The mountain had been his for a thousand years.Longer, if one counted the centuries before the humans came with their maps and their names and their endless, grasping need to claim things. He'd been here when the peak was younger, sharper, still learning to wear the shape of stone. He'd b...
Read MoreThe key was in an envelope marked "For Paige," tucked inside a larger envelope marked "To be opened after my death," which was itself buried beneath three decades of tax returns in her grandmother's mahogany desk.Paige found it on the third day of clearing the house.The fu...
Read MoreThe email had seemed harmless enough.December Selection: "Midnight Heat" by J.C. Wilde. Please have read by the 15th. Wine and snacks provided. —MargaretWhat none of them knew, what Margaret herself didn't know until she was forty-seven pages in and breathing heavily on the su...
Read MoreThe cabin had seemed like such a good idea three months ago.That was when Mason had sent the group text, six friends, too long since they'd all been together, why not rent a place in the mountains for a week? No cell service, no distractions, just old friends and good wine and the kind of con...
Read MoreThe first thing she said was, "Teach me."He looked up from the book he was reading, the word hanging between them like an offering. Tess stood in the doorway of his study, her hair still damp from the shower, wearing nothing but one of his old shirts and an expression he couldn't qu...
Read MoreThe wedding was beautiful in the way that weddings are when people have waited a long time for them.Flowers spilled from every surface, cream and blush and the palest gold. Candles flickered on tables draped in linen. The string quartet played something timeless while the bride walked down the ai...
Read MoreThe first thing Sasha noticed about him were his hands.They were beautiful hands, though he'd probably hate hearing that. Broad palms, thick fingers, knuckles crossed with scars and calluses. Nails always clean but never quite free of the dark crescents of grease that seemed permanently worke...
Read MoreThe apartment was smaller than the pictures had suggested.This was, Tessa thought as she stood in the doorway with her single suitcase and a rapidly dwindling sense of optimism, the universal experience of renting in this city. Pictures lied. Square footage was a suggestion. And "cozy" ...
Read MoreThe sea had given her many things over the years.Shells like coiled secrets. Driftwood smoothed to the texture of skin. Once, a bottle with a message so waterlogged the words had dissolved into blue-gray ghosts. She'd held it anyway, pressing her fingers to the glass where someone's hope ...
Read MorePart One: The DescentThe research vessel Theseus had fallen silent seventeen hours ago.Commander Reyes checked the seal on her helmet for the fifth time, her gloved fingers tracing the reinforced polymer collar. Behind her, the landing craft's interior hummed with artificial gravity and recyc...
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