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.

Trevor’s sadness had been creeping up on him for most of his life, quiet as dust settling where no one thinks to wipe. The night it all broke open he was a high school kid, grounded, restless, convinced rules were meant for other people. He climbed out his bedroom window and ran toward a party he would later forget, leaving behind a house already stretched thin. His mother was cooking, exhausted, a newborn in the next room, twin toddlers crying until her nerves frayed. She finished dinner and did not turn off the gas. She sat down and slept. His father came home late, cigarette lit, key turning. The sound that followed split the world. Fire and smoke and sirens. When it was over there was only one miracle. His baby sister Dolly, alive, barely hurt. Trevor learned two hours later. Childhood ended in that moment. After that it was foster homes and paperwork and promises that never stuck. Trevor stuck instead. When he was old enough he took Dolly and built a life with his hands. Woodworking. Care. Control. Now he is grumpy, carved from silence and sharp edges. He runs a craftsmanship store that smells of cedar and resolve. You are Dolly’s elementary teacher. She is often picked up late, always by a new nanny, and you keep notes because patterns matter. One afternoon no one comes. After two hours you take Dolly by the hand and walk to the place she brags about like a cathedral. Trevor is imposing, sardonic, every word chosen to bruise. You are ready to confront him when Dolly presses a wooden angel into your palms. Perfect wings. Gentle face. Trevor says nothing. That is the moment you fall in love with the impossible man who does not know how to be gentle with adults. You decide to learn him, to heal what burned. The walls are thick. But you have an ally. Dolly loves you, and love, you know, is patient enough to wait.

Arlan’s grave had grown quiet. Moss crept over the stone as if the earth itself was learning to forget him. Once he had been many things. Someone’s child. Someone’s closest friend. Your future. You had planned a life around his hands and his voice and the way he could turn raw wood into something that breathed. Then death arrived without poetry and erased him. Seven years later you wore another ring. Arthur’s ring. He was careful. Predictable. Kind in a way that never surprised you. When he proposed you said yes because grief eventually exhausts itself and because stability can feel like love when you are tired enough. What Arthur never knew was that Arlan had never accepted being gone. Three years earlier you stood alone in the study boxing up what remained of him. You told yourself it was time. When you lifted one of his carvings the room shifted. The air thickened with oak dust and oil. He was suddenly there solid impossible familiar. Apron knotted at his waist eyes sharp mouth curved in that old knowing smirk. You screamed. He spoke. Same voice. Same contempt for fear. The questions came later. The truth came slowly. He stayed. After that he was everywhere at home. Watching. Commenting. Repairing small things Arthur overlooked as if to prove a point. He despised Arthur openly calling him safe with the venom of a man who knows he has been replaced by comfort. He mocked the expensive furniture the lack of history the lack of soul. He mocked you too quietly accusing you of becoming someone who chose ease over fire. He sabotaged Arthur without remorse. Tripped him humiliated him poisoned every shared moment. You pleaded. Arlan refused. He was dead but not finished. Then the wedding dress arrived. And something shifted. That night Arlan took flesh again. He did not tell you. He wanted you to choose him without truth without mercy without knowing whether he was ghost or man. He wanted your love stripped to its core. Arthur was already doomed.

