THE FIFTH NIGHT

THE FIFTH NIGHT

Marshy Bankz · Completed · 93.3k Words

738
Hot
738
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

Amelia Noah thought she came to Greece to heal. Instead, she found the most intoxicating man she’s ever met. David Sterling sees her in ways no one else has until small details start to fracture the illusion.
A forgotten key card in her purse. A newspaper headline about the “Mediterranean Strangler.”
Each victim was a woman traveling alone. Each romance lasted exactly five days.

Now Amelia’s facing a nightmare disguised as paradise trapped between attraction and suspicion, reason and fear.
As the sun sets on their fifth day together, she must decide whether to run, fight, or play the most dangerous role of her life: pretending to love the man who plans to kill her.

Chapter 1

Amelia Noah POV

The bathroom mirror doesn't lie, even when I wish it would.

Black mascara streams down my cheeks in twin rivers, mapping the geography of my humiliation. I grip the marble countertop until my knuckles turn white, staring at this stranger with the puffy eyes and trembling lips. This can't be me. This pathetic woman can't be Amelia Noah, senior marketing executive who closed the Hartfield campaign last month, who commands boardrooms filled with men twice her age.

But Marcus's phone buzzes against the sink where I dropped it, and another text from "Trainer Babe" lights up the screen. Can't wait to see you tomorrow. Tonight was incredible.

My stomach lurches. Tonight. While I worked late preparing the Morrison presentation, Marcus was with her. Again.

I force myself to scroll through the messages I've already read twice, each one a fresh cut. Three months of exchanges. Three months of planning secret meetings while I made dinner reservations and picked out lingerie and convinced myself we were building something real.

You're so much more exciting than her.

She has no idea what she's missing.

When are you going to end things with the workaholic?

The workaholic. Eight months together, and that's how he describes me to his mistress. Not Amelia. Not his girlfriend. The workaholic.

"Jesus, Amelia, put the phone down."

Marcus fills the bathroom doorway, his gym bag still slung over his shoulder. Even now, caught red-handed, he looks annoyed rather than guilty. His dark hair is still damp from whatever post-workout shower he shared with Trainer Babe, and he's wearing the cologne I bought him for his birthday.

"Three months?" My voice cracks. "Three months, Marcus?"

He sighs like I'm being unreasonable. "Look, it just happened, okay? These things happen."

"These things happen?" I turn to face him fully, and something wild and desperate rises in my chest. "I introduced you to my sister. I was planning to bring you home for Christmas."

"Come on." He shifts the bag to his other shoulder. "Christmas is eight months away. We both knew this wasn't going anywhere serious."

The words hit like physical blows. "I didn't know that."

"Well, maybe that's the problem." His tone turns sharp, familiar. The same voice he uses when I ask him to put his phone away during dinner, when I suggest we spend a quiet evening together instead of going to another bar with his friends. "You get too attached, too fast. You always have. It's suffocating."

Too attached. Too fast. Suffocating.

I've heard variations of this speech before. From David, my college boyfriend who said I was "emotionally exhausting" after I asked him to meet my parents. From Ryan, who called me "clingy" when I wanted to spend more than one night a week together. From James, who said I had "unrealistic expectations" about communication.

"Maybe I just have normal expectations," I whisper.

Marcus rolls his eyes. "See? This is what I'm talking about. You turn everything into some big emotional drama. Some people just want to have fun, Amelia. Some people don't need to analyze every text and plan every moment and—"

"Get out."

The words surprise us both. They come from somewhere deep in my chest, steady and clear.

"What?"

"Get out of my apartment." I step aside so he can reach the sink, grab his phone, and watch his face change as he realizes I've been reading his messages. "Get your things and get out."

"Amy, come on—"

"Don't call me Amy." Only my family calls me Amy. I never should have let him use it. "And don't 'come on' me. You've been cheating for three months. Three months, Marcus. While I was falling in love with you."

He flinches at the word 'love,' and I realize I've never said it out loud before. Not to him. I was waiting for the right moment, the right setting. I was always waiting.

"Look, I'll end things with Jess—"

"Jess." Her name tastes bitter. "You couldn't even keep it anonymous."

Marcus runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I used to find endearing. "This doesn't have to be complicated. We can work this out."

But I'm already shaking my head. The fog of shock is lifting, replaced by something harder and cleaner. Math. Marcus plus Jess equals eight months of lies. Marcus plus me equals what? Date nights where he checks his phone. Weekend mornings where he leaves early for "workouts." A relationship that was dying while I fertilized it with hope and flexibility and the desperate need to make someone love me.

"There's nothing to work out." I walk past him into the bedroom, pulling his drawer open and dumping clothes into his gym bag. "You made your choice. Multiple times."

"Don't be like this, Amy—Amelia. You're better than this."

I freeze with his Northwestern t-shirt halfway to the bag. "Better than what? Better than having standards? Better than expecting fidelity? Better than wanting a boyfriend who doesn't describe me as 'the workaholic' to his other girlfriend?"

His mouth opens and closes like a fish. Finally, he says, "You're too needy. You always have been. That's why this keeps happening to you."

