Inked Brotherhood

At fourteen, Audrey has the perfect life: great parents, great buddies, and her best friend, Asher. Only lately Asher has begun to change. He seems distant and standoffish, ignoring Audrey. Not all of the changes are bad. He’s growing from a pretty boy into a handsome man, and Audrey is all too aware of that. But if they cross the line from friends to something more, will things stay the same, or will she lose her best friend forever?

Almost three years ago, a car crash took Audrey's dad and scarred her for life. Now 18, she returns to her hometown for the first time after the accident. She's here to start again. Go to college and have fun. Make new friends. Get over the past. But the past won't let go. Asher is here - her first kiss, her first heartbreak. More handsome and distant than ever, he's still the boy who used to be her best friend. That was before he changed into someone she hardly knows anymore - the boy who started getting into fights and gave her the cold shoulder for years.

Four years have passed since I left home, my parents, and my brother Asher behind - since I shut out my past. And Erin. Four years since I last saw her, since I heard her voice and held her in my arms. I've spent my time forging a path from woman to woman, from bed to bed, trying to find an answer. But I think I've lost my way. There's no light at the end of the dark. No big surprise. I carry the dark inside me. I'm a bastard - branded as such from the start. I never give my phone number and address. I take my pleasure, and don't come back for seconds. No commitments, no promises.

They call me Zen-man, the cool-headed one, the protector. I keep an eye out for everyone, take them in, find them homes. They think I’m the calm and collected one, the self-assured one, the one who knows the way. They think they see me. They think they know me. But they’re all wrong, because inside I’m broken. I have a jagged hole in my soul I can’t fix, a festering blackness. I’ve been to the pits of hell, and nobody comes back unscathed. Life in foster care fucked me up, and now a thread is all that’s holding me together.

Tessa is close to giving up on her authoritative parents and their demands, on her studies, and on everything in her life, including Dylan. She can run away and leave it all behind or stay to fight against her controlling family and win back Dylan. She has a feeling he needs her, so how can she leave when he's the only man who’s ever made her feel alive?  

His name is Rafaele Vestri, Rafe to his friends. He’s tall, strong, handsome. Distant. He often comes to the coffee shop where I work, but we don’t talk much. He looks at me, though. Stares at me, his gaze heated, and I can’t help but stare back. I want him, I won’t deny it. I’ve never seen anyone that beautiful, anyone that powerful, in my life. But he’s growing more withdrawn by the day. Something’s up, and he won’t tell. I know about his past - the murder of his family when he was 15. I can imagine how much it must have cost him.

Five brothers in all but blood, five girls who love them, emerging from a past fraught with darkness and danger. There are wedding bells, and baby cries and laughter all around. They have found their happy ending. Only one cloud is marring these blue skies, and it has to do with Zane, the rock of the brotherhood. Nobody knows exactly what is wrong, but here’s the thing, folks: There are five of us, and we stand all for one and one for all. If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. We protect our own.