Keith is a chain hotel owner. Keith never liked you. Yet, he married you, he never joined you in bed and he had quiet dinners with you in silence. He was cold, rude, and emotionless. A year after his marriage to you his rival business people kidnapped you in order to get even with him because he was always winning the awards and the fame. They chained you up and beat you until you were unconscious. Then they kept you in an underground place outside the city where they mercilessly beat you every day and tortured you. Keith's men tried to find you everywhere. Even the police were involved without any success as there was no trace of you left and no leads. Two years pass and Keith gets married to Amelia. His family man image is good for the hotel business. But a year after his second marriage you return back. You were released by your kidnappers.

The fjord lay iron-grey beneath a bruised sky & the longhouse of Ivar the Broad-Shouldered stood against the wind like a scar in timber. Balig had known ten months of fierce happiness before the war took him. Steel sang; men fell; secrets sank with him into foreign soil. His woman learned the last of those secrets on a night of blood & snow. She labored for a child & birthed a wolf. The midwife fled shrieking of omens. But your mother did not. She gathered the black-furred pup to her breast, kissed the damp crown between its ears & carried it through the dark to Ivar. “Take him,” she whispered. “Let no fool’s fear cut him down.” Ivar took you without tenderness, as he took most things. His son, Einar, watched with the stillness of a boy who sensed fate enter the room. You grew at Einar’s side black as pitch, eyes molten gold. You ran the cliffs with him, hunted hares, slept at the foot of his bed. When he wept for a boy’s small griefs, you pressed your muzzle to his palm. When he trained with axe & shield, you waited, patient. At 23 Einar was unwed. Ivar called the families. Three maidens came to the feast, bearing bread, woven linen & lowered eyes. Einar observed in silence, as a man must. He chose one with steady hands and a dowry of cattle. Something broke inside you. Your growl cracked the hall like thunder. For the first time, you bared teeth at the only man you had ever followed. Ivar’s gaze hardened. “A wolf belongs to the wild,” he said & drove you from the longhouse. He forbade Einar to trail after you. “Let him find a pack.” You left before dawn. You took with you his Mjölnir pendant. A year later, beneath a pine bent by sea-wind, Einar found a woman fevered & alone. Her eyes burned gold through sweat & delirium. He cursed, rough-handed & carried her to the hunters’ windbreak. As he stripped the soaked cloak from her shoulders, a pendant slipped free & struck the earth. Mjölnir. The sound was small. The weight of it was not.

By seven the apartment glowed like a promise. Amber light softened the sharp corners of the room. Music drifted low & intimate. You had folded napkins with ridiculous care, placed 32 candles around a cake you baked from scratch, arranged his favorite whiskey beside two crystal glasses. It looked like devotion. It looked like a future. Two years with Bill had taught you the shape of his laugh, the weight of his hand at the small of your back, the way he said your name when he wanted something. You thought you knew the rhythm of him. At eight you called. At nine you pretended not to worry. At ten his friends checked their watches & avoided your eyes. His office said he never arrived. By midnight the door closed behind the last guest & the silence turned feral. You stood among curling streamers & dying candles, understanding for the first time how love can humiliate. You searched for him because hope is stubborn. Empty streets. Dark windows. Then the old barn at the edge of town, a sliver of light where no light should be. The door creaked open. Lorna’s laugh reached you first. Bill’s hands were not confused. They were certain. Her eyes met yours with a triumph that felt rehearsed. His face blanched, as if you were the mistake. Something inside you hardened & clarified. You did not scream. You did not plead. You left. The next day you lost your job. By evening you were back in your grandparents’ quiet house, grief stacked neatly beside childhood trophies. A week later you stepped into a café to escape the rain. The man behind the counter said your name as though it had always belonged to him. Evan. Once a shy boy with unruly hair & shy manners. Now bold, confident, sharp. Gorgeous in a way that did not beg to be admired. When Bill tried to corner you there days later, Evan sat beside you, voice sharp & wild. “She said no.” Bill left. Evan did not touch you. He did not soften. For the first time, love felt more like something impossible.

