2044 Book(s) Related to our vows were meant to be broken

When I was nine months pregnant, my husband, Torin, forced doctors to extract my baby's cord blood to save his ex-wife's son. My baby died of suffocation ten minutes after birth, right before my eyes.
Instigated by his biological mother, my stepson sneaked into my room late at night and poured silver powder all over me. My skin rotted; the scars would last forever.
Later, the hospital ward caught fire, cutting off my escape. On the brink of life and death, Torin glanced back at me, scooped up his ex-wife, and walked into the safe zone without looking back.
Even later, he knelt in the ruins, hands dripping with blood, digging through the rubble brick by brick.
Until his subordinate stepped up behind him and choked out, "Alpha... we found the Luna's body."

Here is the English translation, tailored to match the gritty, dramatic, and satisfying tone typical of apocalyptic revenge web novels:

In my previous life, I was drained to the bone by the so-called "Doomsday Evolution System," forced to watch as my best friend and fiancée stepped over my corpse to scavenge my supplies.

When I opened my eyes again, I had regressed to exactly three days before the apocalypse. When that faint blue, glowing "cheat" materialized once more, I decisively took a step back, watching my enemies fanatically claim it for themselves. They thought they had grasped the key to ruling the doomsday. Little did they know, they had just swallowed a parasite that would devour its host.

Then, the extreme cold descended, and toxic spores blotted out the sky.

Using my knowledge of the future, I struck a deal with a female black-market boss, packing an underground bunker with tons of supplies and heavy firepower. Sipping hot coffee in front of the control room monitors, I sat back and enjoyed the show. I watched my enemies be systematically stripped of their sanity, sacrifice their companions, and ultimately degenerate into mindless, mutated lumps of flesh driven only by base instincts.

In this man-eating apocalypse, I refuse to touch any bizarre parasitic "gifts." Thick alloy doors and an endless supply of ammunition—that is the only true law of survival in the wasteland.

I built my husband Evan's Hollywood acting empire alongside him, and we kept our marriage hidden from the public. I once believed our bond was unbreakable. Until I checked his car's navigation history.
For an entire year, every Wednesday night, my movie-star husband lied about working overnight film shoots. When I followed the GPS route to its destination, I found the apartment of his rival actress, Leah.
Then I found more lies. It was only after I vanished completely that Evan realized what he had lost. But by then, I was no longer the woman he left behind.
Some secrets exposed by GPS can never be erased. Some women can never be found again.

I was once known as "The Divine Hand," the youngest Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery in history.

I didn't just perform surgeries, I invented them. However, after a high-profile operation on my own mentor went tragically wrong, leaving him in a vegetative state, my mother made me swear a blood oath.

“Your hands bring both life and ruin. Never touch a scalpel again, or the guilt will consume you forever.”

I traded my surgical scrubs for a floral apron. I married Lucian, a famous business tycoon my mother had selected.

For five years, I spent my days in the kitchen, meticulously preparing meals that were precisely calibrated medicinal formulas that cured his heart murmur and made him the top-performing executive in the city.

However, on our fifth anniversary, Lucian didn't bring flowers or gifts. Instead, he threw the divorce papers on my face with Leslie, the glamorous "Star Surgeon" of the year, by his side, her hands wrapped around his arms like she owned him.

Lucian sneered, "Lesley operates on kings and CEOs. You? You can't even look at a drop of blood without fainting. You’re a liability to my social standing."

“Sign the papers and I'll give you two hundred dollars every month as your monthly allowance. Considering your lifestyle, that's more than you ever need.” He mocked.

I stared at the divorce papers in my hands. This was what he was paying me for being a submissive wife.

"I’ll sign," I said, "and I’ll let you keep the house and the stocks. But only if Lesley can correctly identify the three hidden toxins I’ve neutralized in your body over the last five years using only the meals you mocked me for cooking.”

