8169 Book(s) Related to hellbound to the don claimed by the devil

Imagine being forced to marry a stranger.

Reina's only ever known her family's sunny farm. She can bake bread, mend a fence, and wrangle a goat but she’s never seen a skyscraper or used a subway. Her whole world changes when her grandfather’s old promise lands her in a penthouse with her new fiancé, Orion who looks at her like she’s a mud stain on his expensive shoe.

He’s a wealthy city prince who hates that he’s stuck with a country girl. She’s a whirlwind of chaos who invades his space, breaks his things and has no idea how stunning she is.

He’s counting down the days until he can send her home. She’s just trying to survive the city without embarrassing herself. There’s just one problem: the more she drives him crazy, the less he wants her to leave and the more he wonders if her kind of crazy is exactly what he needs.

But can a girl who talks to goats ever fit into his glittering world? And what happens when the simple farm girl starts to see the lonely man behind the money and decides to heal him, whether he likes it or not?

1

I thought the scariest thing in school was the jock who harassed me. But then he vanished without a trace, and everyone blamed me.

There is no strong evidence to lock me away, so I walk the school hallways trapped in a living hell. The police watch my every move, the town hates me, and my adoptive parents treat me like an unwanted curse in their home.

Desperate to clear my name, I didn't realize the real danger was living right next door.

Xavi Moreau is the quiet, haunting boy who looks right through me. He doesn't live with his family; he lives alone in his own place. To the world, he is a handsome party guy who drinks, smiles, and blends into the crowd.

But I noticed the truth. His smiles are fake. His laughter never reaches his cold eyes. He is just copying the emotions of others to hide a dark, hollow soul.

When he notices my stares, his obsession shifts entirely to me.

Every single time he approaches me, I push him away. I deny him. I fight his terrifying presence with every ounce of strength I have left. But Xavi doesn't back down. He offers me the one thing I desperately need: a promise to find the truth and clear my name.

I wanted to find a killer to save myself, but the killer has already found me, and he has no intention of letting me go.

In his past life, Ethan was thrown straight to the flesh-eating horde by his bitter rival, Ryan.
Reborn days before the outbreak, he liquidates every asset he owns to build an impenetrable fortress—trading useless paper wealth for heavy steel plates, industrial deadbolts, and hard inventory numbers.
Ten days later, hell opens up, and the suburbs turn into a lawless, blood-soaked meat grinder.
Then comes a frantic knock on his heavy security door.
It’s Mara—Ryan’s drop-dead gorgeous, curvaceous wife—soaked to the bone, desperate, and begging for shelter.
Behind his wall of monitors, Ethan looks down at the security feed with absolute, icy detachment.
"My fortress. My rules. Out here, I call the shots."

I am a time traveler from the modern world.

For three years, I traveled back and forth to the wasteland. By supplying clean water and food, I elevated a lowly scavenger into a wasteland lord commanding thousands of armed men.

But just as I finally found a way to end the apocalypse, she turned around and slept with a local thug.

Together, they plotted to steal the secret of my time machine, kill me, and turn my modern world into their personal "free supermarket."

She thought she had me completely wrapped around her finger. She believed that with just a few fake tears, her stupid "delivery boy" would obediently hand over all access and wait to be slaughtered.

But after overhearing their scheme, I didn't hesitate. I returned to the modern world and smashed the time machine to pieces.

Now, let's see how long her mighty reign will last without my help.

Seven days before the doomsday outbreak, the wild weeds by the road spoke to me: The zombies are coming.
I rushed home, intending to take my fiancée and flee for our lives.
But outside the door, I overheard her plotting with her boss on the sofa, scheming to drain all my wealth.
"He’s just an orphan with no family or connections. No one would care even if he dies."
I didn’t push the door open.
Instead, I quietly cashed out all my assets overnight and built an impenetrable island fortress without delay.
Seven days later, the zombie hordes surrounded the city.
She and her entire family were chased by the monsters, covered in blood and mangled.
They knelt frantically kowtowing and begging for help right outside my explosion-proof gate.
I coldly locked the door tight.
"You were right," I said. "No one really cares if you die. Just go in peace."

