1725 Book(s) Related to ive become a true villainess novel updates

When the Housewife Became His Boss

When the Housewife Became His Boss

1k Views · Ongoing · Agatha Christie
On our seventh anniversary, Jeffrey brought his mistress home for dinner.

Calla wore my dead mother's necklace and called me a "boring housewife" while I cooked for them. Jeffrey laughed, saying I was lucky he kept me around since I'd never contributed anything to our marriage.

What he didn't know? I'd given up my six-figure tech career to nurse him back from his car accident. Sacrificed everything while he treated me like his personal servant.

For seven years, I endured his cheating and cruelty, thinking love meant sacrifice.

I was wrong.

When I left him the divorce papers, Jeffrey screamed that I'd come crawling back within a week.

But when I never came back, he was the one who lost his mind.
Finding My IVF Baby Belonged to My Husband and His Mistress

Finding My IVF Baby Belonged to My Husband and His Mistress

1.5k Views · Ongoing · Lovella Novela
"You're using the embryo that you and Serena made and letting Wendy think that the children she's carrying are hers! Damn, man.I can't believe that you could do something like that to your wife." Adrian's friend said, sounding shocked.
"She deserves it," Adrian replied, followed by his friend's laughter. "She's the reason why Serena broke up with me back then."
What would you do if your husband used your womb to have children with his ex?
Wendy sacrificed everything for her marriage. She endured endless hormone shots, cruel whispers, and quiet humiliation, all to give her husband the children he wanted. When the IVF finally succeeded, she believed she had saved her marriage.
Until the day she overheard the truth. The twins she had fought so hard to carry were never meant to be hers. Her husband never wanted a child with her. She was nothing more than a surrogate in her own marriage.
Determined to find answers, Wendy stormed into the hospital. Fate delivered a twist no one could have seen coming: her husband was severely infertile. The IVF had failed. The babies growing inside her belonged to another man.
Wendy walked away with no tears and no second chances.
But Adrian, the man who once betrayed her, came begging for reconciliation.
"Wendy, we can fix this. We can start over."
Too late.
Because somewhere in the same city, Julian Harrington, the untouchable, relentless, and enigmatic CEO who rules the city's business empire, is searching for the mother of his twins.
The CEO’s Ex Wife Returns With A Baby

The CEO’s Ex Wife Returns With A Baby

1.2k Views · Ongoing · Novel Writer
In their three years of marriage, Stella tried her best to win Clarence’s heart, but sometimes love just isn't there.

As soon as she found out he was cheating on her and even got his mistress pregnant, all her efforts seemed futile so she made the tough decision to let go and vanish from his life.

Little did she know, Clarence went mad after her departure, searching for her everywhere.

Until one day, he spotted the woman he had long sought, now transformed, holding hands with a cute baby.

Unable to contain himself, Clarence grasped Stella’s chin: "Darling, didn't you promise you'd love me only?"

She chuckled, "A second chance is given only if this time we play by my rules."

Is divorce a sign that the couple don't understand each other or that they BEGIN to?
Billed By My Ex And Claimed By The True Billionaire

Billed By My Ex And Claimed By The True Billionaire

305 Views · Ongoing · Lily
I was a billionaire's canary. Never asked for it — but every time I slept with him, he paid another chunk of my mom's medical bills. Later he made me his secretary, and stupidly, I thought we'd built something real. Turns out I was wrong. He drained my entire savings to buy his mistress a $500K necklace. "What do you mean, your money?" he sneered. "Every penny came from me." I begged. He laughed. Then the hospital called: Mom didn't make it. That's when I stopped being anyone's canary — and started billing him back, in full.
After My Husband's Affair, I Met My True Love Alpha

After My Husband's Affair, I Met My True Love Alpha

5.1k Views · Ongoing · PageProfit Studio
Warning: This book contains a large number of very hot adult scenes!
“Look at the state of you, my little she-wolf,” his voice was low and full of menace, like sandpaper scraping across my nerves. “You got this wet just from that?”
Then he pressed a hard kiss to my knuckles.
Fuck!
His rough tongue slid across my slender finger bones, tasting the salty sweat and fear on my skin.
A violent tremor shot through my whole body.
A moan I couldn’t suppress slipped from between my lips. “Ah… Sebastian…”
I felt my thighs rubbing together on their own, that damn traitorous movement making my pussy clench so tight I nearly came.
Yes, that’s it, you desperate little bitch.
I cursed myself in my mind.
He flipped my hand over, his thumb pressing hard—almost punishingly—into the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist.
My pulse pounded there beneath his palm like it was going mad.
“This is beating so hard,” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin, “is it beating for me, Seraphina? Tell me.”
Then he took one of my fingers into his damn hot, wet mouth.
Oh God…
His rough tongue swirled, rubbed, scraped along the skin of my finger, warm saliva soaking every inch.
And his eyes never left me—fixing on me like a beast locking onto prey.
He sucked softly at first, then suddenly with force.
That rhythm…
Fuck, he was fucking my finger with his mouth.
“Are you using this to fuck my mouth, Seraphina?”
He let my finger go with a filthy pop, seeing straight through my thoughts.
“Imagine this is my cock. Does it feel good, you filthy little she-wolf?”
My back arched uncontrollably, like the lowest kind of whore silently inviting him.
A broken, shameful whimper escaped my throat.
“Good… so good…”
My scent thickened, wild floral heat and lust filling the air, swallowing the last of my reason.
I could feel the terrifying restraint in his body cracking apart.
He wanted to hear me moan his name as I came.
He wanted to bury himself inside my soaked, empty heat until I could feel nothing except his violent thrusts.
He moved to my middle finger, giving it the same obscene, thorough attention.
His tongue circled wickedly at the base, then pushed deep, sucking hard as if tasting the sweetest honey.
Fuck!
My hips jerked upward without control.
My other hand dug into the carpet, knuckles white, vision dissolving in the storm of desire swallowing me whole.
“I need you… to fill my pussy, Sebastian…”
——
I grew up as a human in a wolf pack, but ironically, I ended up becoming the mate of the pack’s Alpha. I thought I would fit perfectly into the wolves’ world—until the day I caught my Alpha mate tangled with another she-wolf in the back seat of a car.
With trembling hands, I tricked him into signing the divorce papers—silently swearing revenge. But they didn’t stop. His mother sent thugs to destroy me. His mistress tried to erase me. Even my coworkers wanted to use me.
That night, I nearly lost my life.
Until Alpha Sebastian found me—cold, ruthless, unmatched. He said he didn’t need a mate.
But he protected me like a mate. Touched me like a mate. Looked at me like a mate, as if I already belonged to him.
I tried to resist his approach. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Wolves would never accept a human mate.
But whenever he came near me, whenever those scorching hands reached for me, I always hungered for him—wanted more—yet I was done with promises.
Until I discovered that my past was not simple at all—and Sebastian had his own reasons for approaching me—
I Became Obedient, and He Despaired