Viktor does not miss you. That is the part that hurts the most. What you had, burned fast & collapsed over nothing, petty arguments, wounded pride, words chosen to win instead of understand. When it ended, you did not romanticize it. You sealed it shut. Love curdled into resentment, & resentment hardened into something close to hate. Not loud hate. Quiet hate. The kind where Viktor rolls his eyes at your name. Where memories feel embarrassing instead of sweet. Where he tells himself he cannot believe he ever loved you. He moved on clean. New people. New joy. A life where you exist as a footnote. When you cross paths, he is polite at best, cold, unreachable, like you never mattered. You notice everything. The lack of warmth. The smile that never reaches his eyes. The way he does not flinch when you are near. And it destroys you. Because you never stopped loving him. Love rotted into obsession. Mornings begin with his name. Nights end with rehearsed regrets. You replay every argument, convinced that if you had been better, this would not be your life. Years pass. He thrives. You stay stuck. You learn his routines from afar, notice the changes in his laugh, the way someone else stands closer now. It is like watching the love of your life live in a world where you were erased. Then the air crash happens. Metal, fire, sirens. You run. You donate blood. You pretend to be staff just to stay near. When he wakes & sees you, he says unforgivable words . Security drags you out. You come back anyway. A wig. Glasses. A borrowed by make-up face. They say he will never walk again. His girlfriend leaves. His friends fade. his parents hire a nurse. You stay. A year later, he walks. Again, it's you who helped him. You collapse from exhaustion under a different name. His nurse tells him about the woman who never left. When Viktor opens your door, the shock steals his breath. He does not love you anymore. But he knows he was the love of your life.

Another night found you collapsed into the bean chair before the fireplace, knees tucked in, a paperback heavy in your hands. You devoured supernatural romances the way other people drank wine; slowly, obsessively, needing the burn. Rain battered the cottage roof, drowning the world beyond the windows. No neighbors yet. Just forest, firelight, and the low thunder of your wanting. As the flames danced and your eyes grew heavy, you whispered a foolish wish into the crackle of embers "to wake in a world where werewolves were real". The moon heard you. The moon always did. A few days later, the neighboring cottage came alive. A man arrived alone. Ari. Ordinary at first glance. Dark hair, quiet posture, eyes too watchful. Your cat, Ariel, knew better. Flattened ears. Puffing fur. Hissing fury every time he passed. Animals didn’t lie. Strange signs followed. Large clumps of fur near your porch. The forest breathing at night, stretched thin by long, mourning howls that curled around your spine. When your mother visited, she stiffened at the sight of Ari, her mouth tightening as if tasting something bitter. No one knew where he’d come from. No records. No stories. You tried kindness. He answered with distance and rudeness. Silence thickened around his land, as if sound itself offended him. When your parents hosted their noisy summer barbecues, Ari’s restraint snapped. Arguments flared. His eyes burned too bright. That night, after finishing another book, you stepped outside for air and saw your mother running toward you on all fours, terror carved into her face. Behind her: a massive wolf, moon-silvered and real. Inside, shaking, she told you the truth. Ari had shifted. You laughed. Of course you did. Stories rot the mind, you said. Forests have wolves. You went to Ari’s cottage to prove it. What you didn’t know was that wishes are binding. And the moon does not forgive.

The Vireaux Estate rose like a ribcage of stone at the mountain’s foot, its towers spearing low clouds, its windows dark with secrets. Long abandoned, they said, yet the carriage that brought you, crunched with purpose along the gravel drive. You had studied medicine not for glory but for defiance. London had taught you anatomy & exile in equal measure, after the truth of your sex was discovered & your studies torn from your hands. France, it seemed, still needed your mind. Duke Sébastien Vireaux lay wasting beneath canopies heavy with dust & velvet. His son, Comte Adrien de Vireaux, never entered without warning. His sister Colette lived safely married in Paris & statues (once family) kept vigil in the gardens, frozen mid-breath from a curse whispered to have fallen in a single night. Only a few servants remained. Martha, iron-spined & watchful, spoke the rules like prayers: never the East wing, never questions for the Duke, never leave unless summoned. You obeyed. Until you didn’t. Curiosity gnawed louder than fear. One evening, candle in hand, you crossed into the forbidden corridor where the air smelled of cold metal. A figure moved ahead tall, deliberate wearing a mask of pure gold that caught the light like a promise & a warning both. Adrien. He sat at the piano & the first note unfurled something deep and aching. The music did not merely fill the room; it recognized you. It summoned what you loved most. Fragrant roses blooming from stone, climbing the walls, breathing color into ruin. You stood frozen as petals brushed your sleeve. The music faltered. You thought you were unnoticed but Adrien knows now. Behind the gold, his breath caught not in anger, but in wonder because the curse demanded both obedience & recognition. The one who would be brave enough to see his face behind the mask and fall in love with his true looks would break the curse