“If she’s the 'genius' you claim, surely she can diagnose the man she's sleeping with.”

Becky and I had been best friends since elementary school—inseparable until we both got into this top university and became roommates.
We used to lie in our dorm beds, staring at the ceiling, and swear an oath: when we got married, the gap between our weddings would never exceed one week.
I waited for Steven for four full years.
From freshman year to senior spring, I ghostwrote his papers, nursed his drunk stomach, and endured the rotating cast of girls who always seemed to need him.
Until the night Becky got proposed to—when the whole crowd egged Steven on to drop a knee too, he flung my hand away without a second thought, all because Claire, some sophomore, let out a shriek.
"Not now, Rachel. Claire's hurt. Can you not make this about you for once?"
That was all he left me with before he scooped her up and melted into the crowd.
What he didn't know was that there would never be a "not now" again.
In seven days, I'd be walking down the aisle in a wedding dress, just as promised.
Only the groom—wouldn't be him.

Every herb in Moonspring, I had coaxed to life myself, drop by drop, with a healer's touch.
But to my mate, Rourke, the place was just a backyard for his best friend Boone to use and wreck however he pleased.
I had put up with it for a long time.
I put up with it until Boone, planning his own mating ceremony, trampled half a year of my work into the mud right in front of me. I put up with it until Rourke forced me to my knees through our mate mark, just so his friends wouldn't see him lose face.
In three days, Boone would hold the grandest mating ceremony the pack had ever seen, right here in Moonspring.
And I looked at the land transfer I had just agreed to, and said a single word.

Three years ago, my pairs skating partner and I had a beautiful wedding surrounded by friends and family—but we never actually got around to signing the legal papers.
Over those three years, he has stood me up at City Hall exactly twenty-eight times.
One time, he stole my cab while I was burning up with a fever, leaving me shivering on the curb because his new, pampered protégée had a stomachache from drinking too much champagne.
Another time, he blew off our anniversary to rush to her side for a minor sprain.
Every single time we were supposed to finally make our marriage official, his precious junior skater somehow had a devastating emergency.
After twenty-eight broken promises, I finally stopped waiting. I dropped our partnership, shredded our application, and boarded a one-way flight to Milan.
But the moment I completely vanished from his life, the man who couldn't spare an hour to marry me suddenly lost his mind—chasing me across the globe to a city he swore he’d never return to, begging on his knees outside my door for a twenty-ninth chance.

Three years ago, I caught Kael holding Layla in his arms.
Layla was pressed against his chest, her arms wrapped around his waist.
Kael saw me. His arms stiffened for an instant, but he didn't let go.
"Aurelia, listen to me."
I didn't give him the chance. That night, I picked up our son, Milo, and left the wolf den where I had lived for five years.
But when I woke up, my arms were empty.
I was about to go after my son when my mom Morgaine's talisman lit up.
"There was an avalanche on Dusk Moon Ridge last night. Kael and Layla followed your trail up the mountain and were buried in the snow. The pack searched all night and found nothing."
"Where's Milo?"
Morgaine went quiet for a moment before telling me a band of black wolf marauders had spotted Milo on the mountain path.
Three people. Gone in a single night.
And they all blamed it on me.

I am a princess of the deep sea. For love, I abandoned my crown and used ocean magic to help him rise from a penniless sailor to a duke of immense wealth.

On our tenth wedding anniversary, he slapped me in front of all the guests, tore the Ocean Crown from my head to place it on his mistress, and ripped away my reverse scales: "I'm sick of this freakish marriage to a monster!" Blood flowed down the coral cuts, and my unborn child miscarried in the humiliation.

The moment the first reverse scale fell from my chest, I forgot our first kiss. At the same time, his three gold-laden ships mysteriously sank on the windless sea.

The Abyssal Pact has been activated: seven reverse scales correspond to seven memories. With each scale that falls, I forget him a little more, while he loses all the wealth he gained through me.