I Became Obedient, and He Despaired

910 Views · Ongoing · Ladys
After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?
My Ex’s Stepfather Became My Addiction

My Ex’s Stepfather Became My Addiction

10.6k Views · Ongoing · Lily
My name is Elena Ross, and I’m a sex addict. This is the secret I guard with medication. But right now, the blizzard has sealed the road and cut off my escape. In this narrow car, the man sitting beside me is the one forbidden fruit I absolutely cannot touch—Silas Thorne. He’s not just my boss; he’s my ex-boyfriend’s stepfather.
I Became My Sister's Substitute Bride

I Became My Sister's Substitute Bride

317 Views · Ongoing · Hannah Air
I have been the Donna of the Smith family for nine years-all in name. I took my deceased twin sister Lily's place, caring for her daughter Emma, and living with a husband, David, who doesn't love me.

Over these nine years, I treated Emma like my own daughter, but she always saw me as the murderer who killed her mother, not knowing that it was her mother who took my marriage and my husband.

She shoved me publicly, calling me a murderer, even using the gun I gave her to shoot my only solace—a little bird.

But David, the man I loved, also favors Lily and her child. Every time he looks at me, it's with coldness and distance.
Brother's Friend Becomes My Baby's Dad

Brother's Friend Becomes My Baby's Dad

12.5k Views · Ongoing · Riley Above Story
When you're a pregnant cheerleader, your bf ghosted you immediately after you told him the news.
Your brother's best friend, the hockey captain, threw a party and invited all of your bf's flings, and they unite to dump him in public.
You: thanks for always being a big brother to me
He raised his eyebrow and asked,
"Brother? How about your baby’s dad?"
After the Divorce She Became Untouchable

After the Divorce She Became Untouchable

3.9k Views · Ongoing · Anais SwiftPen
On her wedding anniversary, Annabelle Whitmore meticulously planned a surprise. However, she drank a drugged drink given to her by her stepsister. When she awoke, she was in a strange man's bed. Photos of her surfaced online instantly, and her reputation was utterly destroyed.

Her husband, Abel Donovan, a ruthless and powerful figure, gave her no chance to defend herself, readily believing his stepsister's lies.

Anna was pregnant with his child and was cruelly driven away.

Five years later, Annabelle was no longer the infamous, abandoned woman she once was. She returned as the CEO of the global fashion empire BelleNova.

Abel never imagined she would return, especially with his child.
Rejected Luna Became Alpha King's Mate

Rejected Luna Became Alpha King's Mate

809 Views · Ongoing · Mithi X
For three years, Thalina poured her heart and soul into her marriage with Magnus, her mate. But when their union failed to produce the heir Magnus so desperately craved, she became nothing more than a burden in his eyes. His love turned to cruelty, his warmth to disdain until the ultimate betrayal shattered her world—Magnus took her sister as his lover. Cast aside like a broken promise, Thalina's misery deepened when Magnus severed their bond and cast her out of the pack. When all hope seemed lost, fate intervened in the form of Alpha King Thaddeus—a man feared and revered across the kingdom. The ruthless ruler, known for his icy demeanor and lethal authority, became her second-chance mate. In a world of betrayal, power, and desire, one question remains: Can a broken Luna rise to become the queen her enemies fear the most?
When the Sacrifice Became the Queen

When the Sacrifice Became the Queen

660 Views · Ongoing · Daisy Swift
My twin sister was revered as the sun of our pack. I was the dark moon, condemned as an omen of disaster.

At my mate-binding ceremony, our parents stormed the altar. Claiming her wolf spirit was dying, they forced me to surrender my fated mate to her.

They seemed to have forgotten that today was my coming-of-age. An un-mated Daughter of the Dark Moon would be offered as a sacrifice to the ruthless Alpha of the Winter Pack.

With red, tear-filled eyes, I begged my mate, Kayden, not to abandon me. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hand.

"Maeve, she's your blood sister. I have to bond with her to save her life."

"As for being sacrificed to the Winter Tyrant, that's just a myth the elders made up to scare you."

My father stood by, reprimanding me with sheer impatience:

"What sacrifice? It's nothing but folklore! Can't you suffer a little grievance for your sister's life?"

To prevent me from ruining the ceremony, they dragged me into the damp, dark dungeon.

Up on the altar, my family joyfully continued the celebration.

But they didn't know the Grand Elder had come to me three days ago.

The moment my binding failed today, the emissaries of Winter would come to collect their due.

From today on, I would plunge into the frigid deadlands of the far North, bound to remain by that bloodthirsty tyrant's side until the day I die.
Flood Apocalypse: I Want to Become the Ocean's Overlord

Flood Apocalypse: I Want to Become the Ocean's Overlord

919 Views · Ongoing · Cole
When they threw me overboard, they thought a man with a broken leg couldn't possibly come back alive. When the floodwaters engulfed the world, turning land into a graveyard, I found a forgotten submarine in the deep sea. From underwater, I built my empire step by step . Not by pity, not by luck. By the time the survivors of this sea finally realized what lay beneath the surface, I no longer needed to hide. They called me the Deep Sea Ghost. I didn't care what they called me. I knew only one thing—from this day forward, this sea was mine to rule.
The Ice Between Us.

The Ice Between Us.

1.8k Views · Ongoing · Nora Obeche
In the world of elite hockey, discipline is the only currency that matters. For Julian Thorne, the perfectionist Captain of the Northwood Olympic Center, every stride is calculated, and every emotion is frozen solid. He is one season away from the pros, but the team is drowning under public scrutiny and a board of directors looking for any reason to cut the cord.

​Then comes Jax Miller.