"You good-for-nothing should get out and save your food rations. I'll use your truckload of supplies for you!"

The man-eating scarlet spores swept through the town. My good brother locked the security door tightly and locked me in the corridor filled with blood mist.

He stared intently at me through the peephole, waiting to see the horrific sight of my internal organs being drained by the fungus.

But a second before I was devoured by the spores, I hid in my personal space and with a single thought drained the last drop of water and every grain of rice from the room.

Three days later, in this impregnable "vacuum tomb".

When he was so thirsty that he swallowed blood, and knelt on the ground desperately pounding on the door.

I kicked the door open, tied him up with nylon rope, and hung him upside down in the blood-red storm outside the window.

After being reborn, the first thing my sister and I did was swap our grooms.
In our past life, my gentle sister Elara married Felix Hawthorne, the mafia godfather of Marconi City. Surrounded by a domineering sister-in-law and a scheming, manipulative other woman, she was slowly driven into a corner and died of a broken heart.
Meanwhile, I married the polite, illegitimate son of the Graves family. He was a perfect gentleman, but he just didn't love me. Our marriage lasted three years, and we were separated for two and a half of them.
Then one day, Elara and I woke up at the exact same moment—we had been reborn, back to the very morning we were supposed to sign our marriage agreements...

Six months into the apocalypse, I risked my life to pamper my girlfriend like a princess, only to be betrayed by her and the camp leader .
My legs were broken, and I was thrown over the wall to be eaten by dogs ; hundreds of civilians I had once protected turned on me .
On the verge of death, I unexpectedly rescued a mysterious prodigy, instantly binding myself to an endless space and granting me divine healing abilities . My severed limbs regenerated instantly, and I had access to countless top-tier resources .
Returning to the camp fully healed, I stomped on the leader's knee and kicked my scheming ex-girlfriend into a horde of zombies .
In this damn apocalypse, from this day forward, I am the one and only new king .

After being stood up for the ninety-ninth time while attempting to register for marriage, I sent my fiancé a breakup message. He had allowed me to be let down ninety-nine times, dismissing my asthma as mere pretentiousness and perceiving my sacrifices as acts of greed, all the while lavishing his patience upon another woman. It was only when he had his mistress select a cheap necklace for me and sketched explicit nudes of her that I realized these seven years were not a narrative of profound love, but rather an absurd farce playing out solely in my life. The moment I dispatched the breakup message, I never envisioned that this man, who viewed me as dispensable, would later pursue me with a frenzied obsession.

The car crash six months ago destroyed my body. I survive the agony only through the painkillers prescribed by my brother, Fletcher.
While shopping for my wedding dress, I simply swallowed a pill on schedule. My mother responded with a slap that made me spit blood. My father stormed in and kicked my ribs in without asking a single question.
I fled crying to my brother, only for him to grab me in disgust: "You are a disgrace to this family."
I called my fiancé. He rushed to the scene, took one look at the pill, and called the cops without hesitation: "The engagement is off. She makes me sick."
In just a few hours, I went from a bride-to-be to a death row inmate.
But as the gavel fell, I saw our family maid calmly swallow the exact same pill from the gallery…
I lunged at the railing, screaming at the judge. He leaned down, a chilling smile spreading across his face: "Linnea, this is all because…"

I was the unluckiest kid in my family—always the one pulling the black-tipped stick from that pretty little "Fairness Jar."
In our house, red meant new dresses, Disneyland, and a goodnight kiss from Mom. Black meant endless chores, lockup in the attic, and the kind of hunger that ate you from the inside out.
Mom loved to stroke my hair in front of the neighbors. "God gives everyone a fair shake," she'd say. "Riley's just a little unlucky, is all."
I believed her for fourteen years.
Until I had an asthma attack and died on that dusty attic floor.
The moment my soul slipped free, I looked down at the overturned Jar, its sticks scattered across the floorboards—and I finally understood why I'd drawn black every single time.

