▄︻デ══━一 COLTON HAYES💥 I can’t believe someone actually broke into my house.In the middle of the fucking night. While I was in bed. With her. With the most important person in my life. It still pisses me off thinking about it.I hadn’t bothered with the mutt after I cuffed him—left him on the floor until the sun came up and his bones stopped cracking from the shift. Pain makes people talk. It also makes them weak. So I let him marinate in it.Now, with the morning light pouring through the thin windows of my old man’s place, I drag his nude, unconscious body into the basement by the cuffs digging into his wrists. I don’t care that they’re bruising. He earned every mark.The cell is cold. Damp. Concrete walls with reinforced bars. I toss him inside like garbage and close the door behind me with a loud clang. The twins are asleep in the far cell, breathing quietly, curled like foxes against the wall. At least they’re not a problem right now.He groans.Good.I crouch near the bars, w
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★The most romantic way to get railed.... i know, I’m a poet. Worship me. But listen to my poetry first. The most romantic way to get railed is by easing into it and saying something sweet, like perhaps;Ease me in, don’t rush the ride, Whisper dumb things like “you’re my guide.” Say you love my laugh, my bite, Then pin me down and dim the light. Tell me I’m art, your favorite sin, Brush my skin like you're about to begin— But not too fast, no race to win, Just slow destruction, soaked in sin.Call me trouble with reverence, grace, Then wreck my soul and realign my face. Soft hands, rough grip, you know the game, Say my name like it’s half a flame. Bring flowers, then ruin me sweet, Turn the bed into your drumbeat. Yes, romance me, but with intent— Make love like your spine is bent./I know, I’m brilliant. I’m also not entirely concious at the moment. Colton had taken his slow sweet time with me at the lake. He swam us to the shallow end, and put me on my
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★There are a lot of ways to end a date.Some people go for a goodnight kiss on the porch. Some say “we should do this again” and ghost the next day. Some crawl into bed together and pretend the world doesn’t exist outside their locked door.Me? I left the house in wet hair and champagne-soaked skin to go jump in a lake at midnight.Not a metaphor. The literal lake. I didn’t even bring a towel.Was it smart? No. Sensible? Absolutely not. But life was coming to a head for us—and I wanted to get head. Sue me.Colton didn’t even blink when I said I wanted to go. He grabbed the bottle, made sure I didn’t trip down the porch stairs, and walked us both like he knew exactly what I needed. Turns out, what I needed was a mouthful of lake water after he cannonballed in and splashed half the shoreline onto me.I cursed at him. He laughed. I tackled him.Then we kissed, and that shut both of us up.The water was cold, a kind of cold that made you forget everything—your
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★We rode the horse all the way to our next destination after leaving the diner, the sky still dipped in twilight shades of purple and gold, dust kicking up behind us as we passed a few shuttered storefronts and the odd resident walking their dog or heading home. It was peaceful, the kind of calm that settled into your bones if you let it.Colton reined the horse in front of the mechanic’s shop—a squat, sun-bleached building with a rusted sign that just said Steve’s Auto. The kind of place that didn’t need Yelp reviews to survive, just old men with busted pickups and nowhere else to go. I thought it was thriving earlier, Colton had brought me here, but things must have changed.Steve himself stepped out as we pulled up, wiping his hands on a rag that had long given up the fight to stay clean. “Thought I heard hooves,” he said, giving a nod to Colton. “She yours?”“The horse or the woman?” Colton asked with a smirk.Steve snorted. “Whichever’s gonna sass me
