9247 Book(s) Related to synopsis of the lioness: a novel

Elena had loved Nicola for eight years until she overheard him.
She lay in a supernatural slumber for three years, a pawn in her husband's cold bargain with his family's cruel legacy.
Now, awake and alone in a world that has moved on, Elena makes a desperate deal with fate itself.
Armed with an ancient ritual that could rewrite history, she returns to the past—not to win back Nicola's heart, but to escape it.
She flees to London, reinventing herself as an artist and daring to hope for a life without him.
But some bonds transcend time.
Nicola, the man who sacrificed everything to protect her, will stop at nothing to find her again.
When their paths finally cross under London's rainy skies, they must confront the truth: Was their love destroyed by betrayal or merely tested by it?
This is a haunting tale of second chances and the courage to choose one's own destiny.
This time, what will you choose?

Every night, my mother-in-law Margaret would make a special cup of hot cocoa just for me, a Harvard graduate—my husband and his younger brother never got this special treatment.
The night before my first bar exam, Margaret brought me my usual mug of hot cocoa as always.
But the next day, despite being perfectly healthy all my life, I blacked out right in the exam hall!
I missed out on finishing the test and failed outright. Meanwhile, my husband, who flunked every single law school class, somehow miraculously passed California’s notoriously brutal bar exam, widely regarded as the hardest in the country.
Margaret told me not to worry, saying I could just retake it the following year, and she kept making my nightly hot cocoa without fail every day after that.
When the second bar exam rolled around, my cousin was staying with us temporarily. She only wanted a tiny sip of my cocoa, yet Margaret screamed at her, calling her shameless.
This time, sharp, crippling abdominal pains hit me the second I stepped into the exam room, and I had to rush to the hospital for emergency care.
Once again, I failed the exam. My cousin, who’d only attended a community college, shocked everyone by walking away with a full attorney’s license.
The whole family celebrated nonstop, and I was the butt of everyone’s jokes.
I couldn’t wrap my head around why my body would break down in every possible way whenever bar exam season rolled around.
Heading into my third attempt at the bar, I told myself this was my last shot—I could not afford to let my guard down for even a second.
But the night before the exam, my mother-in-law showed up at my door yet again, holding a warm mug of bedtime hot cocoa just for me…

Adrian Hayes has two rules: never steal another man’s girlfriend, and never lose his dignity over a woman.
Then he meets Emma.
Three weeks, one anonymous advice thread, and several terrible decisions later, Adrian is ready to betray his best friend, beg Emma to choose him, and even bring in his parents for backup.
There’s just one problem.
The man he thinks he’s stealing her from is her brother.

I can see other people's net worth.

The day my boyfriend learned he was the long-lost son of the richest man in this city on the East Coast, he came home and lied to my face.

"The DNA test didn't match," Caleb Foster said with a sigh.

Above his head, his net worth climbed past $14 million.

I did not expose him. I only smiled and said, "Don't worry. As long as you can take hardship, there'll always be more of it."

I took my fiancé, Julian, on a Caribbean vacation aboard my private yacht.
But he took the liberty of bringing Harper, a childhood best friend my family had financially sponsored growing up.
"Eve, she's practically your sister," he argued. "She hasn't had your luck in life. I brought her along to help you take care of her. Don't tell me you're jealous of your own bestie?"
Once on board, Harper feigned seasickness, melting comfortably into Julian's arms.
Yet, to chase views for her videos, she miraculously recovered, insisting on a cageless deep-sea dive with bloody chum.
When I forcefully stopped them, they started a live stream, framing me as an arrogant rich girl crushing a poor girl's ocean dream. They milked my warnings for millions of views.
Drunk on viral fame, Harper dragged Julian for a secret dive behind my back, instantly attracting a frenzy of aggressive bull sharks.
I dove in to save them without hesitation. But to escape, Harper kicked me straight toward the shark frenzy, while Julian scrambled up the deck without looking back.
I was torn to pieces alive.
They built their fame over my dead body, took over my trust fund, and indirectly caused my devastated parents to die in a plane crash while rushing to the Bahamas.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the first day of that fatal trip.

