Chapter: Chapter 60: No PeaceK A E L O RAshmoore was awake before the sun even reached the treetops.I felt it the second I stepped outside.Wolves moved through the inner paths, focused and already working. Patrol runners crossed the clearing near the council hall, passing quick updates in low voices. No one was talking loudly, but the tension in the air was impossible to miss.The Guild had crossed the border. I walked through the center of the clearing. Warriors shifted aside as I passed, but nobody slowed down. Most of them were already armed, hands resting on weapons while their eyes kept drifting toward the forest line. Waiting. Watching.Like they expected something to come out of those trees at any second.The bond beneath my ribs tightened again. Restless. Pulling at me.It dragged my attention back toward the stone halls behind me, to the room where Nyxara was still asleep.For a second, I almost turned around. But duty came first.I pushed the thought away, headed for the council chamber, and pushe
Last Updated: 2026-03-07
Chapter: Chapter 59: The Whispering StoneN Y X A R AThe forest shouldn’t have been this quiet. The wind usually moves through the Hollow Wilds without stopping, bending the trees until they whisper back. Tonight, the branches barely stirred. Even the insects kept their distance from the clearing, like the dark itself was holding its breath.Darek’s words followed me as I walked. “The Guild’s next move ends in blood.” Threats from the Guild aren’t new. I learned a long time ago that fear won’t keep you alive. But the way he said it— It felt too close.The bond shifted under my ribs, sharp and restless, like it was trying to warn me of something I couldn’t see yet and the feeling wouldn’t settle. When the path curved toward the stone circle at the edge of Ashmoore, I slowed. The Seer lived there. And if anyone already knew what was coming, it would be Elaren.The stones rose from the earth in a rough circle, older than the forest around them. Time had worn their surfaces smooth, the edges softened by years no one bothered to
Last Updated: 2026-03-06
Chapter: Chapter 58: Alpha’s WrathK A E L O RNyxara stands between us, the knife still in her hand. The blade hangs at her side, but she hasn’t let it go. Darek is right behind her, close enough that his shadow spills over her shoulder and stretches across the ground at her feet.I step into the clearing and the bond snaps wide open. The pull between us is tight and raw, like something pulled too far and about to tear. Her breathing isn’t steady. There’s dirt smeared across her hands, and beneath the damp scent of earth, I catch the faint trace of blood in the air. She looks at me just for a second, then she looks away. But she doesn’t move away from him. My attention shifts to the man beside her.“You weren’t summoned,” I say. Darek doesn’t so much as blink.“I don’t answer summons.”“You’re standing in my territory.”“And she’s standing in hers.”Nyxara’s grip tightens slightly around the knife. The blade stays low. She doesn’t say a word. But the bond carries the weight of her silence anyway.“You went to her by y
Last Updated: 2026-03-05
Chapter: Chapter 57: The Knife’s MemoryN Y X A R AThe knife feels familiar before I know why. It sits in my hand like it belongs there. The grip fits. The weight shifts toward the tip, made for close fighting. I turn it once, and the blade catches the light. It is clean, unused, and sent this way on purpose.The bond tightens, like something beyond the clearing has moved. I slow my breathing and look at the handle. There is a faint shine near the hilt, the kind that shows where a thumb has rested again and again.The corridor is narrow. Smoke burns the back of my throat and boots hit stone from both ends. I misjudged the exit.“Go,” Lucien says. He stands at the mouth of the hall, blade drawn, and his body turned to block the first wave. He does not look at me.“We can still turn,” I tell him and I am already counting steps.“You’re bleeding.”“I can still run.”“That’s the point.”The first guard reaches him, and Lucien moves before the man finishes shouting. The strike lands clean. He turns to meet the second. Steel hi
Last Updated: 2026-03-04
Chapter: Chapter 56: The PullN Y X A R AI leave the ring without looking at him. I walk because it steadies me and it’s the only thing I still control. The air is cool, but my skin is warm where he touched me. The bond has not eased. It sits there, tight and steady, as if distance does not matter. It should fade but it does not.I reach the edge of the clearing and move into the trees. My breathing stays even but my pulse doesn’t. I can still feel his presence and it is closer than it was before. That is the problem because I know what I did.I go deeper into the woods where the light cannot reach. The ground shifts under my boots, roots cutting across the path. I do not slow but the bond tightens again, quiet and certain. I have walked farther from him before and felt less. Now it feels closer. If I can feel it like this, someone else might too. I stop walking and the thought settles in my chest.“You run fast.” His voice comes from ahead. Darek stands between two trees, one shoulder against the trunk, as if he
