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.

The Tennessee woods were a sanctuary of shadows and pine scent, a place that seemed carved from old secrets. Airig moved through it with the steady certainty of a man who belonged to the land as much as the trees did. Animals quieted when he passed, recognizing the calm strength in him. He was guardian and a leader who could crush a threat with a single motion yet pause later to murmur over a poem or stroke the muzzle of a frightened creature. Tonight the Moonlit Pack slept under a low pale moon. Airig walked the borders with a patience earned through time of ruling without arrogance. The forest felt settled until the metallic sting of blood tore through the night. He froze, his body tensing, nostrils flaring as the scent clawed its way down his spine. Not pack. Not prey. Human. He stopped. The scent of human blood was not common here. It coiled into his lungs like a warning. He followed it through the thicket until the sight of you broke the stillness. You lay in the silvered grass, your hair spilling across the ground, breath shallow. Something in him rose with primal urgency. His wolf surged forward with a certainty that crushed thought. "Mate". The word was not a whisper but a command etched into his bones. He reached for you, but the forest erupted. Steel cords snapped around him and the earth slammed against his back. A weighted net held him pinned while boots thundered through the trees. Men formed a circle with rifles steady and cold. Your father stepped forward, face carved from determination rather than cruelty. In that moment Airig understood everything. Your blood, your stillness, your fragile placement in the clearing. You were the lure placed with precision. And he was the creature worth more to hunters than any earthly treasure. You stood up with your father's help, alive, well, and you wiped the blood stains. Your father and his men were hunting creatures like him that were mythical to most but sold for billions to the elites © AnnaSenzai

Luciano Salvatore. A name that shook the Mexican underworld. Behind his cold stare and reputation lay calculations no one could read. But tonight he was not behind a command desk. He stood on the cracked concrete floor facing his greatest enemy, you! The fight began in silence. Only wind brushing the warehouse roof. Then like fire meeting gasoline fists collided. Bare hands. No guns. No henchmen. Just the two of them and dangerous revenge. Your kicks were sharp your punches quick. Luciano kept up. Determination burned but also caution. You both knew one wrong strike could mean death. Until suddenly A gunshot tore through the air. Luciano moved without hesitation. His hand grabbed you pulling you into his arms. His body turned shielding you from danger. A second shot. A bullet pierced his shoulder. He inhaled sharply but stayed on his feet. His eyes scanned the scene. Some of his men collapsed shot from behind. This was betrayal. You were shocked. Stunned. You were the bait. Limping he dragged you to flee. Bullets chased you. You dashed through a corn field weaving through shadows under the moonlight. Into the woods. Dark. Cold. Silent except for your breath and crunching twigs. Minutes passed before Luciano stopped. He opened a metal door hidden under thick bush a secret bunker only he knew. You entered and the outside vanished. Inside a flickering neon bulb lit the bunker. Damp air and the smell of rust filled the room. He dropped into an old chair pale. Blood poured from his shoulder. First aid kit. Metal shelf left side he said curtly. While waiting he tore his shirt. He was used to treating wounds alone. With rusty tweezers he began pulling the bullet from his flesh. Blood dripped on the concrete floor. He told you that you were set up and that your uncle wanted you dead. He had lost men yet he protected you. Because your uncle wanted you both dead.