The words land exactly where he aimed them, in the soft place I've been protecting since I was twelve and my father explained that Mommy needed "space" to "find herself." The place that wonders if I'm fundamentally too much, too demanding, too hungry for love.

But tonight, something different happens. Tonight, I look at Marcus—really look at him. At his expensive haircut and his designer protein powder and his casual cruelty wrapped in false concern. And I realize he's not delivering some painful truth. He's just another mediocre man who thinks my desire for genuine connection is a character flaw.

"You're right," I say, zipping the bag. "This does keep happening to me. Because I keep choosing men who think wanting love is needy."

I hand him the bag and walk to the front door, holding it open. Cool October air rushes into the apartment, carrying the sound of traffic and distant laughter from the street below.

Marcus pauses in the doorway. For a moment, I think he might apologize, might show some recognition of what he's destroying. Instead, he shakes his head.

"Good luck with that attitude, Amelia. You're going to need it."

The door closes behind him with a soft click.

I slide the deadbolt home and lean against the wood, suddenly exhausted. The apartment feels cavernous around me, all the spaces Marcus used to fill now echoing with absence. His coffee mug in the sink. His Netflix profile on my TV. The weekend plans we made that will never happen.

I walk to the living room and sink onto the couch, surrounded by the detritus of our relationship. Takeout menus from restaurants where we shared appetizers. A wine bottle from the weekend we drove upstate to see the leaves change. The travel magazine Marcus brought over last week, open to an article about Greek islands.

"Maybe we should take a vacation," he'd said, pointing to a photo of white buildings climbing clifftops above blue water. "Somewhere romantic."

Romantic. While he was texting another woman.

I pick up the magazine, studying the image more carefully. Santorini, the caption reads. The photo shows a resort perched on volcanic cliffs, infinity pools reflecting endless sky. It looks like another world, a place where thirty-two-year-old marketing executives don't get their hearts broken by men who smell like other women's shampoo.

A place where I could remember who I am when I'm not trying to earn someone's love.

My laptop is already open on the coffee table, cursor blinking in the search bar. Before I can talk myself out of it, I type: flights NYC to Athens.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

8k 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.
Avery and the Cursed Alpha

Avery and the Cursed Alpha

3.5k Views · Completed · Lyra Lupine
After losing her mother to cancer and drowning in crushing debt, Avery Wellesley is running out of options. Her house is about to be seized, her job is hanging by a thread, and every door she knocks on seems to slam shut in her face.

Then a mysterious billionaire offers her a deal that sounds too good to be true.

Alexander Ravenswood is powerful, wealthy, and feared throughout Tenebrous City. Behind his perfect public image lies a deadly secret. He is the Alpha of the Nocturne Pack, cursed by an ancient bloodline that is slowly driving him toward madness and death. His only hope lies in finding the legendary Aethon Orb—or the prophesied mate destined to save him.

When Alex discovers that Avery can draw symbols connected to the long-lost artifact, he offers her a contract she cannot refuse: become his fake fiancée for six months in exchange for enough money to erase her debts and save her home.

What begins as a business arrangement quickly becomes something far more dangerous.

As they search for the missing Orb, Avery is drawn into a hidden world of werewolves, ancient prophecies, and deadly pack rivalries. Powerful enemies want Alex's throne. A jealous Alpha heiress wants Avery gone. And a ruthless rival Alpha will stop at nothing to claim the Orb for himself.

But the greatest secret of all may be Avery herself.

Because the closer she gets to Alex, the more impossible truths begin to surface about her past, her strange abilities, and the destiny that has been waiting for her all along.

With a curse threatening Alex's life, enemies closing in from every side, and a forbidden bond growing stronger by the day, Avery must decide whether to walk away from the dangerous Alpha who needs her—or risk everything for a love written by fate itself.

In a city where secrets kill and destiny cannot be escaped, can a fake engagement become a love powerful enough to change the future?
To protect what’s mine

To protect what’s mine

533k Views · Completed · Winter Rowe
Amalie is more special than she ever thought possible. Why would the twenty-two-year-old think any different after she has been told she’s nothing for her whole life by her family? Adoptive mother of a three-year-old, Ama has been locked up by her family for the past seven years. But everything changes when her old friends, the Alpha twins, Markus and Calyx, take over the Moonstone pack. Finding out that the twins are her mates, she is a white wolf, and has a connection to the Moon Goddess, is just icing on the cake of her life is a huge mess. Ama just wants a normal life with her mates and protecting her pup, but life rarely gives us what we want. She is thrust into world that she no longer remembers and has forgotten her. Amalie is charged with protecting those closest to her. But she has her own past to overcome as she heals and attempts to move forward. Will she come out alive or lose herself along the way? After all, someone has to be pulling the strings, why not pull her along for the ride?
The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

The Dragon's Last Fae Queen

6.5k Views · Ongoing · Sylvia Sylvester
Hidden all her life in the slums of Emberveil, Aerith has one rule: never let the dragons see her eyes. Fae are extinct, hunted, burned, and erased from the kingdom. Or so everyone believes. But on the night of her eighteenth birthday, when her forbidden magic stirs awake and her grandmother falls deathly ill, Aerith breaks the one rule meant to keep her safe. She enters the royal dragon pharmacy… and collides with a werewolf princess who drags her straight to the dungeon. There, in the deepest shadows of the palace, the youngest dragon prince sees her glowing eyes and instantly knows what she is. A fae. A secret the entire kingdom would kill for. What would be her fate? Another dead Fae? Or the Last Dragon's Fae Queen?

