothing sexy. Comfortable.I didn’t expect anyone else to be there, so when I turned and nearly collided with a wall of heat and muscle, my breath caught sharp and stupid in my throat.Reid Calder.He stood just inside the doorway, sleeves pushed up, hair still loose like he hadn’t decided whether to control it yet. Morning light cut across his face, catching in those green eyes that didn’t soften just because the sun was out.He stopped too.
Last Updated: 2026-01-18
Chapter: Chapter 5: ReidMy phone buzzed at 0612.I didn’t need to know who it was. No one else in this compound texted before sunrise unless something was on fire.EVAN:Didn’t know midnight strolls to recruit doors were mandatory now. Should I start knocking on random rooms for bonding opportunities, or was that just a you thing?I stared at the screen for a long second. Annoyed. At Evan. At myself.REID:You have thirty seconds to delete that, or I revoke your internet privileges for a month.Three dots appeared as soon as I pressed send.EVAN:Worth it! Also, she’s cute when she’s half asleep. Just sayin’.I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. He’d feel it later. Evan always did.By the time I walked into the briefing room, caffeine burning through my veins and irritation riding shotgun, the team was already there.Marcus had his boots hooked around the chair legs, posture relaxed but eyes sharp.Luke sat with a mug in both hands, calm as a monastery.Jonah was leaning against the wall, quiet, present, watc
Last Updated: 2026-01-02
Chapter: Chapter 4: AlexisSleep never just happened for me.Sleep was something I negotiated with. Like a hostage situation where I’m both the hostage and the negotiator, and everyone involved is exhausted, armed, and deeply irritated.Unit C, Room 6, was exactly what Director Sato—Jeremy promised: functional. Bare. Bolted-down bed, desk, and closet. The kind of space that said we can move out in thirty seconds if we have to.Perfect.I unpacked and lined my things the way I always did. Slowly. Methodically. Not because I’m tidy, but because order is a language my nervous system understands. Toiletries in one row. Clothes folded tightly. Shoes were paired like they were ready to be grabbed and shoved into a bag at a moment’s notice. I looked at my closet and told myself I was settling in. That was a lie I told myself every time I moved somewhere new. Settling in implies I’m laying down roots. I don’t do roots.I finished, stood there for a second, and stared at the door as if it might suddenly grow teeth.Then
Last Updated: 2025-12-31
Chapter: Chapter 3: ReidThe problem with systems is that they do not lie.They don’t flirt. They don’t tuck their hair behind their ears and pretend that they didn’t just walk into your space as if they owned it. They don’t look up at you with those fucking eyes and make you forget what you were doing for half a second and then leave you standing there holding emptiness like an idiot.No. Systems do what they’re told.People, on the other hand, do whatever the fuck they want. Fuck consequences. Fuck what it does to other people or how it derails them. Which is why people are always the problem.I should’ve gone back to Ops the second Sato peeled off, and Alexis Harper disappeared behind her door. I should’ve gotten ahead of the chatter. Shut down Evan’s little gremlin brain before he could start a betting pool or something. Kept Marcus from getting too friendly. Kept Luke from looking at her like a stray dog he wanted to feed and adopt. Kept Jonah from noticing anything at all.Instead, I walked in the oppos
Last Updated: 2025-12-31
Chapter: Chapter 2: AlexisI understood systems long before I trusted people. Systems were honest. They behaved exactly as designed, and when they failed, you would know it. Predictably. You could map the fault lines if you paid attention and found a solution that did not need guesswork.People failed quietly. They disappoint you and still act as if nothing happened. I’m fucking done with that.The door sealed behind me with a low hydraulic sigh, the sound swallowed almost immediately by walls built to absorb more than noise. I kept my pace as I stepped forward. If I slowed down, people would think I don’t belong here and start asking questions. Questions wasted time.The air inside was cool and clean, filtered to the point of sterility. My boots barely made a sound against the floor. But that was intentional. I appreciate knowing when I’ve been heard.Cameras were where I expected them to be. Mostly. Upper corner. Secondary angle. Overlapping coverage. Clean work. No blind spots—unless you knew exactly where t
Last Updated: 2025-12-30
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