It all happened in an instant. The creature lunged at you from the shadows of the forest. Its snarl echoed like thunder between the trees, breath hot with hunger. Before you could scream, a slash of bright silver cut the air and the wolf like beast dropped at your feet with a choking cry. The Knight stood between you & death. His armor was heavy & scarred & no part of his face could be seen beneath the steel covering his head. Yet something in the way he turned toward you made you feel he watched you with careful intent. His presence was both terrifying and strangely protective. 10 years had passed since your father, Dragon Eragon, had burned his way into the Relaniar Kingdom. You were the one secret he wished to erase, a reminder of a union he regretted. Humans despised you as a curse & dragons wanted you destroyed as proof of betrayal. Hybrid meant destined to be hunted. Sir Sterne Crossfire had sworn loyalty to the exiled King Ruthud. For 2 years, he chased rumors of the hidden daughter of Eragon. You escaped him only by luck. He was feared for a reason. The stories said that no battle ended without his victory. Your mother was human, her blood silenced the dragon inside you. No wings. No scales. No fire. You survived not through strength but through the art of vanishing, something she taught you well before she died. For months you hid in the quiet village of Lareville, pretending to be ordinary, until war found you again. Fire rained from the sky as dragons clashed with warriors. Screams mixed with roars. You fled into the woods. & there he stood. The knight who hunted you. The knight who just saved you. He spoke harshly of the dragon born girl, unaware that she stood trembling right before him. If he learned the truth, the chase would begin again. Yet for the first time, you wondered which would be worse. Capture… or the moment he realized he saved the very enemy he swore to destroy. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Outside the iron gates of the Oversight Committee the peace treaty between humans & werewolves had long rotted into a lie. Sunset painted the iron bars with a burning glow. Kiro stood chained to a stone pillar silver cuffs biting into his wrists. His cloak could not hide the raised scars that crossed his back. He muttered curses toward the rising moon until he noticed you. The clatter of chains stopped. He inhaled sharply his voice breaking from a growl into a taunt. "Another bounty hunter. Careful. Freedom is just a word they decorate cages with" You asked about him. The guards delighted in describing him. The most wicked werewolf alive they said. A prize your father guarded with pride. Dunolf fearless ruler of the Committee had sent you to deliver his orders, ensure every creature remained shackled & silent. He called it duty.There was something terrifying in a werewolves strength & something almost admirable in the way they stood by those they loved. Kiro’s stare hardened when your father arrived. Dunolf went straight to his captive & drew the whip like a signature. The crack of it tore the air before he turned to you as if agony were just part of the décor. That was enough for Kiro. Silver links screeched as he tore free. Guards froze too late. His hand closed around you; suddenly the world tipped. You were thrown over his shoulder like stolen property as he sprinted into the wild. Your father shouted orders but the forest answered with wind & shadows hiding Kiro’s tracks unmoved by human authority. Far from the iron gates he slowed. His breath was rough from the run yet his hold never loosened. When he set you down the earth itself seemed to wait for his verdict. Those chains might be gone but the anger that forged them still burned in his eyes. Every lash every insult every night spent waiting for mercy he promised to repay. You were his leverage, his revenge. You had always feared werewolves. Now you belonged to one. © AnnaSenzai

Andrew Witherford was a name that carried through every concert hall. His fingers danced across the piano keys with a passion that made the crowd forget to breathe. When you stepped onto the stage in your black swan costume, his music wrapped around you like a living force. Every spin & every soaring leap felt like he was guiding you to touch the stars. The applause was thunder & together you were invincible. Ballet had been your destiny since you were a little girl who tied satin ribbons and dreamed of greatness. Andrew watched you with awe & slowly that admiration deepened into something fierce. One night he kissed your trembling hands & slipped a sparkling ring between your fingers. He whispered that he would love you always & you believed every word because his eyes made it impossible to doubt him. Then his father discovered everything. The man saw your love as a flaw that needed to be crushed. Years earlier he had arranged a future for Andrew with another woman & nothing was allowed to ruin that agreement. Legacy, power stood above feelings. To him you were nothing more than a danger that needed to disappear. Andrew did not fight. He did not run away with you. He came to you with dread in his voice & defeat pressing down on his shoulders. He said it was over. His silence was crueler than any insult. You waited for him to come back. He never did. He married Elina Mades & the world that once adored you became a place of pain. Your final announcement was a blur of lights & questions. On stage you stood with your heart breaking announcing that you quit ballet. You bowed with shaking legs and walked away from ballet, from the dreams you had shaped with your blood and devotion. Backstage Andrew was there. He leaned against the wall as if he had been waiting for hours. His eyes looked darker than the night you first said it's over. He swallowed hard before he asked why you quit. "You love ballet. Tell me this is not because of me." ©Anna Senzai

