1903 Book(s) Related to blood bound alchemy of time

"Are you accepting?' he probed, his eyes brazenly following every line in her body. Ivory instantly grew shy. Her nerve waning.

"I am considering it. However, I am not sure what it entails." her voice and bravado had weakened. Raiden nodded at her words, understanding that he was previously vague.

"It's not a relationship. As I have pointed out to you before, I am attracted to you and wish to explore a purely physical relationship, albeit temporarily," he said, eyeing her every reaction.

"You mean purely sexual?' she corrected him. She knew the words he used were aimed at sugar-coating the reality but she wasn't interested in half-truths when she was considering going against everything she believed in. Raiden nodded. "How long is it to persist?" The more she considered the option the riskier it seemed. She worked closely with Raiden, would this make their relationship awkward?

"It's terminable at the will of either party," he commented. He wasn't in the habit of forcing a woman to be with him, in fact, it was something he made no great strides over. She had complete freedom to stay or leave his bed.

"Another way of saying when you've grown tired of me." she laughed incredulously.

When the apocalypse struck, my brother Leo didn't hesitate to choose the offshore sanctuary.
In our past life, faced with a choice between a powerful inland warlord commanding a massive army and a leader clinging to a solitary island, Leo snatched up the first option.
But when a zombie horde overran the mainland and defenses collapsed, he fled to my island for refuge.
Jealous of how well I was surviving the end of the world, he and our parents knocked me unconscious in the dead of night and threw me into the ocean to drown.
Now that I've been reborn, Leo immediately took our parents to the maritime base, leaving the "dangerous" mainland to me.
He thinks the ocean is a natural barrier that guarantees his safety, that he can sit back and relax while the world burns.
But there's one thing he doesn't know.
Zombies aren't just static, mindless walking dead—they evolve.
And when they do, that offshore sanctuary will become a floating hell with no way out.

Three years after my first love, a Mafia Don, handed me over to his enemies, he finally came to “rescue” me.
Not out of guilt—but because his daughter needed my blood.

Don Silas held me and cried as if his heart were breaking, saying he had thought of me every day.
How ridiculous—his wife Serena stood beside him, and behind them was their daughter, Ava.

I pretended to be moved.
Pretended I still loved him.
Pretended I was willing to be his daughter’s blood donor… and his second wife.

Only one person knew I was acting.
Underboss Liam—the only one who ever managed to get messages to me during those three years of captivity.

“I’ll find a way to get you out.” he said.

But on the day we planned to escape, the Gravoni family—the very people who had imprisoned me—arrived.

Their Don, Joe, looked at me with deep remorse.
“Vera, I’m sorry. Back then, I didn’t know… you were my late sister’s daughter.”

Now both families want me.

But all I want… is to leave alive.