25,700 Words

GREY HOUSE: THE FEEDING Lord Raphael Étienne Ulfr Grey has spent centuries perfecting control. From his private Gold Coast manor, he commands an empire built on wealth, influence, and appetites the outside world was never meant to understand. The people of Grey House live by rules designed to protect what they are—and the humans who enter its doors rarely understand what they've stepped into. Star is different. She gives Grey something no one else can, and he intends to keep her exactly where she is. But something inside Grey House is beginning to rot. While Grey's attention is divided between his empire and a growing threat from a rival House, someone within his own walls begins testing the limits of what he can get away with. Rules are broken. Boundaries disappear. And Grey's carefully controlled world begins coming apart from the inside. Then a body is pulled from the Chicago River. Line investigator Cal Decker doesn't have limitless wealth or soundproof limousines. He has a battered Crown Victoria, a glovebox full of antacids, and a bloodhound instinct for a lie. His investigation leads toward a world built to keep men like him out—and toward a woman who may be running out of time. Grey controls everyone who enters his House. Cal may be the first man stubborn enough to come looking anyway. The currency is devotion. The price is survival.