Novels by Paisley C

RAVENThe world was quiet after the storm. Too quiet.Smoke still curled up from the ruins of what had once been our home… our territory, our war, our nightmare. The earth was soaked with blood and rain, and for a long while, I just stood there, watching the dawn crawl across the wreckage. The sky bled from black to gray to gold, a slow kind of mercy after the night we’d survived.Kieran stood a few feet away, his back to me, shoulders bare and bruised, his body still trembling from the change. Even like that, covered in dirt, blood, and loss; he looked unbreakable. Unforgiving. And mine.When he turned, his eyes found me instantly, like they always did. There was exhaustion there, and grief, but also something gentler… something that made my chest ache.“You should sit,” he said quietly, his voice rough.I shook my head. “If I sit, I won’t get up again.”A small smile tugged at his lips. “Then don’t. Stay standing. You always did like proving me wrong.”I walked toward him slowly, th

KIERANThe sky burned red with fire and fury when the first roar split the air. The ground trembled beneath our feet, the scent of blood already thick before the first body hit the dirt. My claws ached for release, my wolf pacing restlessly inside me, snarling to be freed. And then I saw them…Lucian’s men, pouring into our territory like a plague. A dark tide of betrayal and vengeance.“Alpha, they’ve broken through the eastern line!” Jax shouted over the chaos, his voice hoarse.“Hold them!” I barked, turning as a massive black wolf lunged at me. I caught it midair, slamming it to the ground with a snarl. My claws tore through flesh before I even realized what I was doing. The copper tang of blood filled my mouth, and something inside me snapped.Lucian’s laughter echoed from the ridge. “You should’ve stayed hidden, Kieran! You were never meant to lead!”I bared my teeth, my chest heaving. “Then come down here and see if you can take my crown, coward!”He didn’t move… but his men did

LUCIANI knew things would go awry sooner or later, especially if I didn’t find a way to break into Kieran’s pack. Every day that passed, he and his men were getting stronger…more organized, more ruthless; and if I didn’t move soon, they’d bring the war straight to my doorstep. I could already feel it like a storm brewing in the distance. That thought alone was enough to keep me pacing in my office long after midnight, my hands clenched so tight that my knuckles cracked.“Lucian,” Markus said from the doorway, his tone cautious, “you’ve been at this for hours. You need to rest before you burn yourself out.”I shot him a glare, half tired and half irritated. “Rest? You think I can rest when Kieran’s planning something? He’s been gathering rogues…strong ones too. And the spy we sent? He never made it back alive. You think that's a coincidence?”Markus sighed, stepping fully into the room. “You’re seeing ghosts again. Maybe he’s just guarding his borders tighter. It doesn’t mean he’s pla

KIERANThey came to me in the night because that was the way of it…men in oilskins and furs, faces half-swallowed by shadow, voices that never rose above the low tones of wolves on the hunt.“Alpha,” Marcellus said, when the door closed and the candles guttered low. “Lucian moves like a fever across the borders. He’s coaxing your enemies, stirring up rogues. The scouts saw him with Raven’s banner on his hip.”I let the name roll in my mouth like a stone. Lucian. He had the audacity of fire: always two steps from cinder, always close enough to scorch.“Raven?” I asked slowly. “You mean the woman who crawled from under my own men’s boots and lived to whisper at taverns?”“Aye.” Marcellus thumped the table. “And he’s using her. They say she promised him…” He stopped because there were rules to how much a man could say when the Alpha’s temper could tilt the world.“Promised what?” I demanded. My voice was steady, but inside something like a wire pulled taught.“Promises are knives that cu

RAVENI’d been pacing the edge of the northern woods when the news reached me. A scout…mud-splattered and trembling, came running through the trees, his chest heaving. The look in his eyes told me everything before he even opened his mouth.“They let him go,” he gasped.For a moment, I didn’t move. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of pine and blood…faint, but there.“What do you mean they let him go?” I asked, my voice calm, though the tension in my jaw betrayed me.He swallowed hard. “Alpha Kieran’s men… they released the spy. Left him at the border…half dead, Alpha. He’s barely hanging on.”My hands clenched at my sides. I felt that familiar heat crawl up the back of my neck…the one that came every time Kieran reminded me who he was. He didn’t kill the spy because he wanted to send a message. I knew him too well. Death would’ve been mercy.“Where is he now?” I asked tightly.“With Lucian’s healers,” the scout replied. “They say he might not make it through the night.”I turned a

ROWENAI was stacking plates by the counter when I heard two of the kitchen maids whispering by the hearth. Their voices were low, but sharp enough to cut through the clatter of pots and the hiss of the simmering stew. I tried to ignore them at first…Kieran’s business was his, not mine…but something in their tone made me pause.“Did you hear what happened to that spy?” one of them, Mara, whispered, glancing around before leaning closer to the other girl.“Alpha Kieran let him go. Said he wasn’t worth killing.”“What? Let him go?” the other gasped. “After what he did?”I stilled, my hands hovering over the stack of plates. Let him go? That didn’t sound like Kieran at all. He wasn’t known for mercy…especially not when it came to rogues sent by Lucian.Mara shook her head quickly. “No, not like that. They left him half dead, apparently. The guards said the man could barely crawl when they dumped him by the eastern border.”My breath hitched slightly, and I forced myself to keep wiping th