I was a broke scholarship student. Chloe was an old-money heiress and the untouchable cheer captain.

She paraded me through her elite world and even generously shoved me at her ultimate crush—Aston, the ruthless son of the school board director.

But when Aston and I actually got together, the princess bared her fangs.

She staged a severe fall to drain my meager savings, then framed me for stealing her family's heirloom necklace. And Aston? He dumped me immediately, sneering that I was just a cheap prop desperate to climb the social ladder.

Ostracized and cyberbullied by the entire school, I was locked on the rooftop during the Winter Formal and left to freeze to death in the snow.

But when I opened my eyes...

I was back at that deafening party. Right at the moment Chloe first introduced me to Aston.

My mother had no medical license, yet wealthy socialites lined up to hand her fat checks.
I often saw her lead those women into the treatment room, where agonizing screams would pierce through the locked door.
But strangely, those same women emerged radiant, as if they'd shed twenty or thirty years overnight, pressing stacks of cash into her hands with tearful gratitude.
What baffled me more was how she doted on the hired girls like her own daughters.
Yet toward me, her actual daughter, she was nothing but cold—always quick to criticize or strike.
Finally one day, curiosity won. I mustered the courage to peek through that door crack and saw what really happened inside...

I'm eight months pregnant, throwing up so violently I can taste bile, three "miracles" growing inside me.

Until that night at their celebration dinner, when I leaned against the wall and heard laughter from inside the private room.

I could hear the amusement in my husband Frank's voice: "Let's up the bet—another million. I'm betting two boys, one girl."

His mistress Ava giggled: "You already know the results."

"Of course," he said casually. "They're my children. Of course I know."

Then I heard it.

They talked about my womb like I was some kind of breeding machine.

They clinked glasses, debating "whose eggs were worth more."

They were even betting on "which baby would come out first."

And there I was, outside the door, my swollen feet barely holding up my aching, stretched body.

Inside, they were laughing and celebrating.

Celebrating their perfect little surrogate, carrying my husband's babies with his mistress.

Right then, the nausea just... stopped.

I just felt cold.

And slowly, a plan started forming in my head.

For five years, Reese was dead certain I couldn't survive without him. That arrogance was why he dared to strap me to a polygraph chair on my birthday. Why he looked me dead in the eye and said he regretted marrying me. Why he transferred the tickets for my birthday getaway to his first love, letting her lounge in my pajamas, sleep in my bed, and flaunt the heirloom my mother left me before she died.
As the electric shocks sent my body into violent spasms, he didn't even flinch. "It's a safe voltage," he dismissed.
When I choked out the word divorce, he didn't so much as turn his head. "You'd never leave me."
But there was one thing he didn't know. When I went back to the escape room to grab my forgotten purse, the owner showed me something—an audio recording from the control room, captured right before our game began.
In it, Reese casually admitted that the only reason he married me was because I looked like her.
I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just signed the divorce papers, pinned them to the table beneath my positive ultrasound report, and dialed 911.

Clarissa was ready to propose to Sebastian-for the eighteenth time.
Six years of devotion, humiliation, and blind hope. She thought persistence would earn her love.
Until she overheard him say, "I never loved her. She was just a tool-to get back at Aria."
The next day, she walked into the marriage registration center-and married Elian, Sebastian's powerful business rival.
Everyone thought she was being reckless...
But Elian didn't.
He simply looked at her and said, "I've waited six years for you."
In a marriage that began with pain, Clarissa finds herself shielded, cherished, and quietly healed-only to realize Elian had been loving her from the shadows all along.

The legendary general Victor was sentenced to death, and everyone thought he had already been buried in the grave.
Until a phone call came through ,
"Dad, help!... They took Mom away."

It had only been seventeen minutes since my wife passed away. My daughter was sobbing on the phone.

"Dad, they're trying to drive me out."

I stared at the medical report in the doctor's hand.

The first natural antibody carrier.Toxin levels in the blood: zero.

The same poison that killed my wife, that killed my six-year-old son…had left me completely unharmed.

The doctor lowered his voice."Mr. Miller, you have to stay. They're sending people to pick you up."

I let out a cold laugh.