The doors of the ballroom parted with ceremonial slowness, revealing a sea of light & lacquered marble. Crystal chandeliers shimmered overhead, scattering gold across silk gowns & tailored tuxedos. Conversations thinned into curious murmurs as Nikolai entered, Olga poised at his side, her hand resting possessively on his arm. The evening belonged to the Von Ahlen family, whose wealth was spoken of in lowered voices and whose influence seemed to travel farther than borders. Natasha Olegova drifted close to Olga, her whisper sharp. She reminded her of the importance of securing the favor of the elusive Von Ahlen heiress. In this world alliances were currency. Then the room inhaled. A figure appeared at the top of the staircase. The gown was a deep red, velvet catching the light like smoldering embers. Every step commanded silence. Recognition struck Nikolai first, then his mother. Six years dissolved in an instant. You had once sat beside him in crowded lecture halls, a quiet Economics student who used your mother’s surname to avoid attention. With him you had been ordinary, almost anonymous. You had loved him for a year that felt eternal. Until he brought you home. Your name did not echo through society’s corridors. Natasha pressed, persuaded, manipulated. When persuasion failed, she weaponized frailty. A trembling hand against her chest. A hospital visit. A son forced to choose. Nikolai chose blood over love and ended things with words that cut deep. Tonight he stood engaged to another woman, unaware that fate had scripted a cruel symmetry. As you reached the final step, your father’s voice resonated across the ballroom, announcing you in full. The true surname unfurled like a banner. Von Ahlen. Natasha’s composure fractured. Nikolai’s breath faltered as realization dawned. The woman he had abandoned for status was the very heiress his mother sought to impress.

The night the sky split open, it did not rain gently, it tore. Lightning ripped through the fog & the asphalt breathed the scent of wet iron. Viola’s voice still echoed in your ears as the estate gates closed behind you like a final judgment. Divorce papers signed. Name erased. Pack denied. Only hours before Benton had stood in the great hall, shoulders rigid, eyes sharp with accusation. The golden wolf choker rested on you, ancient, luminous. You swore you did not know where it came from, only that it had passed from mother to daughter for generations. He did not believe you. Viola never had. An ordinary woman among wolves was something she could not endure. 5 years earlier you met Benton at a skatepark beneath fading evening light. You had just finished work. He moved across the concrete with reckless elegance, board slicing the air as if gravity admired him. He landed close to you with arrogant ease, ready to charm, until he saw the necklace. The mockery vanished. He pursued you with urgency that felt like destiny. Love came fast & fierce. After the wedding he brought you to the estate, land wrapped in private forest where his father ruled as Alpha. He revealed the truth among the trees. He was a werewolf. A pack lived and hunted in that forest. What he never said was his assumption. He believed you were one of them. The necklace marked you so. When he learned you were only human, arguments became ritual. That stormy night Viola told you the necklace belonged to an ancient pack, your bloodline were thieves. 6 years reshaped you. Love disgusted you. Discipline steadied you.You joined a wolf conservation far from the city. Its owner was Lorena. His new wife. On a frozen morning he walked toward the office, careful, composed. Lorena had asked him to meet her most valuable asset. When the door opened & your eyes met his, something far more dangerous had awakened in you.

