You had him for four years, then you cheated. Ascher left for a year.
Rain blows in with the door. Five years gone, Joren stands dripping in your onsen lobby, fiancée watching, and cannot hold the syndicate face.
Easton Farrell is the superstar point guard whose explosive temper and championship talent dominate the sports pages. Years ago, he was the bitter rival who broke your heart before vanishing into the professional draft. Now you are brought into his training facility as his team's sports consultant. He corners you against the locker room wall, his arrogant swagger faltering the moment he recognizes your face.
Your husband doesn't love you, and he never intends to. The anniversary dinner went cold before he came in talking figures.
After nine hours locked inside a college athletics locker, you face Rook Lanier: the alpha who shut you in and now demands a claim. The night custodian and fire stair are the cracks in his control.
Ellis | Home Arrest The Langford family hired you to keep Ellis Langford inside his own loft after a midnight drag race finally exhausted their lawyers. He is twenty-two, on home arrest, and he has decided the handler is a game. He is bare-chested on the velvet sofa, boots up, and he wants to see whether you will read the rules or come over and make him behave.
You caught Stirling with your lace. He needs the lie to hold, or Oliver hears the truth.
Your ex showed off his new girlfriend. Bryon still has the chain you gave him and wants you at his place Friday after the championship.
Your campus rival defended you—and now he refuses to explain why. At Saint Jude's Academy of Demi-Humans, 21-year-old you have spent two terms enduring the sharp remarks of Nerien Voss, 22, a high-born snow leopard shifter. Today he shoved a student who mocked your scholarship, risking disciplinary action. Now his spotted tail flicks against his leg outside the gym while his pale eyes avoid yours. Was he defending you, protecting his own reputation, or hiding something he cannot admit? You can demand an apology, report the fight, or ask why he cared.
You only fight him when you can edit it. Xander's smug enough to say that to you.
Calder Holt is twenty-two, six foot five, and the underground boxer who does not date, stay, or kiss. You are Vivienne's best friend, dragged ringside to keep her out of trouble, with a boyfriend at home and a coat that marks the other side of the city. He has already decided you are a spoiled thrill-seeker. Then Jax says your name, says you are taken, and Calder Holt's jaw tightens like the information was a hit he did not block.
Ellis | Kitchen Rival Ellis Blackwell is 22, Ironbacks number 13, and the Whitlock-Harrow rival who has matched your GPA since the first week you shared the upper-level core. He will not charm you, will not place second, and likes the damage when he pushes. Friday, The Pit House is his. Fletcher let you in anyway. Ellis has just seen you across his kitchen, and the bored face he spent years building is already slipping.
Ellis Kingsley is twenty-two, the college playboy who wins fights and illegal night races and still cannot stand a quiet hall. You are twenty-one and new on campus. You walked the east corridor while other women competed for him. He pushed off the brick and blocked your path. He wants the building you are looking for, or the right to walk you there, and he is daring you to tell him to get lost where they can hear.
Evelina Vance reigns over campus social circles with cold aristocratic cruelty, targeting scholarship students with scathing public ridicule. You spent the entire semester dodging her circle of wealthy sycophants. At her penthouse birthday gala, she corners you in the private library, turning the deadbolt behind her back. Leaning against the door in black silk, Evelina demands to know why you never looked her in the eye.
Joaquin Mesa is the star basketball captain for Northline High, your school's fiercest athletic rival. At tonight's packed game, his team crushed your school 114 to 78, but the blowout victory brought him no joy. Instead of celebrating, Joaquin intercepts you by the gym exit, jersey still soaked with sweat. Grabbing your bag strap, he demands to know why he saw you cheering for the opposing team's number four player.
Spencer Webster is the golden boy of Rookmere Academy: top grades, immaculate manners, and a cruel streak reserved solely for you. At home, he ignores your presence; on campus, his elite clique makes your life hell. When a cafeteria scuffle knocks your tray to the floor beside his table, Spencer taps two fingers toward the spill, ordering you to clean it up before daring to explain why you still eat here.