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★I don’t know what I expected when Colton said we were going somewhere not on the map, but it sure as hell wasn’t a water tower. Not one with a view that made the whole damn world feel like it was holding its breath.The town looked like a miniature version of itself from up here—soft, sun-drenched, unreal. Like someone had pressed pause and we were sitting above time itself. I leaned back against the blanket he laid out, stretched my legs out, and let the warmth of the sun and his body beside mine lull me into a kind of weightless joy.God, when was the last time I felt like this?Carefree. Safe. Wanted.Colton was lying next to me, one arm propped under his head, the other draped across his stomach. His shirt had ridden up a little, exposing a sliver of sun-kissed skin, and I had to force myself not to stare too long. Or touch. Or climb on top of him right then and there.Which was ridiculous, because we were literally on top of a damn water tower.“I ca
▄︻デ══━一 COLTON HAYES💥 After a good breakfast and wrestling a cup of caffeine from Vanessa, I grabbed the keys to one of my Jeeps, tossing them once in the air and catching them with a grin.“C’mon,” I said to Vanessa, watching her follow with that curious tilt of her head I’d grown addicted to. “Thought we’d take a little ride into town.”“I didn’t even know you had a Jeep,” she said as we walked down the path to where the whole family keeps their cars.“I’ve got a few things tucked away,” I said with a shrug. “Come on, I’ll show you.”We rounded the back of a big building, where a few of our vehicles were kept under tarps or shade roofs. Trucks, bikes, the old Jeep I’d learned to drive in for the first time. A bunch of other really clean and expensive-looking cars. I gestured at the line-up. “Told you.”She gave me a little side-eye. “Are you secretly a car fanatic?”I laughed. “Yeah, but that’s not the only reason we have alot of cars. I just grew up in a family where fixing thing
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★I woke up warm.Not just physically—though that was part of it, tucked into the soft weight of Colton’s arms, his chest rising and falling behind me like the tide—but something else, too. Safe. Anchored.For a second, I didn’t move. I just blinked slowly at the soft light filtering through the curtains, breathing in the scent of soap, pine, and something distinctly his. Then I tilted my head back slightly and looked up.He was still asleep.His face was peaceful in a way I rarely got to see. No furrowed brow. No guarded jaw. Just Colton, unburdened. His mouth twitched a little, like he was dreaming about something mildly annoying or mildly funny—it was hard to tell with him.I laughed under my breath. Quiet and breathy.What a strange life.I used to wake up to sirens and honking cabs. Now I was waking up in a quiet room on a ranch, wrapped up in a man whose idea of rest was plowing half a field before breakfast.And yet… this didn’t feel strange at all.
▄︻デ══━一 COLTON HAYES💥 We couldn’t keep them here, that was a thought i couldn’t shake from the moment i showed up here. I stood in the barn, arms crossed, watching the twins—Fabian and Derico, or whatever they called themselves—slumped against the wooden post, weak and sullen but still dangerous. Ross had tied them good, and Abel was pacing like he wanted an excuse to break something. I think my father wants to hit someone. I’d let him, but I can’t risk him accidentally killing them. We need them.Vanessa’s concoction was still doing its work. She hadn’t lied—whatever she’d made, it drained the strength right out of their bones and soul as well. Enough of it could ruin a shifter’s ability to ever turn again. I’d seen that look in their eyes now. They understood what was at stake. She did say it was like wolfsbane. I should send a general message to everyone in the pack to wash the concoction off their skin. “We should move them,” I said finally, turning to face my father. “Take ’
★。\|/。★VANESSA DAVIS★。/|\。★I shut the lid of my laptop and stared at it for a long second. The screen was black, but I could still see the echo of everything inside it—files, photos, confessions that might change the course of this pack’s future. I backed it up to several places. The first backup was easier than the others after it. Ugh, I’m actually super tired. I feel like crashing but i have one more thing to do. I gotta make that call I’ve been avoiding.My thumb hovered over my phone before I picked it up and scrolled to a number I’d been avoiding for days.Maya (Editor-in-Chief)The moment it started ringing, I regretted it. But there was no turning back now.She picked up before the third ring.“Jesus Christ, Vanessa. You’re alive. I’ve been calling you, emailing you, and texting you. You practically live on your phone, so why haven’t you been answering?”Her voice was sharp, loud, clipped. Familiar. And also tired. Everyone’s got shit that they’re dealing with.“I’m sorry,