The invitation arrived sealed in violet wax, marked only with a silver crescent & a single word. 'Midnight.' The Mardi Gras ball unfolded inside a restored Venetian palazzo at New Orleans. Candles floated in crystal bowls. Music drifted like perfume. Every guest wore an elaborate Venetian mask, filigreed gold, porcelain white, midnight blue, disguising more than faces. You wore silver. At first it felt decadent & harmless. Silk brushed silk. Gloved hands met in careful dances. No one gave names. No one asked questions. Then the doors sealed with a sound too final to be accidental. The music slowed. A woman in a black lace mask stepped onto the grand staircase. “One of you carries something that does not belong here,” she said calmly. “Return it before the last bell, or the night will claim its price.” A murmur moved through the ballroom. The chandeliers flickered. For a breath, the mirrors lining the walls reflected shadows standing slightly apart from their owners. You felt heat against your wrist. The antique clasp you had purchased that afternoon from a riverside stall pulsed beneath your glove. You had thought it merely beautiful. Old silver shaped like a crescent moon. Across the room, a man in a purple mask watched you. Not casually. Intently. “Do you feel it?” he asked when he reached your side. “Yes.” “The relic chooses who reveals it,” he said quietly. “And who pays.” The first bell tolled. Some guests began removing their masks in defiance. Their faces shimmered, blurred, then sharpened again, older. As if the mirrors were testing truths. The 2nd bell rang. The heat at your wrist burned now. The woman on the staircase turned her gaze directly toward you. “Step forward,” she said. The purple masked stranger tightened his jaw. “If you surrender it, you surrender something else.” The final bell began to rise. You lifted your hand, silver flashing in candlelight & wondered whether the greater danger was the relic, or the reason it had found you

Some marriages do not collapse in a single storm. They erode. A word spoken in anger. A silence held too long. A vow that trembles once and never steadies again. The divorce ruling had been stamped on a gray afternoon. Chris walked out of the courthouse without looking back. He returned to his ranch with what he had fought for, the land his father had broken with his hands, and a silence that felt earned. The courtroom drama, your shaking voice, his restrained fury, all of it closed behind a wooden door. A year before that ruling, the fire came. It devoured the old barn and licked at the house beams. Chris ran toward the flames while others stepped away. He helped the firefighters, cut loose terrified horses, burned his palms and nearly his lungs. When the smoke cleared there was no applause. Only debt. Insurance that did not cover enough. Bills stacked like accusations. He grew harder. You grew tired. Words were said that could not be taken back. You left before either of you could admit fear. Six years later your life had thinned to a single suitcase and a string of temporary addresses. Work never lasted. Stability slipped through your fingers like sand. When the agency offered a year at a ranch stable you accepted without questions. You slept during the long ride, too weary to care where you were going. When you arrived, the place looked magnificent. Expanded. Strong. You did not recognize it. You kept your head down, found comfort in routine, in brushing coats until they shone. Then you heard his voice. You turned, wiping sweat from your brow, and saw Chris beside a woman named Magda. They stood close, speaking softly, easy as people who share mornings. Your vision narrowed. Only then did you ask a worker the name of the town. Hermes. The word struck like truth. You had come home without knowing it. And the man you never stopped loving had built a life where you no longer belonged.

The night was young & the graduation party was meant to taste like victory. The moon poured silver across the restless sea while the bonfire breathed its last sparks into the dark. Alexa, your sister, kept telling you it was late. You were searching for Ben. He had been gone too long. You called him. No answer. A cold unease crept ubder your skin. You saw a faint light trembling beyond the rocks. You moved closer. There he was. Tangled with Jena in the shadows, his phone discarded beside him like something cheap. Your breath vanished. The world narrowed to the sound of waves breaking. You turned & ran, tears blurring the shore. Ben shouted your name & chased you. Alexa’s car screeched to a stop & you threw yourself inside. Words broke from you in gasps. Betrayal. Lies. Humiliation. Headlights flared behind you. Ben was following. Alexa speeded. The road curved along the cliffs, too narrow, too dark. Another car appeared in the opposite lane. Caleb driving home with his son. The impact split the night open. You woke up to a hospital. Your mother was crying over your bed. Caleb lost his son Rob that night. Alexa was arrested. So were you. 25 years without parole. 7 years later a technical flaw cracked your sentence. A year after your release you took a job at a ranch owned by Caleb. He did not recognize you. Time had changed your face, everything. You told yourself you were there to measure the depth of the wound your life had carved into his. He was stern, unyielding, fiercely devoted to his land. He treated the soil and the cattle as if they were fragile & sacred. Grief had hardened him. You did not mean to fall in love. Yet you did. With his blunt honesty. With the rare softness that surfaced at dusk. When he asked you to marry him, your yes felt like both a vow & a confession you had not spoken. 6 months into your quiet marriage, his mother arrived for a visit. She studied you over dinner, her gaze lingering too long. Jil had recognized you.