"My daughter is trapped in the basement storage room right now. Is anyone here going to help her?"

Silence fell over everyone.

I grabbed the glass water cup from the bedside table.

"Five years ago, they handed me a disciplinary penalty and fired me from the rescue team. Everyone said I was good for nothing."

The cup smashed against the floor.

I picked up the longest shard of broken glass.

"Today, I'll show you all how a useless man saves lives."

Knowing I had severe claustrophobia, my stepfamily locked me in the basement just to make my stepsister smile.
"Evan, please! I can't breathe!" I pounded on the door until my nails bled.
But instead of saving me, my boyfriend of five years simply scoffed from the other side. "Aurora, drop the act. Daphne just wanted your room."
For fifteen years, I gave them everything, only to be treated like a parasite when the "true daughter" returned. They stole my home, my design, and finally, locked me in a burning attic. When the flames consumed me, would they finally be happy?

She never wanted to be a Breeder--but her parents sold her anyway.

The Alpha King is looking for an heir in the most unorthodox way. Whoever can impregnate the Breeder first will get to be king, which means Rose finds herself in a castle where she must submit to four men or disappoint her entire pack. Though she's nervous at first, it's easier than she would've thought once she meets the four Alphas.
Mark is intelligent.
Eli is sweet.
Reece is debonair.
And Tristan is a horny goofball.
Rose wants to stay with all four Alphas forever, and they seem to love her, too. But things aren't always what they seem, especially when the king's cousin, Emily, announces she will be the next Luna.
Will Rose and her men have a chance at true love?

"Stay with me, Luna. Please. I can't lose you both."
Her eyes were on mine and I could see the resolution and gratefulness in her eyes despite the pain.
"You never deserved us. We were too good for you. If I had another chance," she whispered slowly pausing to breathe, "I would never stay with you. I would save my son from your indifference. I would spare us both the pain of loving someone who never loved us back."
"I did love you," I insisted, tears rolling down my face. "I do love Ollie. Please, Luna."
"Next time," she promised, a smile on her lips and tears running down freely her side of her eyes, "we'll be free."


Luna has tried her best to make her forced marriage to Xen work for the sake of their child. But with Riley and Sophia- Xen's ex-girlfriend and her son in the picture. She fights a losing battle.
Ollie, Xen's son, is neglected by his father for a very long time, and he is also suffering from a mysterious sickness that's draining his life force.
When his last wish to have his dad come to his 5th birthday party is dashed by his failure to show up, Ollie dies in an accident after seeing his father celebrate Riley's birthday with Sophia, and it's displayed on the big advertising boards that fill the city.
Ollie dies, and Luna follows after, unable to bear the grief, dying in her mate's hands, cursing him and begging for a second chance to save her son.
Luna gets the opportunity and is woken up in the past, exactly one year to the day, Sophia and Riley show up.
But this time around, Luna is willing to get rid of everyone and anyone, even her mate, if he steps in her way to save her son.

Blood pooled beneath Eloise's head just moments after she discovered the truth about her husband. The man she built her world around wanted nothing more than to destroy her. He stole everything, her company, her pride, her future, and left her to die. But as the darkness closed in on her, fate offered a second chance.

**

Now she is back, with bloodstained memories and a thirst for revenge. Desperate and broken, she made a deal with the devil, a man powerful enough to hand her the weapons.

But his help comes at a price.

To be owned by him. For four months. A strict deal with no strings or feelings attached. But nothing about him is simple. He's infuriating, intoxicating, and every second with him chips away at her control.

What starts as business quickly spirals into a dangerous game of possession, secrets, and desire. And when hearts get involved, the real cost becomes something more than she bargained for.

He’s the last man she should trust… and the only one who makes her lose control.

