The Unbound Series by Andrew Yahodka

THE BINDING HOURA Dark Paranormal Romance rooted in ritual practice. Irene does not make careless circles. Her salt is measured. Her lines are exact. Every working begins with intention and ends with closure. She has never allowed a ritual to follow her home. Until now. At 2:17 a. m. , in a glass-walled apartment overlooking the city, she performs a containment working designed to seal a thinning threshold. The correspondences are correct. The circle is intact. The boundary is clean... moreTHE BINDING HOURA Dark Paranormal Romance rooted in ritual practice. Irene does not make careless circles. Her salt is measured. Her lines are exact. Every working begins with intention and ends with closure. She has never allowed a ritual to follow her home. Until now. At 2:17 a. m. , in a glass-walled apartment overlooking the city, she performs a containment working designed to seal a thinning threshold. The correspondences are correct. The circle is intact. The boundary is clean. Something answers anyway. It does not cross the salt. It does not disturb the candles. It does not claim her name. It stands beyond the glass. Watching. Night after night, the presence returns — not to invade, not to possess, but to remain. The distance between them never changes. And yet, it tightens. Irene has spent her life mastering separation — between worlds, between forces, between herself and attachment. But what happens when a boundary holds perfectly… and something chooses to stay on the other side? This is not a story of reckless summoning. It is a story of control. Of tension sustained. Of connection formed without touch. For readers who love:. • grounded ritual magic. • urban witchcraft aesthetics. • slow-burn paranormal romance. • powerful, self-contained heroines. • presence that lingers instead of consumes. The Binding Hour is an atmospheric paranormal romance where discipline meets desire — and the most dangerous bond is the one that never crosses the line. less

She doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone — rituals for cash, clients without questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. Her wards are flawless. Her rules are simple. Don't get attached. Don't look too long. Don't name it... moreShe doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone — rituals for cash, clients without questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. Her wards are flawless. Her rules are simple. Don't get attached. Don't look too long. Don't name it. Then a practitioner from her past resurfaces with information that could destroy everything Irene has built — not her wards, not her practice, but the silence she has maintained around the demon who cannot leave. Soran has been bound to earth by something he cannot identify. He suspects it involves her. He doesn't know how. He doesn't know why. He knows only that every time he tries to leave, he finds himself still here — in her apartment, at her window, watching her work with an attention he refuses to examine. When the threat forces Irene to trust him with a dangerous ritual, she discovers that trusting him is not the problem. The problem is what trust reveals — about the binding, about the silence, about the seven years of coffee cups and unfinished sentences and a presence she has never once thanked him for. Because thanking him would require acknowledging what his staying means. And the binding lives in the unnamed. Salt and Shadows is a slow-burn dark paranormal romance for readers who love atmospheric night cities, morally complex magic systems, and the devastating tension of two people who refuse to say what everyone else can see. less

Something is hunting practitioners through the city’s infrastructure. Two are already dead. Cardiac arrest. Natural causes. Clean. No one connects the deaths until Irene does — and by then, the thing in the walls has already registered her. The Clockwork Demon is not a spirit. Not a summons. It is a constructed intelligence woven into the wiring and pipes and conduit of a city older than memory — built to eliminate practitioners who draw too much power from the grid... moreSomething is hunting practitioners through the city’s infrastructure. Two are already dead. Cardiac arrest. Natural causes. Clean. No one connects the deaths until Irene does — and by then, the thing in the walls has already registered her. The Clockwork Demon is not a spirit. Not a summons. It is a constructed intelligence woven into the wiring and pipes and conduit of a city older than memory — built to eliminate practitioners who draw too much power from the grid. And Irene just exceeded the threshold. Time fractures in her apartment. Clocks skip. Rituals stutter. The only way to reset the mechanism is seven days without magic. Seven days of being ordinary. Seven days of withdrawal, shaking hands, flat vision, and the hardest question she’s ever who is she without her practice? Soran stays for all seven. He doesn’t explain why. He never does. But he is there — through the burned pasta and the bad dreams and the silence on the fourth day when she says this is what I am without it, and he says one No. He is there when she draws a line of salt on the floor between them. He is there when he crosses it with one finger and leaves a mark she’s never seen in any grimoire — a mark he doesn’t know how to read, in a language he may have just invented. She doesn’t clean it. The Clockwork Demon is the third book in The Unbound, a dark paranormal romance series where the tension between a night magic practitioner and the demon who can’t leave her never resolves — it deepens. Rituals as language. Silence heavier than words. A bond that grows stronger with every book. For readers who want their romance slow, their magic felt in the body, and their demons precise rather than pretty. less