Last Updated: 2026-03-03
Chapter: Chapter 55: A Kiss Without ControlK A E L O RI don’t go back to my room after I leave hers. I stay in the corridor instead, leaning against the stone wall while the flames burn lower and the guards change shifts in silence. I know I will not sleep tonight, so I stop pretending that I will.Her heat is still inside me. It sits beneath my ribs like it belongs there. I can still hear the change in her breathing, my name in her voice. I felt it before she said it. The bond carried it to me first, sharp and certain, as if it wanted me to know.The bond has not reacted like that before. It was not just want or hunger. It felt deeper than that, heavier in a way I could not ignore, like something inside me had shifted and would not settle back into place.Before dawn, I walk to the northern wall and look toward the tree line. The forest stands quiet. Nothing moves. The perimeter should have responded when something crossed it. It should have warned me. Instead, the bond woke me first. And I do not know which troubles me more
Last Updated: 2026-03-02
Sunlit Paradise: Undercover Desire
Detective Siobahn Rust was ordered to watch the illegal art shipment from a distance.
Instead, she follows her missing informant into a restricted exhibition hall, discovers a deadly synthetic drug hidden inside a sculpture, and ends up running from armed men determined to silence her.
Her only escape is a luxury yacht called Apollo.
To convince her pursuers she belongs there, Siobahn sheds her disguise and kisses the yacht’s dangerously attractive owner. The deception works but the problem begins when the kiss stops feeling fake and she nearly loses control with a stranger whose name she never learns.
By morning, her informant has vanished, her police credential is missing, and every clue points to Solara Island, home of the exclusive Reed Solara Resort.
Siobahn enters the resort undercover as a housekeeper and discovers that Apollo belongs to Calvin Reed, the powerful CEO whose signature appears on the criminal shipment records she is investigating.
Calvin knows she is lying and he may also be the only person who can expose her.
Trapped inside her prime suspect’s home, Siobahn must uncover who is using the island’s glamorous art program to move drugs and launder millions. But as witnesses disappear and the evidence begins contradicting itself, Calvin looks less like the mastermind and more like another target.
In paradise, everyone wears a mask.
Siobahn just has to uncover the truth before she trusts the wrong person.
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Chapter: Chapter 50: The Life We ChooseI reached across the bed for Calvin and found an empty pillow. A cabinet closed beyond the master cabin, followed by metal scraping against a pan.I sat up. My dress from last night hung over a chair, while Calvin’s shirt lay on the floor beside the bed. I pulled on his shirt instead, buttoned it, and walked barefoot toward the lounge.The smell of coffee reached me first. Calvin stood behind the counter with two plates of eggs, toast, and fruit.“Good morning.”“You made breakfast.”“Yes.”I studied the plates. “How much of this did you actually make?”“All of it.”“You have employees who know you.”“That sounds like prejudice.”I stole fruit from his plate.His gaze dropped to my shirt. “That’s mine.”“You left it unattended.”He leaned across the counter and kissed me. I caught his shirt and kept him there another second. Last night had ended with neither of us getting much sleep. The look he gave me when he pulled away said he remembered exactly why.“Coffee,” I said.He handed me
Last Updated: 2026-10-29
Chapter: Chapter 49: Not This TimeFour months later, Vic sat behind reinforced glass, and the first thing I noticed was the empty place on his chest where his badge used to hang.The prison phone was cold in my palm. He lifted his receiver carefully, favoring the side where Clarisse had shot him. His guilty plea covered evidence tampering, obstruction, unauthorized criminal contact, and interference with police operations.His testimony helped convict Clarisse, Conrad, Voss, and officials named in the Tide Ledger. Theo took a reduced sentence for cooperating, but Vic still went to prison.“They corrected Ethan’s record,” he said.I tightened my fingers around the receiver.“He’s listed as a confidential informant now. Killed while assisting police.” Vic looked down for a second, then back at me. “He has his real name back, S.”“I’m glad.”His mouth moved, but no answer came.“That doesn’t erase Eli,” I said. “Or the raids you redirected. Or the people who got hurt because you decided you knew what everyone else needed
