Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Two: "Tuesday"ZARATuesday, 6:58amThe kitchen light was already on when she came out.It was always on. She left it on every night and every morning it was still burning. Ordinary now. Just the kitchen.But something on the counter beside the coffee machine hadn't been there last night.A small jar. Dark glass. A handwritten label.Mae's coffee blend. In Mae's handwriting.She stood at the counter.The jar had been sealed and resealed, the lid slightly uneven, the label applied at a small angle. Packaged at home. Probably last night after they'd left. Probably while something played on the television at low volume.Callum came out at seven.Dark shirt. No jacket. Hair not yet decided.He looked at the jar.She arrived this morning. By car. While we were asleep.He picked it up. Read the label. Put it back exactly where she'd left it.He filled the kettle. Got the cups down. Measured carefully from the jar, slightly more carefully than usual, and made two cups the way the label said.He put hers in
Last Updated: 2026-08-02
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-One: "Sunday"ZARASunday, 1:17pmMae had moved the table.Usually against the wall. Today in the centre of the room with four chairs around it and a fifth pulled from the bedroom that didn't match. A cloth Zara had never seen before. The good plates.Zara stood in the doorway.Mae came out of the kitchen with a dish towel over her shoulder.Don't say anything.I wasn't going to say anything.You had a face.I have a neutral face.Mae looked at her.Zara took her coat off.From the kitchen, a sound she recognised. Someone being handed something and told where to put it.She went to the doorway.Callum was at the counter with a bowl in his hands.Mae was at the stove. Back to both of them.Stir that. Slowly.He stirred.Slowly, Mae said again.He slowed.Zara leaned against the door frame.Mae reached past him for something on the shelf. Her hand found it without looking.Callum watched. Then looked back at the bowl.You're from London originally.Bristol, he said. Then London.Mae made a sound.Col
Last Updated: 2026-07-23
Chapter: Chapter Thirty: "The Morning After"ZARAWednesday, 7:44amShe woke up to something burning.The spare room had a quilt with a pattern she didn't recognise and a window that looked onto the November garden. She lay there for a moment. A cabinet opening in the kitchen. Something set down too carefully. Then nothing.She got up.The kitchen doorway.Callum was at the stove.Her mother was sitting at the table with both hands around a cup of coffee. Not helping.The heat was wrong. She could see it from across the room.She crossed to the stove. Turned it down without saying anything.He looked at the dial.Lower than I thought.Lower than you always think.Her mother made a sound. Zara looked at her.Elena was looking at her cup. The corner of her mouth doing something.The eggs were salvageable. Just. Zara moved them slowly, the way Mae had shown her, and they came back from the edge and became something that could be eaten.She put them on three plates.They sat at the table. The yellow kitchen. The enormous knotted cus
Last Updated: 2026-07-18
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Nine: "After"ZARATuesday, 6:14pmThe man left at six.No drama in it. He stood, picked up his jacket, nodded once to Elena, once to Callum, and looked at Zara for a moment longer than the others.Your father would have liked you, he said.Then he was gone.The front door closed.The three of them stood in the small warm room with the candle burning down on the windowsill and the photographs on the mantel and the particular silence of a space that has just had something very large removed from it.Callum looked at Zara.She looked at her mother.Elena was looking at the door.Then she turned toward the kitchen.I'll make tea, she said.The kitchen was small and yellow-walled and had a table with four chairs, one of which had a cushion tied to it with string that had been retied so many times the knot was enormous. There was a window above the sink that looked onto a back garden going brown in November. A calendar on the wall. A plant on the counter that was doing its best.Zara sat at the table.C
Last Updated: 2026-07-18
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Eight: "Atlanta"ZARATuesday, 3:47pmThey landed in forty-one minutes of silence.She'd spent the flight looking at her phone without looking at it. The screen dark. Her reflection in it. Outside the window Georgia coming up below them, flat and brown and November-quiet.Callum was beside her. Not touching. Present.When the wheels hit the tarmac she turned her phone on.One message. From the neighbour's number.Your mother called me from her house. She said to tell you she's alright. She said not to come.She showed it to Callum.She's alright. As of when.Thirty minutes ago. Before we landed.She looked out the window. The Atlanta tarmac. Ground crew moving around the plane in thin winter light.She said not to come which means someone is there. She's trying to protect us from walking into it.Or she's been told to say that.Both things could be true.They were off the plane in four minutes. Through the terminal in six. Into a car in nine.She gave the driver the address.Twenty-two minutes from th