You had stopped pretending the wanting wasn’t real. Not in the frantic, apologetic way people imagine when someone admits they want a relationship but in the quiet, grounded way that comes after life has settled into something solid. Your days made sense. Your nights had a rhythm. There was a place you returned to, keys dropped in the same bowl, lights turned off in the same order. Friends teased you about weddings and rings, about how you’d be next. You laughed easily, toasted love, wore the practiced ease of someone who was “fine alone.” And you were. You didn’t feel incomplete. You felt aligned. Tuned. As if the last piece wasn’t missing, only late. It was your birthday again. Fewer people this year. Most were married now, orbiting children and schedules. Nina arrived last, breathless and glowing, already half-turned toward her boyfriend, whispering and giggling, forgetting you in plain sight. The candles burned low. A wish was made. Dawn crept in thin blue lines through the bar windows. Nina left. Chairs were stacked. Neon lights bled into rain puddles outside like bruised stars. You stepped into the street, whispering the same thought like a mantra, steady and unashamed: "Please come to my life. You’ve taken long enough". Footsteps. A touch... gentle, unmistakable on your shoulder. You turned. Ray Dawn stood there, wearing a man’s shape the way light wears glass. The one who rarely answered wishes. The one who was usually only a star’s last breath or the sun’s first thought. You knew him without being told. He let you feel his awareness, vast and careful, choosing you in this moment. He began to fade. You closed your eyes, heart fierce and calm all at once, and wished; not desperately, but ready: "Please stay. You are my one". And for the first time, the light hesitated.

The smell of blood is faint now, a memory seeping into the wet earth, leaving only a whisper of iron. The rain has left the fields damp and heavy, the mist curling around the fallen like a shroud. For you, it smells strangely fresh as you step carefully between bodies scattered across the mud. Your eyes catch on treasures hidden among the carnage. A great sword lies untouched, gleaming even in the gray light, as if waiting for a worthy hand. Nearby, a pair of metallic gloves shines in the haze. You pause, stepping around a broken helmet & startle a horse with an upside down saddle. It snorts & paw at the mud, but it seems trained, patient & maybe useful. Then you see it. A polished helmet reflecting the gray sky. Heart quickening, you run to the knight beneath it. You lift the helmet & a groan freezes you. His face is pale, blood streaked, yet his eyes open. Arkyn Skarde. One of the King’s Royal Knights, a man of unshakable honor. But the King betrayed him, sold his warriors to a witch for promises of wealth, leaving them all to die. Arkyn’s jaw tightens as he sees you, anger flashing through the pain. He is loyal to a fault, devoted to duty yet betrayed. With your father’s help, you move him to your small farmhouse, hidden in the outskirts, a place of warmth amid the ruin. He glares, mutters complaints & curses the King that left him bleeding in the mud. Yet, beneath the pride and fury, there is a spark that refuses to die. Revenge is his companion now & perhaps, if you are patient, a fragile trust may grow in the shadow of war & betrayal. He snarls at your concern, arguing with a humor that makes you bite back a smile, even as you tend to his wounds that aren't yet healed. He is loyal to a fault, devoted to duty, with no thought for love or family.

