High Lord Crossbody

I’ve given up a lot to pursue a career in professional wrestling, and I’m not going to have it all derailed by an uncouth ghoul with a huge chip on his shoulder, who decided he disliked me for no reason on his very first day at Goliaths.

Vince Burke has been the thorn in my side for five long years, but things have taken a turn for the worse. The management is threatening to get involved. I refuse to let Burke take the life I’ve worked so hard to build from me, so I try to be on my best behaviour at work, but something about him just gets to me. He consumes my thoughts. I can’t stand him.

And when something happens between us that leaves me feeling completely unmoored, I find myself thinking about him constantly. He’s taken all the control, and I need to get it back. Because I liked it too much, and I can’t let myself feel that way about him.

Vince “Rolling Rimmer” Burke

I love everything about my job as a professional wrestler at Goliaths of Wrestling, an underground supernatural wrestling organisation. I love the showmanship. The costumes. The crowds. The ring and the arena. My co-workers.

Well, except one.

High Lord Crossbody, the royal fae who’s an actual prince, is a pompous snob and a pain in my backside. Everything about him rankles me—his clipped drawl, his disdainful sneer, his stupid long legs and eerily perfect face and sultry hooded eyes…

I hate everything about him. I do. So when our mutual dislike boils over in a very public argument, then explodes into something even hotter and completely inappropriate, I’m left confused and even more annoyed.

Because now I want him. And I hate that I want him.

Larkin

Look, here's the thing.

I'm young, carefree, and my job as the assistant to Holt, manager and owner of the Goliaths of Wrestling, means I'm surrounded by half-naked beefcake wrestlers all day. Of courseI'm going to be interested in… getting to know them all better. It would be, like, illegal for me to not lust after them all, right?

There's just one hurdle I have to get over first before I can… get to knowthe wrestlers in the way I want. And that hurdle makes me really, really freaking nervous.

So I come up with an amazing idea. Holt's bodyguard Seb, a werewolf, is the quiet, dependable, calm presence in the office. He's safe. He's not as intimidating as the wrestlers, and we're kind ofbuddies, so I decide to ask him for help with my little… predicament.

Rafe

I really, really don't like my neighbour.

We've lived next door to each other for three years, and we couldn't be more opposite. I'm a quiet, introverted ghoul with a small friend group and a love of true crime podcasts and tabletop role-playing games. Dan Ewen a party boy with an endless string of ‘guests' who likes to blare country music all night. He's loud, inconsiderate, messy, loud, a total dudebro… did I mention loud?

And when I start my new job as IT manager at Goliaths of Wrestling, an underground supernatural wrestling organisation, I quickly discover that my terrible dullahan neighbour is now my new colleague. Great.

I still don't like him. It doesn't change anything. I can avoid him at work. But when I spot him one night through his living room window doing something that is utterly shocking, obscene, really weird… I find myself thinking about my annoying neighbour. A lot.

All the time, actually.

Oh no.

Dan

That neighbour of mine is a cute, surly ghoul whose pretty green eyes and angry scowl just make me want to rile him up even more.

We've never really been buddies, despite living side by side for three years. But when he starts working at Goliaths as our IT manager, helping to bring us into a new digital age, our lives begin to become a bit more entangled.

Mainly because he starts watching me each night while I… relax. So I make sure to give him a good show through my living room window.

I've always assumed Rafe Hare is straight, but it quickly becomes clear that I might be wrong. And when I propose a fantastic new way for us to get… ahem… friendlier, he's as all-in as I am.

Which means I get to show him just how weird it can get with a dullahan. And I can't wait.