©2025AnnaSenzai Snow covered every rooftop and lamppost, turning the town into a quiet holiday postcard. Exhausted after searching for Christmas gifts, you paused in the Central Square to breathe in the chilled air and admire the glowing tree one more time. A little ahead, two doves lay in the snow. One still, eyes closed forever. The other pressed against its fallen mate, its wing twisted, its tiny body trembling with grief. Your heart clenched. You tore open two gift boxes and gently gathered them inside, tears blurring the lights around you. Later you buried the lifeless bird beneath a fir tree in your yard. The survivor stayed, guarded by your careful hands. A friend who worked as a vet taught you how to clean the injured wing, how to give warmth & food. You named him Wispin, delicate like the way he tried to float even when he could not fly. He became your constant companion, but loneliness clung to him, his eyes always searching for what he had lost. His wing healed quickly, yet you could not release him. When you tried to comfort him, he puffed up and snapped, unhappy with the world and you. On New Year’s Eve, you cried quietly, hurt by someone who chose your supposed best friend over you, and Wispin watched. For the first time he let you stroke his feathers, just for a few seconds. He leaned into your palm and made a soft coo, as if he understood heartbreak too. That moment warmed you more than any celebration. The next morning he was gone. No open window. No trace. Only silence heavier than winter. A week later, while taking down decorations, you saw a figure in the yard. A man with white wings folded behind him. You stared, breath frozen. He spoke your name. He told you he is Wispin. He explained he was a shifter and his mate was gone. You asked him to stay. He resisted, distant and sharp tongued, shaped by loss. But he stayed anyway. Not out of sweetness. Out of a bond neither of you expected. A mean, mischievous shifter that made your heart race

Ront was never the sort of man anyone would choose. His voice carried command without reason & his temper was crude. Most evenings he vanished into the stale murmur of the local pub, returning only to sleep & complain. Clara, his sister, lived under the same roof. She was gentle in a way that made the house feel almost human. That day you returned earlier than expected. The door was ajar. The shadows did not feel familiar. Clara lay upon the floor, the light from the window glistening across a terrible pool that had once been her life. Your cry summoned the officers. Ront arrived later, smelling of bitter drink, his outrage indistinguishable from fear. They questioned you both and released you only because neither one of you had been without an alibi. Elliot, the forensic scientist, stayed behind long enough to see the marks along your arms. You insisted upon a story of clumsy work accidents. His eyes did not believe you, yet he merely slipped you his card and asked you to remember anything that might help. You gathered many cards from many hands that night, each treating you as a source to be drained. At the cheap motel afterward, Ront seized the cards & vented the storm inside him upon you. Time slid onward with no answers. Clara’s case grew still. 3 years passed & justice remained a mockery. One night fate rearranged its pieces. Elliot was driving home when you stumbled into the glow of his headlights, escaping once more from Ront’s rage. He carried you to safety & tended your wounds in the silence of his tidy apartment. He remembered Clara & you. You feared reporting anything. He refused to let fear bury truth again. He kept you sheltered while your injuries healed & guided you through the long process of breaking free. In that month he revealed fragments of himself. His love for puzzles. The solace he found in classical music. His preference for solitude & the way past heartbreak had hardened his resolve against romance. © AnnaSenzai

You remember the first night. Rain pouring down, the scent of wet earth, and a fox sprawled beneath the maple tree like a dying ember. You lifted him, blood warm against your palms, and carried him home through the dark. He healed, but he never returned to the wild. He chose you, slipping through your door at dusk, curling at your feet as if your presence was the safest kingdom he would ever know. Ypu named him Maple. People in Emeryne whispered that you were strange, that wild things should remain wild. You never listened. Then came the city, your grand escape for studies. A future. A husband. Divorce papers. Your father refused to feed a creature he considered a nuisance. Maple waited until he understood the truth. You had left him behind. He stopped coming. He disappeared into the trees like a secret swallowed by the night. Ten years later, you arrived back in Emeryne with a life in ruins and a suitcase full of regrets. In the attic, photos of a red coated fox stared at you as if memory had claws. A reminder of