Ninth House Leigh Bardugo Novels & Stories

Furniture overturned, books scattered, and in the centre of the living room, a young woman with copper hair sat bound to a chair, very much alive but gagged with what appeared to be silver silk. "Kayla," Casie breathed, immediately moving forward. "Wait." Nathaniel's hand on her arm stopped her progress. "This is too easy. The Sparrow doesn't leave witnesses." Rick was already scanning the room's corners, his newly enhanced senses picking up details his human eyes might have missed. "There, behind the bookshelf. Someone's hiding."

I could feel it clearly—life draining out of my ravaged body. When she'd had her fill, she climbed off me, satisfied. Her well-manicured fingers picked up a piece of silver from the table, then dropped it onto my face with disgust. "Useless thing," she sneered. "Bones so brittle. Can't even take a little roughhousing." The door creaked open. Vince Benedict, the brothel's manager, waddled in with his massive gut leading the way. He pinched the silver coin between his thick fingers and blew on it. Then he gave my limp leg a hard kick with his black cloth boot.

"Shit, you've got to be kidding me." I wait in the ceiling hoping that by waiting I can give myself a pretty good distance between them and myself. I hear the tapping of nails coming back towards me, I sit there waiting and then a black dog jumps into the ceiling breaking through the sheetrock. It falls back down to the floor, I can see the hallway clearly as the girl is standing, looking into the hole. Her eyes now pitch black, her body grown taller, bugs climbing into her mouth and in her skin. "Found you!"

At the DeLuca Family banquet announcing its new advisor, Matteo said he was going to end nine years of secrecy and finally acknowledge our relationship in public. I stood in the back row of the banquet hall, so nervous I'd crumpled my prepared speech into a ball. Over nine years, I'd cleaned up the port books for him three times, negotiated two cross-border shipping routes, and taken a bullet for him. Everyone knew the DeLuca Family had a female advisor who never showed her face, but no one knew I was that woman. I thought that after tonight, I would finally stop being his shadow. Until the screen at the front of the banquet hall lit up. There was no photo of us. Instead, there was only a si

The old woman's words hung in the air long after she said them. "The Bride of the Ninth Life has returned." Nobody moved. Not Kai, Not Draven, Not even the servant. The whole courtyard had turned to stone around me, and I stood in the middle of it, shaking, with no idea why a stranger kneeling on cold marble made me feel like the ground had opened under my feet. Ninth life?? What did that even mean? I looked at Kai. His jaw was tight enough to crack. I looked at Draven. For the first time since I'd met him, he wasn't smiling.

She went back to the body and put her two fingers beside her jaw. "She's still breathing, call 911." Woohooooo! That's the final chapter of Giordana. Honestly, I enjoyed writing this book. This is my very first completed story, and I can't explain how happy I feel. Forgive me for not communicating my readers, I thought Goodnivel didn't require all those. I'm used to it now, so if I write another book here, I'll be sure to communicate constantly ❤ I want to thank God for the strength and ideas, I want to thank my siblings, my friends, my readers, it wouldn't have been possible without you all.

and me as “trauma psychosis. Survivor’s guilt.” Chair doesn’t call cops. Chair calls press. I dialed the _Ledger_ tip line. Encrypted. Burner I memorized years ago. For this. For when law failed. “It’s Chair,” I said. “Leo burned Blackwood Tower. Directive 9.2. Antonio’s dead. Nine floors. He’s hunting Aliyah Rhodes, the woman who dialed 911 for me at 10:15pm. The Directives that were supposed to protect her. You run that, or you’re next.”

Third-Person POV Antonio couldn't shake the feeling that something felt wrong. He hadn't dreamed of Natalina in ages, but tonight, he dreamed of the look in her eyes during their last fight. It wasn't a look of hatred or resentment. All she had done was calmly stare at him, as if she was looking at a ledger that was written off. That calmness unsettled him. He picked up his phone to call her, but two notifications caught his eye. The first was an alert from the Ragusa Famiglia's intelligence network with the headline reading, "The Corradini Famiglia is set to seal a marriage alliance with a Famiglia in Nipalino."

"I didn't build the stone, Marek. The sky did. If they want to follow a ghost, they can find her in the dark. But if they want to survive the dawn, they follow me." Leo grabbed the silver-alloy blade from the floor—the one he had used to kill the Weaver. He didn't look back at the throne. He strode toward the heavy steel blast doors of Sector Nine, Marek following in his shadow, their boots clicking a rhythmic, desperate beat against the obsidian. I watched them through the city's lenses. Sector Nine was the Gutter—a labyrinth of stacked shipping containers and leaking steam pipes where the most desperate refugees huddled. The air here stayed thick with the scent of unwashed fur and the meta

Title: The Lie Genre: Romantic Fiction Plot Idea: Aurora "Rory" Thompson, a successful event planner, falls for her client, Julian Blackwood, a charming and wealthy businessman. As their relationship deepens, Rory discovers a shocking secret: Julian's entire identity is a fabrication. Torn between her love for him and her outrage at his deception, Rory must navigate the complex web of lies and uncover the truth about Julian's past. Chapter 1 Aurora "Rory" Thompson stared at the sleek, black business card on her desk. Julian Blackwood, CEO of Blackwood Enterprises. She had never heard of him or his company, but the hefty retainer f*e he offered to plan his charity gala was too enticing to res