The Shadow Beast I Made

June Whitaker has spent her life being overlooked. Quiet, forgettable, and tired of returning to an empty apartment every night, she finally reaches for the secret shadow magic she has hidden since childhood. In a moment of aching loneliness she shapes her own darkness into a living companion and wakes Silas Vale, a beautiful, shapeshifting creature who can move through every corner of the dark and somehow know every thought she wishes she could hide.

Silas is fascinated by the woman who created him. The shy heroine who believes she is invisible becomes bold and unexpected whenever she feels safe with him. Days of awkward domestic rhythm, dry humor, and charged almost-touches slowly turn into something neither of them planned. But as June grows happier, Silas discovers a disturbing truth about the spell that gave him life. Their bond was never only about loneliness. Something older and hungrier noticed the moment she poured her power into the dark, and now that force wants the soul she accidentally forged inside him.

With an external threat closing in and the magic that sustains Silas beginning to flicker under the weight of her growing contentment, June must decide how far she is willing to go to keep the one being who truly sees her. And Silas must choose whether a creature born of shadow can fight for a place in the light.

What happens when the monster you made from loneliness becomes the only one who refuses to let you disappear?

***

Each standalone story in The Monsters She Made introduces a new woman, a new monster, and a completely unexpected love story.

Nobody warned them their creations would choose them back.

The women in this series are overlooked, underestimated, and done waiting for something that fits. Each one reaches for forgotten magic to build what doesn't exist yet. A wicker husband. A stone guardian. A perfect magical construct. A powerful kraken. A shadow beast with motives of his own. And more to come.

Each creation was supposed to stay obedient. Manageable. Safely within the bounds of what she intended.

None of them do.

Every monster develops a mind, a heart, and a pull toward the woman who gave him life that he has no interest in suppressing. Attraction deepens into something neither maker nor made has language for. These unlikely pairs discover that the strangest love stories carry the most weight, and that sometimes the one who truly chooses her is the one she built with her own hands.

The monster she made. The man he became. Exactly who she needed.