Candidate: His Future Queen

Candidate: His Future Queen

A. C. Sparks · Ongoing · 44.2k Words

769
Hot
819
Views
227
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

"His lips held a slight upturn, but his eyes glazed over her just as they did with everyone else.
Disinterest was his countenance... It was almost hostile.
Then she smelled him.


First, it itched.
Then, it burned.
Her toes curled as she fought to conceal the pain. Her skin seared, right on the back of her neck.
She hoped no one noticed the look of surprise that slid across her face. Dread quickly became the prominent emotion.
Laura glanced at Prince Rowan, his face was lightly scrunched, nose flaring.
Male shifters were born with their mate mark. Females acquired them later, after coming in contact with their fated mate.
She put extra effort into masking her smell, glamouring the new mark.
Fuck.
She didn’t want the one she had–let alone two. Her claws extended into the fabric of the chair.
And then she had to stand. "


Laura is a wolf shifter.

Dark hair, dark eyes, average looks, wolfless… if anyone else were to describe her.
Running away is what she did best, but recent events would say it was being captured.
Captured not once, but twice, with an embarrassingly short layover, Laura jumps from one enemy to another. One, a group of individuals playing collector to non-humans; the other, the pack she’d long abandoned–with the latter forcing her hand in a dated mating game.
Every generation, given the heir to the throne is male and mateless, there were trials held to find a suitable queen for the future king of wolf shifters. This generation’s heir apparent: Rowan Alexander Woulf.
Laura had more sensible things to do, like figuring out a certain organization’s agenda.

Chapter 1

Clink. Clink.

The rattle of trays as the cart rolled in her direction was slightly early today. She cocked her head, estimating it to be two corridors over.

“They’re early today.” Her thoughts were echoed by a crackly voice in a nearby cell.

“Indeed,” she responded to the woman, who audibly clapped and cheered. She’d dubbed the woman ‘Peppermint’ due to the scent wafting from the woman’s cell, though she recently learned her name was Cecil. She couldn’t see her, but she pictured a half-senile, cloth-draped, hag.

A male began whistling further down.

Sigh.

Forty-two days.

Laura’s new home was a ten by ten square pristine clinic. Everything was white, down to the clothes they wore. She hadn’t interacted face to face with others, outside of cart pushers and sleepy-time nurses, in nearly a month and a half now. She didn’t exactly know where she was either, just that she was deep underground based on the smell.

She hadn’t gotten much of a good look on the way in either, before being nicely tossed into her white-walled hellhole. The only other times she’s been out of her cell were of the unconscious variety when they needed to clean it or experiment. Sleepy-time fun.

Tap, Tap.

She didn’t bother facing the glass as a voice told her to stay far back. The settling of the tray on her side of the barrier came two seconds before the scent.

Meatloaf. Lovely.

For budget’s sake. She mentally punched the wall, rolling away to stand fluidly.

Every night was meatloaf night. She made for tonight's version.

Sliding the lid off the plate with her foot, she stared at the lump of meat and vegetables. Today, at least, there were carrots.

“Points for creativity,” she muttered.

“FUCK YOU!”

The shouting made her wince. The voice was followed by the sound of thumping, as someone tried to break their glass containment with their body. She recognized the voice as the one who occasionally made strange gurgle sounds– the same gurgle sound that was now increasing to a pitched intensity.

And from the audible reaction of the cart pusher, his efforts weren't in vain.

Thumping continued, along with the occasional string of curses. The sound of rushing feet was fast approaching. Cecil could be heard giggling and yapping, over the commotion. Others only stirred slightly.

Breakout attempts weren’t an irregular occurrence; however, there was yet to be any successful attempt she’d seen.

Sirens soon sounded, forcing her to muffle her hearing to a tolerable level as she stood, waiting.

Guards in full fit rushed past her cell. She could hear them shouting, at whoever–or whatever, had had enough, to back away and lay flat in the cell. The cursing and thumping didn’t pause a beat.

“Seagull to tower, cell one oh four! Light it up!” A deep voice shouted over the sirens into a walkie-talkie.

“Cell confirmation one zero four,” the dull response.

Hisss.

She could hear the barely audible release of air coming from the direction of chaos. A few seconds ticked, thumps audibly growing weaker, and the bellowing ceased.

Gassed.

There was a reason more attempts weren’t a thing.

Every being in this lab was expendable.

She long figured if they were so willing to off them at the slightest nuance, they probably had a decent list of replacements. A new one would usually roll in within forty-eight hours, which also meant they were likely a very large organization with creatures on their payroll, for this kind of information.