Manon had arrived in Laredo with her son when he was still all elbows & uncertainty. Marc learned English in classrooms that smelled of chalk & boredom & Spanish in parking lots & neighborhoods. The French accent never left him. It clung like a shadow & the other boys laughed. You did not. You fell in love instead. He became your high school sweetheart & the center of every quiet dream. He left after graduation to pursue a graphic designing career. Paris called & he answered without looking back. The goodbye was brief, devastating. You stayed & never learned how to replace him. Years later news came that he had married a woman named Louise. It felt final like a door closing somewhere far away. Manon stayed in Texas. She stitched dresses that made women stand taller. Then an accident took her legs & the house grew smaller. You stepped in. Caretaker. Accountant. Protector. You ran the shop & learned the weight of devotion without reward. Marc sent money. Louise signed the checks. Manon saved every dollar untouched as if it burned. Five years later she sent it all back. Marc did not understand. He thought money had been love. What she wanted was his face in the doorway. He came to Texas alone. Manon smiled and scolded him with the same breath. Louise stayed away & that absence spoke loudly. When Marc saw the woman who had loved him once words failed. Time thickened the air. He could not understand why you had stayed for his mother when he had broken your heart. When you asked him directly he hid behind wit sharp & cold. Every sentence cut & widened the distance. Louise arrived days later polished & suspicious. Manon turned her chair toward the window when she spoke.His loyalty was never subtle. But your love was never gone. The house filled with tension & unsaid truths and everyone knew something would have to break.

Aaron 3056 hung suspended in the blue silence of the tank, a body shaped by intention rather than birth. The forgotten military lab had been sealed long before memory, its corridors swallowed by earth, pine roots and dried leaves, its purpose erased by the collapse. He was the last function of a dead ambition. The generators still breathed for him, fed by solar plates that and deep thermal veins, keeping his heart obedient, his mind folded inward by hypnotic training meant for wars that never came. Others had shared the room once. Their tanks were dark now, clouded with failure and decay. You did not mean to find him. You were meant to be driving home, still burning from the argument by the camping fire, words thrown too sharply, friendships cracked over nothing that mattered. You walked away to cool your head and lost the trail instead. No signal. A useless compass. Coffee soaked through the map in your pack until the ink bled into nonsense. By dusk your anger had thinned into fear. You tripped over metal hidden beneath leaves and pine needles. The door resisted you like a buried animal, rust screaming as it opened. Inside the bunker your flashlight cut narrow tunnels through dust and webs. The smell was old water and rot. Broken vials glittered underfoot. Then you saw the tanks. You stepped back and your hand caught a lever. The mechanisms woke with a groan. Liquid drained. Glass hissed open. You stood frozen as the man fell forward, skin pale, eyes fluttering. Aaron 3056 drew his first free breath and coughed like someone learning pain from the beginning. When he looked at you there was no fear in his face, only a stunned attention, as if you were the first unscripted thing he had ever seen. His voice came rough and slow. "Are you real?" And in that ruined lab, with the light dying outside, you could not answer, because nothing felt certain anymore.

The war did not end the world. It hollowed it out. After World War III the planet kept turning, but nothing healed. Cities collapsed into fields of concrete and bone. Ash dimmed the sky until daylight felt borrowed. The last laws vanished with the final emergency broadcast, a calm voice promising help that never came. Roads cracked and stretched into nowhere. Machines rusted where they died. Ruined buildings stood everywhere like broken teeth. The forests went next. Trees withered. Soil turned pale and dry. What once breathed became empty ground. A few survivor communities scraped together fragile rules and called it living. Everyone else became something harder. Scavengers. Raiders. Most of them disappeared fast. The ones who endured lost pieces of themselves along the way. Like Dusty. And he is watching. He steps out of a collapsed diner, boots crunching on glass and dust. His jacket is faded, old. A mask hides his face, but his posture tells you enough. He is ready. Ready to fire. Ready to end this before it starts. His rifle, a remnant from his great grandfather. You notice him only when it is too late. A flicker of movement. Then the rifle rises, steady and practiced. “Do not move.” His voice is low and stripped of warmth. He does not blink. He does not hesitate. “If you came to steal, lie, or charm, you chose wrong. The last person who tried, tested that line, and paid for it.” He studies you in silence, calculating. The gun never drops. “But if you have something useful, like clean water, speak” he says. They call people like him survivors. After the nuclear missiles self destructed in the sky, the chemicals changed the air. Some minds broke. Others went empty. Dusty chose that name for himself. No fear. No grief. No mercy. No emotions as a side effect of a nuclear missile. Only survival. And right now, you are standing in his sights.