This is a world where humans and fantasy races exist side by side. Werewolves move through city streets between glass towers, and every now and then, a pair of massive wings cuts through the clouds overhead. Twenty years ago, to secure the family's standing, the main house signed a contract with the Dragon Clan.

As the least favored daughter of a branch family, I was chosen to be the Dragon King's mate. The terms were spelled out plainly: if I couldn't get married within five years of coming of age, I'd have to go to Dragon territory and go through with the marriage.

For five years, every wedding I've planned has been blown up by my younger sister, Hannah.

This is year five. I'm finally in a wedding dress, about to marry Derek, the boy I grew up with.

What I didn't expect was that one hour before the ceremony, Hannah collapsed in the dressing room coughing up blood. She grabbed Derek's hand, crying, saying she wouldn't make it through the month.

And my parents are on either side of me, hands pressed down hard on my shoulders.

"Just let Hannah have the wedding. She's dying!"

What they don't know is that if I don't get married today, the Dragon envoys will come for me on the spot.

And I won't be coming back.

A year ago, my ex abandoned me when I was broke and buried in debt, choosing the Russo family heiress instead.

On the day of his engagement party, he sent me a vicious text: "Wear a wedding dress to Plaza Hotel. Changed my mind. You're marrying me."

I showed up in white.

Luca and his crew waited at the entrance, ready to watch me humiliate myself.

He thought this was my degradation.

But what he didn't know was—I was getting married.

Just not to him.

To Dante Valentino—the most dangerous man in this godforsaken city.

I died from campus rumors and elite prejudice in my last life.
Reborn, I no longer choose to explain. I collect every timestamp, fingerprint and hidden deal.
I expose my traitorous boyfriend, fake weak rival, and the school’s biased protection of the privileged.
With ironclad proof, I overturned all injustice and let every hypocrite pay the price.

"Enjoying the show quite a lot, aren’t you, John?"
I had just shut the suite door, behind which lewd gasps and moans lingered, when Louise, the young heiress of a top tycoon family, walked straight up to me.
Slap!
A crisp, heavy slap landed hard across my face.
"You shameless cur!"
She snarled, her eyes filled with arrogant venom.
I clenched my jaw tightly, my nails digging sharply into my palms.
In this class pyramid forged by capital, I was nothing but a personal bodyguard worth even less than a pedigreed luxury dog.
Yet it was not long before this lofty young lady met with a plane crash. She ended up on her knees before me, groveling and begging for mercy.
"John… take me. I’m your slave."

On the eve of the apocalypse, magical beasts appeared in our world.
They possessed extraordinary abilities, and humans could master these powers by forming a contract with them.
In my previous life, my adopted brother chose a top-tier Wolf King pup.
But shortly after, the extreme heat apocalypse descended. The low-tier water snake I had contracted possessed the ability to conjure water and lower temperatures, inadvertently making me the envy of everyone.
Meanwhile, my brother’s Wolf King was universally despised for its excruciatingly slow growth and lack of immediate combat power.

Now, I have been reborn to the very day we chose our contracted beasts.
This time, my brother rushed ahead and snatched the water snake.
I know why.
He has been reborn, too.
But this apocalypse is not nearly as simple as he thinks!

Three weeks after my son's death, I found the blood-stained cloth doll meant to "ward off disaster" with his name stitched on it.

Right there, in the hands of my husband's mistress, who was giggling as she idly toyed with it.
 
"The psychic said my life force was too weak to keep the baby, and that I needed a substitute to take the curse."
 
"I only sewed Leo's name into the doll. I never imagined... he would actually get sick and die."
 
"Declan, do you think Leo traded his life for our baby's?"
 
Through the crack in the door, the same man who had sobbed until he passed out at the funeral was gently stroking his lover's belly. "He was just unlucky. As long as our baby is safe, that's all that matters."
 