She struggled to come up with ideas that could’ve possibly landed her on their radar. She’d always been very careful to never show her form to anyone, not even her own pack–ex-pack. Since her first shift, she always took care to cover the purple moon marking her forehead, practically lived in contacts to cover her eye’s purple hue, and constantly expended energy to mask her purple hair when her favorite color was out of stock. She was more than happy to let others assume she couldn’t shift, yet all her efforts, from a late walk in the night against the Brazilian heat, found her stripped of her things and tossed here. Wherever here was.

She had to have the shittiest luck.

Sigh.

So far, they’ve only attempted to force her to shift once, at the height of the full moon. They knew enough to know that her kind had to shift at least once a month, and resistance to the change was weakest on a full moon–if one were to abstain from shifting.

She was different.

While it did irritate her to resist the shift, it was more like dealing with bad cramps. Laura could feel the itch of the change now, even underground. She knew they would come for her soon.

But she would resist however long she had to, even at the risk of becoming expendable. There was no way they could know exactly what she was in her world, and she wasn’t about to offer herself up to be further guinea pigged.

She shifted, already tired. Her captors did a great job ensuring the bare minimum was met for survival, keeping every creature weak. It forced her to use what little energy she could get from the never-ending cycle of meatloaf on hiding her more distinctive features.

More noise.

As a new group of black-clad bodies rolled a stretcher down the corridor, passing her cell. The armed men audibly struggled to lift the would-be insurgent, but after much effort and a few swears, they carted past, giving her a glimpse of a tarp-covered body. She could smell him now.. he smelled of the sea.

And she didn’t hear a heartbeat.

Crackle.

She winced as the intercom came to life.

“Why must we keep doing the same thing over, hm?” The woman was audibly throwing spittle on the microphone. “The definition of insanity–doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Let’s keep this event, and all events past, in mind from now.” More crackling sounded as the intercom went dead.

Stellar.

She knew one way or another their captors would make them all pay for the incident. Last time it was starvation. She barely held out.

There was no more excitement for the night as the lights dimmed. She listened to the rustles of the others settling, eventually the sound of even breathing covered every other noise.

Long after the others were dreaming peacefully, sleep finally claimed her.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2.3m Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Lightborn: The Demon’s Bond

Lightborn: The Demon’s Bond

5.2k Views · Completed · ngocvynguyen985
Valerie accidentally forms a bond with Maxwell, a light demon, and begins seeing the dangerous supernatural world hidden around her. As the two constantly bicker yet protect each other, Valerie gradually discovers her own light-based powers and confronts many dark forces, including a serial kidnapper, the dark demon Zane, and other malevolent entities. Maxwell, haunted by the death of his former lover Juliana, repeatedly tries to distance himself from Valerie to keep her safe, causing both of them pain. Yet every time Valerie is in danger, Maxwell returns to save her, and their feelings grow deeper. The climax comes when they face Mason, a fire demon who hunts human–demon couples; Valerie risks her life in battle while Maxwell nearly collapses from exhaustion. In the end, Mason is destroyed, the threats fade away, and Valerie and Maxwell can finally stay together in peace.
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother

2.8m Views · Ongoing · Harper Rivers
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother.

"What is wrong with me?

Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?

It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.

He’s my boyfirend’s brother.

This is Tyler’s family.

I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.

**

As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.

Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.

When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.

I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.

**

I hate girls like her.

Entitled.

Delicate.

And still—

Still.

The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.

Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.

I shouldn’t care.

I don’t care.

It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.

It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.

I’m not here to rescue anyone.

Especially not her.

Especially not someone like her.

She’s not my problem.

And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.

But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.
A Queen Among Tides (Book 5 in the Gods' Saga)

A Queen Among Tides (Book 5 in the Gods' Saga)

4.6k Views · Ongoing · ADB_Stories
One mistake centuries ago left Lemuel cursed by the Goddess Merlos and forced to wander the earth granting the wishes of those who touch him. Lemuel was looking at an eternity of loneliness until his unexpected soulmate plucked him right out of the sea.

Shocked to find he's been bound in more ways than one to Sebastian, the future King to the Kingdom of Atlesper, Lemuel resists Sebastian's advances at every turn, believing this may be one pairing Goddess Zarseti got wrong.

Lemuel will have to face his past in hopes of starting a new future, but an overly flirtatious King is the least of his worries when he learns Sebastian's parents are convinced that a conniving usurper disguised as a curvy blonde, is the future king's true soulmate.

A Queen Among Tides is the 5th book in the Queen Among Series/The Gods' Saga. This is an interconnected series. To see how it ends, I recommend reading the full series.

Books in the series order:
A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1
Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2
A Queen Among Blood - Book 3
A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4
Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Tides - Book 5
Valor, Virtue, and Verve - Tides Prequel Spin-off (will be available under book 5)
A Queen Among Gods - Book 6
Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (will be available under book 2)
A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7
Dark Vocation - Darkness spin-off (will be available under book 4)
A Court of Arcane Souls Anthology (side character short stories exclusive to Ream)
Royal Shadow Series (Next Gen Coming Soon)
After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

After the Affair: Falling into a Billionaire's Arms

1.5m Views · Ongoing · Louisa
Dear readers, this novel is coming to an end soon. I highly recommend another fantastic story of the same genre:


I’d appreciate all your support, thank you so much!
From first crush to wedding vows, George Capulet and I had been inseparable. But in our seventh year of marriage, he began an affair with his secretary.