Seven years of deep affection, expectations with a pregnant belly, and all I got was his betrayal in marriage and false promises. I gambled my youth and sincerity, only to end up with an absurd scam. After waking up, we owe each other nothing and will have no more ties.

My chosen mate used his Beta authority to give the entire moonbloom compound to his fated mate's daughter.
The healer had said to split it—half for each child. Both would live. He overrode her. Gave the full dose to Rosalie Blackwell.
He wanted a full recovery. Just not for ours.
Three days later, my daughter Wren's organs shut down. She died on her birthday, still asking why Daddy wasn't there. The dress I'd made her—white with little silver wolves along the hem—she never got to put it on.
That same day, his fated's daughter walked out of the healing hall completely cured. He even threw a feast for the whole pack.
I collapsed at the border of Thornecrest territory. The healers told me it was cancer. Late-stage. Nothing left to treat.
Now I sat alone in our empty house with Wren's unworn birthday dress across my lap and drafted the dissolution papers.

"Brielle, I need money... My bone cancer is worse. Without treatment, I won't make it past next month."

For Cole's words, I gave up everything—my billionaire father, my inheritance, my name. I became a crime scene cleaner, the most degrading job in New York.

Twenty hours a day, I scrubbed blood and rotting flesh off apartment floors. I even sold my own blood. All to save the man I loved.

One million dollars. Finally, I had it.

I rushed to the five-star hotel, clutching the warm check in my trembling hands. Pushed open the presidential suite door.

And froze.

Cole—healthy, glowing, dressed in an expensive suit—knelt before Delilah, New York's newest socialite. A diamond ring glittered between his fingers.

"Babe, that corpse-smelling idiot sent more money today," he laughed. "That bag you wanted? Let's go buy it right now."

The check fell from my hands.

Something inside me shattered.

And something darker took its place.

The last thing I did before I died was lick dew off a rusted pipe.
Ninety days earlier, my fiancé Bastien promised he'd come back for me. He said three months in the Sahara would teach me not to be jealous of Posey—the girl I'd pulled from a refugee camp and raised as my own sister.
He didn't know the water ran out in the first week. He didn't know bandits broke my bones. He didn't care enough to find out.
While I lay dying on a rotting bed with a shattered leg, he was in Manhattan, sliding a pink diamond onto Posey's finger.
I died alone. But I didn't stay gone.
My soul followed a stolen necklace across the ocean, right back to his penthouse—just in time for the engagement party, the champagne toast, and the moment my body arrived at the door.

I got paid to test-sleep an heiress's fiancé.
One problem: he's my boss.
Bigger problem: I've been catfishing him online for six months—as his fiancée.
Now I'm pregnant. And he just called my real name.

The Moon Goddess may have fated him to be my mate, but fate clearly had a cruel sense of humor—because Alpha Eddy was never the type to settle down. Women clung to him like shadows, and he never once turned them away.

Before our bond could even form, he wrapped his arms around me and fed me the same excuse he always did.

"Carol, the healer says it’s congenital. I can't help it. Being with them is... just a way to protect you from getting hurt."

I cried. I begged. I screamed. But the carousel of beautiful women in his life never stopped spinning.

Then came the breaking point.

On a so-called business trip, Alpha Eddy heroically rescued three sisters who were cornered by Rogues. Instead of sending them back to their pack—or literally anywhere else—he brought them straight into our home. Not just anywhere in the Red Tree tribe's castle, but into the Luna’s chambers. My chambers.

When I questioned him, his response made my stomach turn.