"Love doesn't hurt, Adrian. You did. I'm leaving to become someone you can't destroy. And when I return, you will learn what it means to lose everything."
Five years ago, Arabella Sterling disappeared without a trace, carrying disgrace, heartbreak, and the label of a billionaire's hidden scandal. What no one knew was that she was also his wife. The woman he once claimed to love. The one he abandoned when it mattered most.
Now she is back.
No longer the fragile woman he betrayed, Arabella has reinvented herself as The Reformer, a world-renowned business strategist known for reviving collapsing empires. Powerful, untouchable, and unstoppable.
Her next target is The Sterling Group. His empire.
Adrian Sterling has spent years trying to bury his past mistakes, but nothing prepares him for the moment Arabella walks into his boardroom. Colder. Stronger. Completely out of reach.
He wants redemption. She wants revenge.
Because this time, Arabella is not here to save him.
She is here to make him lose everything.

Five years ago, Elena overheard the ambiguous whispers between her husband Arthur and his first love. In that split second, all her love for him crumbled to dust. She left the country with her pregnant belly, vowing never to have any connection with this man again.​
Five years later, Elena returns to her home country with her twins Liam and Luna—now a world-renowned top doctor. Unexpectedly, she finds herself entangled with Arthur once more. His eyes reddening with emotion, he grabs her abruptly and pleads, "Elena, I was truly wrong. This time, I will never let you get hurt again."

"Marry me," my billionaire CEO demanded, trapping me in his office, completely unaware that my father was the man who murdered his parents.

I stared at John Alexander Blackwood, a man who evaluated people like stock options. He was cold, calculated, and terrifying. "A contract marriage," he said with dead eyes. "Three years. In exchange, your family's financial ruin disappears." I should have screamed no and ran out of that top-floor office. But I signed the papers, binding myself to a man I barely knew.

Moving into his sterile, expensive penthouse felt like walking into a beautiful prison. We lived like ghosts, avoiding each other in the hallways. But the ice between us started to crack. Late-night encounters in the kitchen turned into shared whiskey, and his dark, calculating eyes began tracking my every move with a burning intensity. Behind his cold armor, I found a broken man still grieving the parents he lost in a tragic car crash twenty-six years ago. I was falling for him. Hard.

But then, the anonymous envelope arrived.

My hands shook as I tore open the seal, staring at the faded contract inside. Fifty thousand dollars. That’s what my father was paid to sabotage the brakes on the Blackwood family car. The crash wasn't an accident. It was a cold-blooded assassination ordered by John's own grandfather, and my father pulled the trigger.

I was sleeping under the same roof as the man whose life my family had destroyed. If John found out, he wouldn't just divorce me—he would obliterate me.

Was I my father's daughter enough to pack my bags and run, or was I reckless enough to stay and let the truth burn us both to ashes?

Catherina Hanshaw Dalton has spent six years believing she lived a fairytale, married to billionaire Xavier Dalton, cherished by him, and building a life rooted in devotion, even amid one heartbreak she cannot control: their inability to have a child. Though Xavier assures her she is enough, Catherine senses his quiet disappointment, a wound deepened by the venomous hostility of his mother, Lydia Dalton. Lydia never misses a chance to insult Catherine’s infertility, idolize Xavier’s sister Mia and her children, or imply Xavier married beneath his status. Catherine endures it all, clinging to the one constant comfort, Xavier always defends her. Or so she believes.
This Christmas, however, Catherine’s dread of another humiliating Dalton family gathering turns into confusion. Lydia is gracious….kind, even. The manor is full of relatives, business partners, and esteemed guests, including Hunter Powell, Xavier’s ruthless business rival. The brief moment when Cathy’s eyes meet Hunter unsettles her, but nothing prepares her for Lydia’s “special Christmas gift.”
During the toast, Lydia presents Caroline Turner…a beautiful young woman who is allegedly four months pregnant through surrogacy…with Xavier’s child.