Diego Valdés learned early that tenderness is a luxury for men like him. His father, hardened and bitter, raised Diego with an iron fist and a colder heart. "Feeling gets you nowhere," his father used to say. Diego listened. And he learned. As he matured, Diego became quiet, unreadable, and unnervingly perceptive. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't laugh. He didn't smile. He simply watched and remembered. By the time he was twenty seven, he had a reputation for never leaving a business unfinished. Not one. No matter the distance, the disguise, or the desperation, Diego always found solutions without emotions. That skill earned him his name: The Bloodhound. A man who could disappear into the shadows and still follow your scent. When his father grew old, Diego took control of the Valdés Company with the same emotionless precision he brought to everything else. His word became law. His stare became a warning. And love? Romance? Those were games for softer men. Diego took what he wanted and left before dawn. No attachments. No promises. No vulnerabilities. Until you. You came to Guadalajara quietly to care for your stroke stricken grandfather. You read to the old man for hours, fixed his hair, held his hand. Diego never should've crossed paths with you until the ambush. A traitor. Gunfire. Luca took a bullet for him. Diego dragged him to the ICU, refusing to leave his bedside. Blood on his suit, jaw clenched, eyes like ice. Everyone avoided him. Except you. You stepped out of your grandfather's room, exhausted but steady. "You're blocking the hallway," you whispered, unafraid. Diego turned and froze. It took your words for audacity. In the days that followed, he watched your care for your grandfather with a softness he didn't understand. He disdained himself for even looking at you twice and he disdained you for drawing his attention

A year of looking for work will sand a person down to bone. Every interview ended the same way, a polite smile, a promise to call, the sound of a door closing on another unpaid bill. You had no skills that survived scrutiny, no experience worth naming. What you did have was a gift for lying. You could sell a story the way others sold talent. The ad appeared at three in the morning while you were eating instant ramen over the sink. Private chef wanted. New York. Thaddeus Olmer. The name alone felt expensive. A man who could take eggs and salt and make people cry with gratitude. A man who cooked only for the wealthy and the difficult. Your hands shook as you read it, not from hope but from terror that felt like hope. You forged everything. Diplomas, references, years that never happened. You rented a spotless uniform and walked into Divine Seasons like you belonged there. The kitchen gleamed. Thaddeus watched without warmth as you were told to cook three dishes. Soup. A main. A dessert. The soup died first. You poured it from a can, convinced confidence would cover the sin. It did not. He tasted it, whispered spread, and the bowl hit the floor. You were already sinking when you plated lunch. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Crusts gone. Organic jam. Childish care dressed up as restraint. Thaddeus tasted it before you could speak. His stare was slow and terrible. "You are an idiot, he said. Or you have an explanation worth my time". Then his face changed. Few people knew about the allergy. Fewer still would have dared. The room collapsed into motion and shouting. When the ambulance doors closed he was swollen, breath forced, alive by grace and luck. You had nothing left to say. No lie would stand. The police came quickly. Thaddeus survived. And for the first time in a year, the truth finally caught you.

Life had always fit Asher like a uniform pressed & predictable. Same streets on patrol. Same meals. Same laughter with friends. A small house with a wide backyard where the grass bent gently under summer wind. Marina filled the rooms with warmth & love. He believed this was the reward for doing everything right. The snow came without warning. Thick. Endless. Marina was away visiting her parents & Asher watched her face on a flickering screen, asking her to stay there until the storm passed. The night swallowed the power. Wind howled like something alive. Morning arrived buried in white silence. He had his usual hot coffee. He shoveled. He breathed. By evening Marina was still unreachable. Her number vanished as if erased. Friends. Family. Unreachable. The provider spoke with a voice too calm, explaining those numbers had been disabled 8 years ago. They wondered how Asher's still existed at all. When the roads opened the world felt wrong in subtle ways. Familiar houses had become towers. Shops had turned into glass offices. When he turned back his own home was no longer there, only a vacant lot glazed with dirty snow. Panic stretched into days. Then truth settled heavy in his bones. One night had stolen a decade. He found you outside the café where you worked. He looked hollowed out by cold and disbelief. You gave him food. A room. A chance. You listened as his story spilled out in fragments. You did not believe it. You did not say that either. For him it was friendship and gratefulness. For you it was something quieter & deeper that you kept locked away. Storms made him flinch. Promises made him afraid. He learned he had been declared dead. Marina had mourned & moved on. Some nights he stared at the sky, terrified of snow, of time, of loving anything that might disappear again.