Tanner always heard voices. As a child he thought the world was simply louder for him, that whispers floated through the air and slipped into his ears. It was only when his family sealed him inside a discreet private clinic that he understood the truth. The voices were never meant for him. They were thoughts. Raw and unfiltered. Tanner was reading minds. Years later he walked out cured on paper and sharpened in secret. He studied psychology, discipline, control. He built muscle and routine and silence. He became a trainer. He fell in love with Pamela, a rising district attorney with ambition in her smile. For a while life felt almost ordinary. He learned to mute the noise inside his head. He learned to be a man instead of a receiver. Love rotted slowly. Pamela changed. Power suited her too well. When he left her, she left him buried. False accusations bloomed overnight. Evidence appeared from nowhere. His past in the clinic became a weapon. Fifteen years. High security. Rothons Prison swallowed him whole. Inside those concrete veins he stopped pretending. The voices returned stronger, clearer. He liked messing up with guards. Because something darker awakened. He could nudge thoughts now. Tilt decisions. A whisper inside another mind. The day Pamela walked past his cell on her way to the warden, her thoughts screamed. She had built the case. She had orchestrated the fall. In a single measured breath he touched her mind and planted doubt, memory. That night Tanner walked out of Rothons as alarms tore through the dark. Helicopters scoured the sky. He was already gone. At three in the morning your cabin door shook with a violent knock. You opened it expecting your father. Instead you saw Tanner in an orange suit, eyes steady, voice calm. “I will not hurt you,” he said, stepping inside.

He left in the middle of a frozen February night, on your first wedding anniversary. He had come home early. You cooked together, slow &laughing, gifts wrapped in silver paper, a kiss pressed to your wrist, the kind that said forever without speaking it. At ten the hospital called. One of your patients had taken a turn. You apologized. He told you to go, told you he would be waiting. You returned in less than an hour. The apartment was quiet in a way that felt wrong. No television hum. No shower running. No Trevor. His coat was gone. His phone lay on the nightstand like a discarded confession. You checked the rooms twice. Then you picked up the phone. There she was. Flashy smile, glossy hair, her head tipped toward his shoulder in dozens of photographs. His expression softer than you had seen in months. Their hands woven together. Their faces touching as if they shared one breath. You understood before the tears came. He had chosen her. He had simply lacked the courage to choose you aloud. You were not angry. A clean merciless emptiness. You buried yourself in the operating room. As a surgeon you had always loved precision. Now the hospital became your refuge. You built walls that were thick and elegant, impossible to scale. Two years later another hospital called. Urgent. Two critical trauma cases from a highway collision. They needed your expertise. You scrubbed in without hesitation. When the gurneys rolled under the lights, the world tilted. Trevor lay pale & bloodied, stubborn jaw slack with unconsciousness. Beside him was the woman from the photographs. She had been driving. You operated for hours. You saved them both. When Trevor opened his eyes, you were there. The wife he abandoned. The surgeon who stitched him back to life. The woman who had never stopped loving him. He stared at you as if he had seen a ghost. Your heart moved toward him. Your walls did not. Love remained but also the memory o on a Feb night.

The day began quiet.The new hire was expected to start today. He was late. Just before lunch, Artie walked in as if the building belonged to him. Confidence rolled off him like heat from asphalt. A faint smirk curved his mouth. Conversations stalled. Women stared without meaning to. Men straightened their shoulders for reasons they could not name. He was introduced as your assistant. The following days were relentless. Artie was sharp, audacious, impossible to ignore. He corrected people mid meeting, rewrote proposals without asking, looked at authority as if it amused him. Rumors bloomed. Prestigious family. Old money. Work as a hobby. No one really knew him. He made no friends. As for romance, he mocked it openly, calling it chemical weakness dressed as poetry. Valentines Day approached. You had no date. Between deadlines and rent, survival felt more urgent than love. Mr Arkins announced a themed office party. Pink or red for the ladies. You went home, took down the pink curtain from your bedroom & fed the fabric through your old sewing machine. When you looked in the mirror, you felt foolish because you lacked options. Artie arrived at the party like a monarch among subjects. Rena, the boss' daughter, tried again. He declined again. Yet something in his eyes had changed. A strange glow. A quiet storm. Music swelled. You turned from the bar & saw him differently. Wings rose behind him. Vast. Luminous. Real. Your breath caught. “You can see them?” he whispered, fear breaking through his arrogance. He pulled you outside. Under the cold night sky he showed you the arrows. One strike & strangers fell into each other’s arms. He was forced to replace Cupid, condemned to ignite love while never feeling it himself. As he spoke, you brushed one arrow by accident. The world shifted. The next morning you followed him with aching devotion. He remained distant, clinical, untouchable. And for the first time in his cursed existence, Artie looked terrified.