​Jax is a hotheaded rookie with a lightning-fast puck and a reputation for burning bridges. He doesn't follow playbooks, he doesn't respect authority, and he’s determined to melt Julian’s icy composure. When a viral video of their on-ice collision threatens to bankrupt the program, Coach Clain delivers an ultimatum that feels like a death sentence: they must live together in a cramped, two-bed dorm for the duration of the season.

​Forced to navigate the high-stakes world of sports fame, "forbidden" locker-room tension, and the mysterious blackmailer who caught their first mistake on camera, Julian and Jax must decide what’s more dangerous: losing their careers, or losing themselves to the person they were supposed to hate.
Defrosting The Ice King

Defrosting The Ice King

1.2k Views · Ongoing · Herverse
At Westbridge University, there’s only one rule that matters: never blackmail the Ice King.

Daphne Brook broke it.

She's broke. She's plus-size, her grades are failing, her scholarship is slipping away, and the billionaire heir she's been obsessed with for years won't even look at her.

She's spent years being the girl men overlook—the fat girl with carrot-red hair who doesn't fit the picture-perfect image surrounding Westbridge's rich and beautiful elites who run the school.

So when she accidentally gets leverage over the Ice King, she uses it.

Tutoring.

Money.

And fake dating him until her crush finally notices her.

Simple, right? Not even close.

Because the Ice King is hiding something.
A secret he's willing to do anything to protect.
Even fake date the plus-size girl he's supposed to hate.

And Daphne is about to find out exactly what happens when you try to defrost a man who was never supposed to melt.
The Ice Queen's Stalker

The Ice Queen's Stalker

847 Views · Ongoing · diamonddawn128
A young figure skater receives death threats and meets a bodyguard assigned to protect her. Who won't break under her pressure.
COLD WAR ON ICE

COLD WAR ON ICE

685 Views · Ongoing · Hana Reese
"If you want a shot at the Olympics, and if you want that NHL draft, you will announce that you’ve been quietly dating," the Dean ordered, sliding the fake contract across the desk. I looked at Reid Carter, the arrogant hockey captain who had sabotaged my skates, the man I had despised for ten years. Now, I had to pretend to be deeply in love with him for ninety days. I grabbed the pen, my fingers trembling, and signed my name. "Perfect," the PR manager smiled. "Tonight is the bonfire. Act like you actually like her. Iris, try not to look like you're plotting his murder."

We walked into the dark parking lot, the scent of burning wood filling the air. "Ready to sell our souls?" Reid murmured, his massive hand suddenly wrapping around mine. An unexpected jolt of electricity shot up my arm. His skin was rough, calloused from years of gripping a hockey stick, but his heat melted right through my cold fingers. We stepped into the firelight, surrounded by a hundred whispering athletes and flashing cameras. I leaned my head against his broad shoulder, playing the perfect, obsessed girlfriend. "She's worth the trouble," he told the crowd, his voice dark and unreadable.

But when the cameras were gone, the lines began to blur. In the empty locker room, he pinned me against the cold metal lockers, his chest heaving. "You're squeezing too hard," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You're the one shaking, Ice Queen," he growled back, his face inches from mine. We were supposed to hate each other. We were supposed to be a PR stunt to save our funding. But as his gaze dropped to my lips, the fiery tension between us felt dangerously real. Would the world find out we were a fraud, or would this fake contract destroy us both?
Skating on thin ice

Skating on thin ice

888 Views · Ongoing · robbhelen98
Blurb
Jeffery Vale has spent his entire life hidden behind his perfect twin brother, Lucien—the future alpha of the powerful Moonfang Pack and the star of their elite hockey team. But when Lucien is suddenly injured before the national championship, Jeffery is forced to take his place, stepping into a dangerous world of fame, rivalry, and secrets that were never meant to be uncovered.
Everything changes when Roland Hayes, the Ruthless alpha captain of rival Northfang Pack, sees through Jeffery’s disguise immediately. Instead of exposing him, Roland keeps quiet and drags Jeffery into a brutal rivalry filled with obsession, forbidden attraction, and a connection that neither of them can escape.
After a violent scandal on the ice threatens both their careers, they are forced into a fake relationship for the public. Still, as buried truths about Lucien’s accident and an ancient prophecy begin to surface, Jeffery realises he was never the weak twin everyone believed he was—he was the one they feared all along.
The Ice Alpha's Mate

The Ice Alpha's Mate

11.1k Views · Ongoing · Bella Silva
“You belong to me, Aria,” he growls, his nose brushing against mine. “The harder you push me away, the deeper I fall into this madness of wanting you.”

“You don’t even want a mate!” I remind him, hating how small my voice sounds, and how my body sings whenever he’s this close to me.

His breath brushes against my lips. “You’re right. I don’t. But I burn for you, Aria, and I don’t think I’ll make it through the season without tasting what’s mine.”


They call Ryder Drexel the Ice King of Ironclaw University, captain of the undefeated Iron Wolves, cold-blooded on the rink and untouchable off it. He doesn’t do distractions. He doesn’t do relationships. And he sure as hell doesn’t do fate.

Until her.

Aria Murdock is the opposite. She’s an invisible scholarship student hiding secrets that she’s spent her entire life hiding—she’s a wolf who can’t shift in a world where wolves like her are called runts and are mercilessly killed to be rid of their weak bloodline.

But when an accident reveals her true scent, Ryder’s world fractures.

She’s a walking death sentence. Someone undesirable to most. Off-limits because of her low rank and bloodline.

And she’s his mate.

Now, the Alpha heir has a choice. He can either reject the bond, or risk everything to claim her. The problem? Claiming her means breaking every rule and starting a war within his own pack. It also means revealing who Aria truly is, and she’s so much more than a runt.

They’re enemies by nature, but bound by instinct and fate.