I turned away, pulled up the invitation for Chief Medical Examiner from the International Criminal Court in The Hague that I had shelved for a month, and hit accept.

Serena and I got tricked into vampire territory, forced into blood slavery.
By the time the pack showed up to save us, I was already the top blood slave in that pit, kneeling beside the vampire count, counting his earnings.
Serena was left rotting in a cell, poisoned, pregnant, and barely alive.
The pack offered a huge bounty to find whoever set us up.
I was the only one who knew. And I said nothing.
Morwenna, the Alpha's mother, begged me on her knees to talk. I closed my eyes, pretending not to hear.
The elders pushed. I stayed silent.
My mate, Alpha Kai, dragged me onto the Blood Moon memory altar, furious.
"Serena's dying in that tent, and you're here protecting those animals!"
"Disgusting. How did I ever fall for you!"
"This stone's going to rip your soul apart and drag you to hell with your precious vampires!"
But when the truth finally surfaced, Kai just stood there. Speechless.

"Help! Somebody help me! Julian is trying to kill my baby!" I scream at the top of my lungs, bursting into my gender reveal party.

Just minutes ago, Julian was my perfect, doting husband. Then he opens my unborn baby's genetic screening report. The unadulterated ferocity and revulsion simmering in his eyes makes my entire body shake. He grips my arm, demanding I terminate the pregnancy.

I already died once because of that piece of paper. In my past life, they dragged me to a freezing lab, pumped me full of drugs, and murdered my child before locking me in an asylum.

This time, I hide behind the guests. But my parents storm in. After seeing the report, instead of saving me, Dad kicks me squarely in the stomach.

"You shameless little whore," he spits.

They are about to drag me out the back door when two police officers step through the glass doors. The cop hands me the confiscated report.

I look down at the printed words... and finally understand.

The second the avalanche came down, I called my mate. Karl. Captain of the Pack Guard's First Squad.

He dug me out, carried me onto the helicopter, and told the pilot to take off before the second rescue team even got there.

He didn't know Delilah was buried in the same slide. The girl he'd never gotten over.

By the time they reached her, she'd been under the snow for three hours in twenty below.

Karl stood in the morgue all night.

He came back the next day and just gave me a small smile. "It wasn't your fault. You were carrying our pup. Of course you came first."

For a month after that, he was gentler than he'd ever been. He cleared his schedule to take me to every checkup. Cooked for me himself. Put the crib together, the dresser too. Every single thing in the nursery lined up exactly right.

I thought that avalanche had finally buried Delilah. That it had given him back to me.

Until the day I went into labor.

He sent every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room. There was a silver scalpel in his hand.

The moment he cut me open, I saw the red in his eyes.

Our pup was still crying, small and weak, and he never even looked. He threw us both into the incinerator.

"If it weren't for you, Delilah would still be alive. Your life for hers."

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the moment the avalanche hit.

At the scene of the car accident, my parents frantically scooped up my sister—who only had a scraped knee—then kicked me aside as I lay there dying.
"Don't be a burden to your sister. Just wait by the roadside and croak!"
They drove off without a second thought. In that moment, my heart turned to stone.
What they didn't know was that I didn't die. Instead, I got adopted by a top-tier professor and became a math prodigy worth tens of millions.
Two years later, when my birth parents went bankrupt and got on their knees begging me for a handout, I smiled coldly and played the recording of their attempted murder...

On my wedding day, my mother walked in and took my gown off the rack. Then she handed it to Coralie — the sister my parents adopted, the one I've given half my magic to every month for five years.
The High Priest says my stars are cursed. So Coralie will marry Roland in my place. My fiancé. The man I nearly died healing.
My father tells me to think of the bigger picture. Roland won't even look at me. Not one of them looks back as they leave me alone in that room.
They think I'll stand here and take it, like I always have.
They don't know about the black whistle in my sleeve — the one a dying man pressed into my hand at the edge of the Abyss. Blow it, he said, and I'll come for you.
I've been good for too long.
I'm done.

