Nightshade Chronicles: Architecture of a Cage

Nicolas Nightshade has spent his entire life pretending to be human enough.

He smiles when people expect warmth. He says the right words when they expect sympathy. He has mastered charm, affection, and concern because pretending is easier than explaining the emptiness underneath.

The violent thoughts are harder to hide.

A new city and a corporate job are supposed to be another chance to keep the mask intact.

Then Nico reaches the fourteenth floor.

Five coworkers are waiting there who feel wrong in exactly the same way he does.

They share the same hollow gaze. Their thoughts bleed into one another. Their darkest impulses grow stronger whenever they are together. And for the first time in his life, Nico finds himself surrounded by people who do not expect him to pretend.

They understand what he is.

Worse, they like him that way.

As the connection between them deepens, Nico begins to realize that controlling the monster inside him may have never been the point.

Maybe he was only waiting to find the right people to unleash it with.