Painawakened
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@dboggs9700 Thank you so much
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Xavier POV The chessboard was a slaughter. Sade had taken my queen three moves ago and was now quietly dismantling my remaining pawns. Across the living room, Austin sat on the couch, one arm draped along the back, pretending to look at his phone. He wasn't. I could feel his eyes on me every few seconds. I couldn't quite read him. Not yet. Sade moved his knight and took another pawn. "You're distracted," he said mildly. "I need to see Aaron," I muttered.
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Sorry for the late reply. Work has been crazy. Just for clarity the ferry runs on Wednesday and Friday Both Wednesday and Friday's have one inbound and one outbound ferry. I haven't re read the book yet. But once I edit this chapter, I will make the ferry schedule clearer.
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AUSTIN POV Waking up hurt. My shoulders burned. My throat felt scraped raw. My body hurt all over. For a few seconds I didn't open my eyes. I listened. Wind against glass somewhere. The distant steady pulse of surf. A house on the coast then. I was not in a hospital. Something tugged lightly at the back of my hand. IV line. I opened my eyes. The room was dim. A lamp in the corner throwing warm light across wood floors and dark walls.
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AUSTIN POV The last camera was at the northeast corner of the property line. Xavier climbed down from the tree with the empty battery casing in one hand and crossed it off the clipboard without looking. "That's it," he said. Four days. A hundred and twelve cameras. Coastal New England in late October which meant mud and low light and branches that found every gap in your jacket. I had enjoyed every single day of it. I didn't examine that too closely. We
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Xavier POV I stepped inside my mother's office. She crossed the space before I reached her and pulled me in before I could say anything. Her hug was tight. Fierce. I let myself sink into it for a second, face against her shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of her perfume. "I'm sorry we woke you early," she murmured. "How are you feeling?" "Okay," I said against her shoulder. It wasn't a lie. It wasn't the truth either. She pulled back just enough t
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AUSTIN POV The knocking came at 0602. I knew because I checked my watch before I moved. Old habit. I swung my legs off the bed and walked to the door, running a hand through my hair before pulling it open. Nathaniel stood there. For a second, I didn't process anything else. Just him. The same face I remembered, untouched by time. If anything, sharper. More defined. Like the years had refined him instead of aging him. Aaron stood one step behind
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AUSTIN POV "If he dies," the man said quietly, "you will too." Years of training told me the threat was real. Everything about him — posture, stare, grip — said he'd follow through. "I didn't shoot him," I said. "Then lower the gun." I lowered it slowly. He released the barrel. Before I could ask him who he was, two more figures dropped beside the wolf. My brain registered the speed, the silence, and filed it under What The Fuck. I was dru
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Xavier POV “I don’t understand.” My voice came out steadier than I expected. Good. I was aware of my hands. The specific effort it took to keep them still at my sides. My mother sat across from me at the table where we’d eaten breakfast every morning of my life. The same place she’d helped me with schoolwork. Where she’d told me stories about her own ascension. Where she’d told me how proud she was of how hard I worked. She looked at me the way she looked a
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Xavier POV The field had emptied twenty minutes ago. Dinner was on the table somewhere inside the pack hall. I could smell it from here. Roasted meat and woodsmoke drifting across the tree line. The kid - Marcus, barely fourteen, the newest shift in the pack - was still out there alone in wolf form, stubbornly running the same sequence Jon had used to drop him while the pack laughed every time he hit the dirt. He lunged. His back leg dragged. He hit the groun
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Xavier Reid has always known exactly what his life would be. Heir to a powerful family, raised for leadership, with a future as the next Alpha of the Greyhaven pack. Surrounded by loyal allies — including the vampires Aaron, Sade, and Nathaniel — he has never questioned the world he is set to inherit. But as Xavier steps into adulthood, cracks begin to form in the future he was raised for. Book 2 of the Awakened series. Can be read as a standalone. Updates: 1–2 chapters per week. Approx. 25–30 chapters planned.