Dear readers! If you love this story, check out my other book: My Husband Loves Someone Else.
I was cheated on my wedding night when I witnessed my husband passionately making love to two blonde, blue-eyed women on our marriage bed.
However, I didn't cry or make a scene. I divorced him, became an independent woman focused on my career, and then met an excellent man.
Just when I achieved success and fame, my ex-husband got on his knees begging for my forgiveness.
I smiled. "Get lost."

Dear readers and friends, thank you for reading this novel. I have recently written a new novel titled , and if you're interested, you're welcome to look it up and give it a read.

For his mother's life, he willingly became a live-in son-in-law for three years, enduring countless humiliations from his wife and male lover. Only when they themselves unplugged the life support pod did he retrieve the dusty cell phone from the pool of blood. The "Zero" access to the Silicon Valley dark web had been unlocked; this time, he would make the entire Crawford empire pay with its life.

Noah Carter doesn’t lose control.

Captain of Ridgeway University’s team.
Disciplined. Admired. Untouchable.

Until Elias Moore.

Soft skirts. Sharp eyes. Unapologetically visible.

What starts as a glance turns into a secret.
What should have been one mistake becomes an addiction.

Noah tells himself it’s temporary.
Elias knows better.

Because desire doesn’t disappear just because you refuse to name it.

And when reputation collides with need, someone will have to choose what matters more — the life they built, or the truth they can’t outrun.

Some mistakes burn.

Some demand to be claimed.

Right after the London Fashion Week, my husband unprecedentedly gave me a vacation, arranging a ten-day trip to New York.
I thought he finally learned to be considerate, until I overheard his conversation with our son.
"Dad, if you are marrying Aunt Barbara, what about Mom?" our son asked innocently.
"It's merely a ceremonial engagement," my husband chuckled. "Be a good boy, Oliver. Keep this a secret from Mom, and I'll buy you that limited-edition model airplane."
My mind went blank. I stood frozen for a long while before stepping out onto the terrace to catch the chilling wind.
If he wants to rewrite his past with his first love.
Then I will reclaim the design dream I threw away for him.
Once I leave for New York, I am never coming back.

In prison, Albert was fortunate enough to receive assistance from six female teachers. After being released at the age of 18, he returned home.
Because he was poisoned, he needed to marry a woman with a special constitution.
Facing his childhood sweetheart who came to terminate their engagement, Albert immediately severed ties with her.
Facing the family of Luna who took care of him, Albert did his utmost to protect them
"Albert, I want to marry my daughter to you."
Luna said.

Four months pregnant, I went to the bar to bring Connor his wallet, only to overhear a conversation that made my blood run cold.

"She's so controlling. Billy and I can barely breathe," my husband told his friends. "I'm taking Kelsey to the countryside for three months of therapy. I'll just tell Nadia it's a parent-child program abroad."

The worst part? My ten-year-old son Billy would cover for him.

Then I had a miscarriage. In my darkest moment, Connor said he'd use experimental hypnotherapy to help me "forget the pain" so I wouldn't suffer or cling to them while they vacationed for three months.

I agreed.

But when he got everything he wanted, he regretted it.

I survived 100 underground death matches just to keep my brother alive.
My reward? A rusted coffee can holding his ashes.
When I knelt in the pouring rain, desperately scraping his ash out of the black mud, Cassian—the mafia boss I'd bled for ten years—kicked the can away.
He pulled a gun and pressed it to my head. All because his innocent fiancée felt "scared" by my look.
"Apologize to her," he commanded.
Looking at the gun I had engraved with his name years ago, I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I just laughed.
Clutching the battered, empty tin can to my chest, I turned and stepped off the cliff into the raging Black Sea.
Only then did the great Cassian panic, his desperate screams swallowed by the dark waves.