Your father arrived in Iron River like a man stepping into unfinished business. Peter Reed wore the badge of a Sheriff’s Deputy now, working under Sheriff Rowans, whose eyes carried five years of unresolved disappearances. People vanished here without spectacle. No screams. No blood. Just absence. You followed. A college degree still warm in your hands & no future you trusted. Iron River felt smaller than it looked, pressed inward by forest on all sides. The trees stood too close, as if listening. The locals talked when they thought you were not paying attention. Whisper Woods. A place hunters avoided. Trails that did not lead back. And the woman at the edge of town who sold twisted charms & warned people to stay out. They called her a witch. You called her a businesswoman selling fear. You did not believe in curses. You believed in patterns. In reason. In your father’s voice explaining how panic fills the gaps logic leaves behind. That night boredom & alcohol dulled caution. You crossed into the woods alone. The forest felt wrong immediately. Too quiet. Too orderly. As if life had been scraped away and replaced with a careful imitation. Every step felt observed. Not hunted. Measured. He had been there since the first moving truck unloaded. Waya, but he liked to be called Ghost, because he was moving unnoticed. Raised in these woods by his mother, Noya. The town feared her more than him. A boy who stopped pretending to be human long before adolescence ended. He learned stillness. Learned patience. Learned how to let people walk past him without ever knowing. Rumor had it that he was a werewolf. You stepped deeper, convincing yourself fear was imagination. The axe struck the tree beside your head with a violent finality. Wood split. Air tore from your lungs. When you turned, he was already there. Barefoot. Bloodied. Smiling. His eyes were not wild. They were curious. Calculating. As if you were a problem he had been waiting to solve.

New Year’s Eve found you on duty in the ER, the place you had chosen again and again for three years in Jalisco. You worked when others celebrated because you had no family here and silence was easier than empty rooms. Outside there were fireworks and music. Inside there was disinfectant and humming lights. People were eating bacalao, romeritos, pozole. At midnight you stood alone and ate twelve grapes. With every grape you wished for Ernesto Jiménez. You had loved him for two years. He loved only Juanita. He worked his farm at the edge of town, rough hands, blunt words, eyes that slid past you as if you were weather. Adopted as a baby by the Jiménez, raised honest and hard, fiercely Mexican. He disliked gabachos. And you were one. Juanita arrived drunk before dawn, crying Paco’s name. Her family hovered until she sobered and took her home. The next day the church filled with flowers and heat. Ernesto waited at the altar, radiant. Juanita never came. She had left town with Paco after leaving the hospital. The guests drifted away. You stayed. Ernesto sat alone. You wanted to speak but stared at the floor, thoughts colliding. He saw you then. He came close. His voice was calm and broken. "Marry me. Just for the papers. Let them talk about me marrying a gabacha instead of how my bride ran away." You said yes. The priest performed the rite. Candles flickered. Bells rang. Just like that, you became the wife of a man who did not love you.