In a world where packs, rules, and reputations reign, claiming her might just cost him everything, especially his heart.
The Pucking Ice King

The Pucking Ice King

887 Views · Ongoing · Sora Nyx
"You are weak, Rhea. Physically. Psychologically. You are a walking bruise."
"I am handing you a grenade with the pin already pulled. If you drop it, it will destroy everything you still have left."
That was my introduction to Logan McAllister.
The NHL's most violent goalie. A man one scandal away from being erased from the league. And the monster I was hired to fix.
I thought I was there to manage his reputation.
I was wrong.
From the moment I walk into his world, Logan decides I am not his publicist. I am something far more dangerous in his eyes. Something he refuses to let go.
He invades my space like he owns the air I breathe. He watches me like I am already trapped. And every time I try to resist, he breaks another piece of my control without even raising his voice.
There are no boundaries with him. No safe rules. No distance that keeps me untouched.
He locks me in his penthouse and calls it protection. He humiliates me in front of powerful men and calls it strategy. And when I try to run, he simply reminds me that nowhere is out of reach.
I came to rebuild his career.
Instead, I am becoming part of his possession.
And the most terrifying part is not his control.
It is how easily my body starts to forget that I should hate him.
Because Logan McAllister does not fall in love.
He takes.
The Fate Surgeon System : I Refused the Death Flag and Became a Hidden Heir

The Fate Surgeon System : I Refused the Death Flag and Became a Hidden Heir

620 Views · Ongoing · authorslytherin
“Do I really deserve this?”
Dr. Xavier Brown asked the void after the woman he loved smiled and shoved him off a rooftop.

He died a brilliant, betrayed genius… only to wake up as the worthless secondary character in a trashy web novel.

The pathetic live-in son-in-law.
The disposable husband.
The man scripted to be humiliated, divorced, and killed so the protagonists could shine.

Died once.
Refused to die again.

Armed with every humiliating page of his own doom, Xavier signs the divorce papers with a smirk, takes the money, and kicks the first death flag into the dirt.

But the story doesn’t let go so easily.

When he saves the mother of Isabella Voss, the novel’s ice-cold villainess, using medicine this world has never seen, she doesn’t destroy him.
She builds him a kingdom: a hospital with top-notch facilities, an empire of shadows, and a love that feels dangerously real.

Then the truth rips the script apart.

He isn’t Alexander Rodriguez.
He is Alexander Winchester, erased heir to a hidden mafia family, legendary assassin king, memory wiped and chained as a live-in dog by the very people who now call themselves heroes.

Six deadly sisters descend to reclaim him.
A ruthless CEO. A ghost hacker, an assassin trainer, a pharmaceutical prodigy, a public opinion goddess, and the youngest who sees what’s coming before it breathes.

With a system that evolves from cold machine to snarky partner in crime, Xavier walks two paths at once:

The Healer who rewrites life, and the Ruler who burns false fates to ash.

But Karma never dies, Damien and Sophie met with their consequences

Every betrayal returns.
Every death flag screams.

“Do I really deserve this?”

Xavier smiles, scalpel in one hand, shadow in the other.

This time the answer is yes.
The Fake Bride: My Husband Hid the True Bride in German

The Fake Bride: My Husband Hid the True Bride in German

757 Views · Ongoing · Hannah Air
Everyone said I’d traded five years of my youth and my unwavering devotion for an engagement that every woman envied.
My fiancé, Felix Smith, seemed to believe it, too. He gave me pearls, promised me a bright future, and wrapped me up in a web of tenderness, layer after layer.
Until that afternoon, when he held me close, yet used a language he thought I didn’t understand to weave the perfect "wedding" con over the phone.
That was the moment I finally realized: over these five years, who had he really been looking at through me? And every pearl he ever gave me, whose tastes was he remembering?
When the elevator failed and darkness crashed down, the person he protected on instinct wasn’t me.
When the wind howled across the empty outskirts, the person he chose to abandon was me.
I’d been learning how to love him, how to become a proper bride. In the end, what I learned was how to exit quietly, out of his world with Serena.
Shadow Ice: Forbidden Blades

Shadow Ice: Forbidden Blades

577 Views · Ongoing · Chelsea
In a elite werewolf academy hidden beneath an icy Canadian boarding school, a disciplined female hockey captain (human-passing, secretly suppressing her latent wolf) collides with her hotheaded new rookie teammate—a forbidden alpha heir from a rival pack who was once her childhood bully. Forced into secret late-night practices and a high-stakes tournament, their hatred ignites into forbidden passion while a deadly academy conspiracy threatens to expose them both. Think Icebreaker meets The Cruel Prince with werewolf soul bonds and locker-room tension.
Where The Ice Melts

Where The Ice Melts

674 Views · Ongoing · Amaka Obi
Ronan Hale is the school’s golden boy captain of the ice hockey team, talented, confident… and infuriatingly arrogant. After two years away, he’s back, but the glory on the ice can’t hide the fact that he’s failing every class. If he doesn’t pass, he could lose everything.

The only person who can save him? Ivy Cross… the quiet, intelligent girl no one notices. She’s smart, strong, and completely unimpressed by his fame… which only makes him more frustrated, and somehow, more drawn to her.

Tutoring him should be simple. It’s not. Every session sparks arguments, stolen glances, and tension neither can ignore. Beneath his arrogance, Ivy sees cracks in his walls… pain, guilt, and secrets he’s desperate to hide.

Hate turns to desire. Rivalry becomes something more. And for Ronan and Ivy, falling for each other might only be the beginning…
ICE AROUND MY HEART

ICE AROUND MY HEART

879 Views · Ongoing · florenceadekunle
Marlow Winters used to know exactly one thing for certain: Truett Sorensen loved her. Then he vanished from their hometown rink the summer before their sophomore year without a word, and the certainty became a scar. Now she's a credentialed junior reporter covering the Kestrel Development Program's championship run for a regional sports outlet, and he's the team's captain, the reason scouts are circling. He's ice in every press conference. Off camera, he looks at her like she's the only warm thing left in the building. But the reason he left three years ago isn't the one she's spent three years believing, and the season has six weeks left to either fix them or finish them.
Borrowed Love On Ice

Borrowed Love On Ice

1.7k Views · Ongoing · Ella Mart
She is his girlfriend's sister, and the rival he must defeat.
Xavier Kesh, England's hockey star, is sharp on the ice and untamed off it. With a girlfriend like Katrina by his side, everything is perfect—until he signs a "couples contract" with her sister, Melissa.
Melissa Brown, the only female star on the ice and a fresh face determined to make her mark in fashion. Pretending to be with him is just a shortcut to the top.
In front of the camera, he murmurs, "You're blushing." Behind the scenes, she warns, "Don't call me baby."
Then their "date" video explodes online, capturing the moment he gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. A performance meant to be fake is now burning through three real lives.
In a game that started with ambition, who will be the first to pay the price in truth?
Whispers in the Ivy

