Mostrando resultados por autor "Kara Kaminski" en Todas las categorías

Two years on staff. Hundreds of happy matches… for guests, not for me. I’m Lindsey Lance, surf instructor at Naughty Knots Paradise, and I’ve seen the program work like clockwork. Scent labs. Compatibility modules. Twenty-one days of supervised trials that turn skeptics into bonded omegas. For everyone except me. Then they check in, and suddenly I’m burning up. Four alphas. Best friends since college. Here for the full twenty-one-day experience because solo matching hasn’t worked and they’re done pretending it will. They’re not supposed to be my problem: Jonas, their ...

I check packs in. I schedule heats. I’m not supposed to be on the guest list. At Naughty Knots, omegas are meant to be guests, not staff. The retreat likes its employees safely neutral: betas at the front desk, betas in counseling, alpha security on strict suppressants. I’m the exception that proves the rule—a quiet little omega on mandatory blockers, tucked behind the reception desk with a polite smile. My job is simple: Greet the arriving packs. Check them into their luxury suites. Keep my scent under control and my hands to myself. Then they walk in. Five alphas on a 25-day pack ...

I went to the pharmacy for my suppressants. I left with three strangers… and a heat I couldn’t outrun. Winter Lights turns Puckridge into a glowing postcard—crowded sidewalks, hot cider, and way too many alphas packed into one small town. As Vesper Keene, an unbonded omega who’s been managing alone for way too long, my plan is simple: grab my refill, keep my scent contained, get back to my apartment, and pretend my body isn’t about to betray me while waiting in line. Then the pharmacist announces the words every omega dreads: shipping delay… we’re out of meds. The three men ...

I stopped at a highway motel because the whiteout was getting dangerous. I didn’t expect the last room key to come with three hockey men… and a heat I couldn’t hide. The Kestrel Motor Lodge is the kind of place you only choose when the roads turn to ice and the snow comes down sideways—buzzing neon, stale coffee, and one exhausted clerk begging everyone to stay inside. As Isolde Penrose, an unbonded omega headed to Puckridge for a Winter Lights job interview, I tell myself it’s fine. One night. A locked door. A hot shower. Then the lobby fills with alpha scent and damp hockey gear...

I’m dressed for my engagement party when my fiancé takes a bullet… in the head. One second, I’m the dutiful omega daughter on my father’s arm—perfect dress, perfect smile, promised since childhood to the golden heir of a brutal gang. The next, a sniper’s bullet tears through my “future,” and the hockey arena turns into a war zone. Glass shatters. People scream. My father’s soldiers open fire into the crowd. And I freeze with my fiancé’s blood on my hands… until a stranger in skates vaults the boards and grabs me. He’s the home team captain, all muscle and fury, ...

I bake for everyone at Naughty Knots. No one’s supposed to taste me. As Samantha Quinn, the resort’s curvy omega pastry chef, my job is simple: keep the dessert bar full, the cocoa hot, and the guests too blissed out on sugar to notice me—the girl in the flour-dusted apron who never goes home with anyone. I love my kitchen. I love my mixers, my ovens, my trays of cinnamon rolls and frosted sugar cookies. I love watching packs wander past the pastry case, laughing and glowing and already halfway to their happily-ever-afters. What I don’t love? The way my hands shake when an alpha ...

Twenty-five alphas. Twenty-five days. One “broken” omega the algorithm swears it can fix. Everyone says my biology is defective. My heats are late or not at all. My scent doesn’t hit alphas the way it should. The one time I almost bonded, he walked away before the bite sank in. So when Naughty Knots offers me a sponsored spot in their Fated Mate Matches pilot, I sign up. It’s supposed to be simple: 1. Spend twenty-five days in their remote mountain facility. 2. Meet twenty-five carefully vetted alphas in a series of scent trials, compatibility modules, and controlled heat support. 3...

On my first day at Naughty Knots, my boss handed me a clipboard, a smile, and one simple task: “Please keep the Brat Pack from burning the place down.” I thought she was joking. Then I met them. Four alphas and one beta who’ve been coming to the resort three years running, flunking every program Naughty Knots offers: Failed scent compatibility trials. Failed pack dynamics workshops. Failed “How Not to Terrify Omegas” remedial course. They wreck Scent Bar props, turn serious modules into drinking games, and somehow started a hashtag on the resort socials: #BratPackFails Guests love...

I stayed late to help with the Winter Lights toy drive. I didn’t expect the blizzard to lock me in… and my heat to light up like a bonfire. At the Old Mill Icehouse, Winter Lights means packed stands, sticky cocoa, and mountains of donated toys waiting to be sorted. As Elowen Sutter, I’m supposed to be the quiet volunteer who keeps things moving behind the scenes—tape the boxes, stack the plushies, head home before the last Zamboni lap. Until my body decides to betray me early. One minute I’m hauling quilts down a staff corridor. The next, storm protocol slams the building into ...

I’m a mafia princess. The arena darling. One omega who was never supposed to belong to anyone but a stranger in a tailored suit. And then my heat hits in the middle of a sold-out hockey game. One minute the crowd is screaming for their hometown heroes. The next, five alphas on the ice smell me—and the entire team falls apart. The captain misses an easy play, eyes locked on the glass where I’m pressed. The enforcer levels the wrong man just to get between me and the boards. The star center fumbles a puck he could handle in his sleep. The Russian import hits the wall so hard the arena ...