I'm a siren. Every fifty years, I need to eat a heart. Not just any heart—it has to be rotten to the core. The more evil, the better it feeds.
So when Arthur Pendleton, billionaire marine philanthropist and secret trafficking kingpin, spotted a helpless blind girl sitting alone at his charity gala, he thought he'd hit the jackpot.
He took me to his cliffside villa. Cooked me dinner. Drugged my milk.
Cute.
The drugs broke down the second they hit my stomach. His guard found out about the restraints the hard way—right before I snapped his neck.
Now Arthur is steering his yacht into open water, chasing a sunken treasure that doesn't exist, too drunk on greed to notice the strange singing in the fog, or that the blind girl in his passenger seat can see him perfectly fine.
He has no idea what's waiting in the deep.

After being abandoned by my husband one last time and rejected by my own son, I finally hit my breaking point.
Because I was dying.
At the very end, fate sent me back to the world I once knew.
And there, love and glory swept over me like a flood.

My family used me as bait to destroy my sister's happiness.

The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."

But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.

Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.

But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."

My pain was her wake-up call.

My son was killed in a horrific car bomb assassination.

At his rain-drenched funeral, my husband, Enzo—a Mafia Don—held an umbrella over my head, only to suddenly state with icy indifference:

"Gianna is pregnant. It's my blood."

Gianna. The illegitimate daughter of the Lucchese family boss.

I stiffened, looking up in sheer disbelief.

"What the hell does that mean?"

He cast a careless glance at me, completely unbothered.

"To end the war between the Corsican and Lucchese families, I've been with her in secret for a while now. Now that she carries the Corsican bloodline, I must give her a proper title. She will be moving into the estate tonight. You will not only accept this, but you will also give her the respect she deserves as the mother of my child."

“I, Riccardo Saviano, future Alpha of the Grey Shadow Moon Pack, reject you, Artemisia Guerrieri, Daughter of Alpha Franco of the Blood Moon Pack, as my mate and future Luna.”

One single sentence.

One stupid single sentence was all it took to disintegrate my life.

And the day of my birthday, on which this sentence was audaciously uttered to me, I lost the love of my life, my future mate, and my wolf, all at once.

As I’m still assembling the pieces of my shattered heart years later, there they come.

Like lightning out of a crystal blue sky.

My Mates.

But wait…

If I am mated to triplets, how come I’m about to be mated to 5 gorgeous men?

*** TW: explicit and foul language; spicy content; explicit sex scenes ***

"I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you walk into that biology classroom six years ago."

Cedric froze. He thought he was just an anonymous server in a high-end mafia club, wearing a wire for the police to clear his $500,000 debt. But the man sitting in the VIP booth—Gianni Falcone, the most dangerous crime lord in New York—wasn't a stranger. He was Gus Franco, the quiet kid from high school who used to stare at the back of Cedric's neck.

"I watched you waste yourself on people who didn't deserve you," Falcone whispered, his hand cupping Cedric's jaw with terrifying gentleness. "I orchestrated everything. The debt, the job, the desperation. I burned down your world just to clear a path for you to walk into my arms."

Cedric realized too late: He wasn't here to catch a criminal. He was the prize waiting to be claimed.

The craziest thing I've ever done? Agreeing to Mason's idea—sex in the middle of nowhere.
But then his first love called, and he left me stranded out there. Alone. In the dead of night.

In her past life, Arabella Oberon was the lowest-ranking member of the Oberon family.

She genuinely took in Regina, the butler's daughter, only to be constantly manipulated by this cunning and manipulative woman.

Regina gradually stole the love from her three brothers.

Arabella was forced to give Regina blood transfusions time and again, her weight plummeting to a mere eighty-eight pounds.

Ultimately, under the relentless pressure from her brothers, she jumped out of a window in despair and died. Her last words were,

"What about Regina's blood transfusions?"

When she opened her eyes again, Arabella found herself reborn three years earlier—the very day Regina appeared at her doorstep crying, begging for help.

Looking at the pitiful, tearful girl before her, Arabella smiled.

No more soft-heartedness.

No more groveling.

Instead, she "kindly" arranged for Regina to move into the servants' quarters, to earn her own living through honest labor.

Faced with her brothers who sided with her, she no longer bothered to please them.