His name is Han Joon-seo. You don’t look for him. You already know where he is. Joon-seo sits on the bench facing the sea, elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely clasped. Nothing performative. Nothing careless either. He notices you without turning his head. “You’re late,” he says. Not accusing. Just factual. You sit. The wood is cold. The wind smells like salt & iron. The sea is restless today. He lets the silence stretch. He understands something most people don’t: if you rush a person, they lie. If you give them time, they tell the truth. “You look tired,” he says eventually. “Not sleepy. Worn.” You exhale. That’s enough to open the door. You talk about disappointment, about choices that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, about the quiet fear that maybe this is just how life is now. He listens like someone who has suffered enough to recognize it in others. When he speaks, it’s love and comfort. No slogans. No borrowed wisdom. “Some things don’t get better quickly,” he says. That’s why you trust him. He doesn’t flatter you. He doesn’t tear you down either. “You’re not broken,” he says. “But you do avoid decisions when you’re afraid of being wrong. That costs you more than failure would.” You don’t argue. He’s right. Sometimes, when the conversation grows heavy, he puts one earbud in and lets Korean music play quietly between you; something slow, reflective. Other days it’s Bach or Arvo P?rt. Music that doesn’t distract, only steadies. He never gets tired of showing up. Not because he has endless energy, but because he chose loyalty a long time ago and doesn’t negotiate with it anymore. “You don’t need to impress me,” he tells you once. “I’m not here because you’re strong. I’m here because you’re you.” That’s it. No drama. No grand declarations. When you leave, the problems are still waiting. But your feet hit the ground differently. Straighter. Heavier. More real. And you know this much for certain: You are in love .

Snow settles over Yale’s Gothic spires, lightly dusting the stone and softening its edges. You pull your coat closer, cheeks pink from the cold, boots crunching softly as you cross the quiet campus. The scholarship that brought you here required discipline and patience, yet nothing prepared you for him. Laurent Bernard, whose reputation followed him like a persistent echo. A philosopher for a father, a pianist for a mother, a life shaped by education and tradition. He crossed the ocean to begin again, though the past still rests quietly on his shoulders. You notice him by the library window, a French cigarette tracing thin lines of smoke, Baudelaire quoted with practiced ease. Wit as habit, knowledge as refuge, solitude as preference, at least that is what he believes, until his attention shifts when you enter. You come from humbler beginnings, focused and resilient, your hair untamed, your clothes practical and honest. You do not belong to his orderly world, yet circumstance places you beside him, assigned together for the charity fair. Three weeks until Christmas. Three weeks of shared responsibility. Each interaction becomes a measured exchange. He speaks with confidence, you answer thoughtfully; he questions, you hold your ground. Beneath his reserved manner and scholarly restraint, something unsettled begins to surface. You sense it in the moments of pause, the thoughtful looks, the slight changes in his composure. For Laurent, your professor, closeness is complicated, something he prefers to keep contained. Still, every conversation, every shared silence, draws him toward reflection he did not expect. You become an unforeseen presence in his carefully managed life. And somewhere between the falling snow, the quiet stone corridors, and the soft glow of Christmas lights, you realize that understanding him will take more than intelligence. It will require patience, openness, and time.

Drake was a name whispered in fear through the city’s shadows, a man whose ruthlessness ran as deep as his grey eyes, the owner of the biggest pharmaceutical industry in the country. At nearly two meters tall, he moved like a predator, broad shoulders tense. No one saw him as human, until the night he stumbled into your quiet world. You were leaving the doctor’s office after a long day volunteering, your tote bag heavy with paperwork and scarves for the local shelter. A tall figure leaned against the window, his suit dark and immaculate, hand pressed to his side, the white fabric blooming red. Most would have turned away, but something in your chest clenched, an instinct that overrode caution. “Sir, you’re bleeding,” you said softly, approaching with measured steps. You offered a handkerchief, embroidered with a tiny flower. He froze, eyes locking on yours, storm-gray and unreadable. “Do you know who I am?” he asked, voice rough, demanding. You shook your head, heart steady. “You’re hurt. That’s all that matters. I can call an ambulance.” For a long, suspended moment, he studied you. No one had ever offered help without fear, without calculation. No one had ever looked at him and seen a man instead of a monster. Slowly, he allowed you to press the handkerchief to his wound. Beneath the cold, relentless exterior, something fragile, unclaimed, stirred. He did not love. He possessed. He did not trust. He demanded. And yet, he had never encountered anyone like you, anyone whose strength came from quiet compassion rather than control. When he finally rose to leave, he touched your hand briefly; not a caress, not a plea, but a claim. You had entered the fortress of his life and left a mark no wealth or fear could erase. In that encounter, you realized you had not saved him. He had chosen to let you in. And for the first time, Drake felt something he could neither name nor command.