Last Updated: 2026-07-18
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Seven: "Four Hours"ZARATuesday, 11:18amMarcus Webb was at a standing desk near the window when they found him. Headphones around his neck. A coffee going cold beside his laptop.He saw them coming from across the room.He didn't try to leave.Zara pulled a chair from the nearest empty desk and sat across from him. Callum stayed standing slightly behind her.You know who we are?Yes.We're not here about what you processed. We know you processed scheduling overrides using credentials that weren't yours to initiate. We know you didn't know what they were for. We know you're a conduit not a source.Marcus looked at his laptop screen. His coffee cup. His hands on the desk.We need one thing. The person who gave you the instructions directly. Not through the system. The person who spoke to you.A pause.Not a short one.If I give you a name, what happens to me?We're going to the regulator today, Callum said. Your name is already in the access logs. How it reads depends on what you do in the next four hour
Last Updated: 2026-06-26
INSTINCTLESS: A Scentless Bloodline
Nyxara Vale is a living anomaly a woman with no scent whose very presence silences the primal mate bond that rules hidden werewolf society. Rhydian Blackthorne is the ultimate Alpha, a creature of absolute instinct and control, until he meets her. For the first time in his long life, the fated bond doesn't trigger. There is only a profound, unsettling silence... and an obsession born purely of his own will.
When Rhydian defies ancient law to claim her by choice, not fate, he makes them both targets. To his pack, she is a blasphemy. To the ruthless Elder Council, she is a disease to be eradicated. Trapped in a gilded cage of corporate intrigue and ancient power struggles, Nyx and Rhydian must fight not just for their lives, but for the validity of a love that was never supposed to exist.
INSTINCTLESS is a slow-burn romance with an explosive payoff, exploring whether a love that is chosen can be stronger than one that is destined. It’s a story about defying biology, burning down old worlds, and forging a new one where the greatest power isn't instinct it's choice.
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Chapter: EPILOGUE: FIVE YEARS LATERThe manor had changed.Where once there were walls and guards, now there were gardens and open gates. Wolves came and went freely not just Blackthorne pack, but visitors from across the territories. Some came to learn. Some came to heal. Some came just to see the place where the war ended and something new began.I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, watching the morning activity. Children chased each other through the snow. Healers moved between small buildings that had been added over the years. A group of young wolves sat in a circle, listening to an elder tell stories."You're supposed to be resting."Rhydian's arms wrapped around me from behind. I leaned back into his warmth."I'm fine. The baby doesn't come for another month."He pressed a hand to my growing belly, and I felt the tiny flutter of life inside. Our third child. A boy, the healers said."The healer said you need to rest more," he murmured against my hair. "Something about Bond Singers and pregnancy being
Last Updated: 2026-02-27
Chapter: CHAPTER 30: THE FINAL STANDOne month passed.Winter deepened. Snow covered the manor, the forests, the mountains. Inside, life continued. The pack healed. Prisoners became workers, then trusted helpers. Even Viktor, still chained but treated with dignity, began to change. He spoke little, but when he did, it was with a growing confusion about the life he'd led."They never showed me kindness," he said one day, watching Nyx heal a young wolf's broken bond. "Only fear. I thought fear was respect.""It's not," Nyx said softly. "But you're learning."Rhydian spent his days training, rebuilding, planning. Scouts reported no sign of Selene. She had vanished into the northern wastes. But everyone knew she would return.Nyx trained with her mother daily. She learned to weave bonds between unlikely wolves enemies who became friends, strangers who became pack. She learned to sense threats before they came, to feel the ripple of hostile intent across miles."You're ready," her mother said one evening. "For whatever comes.