In the fifth year of my mating to Alpha Manfred,his childhood sweetheart, Jessica Bell, was splashed across every tabloid in the territory.
Pregnant. Unmated. And accused of shattering another couple’s bond.
The rumors hit like a rogue’s ambush. But it was his reaction that truly gutted me.
“Jessica’s father once saved me, She has no pack, no family left. Everything she’s accomplished… she clawed her way to it. Alone.”
My fingers clenched tighter around the pregnancy test tucked away in my purse.
“And the only way to protect her now,” he continued, not even looking me in the eye, “is for me to marry her. To claim the pup as mine.”
A muscle twitched in my jaw. Goddess, my wolf let out a low growl inside me, begging to lunge forward and leave claw marks down his perfectly tragic face.
“And what about me?” I asked, barely more than a whisper. My voice cracked.
The Silver Claw Pack and the Eclipse Pack—my pack—had been allies for over a century.

I am a mermaid.

To walk toward him, I swallowed a dark potion, shedding my tail for a pair of legs.
Every step felt like treading on sharp blades, yet I endured it all willingly.
He took me in, promising to protect me for the rest of my life.

Then, his ex-lover returned.

She orchestrated one accident after another to frame me—a slashed costume, a staged fall down the stairs... And every single time, convenient "eyewitnesses" immediately pointed their fingers at me.

He believed them all.

Until a falling stage light crushed her legs.
He pinned me to the operating table, personally severed my legs, and transplanted them onto that woman.

What he didn't know was that anyone who walked on these legs would have to suffer the excruciating agony of stepping on knives.
He simply told me coldly: "You ruined her ability to dance, so you will pay with your legs."

That night, alone and broken, I wheeled myself to the beach.
Using only my bare hands, I crawled across the coarse sand, into the crashing waves, and returned to my true home.

——Leaving him to stare at the security monitors, watching helplessly as I sank into the dark sea, never to surface again.

For two years, I lived as Mrs. Thorne, a title that felt more like a cage than a crown. I loved my husband, Caspian, with a desperate hope, clinging to the belief that our arranged marriage could become real. I thought the baby I was carrying would finally melt his frozen heart.
I was wrong. A leaked photo of him with another woman shattered my world. A cruel recording of his voice confirmed it: “Nothing about Elara is ever urgent. I am only with her for the child.”
Then came the accident that took the one thing he actually cared about, our unborn son.
Now, I stand before the man who destroyed me. The divorce papers are on the table between us. He thinks I am still the weak woman who begged for his love.
He is wrong. My eyes are dry, my heart is cold, and I have only one demand for the father of my dead child.
“Bring back my baby, or sign this divorce paper.”

Eric couldn't resist reaching out to touch Katrina's face. Her skin was warm and soft.

She smelled like lilac soap and cinnamon, a delightful combination he had only encountered in her.

He slid his thumbs slowly across her lips. They opened with a tiny gasp that made them all more tempting.

"Kat... "

He looked into her eyes and forgot what he had intended to say. God! She was too beautiful. Her eyes were filled with care, love and longing.

Longing that sure matched his own. Very slowly, wanting to draw out every moment, Eric brought his lips to hers.

He watched her eyes glaze, and heard her ragged moans when his mouth touched hers, then he kissed her passionately.

He ran his lips down over the line of her throat. Heavenly warm skin met his lips.

Eric inhaled the downy softness, bringing his hands up along her hips, at her waist and upward along her ribs to the front of her blouse, over her breasts.

Katrina moaned softly in approval, cupping her hands in his as he undid the buttons on her blouse.

Her breasts came spilling into his hands after he unhooked her bra. He filled his palm with her breasts.

"God! I want you Kat" he said with a voice laced with deep passion.

Katrina Argos aged twenty,set out to take her revenge on Eric Salmadiego, the guy who almost ruined her sister's life.

Eric Salmadiego aged twenty four was a well known arrogant and popular billionaire. Not only was he arrogant, he was a full time playboy.

To achieve her mission, Katrina moved into Eric's house as a live in maid. The both of them started on a rough note, but as time went by they fell in love.

Now Katrina was stuck with Revenge or Love?