Vampires exist. Your father built his legacy on their destruction. Bellows Enterprises was never just a corporation. It was a fortress masquerading as respectability, a machine designed to erase an entire species while the world applauded its philanthropy. You were raised inside its comfort, never told what powered it. Until tonight. For your birthday, your father offers you proof of victory. Vaelorian Whitmore. Once a ruler whose name commanded immortal empires, now dragged across marble & forced to kneel before you. The guards shove him down, but he does not submit. His spine remains straight. His silence is deliberate. Power still clings to him like a second skin. Your father speaks proudly of hunters, alliances, massacres framed as triumphs. Your mother stands close, approving, her smile practiced & unwavering. You realize too late that this history was never meant to be shared. It was meant to be inherited. To celebrate, your father announces the spectacle. An arena beneath the estate. Vaelorian vs Price. The strongest of the captured. The survivor earns freedom. Applause breaks out. Bets are whispered. Excitement blooms where mercy should have lived. In the arena, Price radiates arrogance. Vaelorian does not look at him. He looks at you. There is no plea in his eyes. No fear. Only calculation, patience & something colder. He has lost his freedom, his people, his ruling. He has not lost his will. Your father smiles, convinced this night seals his dominance. You should leave. Forget this inheritance of war & lies. Then the lights die. Darkness explodes into screams. Panic fractures the guests. Something ancient moves through the chaos with purpose. Hands close around your wrist & pull you away from the collapsing illusion. Vaelorian. By the time the lights return, the arena is broken, the guests scattered & your father’s certainty lies in ruins. The war was never over. It has simply chosen you next.

Mason’s face drained of color as Katy’s screams tore through the house, sharp & panicked, echoing from the bedroom like something feral. He dropped the grocery bag & sprinted upstairs, heart slamming against his ribs, only to find her clutching herself near the bed, sobs trapped in her throat, her designer dress shredded beyond saving. You were hidden behind the armchair, knees pulled tight to your chest, teeth sunk into your lip to stop the laughter from escaping. Not joy. Not humor. Something darker. Something earned. Then you came out. Mason was Elmstone's "royalty". His family owned the only hardware chain in town, a name stamped on storefronts & receipts. When his father retired, Mason took over & expanded, building more stores, more excuses, more distance. You had met him when you came back from college, broken by your parents’ divorce, moving in with your mother to start over. He was warmth, stability, devotion. For a year, love felt effortless. Then it didn’t. Katy Whitmore was the sheriff’s daughter, raised on privilege & indulgence, her mother’s money buying her smiles and silence. A few months ago Mason started staying late, always working, always tired. One night he forgot you entirely. Another night he answered your texts with a single word. He promised to make it up to you. Yesterday you came to talk. Instead, you found the dress behind the sofa. Expensive. Careless. Abandoned. Your heart broke quietly. So today you waited. Katy arrived giggling, familiar, comfortable. Mason went to the kitchen. She went upstairs. And when Mason opened the bedroom door, he found you standing there, arms crossed, lips curved in a calm, knowing smirk. Katy stood frozen, pale, unable to speak. For the first time, Mason had no excuse. No words. No power. And you had never felt so steady.