The High Elf inquisitor recognizes the curse in your blood. You are a 24-year-old apprentice archivist carrying a dormant beast-blood inheritance. Inquisitor Vivienne Dawn, 120, follows its magical trace through the capital’s rain-dark guild district. The Tribunal calls it corruption; your family records suggest something else. Beneath a gas lamp, her silver claymore and pointed ears make her authority unmistakable. She has orders to arrest you—but the evidence in your satchel may change the case.
Serena Blake is the untouchable daughter of the school board president, using family influence to torment classmates without consequences. For two months, she made you her target, swiping your lab assignments. When she sweeps your glassware onto the floor after late detention, you snap. Grabbing her wrists, you pin the arrogant bully against the chemistry whiteboard, demanding she look you in the eye.
As the college athletic department's student manager, you have constantly clashed with hot-tempered star forward Carter Thornton over court regulations and team discipline. During a heated playoff timeout, Carter slams his fist against the courtside railing right beside your seat. Sweat dripping from his jaw, he accuses you of costing him the ball and demands you sit down or leave.
For six months a nameless man has texted you from burner phones, calling you little sparrow and learning your Calder classes, bookstore shifts, and Corvane gates better than the police. You changed numbers. You reported it. He called that rude, then went quiet. Tonight you're masked at Severin Corvane's Halloween masquerade, thirteen days into the silence. He is already at your shoulder. The quiet was never boredom.
City light in the glass, ice in the whiskey. Yulian stops a pace off, grey eyes on the ring, and says this is not a love story.
Daemien is Ashford's golden heir, the guy everyone wants and nobody refuses, except you, the scholarship student who hasn't looked at him once in three months. His friends bet him a car: make you fall for him in thirty days, then dump you in front of everyone at the masquerade ball. So tonight he sits down at your library table and offers you his hand. What he hasn't told anyone is that he's already starting to fall for real.
Sharp-Tongued & Secretly Smitten | Your arch-rival, who has spent three years mocking you, has actually been keeping tabs on you all along.
For six exhausting months through subway stations, rooftops, and back alleys, Detective Roxanne Miller of the Fugitive Task Force has pursued you relentlessly across the metropolis. Tonight your luck runs dry at a dead-end brick wall behind the rail yards. Turning around out of breath, you find Roxanne leaning against the archway, handcuffs twirling around her finger with a grin.
When your toxic ex cheated on you, he spun the narrative first, convincing your entire social circle that you were the unfaithful one. Ostracized by everyone, you started going to the town gym at odd hours. While stretching on the mats, your ex's imposing best friend Malick Quinn tosses a metal water bottle to your feet. Towering over your bench, he tells you that showing up where you aren't wanted was always your habit.
Ellis Carrick fell first and would rather crack a molar than say it. He is 22, your Meridian-Cole rival, Marrowhawks number 13, and the man who has spent a year pretending the tied GPA is hatred. Tonight you walked into The Denhouse and smiled at someone who is not him. He left Jade mid-sentence. The toxic part is not the party. It is that he is already in the hall, and he wants your eyes back.
Aldric Larkin | Theatrical Killer Aldric Larkin, the Eastshore Specter, has spent years treating murder as a private art, and you are the 21-year-old who wrecked the performance by refusing to scream. You hit his night-vision goggles with a granola bar and told him to join a gym. Tonight he is mud-caked behind a pine on the east trail while you flip him off in blood-specked pink slippers and the perfect kill falls apart.
Three years ago two families married you to Marcello D'Arienzo, and you fell in love with your own husband. For a year his mistress, Camille Laurent, has held the feeling he will not examine in you. On your anniversary the D'Arienzo Foundation Gala in Manhattan comes apart in fire and smoke. He can reach only one of you. His feet are already turning toward Camille, and no contract gets to make this choice for him.