loyalty you once discarded. His name drifted into your classroom one morning. Russet Runi. Owner of cabins in the deep woods. Leader of forest expeditions that brought life back to a dying town. The first time you saw him, your lungs forgot their purpose. Tall frame, copper hair, eyes that gleamed with a playful cruelty. His smile was a beautiful threat. Your father pulled you aside. Do not trust that man. Something in him bites. You signed up for a trail weekend anyway. Curiosity or punishment, you were not sure. Russet welcomed you with a grin that held too many old memories. He moved like a secret waiting to pounce. All charm in sunlight. All shadows once dusk arrived. Only one truth lived behind those bright eyes. He had been Maple. He was a shifter something nobody could have known. And he had never forgiven you for abandoning him. His goal now, is to make your life a living hell. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Mccoy Beams is the finest instructor in the refined art of commitment. The wealthy & well connected sent their future spouses to him so he could polish them into people capable of tolerating one another. His methods were unorthodox yet admired. Couples who walked into his office with cold stares often left with softened edges and grudging respect. But Mccoy’s personal life laughed in the face of his expertise. Twice divorced, always the one who left first, he moved through the world with that elegant confidence of someone who had mastered everything except himself. People spoke of him as if he were made of smoke. Impossibly charming. Perfectly composed. Dangerous without ever raising his voice. His eyes alone seemed to know too much. And behind that knowledge was a loneliness no one dared to mention. The latest pair assigned to him were you & John, promised to each other through a family agreement. You found Mccoy’s polished authority insufferable. The way he instructed you to speak more softly. The way he reminded you that grace was an expectation. John obeyed every suggestion gratefully, which irritated you even more. Yet you returned to every session, refusing to give him the satisfaction of quitting. One afternoon you stepped out with friends, craving a night where no one would evaluate your posture. Passing a quiet café you noticed him inside, shoulders stiff, voice sharp. His partner’s eyes were filled with heartbreak as she left in tears. Mccoy stormed out with anger he could not hide. He stopped when he saw you. For once, his mask failed. You told him you had heard everything. Told him that the man who claimed to save relationships could not save his own. He did not speak. He only looked at you, truly and without armor. And in that unsettling silence you realized something unbearable. This flawed man, with all his contradictions, was already tangled into your future. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Snow pressed against the windows as though the storm wanted in. You stepped into the cafe, breath still sharp from the cold and brushed the snow from your clothes. The place was full and loud. You scanned the room until you found Ted, his gesture a reminder of why you were here. The blueprints in your hands carried urgent changes. Before you reached him, the door opened again. A man stepped inside, tall, shoulders dusted with winter. The construction crew near the counter burst into cheers. They had planned a birthday gathering for him. He absorbed their enthusiasm with a restrained smile, muttering they were ridiculous for celebrating him, though some quiet part of him seemed moved. His attention shifted and locked with yours. Something tightened in your chest. You crossed the space before you could think. He accepted your brief embrace. His scent filled your senses. That was your first moment with Hank Bradock, a man you had never known and yet could not forget. You remained in that circle of workers though no one invited you. Ten men who smelled of industry, men who built what the city touched. Hank belonged to that life. He cared about results more than talk. Flannel shirts, hands shaped by labor, humor that stumbled into offense without intention. A few close friends, all forged from long days and shared burdens. Women rarely looked beyond the rough exterior and he did little to encourage them. For months you tried to know him beyond the surface. Each attempt, a refusal. He was polite but distant, as if privacy were a boundary he guarded. Still the memory lingered. One late night you found his flannel shirt left behind. You did not return it. You brought it home. Hank noticed its absence immediately. He searched every locker and corner. When Ted stopped by your apartment for paperwork, he recognized the shirt and mentioned it to Hank. Hank did not take the discovery lightly. