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STORY 9: BLADE AND BOW

Author: Succy writes
last update publish date: 2026-02-28 01:42:16

Chapter One: Rivalry

The bladesmith was already set up when Séverin arrived.

Of course he was. Andor Vale was always first, always prepared, always showing off his perfectly organized workspace like it was some kind of statement.

Séverin dropped his bags next to his half of the shared tent. Sawdust puffed up from the canvas floor. Andor looked over, his jaw tightening.

“Morning,” Séverin said.

“You’re late.”

“Faire doesn’t open for two hours.”

“Some of us like to be ready.”

“Some of us don’t ne
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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 25: FREQUENCY

    Chapter 1: The CallThe dare was Marcus’s idea.Jonah had been working the overnight at Harlow Financial for eleven months and Marcus had been his coworker for three of them and the dare was this: call the radio station, get on air, say something that wasn’t embarrassing.Marcus had lost a bet about which elevator was faster, which was the kind of thing you got up to at two in the morning in an empty building with nothing to do but walk the floors and watch the lobby screens.The station was 96.7, the late-night slot, a show called The Long Dark that ran midnight to four and played a mix of slow music and open-air conversation that Jonah had been listening to for most of his eleven months on this job. The host had a voice like the inside of a quiet room, low and warm and unhurried. He’d never called in. He just listened.He called in.The hold music was three minutes. Then a producer’s voice, asking his name and whether he’d been on air before.He hadn’t.The host’s voice came through

  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 24: CARTOGRAPHY OF SCARS

    Chapter 1: The Fourth ArtistThe other three artists had all done the same thing.They’d looked at her arm, the left one from elbow to shoulder where the burn had pulled the skin tight and changed its texture entirely, and they’d gotten a specific expression. Trying not to show too much. Professionally interested in a way that was still too much, the kind of interest that made her feel like a case study instead of a person who wanted a botanical design running up her forearm.The first one had said it would be challenging. The second had said she should think carefully about whether this was what she really wanted. The third had spent twenty minutes explaining scar tissue mechanics to her as though she didn’t have a degree in occupational therapy and hadn’t spent five years learning exactly what her own scar tissue did.She’d almost stopped trying after the third.She’d found Ezra Vance through a client of his who had posted her sleeve online, detailed botanical work, nothing dramatic

  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 23: THE NIGHT SHIFT

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 22: THE ARCHIVIST’S SECRET

    Chapter 1: The CollectionThe collection arrived in fourteen acid-free boxes on a Tuesday morning in March.Cressida signed for them herself, which she did not always do, but the acquisition had taken two years of correspondence and a donor negotiation that had required more diplomacy than she usually exercised. She wanted to be there when it came through the door.She was fifty-two years old and had been the museum’s chief archivist for eleven years. Before that she had been assistant archivist for nine. She knew the building the way she knew her own hands. Every corridor. Every storage climate. The particular smell of the rare books vault that was old paper and cool air and something she had never quite identified. The smell of time preserved carefully.She opened the first box alone, with cotton gloves, and looked at what was inside.Victorian erotica. Photographs, letters, illustrated manuscripts, a handful of small printed books with plain covers. The donor had acquired it from a

  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 21: FORGED IN FIRE

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 20: THE SHUT-IN

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 8: THE UNDOING OF DR. VEX

    Chapter One: First AppointmentThe musician was late.I checked my watch. Twenty minutes past his appointment time. The lab was quiet except for the hum of monitors and the tick of the clock on the wall.I should have been annoyed. I had three other participants scheduled today, grant proposals to

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 19: CANVAS AND CLAY

    Chapter 1: The LookingRho had been modeling for six years.She knew how to hold a pose until the muscles stopped complaining and went quiet. She knew how to exist in a room full of people drawing her without feeling any of them. She had learned early that the trick was to be present in her body an

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 18: THE DEEP FAKE

    Chapter 1: EncryptedThe first message came through at 2 a.m.Marlowe almost didn’t see it.She had been awake anyway, her laptop open to the forum thread she had been mining for three weeks, the one where usernames traded links and laughed about women who did not know their faces had been put on o

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  • SINFUL DESIRES    STORY 17: ENCORE

    Chapter 1: The DiagnosisThe nodes were small. That was what the specialist kept saying, as if small made them better.Vivienne sat in the chair across from his desk and looked at the scan on his screen and thought about the Verdi she had scheduled in four months, the Puccini in six, the career ret

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