Tuesday Teaser 7/21/2026

7/21/2026

My teaser this week is from Shifting Chaos, book 4 of The Sleepless City. Series cowritten with Anne Barwell.

Forge jerked awake with a gasp. He sat up and immediately wished he’d taken some more time and thought his actions through. Every part of him ached. He hurt in places he didn’t know were capable of such pain. Curling forward over his knees, he ran one hand through his hair a few times.

The last he remembered he’d been dressed in a suit for work. Now he was wearing thick socks, an old sweatshirt, and sweatpants. Moose was a warm, pleasant presence against his leg. He sat up and poked at Forge’s hand with his nose.

“Oh, damn, buddy, I think this is what a hangover must be like.” Forge petted Moose’s head, then rubbed his hand over the dog’s belly when he rolled on his back.

Forge swung his legs over the edge of the bed, gripped the edge, and slowly tried to push off the mattress to stand up.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Blair crossed from the doorway, put one hand on Forge’s shoulder, and very easily shoved him back down. He held out a bottle of water.

“Declan said you’d be dehydrated.”

Forge nodded and croaked, “Thanks.”

Blair folded one leg underneath him and sat beside Forge on the bed, watching him guzzle the water.

“Do you want more?” Forge nodded and Blair rubbed his knee tenderly. “Sit tight. I brought a whole case up. They’re in the other room. Be right back.”

Forge watched him disappear through the bedroom door and sat quietly until he returned with two more bottles. One he opened with a twist of the cap; the other he set on the night table. As before, he sat on the bed beside Forge and watched him empty the bottle.

“Thank you,” Forge said. Though Blair gazed directly at him, Forge couldn’t bring himself to meet that gaze. “Blair…what happened? I’m—”

Blair put one finger over Forge’s lips. “Let me talk.” He took Forge’s hand and rested both their hands on his thigh. “Declan told us everything. What happened when you were changed, how you can change to a different type of vampire—he called it a full shift—and how it took you over for a while, making you kill a whole settlement. He said it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t really know what you were doing. In fact, he said he was responsible.”

“He wasn’t the one who killed all those people,” Forge said.

“I said be quiet.”

Forge squeezed Blair’s hand and gave him a small smile.

“Declan said he changed you so you wouldn’t die, and then something happened during the fighting—he didn’t know what. He was knocked out and you two were separated. The guy who changed me did what he did on purpose. He used me and left and that was his plan the whole time. With you it really was an accident. Declan never meant to leave you alone.” There was a pause, a breath then Blair said, “Now you can talk.”

“What I did to all those people was no accident. I told you we weren’t monsters and that wasn’t entirely true. You’re not a monster,” Forge said softly. “Declan knew what I’d done this whole time?”

Blair nodded.

“And now you know everything. Lucas, Simon, and Ben do too?”

Again, Blair nodded.

Forge looked down at his knees. He cleared his throat, but still his words came out wet and in a whisper. “I suppose my stuff is sitting on the lawn, and I should go away?”

Blair huffed loudly. “My God, Lucas is right. You have a skull that could crack a boulder in half. Are you that damn dumb, and worse yet, do you think the rest of us would do that to you? Did you ever stop to consider our bond and that I’d never give up on you?”

Blair pulled something from the nightstand drawer. “I found this when I was translating Declan’s journals. I changed the digital version and took this page out and hid it.”

Forge took the old, tattered journal page and read it. Declan had written the journals in French, and Forge’s French was sketchy, but he understood enough to get the gist of what it said.

“You knew this ever since you came to Boggslake?”

“I didn’t really understand what that part about the settlement meant until now. But, yes, I knew. I also knew I didn’t want you to be hurt because of it,” Blair admitted quietly.

“And yet you still kept saying I was some sort of hero,” Forge whispered.

He looked at Blair and was graced with a truly epic eye roll. When he opened his mouth to speak, Blair clamped down on his hand and ordered, “Stop talking.” Blair used his free hand to make a circle in the air. “We aren’t a we without all of us. Yes, you should have told me from the start that, given the right conditions, you could become the vampire edition of a great white shark. However, it likely would have scared the hell out of me, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”