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Austin POV I hadn’t been back in years. The ferry horn echoed across the harbor as Boston disappeared behind me. The city shrank into gray shapes through the fog, the skyline dissolving until only the water remained. Wind scraped across the deck and shoved against my coat. I stayed at the railing anyway. The island appeared slowly out of the mist — dark trees rising behind a strip of docks and weathered buildings that looked like they’d been standing there since b
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Thank you so much. I loved writing Aaron and Nathaniel’s story. I'm glad it resonated with you
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Thank you
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BONUS CHAPTER: 1915 The war had a way of swallowing names. On the outskirts of Amiens, in a canvas field hospital pitched on mud thick as gravewater, a young man lay half-conscious on a narrow cot, his chest wrapped in dressings stiff with blood. Rain hammered the canvas overhead. The air stank of gangrene and smoke. He drifted in and out like a man already dying. A shape moved near his bed—a woman. Thick-waisted, with a face broad and shapeless as cooling wax. Her hai
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THREE YEARS LATER Aaron POV "I'm ready." Nathaniel stood in the doorway, fresh from the shower, a towel slung low on his hips. Water still clung to his skin, catching the last of the sunset, and he looked so young it made my chest ache. "You don't have to decide tonight," I said carefully. "We can wait. Another month. Another year. However long you need." "I don't need more time." He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "I've made my choice."
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Nathaniel POV The bedside lamp cast a warm glow across the room. Aaron's arm was draped across my chest. The sheets tangled around our legs. We'd been lying here talking for hours. He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing patterns on my skin. "What if one day you realize I took something from you that you can never get back?" I turned my head to look at him. "That would never happen." "A century from now. Two centuries. What if you wake up one day and realize
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THREE MONTHS LATER Nathaniel POV My dorm bed was barely big enough for one person, let alone two. But somehow we'd made it work, limbs tangled, his weight pressing me into the narrow mattress. His mouth was on mine, hungry and unrestrained in a way I hadn't felt from him in months. Every careful coffee date, every chaste goodnight kiss, it all dissolved as his hips rolled against me. He broke away suddenly, breathing hard. "We don't have to—" he started, but I fis
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ONE YEAR LATER Nathaniel POV The Friday night rush at The Iron Foundry was a sensory assault. The scent of craft malt and hops mingled with cologne, the roar of the after-work crowd from the Financial District, and the sticky humidity of a Boston summer clinging to everything. "Here you go. Macallan 18," I said, setting the heavy crystal glass down in front of a man in his mid-thirties. He was a regular here and was the kind of guy who spent more on his watch than I made in
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Nathaniel is the one who says “I love you” in that scene. Aaron never does. 😣I’ve revised the line slightly to make that clearer.
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Aaron POV My vision swam, blood loss and exhaustion dragging at my limbs, but I kept my eyes on the shapes closing in. They formed a ring around us like a noose—some still human, lean and feral; most shifted to wolves. Nathaniel sagged against me, his pulse a faint stutter I clung to like a lifeline. A man stepped forward. Broad shoulders. A scar splitting his cheek like a fault line. His amber gaze stripped me bare, cold and appraising. "Turn around," he said calmly.
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Aaron POV I couldn't save my family then. I couldn't save him now. I watched Nathaniel's chest barely rise. "Stop! You're draining him too much!" I growled. He finally pulled back. Blood trickled down Nathaniel's neck, a thin red line that didn't stop. Antonio hadn't sealed the wounds. The smile he gave me held a hint of amusement in his blood-smeared lips. Then his hand went to his mouth. He coughed—once, sharp and wet. Blue-black blood spatt
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Nathaniel POV The Uber driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "You sure about this? There's nothing out here." Every rational part of my brain was screaming at me to tell the driver to turn around. To go back to the ferry terminal. To my mom. To safety. But Aaron was up there. And Sade. "I'm sure." My voice sounded thin even to me. My hands were sweating. I wiped them on my jeans. It didn't help. "Actually—" My voice cracked. "Can you drop m
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Austin POV I stared at my face on my phone screen, taking inventory. A dark purple bruise on my cheek, yellowing at the edges. Split lip. And those fucking finger marks on my throat—five of them, green-brown now, like rot under my skin. "Fuck," I muttered. I closed the camera and opened my messages. Nathaniel's name sat near the top. No new texts, just the last one he'd sent four days ago. im so excited for tonight!! i'll meet you by the north parking lot aft
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A third for a few minutes, before I assumed he gave up because I wasn't doing much for him. 😕 Sex can be so awkward and mismatched sometimes and it's never just one person's fault and any failure to connect isn't on you alone. Especially when bottoming, it can come from a place of real vulnerability and it often takes a partner who's patient, attentive and good at communicating to make it feel safe and good for both (or more) people involved.
