Knot Your Pucking Muse

The first thing survival taught me was how to disappear. I ran from the flames. From the ghosts. From a past buried beneath enough lies to keep the truth from ever finding me. And when love became another thing I could lose, I ran from that too. I never looked back.

Years later, I’ve built a life no one can take from me. One without roots deep enough to hurt when they’re ripped from the ground. Without promises I’m expected to keep. Without anyone close enough to become a weakness. Then fate gives me Ars Tenebris.

A Vadena Cardinals player who refuses to accept that I don’t believe in forever. An assistant manager who looks at me like staying could be the easiest thing in the world. They want more than my scent on their skin. They want a bond. For me to join their pack. A future.

Everything I’ve spent my life learning how to live without. Because love has never meant safety to me.

Love is a liability.

And I know better than anyone what happens when you give the world something worth taking.  So I do what I’ve always done. I run.

Only this time, someone is waiting in the shadows. A ghost from a past I thought I’d left buried beneath bridges, broken promises, and all the desperate things we did to survive. He knows the girl I used to be. He knows the secrets she took with her. And he remembers exactly how it felt when she left him behind. I ran from him once. He won’t let me do it again. Because some ghosts don’t haunt houses. They haunt people.

And mine has finally found me.