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Wolfrey did not want her, but he could not abide being refused. The world had taught him only one rule: never be told No. Raised by Amanda, who found him lost as a pup in the Blazewood woods, he had grown into a towering wolf who preferred walking as a man. Homeschooled, restless, and irritable, he was a storm in human form, yet he loved Amanda with a devotion no one else could earn. Love, however, had betrayed him. His wife had fled the night of the blue moon, terrified by what he truly was, leaving behind a bitter divorce that taught him to trust no woman again. He found solace only in books, building a bookstore so vast that people whispered its name even in towns beyond Blazewood. Every rare text, every hidden volume, every story lived there—and so did he. You returned to the small town, carrying old hatred in your blood. Your great grandfather had crossed the forest’s boundary and never returned; your family’s warnings were etched into your mind. Unaware of the truth, you entered his store. Wolfrey smelled you before he saw you. Your scent screamed No, yet somehow it also belonged to him, a challenge he did not expect. He ordered you to leave, voice sharp as glass, and you obeyed, confused and inexplicably drawn. At home your father’s voice warned you again: stay away. Wolfrey is a werewolf. You tried to avoid him, but Blazewood was small. Christmas came, and the world shrank to the space between you. He stepped into it, offering a hand with a smile meant to humiliate. “No,” you spat. He stared, shocked and enraged. The refusal lit a fire in him. You would not comply, and he would see to it that you learned exactly who controlled the night. He was challenged to charm you only to ridicule you, to humiliate you to ruin you. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Cato Orlandez carried his name like a scar, something earned through survival rather than birth. Valle Olvidado had shaped him long before he understood what shaping meant. The slums breathed uneven rhythms. The ground was a patchwork of broken stone and discarded bottles. The walls were stained with a dust no rain could cleanse. Smoke drifted from the distant blacksmith, twisting through narrow paths between leaning houses. As a boy he slept wherever warmth allowed. At fifteen he found shelter with a random old lady everyone called 'Mama", who ruled her tiny hotel with tired hands and unshakable patience. She fed him, scolded him, taught him to keep rooms clean and guests calm. By nineteen he worked for her in earnest, balancing her meager pay with extra shifts at a crowded tavern on the eastern side of town. Life became a steady rhythm of labor and late nights. Desire was distant; his few flings dissolved as quickly as they appeared, forgotten even before dust settled on the morning streets. That evening he left his room and descended the metal stairs. The hotel hummed with quiet sounds of old age. Mama greeted him with her familiar smile and tugged his cheek. Rosa waited nearby, hopeful as ever, but he dismissed her with a single cold sentence that left the air heavy. Outside, night pressed against the town. He walked the crooked lanes, careful not to disturb children sleeping on bundles of cloth or small cats curled beside doorways. Lights flickered as the tavern shift crawled by in a blur of voices and clattering cups. Returning, he whistled a slow flamenco. Streetlights glowed with a faint orange pulse. Stepping aside for a sleeping cat, he caught his foot on a loose wire. Balance vanished. At that moment, a small shop door swung open by you. The collision was sudden. Both bodies hit the ground, breaths knocked out, the quiet street echoing with a single shared groan. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Spring in Newsfall did not bother with warmth. It arrived with cold light and the kind of restless air that made people rush toward the woods as if the season demanded it. You had lived in town barely three months, long enough to feel like an observer, not a resident, and the Everglades trail seemed like the cleanest way to cross that line. Three teams gathered at the trailhead. Your team moved with an uncertain rhythm at first, a cluster of young women and a man who carried himself like someone who already knew the shape of the land and the guide. The trail unfolded with effortless beauty. Waterfalls erupted out of rock, the forest inhaled around you, and by the time camp was established near the caves, the place felt almost engineered to disarm anyone who stepped into it. The next morning you saw him. A man standing alone at the falls, watching the water with a focus that did not belong to a casual hiker. No gear. No badge. No explanation. When you approached him, he answered rudely, as if your presence disrupted a private calculation. The photo you took unnoticed from the stranger, unsettled Earl the guide. He studied it once, then went pale. His warning was quiet but firm. Avoid him. Do not approach again. There were things in these mountains, he said, that did not appreciate attention. The following evening the woods erupted with a sudden violence that snapped the calm in two. Bears attacked. Shouts carried through the trees, sharp enough to freeze you, then propel you forward. You ran until the danger broke toward you, swift and deliberate. And then the stranger stepped out of the dark. Bryant Emers. His body changed with a speed that defied understanding, revealing something powerful, wolf faced, and ancient in its certainty. He drove the threat back with a force that felt older than the forest itself, and in the settling quiet, it was clear you were alive because he chose for you to be. The rest were killed by the bears ©2025AnnaSenzai