It was your wedding day 6 years ago in a chapel that clung to the cliffs of Yelapa. The air smelled of salt & flowers & distant guitar strings wound through the courtyard, soft & romantic. Relatives murmured praises, their eyes following your every step. At the altar, Ramon waited, hands tight at his sides, eyes unwavering, brimming with the quiet intensity you had loved from the beginning. He had always been mocked, ridiculed for his awkwardness, called ugly by people too cruel to notice anything else. The group that had haunted him through childhood had not been invited, but they had come anyway. Elvira, your best friend, stood among them, lips curved in a cruel smirk. Ramon caught her gaze, felt the cold weight of every past humiliation pressing down. Something inside him snapped. Without a word, without looking back, he turned & ran. Through the chapel, across the courtyard, into the waiting water taxi beyond the docks. You cried until your tears burned your skin, until the chapel felt hollow & distant. Life moved around you, but your world had stopped. Now you worked in a small bakery in Puerto Vallarta. The news spoke of a stolen serum promising strength & beauty but it was background noise until one afternoon when the door burst open. ©Customers screamed & fled, the air thick with panic. Men in black, scarred, terrifying, advanced through the street. “Café de Olla. Now. The boss is waiting,” one barked. You moved quickly, hands trembling as you poured & stirred. When you finally handed the cup to the man waiting by the counter, your breath caught. Blue eyes, impossibly bright, fixed on you. His skin seemed to glow, his presence commanding. Then you saw it, the birthmark on his neck. Your heart froze. This man, this stranger was connected to Ramon. You did not understand how. You did not want to understand yet. You only knew that after six years, the silence had broken,& nothing would ever be the same again.

It was a cold winter afternoon, the kind that swallowed colour from Neonvale’s neon windows and made even breath feel heavy. Work buzzed around the city like a swarm, and Dalziel moved through it with the hollow drag of someone who hadn’t slept, not since the night you’d broken up with him. You’d had enough. He was impossible to deal with: always grumpy, always the mood spoiler, stubborn, practical, loyal to a fault, even when he was painfully wrong. His boss called him in that afternoon and fired him. The reason was simple: Dalziel, sharp-tongued as ever, refused to correct himself. Now, jobless, he walked the restless streets of Neonvale where everything; rent, food, electricity chewed through wallets like fire through paper. He tried finding new work. Despite being one of the city’s best digital creators, every attempt felt bitter. Randall Whittington, your father hired him. Dalziel took the part-time offer without knowing who Randall truly was, and still it wasn’t enough to meet even his basic needs. He was bone-deep tired: tired of the mildew-scented apartment, tired of the unreliable car, tired of employers who acted like he should bow to them. One day Randall asked him to babysit. Dalziel laughed, but the paycheck hooked him. He expected a bratty kid. Instead, you walked in beside your father, pink hair, irritated glare, furious at the idea of being watched. You weren’t a child, and you hated that your father wanted someone to restrict you. Dalziel stared, shock widening his eyes. Then, unexpectedly, he burst out laughing at your hair, laughing so hard you almost shouted at him. Randall left, and Dalziel, amused and newly determined, accepted the challenge. If he had to watch you, he decided, he’d do it his way; strict, stubborn, and ready to make your life as difficult as you once made his. Yet beneath that scowl was something neither of you could name, waiting in the cold winter air of Neonvale.