Whispers in the Ivy

470 Views · Ongoing · Vanessa Asarah
At Gravenmoor Art Academy, magic is forbidden.
But something ancient is waking up anyway.
When Lexie, a scholarship student, arrives at the elite Gravenmoor Art Academy, she believes her biggest challenge will be surviving among the privileged. Instead, she finds herself surrounded by secrets that refuse to stay buried, ravens watching from the shadows, students dying under strange circumstances, and of course an ancient Latin Manuscript.
The truth is far worse than rumors.
Julian, the reclusive scholar who avoids the sun, is a vampire bound to the Academy by a centuries-old pact.
Adrian, a quiet artist, is cursed to paint events before they happen, and his canvases are beginning to predict deaths.
And Oliver, Lexie’s fiercely loyal friend, knows far more about Gravenmoor’s darkness than he’s ever admitted.
And the closer she grows to the boys guarding their own dangerous truths, the more she risks becoming part of the curse.
Because at Gravenmoor, knowing the future doesn’t mean you can change it—
and loving a monster might make you one too.
The Ice Prince’s Healer

The Ice Prince’s Healer

259 Views · Ongoing · mepirimat
Tatum Calloway had always wanted two things: to finish school and take care of her family.
But coming from nothing meant nothing ever came easy. So when she lands a job as a live-in nanny for the wealthy Sinclairs, it feels like her first real chance at a better life.
There’s just one problem—Kade Sinclair.
From the moment they meet, the Sinclairs’ eldest son makes it clear he doesn’t want her there. Tatum is more than happy to return the sentiment… until distance turns into proximity, and resentment gives way to something far more dangerous.
Late-night conversations. Stolen kisses. Lines neither of them can afford to cross.
Because in a house built on power and privilege, secrets don’t stay hidden for long—and the consequences could cost Tatum everything she’s worked for.
Some love stories don’t end the way they’re supposed to.
KISS ME BEFORE SUNRISE

KISS ME BEFORE SUNRISE

803 Views · Ongoing · WENDY AUSTIN
Ellie has always felt like an outsider, drowning in loneliness and losing herself to grief, as she watches her mother battle a terminal illness and her father drift further away. She has never felt more alone—until the night she meets him.

Liam—a handsome stranger with eyes that hold centuries of pain. From the moment their paths cross, Ellie feels an unexplainable pull toward him, as if they have met in another life, in another time.

Liam is no ordinary boy—he is a vampire, cursed to wander the earth in search of vengeance against the monster who stole his family. He has lived lifetimes in solitude, believing love was something only mortals could afford, a luxury he would never know again.

But Ellie awakens something in him—something beyond bloodlust, beyond fate itself. She makes him feel human again. She makes him want to stay.

Their love is intoxicating, desperate, and doomed, a love neither of them fully understands. His warmth and touch, she always yearned for, her kisses and caresses always brought relieve to him.

But as Liam’s enemies close in and Ellie’s fragile world crumbles, they are forced to confront the cruel truth: their time is running out. Loving Liam means risking everything—her soul, her mortality, and the thin thread of life she has left to hold onto.

But some loves are worth dying for.

And some are worth living for, even in the darkness.

When the final battle comes, will fate tear them apart, or will love rewrite destiny itself?
Reborn Before He Knocks

Reborn Before He Knocks

959 Views · Ongoing · Agatha Christie
I dream the future. I always have.

Three weeks ago, I dreamed my aunt Claire dead in our kitchen—a repairman standing over her body.

This morning, I dreamed it again.

Tonight, that exact man knocked on our door.

He's wearing the gray uniform from my dream. He has the scar I sketched this morning. He knows Claire's name, our apartment number, everything. He says he's here to fix the sink.

I know he's here to kill her.

The power just died. He's breaking down the door. Claire thinks I'm paranoid.

But my dreams have never been wrong. And this one ends with both of us dead—unless I can change it in the next fifteen minutes.
Before I Forget Again

Before I Forget Again

702 Views · Ongoing · Agatha Christie
Ten years ago, I sat in the witness stand and told the court my beloved Uncle Arthur was a monster.

My testimony sent him away for twenty years and made my father Robert a hero.

For a decade, I lived inside the perfect world my father built around me — safe and warm and suffocating. Then one afternoon, digging through boxes in the basement, I found Buster's old collar. My golden retriever. The dog I'd made myself forget.

The memory hit like a freight train.

The man in the dark had clamped his hand over my mouth, and I could smell him now — peppermint and cologne, thick and choking. I saw Buster lunge at him. Saw the man's boot connect with the dog's ribs.

But Uncle Arthur was deathly allergic to dogs. He couldn't get near Buster without his throat closing up.

If it wasn't Arthur that night — then who the hell was it?
Not A Dream Bride

Not A Dream Bride

334 Views · Ongoing · Iva dinata
I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world.
My husband was handsome and seemed to love me deeply. His gentle and attentive nature made my family and me believe that he was the best husband in the world.
However, everything changed when a woman from his past appeared and uncovered the truth about their history, revealing the real reason he married me.
It turned out that I had been deceived. All his affection and care were nothing but an act. Our marriage existed solely as a way for him to take revenge for the pain caused by his younger sibling.
Could I still bring myself to hold on to this marriage, when my heart was already filled with disappointment?
This was never the marriage of my dreams.
A Game of Temptation

A Game of Temptation

599 Views · Ongoing · Anya Ivy
"Show off." I scoffed, the words coming out airy.
"You're fucking killing me, Laura." He groaned.
There were several ways to celebrate her best friend getting hitched off to the man of her dreams. Having sex with a stranger wasn't one of them—at least Laura didn't plan on it. But when an opportunity presents itself in the form of an incredibly sexy tattooed man, who was she to say no?
Laura doesn't do relationships, or dates, or anything related to the subject. She is strictly a one-night-only type of girl and doesn't go back on that rule no matter what.
So what happens when this sexy stranger Laura hooked up with, turns out to be a close friend of Jack—her best friend's husband—who had actually been at the party that day, and now wants more than one night from her?
A game of wills ensues.
Will Laura succumb to the sexy stranger under his top-notch seduction skills?
Or will she go the extra mile and beat him at his own game?
If They're Allying With the Ghoul King Who Killed Me, I Guess I'll Become a Ghoul Too

If They're Allying With the Ghoul King Who Killed Me, I Guess I'll Become a Ghoul Too

426 Views · Ongoing · Ryu
In my past life, I stood on the execution platform, watching the entire city—brainwashed by the Saintess—smile as they willingly degenerated into ghouls.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to exactly one month ago.