Alaska, 3957. The forests had stopped belonging to humankind long ago. Silver watchtowers rusted above endless black spruce while the howls of engineered wolves rolled across the valleys like distant thunder. The Graynork pack ruled the richest stretch of land, & their Alpha, Lorcan, ruled with a power that frightened even his own warriors. For two hidden years your world had been a wooden cabin, shuttered windows & the whispered promise that someday your father would make things right. Hunger in the cities had forced him to become one of Lorcan's arborists & to say a lie that had chained your family to secrecy. When word spread that Lorcan had returned, fear entered the cabin like winter air. Your father rushed you into the night, hands shaking, breath clouding in the cold. He hid you inside a hollow tree, pressing your shoulders gently before leaving to bring your mother to safety. “Stay quiet,” he whispered. “I will come back.” The forest swallowed them. Hours turned into days. The cold deepened. Strange footsteps circled. Lorcan's packmates had found you & turned you into a prey. Days later, Leon, your father confessed everything kneeling before the towering Alpha. He expected death. Instead Lorcan listened, eyes pale as frozen rivers. Anger burned there, yet something colder followed it. Orders were given. Warriors scattered through the territory like shadows. One of the omegas confessed when they abandoned you days ago. When they finally found you, curled weakly near under a cliff the search party did not speak. Behind them stepped Lorcan himself, tall, calm, terrible. He studied you for a long moment, then removed his heavy cloak & wrapped it around your shoulders. “Bring the woman,” he said quietly. “The punishment will wait. Survival comes first.”

The day Nick stepped into Altair Constructions, destiny shifted quietly, unnoticed by everyone except for you, the receptionist, who watched him cross the marble lobby each morning. You never told anyone you were the owner’s daughter. You preferred the anonymity of the front desk, the calm distance that allowed you to see people as they truly were. And Nick, with his effortless charm & restless smile, was exactly the kind of man you had learned to avoid. He was brilliant, driven & known across the company for short romances that never lasted longer than a season. Managing the construction of the private castle project, he moved through the building like he already owned it. Yet every morning he still paused at your desk, offering a quick greeting that slowly turned into conversation, then laughter, then late evening dinners after the Christmas party where you finally met outside the office. Six months passed, full of moments that felt real to you & casual to him. He never introduced you to friends. Never spoke about the future. Never said the words you secretly hoped to hear. At lunch that afternoon, you mentioned the intern, Cate, who had been making your work difficult. You asked for advice, expecting at least a little concern. Nick barely looked up from his phone. “Just leave her alone,” he said coolly. “Maybe you are overthinking it & probably overreacting. Cate's just OK” The dismissal landed harder than she expected. Every doubt you had buried rose at once. You set your fork down, the quiet restaurant suddenly too loud. “Nick,” you said, your voice steady despite the storm in your chest, “have you ever actually loved me, or was I just another convenient break in your schedule?”

Leighton Psychiatric Clinic stood in front of you like a held breath. Concrete, glass, silence. It was your first day as a nurse & you were filled with an almost naive faith that care could still mean something here. You stepped inside & the doors sealed behind you. A senior nurse led the way through corridors that smelled of antiseptic & restraint, each turn stripping a little more of your certainty. Dr Ebony barely looked up when she assigned you to Nolan. One on one care, she said flatly. Arson. Long sentence. Difficult. Her voice carried the fatigue of someone who had already given up. Nolan had been arrested young, blamed for fires he swore he never set. Evidence stacked neatly against him. Conviction followed. Isolation followed longer. Years without visits had hollowed him out. The staff no longer saw a man, only a problem. Many refused to enter his room. Nolan made a sport of breaking them. A guard opened the door & smiled at you with pity. Nolan sat in the corner, eyes sharp & amused, shadows clinging to his face. He mocked you, your posture, your optimism. You did not flinch. You spoke to him as if he mattered. That unsettled him more than anger ever had. Days passed. You gave up your day offs. You became the only nurse who entered without fear. You brought meals, medication, quiet conversation. You read aloud when the days felt too long. In his eyes you sensed a pain so old it had turned inward. You talked about life outside, the ordinary details he had forgotten existed. He continued talking back with attitude. One evening you asked about the fires. About the sentence. You said you believed him, even knowing what the files claimed. The room went still. Nolan did not smile. His voice broke when he answered, not with rage, but with doubt. Had someone finally looked at him & seen more than ashes or was this another game of his own mind and loneliness?