For the sake of my marriage, I turned down a promotion and became the perfect wife and mother.
When my six-year-old son was rushed to the ER with an asthma attack in the dead of night, I sat vigil until dawn.
What I didn't expect was to hear my husband, just outside the emergency room doors, bragging to a friend about his mistress — and sneering that I was "bland and boring."
What hurt worse: my own son had been bought off by the other woman, and was now faking illness with practiced ease to cover for his father's affair.
My husband's scheming, my son's betrayal — seven years of devotion, ground into the dirt.
In that moment, something inside me died for good.
If this family is a filthy, lie-riddled con, then I'm taking back every ounce of love and sacrifice I ever poured into it. And I'm not looking back.

When Carol Bennett caught her long-time boyfriend cheating, she didn't cry or beg. Instead, she exposed the scandal online, turning him into a viral disgrace overnight. Then, without looking back, she agreed to a marriage of convenience with Ethan Mitchell, a powerful billionaire suffering from a terminal illness—her estranged father's carefully arranged match.
On their wedding night, Ethan handed her a cold-hearted prenup and warned her not to expect love, money, or a future. Fine by Carol. She played her role perfectly, calling him "husband" with a sweet smile while keeping her heart locked away.
But the aloof CEO who once wanted nothing to do with her is now the one chasing her. One kiss, one glance, and suddenly he's breaking his own rules.
"Carol, kiss me."
She smirks, her fingers trailing along his collarbone. "Falling for me already, Mr. CEO? Looks like you're the one breaking the contract."
Who would've thought the dying billionaire would end up begging for a second chance?

Lorraine never expected to lose her virginity to her cold, unreadable CEO Tristan—let alone five times in one night. Even more shocking? He keeps showing up to save her, stepping in not once, but twice, to protect her from a toxic ex. After several heartfelt proposals, she finally agrees to a contract marriage—thinking it's a practical solution to a messy life.

Tristan has had his eyes on Lorraine for years—the brilliant top designer working quietly under his nose. The contract is just the beginning of his plan to claim her completely. He's ready to offer her everything: protection, devotion, and a love she's never dared to hope for.

But when jealous exes and relentless suitors re-enter the picture, threatening to tear them apart, their fragile arrangement is put to the test. Can a marriage built on strategy survive long enough to become something real?

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.

"Bite me." Chase Sterling's whisper was a blade against my skin.

I should pull away.
I should hate him.
But my wolf is howling yes while my heart screams no.

"Say stop," he breathes against my pulse, "and I'll stop."

Liar.

We both know he can't stop.
The bond won't let him.

And neither can I.


Ten years ago, they found my father with his throat torn out
on Silvermoon land.

The Sterlings called it "trespassing."
I called it murder.

They gave us hush money and a warning:
Keep quiet, or the Beta's daughter is next.

So I learned to be invisible.
To swallow my rage.
To survive.

Until someone slipped a note into my locker:
They lied about how your father died.


Chase Sterling.

Future Alpha. Golden boy. Untouchable.

The moment our eyes met, the bond snapped into place—
a collar I never asked for, a chain I can't break.

He says he didn't know.
He says his father is innocent.
He says he'll help me find the truth.

But every time he touches me,
I feel my father's blood on his hands.


Now I'm trapped between two impossible choices:

Accept the bond and betray everything I am.
Or break it—and lose the partner who can prove
my father's killer walks free.

The worst part?

When Chase whispers "mine" against my skin—
I want to believe him.

Mature Contents Ahead. Please this book is highly rated 18+
'You'll pay for this Amelia, mark my words, you get married to me through deception, you'll suffer the consequences. And now, you'll face your first punishment, you want to be my wife huh, you'll face what happens to them on their wedding night.' He chuckled, but it was one filled with bitterness. 'You're not that beautiful. But that doesn't mean I won't have your body.'
Amelia Harper, a young lady with virtue, finds herself in a family and vicinity where she isn't acceptable.
Her family borrowed money from Dylan Blackwood the billionaire and couldn't pay their debt.
Dylan Blackwood decided to take the Harper's most beautiful daughter as a wife in place of the debt but she fled leaving her elder sister, the not so pretty one, Amelia Harper to suffer the consequences.