She doesn't name it. He doesn't leave. A client pays Irene in something worse than cash -- an old magical debt. that binds her to seven nights of ritual work in the most dangerous thin. places of the city. Seven locations where reality wears through. Seven. rituals that will cost her blood, sleep, and the professional distance. she has maintained for three years. Soran appears on the first night. Uninvited. Unexplained. Standing at... moreShe doesn't name it. He doesn't leave. A client pays Irene in something worse than cash -- an old magical debt. that binds her to seven nights of ritual work in the most dangerous thin. places of the city. Seven locations where reality wears through. Seven. rituals that will cost her blood, sleep, and the professional distance. she has maintained for three years. Soran appears on the first night. Uninvited. Unexplained. Standing at. the edge of her circle like he belongs in the geometry of her work. She doesn't ask why he came. By the fourth night, she stops pretending she expected him not to. Irene is a practitioner of night magic -- rituals for cash, clients. without questions, the Underside visible only to those born seeing it. She works alone. She has always worked alone. The demon who cannot leave. Earth and the practitioner who will not examine why he stays have. maintained their arrangement through professional vocabulary and. deliberate silence for three years. But seven nights of dangerous work have a way of making silence louder. When an observer begins documenting the pattern -- the distance that. shrinks, the rituals that work better when he is present, the word she. almost says and doesn't -- Irene must destroy the evidence before. someone names what she refuses to name. Because the records don't just. threaten her practice. They describe him. And seeing what she feels. written in someone else's handwriting makes it real in a way she is not. prepared to survive. Seven nights. Six with him. One without. She knows which was harder. She knows the reason isn't the location. Book 4 in The Unbound series. Each book is a complete story with an. evolving central relationship. Best enjoyed in order. For readers who want: slow-burn tension that never breaks, magic that. costs, demons who stay without explaining why, and silence heavier than. any spoken word. less

The scar appeared overnight. Silver. Permanent. The first cost her body refused to hide. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone -- rituals for cash, clients who don't ask questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. A demon named Soran cannot leave the earth, and the only reason he cannot identify is connected to her. She doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays... moreThe scar appeared overnight. Silver. Permanent. The first cost her body refused to hide. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone -- rituals for cash, clients who don't ask questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. A demon named Soran cannot leave the earth, and the only reason he cannot identify is connected to her. She doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays. Between them: silence, rituals as language, and a bond neither of them will examine. Now something ancient has noticed the scar. An entity older than the city is circling Irene's accumulated cost -- the sleepless nights, the tremors she documents but won't interpret, the silver line on her palm that glows during rituals she shouldn't survive. It offers a simple trade: every scar erased, every cost removed, a clean slate. The price: the one thing she values most that she refuses to name. "It knows what you won't say. That's what it takes. ". As the entity's offers grow more specific and its knowledge more devastating, Irene must decide what she's willing to lose -- and what the silence between her and Soran is actually protecting. The body is the only honest accountant. It charges what it's owed and doesn't negotiate. The Ozone Mark is Book Five of The Unbound -- a dark paranormal romance series for readers of Katee Robert, Scarlett St. Clair, and Jennifer L. Armentrout who want their tension slow-burn, their magic visceral, and their demons earned rather than explained. Content includes: supernatural romantic tension, occult ritual with physical cost, a demon who moves your coffee cup closer and never explains why, one silver scar that tells the truth its owner won't speak, and a silence heavier than any word. First person. Present tense. The city after midnight. She won't say it. He won't leave. Some things are stronger unnamed. less

She doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays. The building between them is about to break. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone -- rituals for cash, clients without questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. The demon named Soran cannot leave the earth. The only reason he cannot identify is connected to her. She calls it professional. He calls it nothing at all... moreShe doesn't name what she feels. He doesn't understand why he stays. The building between them is about to break. Irene is a practitioner of night magic in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has worked alone -- rituals for cash, clients without questions, professional distance from everything that could touch her. The demon named Soran cannot leave the earth. The only reason he cannot identify is connected to her. She calls it professional. He calls it nothing at all. When a new practitioner moves into her building and begins working sloppy, uncontained magic, the damage is immediate. Salt circles degrade. Chalk lines crack. The stairwell becomes a permanent thin place. And Soran -- who has only ever appeared at night, within the careful framework of their unnamed association -- starts appearing during the day. In daylight, the professional distance doesn't hold. His shadow doesn't lag. His eyes look like dark water. He drinks coffee from a cup she won't admit she keeps for him. And the building's instability forces them closer than the framework was designed to contain -- close enough to feel the binding between them vibrate, close enough to glimpse the architecture of a feeling she has spent seven years refusing to name. Now Irene faces two crises: a building that's being consumed from within by someone else's carelessness, and a carefully maintained silence that is cracking along the same fault lines as her chalk. Threshold Work is the seventh book in The Unbound, a dark paranormal romance series where the tension never resolves, the magic costs something real, and the silence between two people says more than words ever could. For readers who love: slow-burn romance with zero shortcuts, morally complex heroines, demons who stay without explaining why, magic systems that hurt, and the specific ache of almost-but-not-yet. Series complete through Book 7. Each book a standalone crisis. The relationship builds across the series. Start here or begin with Book 1: The Binding Hour. less

The water remembers every drop you took. Now it wants payment. Irene is a night-magic practitioner in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has drawn river water for her rituals without asking permission. Without offering acknowledgment. Without thinking about what feeds the tap. The river has been counting... moreThe water remembers every drop you took. Now it wants payment. Irene is a night-magic practitioner in a city where reality thins after midnight. For seven years she has drawn river water for her rituals without asking permission. Without offering acknowledgment. Without thinking about what feeds the tap. The river has been counting. When the water in her apartment starts tasting of ancient silt and her wards refuse to cooperate, Irene discovers that something old has woken in the riverbed—something that operates on a ledger older than human currency and that wants equivalent exchange for seven years of debt. The entity doesn’t want to destroy her. It wants what’s owed. And you can reason with cruelty, but you cannot reason with accounting. As the entity’s influence spreads through the neighborhood—fogging mirrors, contaminating pipes, writing demands in condensation on her kitchen window—Irene must navigate a formal negotiation with a force that predates the city itself. A negotiation that will require standing at the river’s edge in a chalk circle under a new moon and addressing her debt in a language she doesn’t speak. She won’t be standing in that circle alone. Soran—the demon who cannot leave the earth for reasons neither of them will name—offers to negotiate on her behalf. In a language older than protocol. For a price he won’t disclose. The circle she draws for one accepts them both without resistance, and the magic doesn’t distinguish between them. It never has. The River’s Debt is the eighth book in The Unbound, a dark paranormal romance series where the tension lives in what isn’t said, the magic costs something real, and the slowest burn produces the deepest heat. For readers of: Katee Robert’s dark mythology romances, T. Kingfisher’s atmospheric horror, and Juliet Marillier’s patient, aching fantasy. Features: Slow-burn paranormal romance • Practitioner heroine • Demon hero who stays without understanding why • Ancient river entity • Ritual magic with real costs • The silence between two people who won’t say the word • A negotiation circle that treats them as one. less