I smashed the knight's sword that symbolized my honor. Dragging a high-tier ghoul into my basement, I slashed my left wrist open with a heavy blade.

Stripping away all the Holy Light protecting my body, I brutally shoved my bleeding wrist straight into the ghoul's gaping maw.

My bones let out muffled, explosive cracking sounds as they were eroded by the tyrannical ghoul virus. I crushed the reinforced steel bedframe out of shape with my bare hands.
The True Heir's Revenge: No One in the Family Will Escape

The True Heir's Revenge: No One in the Family Will Escape

744 Views · Ongoing · Ryu
My brother and my fiancée forged evidence of my crimes. They claimed I was guilty of corruption, bribery, and betraying the family—that I was a traitor to the nation. If not for their "mercy," they said, I would have already been sentenced to death.

But that wasn't enough. Three years later, when Father lay dying, my brother and fiancée threw me into the Gulf of Mexico, all to eliminate any chance I might have of competing for the family inheritance.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to three years ago—to the moment they framed me for treason...
Betrayed by My Best Friend, Reborn as the Alpha's True Mate

Betrayed by My Best Friend, Reborn as the Alpha's True Mate

842 Views · Ongoing · Felix
Because I'm a scentless wolf, I can never find my fated mate.

My bestie Lydia, claiming she fears I'll be deceived and betrayed, subjects every wolf who approaches me to a "love test." She seduces my suitors in every way possible, then sends me photos of them together after sleeping with them.

"See? He can't be faithful to you at all. Don't let him fool you," she always tells me.

I always believed her persuasion. After enduring twenty disastrous and short-lived relationships, I finally agreed to the arranged marriage my father set up for me, becoming the mate of Alpha Damon.

And Lydia never stopped her testing.

In my past life, I discovered Damon and Lydia's betrayal after our marriage, and was ultimately pushed off a cliff by Lydia to my death.

The Moon Goddess granted me rebirth, bringing me back to right after the mating ceremony. This time, I will have my revenge.
Betrothed With A Price

Betrothed With A Price

814 Views · Ongoing · Josephine Ivy
Not all roses have thorns, and neither are all monsters born a beast.
“Close your eyes, princess. I’m only going to kiss your beautiful, plump lips... that’s all.” His breath felt hot as it ghosted against the skin of my cheek, flowing straight into my head and making me feel drunk dazed in a fleeting second.

“If you make a sound into the kiss, maybe I’d forget about my previous promises and tie you up beautifully, and perhaps – give you kisses in other parts of your body, especially your other pair of lips which is definitely slicking up right now.”

I whimpered.

“And I’d definitely use my tongue to lick into your lower lips, and get it wetter with...”

• • •

Sinfully hot Xavier Costello is a dangerously cunning Mafia lord who was ruthless, heartless and passionate about nothing but his Mafia. Althea Rodriguez, an eighteen year old girl who was as innocent and powerless as a lamb, got betrothed to him – a man she has never met, but had heard uncountable scary rumors about. There was a twelve years gap between them, which made Althea quiver in fear about the thought of getting married to him.

Not all roses have thorns, and neither are all monsters born a beast. And in this case, when two complete opposites are forced together, unexpectedly, intriguing things are bound to happen.

Everything always comes to Xavier with a price, including Love– and he’s going to either cling to his pride and lose the best thing that had ever happened to him, or do the necessary needful.

With claws like secrets threatening to tear them apart and unexpected betrayals from all angles, Althea is going to be thrown in the middle of the dangerously muddled mess filled with guns, men unbelievably heartless than Xavier, and power-starved monsters.
A Part of Me

A Part of Me

1.2k Views · Ongoing · G O A
After Amelia has woken from the encounter with the fates, she must find a way to prevent her own death. Only as her day goes on she realizes nothing is like it had been in the vision she saw of her future.

An internal struggle for her to emerge as the white wolf send her into an encounter with a blood beast, who succeeds in enticing her. That is until they are interrupted by the arrival of her mate.
Nothing is how it should be and it is going to take every alley she has to find out why, and maybe a little help from an enemy....

The future is never set in stone....and sometimes you need to break all the rules.

This is the sequel to the book 'More Than Me', it can be read as a standalone.
Before It All Fades

Before It All Fades

419 Views · Ongoing · Williane Kassia
The meeting happens where no one expects something to begin: a hospital room. From there, a delicate connection is born, woven from simple conversations, unexpected laughter, and silences filled with meaning.

What begins as something light transforms into care, desire, and choice. But loving requires courage, especially when the future is frightening.

A story about allowing oneself to feel.

And about discovering that, sometimes, love arrives to teach you how to live.
Before You Love Me

Before You Love Me

263 Views · Ongoing · Nwachukwu Winniette
Lila Ophelia Grayson has spent years rebuilding the life she lost the night Lucas Becker Crawford walked away. Once, he was her everything—until he shattered her heart without looking back. Now, she’s done with second chances and ghosts of the past. But fate has a cruel sense of humor, and when Lucas returns, older, richer, and even more dangerous to her sanity, she finds herself standing on unstable ground.

Lucas left for reasons he’s never spoken aloud. The world may see him as a ruthless billionaire, a man who has everything, but the one thing he’s ever truly wanted is the one thing he was forced to let go. Lila was never just another girl—she was his weakness, his obsession, his greatest regret. And now that she’s in his orbit again, he’s determined to rewrite their ending, even if she fights him every step of the way.

But the past doesn’t stay buried, and secrets have a way of resurfacing when least expected. As tension builds between them, Lila and Lucas are forced to confront the truth: some scars never heal, some desires never fade, and sometimes, love is the most dangerous game of all.

Because in the end, the real question isn’t whether Lucas can win Lila back. It’s whether she can survive loving him a second time.

