The shadows within us

I ran.
From my stepfather’s fists. From the foster home that felt like another cage.
From a world that never wanted me.

I didn’t expect to land in his house.
I didn’t expect _him_.

He was cold. Closed off. The golden son who had everything.
And he looked at me like I was something broken he wanted to keep.

Then he found out what happened to me.

_“She will be mine. She has to be mine. I don’t give a fuck that she’s my stepsister. I want her, and I will kill anyone who stands in my way.”_

He says he’s protecting me.
But the way he touches me doesn’t feel like protection.
It feels like claiming.

The house got smaller. The rules got blurrier.
And the shadows we both carry? They’re pulling us together.

We shouldn’t. We can’t.
But after everything I survived... I’m not sure I can survive without him.

*The Shadows Within Us* is a dark, possessive stepsister x stepbrother romance about two broken people who find each other in the dark