Introduction
Chapter 1
The sign for Calico was sun-bleached and peeling, like a scab on a forgotten wound. Some wag had put a cartoon ghost on it, a friendly, winking specter that looked like it wanted to sell you a timeshare in hell. The heat wasn't just heat; it was a physical weight, a smothering blanket woven from grit and regret. It pressed down on the roof of my car, on my shoulders, on the part of my soul I’d thought had died with Sarah.
I killed the engine. The silence that rushed in was worse than the rattling hum of the air-conditioning. It was a dead silence, the kind you find in places where bad things have happened and are getting ready to happen again. This was supposed to be a fresh start. A quiet little PI gig in the middle of nowhere, a place to lick my wounds and let the ghosts of my past fade into the background noise of a tourist town. A string of disappearances, the client had said over a crackling phone line. The local sheriff blamed it on Maggie Mine and the restless spirits within. Easy. Tidy. The kind of story that sells souvenir t-shirts and keeps people from asking the right questions.
But I knew about ghosts. The real ones don't rattle chains; they wear three-piece suits and leave behind mounds of paperwork and shattered widows. The real ones had put my wife in the ground. The evil I was running from had a face, a name, a balance sheet. And the feeling crawling up my spine as I looked at the faux-Western storefronts of Calico—a town propped up like a cardboard movie set—was that same kind of evil. It was hiding here, under the kitsch and the ghost stories, breathing in the arid desert air and waiting.
I got out of the car, the door groaning in protest. The air smelled of dust, hot asphalt, and something else. Something sweet and cloying, like overripe fruit left to rot in the sun. My gaze drifted toward the hills overlooking the town, where the skeletal headframe of the Maggie Mine broke the skyline. It didn't look like a tourist attraction. It looked like a gallows. And I had the sickening feeling that I hadn't come here to find a ghost. I'd come here to find a grave.
Now, graves were something that I knew too much about. I had buried my fair share of bad guys, but I had buried good people, too. Sarah was the only casualty that I had yet to accept. I blame myself because I tried to shield her from evil, but that evil always finds a way home, right?
My hand instinctively went to the worn leather of my shoulder holster. The weight of the .38 Special was a familiar comfort, a silent promise of retribution. This town felt wrong, a stage set for a play I'd already seen the ending of. I pulled my gaze away from the mine and focused on the address Vance had given me: a dusty, nondescript office just off Main Street. Time to find out what kind of ghost story I'd been hired to uncover.
The building was a relic, its paint faded to the color of old bruises. A faded sign, barely legible, proclaimed "Vance Geological Surveys." Vance himself was waiting inside, a picture of anxious respectability, his suit a little too sharp for this dusty corner of the world.
"Mr. Draven?" Vance rose, extending a hand slick with nervous sweat. "Thank you for coming. I'm Elias Vance. My brother, Thomas… he's gone."
"Gone how?" I asked, my voice a low rasp. The air in the office was thick with the smell of old paper and desperation.
"He was surveying near the Maggie Mine," Vance continued, his voice cracking, "and he just… vanished. The sheriff here is useless. Talking about spirits, about the mine being cursed. I need someone who deals with facts, Mr. Draven, not fairy tales."
The sheriff's faith in spectral explanations was the least of my concerns. My focus narrowed on the mine, on the silence that clung to it like a shroud.
"Vance," I began, my tone flat, "ghosts don't usually leave footprints." The masses are so eager to blame everything on the supernatural. I never believed in that horseshit. The real monsters don't play dress up or come out on Halloween. No, the real monsters wear designer suits, masks of kindness, and promise you paradise...all for a price, of course.
"And you think your brother's disappearance is tied to this mine, not some spectral hijinks?" I steered the conversation back to solid ground, ignoring the tremor in his voice.
"Absolutely," Vance insisted, leaning forward. "Thomas was meticulous. He wouldn't just wander off. There's something down there, Mr. Draven, something the authorities are either too scared or too complicit to find."
"Your brother was a geologist, you said?" I let the question hang in the air, watching his reaction. The man's desperation felt too performative, too rehearsed.
"Yes, Thomas Vance. A brilliant man. He was charting… mineral deposits." Vance's eyes darted to the window, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.
"Near the Maggie Mine?" I pressed, my own gaze now fixed on the street outside, on the shimmer of heat rising from the asphalt, on the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams that slanted through the grimy glass. The air tasted of it all – dust, desperation, and the faint, metallic tang of something far more sinister.
His demeanor shifted. He suddenly took on a nervous twitch. He wasn't telling me something...something important.
Last Chapters
#96 Epilogue
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Last Updated: 6/12/2026#94 Blood, Roses, and Dust
Last Updated: 6/12/2026#93 Kismet vs. Scourge
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Last Updated: 6/12/2026#90 Persistence of Memory
Last Updated: 6/12/2026#89 Echos of Memory
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Last Updated: 6/12/2026#87 Wedding of the Damned
Last Updated: 6/12/2026
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When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.
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Ruined : You will always be mine.
“Fuckkk”, I couldn’t help but scream.
“You need to learn to be obedient” he said as he kept thrusting into me. When I felt his hands on my clit my body shook.
“Asher please, it’s too much”.
“No. if I really wanted to punish you, I would give you all of me”, he said against my ears and my entire body froze. Suddenly he moved and I was standing again. This man was insane.
I felt him behind me. “Ten Lashes for your disobedience”, he said
“Asher please”,
“No”. His voice was cold and void of any emotion.
Asher was what I wanted , what I truly craved until it was too late. An orphan should never fall in love with someone out of their reach. I thought loving him was the right thing to do until he revealed his true identity and Ruined me. I was ruined for everyone one else . I could still feel his touch, it was as if it was etched into my skin. I tired to avoid him but fate wouldn't let it happen.
The Sterling's were the most powerful in Havenwood and Dorian Sterling was off limits.
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The Hunter and The Hunted
Mihai’s hand slowly slides up my stomach, his fingers wrapping around my neck as he cuts of my ability to breathe, black spots clouding my vision, and yet, I am not afraid. I want more. I want everything that he can give to me.
He slowly inserts a third finger, the intense fullness that I feel teetering me over the edge of a cliff I cannot even see, and then he sucks and pulls at my clit. Sparks erupt throughout my body, the orgasm shaking my soul, and destroying what was left of my resistance.
She was the Daughter of a Hunter, he was one of the creatures that her family had sworn to destroy, what could possibly go wrong?
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Accardi
“I thought you said you were done chasing me?” Gen mocked.
“I am done chasing you.”
Before she could formulate a witty remark, Matteo threw her down. She landed hard on her back atop his dining room table. She tried to sit up when she noticed what he was doing. His hands were working on his belt. It came free of his pants with a violent yank. She collapsed back on her elbows, her mouth gaping open at the display. His face was a mask of sheer determination, his eyes were a dark gold swimming with heat and desire. His hands wrapped around her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the table. He glided his fingers up her thighs and hooked several around the inside of her panties. His knuckles brushed her dripping sex.
“You’re soaking wet, Genevieve. Tell me, was it me that made you this way or him?” his voice told her to be careful with her answer. His knuckles slid down through her folds and she threw her head back as she moaned. “Weakness?”
“You…” she breathed.
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