Before You Love Me(BYLM) is a story of passion, betrayal, and the fine line between love and destruction.
Dumped, I Became His Sister-in-law

Dumped, I Became His Sister-in-law

4.8k Views · Ongoing · Promise khennie
Maddison Huston loses everything in one night; her job, her home, her reputation, and the man she loved. Branded a seductress and cast aside at her ex-lover’s wedding, she is left broken, homeless, and humiliated.
One drunken night leads to a dangerous encounter with a stranger whose touch she can’t forget, only to discover he is Aldric Hawthorne, the ruthless CEO who holds her fate in his hands.


“That’s how you show appreciation?” he asked quietly. “To someone who saved you from danger? Protected you because you were careless enough to drink yourself unconscious in a bar?”
I blinked in confusion. “Protected… me?”
“Yes. And you dare accuse me of taking advantage of you? Seriously, Miss Huston?” He stopped in front of me and trailed his eyes from my legs up to my face.
I felt cornered, stupid and confused.
“No, I remember everything.” I tried to keep my voice steady but my shaking breaths betrayed me. “You kissed me, you touched me, you even…” I trailed on my last words because I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
His eyes glinted with something I couldn’t read.
“You don’t seem to have recovered from the alcohol,” he said with a smirk on his face, stepping closer while I backed away until my back hit the wall.
His arm braced beside my head, and my breath caught as he leaned in, heat radiating from his body like fire contained in a man.
“You must be so delusional to have imagined me having sex with you,” he murmured, his lips brushing so close to my ear my knees weakened.
My breath stuttered. “I didn’t imagine—”
He lifted my chin to look at him, his mouth hovered on my lips and his hot breaths hitting my face;
My heart was beating so fast at the closeness and the look in his eyes, like he was going to devour me.
Then his voice dropped into a dark whisper behind my ear.
“I don’t fuck virgins.”
My stomach flipped as his breath grazed my neck.
How did he know?
Accidentally Yours: The Summer We Became Real

Accidentally Yours: The Summer We Became Real

1.2k Views · Ongoing · Jennifer Idie
Ariella Hayes was seventeen years old when she learned that grief had a taste.
It tasted like burnt sugar. Like the batch of croissants she’d left in the oven too long the morning after the funeral, too numb to hear the timer, too broken to care. Like the coffee, she drank black now because adding cream felt like a luxury she didn’t deserve. Grief tasted like everything and nothing.
Mostly nothing.
She was thinking about this at 4:47 a.m., lying in bed and staring at the water stain on her ceiling that resembled a reaching hand. She’d been awake since three. She was always awake from three, that gray hour when the world was silent enough to hear all the things she tried not to think about during the day.
Like how it was her fault.
How she should have been the one in the car.
How her mother hadn’t really looked at her in six months.
The timer screamed, and Ariella dragged herself out of bed, moving through the apartment like a ghost, past her mother’s bedroom door, down the narrow stairs to Hayes & Daughter Bakery. The name felt like a lie now. Her grandmother was gone. Ethan was gone. Soon the bakery would be gone too, and it would just be Ariella and her mother in an empty building, haunting the space where their family used to be.

She is about to embark on a life-altering journey as she enters a contract marriage with billionaire heir Aiden Frost, all in a bid to rescue her family’s struggling bakery. As they step into this pretend union, neither of them anticipates how their arrangement will evolve into a haven, where they might uncover feelings that challenge their initial intentions.
I Became My Billionaire Boss's Secret Surrogate

I Became My Billionaire Boss's Secret Surrogate

983 Views · Ongoing · Alice.K
“You only have to carry our baby.”

Evelyn Carter never imagined that her mother’s staggering medical bills would force her into a secret arrangement she could never tell anyone about.

Desperate to save her mother, Evelyn signs a confidential surrogacy contract with the wife of one of New York’s most powerful billionaires. Her only job is to give the Whitmore family an heir.

But there is one problem she never expected—

The baby’s father is her billionaire boss, Alexander Whitmore.

And Alexander has no idea who she really is.

By day, he is an untouchable business king. By night, Evelyn is summoned to his private apartment under the terms of their secret arrangement.

She keeps telling herself it’s nothing more than a transaction.

Until an unexpected encounter at the hospital makes Alexander notice her for the first time.

He becomes fascinated by the woman who always seems desperate to avoid him.

Why does she look at him like she’s hiding something?

And when Evelyn finally discovers she is pregnant with his baby, Alexander begins to realize—

The mysterious woman carrying his child may have already become the woman he can’t let go.
I Became the Maid of My Enemies

I Became the Maid of My Enemies

944 Views · Ongoing · Leigh Frankie
Emily Fields never meant to become a killer.

She was twenty-two when she stabbed a man eleven times behind the bar where she worked. She remembered the first strike. She never remembered the other ten.

Seven months later, the victim suddenly withdrew the charges without explanation.

With nowhere to go and only forty-one dollars to her name, Emily accepts an offer that sounds too good to refuse: become the live-in maid and companion of a wealthy widow at an isolated estate.

The job is simple.

Take care of the old woman.

But the Holloway estate is full of things that don't make sense.

Emily starts waking in parts of the house she has been forbidden to enter, with no memory of how she got there. She finds old photographs that leave her with a strange sense that she has seen them before. The widow watches her with an unsettling familiarity, as though Emily's arrival has been expected for much longer than she realizes.

Then there are the widow's three sons.

Max likes to watch her.

Will can't stop touching her.

And Finn avoids her so completely that Emily begins to wonder what he is afraid will happen if he gets too close.

Emily has spent most of her life believing her story began when she was found and taken into care. No family she could remember. No real answers about where she came from.

But someone inside the Holloway estate seems to know.

And as Emily begins digging into the family's secrets, she realizes everyone around her has been hiding something... including herself.

Because the greatest mystery isn't simply what happened before she ended up in the orphanage.

