LOGINDaisy My feet moved, but I couldn't feel the stone beneath my shoes.I didn't remember walking back down the long, dimly lit corridor that led away from the balcony. I didn't remember descending the carpeted steps or stepping back through the high archway into the grand ballroom. All I knew was that the air inside was thick, suffocating, and reeking of expensive perfume and aged wine.The party was still going on. Laughter echoed off the gilded ceiling, glasses clinked as couples swayed to the slow, elegant sweep of the orchestra.It was utterly surreal and even more beautiful than when I'd left. The world had just ended on a cold stone balcony, yet here, nobody had even noticed the sky falling.I stood near the edge of the room, my body completely numb, digging my fingers so hard into my palms that it made crescents across my skin. For months, I had lived in this estate believing I was surrounded by complicated people, flawed people, people who cared about me in their own secr
Daisy Fifteen minutes had never lasted so long.I stood alone in a corner in the sitting room, while the rest of the party went on with a glitch,the folded note clutched so tightly in my hand that the edges had begun to crease.Balcony. Fifteen minutes. — CI had read those words so many times they no longer looked real.My heart refused to settle and every possibility chased the next until I couldn't tell which frightened me more.Did he know? Had he finally discovered the truth? Was he going to apologize? Or was this his way of ending everything? Maybe he wanted to tell me, privately, that the engagement would go ahead. Maybe he wanted to ask me to leave quietly. Maybe he had seen me standing there while Yvie kissed him.The memory made my chest tighten all over again and I squeezed my eyes shut."No," I whispered to myself.Whatever happened tonight, I couldn't keep hiding anymore. Not after everything, not after the clinic and especially not after hearing my baby's heartbeat
Daisy The music started before sunset.It was soft at first, drifting through the open windows like a warning I didn't want to hear. Violins, laughter and the distant clink of crystal carried through the estate until there was no pretending today was anything ordinary.A celebration, but not just any celebration.The celebration.I stood in front of the mirror while one of the maids fastened the last button on the back of my dress."You look lovely, Miss Daisy."I almost laughed.Lovely.There wasn't a single lovely thing about tonight. When she finished, I thanked her quietly and waited until the door closed behind her before looking at my reflection again.The woman staring back at me looked nothing like I felt.My smile was gone and the shadows beneath my eyes refused to disappear.One hand drifted unconsciously toward my stomach before I caught myself and lowered it again."We'll get through this," I whispered.Whether I believed it or not didn't matter anymore, I had to.The
Caspian .My hand slowly fell away from the door and it didn't help that every instinct I possessed screamed at me to burst into the room, to demand answers, to ask Daisy what Scarlet had done to leave that much fear in her voice.Instead, I forced myself to step backward. So I took one step backwards, then another and another, until I was far enough down the corridor that nobody inside the room could hear me breathing.Scarlet. She'd mentioned Scarlet, not lady Zara or Yvie. But Scarlet and that single name had become the center of Daisy's fear.I closed my eyes for one brief second.Something had changed while I was gone and when I finally opened them again, every piece of the last week began rearranging itself inside my mind.Scarlet had cleaned Octavian's study, she had been present after the incident and she had somehow known my trip had been productive.Now Daisy was terrified of her.None of those things proved guilt, but together, they formed a pattern, and patterns never lie
Caspian The heavy glass vial in my coat pocket felt like an anvil pressing against my chest.Luckily for me, Professor Hawthorne’s expert hadn't taken long. Two hours in a sterile lab on the edge of the city, and the verdict was rendered in plain, damning black ink. The residue scraped from the shattered porcelain tea set wasn't some harmless herbal compound or a natural byproduct of floral leaves.It was an artificial sedative. Synthesized, lethal in high doses, and completely tasteless.It hadn't been formulated to kill, but had been designed to do one specific, devastating thing: render Daisy and Octavian completely unconscious, stripping them of their thought processes and leaving them completely defenseless.As I drove back down to the estate, a terrifying blend of emotions clawed at my throat. I recognized the first one as relief. Daisy hadn't been lying all along. She hadn't been delusional, and she hadn't given herself to my brother out of some sudden, erratic desire. S
Daisy My heart plummeted straight into my stomach, the sweet, fragile relief I’d been carrying all the way from the clinic turning into ice in a single heartbeat.I stood frozen in the doorway, my fingers still locked around the cold metal of the handle. My mind scrambled, frantically searching for an excuse, a lie, anything to cover up where I had been, but my thoughts came back blank “Scarlet,” I managed to say, forcing my voice to stay even, though my throat felt bone-dry. “I was just... out in the gardens. Taking some fresh air.”Scarlet didn't jump up. She didn't raise her voice, and she didn't look angry either. She simply sat there, dark eyes watching me with a calm, unreadable intensity that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.She tilted her head, her gaze dropping briefly to the handbag tucked tightly under my arm before returning to my face.“Did the doctor reassure you?” her words were almost as sharp as a physical slap and the silence that crashed over the
FourDaisy The clearing had gone so quiet I could hear my own pulse in my ears.“I want her.” Even in a million years,I never thought I'd hear those words,not from Nathan, and definitely not from the Greek god in human form; Caspian.His voice didn’t need to be loud. It carried anyway, low, contr
DaisyThe smell of pine and expensive cologne always made my stomach turn, but tonight it was suffocating. The Hall was draped in silver and black silk for the Lunar Awakening. It was the night every shifter in the Blood Moon pack waited for. The night the future Alpha turned twenty five and finall
Daisy's PovThe morning sun felt like a spotlight on my guilt. I woke up tangled in dark silk sheets. The heavy weight of an arm was draped across my waist. Caspian was still asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. In the daylight, the black ink creeping up his neck looked even mor
CaspianThe Crimson Cycle hits every Lycan male on the winter solstice. It is a biological curse. A fever in the blood that demands violence or a mate. Usually, I lock myself in the palace vaults and sweat it out. I suppress the beast. My twin brother, Octavian, always had a way of handling his cyc