BLURB

Ravenna Damon was banished for existing.

Darius Pike crossed the border anyway.

They built something in the wilderness. A home from nothing, a child on the way, something almost close to peace. The Moon Goddess let them have three months before she took it back.

Now Darius is dead. Her child is gone. And the man responsible for both is apparently her second fated mate.

The bond does not care what Caleb Nightshade did. It does not care that Ravenna has nothing left to lose, or that the war outside the dungeon walls is burning everything she ever loved to the ground. It simply exists, pulling at her like a tide, patient and merciless and completely indifferent to her feelings about it.

She has a choice. Survive Caleb or die rejecting him.

Ravenna Damon has never been good at dying.

Mated to the Enemy is the second book in the Blood and Ice series. It contains mature themes, grief, and emotional intensity.

I promised her father I would protect her.

Lizzie Foster was never meant to be mine.
She was the spoiled mafia princess I was ordered to guard… the daughter of my dying best friend… and the young woman already promised to another man.

My duty was simple: keep her safe until her wedding day.

Then her fiancé betrayed her.
And the only way to protect her was to do the unthinkable—

marry her myself.

Now Lizzie is living under my roof, wearing my ring, carrying my name… and testing every last ounce of the control I’ve built my life on.

She wants a real marriage.
Not a cold arrangement. Not a contract signed out of necessity.
She wants affection, devotion, a husband who will look at her like she’s the only woman in the world.

And the more time she spends in my bed, in my house, in my life… the harder it becomes to remember this marriage was never supposed to happen.

She was my best friend’s daughter.
Too young. Too forbidden. Too innocent for a man like me.

But Lizzie is mine now.

And I’m not sure if I’m protecting her from the brutality of our world…
or from the darkness inside me.

Insatiable Desire is the first book in the A Marriage to the Mafia Princess Trilogy, a steamy dark mafia romance series where each book follows a different couple and their own dangerous love story.

"I married you only to destroy you."

That was the only reason FBI agent Sophia Carter accepted a new identity as Evelyn Russo and married Lorenzo Moretti, the most dangerous mafia boss in Italy.

Her mission was to infiltrate, gather evidence, drag Lorenzo to prison, and save the children and women that Lorenzo Moretti had kidnapped for trafficking.

But life as a Don's wife was never as simple as she had imagined. Behind the luxurious mansion, the armed men, and the secrets of the Moretti family, Sophia found herself trapped in a game she did not understand.
The closer she got to Lorenzo, the harder it became to distinguish lies from reality.
But one thing never changed. If her identity as an FBI agent was exposed, then at that very moment, she would die at her own husband's hands.

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.

I'm screwed.

If I want to keep my dream job, my new (and way-too-attractive-for-his-own-good) boss says I have to score an interview with one of the legendary Fontaine brothers of Hollywood.

I know three things about the Fontaine brothers:

that they're Hollywood royalty,
that all four of them are ridiculously, mind-numbingly sexy,
and
that they never, ever give interviews.

My only chance is to seduce one of them. The only problem? Historically speaking, I'm way more likely to put my foot in my mouth (or generally make a fool of myself) than charm the pants off anyone.

That's where my way-too-sexy boss comes in. He might hold the fate of my job in his hands, but he's also totally willing to teach me the art of seduction. I only hope I can survive his lessons. . .

Due to explicit scenes, this steamy romantic comedy is rated 18+.

The Secret to Seduction is created by Ember Casey, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

“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.

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.

