The Old Places

Five thousand gold. Thirty days. And a seven-foot woman who kills Anchors by breakfast. Nick Vance is Rust Tier. Bottom of the barrel. The Guild took one look at his mana capacity and laughed him off the testing stage. Now his father's dead, the Guild's debt collectors are circling, and he's got thirty days before they start auctioning his kidneys. Then he cracks open a Spirit Ball that should have stayed closed. Kaela is seven feet of curves, scars, and barely contained fury. A Vargr berserker who's been trapped in darkness for fifty years. She needs mana to survive. Lots of it. The kind of mana that burns through Anchors like tissue paper. Nick should be a dried-out husk when he resurrects her. Instead, he's already refilling. And she's looking at him like he's the most interesting thing she's seen in a very long time. The Guild measures capacity. They never thought to measure flow. Now Nick has a seven-foot warrior woman bonded to him, enemies crawling out of the shadows, and a family secret others are willing to kill for. The debt is impossible. The deadline is closing. And Kaela isn't the only powerful Spirit Nick can help. Can a young man everyone dismissed and the dangerous women drawn to his power survive long enough to flip the table on the bastards who set him up? Or will the secrets buried in the Old Places consume them both?