r_afterdark
- Reads 1,036
- Votes 73
- Parts 39
❝"Please... please, please," I whine into his mouth, broken and needy.
He smirks against my lips, savouring my desperation. "Please what, pretty girl? Hm? Talk to me- I know you can." ❞
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At Novae Vale, secrets aren't kept. They're traded.
After a year lost to grief, Scarlett Cheslyn-Arden steps through the iron gates of the world's most elite academy and straight into the shadows of the Order, a society where favours have teeth and debts are written in blood. Win the Trials and you earn a single promise powerful enough to crown a king or ruin a family.
She's ice-poised, untouchable, determined to survive on her own terms.
He's heat-Xavier Caelum, her brother's best friend, her fiancé to be, a walking sin with lazy smiles and razor edges. They're paired for the Trials, bound by rules that make desire dangerous and silence compulsory.
Underground fights thrum beneath the pool house. Poker nights hum with champagne and lies. There are masks, messages, and the kind of parties where music vibrates through your bones. In the dark between competitions, their banter turns sharp, their glances turn heavy, and touch becomes a promise neither of them should make.
To win the Blood Credit, Scarlett must play the Order's game-clever, ruthless, unafraid. To keep her heart, she should stay away from Xavier. But when power tastes like his mouth and safety looks a lot like his hands on her waist, restraint starts to feel like a losing strategy.
A sensual, slow-burn elite dark romance about found family, forbidden desire, and the cost of choosing your own fate-where every secret has a price, and every kiss is a risk.