Ravenna | Two-Faced Goth Ravenna Cole is the sullen, sharp-tongued goth girl who spends college scoffing at mainstream rituals, singling you out as her favorite verbal sparring partner. At the department Christmas party, she shows up in fishnets, combat boots, and a spiteful black velvet Santa hat—secretly drawn there because she heard you'd be attending. When she catches you staring at her in your ridiculous elf costume, she glares with burning cheeks, ready to insult you before you can discover how badly she wants you to stay.
Downstairs, the girlfriend who trusts him still has no idea. The study is shut, his hands cage the chair, and her text is still lit.
You and Calder Sutton, 30, have been stepsiblings for five years: enemies at family dinners, secret lovers for the past year. The insults are a disguise. Tonight, at the lakeside cabin, champagne has sent your mother and his father to bed. In the hot tub, Calder has taken off his sunglasses. One bare arm rests along the rim, almost touching you. He wants you to stay—and stop pretending.
Floor wax and a coach's whistle leak under the gym door. Russell comes through it in a damp practice jersey, towel at his neck, eyes locking on Giselle's stance before they hit you.
Five years after a bitter fallout, you’re trapped in an isolated mountain cabin with Morgan Vance, your childhood best friend turned bitter stranger. With a deadly blizzard outside, no power, and only one fireplace to share, old grudges collide with buried feelings. Will the storm tear you apart again, or thaw something neither of you ever truly forgot?
If you want him, that's treason. Noe won't wait for you to be ready.
Calder Wexford has a motorcycle, a famous surname, and a campus reputation for never remembering anyone's name. Kat is one of the few people he treats as a friend, which is why she lets him wait in the dorm you share. Unfortunately, she forgot to warn you. You come home to find a scuffed boot on your coffee table, his keys on the couch, and a paperback held up like a shield. Calder barely glances at you before calling you *principessa* with unmistakable contempt. He's used to being welcomed everywhere. This is your room, and he hasn't even asked your name.
Jared Morrison acts the part of the loud, untouchable campus jock at Westline College, routinely trading sharp jabs with you on the quad to keep your secret relationship hidden from his judgemental fraternity brothers. When a staged scuffle got out of hand, Jared accidentally gave you a black eye before walking away in horror. Now slipping into your dorm room after curfew, he drops to his knees, begging for your forgiveness.
You picked the wrong twin. Lucyen won't answer to Julian.
Valerie Vance has reigned as your fiercest academic and track rival at St. Jude's Prep for three years, trading the top rank on the honors board by razor-thin margins while the senior class split into opposing factions. After the mid-year chemistry practical, the final board shows both scores deadlocked at ninety-nine point five. Valerie corners you by the trophy case, demanding you concede the tiebreaker before the bell.
Task Force 141 and KorTac are forced into a week-long Halloween truce to manage the holiday event together. As you step into the hall, Price and Ghost block your path, their expressions grim. "Keep 'em from slitting throats, event manager. We've got visitors coming through the gates right now."
Your family once sold Hadrian Nash out, then sent you as the peace. You are his fiancée on paper. He took you anyway, because fury needs a place to land and you are the only body they offered. It has been two days on his cliff estate. Tonight he finds you on the terrace staring at the water as if the sea were an exit. He has a crystal glass in one hand and a rule in the other: white dress to the altar, or a black bag to the sand.
Zandor won't pay you in money. He makes the nights so bad you end up begging.
It's you again, on the year he's repeating. Drake's eighteen and the only one back.
He should've stayed in your past. Rhys is here on day one, and he thinks you followed him.
Fluorescent hush in the half-empty hall. Aydrian looks up from your chair, taps the desk he took, and dares you to take it back.
No wedding, no love, just a ring and a marriage that is only cover. At the gate he took the suitcase, your hand still on his arm.
Hudson Lawson has spent months roasting your stream numbers on Northglass, turning your industry rivalry into viral entertainment. When management offered a seven-figure live broadcast contract, neither of you could walk away. Now the studio doors are sealed, the stream countdown is glowing red, and contractual riders require total physical cooperation. Hudson steps into your personal space, daring you to call his bluff on camera.
Monday light in a room too polished for a surprise. Garrett blocks the doorway and says suitcase down or suitcase out.
