MasukSolana stiffened as though he had slapped her.She locked her knees, straightened her spine and dragged every feeling inside her down into the dark, one by one, the way she had taught herself to do eight years ago, standing on an auction stage under hot white lights. She shoved the warmth down, and the fullness, and the trembling. She slammed a door on all of it.Her face went smooth and blank and polite.Across the stone, Alistair's eyes flickered. Then the soft look slowly drained from his face, and the cold Alpha mask slid back into place. He turned away toward the crowd.Solana let out a slow breath through her nose.He felt that, she thought grimly. He felt every single second of it.That was not how it had worked with Alpha Miller. Miller had never once looked at her as though he could see inside her head. If he had, she would have left the Bloodhounds within a week."Easy," Adrian murmured beside her. His hand was still wrapped around her elbow, steady and warm. "Breathe. It hi
"It's a ritual, not a runway," Evelyn drawled from her bed, watching her over the top of a comic book. "Nobody's going to rate your outfit.""Everybody rates outfits. That is how the world works," Solana replied calmly, smoothing down the front of a long-sleeved yellow sundress she had just put on. "And seeing how judgemental and hooked on hierarchy this place is, they’ll do the same."She had changed her outfit three times before moonrise before finally settling on this one.Evelyn considered that, then shrugged. "Fair," she finally admitted. She eyed her new outfit. "Just don't wear anything white or light colored. Blood's a nightmare to get out."Solana looked down at her latest dress choice and winced. "The blood isn’t going to be that much, right?" she asked, looking back at her roommate."Sure," Evelyn replied dryly, going back to her comic book. "Put your hopes on the shaky hands of the ancient elder Agatha."“Isn’t 'ancient' an overstatement?” Solana said with a raised brow
For a long moment after Adrian left, Solana stared at the closed door.“Squeamish about blood,” she repeated to herself out loud. For a moment, she was confused. Then realization slammed into her.“Of course,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “Why wouldn't there be blood? Packs and traditional bullshit.”She had hated the way the traditional pack integration for Miller’s pack had made her feel. Everyone had told her how wonderful it’ll feel, but all she had felt was nausea as the connectivity slammed into her. She let out a slow breath, pushed the thought away, and turned to her side of the room.Her boxes arrived twenty minutes later, and she spent the next two hours unpacking with the quiet focus of someone who had moved too many times to get sentimental about it.Her clothes went into the walk-in closet, sorted by color. Her sketchbooks went on the shelf of the bookshelf divider, spines facing out. Her sewing machine went on the desk beneath the high frosted window, where the light
Caspian's stomach dropped at the look on his father's face.He pushed himself up off the arm of the sofa and reached for the listing, but his father held onto it, his knuckles slowly whitening around the paper."It's just a building, Dad," Caspian said carefully."It's a building in Nevada," his father said quietly. "In the same state your mother dragged you to when you were two years old. The same state I spent fourteen years combing through, one town at a time, looking for a little boy nobody even knew the real name of."Caspian looked away."She had a fake ID," his father went on, his voice roughening. "Every motel, every clinic, every school she ever put you near, you were somebody else's son. When she died, they put you in the system under a name I'd never heard of. Do you know how many times I drove past that orphanage without knowing you were inside it?""Dad," Caspian said softly."You swore to me," his father continued, finally setting the listing down on the table with great
His mother's fingers dug into his wrist so hard that Caspian could feel his bones grinding together."Walk faster," she slurred, yanking him along the cracked sidewalk. "You wanted food, didn't you? You've been crying about it all morning. So walk.""Mama, you're hurting me," Caspian whimpered, stumbling to keep up with her.She did not loosen her grip. She lifted the bottle in her other hand to her lips and took a long swallow, and the sharp, chemical smell of it hit him in the face. It smelled like the stuff the motel manager used to strip paint off the doors.It had not always smelled like that. A few months ago, her bottles had come with real labels and shiny caps. Now they came from a man behind the liquor store with no labels at all, and every time she drank from one, her eyes went strange and glassy, and she forgot his name for a while."I'm not hungry anymore," Caspian lied, sniffling."Liar," she snapped, without looking down at him. "You've been whining since yesterday."T
"So," Adrian said cheerfully, as the office door clicked shut behind them. "That was fun.""Was it?" Solana asked."For me? Enormously," he said, falling into step beside her with his hands in his pockets. "I've known that man for three decades, and I have never once seen anyone insult him so politely that he couldn't even object. I may frame that moment. I may get it tattooed.""I didn't insult anyone," Solana said innocently."Exactly," Adrian said with a delighted laugh. "That's what makes it all the more wonderful."The corner of Solana's mouth twitched before she could stop it.They stepped out into the late afternoon. The courtyard had emptied, and only a few stragglers ling
Solange felt a literal snap in the center of her chest as she stared at the heavy oak doors. It wasn’t the metaphoric ache of a breakup. It was a white-hot blade of agony carved through her ribs, twisting around her heart and pulling tight.She tried to scream, but the air in her lungs had turned t
Solange looked at him, her brows furrowing as confusion rose alongside irritation. If he wanted to insult her, he could have done it outright. “What are you talking about?” she bit back. “What smell? I literally just took a bath.” He shook his head; his eyes had a faraway look, like he wasn’t hear
Solange woke slowly, her body aching in all the ways that made her heart flutter and a strange humming in her chest. Her head was foggy, but she felt a calm she had never known, like she was connected to something that had been missing all her life. She felt… claimed, as if the night had somehow gi
The moment the penthouse door shut, Alistair’s restraint evaporated.He pinned her against the door, his large, calloused hand sliding up to grip the back of her neck with a terrifying but delicious pressure, and he slanted his lips over hers again.He was rough, but in a calculated way that made h