And towards her former fiancé, Theodore, whom she had once fawned over, she remained cold, distant, and indifferent.

Moreover, in this life, they would discover that her identity was far more than just the eldest daughter of the Oberon family.

“A dynamic story line that grips from the first chapter and doesn't let go.” --Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Once Gone) From #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce comes a new masterpiece of psychological suspense—the AVERY BLACK SERIES—which continues here with CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6), also a standalone novel. The series begins with CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)—a free download with over 200 five star reviews!A woman turns up dead in her own apartment, locked in her closet, her body crawling with poisonous spiders, and the Boston police are stumped. As all of their leads collapse, they are dreading the killer will strike again. Desperate, the police have no choice but to turn to Boston’s most brilliant and controversial homicide detective—Avery Black. Now retired, Avery, in a low point in her own life, reluctantly agrees to help with the case. But when other bodies start turning up, murdered in grotesque and unusual ways, Avery can’t help but wonder: is there a serial killer on the loose?With the intense media pressure and the stress of having a new, inexperienced partner, Avery is pushed to her limit as she struggles to crack the bizarre cases—and to keep herself from falling into the abyss. Avery finds herself falling deeper and deeper into the twisted mind of the killer, who holds more secrets than Avery could imagine.The most riveting and shocking book of the series, a psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, CAUSE TO DREAD will leave you turning pages late into the night. “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side, so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

Kaitlyn Randall wakes up late and the first thing she does is leave her place, almost throwing her cold coffee on a cop car nearby with a handsome officer inside.

To say the least, her day isn't going very well except for the eye candy. Especially when she shows up to work extremely late and has to clear out her desk.

When she finds out later that her estranged father left her millions of dollars, she decides to go to Europe and take a well-earned vacation after quickly buying a house.

Once she is there, she realizes that it was all an elaborate scheme

and now she is stuck in Europe by herself, without a single dollar to her name.

Will a tall, dark and handsome stranger come to her rescue?

Or more importantly, what will he want in exchange?

See what this rich stranger has in store for her in A Day To Remember.

He's the golden boy of Kansas City hockey. He has the trophies, fortune, women, and a life where he always gets what he wants.

She's the Special Agent who has spent ten years hunting the monster that murdered her father, waiting for the day its signature appears again.

Zane Chandler's perfect life shatters when he comes home to find his younger sister brutally murdered, her eyes gouged out and a five-pointed star carved between them.

For Island Meyers, that star isn't just a killer's signature. It's the ghost that has haunted her for a decade.

Determined to solve the case that destroyed her, Island takes charge of the investigation, only to face the victim's furious brother.

Zane dismisses her as a rookie, demands she's removed from the case, and insists she isn't capable of finding his sister's killer.

What he doesn't know is that Island isn't a stranger. Their families are connected by a betrayal neither of them has forgotten, and a secret buried for ten years.

Island refuses to walk away. This investigation is her only chance to uncover the truth she's spent a decade chasing, and no grieving hockey superstar is going to stop her.

But when another body appears and the killer's twisted game grows deadlier, Zane and Island are forced into an uneasy partnership where every clue exposes another lie, every discovery brings them closer to the monster, and every argument makes their attraction harder to ignore.

Because Zane's sister wasn't chosen by chance…She was a message.

Now Zane and Island must trust the one person they swore they'd never need before the next victim wears the star.

Because whatever murdered the people they loved isn't finished.

And this time, it's watching them fall for each other.

My wife never knew what I really did. She only knew I was gone most of the year and money hit our account every month.

The day she cheated, she rummaged through my drawer, found an eagle-shaped brooch, and gifted it to her lover like a flashy accessory. “It’s worthless,” she said. “Perfect with a suit.” I warned her again and again to bring it back. She called me annoying, powered off her phone, and blocked me everywhere.

She didn’t know I’m a cleaner—the kind who handles quiet jobs—and that brooch isn’t jewelry. It’s an organization badge, a mark that turns you into a target the moment it appears in public.