On my birthday, he took her on vacation. On our anniversary, he brought her to our home and made love to her in our bed...

Heartbroken, I tricked him into signing divorce papers.

George remained unconcerned, convinced I would never leave him.

His deceptions continued until the day the divorce was finalized. I threw the papers in his face: "George Capulet, from this moment on, get out of my life!"

Only then did panic flood his eyes as he begged me to stay.

When his calls bombarded my phone later that night, it wasn't me who answered, but my new boyfriend Julian.

"Don't you know," Julian chuckled into the receiver, "that a proper ex-boyfriend should be as quiet as the dead?"

George seethed through gritted teeth: "Put her on the phone!"

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

Julian dropped a gentle kiss on my sleeping form nestled against him. "She's exhausted. She just fell asleep."
Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

884.2k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

410.3k Views · Completed · Lily
"White wolf! Kill that monster!"
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.
The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

7.9k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Ro was taken from her real family when she was 1 year old. Those she believed is her parents have been abusive towards her do years. Despite she being a very feared gang leader of a well known gang, she can’t find it in her to stand up against what she think is her parents. The little girl in her wants their love which she never will get.
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

910.5k Views · Completed · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
The Vampire Prince's Hybrid Bride

The Vampire Prince's Hybrid Bride

51.4k Views · Ongoing · Riley Above Story
As a wolfless orphan, Joanne had been abused by Alpha Anthony ever since she was a child. She devoted her entire life to surviving in his pack—until one day, she returned home to find an injured vampire lying in her house, his whole existence luring her in. Taking the risk of bringing him in, Joanne never expected Alpha Anthony to discover it the very next day and finally seize the chance to kill her. Just as Joanne was about to be executed, the vampire she had saved arrived, with his army. And Joanne realized that he was the Prince Alexander, heir to the vampire throne…..
The Contract Wife: Marriage Of Malice

The Contract Wife: Marriage Of Malice

79.5k Views · Completed · Cherie Frost
"Tell me to stop, and I will," he murmured against my ear. "But if you don't..."
He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
I didn't tell him to stop.
Instead, my fingers curled into his shirt, clutching the fabric as though it was my only anchor. Something in him snapped—something he had been holding back for too long. His mouth found mine in a kiss that wasn't tender, but hungry, desperate.
I gasped into him, his hand sliding up to cup my jaw, holding me as if afraid I might vanish.
"You drive me insane," he breathed against my mouth, his lips trailing to my throat. "I can't lose you, Ella. Not you."
My head fell back, a soft sound escaping me as his fingers memorized my waist. My anger melted beneath his desperation.
"James..." I whispered, more plea than protest.
His hand caught mine, fingers threading together tightly. "I'll bring him back. I swear it. Just... don't turn away from me. Please."
The word please—low, ragged, almost broken—undid me more than anything else could have.


Ella never imagined she would marry the man she had secretly loved for years in such a way.
When her brother Theo faced twenty-five years in prison for massive embezzlement, the ruthless business tycoon James Lancaster offered her a deal: marry him in exchange for her brother's freedom.
This wasn't a fairy tale proposal, but a carefully orchestrated revenge. Because in James's heart, Ella was the culprit who had killed his sister Cecilia. He wanted her to pay the price—to atone with a lifetime of suffering.
The Shattered Moon King

The Shattered Moon King

1.6k Views · Ongoing · Hannah Kalu
In a world shattered by monsters, the only thing more dangerous than a lost memory is a forgotten identity.
Lena is a survivor. For years, she has weathered the harsh, post-apocalyptic landscape by following one rule: trust no one. But when she finds an amnesiac man near death in the wilderness—a man with kind eyes and a strength that is anything but human—she makes a choice that will unravel her solitary existence.
She calls him Cain, but the shattered-moon tattoo on his back brands him as Kaelen, the long-dead Alpha of the powerful Sky-Fall pack. His return triggers a brutal civil war with the usurper who stole his throne and his fated mate. Hunted by Lycan assassins and a fanatical human commander desperate for the secrets locked in Lena's own past, their only hope lies in embracing the very power Kaelen can't remember and Lena has always feared.
As they uncover a conspiracy that threatens not just the pack, but the future of every living thing, Kaelen must fight for a kingdom he doesn't know and Lena must confront a legacy she tried to bury. In a world of broken thrones and fated bonds, they will discover that the greatest choice is not between love and duty, but between who you are told you must be, and who you choose to become.