Virtual Vice Series by Gale Ian Tate

Love at first death. Obsession at every resurrection.Levi Mercer wanted to honor his brother's memory with a charity stream. The VR horror game was supposed to last a few hours. Instead, it became an endless nightmare where the monsters are predictable, but the man hunting him is not.Death resets the scenario but not his killer's growing obsession... moreLove at first death. Obsession at every resurrection.Levi Mercer wanted to honor his brother's memory with a charity stream. The VR horror game was supposed to last a few hours. Instead, it became an endless nightmare where the monsters are predictable, but the man hunting him is not.Death resets the scenario but not his killer's growing obsession. Through forest slashers and haunted hospitals, their encounters shift from quick murders to lingering touches, from clinical kills to intimate whispers. He's collecting Levi's responses like data, learning what makes him gasp, what makes him shudder, what makes him break.The scenarios grow more complex, but so does the psychological game. When your killer starts protecting you from other threats, when violence becomes indistinguishable from possession, when you realize he's not trying to break you but to remake you—how do you fight back against someone who's rewriting your instincts one death at a time?Content This dark romance contains graphic violence, psychological manipulation, dubious consent, trauma bonding, and explicit sexual content within an abusive relationship dynamic. Features virtual reality horror scenarios with repeated character deaths, including suicide, and Stockholm syndrome themes. Intended for mature readers comfortable with psychologically intense content. less

Love is his cage. Obsession swallowed the key.Levi Mercer escaped one nightmare only to wake up in another. The sanitarium was supposed to be the end—freedom from Virtual Vice's twisted game, but dying over and over again is no longer the worst part of being trapped in a digital hellscape. The worst part is watching his former killer pretend they're not trapped at all.To Asher, every nightmare scenario is home as long as they're together. Every death is just another day in paradise... moreLove is his cage. Obsession swallowed the key.Levi Mercer escaped one nightmare only to wake up in another. The sanitarium was supposed to be the end—freedom from Virtual Vice's twisted game, but dying over and over again is no longer the worst part of being trapped in a digital hellscape. The worst part is watching his former killer pretend they're not trapped at all.To Asher, every nightmare scenario is home as long as they're together. Every death is just another day in paradise. The outside world? A fever dream. Freedom? A myth. Reality? Whatever keeps Levi by his side.But paradise has rules, and Asher enforces them with increasing brutality. No escape attempts. No talk of the "real world." No questioning their perfect digital love story. Break the rules, and Asher will hurt anyone—including Levi—as a reminder that some cages are built to protect what's inside from what's outside.Each scenario brings new horrors, but the real monster isn't the alien creature hunting them on a spaceship or the shadows in the fog of a mountain retreat. It's the man who loves Levi so much he'd rather break him than lose him.The games are getting harder. The stakes are getting higher. And Levi needs to convince the man who learned to love him in hell that paradise isn't worth staying damned. less