로그인We left Lucas’s apartment without speaking, the two figurines cold and silent inside my bag. Neither of us wanted to look at them again.Once we reached the sidewalk, Lucas finally said what we were both thinking. “We’re not doing it.”“No,” I agreed. “We’re not.”We went our separate ways that night, but by Saturday morning, I was back at Lucas’s apartment with my goblin tucked inside my bag. If we were going to refuse their demand, we needed to find another way out before Monday.We spent most of Saturday trying everything we could think of. Lucas started with a hammer, placing his figurine on the kitchen counter and hitting her hard enough that I expected pieces of stone to fly across the room. She didn’t even chip.When brute force failed, we drove to the river and threw both goblins into the water. We watched them disappear beneath the surface before heading back to Lucas’s apartment, only to find them sitting side by side on his living room table when we returned.After that, we
My goblin’s smile stayed in place as I stared at him.“Don’t you dare ignore me. What did you do to us?”His eyes remained on mine, but he gave me no answer. Beside him, the female goblin watched silently too.Then the light disappeared from both their eyes. Their bodies hardened, the warmth leaving the stone until two lifeless figurines sat on the table again.“What the hell?”I lowered Lucas’s head carefully to the floor, scrambled up and grabbed my goblin.“Wake up. Answer me!”I shook him hard before rubbing his carved chest the same way I had that first night. When that did nothing, I pressed my thumb against his mouth and tried again. I demanded answers, cursed at him and eventually started begging him to wake up.Nothing worked.The little bastard stayed cold and lifeless in my hands.I grabbed Lucas’s female goblin next and tried everything again. I shook her, rubbed her carved body and held her up to my face.“Wake up and tell me what’s happening!”She remained as cold and li
I sat on the bed staring at the figurine.Two hundred and forty dollars stood between me and the job, and somehow Lucas had become the price for getting it.There was no other way.I picked up my phone, found his number in the interview email and typed a short message.We need to talk. In private.I hit send and stared at the screen, already wondering what I would say if he started asking questions I wasn't ready to answer.His reply came less than a minute later.My place. One hour. I'll text the address.I read it twice.That was it. No questions about what I wanted or why it had to be private. He hadn't even hesitated.After what he'd said outside the elevator, that should have made things easier.Instead, it made me wonder how much Lucas already knew.I looked from the figurine on the nightstand to Lucas's message on my screen. Whatever was waiting for me at his apartment, both of us already knew this wasn't going to be a normal conversation.I got ready and left.Lucas opened his
I lay back and brought the figurine between my thighs.He was already warm when his tiny hands closed around me. The strength in his grip caught me off guard, far too much for something small enough to fit in my palm. I barely had time to wonder how that was possible before his mouth found my clit and sucked.A sharp moan escaped me at the first pull.Then his tongue joined in, soft and wet as it moved over me in one slow stroke. My hips twitched before I could stop them.“You taste better than I expected,” he rasped against my skin.I stared down at him, struggling to catch my breath. “You’re not supposed to feel like this.”He gave me no answer. His mouth closed around my clit again, the deep, steady suction sending pleasure through my stomach and making my body tense beneath him. His tongue moved with it, circling and pressing with a skill that made absolutely no sense for a creature made of stone.A low groan slipped from my throat.His hands spread me wider as his tongue moved lo
I woke up with the lingering sensation of that strange little mouth on my nipple.For several seconds, I stayed beneath the covers and wondered whether I'd somehow dreamed the entire thing. Nothing around me had changed. The apartment looked exactly as miserable as it had the night before, the eviction notice I'd ripped from the door was still lying on the counter, and my phone sat on the nightstand beside the ugly little figurine.My eyes landed on the goblin and stayed there.It was nothing but stone again, motionless on the nightstand with the same mean little face and pointed ears I'd shoved into a drawer years ago. Nothing about it suggested it had ever moved, spoken or pressed that impossible mouth against my skin.I pushed myself upright and studied it a little longer. My body still carried a faint reminder of what had happened, but with the goblin sitting there like an ordinary carving, it was surprisingly easy to question my own memory. I'd been desperate, exhausted and terri
The eviction notice was still taped to my front door when I got home.I ripped it down, stepped inside and dropped my bag beside the door. Somehow, the apartment looked even more depressing than it had that morning. The fridge hummed in the kitchen with barely enough food inside to make a meal, and when I checked my phone, three missed calls from my landlord were waiting for me.The message beneath them was worse.My manager had confirmed what I'd already been dreading. My last shift really had been my last.I sank onto the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.Rent was eleven days overdue. The power bill sat unopened on the counter because opening it wouldn't magically give me the money to pay it. My sister had stopped answering after the second time I asked to borrow money, and now I didn't even have another paycheck coming.I'd spent weeks telling myself things couldn't possibly get worse.Apparently, the universe had taken that as a challenge.I pressed my palms against my eyes a
Alpha Zedd’s POVKaryk Moonbane never failed to prove that he was a foolish man.I sat at the head of the long obsidian table, my fingers playing idly with a pen.Karyk Moonbane droned on, gesturing at slides that meant nothing to me. His voice carried that rehearsed cadence, with pauses timed for
I jumped to my feet fast.Grabbing my clothes as fast as I could, I pulled them on in silence, fingers fumbling with buttons, not bothering with anything I couldn't find in under ten seconds. Maggie remained at the door, head turned toward the bed.Zedd shifted.We both went completely still.He re
I lay beneath him, legs spread, body moving in the rhythm he set, but my mind had already drifted somewhere far above the ceiling. Karyk’s hips slapped against mine like he was forced to finish a chore. Thrust, Retreat, Thrust. My mate’s eyes were fixed on the headboard, never once meeting mine.
Delilah’s POVThe elevator doors slid shut again, sealing me in sudden silence. The charged electricity of thirty seconds ago vanished as if it had never existed. My fingers trembled around the black card. My thighs were slick, my underwear ruined, my core still pulsing with the aftershocks of wha







