LOGINBodies flew everywhere, hitting the lime green hood with the sound of heavy hail before being tossed into the dark. Sophie didn’t flinch, her knuckles white as she wrestled the heavy steering wheel to keep the Pinto from veering into the ancient, gnarled oaks. Anna sat paralyzed, her mouth aghast, her hands glowing a frantic, pulsating blue that cast long, ghostly shadows across the dashboard."The trick," Sophie shouted over the screaming engine and the thud of impact, "is never to slow down! They hide here in the folds of the road waiting for anyone to stall. A nice, old METAL car is the way through. Plastic would’ve folded like paper."They hit a few more rolling bodies,Gray Skins that didn't bleed so much as leak a foul smelling smoke,and lurched deeper into the night. As the road smoothed out, Anna slowly turned her head to look at her friend. The Sophie she knew,the one who worried about midterms and the perfect crust on a loaf of bread,was really gone. Like gone forever gone. I
The lime green 1980 Ford Pinto station wagon groaned as it crested a hill, its chassis rattling like a box of loose nails. The engine emitted a rhythmic, sickly wheeze, but somehow, the metal beast surged forward, cutting through the absolute dark of a road that didn't appear on any GPS. This was a "Vein Road",a back way into Calabasas that stitched together fragments of the physical forest with pockets of the Gray. To the human eye, it was a deer trail; to those with the sight, it was a shimmering, emerald-black ribbon of half-realized asphalt.Inside, the cabin smelled of upholstery foam, sulfur, and the humming of Anna’s erratic magic. Anna sat in the passenger seat, her head lolling against the window. She was fighting a losing battle with her own consciousness. One moment she was in the car, feeling the vibration of the floorboards, and the next, she was drifting back toward the quiet obsidian shelves of the library. Her soul was trying to slip the tether of a body that felt like
The living room of the Erickson home in Asheville had always smelled of vanilla candles and expensive floor wax,the scent of a life meticulously curated by Morgan Erickson. On the night of January 2, 2025, the room was bathed in the flickering glow of a local news report, the anchor’s voice rising in a pitch of controlled panic as reports of atmospheric anomalies over the North Ridge began to pour in.Allen Erickson sat on the edge of the designer sofa, his large frame looking out of place among the delicate furniture. At seventeen, he was the pride of Asheville High,a star quarterback with a scholarship ready arm and a future that felt as bright as a stadium floodlight. His mother, Morgan, a woman whose beauty and grace had made her the most successful real estate agent in the county, was hovering by the window. She looked tall, blonde, and impossibly delicate against the backdrop of a sky that was turning a bruised, necrotic purple."Allen, look at the sky," she whispered.Then, the
The transition was a cruel, jagged snap of reality. One moment, Anna was drowning in the dark, honeyed warmth of a memory that felt more real than the air she breathed. She was tangled in Killian, the friction of his skin against hers sparking an electric, primal ecstasy. She could smell the scent of cedar and rain on his neck, hear the low, possessive rumble of his growl vibrating against her collarbone as he claimed her, inch by agonizingly perfect inch. Her mind was a hazy storm of devotion and desire, her body a live wire humming with the peak of an arousal that promised absolute release.Then, the world tilted and vanished.Anna hit the concrete with a bone deep thud, the breath leaving her lungs in a sharp, pathetic wheeze. The phantom heat of Killian’s hands was instantly replaced by the biting, oily chill of a dirty floor. She lay there for a second, staring at a ceiling fan that didn't spin, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs as she mourned the loss of the
The tavern was called The Cracked Vial, a name that felt too on the nose for a place that smelled of stale hops, expensive perfume and the metallic tang of unwashed blades. It was a supernatural speakeasy tucked into the belly of a converted industrial basement in downtown Los Angeles,a city that had become a sprawling, neon lit graveyard for the veil between worlds. Here, in the flickering amber light of low-hanging lamps, the hierarchy of the old world didn’t matter. An assassin for the remaining Warlock syndicates could sit three stools down from a dryad looking for a tincture to soothe a smog choked spirit. It was neutral ground, but the kind of neutrality that felt like a thin sheet of glass held over a pit of vipers.Anna sat on a stool that groaned under her weight, the oversized hoodie Sophie had scavenged from the warehouse floor pulled low over her brow. She kept her face in the shadows, her eyes darting between the labels on the back bar and the door. According to Sophie, t
The transition through the veil of time felt like being dragged behind a high speed train through a tunnel of jagged glass. Anna wasn’t just moving through space; she was being shredded by the memories of a life she hadn’t lived yet.Faded flashes pulsed against her retinas like heat lightning. She saw a wedding under an ancient oak tree, the air tasting of champagne and mountain rain. She felt the heavy, comforting weight of a crown being placed on her head, and the rhythmic, grounding pulse of a booming Blackwood pack. Most of all, she felt him.Killian.His bond line was a thick, golden cable of heat that anchored her soul. In the sea of time, she felt his large, calloused hands cup her face; she felt the rough stubble of his jaw against her neck and the devastating, possessive warmth of his kiss. It was a revelation of intimacy, a decade of reveling in a fated mate’s embrace condensed into a single heartbeat of absolute bliss. She felt her love for him ripen, moving past the raw d