I am the chief architect of a quantum computing system valued at hundreds of billions in the real world.
For an AI test subject that I wrote myself, I was willing to conceal my identity as the creator and become her unseen, low-level assistant, even at the cost of taking a fatal blow for her.
Just as she was about to go public and reach the top of the conglomerate pyramid, she unhesitatingly pushed an "Organ Donation Agreement" in front of me, forcing me to remove a kidney to save the newly spawned "old money" NPC new love.
She thought that as long as I died on the operating table, she could kick me aside, this useless stepping stone, without any moral burden, and embrace the perfect capitalist marriage.
But she didn't know—
The entire world she exists in is just a sandbox test server on my desk.

I was born the true heiress of the powerful Voss family, but after being swapped at birth and failing to awaken my wolf, I was branded as worthless trash.
For six years, I worked as a "Scavenger" in the underground slums. I hauled mutant corpses, endured silver poisoning, and swallowed cheap suppressants—all to pay off my husband’s massive debts and buy the cure for my brother’s fatal blood disease.
Today, I finally handed my brother the life-saving medicine. 
He casually tossed it into the trash. "I'm not sick, Isolde. Oh, and Mom and Dad aren't dead either. I orchestrated that highway explosion six years ago. You were the only one meant to be crippled."
My blood ran cold. 
Jaxson, my supposedly bankrupt Alpha husband, adjusted his Rolex. "I never lost my company, either. Whenever I said I was working late at the docks, I was actually sleeping in my Manhattan penthouse. Honestly, the corpse stench on you was making me gag. We just wanted to end this little game."
I stared at the men I had sacrificed my soul for. Why?
My parents stepped out from the shadows, holding Violet—the fake daughter who stole my life—protectively in their arms. "Because you were too arrogant! We had to break your spirit so you'd stop bullying Violet. This 'trial' was for your own good!"
They thought this ultimate betrayal would finally force me to submit and beg for their forgiveness. 
But as my heart shattered into dust, the legendary Silver Wolf bloodline—dormant for 24 years—finally tasted the extreme despair it needed to awaken.
My eyes bled from amber to piercing silver. 
Fine, my inner wolf whispered. Let's show them what a true monster looks like.

I was the undefeated queen of the underground octagon—a body held together by broken bones and spilled blood, all to build Dorian's fighting empire from the ground up.
But when he'd made it to the top in his tailored suits and polished shoes, suddenly my scars made me too crude, too ugly to stand beside him.
He ordered me to throw my title defense—told me to take a dive for some rich girl whose daddy bought her a spot in the cage. And when that woman shattered both my legs with an illegal knee strike, he just stood there and watched.
I clawed my way out of that wreckage—barely breathing. Left him a blood-stained divorce decree and vanished.
While he mourned over what he thought were my ashes, I was already training alongside the legendary king of the octagon, rebuilding myself from the ground up.
Now I'm back—stronger than ever.
This time, I'm going to break that princess's pretty face and crush his pathetic ego underfoot.

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.

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.

My boyfriend entered our village shrine to ask for a blessing before our wedding.

Ten minutes later, he came out, wrapped his hands around my throat, and promised my father he would kill me himself.

He wasn't the first.

Every man who offered to take me away went into that shrine and came back disgusted, violent, or both.

My father called it a curse. Then he beat me for bringing it upon myself.

When my grandmother saw my bruises, she came with my uncles to take me home.

I thought she was the one person my father could never turn against me.

Then my uncles entered the shrine.

The apocalyptic deluge came, and I rescued the entire village onto a cruise ship.

The villagers were deeply grateful to us.

But somehow a rumor spread—that I had a warehouse full of food and was refusing to feed them properly.

The villagers turned on me, hurling accusations left and right.

Helpless, I opened the warehouse to show them. There was barely anything left. But they still refused to believe me.

"Yu Lei! You must have hidden the food somewhere else!"

"That's right! He never really wanted to save us!"

They beat me with fists and feet, cursing me with every foul word they knew.

Then a gang of thugs stormed the ship.

Under their brutal rule, the entire village was enslaved. Young women became playthings. The children—their fate was even worse.

