The chrome and neon of the lower sectors of Aethelstadt blurred into a throbbing, synaptic pulse. Kaelen moved through the crowds not as a man, but as a vessel of want. His skin, threaded with sub-dermal circuitry, hummed in dissonant sympathy with the city’s core. He was a Conduit, o...
Read MoreThe invitation was a single line of text, glowing on Felix’s screen: “I have a black velvet dress that would look perfect on you. Come over at 8.” It was from Anya. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird in a cage of bone and anxiety. For months, their connection ha...
Read MoreThe power didn’t feel like a thunderclap. For David, it was more like noticing a dial in the back of his mind that he’d never seen before, and realizing he could turn it. A slight adjustment of internal pressure, a quiet click of will, and the world softened at the edges, ea...
Read MoreThe air in Maya’s apartment always smelled like sandalwood and rain-soaked earth, a scent that had become, for Elara, the very definition of comfort. But tonight, the comfort was laced with something else, something that crackled in the space between them on the sofa—a charge built fr...
Read MoreThe invitation arrived not as a proposition, but as an atmosphere. It had been woven through months of lazy Sunday mornings in bed, of whispered fantasies shared in the safe, warm dark between them. For Clara and Mateo, their love was a fortress, its walls not built to keep the world out, but to ...
Read MoreThe realisation did not arrive as a thunderclap, but as a slow, dawning tide, each wave lapping a little higher on the shores of Elias’s understanding until the landscape of his life was irrevocably changed. For thirty-two years, he had lived in a pleasant, well-appointed room, believing th...
Read MoreThe storm over Derry didn’t rage; it purred. A low, wet growl of thunder that seemed to sync with the rhythm of the town’s hidden fears. It was in this electric hush that Elara found herself walking home, the kiss of rain on her skin a cold contrast to the memory of her date’s c...
Read MoreThe air is thick with unspent rain,the scent of skin, a sweet, slow stain.A silent pact the night has made,beneath the weight of light betrayed.Your gaze, a question, finds my own,a territory not yet known.A fingertip, a trace, a line,from wrist to elbow, slow design.A map of heat, a whispered pl...
Read MoreThe rain in Forks was a constant, a drumming rhythm against the roof of Bella’s small house. It was a sound that had once felt claustrophobic, but now, it was merely the backdrop to the symphony of her new existence. Since becoming a vampire, the world had sharpened into hyper-reality. Ever...
Read MoreThe most intoxicating thing about our new apartment wasn't the high ceilings or the exposed brick. It was the window. A vast, floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that looked directly into the mirror image of our own building, twenty yards across a quiet, cobblestoned courtyard.For most, it would b...
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