Novels by Nemore

"I was just taking a walk," I lied, forcing a smile. She raised an eyebrow at the obvious lie but didn't push it further, just grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the dance floor. "Come on! I want to dance!" I let her drag me onto the dance floor, trying to push away the pain and just enjoy the moment. I danced and laughed with my sister, pretending like everything was okay. But deep down, I was broken. I had lost my mate, and I didn't know how I was going to survive. When the music finally stopped playing, Lynn grabbed my hand and pulled me off the dance floor, a huge smile on her face. "Tarra, I have someone I want you to meet!" She led me over to a tall, blonde-haired man who was standing by the refreshments table. He turned to look at us as we approached, his blue eyes lighting up when he saw Lynn. "This is Alexander," she said, her voice full of excitement. "He's my mate!" I felt a pang of jealousy in my chest, but I quickly pushed it down. This was a happy moment

He pulled back and looked down at me, his eyes full of concern. "What is it, my love?"I took a deep breath and looked up at him, my heart pounding in my chest. "I...I've never shifted. I'm wolf-less."I watched as his expression changed from concern to horror. He let go of me and took a step back, his eyes wide with shock."What?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes, and I looked down at the ground, unable to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry, Cassian. I should have told you sooner."He ran a hand through his hair and let out a shaky breath. "I...I don't understand. How is that possible?"I shrugged, my heart breaking at the look of disappointment on his face. "I don't know. It just never happened. I've never had a wolf."He shook his head and took another step back, his expression unreadable. "I can't...I can't do this, Tarra. I'm sorry."I felt like I had been punched in the gut. "What do you mean? Cassian, please..."He turned away from

I woke up the next morning to the sound of birds chirping outside the window. I stretched and rolled over, expecting to find Cassian lying next to me. But the bed was empty, and I felt a pang of disappointment.I sat up and looked around the room, taking in my surroundings. The room was large and spacious, with a huge window that let in the morning light. The bed was comfortable, and the sheets were soft and silky. It was perfect.I climbed out of bed and walked over to the window, looking out at the beautiful gardens below. I could see people walking around, enjoying the morning sun. It was peaceful.I turned away from the window and made my way to the bathroom, needing a shower. I turned on the water and stepped in, letting the hot water cascade down my body. I closed my eyes and let out a sigh, enjoying the feeling of the water on my skin.I lost track of time as I stood there, my mind wandering as I thought about the night before. It had been amazing. Cassian was everything I had

When the ball finally came to an end, Cassian led me outside and helped me into a carriage. He climbed in after me and sat down beside me, taking my hand in his."Where are we going?" I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.He smiled and leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. "To my home. I want to show you where you'll be living from now on."My heart skipped a beat at his words, and I couldn't help but feel a little bit of nervousness. I was going to be leaving my home, my pack. I was going to be starting a new life with Cassian.But as I looked into his eyes, I knew that everything was going to be okay. He was my mate, and I would follow him anywhere.The carriage ride was long, but I didn't mind. I spent the whole time talking to Cassian, getting to know him better. He told me about his pack, his family, and his life. I told him about my dreams, my fears, and my hopes for the future. We laughed and talked, and I felt like I had known him my whole life.When we finally a

I felt a pang of jealousy in my chest, but I quickly pushed it down. I was happy for my sister. She deserved to find her mate."That's great, Lynn. I'm so happy for you," I said, forcing a smile.She grinned and bounced on my bed. "You have to come with me! I don't want to go alone!"I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to go. I didn't want to watch everyone else find their mates while I was still alone. But I couldn't say no to my sister. She was so excited, and I didn't want to ruin her happiness."Okay, I'll go," I said, sighing.She squealed again and threw her arms around me. "Thank you, Tarra! You're the best sister ever!"I hugged her back, trying to ignore the ache in my chest. I was happy for her, but I couldn't help but feel a little bit of resentment. Why couldn't I have what she had? Why couldn't I find my mate?***The days leading up to the mating ball were a blur of excitement and anticipation. Lynn was practically bouncing off the walls, and I was just trying to keep up.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of my mother calling my name. I groaned and rolled over, burying my face in the pillow. I didn't want to get up. I just wanted to stay in bed all day."Tarra! Get up! You have chores to do!" my mother yelled from downstairs.I let out a sigh and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I didn't want to do chores. I wanted to stay in bed and wallow in my self-pity. But I knew I didn't have a choice. I had to do what my mother said.I got out of bed and quickly got dressed before heading downstairs. My mother was standing in the kitchen, her hands on her hips as she glared at me."What took you so long?" she demanded."I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't sleep well last night," I mumbled, avoiding her gaze.She let out a huff and shook her head. "Well, you're up now. Get to work. The laundry needs to be done, and the floors need to be swept. And don't forget to make breakfast for your father and sister."I nodded and walked over to the sink, turning on the water and grab

