Novels by Iren

CHAPTER 4I couldn't move.That's the thing nobody tells you about shock — it doesn't feel like shock. It doesn't announce itself. One second you're standing at the edge of a pool at a party you didn't want to attend, and the next second the world has rearranged itself into something you don't have a name for yet, and your legs just stop working and your mouth closes and everything inside you goes absolutely silent.He was walking toward Luca.Unhurried. Like he owned the ground he was crossing, which — I was beginning to understand — he did. This was his estate. His name on the gate. His son standing by the pool trying very hard not to look like he was straightening his spine.I watched Luca's whole personality change in real time.The lazy entitlement, the easy grin, the behave yourself Zara energy — all of it folded up and put away in the span of three seconds. What replaced it was careful. Measured. The specific alertness of someone who understood that the wrong word in the next t

CHAPTER 3I don't want things.Wanting is a weakness I cut out of myself a long time ago, somewhere between the first man I buried and the last one who made the mistake of thinking I had limits. What I do instead is decide. I see something. I assess it. I take it or I leave it, and either way I sleep fine.That's how I've operated for twenty years.Then she walked across that bar and sat down at my table like she owned the air between us, and something in my chest made a sound it hadn't made in a very long time.I noticed it.Filed it.Left the hotel at five the next morning before she woke up because I don't do complications and a woman who looks at a stranger like she's trying to burn something down with her bare hands is nothing but complications.I was back in Voss City before sunrise.Back in my office by seven.By eight I was in a meeting with three men who were terrified of me and doing their best not to show it, which is exactly how I prefer my meetings.By nine I was thinking

CHAPTER 2The elevator doors closed and I still didn't know his name.He didn't ask for mine either.The suite was on the top floor — the kind of room that costs more per night than most people make in a week. Floor to ceiling windows. The city spread out below us like something that didn't matter anymore. He didn't turn on the main lights. Just a lamp in the corner, which left most of the room in shadow.I stood just inside the door.He poured two glasses of water from the minibar — not alcohol, which surprised me — and set one on the table near me without a word. Then he loosened his watch, set it down, and looked at me across the room."You can still leave," he said."Stop saying that.""I'm saying it until you stop looking at the door."I hadn't realised I was.I made myself look at him instead. Really look. The lamp caught the angle of his jaw, the grey threading through his dark hair at the temples, the way he stood like the room belonged to him even though he'd only been in it

CHAPTER 1I should have stayed home.That's the thought running through my head as the cab pulls up outside Club Noir, the bass from inside vibrating through the door, through the pavement, through the soles of my shoes.Three months.Luca had been gone three months for Alpha training and I'd missed him so badly I'd done something stupid. Bought a last-minute flight. Booked a hotel. Told myself it would be romantic — showing up unannounced, surprising my fiancé.I was so sure he'd be happy to see me.The bouncer lets me in without question. Inside, the music is loud enough to make thinking difficult, which is maybe why I don't turn around when I should. Strobe lights cut across bodies on the dance floor. The air smells like alcohol and expensive cologne and something else underneath it — recklessness, maybe. The kind that gets into your lungs.I text Luca.Hey, I'm actually in the city. Surprise? Where are you?No response.I ask the bartender if he knows where the VIP section is. He