Nora Roberts Under Currents Novels & Stories

I read the first line and set it back down, I left the food untouched, I crossed to the bar instead. I poured myself a glass of whiskey, it burned less than it usually did. I carried the glass toward the window, outside, the sky beyond the grounds had started to turn gold. The fountain near the gardens reflected the last of the sunlight. I rested one hand against the glass. I knew Nora had spent five years in London. I knew she had returned with Beaumont under her control. I knew she had taken Andrade before I realized she was even bidding. I knew Alexander Ashton had met her when she was carrying twins.

Far from the palace, beyond the lush forests and guarded borders of the kingdom, nestled in the jagged cliffs where the sun barely touched the land, lived a woman cloaked in shadows. Nora. Her beauty mirrored Aurora’s—identical in every way down to the celestial blue of her eyes and the cascade of dark hair. But where Aurora’s presence brought warmth and light, Nora radiated cold ambition and eerie stillness. Raised in the hidden covens of the dark witches, she had never known love or mercy. Her life had been shaped by rituals, curses, and the hunger for power. The witches whispered a prophecy from the moment she could walk: The moon bore two, but only one shall rise.

Vivienne Cabot was extraordinary in a polished, finished way, and standing next to Dominic she looked like the correct answer to a question about what his life was supposed to contain. Nora looked at the photographs longer than was useful. Then she closed the browser entirely, put on her running shoes, and went out into the October dark. Three miles. The playlist she used when she needed to outrun a thought heavy beat, no lyrics she could follow, the sonic equivalent of a white noise machine. She came back sweating and steadier and she showered and ate and sat on her fire escape with a blanket and called her mother. "How's work?" her mother asked.

He does not see what I do. That attention is not neutral. That awareness carries weight. That when probability is already strained, observation itself becomes pressure. Below us, far beyond consequence, Nora moves through the world. She breathes. She walks. She chooses. She does not feel the shift yet. The air does not change. The ground does not tremble. The sky does not darken. But something has begun to tilt. Not because I pushed it. Because I am watching closely enough to know exactly where it will break.

The kind she herself had cultivated by becoming unreachable, untouchable, a ghost. “I went for a walk, Elijah,” she said calmly. “The city is still there. And so am I.” She turned to Elnora, who was watching her with cautious hope, like someone witnessing the return of a familiar shape after a long absence. “You were right, Nora,” Robbin said quietly. “I was eroding. But I’ve found the bedrock.” In her office, Robbin opened a folder on her desk. Its label was simple, deliberate: The Foundation Ledger.

I was staring at the tiled floor, heart thudding louder than I liked. This was it. The window. I needed to plant something. Just enough to see if Max would bite. I waited until he was very engrossed on his phone before standing and moving a few steps away, just far enough to make it seem like a private call, but close enough for him to hear if he wanted to. I pressed my phone to my ear and spoke into the quiet, pretending to speak to an art gallery manager. “Hi, yes, this is Lila Bennett from Sinclair Enterprise. I’m following up on the availability of the Visage & Void collection, the oil paint pieces with the cityscape overlays?”

"What did you say?" Nora raised her hands, palms up and she tilted her head at the tinted privacy glass that separated them from the soldiers in front. "I noticed you are nervous, and I thought that we could talk to pass the time." "Mind your own business", James growled at her menacingly and Nora shrunk in her seat. The truth was that since they left the Red Moon pack, Nora was dying from boredom and James was completely ignoring her. She would prefer to be with Alpha Edward in the car, but with Luna Layla present, that wouldn’t be appropriate, so she was stuck with this teenager who was easily irritated.

Even though the official regional charter sat sealed and signed on the table, and the outlaws of the lower gorge had long since scattered into the wind, an ex-Alpha’s vigilance never truly retired—especially now that his world had expanded to include a fragile, growing life. Nora sat across the room in the large armchair by the hearth, her feet resting on a hand-woven stool. She was examining a small, leather-bound ledger filled with trade projections and resource tallies sent up by Marcus’s supply caravans. Her brow was furrowed in mild, analytical concentration as she calculated grain yields and timber stockpiles for the upcoming winter months.

Nora said in a low tone that reeked of fear. “You have time to go back,” I assured her. Vigorously shaking her head, she said, “I’m in for the long haul. I’m just saying that it’s really creepy here.” “That it is,” Anton agreed. “It is a wonder how you managed to survive it for so long.” “It isn’t all like this,” I informed him. “Yeah,” Nora chuckled. “Some of it is worse.” I rolled my eyes with amusement as I led them across a barren landscape with dead trees and no foliage.

No one else could have slipped through the protective wards without triggering alarms, but Nora had always been the exception not just to the rules of this place, but to every carefully constructed belief I had once held. She stood with her back to me, half-illuminated by the glow of a floating orb light hovering near her shoulder. Books were scattered across the long table in front of her, some open, others sealed with ancient wax and forgotten sigils. Her fingers trembled as she traced the faded ink of a map. Her eyes, when she glanced up at my approach, were sharp, wary, and far too tired. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said without preamble, like I was just another problem she