That night, the killers came. The ballroom was sealed. She trembled under a table while her lover shoved her out to take the bullets.

When a cold gun barrel pressed to her temple and someone asked, “Who does the brooch belong to?”

My father said an honest man can't run a farm. My brother called me nothing but a burden. My ex-girlfriend dropped her engagement ring into a glass of champagne and handed it back to me. They all thought I was worthless. None of them knew I'd been reborn, and had stockpiled five years' worth of supplies in the cold storage. When the blizzard hit, the walkie-talkie crackled to life. I heard their cries and the unspoken thoughts swirling inside their heads. Really? You're still trying to scheme against me right now?

In my past life, they drained my blood, kicked me off the rooftop, and said, "Waste doesn't deserve to live."

Reborn into the apocalypse, I opened my palm, and seven beams of primal energy pierced the sky. The woman who cried out "the best in the world" to me just ten minutes ago couldn't even produce a spark now. The brother who wore the boots I sewed and called me trash was being chased and bitten by mutants like a stray dog, his leg broken.

They came to me with memories of their past lives, demanding, "Why did you steal our special abilities?"

In front of thousands of people, I unleashed a net of lightning, scorching those who came to block my way. They knelt in the mud, their heads bleeding from kowtowing; Elena covered her mouth, which had been slapped clean, and David trembled on his single leg, leaning on a rusty steel pipe—yet they couldn't even climb over the iron thorns surrounding my tower.

Later, they rotted into a pile of mud in the arena and among the hordes of corpses, and I didn't even look back.

Until a horde of millions of zombies besieged the city, I went out alone with my sword and shattered the zombie king with a single strike.

The entire ruins knelt down.

They thought I had stolen the light.
No. I was just a fire that burned away what should have been garbage.

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

In my previous life, on the very day of our marking ceremony, my Alpha fiancé met his fated mate at the banquet.
He didn’t break off our engagement. Instead, he chose silence and completed the ceremony with me. He chose to trap me with a twenty-year mate bond.
For twenty years, I fought wars for the Pack, bore him an heir, and ruled the main hall alone as Luna.
Meanwhile, in another Pack’s territory, he spent his entire life with that woman.
Before I died, he told me he was sorry.
But he also blamed me—saying that if I hadn’t insisted on taking the Luna seat, he could have left more completely.
Only then did I realize something cruel. Not only was I never the one he loved, I was also the obstacle to his freedom.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the marking ceremony.
This time, the mate bond had not yet formed, and the mate mark had not yet been sealed.
Whether he would abandon me for his fated mate no longer mattered.
Because this time—
I would never step aside for any Alpha again.

I once loved Ryan deeply and helped him become the Alpha, only to be rewarded with chains in a dungeon and the mocking laughter of him and his mistress.

Fate gave me a second chance—I woke up reborn on the morning of the mate selection ceremony. There he was, still ordering me around in front of everyone, expecting me to play the obedient servant.

Everyone tried to convince me that Ryan, the man who killed me, is the "right choice."

Yet I chose Connor—the man feared by the entire clan, the one who will bring ruin to the clan for the sake of his one true love.

This time, I refuse to be the stepping stone on Ryan's climb to power.

I'm going to make everyone see who truly holds the reins.

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

I woke up on the same morning I was about to send another payment for my daughter's education.
In my last life, I paid for everything. Every year, without missing a payment.
Tuition. AP tutoring. Summer program deposits. Medical bills. Birthday gifts. The education fund.
Not one payment late. Not one skipped.
I only found out the truth after I died. My daughter wore a blazer that hung off her like a hand-me-down. She glued her shoes back together instead of throwing them out. She got mocked in front of her whole class for owing a two-thousand-dollar activity fee she should never have had to worry about.
She hated me for it.
She said, "You say you love me. So why was there never any money for me?"
I understood the truth only when it was too late to matter. It was never that I hadn't given enough.
It was that my husband had been siphoning it out from under me the whole time, spending it on another woman's family.
This time, I didn't wait to find out.