Nine Lives Caryl Novels & Stories

Grey eyes cold and assessing, the eyes of a man used to owning every space he walked into. My whole body went still, and the tray in my hands started to shake. Nine years. Nine years, and I would have known that face anywhere, that scar above his left eyebrow, that jaw I used to trace with my fingers on quiet mornings a lifetime ago. Zadok. "Blackwood." Someone near me whispered. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I could only stand there in the middle of that glittering room, champagne tray trembling in my hands, staring straight at the man I'd spent nine years running from.

She carefully picked up each piece from the trash. She worked patiently to put them back together. There were exactly ninety-nine make-up cards. She remembered five years ago when she had looked at the cards with sincerity and said, “Yoel, don’t worry. I’ll never give you a chance to use them.” She also remembered all the times she had casually offered to use them over the years. The feelings she had worked so hard to save had been wasted in the two years with Connor until they were completely gone. Yvette, who had always been careful about numbers, seemed to lose all sense of the ninety-nine make-up cards whenever Connor was around.

I gave a soft, bitter laugh and slowly slipped our documents back into my pocket. “This makes ninety-nine.” “What?” “This is the ninety-ninth time we’ve tried to get our marriage registered.” I turned toward the subway entrance. “And the ninety-ninth time you’ve left me hanging because of him.” I heard her heels stop on the pavement, then suddenly start running after me. “The first time, you bailed on our trip because he was on the night shift and scared of the dark. You took a red-eye flight just to be with him. “The second time, we were practically at the door of the courthouse. You heard he fainted from overwork and left me standing in the snow alone for an entire day.”

I waited for eight years. What I got was his ninety-ninth canceled wedding, watching him hold another woman in his arms while feeding her drinks, and him forcing my hands onto broken glass just to make another woman happy. That was when I woke up from the dream. When I opened my eyes, dawn was already breaking outside. Pale light spread across the ocean’s surface. The pillow beneath my face was damp, though I didn’t know when I had started crying. The things happening back in Corholt reached me through the Anderson family’s intelligence network.

Damien shifts uncomfortably, not able to look at her in the eye but she is addressing Lavi. “I can get the entire army to Veneer within hours,” Nine claims. Lavi frowns at her. “How?” he quietly demands. “I took over the Black Jacks,” Nine reveals. “And now I have control over thousands of Candles of Phestos which Two has been hiding all these years.”

Lil Nine said lewd things and began to tear Ella’s clothes off. “Disgusting rascal! You are not afraid of going to h*ll?!” Ella cursed while struggling. “Going to h*ll? Hahaha!” Lil Nine responded with a big laugh. “I, Ol' Nine, am a dangerous and cruel person. One thing I do not believe in the most is heaven and earth!” “You will receive retribution! Even if I am dead, I will make sure you get punished!” Ella cursed in rage.

Dozens of pages. His grandfather had documented everything. He flipped through them quickly until something caught his eye. One page had been torn out. Cleanly. Deliberately. The missing page had been numbered... NINE. Adrian frowned. "Someone removed page nine." Evelyn's face lost all color. "No..." "What?" "It wasn't removed." "What do you mean?" She slowly closed the journal. "It was taken." "That's the same thing." "No." She looked directly into his eyes. "Page Nine is the First Cipher."

When I finally called him out, he pulled me close and whispered: "Babe, you're the only one I love. She's just a thrill—something to shake up the routine. Once I'm done, I'll come back. You're my Luna, my forever. So be generous, yeah?" It wrecked me. My wolf howled. No air. No thoughts. Just pain. I wanted to walk away. But I couldn't unlove him—not after everything we were. So I dug out the ninety-nine love letters he wrote me—and made a choice. I'd forgive him. Ninety-nine times. Every time he crushed me, I'd burn one. And when I torched the last? I'd be gone. Tonight, I lit number ninety-seven. Watched his words burn, thinking, 'Only two left, Brian.'

Her fingers hovered over the cover before she finally opened it. The name at the top of the page wasn’t Delilah. It wasn’t anyone she recognized. But Alec’s voice was a low whisper behind her. “She’s part of the Nine.” Zara’s head snapped up. “The Nine? That’s a myth.” “No,” Alec said, leaning close. “It’s not. It’s real. And Juliette’s just the first pawn. The rest of them? They want something far more dangerous than your father.” “What?” “You.”

With a look that combined all parts of determination and focus, he made his way toward the elevator that took them to the parking lot. Hayden was one of those special kids they talked about: quiet, with a challenging temperament. Driven by a deep need to be understood, he buried his resentment beneath an aloof exterior. A survivor tactic he mastered with relentless dedication. Unable to bear the hurt times and times again, he shut himself off from any emotions. Many labeled him a playboy, but those who looked deeper could tell his true nature, and Cassandra was not an exception. The driver shut the door, and soon they were on their way in the black-tinted Maybach.