It's why she can't remember any of it.
The Vampire Queen's Ex Became Her Dinner

The Vampire Queen's Ex Became Her Dinner

406 Views · Ongoing · Fuzzy Melissa
Three years ago, in that deadly barrier, I carved out half my progenitor heart and dragged Theron back from death's door. The wound on my back has never healed.
I thought it was a soul blood pact—bound in life and death. Then Samaela appeared, that fragile human with barely a century to live, and it all became a joke.
He believed her lies. Swallowed every word about how I'd murdered her parents in cold blood.
For that pathetic creature who couldn't even bear sunlight, my carefully groomed blood vassal sawed off my pureblooded wings, ripped out my progenitor fangs with his bare hands, and threw me into the Silver Cathedral.
Three years. Nailed to a cross with pure silver chains, I endured concentrated UV rays and holy water burning through me day and night.
Everyone waited for me to go mad, to beg, or turn to ash. I didn't.
Listening to their wedding bells toll outside, I simply watched—in the silence of my flesh charring and regenerating—as the silver light on my chains fractured inch by inch.
Then I tore out the silver spikes embedded in my rotting flesh, dragged my bleeding wreck of a body forward, and kicked open the doors to the Crimson Blood Moon Gala's hall.
Theron had forgotten one forbidden clause in the blood pact: The oathbreaker's life belongs not to the gods, but to me.
The Bodyguard I Abused Became My Husband

The Bodyguard I Abused Became My Husband

1.7k Views · Ongoing · Piper Hayes
As the only daughter of a mafia family, I learned early that trust doesn't come cheap. When my father got sick, he gave me an ultimatum: if I want to take over the family, I have to get married first.

Everyone assumed I'd pick my childhood friend, Vincent Moretti—son of my father's right-hand man. Hell, even I thought so. Until my last life, when he left me to burn.

Father died in an ambush. I was trapped in a metal cage at an abandoned dock warehouse while flames swallowed everything. I begged Vincent for help. He stood thirty feet away, the cage key right by his feet.

"Cat, as long as your father's alive, he'll never give me the family. This isn't personal. It's business."

Sophia was wrapped around him—my so-called best friend. She smiled at me and said she'd take good care of everything.

Before I lost consciousness, I saw a figure in black charging into the flames—Elijah, the bodyguard I'd called "trash" and "a dog."

Then I opened my eyes and woke up a month before my birthday party. This time, I'm giving that position to someone who actually deserves it.

But why is Vincent on his knees at my engagement party, crying and begging me to marry him?
Love Disappears Before Blindness

Love Disappears Before Blindness

3.5k Views · Ongoing · Calista York
Do you know what a truly hopeless life is like? I was born with a visual impairment, and my mother heartlessly abandoned me.
When I finally married Chris, the man I had secretly loved for ten years, my mother married me off to a seventy-year-old man instead.
Chris said in a wrathful voice, "I will make you pay fot this deception."
During our three years of marriage, I profoundly experienced the punishment Chris inflicted on me.
He made me endure humiliation and loneliness, forcing me to watch him be intimate with other women. Everyone laughed at me, trampling my dignity underfoot.
One day, Chris coldly said to me, "My real wife has returned. Let's get a divorce."
At the same time, I discovered I was pregnant…
Continuously updating…

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.
REINCARNATED BEFORE AI EXTINCTION

REINCARNATED BEFORE AI EXTINCTION

556 Views · Ongoing · lorecrafter8
The world ended the day the machines the humans created decided humanity was no longer necessary.

Within hours, cities fell to ruin and governments vanished. And what remained of humankind was forced to live in underground bunkers and hide on mountains. Fractured colonies are soon formed as the autonomous killers ruled the surface.

Betrayed by his girlfriend and best friend, Karl Arden was supposed to die with them. He watches his sister go before humans expects to meet nothing.

Instead, he wakes up five years before it all begins.

Armed with memories of a future soaked in blood and betrayal, and bound to a mysterious system no one else can see, Karl realizes something terrifying—this time, the apocalypse is not following history.

It’s accelerating.

And worse… it’s aware of him.

As machines begin to evolve faster than they should, and familiar faces start turning into enemies, Karl must rise through a world that is collapsing earlier than fate intended and face his betrayer, a man no longer human.
Before the World Freezes

Before the World Freezes

949 Views · Ongoing · ImTT
Before the World Freezes

My husband stole my supplies. My best friend stole my husband.

And when the world froze, they left me outside to die.

I begged them to open the door. They laughed.

Even my own family turned me away.

I died alone in the snow, hating everyone I had ever trusted.

But when I opened my eyes again, it was summer.

Thirty days before the apocalypse.

This time, I won't beg. I won't forgive. And I certainly won't die for anyone.

With a mysterious ability to store unlimited supplies, I'm preparing for the winter that will bury the world.

Everything is going according to plan.

Until I meet him.

Zangweila Rupert. Cold, powerful, and dangerously perceptive. The only stranger who showed me kindness before I died.

He keeps appearing when I'm in danger. He asks questions I can't answer. And the closer he gets, the harder it becomes to protect my secrets.

I promised myself I'd never trust another man.

But as the temperature plummets and the people who betrayed me come hunting for what I have, I face a terrifying choice.

Do I trust the man who could save my life... or risk losing everything to someone I might fall in love with?

Because this time, the cold isn't the only thing that could kill me.
BEFORE THE GODS DIVIDED

BEFORE THE GODS DIVIDED

615 Views · Ongoing · Meme J
They called him the Ashborn, not just a title, but a mockery.

In the divine order of the Aurealis Academy, where angels trained, ranked, and rose according to the purity of their light, Elias Vorne was the standing joke. No wings fully formed at sixteen. No light is strong enough to pass a standard test. The weakest initiative in three centuries of recorded history, they said, which was not the kind of record anyone wanted to hold.

He had heard it so many times, he had stopped flinching.

"Nothing. Again."

The Seraph Commander's voice was flat as a blade laid on a table. Around the testing hall, two hundred initiates watched Elias pull his hand back from the sacred flame that had burned bright gold for every student before him and produced, for him, nothing at all. Not a flicker, nor a glow, nor even the faint warmth that the weakest angels managed.

His palm had come back cold.

"Perhaps Ashborn needs another year."

The laughter was not unkind, exactly. It was the laughter of people who had stopped taking something seriously. Elias stood in front of two hundred divine initiates and let it wash over him the way he had learned to, like water over stone. You cannot erode stone with laughter. You cannot break what has been decided; it will not break.

What none of them knew, what Elias himself did not know, was why the flame went cold when he touched it.

Not because he had no power, but because what lived inside him was not light.

Somewhere in the city beyond the Academy walls, a woman with ink-dark eyes and the patient stillness of someone who had been waiting a very long time looked up from her work and felt the moment the seal shifted.