Chapter Four - TL
He didn’t speak often about wanting a family, but the ache had always been there. Quiet, steady, buried beneath work and duty. For one fleeting moment, he’d thought fate had cracked that door open. Just enough for him to feel what it might be like to have someone who was his. Someone to love. Someone who would love him back and never betray him.
Not like before.
He had given his heart once, trusted someone enough to imagine a future. But that trust had been shattered, leaving behind scars he rarely let anyone see. Since then, he had learned to want in silence. To dream quietly, without hope.
And yet, this child, this moment, had pulled that dream into the light, if only for a second.
But now he was watching someone else live it.
"Daddy, I'm fine. And guess what? I found Papa!" IcXander said excitedly.
Chapter Three- TL
The strange thing was that the doctors did an excellent job of mending him because, as he matured, the scars seemed to fade away, as if everything that had happened to him during childhood and his teenage years existed solely in his mind. He believed it was because he was an unbound omega, but he knew he had not been born with the healing abilities that most had. His older brother, Ian, had followed in their mother’s footsteps, becoming a scientist. A researcher, to be exact. His sister, Willa, had done the same with their father, and worked for the same law firm, pursuing law as if it had been embedded in her DNA. They were business lawyers and known as the toughest father and daughter litigators winning their clients millions of dollars even if they are in the wrong. Jason wouldn’t deny that out of his two siblings his sister was the most spoiled and annoying. From childhood, she would cause trouble and blame it on Jason, smirking whenever his parents scolded him or his brother beat him until he was bloody. She’d whine and bully her way to get what she wanted and no one would question things. Her ploys didn’t just work on his parents, it included everyone in his family. It was as if she had cast a spell on them.
Chapter Two- TL
Leo sat up, pinching the bridge of his nose as hazy fragments of last night crashed into him. A sharp exhale escaped his lips, his chest rising and falling beneath the weight of memories. A lightly muscled, writhing body pressed against his breathless, broken moans—a sweet voice, raw with need, calling for him as if he were a god.
Heat flowed across his skin, so intense it sent a shiver down his spine.
It all started so simply. Leo had spent the evening finalizing a lucrative business deal with foreign dignitaries at the Luxe Horizon Hotel. The negotiations had been exhausting, extending late into the night, but the reward had been worth it. On his way out, he’d run into his friends Julien Ellis, the sharp-minded owner of Onyx Sentinel Cybersecurity, and Avery Shaw, the mastermind behind the Luxe Horizon Hotel and several of Valleywood’s most elite restaurants. Both men were at the bar, celebrating their successes, with drinks flowing as freely as their laughter. They had coaxed him into staying, insisting one drink wouldn’t kill him.
Chapter One - TL
It’s just one night. What could it hurt?
Jason shuffled through the dimly lit corridor, squinting as he tried to make out the numbers on the room doors. Had Tracy said 609 or 906? He couldn’t remember. Although he was tempted, knocking on every door to ask if they were the escort his friends had paid for was out of the question. That would be utterly humiliating. Just as he turned the corner, he collided face-first into something solid and unyielding, like a wall.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his eyes stinging as tears blurred his already unsteady vision. Sharp pain radiated from his nose, the unfortunate casualty of the collision. Instinctively, he pressed his hands against the solid surface, trying to regain his balance, but his knees buckled the moment he stepped back. There was no stopping it; he was about to become very well acquainted with the floor.
Chapter Three
"Uncle Chase," two cutie voices called out, making Chase stop just before he opened the door to his office. The two cuties hugged him as soon as they got close to him, pulling a smile on his lips.
"Hey there, babies," he said, hugging them back. "What are you two doing here?"
"We're sick, so Daddy kept us from school," they said together.
Chase leaned back, quirking a brow, looking at the two cuties and knowing they were perfectly fine. Seaphis and Amara were children born from a god of death and a reincarnated human who later gained the ability to see the dead, so there was no possible way they were sick. Seaphis and Amara were mischievous at almost three years old and little magical geniuses with advanced speech and an IQ over one hundred and sixty, causing Anubis and Star to enroll them in a special school for their kind in the immortal realm.
Chapter Two
One of the other reasons he liked coming to Nocturne was that since the new owners took over three months ago, his ability to see life and death disappeared. Chase would find it odd and want to investigate if it didn't enjoy the reprieve from knowing when someone would die. Chase wondered if it had something to do with the odd-looking runes the new owners added to the establishment.
Besides that, he liked the 1920s ambiance, with a tiny touch of modernity, at the Nocturne. Some of the previous owner's antique furniture was replaced by standing and sitting, spanking, and bondage benches that were currently being used. Shibari ropes of all colors and sizes did not seem out of place or take away from the mood and were displayed on the walls.
Chapter One
Months After The Blizzard
"I'm the best they have. No one can sell as much as I can..."
Why the fuck did I do this to myself? Am I too desperate to find a lover?
Chase sat across from his date, trying to remember the guy's name. When they met at the cafe, the man seemed dominant and had the look he was looking for. Tall, muscular, and handsome, but who knew he was so damn talkative? He had ignored the glaring problem imprinted on the guy's forehead.
Prologue Part 3
Snow fell heavily, blanketing everything in Valleywood white. The orshaial city hadn't seen a storm this bad for over a century. It was so thick and blinding that the city government declared that all residents must remain indoors. The storm raged, and the skies grew darker, with thunder and lightning clashing as the heavens seemed to split, opening up the floodgates of gods knew what.
In a warm, comfortable penthouse overlooking Valleywood, a figure lay between naked bodies after a night of debauchery gasped, waking up. Looking around his bedroom, Loki rubbed his chest, groaning, feeling a burning that caused him to break out in sweat.
Prologue Part 1
502,024 AD
On board the Emberion, or the Flame, as it was affectionately called by its crew, a figure dressed in black from head to toe moved stealthily through the halls. His back pressed against the wall, feeling the ancient runes gliding over his clothed skin, praying to all the ancestors he didn't get caught before the job was done.