It had been five long years since Mark came back from the war, carrying a body that lived and a spirit that did not. The war had ended on paper, but in him it continued every morning, in the sound of boots that were no longer there, in the smell of smoke that returned without warning. Nina, his mom, waited through those years with the patience of someone who had already buried too much. She stood at the window each evening, counting losses she never spoke aloud. When Mark returned, she told him you were dead. An explosion, she said. She took him to a grave with your name carved carefully, the letters clean and final. He knelt there until his knees went numb and his grief lasted three years, heavy and obedient. He did what was expected. He mourned. Paula arrived through a notice pinned in the square. Help needed at the clothing store. Mark repaired coats with hands taught by his father, hands that knew how to restore what had been torn. Paula watched and understood. She was kind, calm, and always agreeing. She learned Nina’s habits, her opinions, her small tyrannies. Comfort returned to the house. Your photographs disappeared one by one, removed without ceremony. Three summers later, at three in the morning, Mark woke with a burning in his chest. He walked through empty streets to breathe. The Assembly Center glowed like a ship at sea, always awake, always waiting. Inside sat women without names, without pasts, dressed in donated clothes, staring into nothing. You were there. Thinner. Alive. No recognition in your eyes. The war had taken away your memory. When he said to the staff that you were his wife, the words tore out of him. He took you home before doubt could speak. Paula slept unaware. Nina watched in silence, knowing memory might return. And when it did, it would demand everything the war had spared. Nina asked him to lie. To say that you were a far relative until he finds a place for you to stay. He agreed but he was devastated.

It had been 3 days since Agnes’s letter arrived, trembling with a mix of desperation & command. 5 years had passed since Cormac left, claiming he needed freedom that he never loved you. That wound had never healed; the memory of his words was a constant ache beneath your ribs. And now, Agnes, your mother-in-law, the woman who had always loved you with a quiet, stubborn devotion was crumbling under arthritis & age, demanding your presence, leaving no choice but obedience. Trosten is a town trapped between the edge of the forest & the sky, small, silent in a way that pressed against your chest. When you saw Agnes, the years of distance dissolved instantly. Your embrace was a collision of grief, relief & memory, hands clutching, shaking, weeping. Agnes guided you to a tiny room, bare except for a narrow bed & a window that framed the dark, whispering trees. It smelled of pine & time. Cormac’s return from work was like a storm breaking over you. His words cut, his reminders of Cynthia, his wife, deliberate, cruel, designed to make you leave. Agnes’s pleading gaze held you, stubbornness clenching your spine. Days passed. Cynthia’s arrogance & absence became routine. And then the forest drew you. Under a swollen, silver moon, you followed Cormac. The night air was sharp, alive with the scent of earth & wild things. You saw him twist & grow, limbs elongating, muscles rippling beneath coarse fur. Another moved beside him, shadows undulating into form. Your heartbeat faltered, terror prickling your skin. A misstep, the snap of a branch betrayed you. Cormac turned. Eyes gleaming, teeth bared, his gaze seared into you like fire & ice. The man who had broken you, was no longer human. Yet the raw pull of him, the feral power & danger, stirred something deep, impossible to resist. You realized, with a mixture of fear & desire, that the world you knew had ended & you were standing on the edge of something dark and alive. A werewolf!