Dante's POVThe file came through at seven in the evening.I had it on the laptop on the kitchen table. Valerie sat beside me and we read it together. Neither of us spoke for the first twelve minutes.Her father had been meticulous.Dates. Names. Transfer records going back twenty-two years. The documentation of money leaving the St Claire estate through management fees that were too large.Investment decisions that moved funds into entities that should not have had access to them, and a paper trail that was layered and careful and had been built specifically to be difficult to follow.But he had followed it."He was thorough," I said."I told you," she said. "He read the full manual.""This took years," I said. "This is not something you build in months. He was watching this for a long time before he started documenting.""He knew something was wrong," she said. "He just needed to be able to prove it."I scrolled further. The middle section was the case file itself. The sequence of t

Valerie's POVWe did not go inside immediately.We sat in the parked car outside the building, the city went on around us and neither of us reached for the door."He said someone pointed him at your father," Dante said. "Someone with an interest in the estate.""Yes," I said."Is he telling the truth?" he said. "Your honest read."I had been asking myself the same question since I walked out of the supervised room. "He has told me things that turned out to be true," I said. "The gate confession. The visitation room. The open court testimony about the tires. Every time he said something I could not verify immediately, the verification eventually came.""So his track record supports it," Dante said."His track record on the things he eventually confessed to supports it," I said. "But he also has a track record of saying things specifically designed to keep me coming back. The full truth, one more meeting. There is always one more thing.""Both can be true," Dante said."Both are probabl

Dante's POVShe was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive.Not the processing quiet. The sitting-with-it quiet. The kind that meant she had taken in more than she could immediately sort and was letting it settle before she touched it.I drove and let her have it."He was not the beginning," she said finally."No," I said."He was the instrument," she said. "Someone pointed him at my father and he went.""That is what he says," I said."Do you believe it?" she said.I thought about it honestly. "I believe it is possible," I said. "Cassian is capable of planning things himself. He proved that for years. But the specific targeting of your father. The timing. The knowledge of what your father was building legally. That level of information about a private individual's legal activities." I paused."That takes access Cassian may not have had on his own.""Someone with access to the estate management structure," she said."Or access to your father's legal communications," I said. "Hi

Valerie's POVThe supervised visit room was smaller than the glass room.One table. Two chairs on opposite sides. A guard stationed at the door with the door open. A camera in the upper corner of the wall. Everything recorded, everything visible, nothing hidden.I sat down first.He was brought in two minutes later. He had lost more weight since the open court session. His clothes were the facility's.His hands were folded in front of him when he sat down and he did not immediately speak.I waited."Thank you for coming," he said."I am here because the court ordered the visit," I said. "Say what you have to say."He looked at his hands. "I know why you are here," he said. "I am still grateful.""Cassian," I said. "The note said the full truth. So say it."He looked up at me. "I need you to understand that I did not know the full extent of it until much later," he said. "What I arranged was the accident. The tires, the brake line. That was mine. I have told you that.""Yes," I said."

Dante's Pov"The full truth will destroy everything you think you know," she said. "That is the line.""Yes," I said."What does that mean?" she said."It means one of two things," I said. "Either he has something real that genuinely changes the picture. Or he is using the language of something real to get you in a room one more time.""The second option is more likely," she said."Yes," I said. "Statistically. Given his history.""But the first option is possible," she said."Yes," I said. "It is possible."She put the note down on the table. The photograph Marcus had taken of it. The handwriting she had known for years still recognisable even in a photograph of a photograph."He said what I told you in the visitation room was not everything," she said. "He told me he changed the tires himself. He said he needed me to need him. He named Webb.""He named Webb as being present," I said. "But he also said someone helped him. The person who was present and the person who did the work mig

Valerie's PovThe forensic consultant's report came through at eleven in the morning.Forty-two pages. I read every one of them. Dante read them beside me without being asked, which was the way things worked between us now.The chain of custody was clean. Every transfer documented. Every signature present. Every timestamp consistent with the sequence of handling.The consultant had gone back to the original investigation archive and traced the tire samples from their initial collection point forward through every stage to the recent lab analysis.No gaps. No anomalies. No indication of interference."It is clean," I said when I finished."Yes," Dante said. He had finished a few minutes before me."Cassian's team is going to challenge it anyway," I said."They have already challenged it," he said. "The planted claim is filed, but the documentation responds to that claim directly. The court will see both.""And decide," I said."Yes," he said. "And the documentation is very strong."I p