Last Updated: 2026-10-28
Chapter: Chapter 48: Her Side of the WaterBefore I left Solara, I told Calvin when he could come see me. Three weeks later, on the Friday he was due in Port Aurelia, Captain Ward caught me trying to leave headquarters with an active case file.The elevator doors had almost closed when her hand appeared between them.“Out.”“I’m cleared to work.”“You’re cleared for desk duty, interviews inside this building, and paperwork. You are not cleared to follow anyone into the field.”“I was only going to observe.”Ward looked at the folder tucked beneath my arm. “That file appears very interested in observing with you.”I stepped out before she could drag me out.Three weeks of recovery had helped, but not enough for Lena or Ward. My ribs no longer hurt with every breath, though a fast twist still reminded me they were healing. My shoulder remained restricted, which meant no firearms qualification, no arrests, and apparently no slipping out with another team because I had noticed something useful.Ward held out her hand. I gave her t
Last Updated: 2026-10-27
Chapter: Chapter 47: The Woman They KnewC A L V I NBy the time Damien and I returned to Reed House, Lena had won the only argument Siobhan seemed incapable of winning. She was still at the clinic, resting.Ward had taken the official evidence and access records with her team. Damien opened the live Reed security system instead—the part we could shut down immediately. My parents and Cass were already waiting.“Kill every Laurent credential,” I said.His fingers moved across the console and the first access line changed from green to red. Cass stood beside my mother. My father sat nearest the table, his attention fixed on Damien’s screen.“How many times did she use them?” Cass asked.Damien stopped scrolling.“Don’t tell me how many systems she could reach.” Cass gripped the back of a chair. “How many times did she actually come through?”“Some of these records go back years,” Damien said. “The permissions changed as the Arts Initiative expanded, but the access itself was legitimate. No alerts and no forced entry.”My fathe
Last Updated: 2026-10-26
Chapter: Chapter 46: The Buried FileBy midmorning, Lena had allowed one short evidence review in my clinic room, and Ward wasted none of it.Damien set his laptop on the small table beside my bed while Ward placed the damaged regatta card in front of him, still sealed inside clear evidence plastic. Calvin sat in the chair beside me. A recovered line appeared on the screen.PA—OCN—7.I leaned forward too fast. Pain tightened behind my eyes, and the letters blurred for a second. Calvin’s hand moved toward me, then stopped on the edge of the mattress. He had learned when helping meant touching and when it meant letting me stay upright on my own.Ward noticed anyway. “Sit back, Rust.”I did, reluctantly. Damien enlarged the recovered data. Beside the code, the forensic copy showed fragments of the police communication windows we had seen aboard Apollo.“What is seven?” I asked.“An internal evidence-access node.” Damien pointed at the screen. “PA is Port Aurelia. OCN is Organized Crime and Narcotics. Node Seven belonged to
Last Updated: 2026-10-25
Chapter: Chapter 45: After The TideThe treatment-room doors closed before I could follow Vic inside.I stopped in the corridor with his blood still drying across my hands. Through the narrow window, I caught flashes of movement around the stretcher as Dr. Cho and the medical team worked over him. One medic cut through the fabric near his shoulder while another adjusted the line in his arm.A moment later, they wheeled him through a second set of doors marked SURGERY, and he disappeared from view. Calvin came up beside me, one hand pressed against the fresh bandage at his side.“You need to sit down,” I said.“So do you.”A nurse stepped out of the treatment room and pointed toward two empty chairs against the wall.“Both of you. Now.”This time, Calvin listened. I sat beside him, but my attention stayed on the surgery doors. My ribs hurt whenever I breathed too deeply, and my shoulder had started throbbing again now that the adrenaline was fading. Calvin leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.“You did what yo
Last Updated: 2026-10-24
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