I tried to rally the villagers to fight back. But someone sold me out to the thugs, trading that information for a single full meal.

In the end, they beat me to death and tossed my body into the sea for the fish.

When I opened my eyes again, time had rewound to three days before the apocalypse. I immediately started packing, ready to get as far away from these ungrateful bastards as possible.

But the villagers were already crowded at my door, demanding I hand over the keys to the cruise ship.

It turned out I wasn't the only one who'd been reborn. The entire village had come back too.

I handed over the keys without a fuss.

After all, the System told me this time it would be a zombie apocalypse. What good was a ship?

In the delivery room, my husband Ronan fumed that having a male doctor was a disgrace. My mother-in-law Coralie griped about the hospital bill. His sister Ophelia clung to his arm, pinching her nose and mocking the smell of the room.
In my previous life, today was the day the doctor ordered an extra blood test due to my in-laws' history of blood disorders. Two Type-O parents had somehow produced a Type-B daughter.
Coralie pointed at my nose, calling me a whore. Ophelia fueled the fire, sneering, "Just admit it, Sabine." Ronan slapped me off the delivery bed, demanding the name of my "lover."
I died having no way to prove my innocence, losing both my life and my daughter, Sorrel.
It wasn't until moments before my death, when I pushed open the master bedroom door, that I finally understood: the two people tangled naked in my marital bed were my husband and his own sister.
I opened my eyes. I was back to the morning after giving birth to my daughter.

My younger sister, Freya, was preparing for her advanced training in New York the following week, so she dragged me to the dance studio to help her correct her movements. I put on my dance shoes as usual and stood in the center of the floor, ready to demonstrate a turn.

The moment my foot slipped, I didn't even have time to react.

My body hit the ground hard, and the sharp pain from the back of my head nearly made me lose consciousness. I lay on the cold floor, my throat tight, unable to even cry out for help.

When Mother rushed in, she didn't spare me a glance.

She immediately helped Freya up and took her to the hospital. I missed the critical window for treatment and died on the way to the hospital.

I'm sixty years old. My husband Marcus just whipped me with his belt — for burning an egg. My face is bruised, my hair is gray, and I gave up a full ride to Stanford for this man over forty years ago.
Then the phone rings.
The voice on the other end is mine — my eighteen-year-old self, calling on her birthday, gushing about how Marcus is out buying her a cake, how they're running away to Nashville together tomorrow.
She asks if I'm happy.
I tell her the truth: her boyfriend is in a cheap motel right now, in bed with her best friend. And those pretty promises about Nashville? He's planning to use her up and throw her away.
She doesn't believe me. Of course she doesn't.
But I know the motel. I know the room number. And I know what's behind that door.
If she walks away from him tonight, everything changes — for both of us.

My fiancée, with whom I've been in a relationship for three years, has threatened to break off our engagement for the hundredth time, forcing me to donate a kidney to her adopted brother, who's faking illness and acting like a hypocrite.

My biological parents even threatened to sever ties with me: "You have a healthy body. Ian has nothing but us. You can't even bear to part with a kidney. You're so selfish and cold-blooded!"

They don't know that my hands, which I used to play the piano, had already been crushed by gangsters while cleaning up their mess; they also don't know that at this moment, I have a critical illness notice for late-stage bone cancer in my pocket.

Seeing the undisguised disgust and indifference in my fiancée's eyes, I swallowed the taste of blood in my throat and calmly signed the consent form for the live organ removal.

"Okay, I'll donate. I'll give you back my life along with it."

Later, I died like a dog on the rusty operating table of a shady clinic, my bones and marrow completely drained.

But when I was truly reduced to dust and left without even a complete corpse... the truth about my vicious foster brother faking illness was exposed.

The aloof and arrogant female CEO who once treated me like trash went completely mad overnight.

She knelt desperately before my nameless grave, plunged a sharp knife into her abdomen, and collapsed in a pool of blood, pleading for me to see her one more time.