Deeply hurt by a lover's betrayal, Noah Hunter leaves a shattered life behind and moves to Spring Lakes to join his brother's pack. All he wants is a quiet place and some time to heal. Fate has other ideas.
In the middle of the night, on a lonely stretch of road, Noah hits a dog. When he brings the injured animal to a veterinarian, he crosses paths with the singular, mysterious, and aggravatingly handsome Ambrose Thorne. When, after learning that Noah needs a place to stay, Ambrose invites him to his home, Noah thinks he may have found just the sort of peace and space he needs, and the last thing he expects is to become entangled in the heart of a mystery.
While helping his brother Dane on a case involving a string of inexplicable thefts, Noah soon discovers that his new acquaintance is more than he seems and is inextricably tied to the strange burglaries. As the case becomes complicated by occult rituals, murder, and mythical beasts, Noah finds himself in more than one kind of danger - because while he doubts that anyone would want something so broken and torn, it seems like his heart might get stolen, too.
He just hopes that the one who steals it and the thief at the heart of the mystery are not one and the same.
-----
WARNINGS: This story contains strong language, some violence, and sex.
-----
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and in
Book Two of the Haunted Lover's Duo.
"The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird's death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird." -Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War Two Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption.
In the wake of Malcolm's death, Slate attempts a shot at normality. He tries to cope, and hopes staying close to Eden will aid him in retaining his sanity. However, there just doesn't seem to be anything going right, and the hole that Malcolm left in his chest just isn't helping. He's falling, and he knows soon he'll hit the ground. He'll crash.
During a raging storm, Slate finds the one light that might actually keep him going. The one light to guide him through the darkness of his life, to bring him back from the brink, and maybe even to finally forge some beauty worth living for. A nymph, half-dead in the middle of the road, so close to the end himself but somehow able to shift Slate's entire world into another dimension. A clearer one. One that he may just survive in.