Hannah stepped into sunlight that smelled of hot stone and frying onions, a small, stubborn warmth against the ache that had tightened in her chest all week. One day before the ball and the ribbon at her breast felt like a coil - reminder and question both. She wanted, more than anything in that precise breath, to feel ordinary for an hour: to be a woman who could taste street sugar and not weigh every sound.Maira led with easy certainty, weaving through vendors who called prices like small spells. They moved past a brazier where fish sputtered and a cloth merchant who unfurled a bolt of crimson so bright it seemed to pull color out of the sky. Hannah reached out and let her fingers ghost over the weave; the fabric was rough but alive beneath her skin. “You’ve got this,” Maira said with a grin, and Hannah let the familiar encouragement fold into her ribs, softer this time - permission more than command.At a stall where candles steamed beeswax and honey, an old woman pressed a sprig

The castle smelled of drying bread and the slow smoke of evening when Hannah stepped through the arch, the ribbon at her breast a small, steady heat she could not quite name. She carried the memory of figs on her tongue and Maira’s cheeky grin like contraband, and for a moment the long hall felt less like a series of orders and more like a place that might hold laughter again.A sentinel’s boot scuffed the flagstones; the patrol changed like a tide. Hannah noticed the captain’s chair occupied by the steward’s lieutenant, his cloak folded with the propriety of someone who keeps rules for a living. Eyes met hers, polite and measuring, and she felt the thin tally of visibility settle across her shoulders. Being seen here meant being known, and known could be dangerous in the way that made plans brittle. She drew the breath out slow, tasting metal and yeast, and told herself the market had been an answer as much as a respite.Maira’s hand squeezed her sleeve; the gesture was private, soli

Dawn unlatched itself slow and gray, and Hannah’s first impulse was the same as last night’s: map danger, name risks, keep the others safe. Maira’s hand on her sleeve stopped the litany. “Come,” Maira said, voice low but edged with something like mischief. “We’ll ride to town. Quiet walk. Food, not watch.” The ribbon at Hannah’s breast warmed as if in answer, and for a breath she let herself consider pleasure as a small, tactical act.The castle gate opened on a world that smelled different from the ridge - baked bread, tobacco smoke, the metallic tang of markets and the faint, underlying scent of cedar from their own packs. Townspeople moved with the unselfconscious rhythm of people who’d never had to count watches; the noise felt dangerous in its ordinariness and delicious in its offer of distraction. Maira’s shoulders were loose; she navigated the stalls with an ease Hannah hadn’t expected, fingers skimming jars and bolts of cloth like a woman reclaiming small freedoms.“You’ve got

Hannah woke to the scrape of boot leather on flagstone and the low murmur of men passing the eastern hall. The ribbon at her breast was a warm insistence; her first desire was simple and immediate - keep Maira and the others safe through this night and whatever came next. You’ve got this, she told herself like a mantra, and folded the words into her ribs where they steadied her.The hall smelled of damp wool wood smoke. Outside, the castle’s patrols moved in a practiced rhythm, their clogs beating a soft, repeating question against the stone. Hannah leaned against the cold wall, eyes on the doorway where light pooled and shadow gathered. Maira’s breath evened beside her; in the half-dark her friend’s hand found Hannah’s and squeezed - a small, solid gesture that said more than any plan. “Two hours,” Maira whispered. “If anything shifts, wake me.”They traded the small calibrations of people who keep one another alive - glances, shared shorthand, the hush of names left unsaid. When Ha

Hannah woke before the first bleed of dawn, the eastern sky a pale promise she couldn't allow herself to trust. The ribbon in her bodice warmed against her sternum like a small, stubborn ember. She wanted, with the particular ache that lives under ribs, to make the castle a place that would answer questions instead of posing them - to find where the silver had come from, who had the nerve to scatter wolfsbane in their path, and whether the steward’s protection would be a cage as much as a shield.Cold stone under her palm, the longhouse smelled of spilled tea and smoke. Maira moved like a shadow that had learned to take up less space - quiet, efficient - and when she crossed to adjust Hannah’s cloak, her fingers lingered in a way that said steady rather than soft. “Two hours,” Maira said. “We mount then.” Her voice had the flat light of someone who'd already done the math of risk and loss. Hannah let the words settle; they were not commands but promises shared.They rode under a sky t

The evening had barely settled when the steward cleared his throat like a blade sliding from a scabbard. Hannah felt the ribbon in her pack - crimson against cedar - like a second heartbeat. “You’ll leave for the castle at first light tomorrow,” he said, voice carrying across the gathered shoulders. “Guards will escort you. You warriors are their guests; and may stand down for the majority of the visit, and are welcome to explore the public grounds at the castle as well as the surroundig city. You are expected at the ball in three nights, however.”Relief came in a slow, unlikely wash. Maira’s shoulders dropped a fraction; Edrin let out a breath that had been knotted tight since the ford. Hannah’s first impulse was gratitude - space to breathe, to plan without every step watched for traps. She let herself savor it, eyes catching Maira’s in the dim light. The thumb that brushed her knuckle was small, deliberate - a wordless, You can rest.But the offer carried its own knife. “Guests,”

