로그인Ryan
“She’s not here, Ryan,” Mercy hisses as I run through the village. She’s hot on my heels, grabbing my fur to try to pull me to a stop but I’m not in my right mind.
It’s been five hours since I last saw Aviva. Andrew and I have been scouring the forest and plains for any sign of her, but I lost her scent, and my desperate attempts to mind-link with her have come up empty and silent.
I shift into my human fo
Fraser“This is a swimming pool,” Naomi breathes beside me, her sea-green eyes locked on the wide, but shallow, pool of carved, dark quartz. A steaming waterfall heats the bath, water trickling from the very stone that lines the room. “Where are dragons supposed to bathe otherwise?”“This was not what I meant. The other rooms upstairs had bathtubs for human-sized beings. This is too much.” She waves a hand at the pool and looks up at me expectantly. “Last I checked, you were my guest, and this is what I have to offer you.”“Why can’t I stay in the old rooms where I was this summer?”“Because they’re occupied by more polite and grateful people as it stands, and I do not want them disturbed.”“I think the foxes would be delighted by my company as much as I’d enjoy theirs,” she retorts, and I am officially exhausted. Naomi is a complicated woman. Her personality is brash and straightforward, and every single variation of her emotional profile shines behind her eyes but in a way I’m su
NaomiNothing good happens after midnight. At least, that’s what my dad, a retired criminal and vigilante turned Alpha King, always told us growing up. I beg to differ, which is why, around what I believe might be 3:00 in the morning, I pull my arms into a robe left hanging on a hook near the door in my room and decide to pace Fraser’s hallways instead of lying wide awake in the regal stone bedroom he left me in several hours ago to rot. I’m not tired in the slightest. My sleep schedule, which is already a Goddess-damned mess, will pay the price for my unintentional translocation across the globe, but I digress. I have no plans, no course of action to speak of, and, unlike this past summer, I have the chance to calmly explore the castle without the burden of several other lives bearing down on my shoulders. I search the room for anything resembling slippers but come up empty-handed after several minutes of tiptoeing my way over smooth, cold stone. Like every room in this insanely l
NaomiI wake with a start. My vision is, at first, hazy. A high, domed ceiling of smooth, gray stone and an ancient, candle-lit chandelier come into focus. Little speckles of amber light dance over the stone like stars, highlighting carvings that are wholly unfamiliar. At least, unfamiliar for a moment. Color begins to bleed into my vision. Shelves of dark wood spiral all the way to the ceiling. Books and scrolls rest in impeccable rows, everything perfectly in place, everything exactly where it belongs. Clean. Not a speck of dust or cobwebs in sight. I roll to my side, wincing as cool stone bites into my bare shoulder. Table legs take up my vision. Beyond the maze of wooden tables and chairs, a fire roars in an arched stone hearth, flames licking soot-stained stone. And in his usual armchair, the only worn piece of furniture in the entirety of this library, Fraser crosses his ankle over his opposite knee and casually flips a page of the book resting in his lap. “You forgot to br
NaomiNymphidora, or simply Phi, as she’s known in our close-knit group of friends, has never had a bad day in her life. Truly. Everything works out for her, regardless of how terrible the situation may seem. Take her ex-boyfriend, for example. He’s currently sitting next to me at the bar of Phi’s apothecary shop in the dead center of Moonrise, tucked down a well-traveled alleyway just beyond the main drag of more modern and magically appropriate shops. But instead of sitting on the stools on either side of me, her ex is resting on a little velvet tuffet on the countertop, his once handsome humanoid body now resigned to that of a toad. He ribbits, staring at me with beady, froggy black eyes. I sigh heavily and roll my gaze to Phi, who has her chin propped on her fist, smiling lovingly at her most recent experiment. “Isn’t he amazing?” she purrs, her long, thin, black braids falling over her shoulders in ropes of onyx. “Is he… sentient?” I glance at Geoffrey. “Oh, of course.”I s
FraserForty eyes blink up at me. Twenty heads that don’t reach my hips bob and crane to peer into a dusty, dark room. I hold open the door in silence, giving the crowd a few moments to get a look, then I clear my throat and say, “Off limits.”A few giggles whisper through the group. I cup my ear, and more giggles ring out until one buck-toothed fox kit says with a horrible lisp, “Off limits!”“And what does off limits mean?” I ask the group of 20 five-to-seven-year-olds. “No touching!”“Right. Right. Let's go.” I close the door, and forty feet shuffle and bounce behind me. The hallway stretches for an eternity, but knowing children, that doesn’t mean a gods damned thing. Since this fall, when I opened one of the rooms off the library to the children of the den to use for study, this group in particular has lost themselves to the catacombs of the palace on more than one occasion, but it’s not necessarily their fault. Children this age are dangerously curious. I’m always shocked whe
NaomiThere’s a room in the palace that people rarely use. It’s made entirely of quartz: the walls, the floor, the windowsills, even though there aren’t many, and they’re stationed high along the domed ceiling, letting in muted, fractured light through patchwork glass panes with no view. The quartz is a dark variety, with veins of black and brown splitting its creamy white base. The only outlying materials are six pillars of pure, carved moonstone that supposedly hold up the ceiling, but I find that hard to believe. I doubt it needs any help. The room itself constantly feels alive, like it has its own heartbeat. Or, it’s just mimicking mine.Fallon refuses to even grace the subterranean hallway outside the room with her presence. She says it gives her the creeps and that this room feels like it’s caving in on her, crushing her from the inside out. Mom is the same, and she has mentioned a few times that this daunting arena of quartz causes her powers to bleed in a way that makes her
*Maddox*I walk ahead of the stretcher carrying Isla and try not to pull my fur out. If I had thumbs, I might’ve already pulled out enough fur around my forehead that I’d look bald.Images of a wolf with a receding hairline come to mind, and I almost laugh. But nothing is that funny right now.What the
ArisPosey disappears in a flurry of gray wool the second my powers fade like tendrils of smoke across the dark mosaic tiles of the grand foyer. Her footsteps echo down a darkened corridor, the only sound for what feels like an eternity–an eternity spent willing myself to stand still and not chase
Posey“I don’t think I understand.” I set the letter down and turn to Aris, who’s leaning against the hearth in our bedroom. “My father wrote this?”“It’s his blessing.” He crouches, inspecting the fire with a poker. I resist the urge to crumple the letter but set it neatly on the bed instead. “In
ArisMorgan’s long fingers trace over the top of my hand, her red painted nails shining in the firelight as she smiles at me, cat-like, her dark eyes giving away nothing. When I don’t react to her touch, she leans away to refill her glass of sparkling wine, clicking her tongue. She rises and turns