I came in for an inspection. I found three men who won’t let me face my heat alone. I picked Thorne & Mallory Auto because it’s fast, local, and anonymous. Get the oil changed. Get my inspection sticker. Get back to my quiet little life in Puckridge where I don’t owe anyone my scent, my softness, or my secrets. As Solveig Marlowe, an unbonded omega with a calendar full of freelance deadlines and a heat schedule I’ve controlled for years, I’m not supposed to be thrown off by a little snow. Then the storm hits early. Road closures. Whiteout warnings. And my car is already on the ...

Three omegas. One luxury retreat. Twenty-five days snowed in with fated alphas who were never supposed to be ours. When my best friends click “confirm booking” on the Naughty Knots Omega Experience, I think it’s a joke. Twenty-five days at a private mountain retreat. Twenty-five hand-picked alphas to “sample” in scent bars, kink tasters, and heat-safe suites. One over-the-top girls’ trip before we go back to our real lives. We make our rules on the shuttle ride up: No falling in love. No permanent bonds. No fighting over the same alpha. Then the storm rolls in. The road washes ...

I teach omegas how to walk away from the wrong alphas. I did not plan on getting snowed in with a whole pack of them. My name is Alicia Kohl, and the internet calls me the Omega Whisperer. I sell out arenas telling omegas they don’t have to crawl into the first nest that smells like warm cedar and bad decisions. My books are all about boundaries, standards, and never settling for a pack that doesn’t worship the ground you walk on. Tiny detail: I’ve never actually had a pack of my own. When Naughty Knots invites me to headline their Holiday Pack Dynamics Summit, it’s supposed to be ...

I hate hockey. Unfortunately, hockey is my family’s religion—and my hometown’s entire personality. When my older brother calls and says the Rinkrats are about to be sold, I should hang up. I escaped this town, this team, and my “perfect omega daughter” role years ago. Instead, I get on a plane. Now I’m back in Puckridge, population: hockey, gossip, and bad decisions. My brother’s coaching the failing team. My ex—the one who chose the sport over me—is the captain trying to hold the locker room together with duct tape and rage. And the franchise? One bad season away from ...

I came to the Winter Lights Christmas market to sell donuts. I left snowed in… with three hockey guys who wouldn’t let me face my heat alone. I’m Azalea Winslow, an unbonded omega with a strict suppressant schedule and a whole lot of pride wrapped up in being “fine.” Winter Lights is supposed to be easy money and small-town cheer. A few hours in the cold, a few hundred bucks in my pocket, then back to my quiet carriage-house kitchen where no one can tell me what I am. Then the wind off Kestrel Lake turns mean. Early shutdown. Roads getting dangerous. Vendors scrambling. And I’m ...

The night I get assigned three bodyguards, I’m just trying to keep my dad’s players in one piece. I’m the coach’s omega daughter and the assistant trainer—tape on my fingers, stopwatch around my neck, always on the bench or in the tunnel. On paper, I’m staff. In a city where the mob owns our team, I’m leverage. My dad spent his career trying to keep the locker room clean of their influence. No thrown games, no favors, no quiet little deals. The threats start when he refuses to play along—first a “mugging” in a parking garage, then a message in red paint where only I’m ...

The joke used to be that I hated hockey. Now my entire life revolves around a rink, a town, and a pack of stubborn, infuriating men who would wreck themselves for me—and for each other. The league loves a miracle story, and the Rinkrats are the miracle of the year. A once-dead team surging toward the championship, a tiny town rallying behind them, a coach’s little sister who just happens to be everywhere at once. What the cameras don’t show is the rest of it. The quiet way my brother stares at the ice like if they lose, it’ll kill him. The contracts on the table that say we can keep...

On my wedding day, I promised myself to a monster so my family doesn’t die. My father calls it a peace agreement. The papers call it a fairytale. But every man in this city knows the truth. I’m the truce. Our two crime families were seconds from open war when they made a bargain: my hand in marriage to the man who owns the arena, the team, and half the guns in this city. As long as his ring is on my finger and I sit in his box at every home game, nobody starts shooting. He never gives me a claim mark. He never lets his scent touch mine. He just makes sure I’m pretty, quiet, and ...

Saving the team was the easy part. Apparently, the hard part is waking up every day in a house full of hockey players I’m technically mated to… and pretending this is just a temporary arrangement. The pack-bond changed everything. On the ice, the Rinkrats are lethal—clean passes, impossible plays, the kind of chemistry that makes commentators talk about “magic” and “miracles.” Off the ice, it’s chaos. My ex-captain still doesn’t trust that I’m here for him and not just the franchise. The rookie winger thinks “pack” means “permission to follow me everywhere like a ...

Three men. One bar on the brink. A holiday week that changes everything. Roxy Vale keeps The Penalty Box alive with grit, lists, and late nights. She doesn’t do packs. She does payroll, kegs, and “keeping things running”—until anonymous complaints and a crooked county fixer target her license the week before Christmas. When sabotage hits in the shadows, help arrives where it has always stood: Aiden, her patient, steady door man; Nick, the brewer with calm hands and a plan; and Luca, the contractor who always fixes one more thing after close. Under twinkle lights and falling snow, ...