The royal bonding hall under King Caelan’s banner felt too bright for the darkness that still clung to Elowen’s ribs. Candles burned in glass lanterns along the aisle, their flames steady despite the draft, and the air smelled of crushed herbs and polished stone warmed by bodies. Above, fae banners snapped like wings - Caelan’s royal sigil stitched in silver thread - yet every time the crowd’s murmurs rose and fell, Elowen tasted again the sharp woodsmoke of the woods where she’d seen Rowan’s mouth on another woman’s throat. That memory wasn’t a ghost anymore. It was a witness.She kept her fingers curled around the charm her mother had given her - small, smooth, cold at first, then warming slowly as her pulse pressed against it. The warding charm sat in her palm like a promise and a question both: enough to keep fae tricks off her skin, not enough to keep truth from finding her. Her connection to Caelan was not yet anchored in the ceremony’s binding, only offered in the careful way h

The king’s traveling pavilion camp smelled like crushed pine needles and hot iron from the smiths who stayed close enough to the road to be useful. Elowen could taste the wind - salt-dry on her tongue, cold enough to sting her cheeks - and every time the canvas wall snapped, her nerves jumped as if the sound were boots on gravel.She had backed to the window anyway, charm pressed to her palm until the little ward’s edges bit into her skin. The charm had held through Rowan’s guards at the roadside inn, through the night’s damp shadows and the way her breath had fogged and vanished against the glass. It would hold now, too. It had to.Then the door to her shelter shuddered, not with the impatient kick of royal men but with careful pressure, as though whoever stood outside knew exactly how much noise she could tolerate.“Elowen Marrow,” a voice called, smooth as oiled leather. Not Rowan’s harsh certainty. This tone carried distance - command, yes, but a kind of restraint that made her sh

The guard’s hand on the latch was the last thing Elowen saw before she slipped through the window and let the storm swallow her whole. Rain ripped at her cloak like a thousand tiny fingers. Her boots found wet wood and then nothing; she dropped, rolled, and dashed into the shoulder-deep darkness beyond the inn, breath burning, lungs sharp with cold and adrenaline. Behind her, shouts rose and faded; she didn’t look back. Rowan’s name was a sound that had become danger, and every step was an argument against obeying it.The border road was a smear of mud and water, the night folded tight around the trees. Elowen kept to the underbrush, pressed low as if the woods could promise anonymity. The charm at her throat hummed against her skin, a small consolation. She’d needed something smarter than stubbornness - and the charm’s thin glow steadied her until she came out of the tree-line and found the king’s encampment like a spill of lanterns across the darkness.She nearly collapsed against t

The storm didn’t wait for her to catch her breath. It came in sheets over the border road, turning the world into a blur of slate sky and rushing water, and Elowen ran anyway - barely noticing the cold bite of rain through her cloak, barely feeling the sting in her palms from where she’d grabbed at branches to keep from slipping. Rowan’s voice still lived in her ears, not the words he’d spoken at the terrace or the ones he’d promised her would be fair, but the moment after - when she’d stepped into the court’s light and refused him. The crowd’s gasps had been sharp as splinters. Their attention had pinned her in place even as she moved, even as she chose the truth instead of the lie.Now the lie was gone, and everything else had followed her into the dark.She found the roadside inn by accident, or by the kind of luck that only existed when you had nowhere left to be lucky. A crooked sign hung from rusted chains, swaying in the wind. Warm light spilled from the windows in tired amber

The bonding dais in the royal glade looked like it had been carved from moonlight and patience - white stone veined with pale gold, draped in ribbon-thin spellcloth that fluttered whenever the wind changed its mind. Elowen stood close enough to taste the cold sweetness of the warding charm at her throat, the small charm her mother had pressed into her palm days ago like a promise that could be worn.Rowan’s voice still haunted her from the corridor - low, certain, full of the bargain he’d offered as if it were mercy. Accept second wife. Give first wife to Serephine. Let their heir be legitimate through ceremony, and the realm would stop looking at her like a mistake.Elowen’s desire wasn’t for peace. It was for truth to land where it belonged.When the court began to fill the glade, their robes brushed through dew and the air filled with murmurs that carried on every breath. The fae loved ritual the way humans loved weather - something you didn’t argue with unless you wanted to be str

Elowen’s heel caught on the edge of a pale stone step, and the sound she made - small, human - rang too loudly in the palace corridor. Candlelight shivered along the chapel walls, gilded saints watching with painted eyes that didn’t blink. Somewhere farther down, the murmur of voices rose and fell like wind through reeds, and with it came the faint, metallic tang of warded magic - old stone soaked in power.Lady Vales demand still pressed on her ribs as if the words had weight. Accept second wife status. Let the mistress stand first. Let the heir be spoken into legitimacy without challenge. Elowen had stood in the bonding court with her throat tight and her hands steady, refusing to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Now, walking this corridor toward the bonding grounds, she couldn’t stop replaying the look on Serephine’s face when she’d said it - calm as a blade, certain as law.Her mother’s charm lay cold against her palm as she walked, the small ward pressing throug