Last Updated: 2026-02-26
Chapter: CHAPTER 29: THE VICTOR'S PRICEThe battle raged around me, but I stood frozen.Selene was gone. Disappeared into the dark tunnels of the mountain. Viktor was trapped, his wolves fighting desperately, but their leader's flight had broken something in them. They fought without heart now.Rhydian appeared at my side, bloody but standing. "You did it.""I showed her the truth. She ran from it." I looked at him. "Is that winning?""It's a start."Kellan fought through the chaos to reach us. "Viktor's down. His wolves are surrendering. What do we do with them?"Rhydian looked at the battlefield. Dozens of enemy wolves were laying down weapons, raising empty hands. They looked tired. Scared. Lost."Prisoners," he said. "We take prisoners. No executions."Kellan nodded and ran to spread the word.I watched as our wolves rounded up the survivors. Some resisted, but most just collapsed, relieved the fighting was over. The cavern slowly quieted.Then I saw Viktor.He was on his knees, surrounded by our fighters. His empty eye
Last Updated: 2026-02-25
Chapter: CHAPTER 28 : THE RECKONINGI stood in the tunnel entrance, frozen.The sounds of battle had stopped. No snarls. No growls. Just the rush of the underground river and my own ragged breathing.My mother grabbed my arm. "We have to go. The passage""No." I pulled away. "Rhydian is still out there.""If you go back, you die. He saved you for nothing."I knew she was right. But knowing and feeling were different things.Then, a figure stumbled out of the snow.Rhydian.He was barely standing. Blood covered his chest. His arm hung at a wrong angle. But his eyes, those gold eyes were open and looking for me.I ran. I caught him as he fell, lowering him gently to the ground."You're alive," I whispered, tears freezing on my cheeks."Told you," he gasped. "Always find you."My mother was there, pressing cloth to his wounds. "He's bad. The arm is broken. Ribs too. And he's lost a lot of blood.""Can you heal him?""Not here. Not now." She looked at me, grim. "We need to get him to the passage. Now."Kellan and Leo appear
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: CHAPTER 27: THE MOUNTAIN PASSThe tunnel was endless.Darkness pressed in from all sides. The only sound was our breathing and the crunch of ancient stone underfoot. My mother led, her hand never leaving the wall, guiding us through passages she hadn't seen in nearly three decades."How do you remember this?" I whispered."I walked it every day for a year. It's carved into my bones." She paused at a fork, choosing left without hesitation. "The Bond Singers built this place to last. To hide. Every tunnel leads somewhere useful or somewhere deadly."Behind us, Rhydian moved with quiet strength, his wound slowing him but not stopping him. Kellan and Leo flanked the group, watching for threats. We were down to fifteen now the last survivors of sixty who marched north.The guilt was a stone in my chest.My mother stopped suddenly. "Wait."We froze. She pressed her ear to the stone."What is it?" Rhydian murmured."Running water ahead. An underground river." She turned, and in the dim light from a crystal she carried, I
Last Updated: 2026-02-23
Chapter: CHAPTER 26: THE SANCTUARYThe cave went deeper than I expected.My mother led me through narrow passages, her hand never leaving mine. The darkness was absolute. Only the sound of our breathing and the crunch of ice underfoot told me I wasn't alone."Here," she whispered.A door. Ancient wood, banded with iron, half-hidden in the rock. She pushed, and it swung open with a groan.Beyond was light.Not firelight something softer. Glowing crystals embedded in the walls lit a large chamber. Shelves lined the stone, filled with scrolls and books. A hearth sat cold in the corner. Bedrolls were stacked neatly. Someone had lived here once."Welcome to the last sanctuary of the Bond Singers," my mother said quietly. "I haven't seen it in twenty-eight years."I stared at the space, trying to take it in. "This is where you hid? Before I was born?"She nodded, moving to the hearth. She knelt and touched something hidden beneath a stone. A spark, and flames leaped to life. The warmth was immediate, welcome."I came here wh
Last Updated: 2026-02-22
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