تسجيل الدخولThere’s something about the way Damon had looked at that message, and what he said afterward. It unsettles me.I glance toward the closed bedroom doors.“Does he need to be woken?” I ask quietly.Damon’s eyes flick briefly toward the room before returning to me.“No. Nothing that cannot be handled, Miss Grace.”The answer is smooth. Effortless. Entirely unhelpful.I narrow my eyes slightly. His response sounded suspiciously rehearsed.I do not press the issue. Damon is... reliable. Unshakable. I have seen he and Max interact in ways that have had me wondering about the dynamics of their relationship. This goes beyond employer and employee. Max obviously trusts him completely.I move toward the door, pausing briefly beside him.Up close Damon is enormous. Broad shoulders. Dark suit perfectly fitted. The sort of man people instinctively move aside for in hallways.And yet despite how frightening he can appear, he has never once made me feel unsafe.Quite the opposite.“I’ll be back afte
Grace’s POVSunlight spills softly through the tall windows of the suite, washing the room in muted gold.For a long moment I simply lie there beneath the sheets, warm and boneless with satisfaction, listening to the silence around me.Or rather… feeling it.Max’s arm remains wrapped tightly around my waist even in sleep, heavy and possessive. His head rests against my breasts, dark hair spilling across my skin while one powerful thigh remains tangled with mine beneath the sheets.Two weeks ago I would have been horrified to wake up like this.Now I find myself tracing my fingers through his hair while fighting the stupid smile trying to creep onto my face.Somewhere along the line this arrangement has stopped feeling temporary.That realization should probably alarm me more than it does.This had only been meant to last a few days. A dangerous affair with a powerful man. Something reckless. Physical. An escape.Instead we somehow ended up here.Two weeks.Not that I am complaining. T
“You are doing that thing again,” Mina says calmly from the doorway.Warmth unfurls quietly through my chest at the sight of her.Dr Mina Santiago stands there balancing two mugs of coffee while watching me with knowing amusement. Dark curls pinned carelessly atop her head. Oversized cream sweater slipping from one shoulder. Soft grey scrub pants hugging long elegant legs.Beautiful. Comfortingly familiar. Fifteen years of friendship and eight of those years bound by blood.Long enough that I no longer remember what my life felt like before her.Mina steps into the office and nudges the door shut behind her with her hip.“You have that face again,” she says suspiciously as she crosses toward my desk. “The one that says you're obsessing and probably plotting something medically unethical.”“I have never done anything medically unethical.”She sets one mug beside me and gives me a look.“Amanda.”“I document everything thoroughly.”“That is not the reassuring statement you think it is.
Amanda’s POVI know the precise moment I decide to leave Isidora. It happens sometime after midnight while rain murmurs softly against the clinic windows. I'm sitting alone in my office and staring at a report I should have dismissed over an hour ago.The desk lamp casts a muted golden glow across scattered journals, handwritten notes and blood analysis reports while the laptop screen glimmers quietly in the dark. Outside, the mountain mist curls lazily through the sleeping streets of Isidora.Quiet. Safe. Hidden. My home.Exactly as it has always been.My gaze drifts beyond the windows toward the distant outline of the mountains.I still remember when this place was barely more than a settlement tucked deep within the Peruvian highlands. A handful of homes. Dirt pathways. Smoke rising from cooking fires at dusk.Back then it had not had an official name.Only families loyal to House Matesson lived here. Families tied to old covenants and older secrets. People who understood silence
A sharp knock cuts through the suite before I can sink too deeply into the thought.Damon moves before the second knock lands.He opens the door and Russell steps inside with the quiet confidence of a man who knows exactly where he stands in this world.Human. Loyal. Dangerous in his own way.Five years ago Russell was part of my personal security detail. One of the few humans capable of keeping pace with vampire politics without getting himself killed. Intelligent enough to anticipate violence before it happened. Ruthless enough to survive it. Now he runs discreet operations for me. Intelligence gathering. Surveillance. Council infiltration. The kind of work that requires silence more than strength.If Damon did not already exist, Russell is the closest thing I would ever consider for my bloodsworn.Though even I have limits.The bloodsworn bond is not simple. It sharpens loyalty into obsession. Instinct into possession. Feeding becomes… complicated. Intimate in ways most outsiders
Max's POV I wake slowly.For a few disoriented seconds I simply lie there staring at the ceiling above me while silence settles thick around the suite. My body feels... strange yet familiar.Heavy. Rested. Warm in a way my kind should never feel.The last time I felt like this was five years ago. The night I spent with Rose. This same impossible sensation had swept through me afterward. Not simple satisfaction. Something deeper. My body shutting down completely as if every exhausted cell inside me had finally found what it had been starving for.True rest.Elusive to our kind but something I had experienced with Rose. And now Grace. Complete surrender. Hours of unconsciousness untouched by hunger or instinct. She did this to me.Rose. Grace.Is this not proof enough that Grace is indeed my Rose.I drag a hand down my face and sit up slowly leaving the sheets to pool around my waist. The room is dark except for the faint amber glow from the city outside. The other side of the bed i
Max’s POV“What I did not feel was the Sancta bond,” I say quietly.“What I felt was not repulsion. I was drawn to her. And I believe she felt the same pull.”Alexander does not react immediately. I watch him closely as he gets up and walks to the bar and pours himself a drink, then another.His ha
Alexander’s POV Maximus Valencia is as intimidating as they say he is. Reputation rarely does him justice. It cannot capture the weight of standing this close to him, of being measured by something that has ruled longer than most human bloodlines have existed. His name alone reshapes rooms. His p
Max's POV She should have been found by now. The thought circles my mind endlessly. People do not simply vanish. Not in my world. Not without leaving a trail. And yet she has. No sightings. No confirmed movement. No trace strong enough to anchor. I stand at the windows of my office at Valenci
Alex’s POV Christopher Stratford is waiting to see me. I deliberately let him. When the doors finally open and he is ushered into my office, I rise from behind my desk on instinct. A courtesy long ingrained though rarely exercised. He stops when he sees me. I observe this with interest. H







