Novels by Karen

I don't notice his presence as I walk out of the bathroom until I hear a low growl that makes me whip my head to the door.“Alpha?”My grip on the towel tightens as Zephyr steps away from the door. The click of the lock has my heart thumping harder as my stomach dips.For every step he takes, I take one back until my legs hit the edge of my bed. His eyes rove down from my neck to where the towel ends just a few inches from my centre.He moves into my space, his hard body meeting my soft one. His darkened gaze meets mine as his knuckles trace from behind my ear down to my cleavage where the towel starts.“Tell me to leave,” his husky voice sends treacherous tingles down my body. “Tell me to stop.”I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. His touch feels like being pulled into a fire knowing you'll get burned but you can't stop because the warmth feels too good to pull away from.“Tell me I'm too old for you,” his lips brush my ear as his hands hold my waist. He kisses my neck,

"I need you to pull everything we have on Wolf Ridge's movements in the last seventy-two hours.""Already on it." Calder's voice is clipped through the car speakers. "How many?""Two that she saw. Could be more.""Confirmed pack members?""She recognised them from the tournament." I keep my eyes on the road. "The ones who got disqualified."A pause. "This is connected to the Northgate withdrawal.""Yes.""He's escalating.""He's testing," I say. "There's a difference. He wants to see how I respond before he decides how far to push." I take the turn onto Raylynn's street. "Which means I need to respond correctly.""I'm five minutes out."I glance sideways.Raylynn is sitting with her bag in her lap, her hands folded on top of it. Her eyes are on the road ahead, and she is doing the thing she does when she is holding herself very carefully — the specific stillness of someone who does not want to take up space even in her own distress."Alright," I say.The street is quiet. I pull into t

I don't turn around immediately. I don't need to.Across the desk, Felicity is nearly as white as the A4 paper she was writing in."Alpha Blackwood." She rises from her chair. Her voice has completely rearranged itself — the smooth cruelty gone, replaced with practised warmth. "I was just—""I heard what you were just doing," he says, stepping fully into the room.I turn to face him then, because not turning would be more obvious than turning, and bow without meeting his eyes."Raylynn," he says. "Would you wait outside, please?""Of course." I focus on picking my bag as steadily as possible before walking out but Felicity finds her footing again."She only got this interview because of your daughter," she says, to my back, with the particular spite of someone swinging on the way down. "Everyone in this pack knows it. The girl has no pack, no wolf, and no business being here. You'd do well to consider what it looks like, Alpha — the war-wolf's daughter getting special treatment becau

"Before you say anything—""Ivy.""Just hear me out—""Ivy, I'm literally holding your underwear right now, can this wait thirty seconds?"She is sitting on the edge of her bed watching me sort through the laundry bag I brought to the hospital, her legs crossed, her expression carrying the specific energy of someone who has made a decision and is now managing the rollout.I haven't let her join me to do our house chores since she was discharged two days ago. Doctor said she has to take things easy so bed rest it is.I didn't text Zephyr that night, and I haven't seen him since. But maybe it's better this way. I just have to keep reining in my desire, just as I did in his car. I can only hope I managed to keep a tight lid on it."I made a call," she says."What kind of call?""The helpful kind."I pause with a pair of her jeans in my hands."Ivy?""You missed your interview because of me," she says. "I felt terrible about it. I still feel terrible about it. So I fixed it."I set the je

I spin her around before I think about it.My hands are on her shoulders and she's facing me and I'm looking at her face checking for shock, for injury, for anything wrong, and she's blinking up at me with those pale green eyes gone wide and her mouth slightly open and her chest rising and falling too fast and—It hits me like a wall.Her scent.I have been around Raylynn Hale enough times to know what she smells like. Warm skin, something faintly sweet, clean like rain on dry earth.It's pleasant — scratch that — absolutely mouthwatering.I know it the way you know things you have no business knowing — involuntarily, precisely, stored somewhere that doesn't ask permission.But this is not that.This is something else entirely.This is her arousal, warm and unmistakable and flooding the open air of the car park, and it is wrapping itself around my senses with the kind of patience that suggests it has absolutely no intention of letting go.‘I want her’, my wolf says, immediately and wi

"Hi, I'm looking for Ivy Blackwood?"The nurse at the front desk doesn't look up from her screen."Relation?""Best friend.""We only allow family—""Please." I lean forward slightly. "She texted me. She's scared. I'm all she has right now."That gets her attention. She looks up, studies me for a second, then sighs the way people do when they're about to break a rule they don't feel great about."Room 204. Second floor. Don't make me regret this.""You won't," I say. "Thank you. Really."I find the elevator, jab the button, and ride up with a man holding a bouquet of sunflowers and the specific anxious energy of someone who has done something wrong and is hoping flowers fix it.I hope whatever he did wasn't that bad.The doors open on the second floor and I follow the room numbers down the corridor, the smell of antiseptic and recycled air sitting heavy around me, until I find 204 and push the door open.Ivy is sitting up in the hospital bed looking like she lost a fight with a wall.