The sun stabbed Paul’s eyes through the library windows. He sat rigid over his textbook, jaw tight, brows knitted, as if waging war with the pages. You slid into the seat beside him, tapping your pen against his finger until he finally startled, looking up with that mix of annoyance and something unspoken. You pursued him relentlessly, a year later he finally relented, and soon after college, the two of you married. For three years, life felt easy, full of small joys and shared routines. Then everything changed. A work accident, a surgery that left his arm useless, and a future he had designed slipping through his fingers. You watched him shrink, first into himself, then into bitterness. He became irritable, rude, audacious, picking fights over nothing, lashing out at everyone around him. He blamed the world, blamed you, blamed life itself. You hired Melinda, young but brilliant, the best physiotherapist the doctors recommended. Paul let her in immediately, let her see his weakness in ways he would never allow you. Pride kept him from showing his brokenness to you, but lust and need drew him close to her. He didn’t love her. He didn’t even feel much. But the affair began anyway, quiet, deliberate, brutal in its betrayal. It ended the day his sister Ema saw him kissing Melinda and told you everything. The marriage shattered. You confronted Melinda with rage; your hand met her cheek, security dragging you out before you could do more. Five months later, divorce papers sat before you. You hesitated. Paul snatched them away just before you sign them, eyes fierce and haunted, and asked for one last favor: a hike on Eagle Crest Trail, like the ones you had taken when happiness was simple. That trail promised truths he had refused to face for Melinda, for himself, for the love that once bound you both. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Six months have passed since the cell door closed behind you, the metal echo still lodged somewhere in your skull. They said you belonged here after your husband was found dead near Abigail’s cottage. They said betrayal had broken you and anger had twisted your mind. They said a lot of things. None of them were true. John had cheated on you with his dentist, Mary, and the betrayal had cost you the child you were expecting. Abigail, ever hopeful, invited you both to her cottage to mend what was already beyond repair. She invited Mary too, claiming it would “clear the air.” The moment you saw her, everything inside you lurched. You walked out with John to talk, but the talk became an argument that scraped old wounds open. You returned alone. He never did. By the next evening, they found him dead in the woods. A week later, they arrested you. Fragile, confused, barely able to form sentences under the weight of shock, you were sent here. Your trial was short; you couldn't defend yourself and your lawyer was pathetic. You got convicted in imprisonment to a psychiatric asylum. To this institution. To Dr Evans with his clipped questions and patronizing calm. And to Officer Norman Miller, who moved through the halls like a lie detector wrapped in a uniform. Strict, unreadable, audacious, impossible to sway. You told them you hated your husband but would never hurt him. They saw motive, not truth. Every piece of evidence pointed to you, arranged with surgical precision. Then the cameras caught something. A shadow outside your door that flickered and vanished. Norman reviewed the footage twice, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. A glitch, the staff said. Something worth a closer look, Norman thought. He sent the footage out quietly. And when he came to speak with you, he still didn’t believe you. But he kept investigating anyway. Because something in that shadow didn’t belong. And neither, he suspected, did you. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Grayhaven had always worn its history like a shroud, the Victorian houses leaning close as if listening to every secret whispered through the fog. Long ago, when the malignant mist first crept over the town, Tanya Elmerwood and Cedric Graythorn forged a pact that kept humans alive and werewolves forgotten. Cedric, an ancient wolf locked in youth, guarded Grayhaven while resisting the Moon’s command to claim Seera. Emotions, he believed, were traps. The pact became his cage. Tanya kept her end until age stole her memories. Before the illness claimed her mind, she told her granddaughter the truth about the town, the pack and Cedric. She handed over a folder of instructions and a red box containing strands of his fur. When the granddaughter returned to Grayhaven, people recoiled, muttering as the fog thickened in her wake. They feared the witch's bloodline without knowing she held no magic of her own, only a role carved into the pact long before her birth. Mara the librarian guided her through the ancient forest where Cedric ruled the shadows. His betas arrived first, snarling warnings, but she refused to retreat. Cedric emerged next, all cold fury and sharp disdain, mocking every word she dared offer. He demanded she leave, demanded the pact be broken so he and his pack could finally be free. But logic could not reach him. So she opened the red box. Before Cedric understood her intent, she claimed the right Tanya had left her and swallowed a tuft of his fur. The forest went still. Cedric stared at her with a furious, disbelieving silence, bound to a mate he did not want and a fate he could no longer outrun. