Novels by Lopezwritez

SERAPHINAI pulled the silk scarf tight over the stone, but the light leaked through like water through a thin cloth."Why is the room silver?" Alaric mumbled from the bed, his voice rough and dazed."It is the moon," I whispered, low and rough, so he would not know my voice. "It is coming through the window.""The curtains are closed.""Then it is a very determined moon."He laughed weakly. "Isadora never makes jokes.""People change.""Do they?" His voice was thick with fever. "That is the first thing you have said tonight that I believe.""Come here," he said, reaching blindly into the dark.I crossed the room and sat beside him. His hand found mine, his long fingers wrapping around my palm, pulling me closer. "Your hands are small.""Yes.""Isadora's hands are not small." He pulled my wrist upward, his thumb moving across my skin. "I cannot smell you. I cannot see you. The wine took everything. But my wolf will not stop talking.""What is he saying?""One word. Over and over." He

SERAPHINAFor the first time in my life, I could smell the wolves.I stood at my bedroom window with the gray scarf in my hands and the whole manor poured into my nose at once. Pine smoke from the kitchen. Wet leather from the stables. Roast venison, polish, wine, and under everything, a hundred different wolf scents, sharp and warm and wild, rising from the courtyard like steam."Is this what it is like?" I whispered. "Every day, for all of you? How do you ever sleep?"The moon hung huge and white over the pines. It felt like a hand pressing against my chest.A knock rattled the door."Seraphina?"I jumped. Cedarwood and cold rain swept under the door before he even spoke, so strong I almost staggered."Alaric?""May I come in?""I am not dressed.""You are wearing the cream dress.""How do you know?""I can smell the starch." He sounded amused. "Open the door."I wrapped the scarf around my neck, covering the mark and the stone, and opened it. Alaric stood in the corridor in a black

SERAPHINALysandra Arkwright's dressing room had been locked for eleven years, and the door was standing open.I had followed the cold of Orson's warning up the back stairs without meaning to. Now I stood on a faded blue rug in a room that smelled of lilies and dust. A silk robe hung on a hook. A silver brush lay on the vanity, still holding one long dark hair. On a small velvet stand beside the mirror sat an empty indentation, the exact shape of a pebble.What is given in secret is called stolen in daylight.I touched the stone at my throat. It was warm."Miss Dale?" A young maid in a gray apron stood in the doorway with a feather duster, wide-eyed. "You cannot be in here. Nobody is allowed.""The door was open.""It is never open." She lowered her voice. "Elder Orson locks it himself every Friday.""Then who unlocked it today?""I do not know, Miss. I did not see you." She backed away. "I did not see anything.""Seraphina."I spun around. My mother stood in the doorway in a pale gol

SERAPHINAIn every class photo for four years, there was a gap the width of one person around me.Nobody ever explained it. The wolves just shuffled away, shoulders turned, as if I had a smell they could not name. Their wolves could feel what I did not have. I could only feel the cold space."You are glaring at the photographer," my friend Nadia said, snapping a cap onto her curls. "He is only a man with a camera.""I am not glaring.""You are doing the face.""I do not have a face.""You have a very specific face. It is the face of a girl who has read the whole menu and ordered nothing." She grinned. Nadia was human, warm brown and loud, and she never felt the gap. "Hold still. I am fixing your collar.""Leave it. It has to be high.""Why?""My mother said so.""Your mother says a lot of things.""She does.""Do you ever say them back?""Not out loud."My phone buzzed on the desk. A message from her.Alaric will collect you at noon. Wear the cream dress with the high neck. Do not men