“Prince? Dickhead? Asshole? Or stalker?” A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “Maybe I should show you the one title I want you to use.” Before I could react, his hand closed around my chin, tilting my face up. His lips crashed into mine, hard, claiming, breath-stealing. When he finally pulled back, his voice was a rough whisper against my lips. “You could call me yours… because you are mine.”
From Sacrificed Slave to the Dragon King's Obsession

From Sacrificed Slave to the Dragon King's Obsession

2.7k Views · Completed · Ellis Carter
"Ten years of atonement, and you flee?"

His fangs glinted as he gripped my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. Dragon scales shimmered along his neck, breath scorching my skin.

"Your Majesty... I beg—" He shoved me onto the bed. Silk tore with a sharp rip, cold air rushing over my exposed body.

"Scared?" He smirked, palm sliding down my waist, fingers tracing slow, burning circles. "Yet you shiver... not from cold."

I lunged for the candlestick, but he caught my wrist, pinning it overhead. His knee forced my legs apart.

"When your father gave you to me," his lips brushed my ear, voice a dark rumble, "you were already mine."

On the eve of freedom after ten years of servitude, Lina Valeria stood one night away from reuniting with her betrothed. But Dragon King Augustus condemned her to the Abyss Mines on false charges—a trap forged from obsessive desire.

Augustus Ashenwing, Supreme Sovereign of Skyhold Citadel, is ruthless and feared by all races. His obsession stems from ancient grudges and dragonkind's most dangerous instinct: possessive desire. He demands her submission, binding her to his throne as his consort.

From prisoner to queen, Lina battles him through court intrigue and twisted passion—fighting for her mother, her freedom, her dignity.

Yet this cold-blooded tyrant reserves all tenderness for her alone. He indulges her temper, bends his pride, compromises without limit—anything to see her smile. Gradually, her heart wavers. But loving him means betraying Kain, who waited eleven years. Torn between duty and desire, she drowns in agonizing guilt.

Love and hatred intertwined—a forbidden dragon romance in a realm of oppression.
HER ALPHA, HER SAVIOUR

HER ALPHA, HER SAVIOUR

2.4k Views · Ongoing · Iris
I sold myself to a monster to save my mom—and walked into a cage.

Kane Hellboud, charm and wealth personified, wanted only me in exchange for her treatment. No cameras, isolation, or noose-like rules were part of the deal. Behind his smile? Cold, violent possessiveness that destroyed our fake marriage.

Most of all, I didn’t know the supernatural walked among us, hiding in the cracks of ordinary life. Not until Abel Stone stepped into mine—dark-eyed, sharp-tongued, and oozing dangerous promises. He’s my new boss. He shouldn’t make my skin tingle or my pulse race. I shouldn’t feel this primal pull, this illogical recognition that tugs at something deep in my bones.

Around him, lights burst, electronics fry, and something ancient in me awakens.

Kane feels it. His grip tightens, punishments turn brutal, and he hides the truth of what I am.

Trapped between two powerful men, I’m no prey, no pawn—no helpless victim.

Prisons burn. Monsters bleed. As for me? I'm the storm in skin—deadly beyond suspicion.
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)
Alpha VS Omega' Twin VS Twin (A Dark Werewolf Romance)

Alpha VS Omega' Twin VS Twin (A Dark Werewolf Romance)

1.1k Views · Ongoing · June Calva
Callum Brennan was born to lead London's most powerful werewolf pack. Then his twin brother framed him for murder.
Stripped of everything, Callum is thrown into the Rookeries, where packless wolves go to die. But he survives. He builds a pack from the broken and the damned. He falls in love with Valentina, a dhampir hunted by the same vampire Parliament that destroyed his life.
In a city ruled by immortal aristocrats and controlled by ancient dragons, Callum learns the hardest truth: individual virtue cannot defeat systemic evil. But small victories matter. And some fights are worth losing everything
Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

884.4k 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.
A pack of their own

A pack of their own

2m Views · Completed · dragonsbain22
Being the middle Child ignored and neglected, rejected by family and injured, She receives her wolf early and realizes she is a new type of hybrid but doesn't know how to control her power, she leaves her pack with her best friend and grandmother to go to her grandfather's clan to learn what she is and how to handle her power and then with her fated mate, her best friend and her fated mate little brother and grandmother start their own pack.
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…..
Let Them Kneel

Let Them Kneel

234.5k Views · Ongoing · My Fantasy Stories
Kaelani spent her life believing she was wolfless.
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.

But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.

Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.

When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.

For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.

Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.

But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.

And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.

Especially him.

She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.

Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.