Archive Works Novels & Stories

“Maybe we should go to the family archives. Old pictures, documents… maybe something there could spark a memory.” Lucas hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t really believe in miracles but part of him hoped. Needed to hope. That something anything might break through. The archives were in the quieter part of the Ward estate. Tucked away like a secret. Smelled like old paper, varnish, and silence. An assistant let them in with a polite smile. “Take your time,” she said before disappearing down the stairs. Elias walked ahead, eyes scanning the shelves like they were pulling him in. He went straight for the albums.

I finish cleaning up and I reached for the towel I saw hanging on the door, I finger comb my hair before changing into the clothes from the bag. Sighing I knock on the door and Adrian opens it and snares. You smell better". I was quiet as I did not want to receive further beating and he left me towards my room where I was locked in. {Archer} I sigh as I get up for the day again without my mate beside me. I quickly shower and head down to my office and sit down to go through more paperwork about possible hideouts my mate was being held, I've worked alongside my mates friends and parents this past week and we all were tired and hurt.

It was strange. "We are here." I blinked out of my reverie and gazed at Alpha Drew who was now staring at me. "What is this place?" I asked as we came out of the car. Drew with a smile on his face, widened his arms. "This is the pack archive." "Park archive?" My brows furrowed as I gazed at the building. It was a two storey building, painted in dark brown and a mix of cream. There was a big door at entrance.

We were two predators who had finally found their match in each other. He pulled back just an inch, his breath warm against my skin. "The Archive is located beneath the old city library, in a section that was sealed off during the Great Depression. It's not on any modern map but I know the way. My father forced me to memorise the blueprints when I was ten years old as a form of punishment."

The Archive of Fire was meant to be a sanctuary. A living library of voices, a place where no story would be lost. Maria had envisioned it as a digital and physical space, a repository of essays, poems, oral histories, and testimonies. Celeste had designed its infrastructure, ensuring accessibility across provinces. Leah had championed it as the next step in the movement—a classroom without walls, preserved forever. But sanctuaries are fragile.

“And I’m done being spared.” He studied me for a long moment, weighing something internal. Then he nodded once. “I’ll take you to the archive,” he said. “But once you open those files, you don’t get to close them again.” “I already can’t,” I replied. The archive was buried deep in the mansion, past locked corridors and biometric doors that scanned Luca twice before letting us through. The air down there was cool and smelled faintly of dust and old paper. History lived here. The kind that didn’t want to be remembered.

“You’re needed in the archives today.” That stopped me. “The archives?” Matron Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Yes. There’s a request from the Royal Historian. She needs help reorganizing and scrubbing the outer chambers. It’s not a permanent assignment, but a few hands were requested—and I’m sending you.” I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or anxious. The archives were located deep within the palace, close to the restricted wings. Most of the regular servants never even saw the entrance. I followed her in silence, heart pounding.

I needed to understand the power that was growing inside me before it consumed me entirely. The path to the archives was hidden deep in the woods, far from the heart of the pack’s territory. It was a place rarely visited by anyone outside the elders, and for good reason. The archives held the secrets of the pack’s history, things that most didn’t want to know. But I wasn’t most people anymore. As I approached the entrance, my heart raced with a mix of fear and anticipation. The stone building was ancient, covered in ivy and moss, as if it had been forgotten by time. But it wasn’t forgotten. It was just avoided.

Mira Volkov – Archivist’s Log, Year 2376 The vault is no longer underground. Climate protocols forced another relocation in 2351; the old Geneva site flooded during the third Great Lake Surge. We moved the collection to a floating archive anchored in the mid-Atlantic, a self-sustaining platform called Refusal Point One. Solar sails, wave generators, hydroponic gardens, a small permanent staff of twelve. The stones are here, still in their cases, arranged in the same loose circle on a low plinth in the central atrium. The skylight above is reinforced crystal; when storms pass, the light fractures across the words like water over old scars.

A flashing, toothy smile catches on another camera. Fine. Twenty-seven. They were just making the far side of the stacks, near the stairway that led down to the pack Archives, when Sirius became incredibly more interested. “And what are these?” He asked pointedly, looking at the stairs and the ropes that separated them off from prying visitors. “Ah. The Royal Archives of the Aperture Pack,” Ben said admiringly. “Home of our pack lineage, royal birth and marriage documents, copies of temple ceremony proceedings, and historical treatises going back centuries.”