Se connecterPartager
THE STRANGER IN BLACK
Date de publication:
2026-06-10 00:11:14CHAPTER 2
Aria couldn't explain why she hadn't walked away. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the heartbreak. Or maybe it was the man sitting beside her. The rooftop party continued around them, filled with laughter, music, and conversations that seemed distant compared to the strange silence between them. For the first time since discovering Jason's betrayal, Aria wasn't thinking about him. That realization alone was shocking. The stranger leaned back in his chair, studying the crowd below. "You don't look like you're enjoying yourself," he said. Aria snorted softly. "What gave it away?" "The fact that you've been staring at the same glass for twenty minutes." She looked down. He wasn't wrong. "I've had a bad day." "That's obvious." His bluntness caught her off guard. Most men tried too hard to be charming. This one didn't seem to care. "And what about you?" she asked. "Why are you here?" The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Business." "At a rooftop party?" "Deals are made everywhere." Aria rolled her eyes. "You sound like a businessman." “Maybe I am." "What kind?" "The boring kind ", That earned him a laugh. A real one. For the first time all evening. The stranger seemed surprised by the sound. As though he hadn't expected to make her laugh. Aria felt his gaze linger on her. Not in the way men usually looked at her. Not with judgment or pity. Just curiosity. It made her uncomfortable. And strangely warm at the same time. "I'm Aria," she said suddenly. The words slipped out before she could stop them. For a moment, something flashed in his eyes. Interest, Recognition , Possibly both. "Damien." The name suited him. Strong Dangerous and Unforgettable. Neither of them mentioned last names. Neither seemed interested. The less they knew about each other, the safer this felt. Or at least that's what Aria told herself. --- Hours passed. The crowd became thinner. Sophia came out from the restroom and saw Aria chatting with a young man , she quietly didn't want them to see her, and she went to dance with some friends. She and Damien talked about everything and nothing but Movies, Travel, Success, Failure, businesses, Dreams, and Regrets. The conversation flowed effortlessly , Which was strange. Aria normally guarded herself carefully. Especially around powerful men. Yet with Damien, words came easily. When she spoke about her acting career, he listened. When she admitted how exhausting fame could be, he understood.When she confessed how lonely she sometimes felt, his expression softened. "You hide it well," he said. "What?" "The loneliness." Aria froze. No one had ever noticed. Not even Jason. Especially not Jason. She looked away. "You're very observant." "I have to be." Something about the way he said it felt important. Like there was more behind those words. Before she could ask, Damien's phone vibrated. His expression darkened instantly. He glanced at the screen. For a split second, his eyes flashed gold. Aria blinked. Gold? When she looked again, they were dark brown. Maybe she was imagining things. "Everything okay?" she asked. Damien slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Nothing I can't handle." Unknown to Aria, several miles away, a group of wolves had just reported something impossible. Their Alpha King had found his mate. --- Damien struggled to focus on the conversation. His wolf had been restless all evening since the moment he sat beside Aria, the beast inside him had awakened. Mate. The word echoed endlessly. Impossible. For centuries, he had waited. Searched ,wondered if fate had forgotten him. Yet here she was. A human woman with sad eyes and a broken heart. His mate. Every instinct screamed at him to claim her. Protect her, and keep her close. But he couldn't ,not yet. She didn't know what he was. She didn't know what she meant to him. And if she discovered the truth too soon, she might run. The thought irritated him more than it should. Because Damien Blackwood wasn't used to losing anything. Especially not something that belonged to him. --- Midnight arrived. The city lights glittered beneath the stars. A cool breeze swept across the rooftop. Aria shivered. Without thinking, Damien removed his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. The warmth surprised her, as did the scent ,Wood,Smoke. Something wild she couldn't identify. Their eyes met, for a moment, neither spoke. The air between them changed. The attraction that had been quietly building all night suddenly felt impossible to ignore. Aria's pulse quickened. Damien's gaze dropped briefly to her lips. Then, he returned to her eyes , Neither moved away. Neither wanted to. The tension became almost unbearable. And then A woman appeared. Tall, beautiful and elegant. The expression on her face instantly ruined the moment. She looked directly at Damien, then at Aria. And her eyes narrowed. "Damien," she said coldly. Aria frowned. The woman clearly knew him. The stranger beside her sighed, a look of irritation crossing his face. "You shouldn't be here, Isabella." The woman ignored him. Her attention remained fixed on Aria. As if assessing a threat, as if judging her. And then she smiled. A cruel smile. The kind that promised trouble. "You have no idea who you're sitting with, do you?" Aria's stomach tightened. Damien immediately stood. His voice dropped dangerously low. "That's enough." But Isabella only laughed. "You can hide the truth for now, Damien." Her gaze returned to Aria. "But sooner or later, she'll find out exactly what you are." Aria stared at them both. Confused,Uneasy, Curious. And for the first time that night, she realized the mysterious man beside her might be hiding far more than his last name. Damien's jaw tightened. Isabella turned and walked away. Leaving silence behind her. Aria looked at Damien. "Who was that?" Damien didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained fixed on the direction Isabella had disappeared. When he finally looked at Aria, there was something dangerous in his expression. Something secret. Something she couldn't understand. "Someone from my past." Damien responded But Aria knew there was more to it than that. As she stared into his dark eyes, she couldn't shake the feeling that meeting Damien Blackwood was about to change her life forever.