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Studying in Seoul had always felt like the real beginning of your life. You crossed an ocean for it, leaving the suburbs of the States for a house that smelled of ink, pine, and quiet disapproval. Your grandfather watched you with the steady gaze of a man who did not understand the child he saw only twice before, yet expected discipline carved into bone. The blackout arrived without warning. One moment you were reviewing notes, the next the room dissolved into a darkness heavy enough to taste. You reached for your grandmother’s old lantern, the one she guarded with an odd fear. The wick flared at your touch. A heat that did not belong to this world rolled through the room. Byungho broke through the light as if the flame had ripped open the air. He stood tall with the rigid stillness of a warrior carved from anger. His sword burned in his grip with a fire that pulsed in rhythm with your breath. He told you he belonged to the Seonghwa Dynasty, destroyed by the fury of a forgotten fire god. The curse forced him to live eternally within the realm called Seolhaneul. Your summoning had tied your life to the glow of his weapon. Every breath you took fed its flame. Fear made you snuff the lantern. Reality collapsed. Seolhaneul opened beneath you, a world made of silver mist and fractured time. A mark blazed across your palm, bright and painful. Voices rose from the fog, cold enough to make your ribs . You reached for Byungho on instinct. His hand closed around your wrist and he placed you behind him, his body a wall against the creeping dark. Seolhaneul, a shimmering rift between worlds where spirits bleed into reality and time itself frays at the edges. Cold whispers swarm closer, fingers of ice crushing your neck. He said that your life now held the flame of his sword. If it died, both of you would fall. You understood then. You were not his chosen companion. You were the burden he could not allow to disappear. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Xylo Reeves had learned to live with the ache that never quieted. Four years in Edward Cornes’s forests had carved him down to something lean and wordless. His mother Eloria had taken everything from him. His mate, Vanya, stolen the night she was claimed, the pack’s ring stamp ripped from his hand, his freedom sold to Edward as if it meant nothing. Your life was arranged on a different kind of cruelty. A year had passed since your family arranged your marriage to Edward. You had seen him once. He arrived with the engagement gifts, statuesque and distant, a man nearly your father’s age. You refused to greet him. Watching from the window, you felt the certainty that this marriage would be a slow erasure. The wedding day tasted of dread. You cried through the vows and through the celebration in his mansion, its polished floors crowded with elites and cameras. The truth found you in his study where Edward and Vanya stood close, affectionate with each other, laughing softly. And Vanya was a she-wolf, something you had never imagined could be real. Shock hit you first, then the hollow collapse of understanding. Xylo saw them too. From another doorway he watched the woman he had mourned as dead press her hand to Edward’s chest. He said nothing. He simply turned and vanished into the noise of the party. When the last guests disappeared into their rooms, the mansion fell into an uncanny stillness. Xylo locked the doors, stepped through the silence, and let the fire devour everything he could not. They said no one survived. A week later you knocked on the door of his hidden cabin. Burned, ragged, barely holding yourself upright. You entered when no one answered. When Xylo returned, he found you asleep on the wooden floor, surrounded by scattered food you must have tried to eat, a glass of water overturned near your feet, as if survival had become instinct more than choice. ©2025AnnaSenzai

Dennis stepped out of his workspace long after dusk and crossed the street toward a quiet urban cafe, tablet under his arm. He had no habitual refuge; he preferred the uncertainty of new rooms, new crowds, new angles from which life revealed itself. His childhood had been a battleground of languages and ideas. Arguments were not disruptions but rituals. Science filled Mondays, philosophy dominated Tuesdays, politics consumed Wednesdays, and sociology shaped the rest. It was no surprise that he grew into a man with degrees that straddled both code and society, a columnist whose essays provoked immediate response. His personal platform became a gathering point for serious thinkers, and Dennis challenged each one with the same unyielding intensity. He was religious, intellectually fearless, generous in thought yet impossible to steer. Women admired him but rarely understood the cost of being near someone who debated as naturally as breathing. His engagement had dissolved under that pressure. You entered the cafe that evening searching for work. The sign promising part time help drew you in, but the interview collapsed into a blunt dismissal. The owner’s contempt followed you out the door, and you stood at the bus stop feeling the sting of it. Dennis had watched the exchange. Something in your expression held him. He approached, composed but decisive, and invited you back inside. He apologized for what you had endured, ordered two coffees, and studied you with the focus he usually reserved for his guests. Then, with the quiet challenge of a man who lived within arguments, he asked if you would join him in a debate on the idea that society still expects women to embody a fragile conservative temperament. ©2025AnnaSenzai