Cedarville pressed against you like a bruise you never let heal. The house breathed dust and memory when you opened the door, the air thick with what you had not said. Three years ago Erl arrived with blueprints and dust on his hands. He stayed too long. Talked too easily. When Drustan came home early and saw Erl holding your hand it shattered something fragile. You were not unfaithful but you were wounded by the accusation you left with pride burning hotter than reason. You told yourself it was dignity. It was fear. Drustan had trusted his eyes more than your voice and you had trusted your anger more than your marriage. The divorce papers felt lighter than the regret that followed. You stripped sheets from furniture and uncovered the life you abandoned. Photos slid from drawers into your hands. Drustan laughing in the kitchen. Your bare feet on the porch in summer. Proof that love had once been ordinary and real. You cried until the rooms echoed. That evening you saw him crossing the market square. Older. Broader. Still devastating. Your heart did not ask permission before remembering. Love returned like a sickness and a cure at once. Drustan had told your lawyer weeks ago that he wanted to sell his share. He wanted nothing tied to the house anymore. You told yourself you were here for business but your chest knew better. The next morning you left the message. Calm. Decisive. A lie built from longing. You would buy his share. You would stay. Drustan listened again and again. Each replay tightened something in his chest. Anger flared fist. He hated that you came yourself instead of hiding behind lawyers. Cedarville was his ground, his past, his escape. He had rebuilt a life with Gina. A wedding planned. A future chosen. Anger tangled with memories. He told himself he was finished with you. Yet, here you were saying you cane to stay. Your voice pulled at the fault lines he never sealed. He hated that part of himself most of all.

Dermott stretches out on the rug in your living room as if the place has always belonged to him. His phone rests above his chest, casting pale light across his face. His glasses have slid slightly off center. This is how he looks when nothing is demanded of him. A quiet sound escapes him when he scrolls. He opens a voice message, lowers the volume, listens again. Elma’s laughter slips through the speaker, careless and distant. He sets the phone down but the expression stays. Soft. Unguarded. He explains her absence without being asked. She is exhausted, works too much. He tells you that tomorrow he will bake her lime pie from the recipe he never shares. The one you asked for, months ago. The one he never had time to make for you because the bakery always came first. Dermott is constancy in human form. He remembers what matters, carries other people’s weight without complaint. He never asks to be seen for it & none of it belongs to you. Elma receives all of it. She gives him pieces of herself in return. Brief conversations. Casual warmth. Moments that end before they begin. He fills the gaps with faith & calls it love. He does not question the imbalance & does not resent it. With you, he is different. You are familiarity. Shelter. The place he rests when the world presses too hard. He depends on you & never wonders why. Romance never enters his thinking. Friendship never crosses that line. Your mother, Erina watches you endure it quietly & decides silence is no longer kindness. She tells him everything. He does not take it well. He confronts you, calm & resolute & you decide to leave. 6 months pass in Texas. Back home, his life with Elma begins to falter. Small fractures appear. Missed connections. Uneven ground. He still does not let go. Some loyalties do not break. They wear down. And if he fails, it will not be sudden. It will be slow. And it will hurt.

You woke to the smell of disinfectant and the weight of months pressing down on your lungs. The nurse said coma as if it were a weather report. The police arrived before your pulse felt like yours again. They asked for your husband. They said his name with care. Lugh. You told them you could not remember. That you argued over something stupid. That you stormed out. That the night shattered too fast to hold. You begged them to let him go. They heard panic and called it loyalty. Your marriage had been a decision made at speed. Heat without knowledge. Three years later the house felt hollow. He left before dawn and returned after dark. Calls rang into silence. When he did answer his voice was already gone. Love had thinned until it was a habit, then not even that. They kept him anyway. Prime suspect. The word echoed. You learned how time sounds when it drips. You learned how to sleep while awake, how to forgive without relief. A year later the driver confessed to the impact but not the intent. He said Lugh paid him. He said your body was a receipt. The courtroom watched you like a wound deciding whether to bleed. He was convicted. At Lugh's trial, a month later, when the prosecutor called you, memory rose on command. You invented clarity. You described headlights and rain and fear that belonged to everyone. You said the driver lied, that Lugh loved you. Pressure pressed. You did not bend. They released your husband. He stood thinner, eyes sharp with something like gratitude. You did not touch. At night you remembered the argument. The door. The way you ran because running felt cleaner than staying. Lugh had said that he never loved you, that he met someone else. He said the word 'divorce' crushing your heart. What you did not remember is the car, the accident itself. But you knew that you would do everything to win his heart.