Dernier chapitre
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Last Isolation Attempt
CHAPTER 107 The attempt did not arrive as a threat.It arrived as etiquette.By midweek, Aria’s name had vanished from three charity boards, two studio “informal dinners,” and a closed fashion salon that had courted her only a month earlier. Each cancellation used soft language: scheduling pressure, seasonal restructuring, sensitivity around ongoing narratives. No one said Pack. No one said, Calderon. No one needed to.Sophia slammed a folder onto the apartment table hard enough to make Cassian look up from his blocks. “They’re not cutting you because you’re irrelevant. They’re cutting you because someone told them proximity is expensive.”Aria picked up the top note and read it twice. “Who started the circuit?”“That’s the trick,” Sophia said. “It looks leaderless. One host cites another host’s caution. One publicist quotes ‘recent climate.’ By the time you punch the fog, your week is already empty.”Damien listened from the window, phone turning once in his hand. “Isolation protoc
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Adrian’s Line
CHAPTER 106 Adrian found the letter in his old field locker, filed under a name he had stopped using.The envelope was military-clean, no sentimental mark, only a stamped crest from the Northern Command Office and a handwritten line across the back:For when the city makes you soft.He almost burned it.Instead, he opened it at the window of his apartment, Sophia still asleep in his bed with one arm thrown over the space he had left. Dawn sat pale on the glass. Somewhere below, the city moved like it did not know men like him existed until blood made the news.The letter was not a request. It was a return ticket to a life with simpler arithmetic.Active theater placement available. Indefinite. Priority rank restored. No political entanglement. Reply within the week.No political entanglement meant no Aria, no Damien, no Pack challenge season, no human woman in his bed who had already told him she would not be hidden.Adrian looked back at Sophia.She slept like someone who had spent
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Luna by Choice
CHAPTER 105 The vote never happened as Calderon’s demand for a formal count hung in the assembly hall like a blade left suspended, and Damien refused to let it fall. He stepped forward, not to argue, but to end the theater.“A count requires a question,” he said. “The question is not whether Aria belongs to me. The question is whether this Pack can survive a woman who refuses to be erased. If you want to count houses, count the ones willing to stand behind that answer. I will not pretend neutrality is wisdom.”Mireille closed the assembly without a tally. The senior tier dispersed in uneasy clusters, some angry, some thoughtful, none satisfied. Calderon left with his pale smile intact, already planning the next ledger entry. Rhett watched Damien with the interest of a man who had found a new angle.Aria walked out beside Damien, the crystal award from the gala still in her apartment, the ring on her hand catching the afternoon light. She had answered their questions. She had refused
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Answer in Public
CHAPTER 104The clip reached the Pack before Aria finished her makeup.Sophia sent it at six in the morning with one line: They are using your answer as evidence. Aria watched the first thirty seconds on mute, then closed the phone. She did not need to hear her own voice again. She knew what she had said. She knew what it cost.Damien stood at the window with a tablet in his hand, scrolling through Pack channels that had already begun their work. "Mireille called a clarifying assembly for this afternoon. Cotter is circulating stills from the gala. Rhett is calling it a declaration of independence from Pack authority.""It was a declaration of independence from being owned," Aria said."I know." He set the tablet down. "They want you in the room.""Then I go."He turned. "You don't have to.""If I stay home, they write my silence for me." Aria pulled her hair back and met his eyes. "I spoke last night. I will stand behind it in daylight."Damien crossed the room and stopped close enoug
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Crown of Lights
CHAPTER 103 Aria stepped onto the glass stage of the National Screen Gala; the early online ledger had already split into camps. One side praised the performance in Winter Line as a controlled demolition of a woman’s public grief. The other side spoke in softer, uglier codes: protected, managed, unnatural calm, Blackwood-kept. Sophia had shown her a sample in the car and then locked the phone away.“You walk out there for the work,” Sophia said, smoothing an invisible crease at Aria’s waist. “Not for the zoo commentary.”Aria nodded once. In the monitor's glow, her dress looked like poured midnight. The ring on her hand was a quiet private star she refused to hide. Damien sat in the mezzanine box above stage left, visible if she chose to look, and careful not to become the image of ownership the worst accounts wanted.When her name was read, the room made the correct thunder.Aria crossed the light in measured steps, took the heavy crystal from the presenter, and waited for the appl
Alpha King’s One Night Mate Richard Sees Enough
CHAPTER 102 Then she hung up. Richard came because Grace stopped asking and started telling.She called from the mountain road with wind in the mic and no patience left in her voice. “Your grandson was named last night. Something happened in the chapel that the Pack is already twisting. Aria is holding steady and paying for it with her body. If you stay in the city performing principle, fine. Just admit that’s what you’re doing.”Richard stood in his kitchen with the phone still raised, surrounded by ordinary morning objects that suddenly looked like excuses. He left within the hour.The annex sat among wet pines like a structure designed to outlast argument. Pack security met him at the lower gate, searched his car with impersonal thoroughness, and escorted him up the path in silence. Richard hated every second of having to ask permission to approach his own daughter. He hated more that the permission made practical sense once he saw how many people were moving through the grounds w
Vous vous intéresseriez aussi à
Timber Alpha
Marie Night612.1K VuesSeducing My Ex's Father In Law
Caroline Above Story4.4M VuesMated To Big Brother-in-law
AlisTae941.0K VuesIN THE ARMS OF MY ALPHA
Cassandra M677.4K VuesThe Alpha's Destined Mate
Cruz hapi75 VuesAlpha Tarian and The Crazy Bride Of May Town
Lila Monroe Williams97 VuesThree Alphas, One Secret
Aura Valentino80 VuesTHE LUNA YOU REPLACED IS AN ALPHA QUEEN NOW
Nuella122 Vues
