Novels by Raen

The adrenaline of being pinned against a brick wall by Liam Rossi was a dangerous drug. As Ethan stood in the sterile, overly bright hallway outside the Board of Trustees’ boardroom, he could still feel the phantom pressure of Liam’s hands on the wall beside his head. He adjusted his tie for the tenth time in three minutes. His fingers were trembling—not from the caffeine, and not even from the fear of the presentation. It was the way Liam was looking at him. Liam was leaning against the opposite wall, dressed in a crisp black button-down that he’d miraculously produced from his locker. He looked devastating. The rugged, charcoal-stained rival from three hours ago had been replaced by a sharp, predatory architect who looked like he belonged on the cover of a magazine. "Stop fidgeting, Vance," Liam said, his voice smooth but carrying that same low vibration that made Ethan’s skin itch. "The tie is straight. Your hair is perfect. You look like the golden boy you’ve always wanted to

The clock on the studio wall didn't tick; it thudded, each second a heavy hammer against Ethan’s sleep-deprived skull. It was 3:44 AM. The air in the architecture wing was stale, thick with the smell of graphite, burnt coffee, and the hum of high-end processors struggling to render forty-eight hours of reconstructed work. Ethan’s vision was blurring. His fingers, usually so precise with a 0.3mm lead, were trembling. They had been in this windowless studio for twenty hours straight, fueled by nothing but spite and lukewarm caffeine. Across the wide drafting table, Liam looked like a ghost of himself. His dark curls were a chaotic nest, his grey hoodie was stained with charcoal, and his eyes—usually so sharp and mocking—were bloodshot and heavy. But he hadn't stopped. He was hunched over the main physical model, his large hands delicately gluing a sliver of balsa wood into place with the focus of a diamond cutter. "Ethan," Liam’s voice was a sandpaper rasp. "Check the elevation on th

The 5:00 AM alarm didn't just beep; it shrieked.Ethan bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. For a split second, he forgot where he was. Then, the smell of sandalwood and stale espresso grounded him.Across the blue tape, Liam’s bed was empty. The sheets were tossed aside in a mess of grey cotton, and the laptop on his desk was humming, the screen glowing with a complex 3D rendering of their joint project."Rossi?" Ethan croaked, rubbing his eyes.No answer. Only the low thrum of the building’s ventilation and the distant sound of a siren somewhere in the city.Ethan stood up, his legs feeling like lead. He walked over to the blue line, hesitant to cross it even though Liam wasn't there to mock him. He looked at Liam’s screen. It was beautiful. Liam had taken Ethan’s structural calculations and wrapped them in a skin of glass and suspended gardens. It wasn't a box. It wasn't a mess. It was a masterpiece."He actually did it," Ethan whispered, a stra

The St. Jude’s Architecture Library was a cathedral of glass and old oak, a place where whispers carried like shouts and the scent of floor wax was heavy enough to taste. Usually, this was Ethan’s sanctuary. Today, it felt like a cage. "You’re doing it again," Liam murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to bypass Ethan’s ears and go straight to his spine. Ethan didn't look up from the translucent tracing paper. "Doing what, Rossi? Existing? I’m allowed to do that." "You’re over-calculating the load-bearing capacity for a decorative arch. It’s a conceptual sketch, Ethan. Not a blueprint for a bunker. Let it breathe." Liam was sitting so close that their shoulders brushed every time one of them reached for a scale ruler. They had claimed a secluded mahogany table in the back of the North Wing, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that blocked them off from the rest of the world. Ethan finally dropped his pencil. It clattered against the wood, the sound echoing throu

The blue tape on the floor felt like a glowing laser wire. Every time Ethan’s gaze drifted toward it, he half-expected an alarm to blare. It was 2:00 AM. The only light in Room 402 came from the sharp, clinical glow of Ethan’s desk lamp and the flickering, chaotic neon of the RGB strips Liam had somehow already adhered to his bedframe. The contrast was a perfect metaphor for their lives: Ethan was a blueprint; Liam was a splatter painting. Ethan gripped his mechanical pencil so hard his knuckles turned white. He was trying to draft the preliminary site analysis for the Sterling Fellowship’s first phase, but the silence he usually relied on had been replaced by a rhythmic, infuriating sound. Tap. Tap. Scrape. Liam was sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed, sharpening a set of charcoal pencils with a pocketknife. He wasn't even using a sharpener like a civilized human being. He was doing it manually, letting the black dust fall onto a piece of newspaper—on Ethan’s side of t

The gold-embossed sign on the door of Room 402 should have felt like a trophy. To Ethan Vance, it was supposed to be the threshold to his sanctuary—the private, single-occupancy studio awarded to the top-ranking architecture student at St. Jude’s Academy. He adjusted the strap of his leather messenger bag, his fingers tracing the rigid edge of his Grade-A architectural renderings. He had spent his entire summer preparing for this. No distractions. No noise. Just him, his drafting table, and the pursuit of the Sterling Global Fellowship. He slid his keycard into the reader as the light flickered green with a satisfying click. "Home sweet home," Ethan murmured, pushing the door open. Then the smell hit him first. It wasn’t the scent of lemon polish and fresh parchment he’d expected. It was the smell of expensive espresso, rain-damp denim, and a hint of something spicy—like sandalwood and rebellion. Ethan froze in the doorway and he looked at the room. In the center of the suppos