From #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce comes a heart-pounding new mystery series.In the cornfields of Nebraska a woman is found murdered, strung up on a pole, the victim of a deranged killer. It doesn’t take long for the police to realize a serial killer is on the loose—and that his spree has just begun.Detective Mackenzie White, young, tough, smarter than the aging, chauvinistic men on her local force, finds herself called in grudgingly to help solve it. As much as the other officers hate to admit it, they need her young, brilliant mind, which has already helped crack cold cases that had left them stumped. Yet even for Mackenzie this new case proves an impossible riddle, something the likes of which she—and the local force—have ever seen.With the FBI called in, together, an intense manhunt ensues. Mackenzie, reeling from her own dark past, her failed relationships, and her undeniable attraction to the new FBI agent, finds herself battling her own demons as her hunt for the killer takes her to the darkest places of her mind. As she delves into the killer’s mind, obsessing over his twisted psychology, she finds that evil truly does exist. She only hopes it will not be too late to extricate herself from it, as her entire life collapses around her.As more bodies turn up dead and a frantic race against time ensues, there is no way out but to find him before he kills again.A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, BEFORE HE KILLS marks the debut of a riveting new series—and a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #2 in the Mackenzie White Mystery series will be available soon. Also available by Blake Pierce is ONCE GONE (A Riley Paige mystery—Book #1), a #1 bestseller!

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Blake 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. 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) HOMECOMING (A Chloe Fine Mystery) is book #5 in a new psychological suspense series by bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has over 1,000 five-star reviews. When two husbands, best friends, turn up dead in a wealthy suburban town, FBI VICAP Special Agent Chloe Fine, 27, is called in to unmask the lies in this small town and to find the killer. Chloe will have to penetrate this town’s perfect façade, to get past its public appearances to understand the truth of who these men were, and who may have wanted them dead. And in a town that thrives on its exclusivity, that won’t be easy to do.What secrets were these husbands hiding?An emotionally wrought psychological suspense with layered characters, small-town ambiance and heart-pounding suspense, HOMECOMING is book #5 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #6 in the Chloe Fine series will also be available soon.

Seraphina Lancaster believed she was living a life that many women could only dream about. She believed she had married the man she loved, and built a successful future alongside him.

Damien Roth had saved her life at a crucial moment, and she did everything she could to support him and his business.

But what happens when her whole world comes crashing down with one painful truth?

On their sixth wedding anniversary, while preparing a gift for her beloved husband, she discovered that their wedding certificate was fake, and everyone she held dear had been deceiving her from the very beginning.
What she believed was a beautiful marriage was nothing but a calculated betrayal orchestrated by Damien, her best friend Camilla, and the Roth family—people who watched her sacrifice everything while quietly stealing the life she built.
Seraphina was beyond heartbroken, but she wouldn’t let her pain define her. Instead, it awakens something far more dangerous.

The burning desire to make them kneel at her feet.

Then comes Cassian Blackthorne.
A billionaire with his own scars, and a man the world calls cold and untouchable. But to Seraphina, he was her ticket to the ultimate revenge.
As Damien’s biggest rival, she offers him a proposal too sweet to ignore, one that pulls them both into a game neither of them can afford to lose.
Will Seraphina get everything that was stolen from her? Or will she find herself trapped between destruction and desire?

My name is Marlow Kane. I’m an orphan. I grew up in a lab—daily injections, pills, training—until I escaped and learned how to pass as “normal.”

No one knows what I used to be.

To my classmates, I’m the quiet nobody—the guy you forget is even there.

Then graduation trip hit. The boat went down, and I dragged seven classmates onto a deserted island.

At dawn I scouted the treeline and found a corpse—its wounds looked like someone had chewed the flesh right off.

I warned them not to go inland, not to wander. The school bully laughed in my face, said I was making up ghost stories because I wanted to play leader.

That night no one took watch. Everyone slept shoulder-to-shoulder by the fire—except me.

After midnight, one of us started shivering, shaking uncontrollably… then snapped upright and launched at the person next to her, teeth first.

The bully stumbled back. I was the only one who moved. I rushed in and drove a knife straight into her skull.

Firelight washed over her gray skin and bloodshot eyes. No one laughed anymore.

Blake sat in the sand staring at me, lips trembling, unable to say a word.

Ten years into my marriage, I'd traded my paintbrush for a spatula and turned into Mrs. Holloway.

Ever since my sister Brooke moved in, my husband Bennett and my daughter Lucy had picked up a habit. Anytime Brooke and I disagreed, they put it to a vote.

On my birthday I wanted steak. Two hands went up for the salad bar Brooke liked. When I hadn't slept in weeks and wanted to see a therapist, they sided with Brooke, who said I just had too much time on my hands.

We'd decided long ago that for our tenth anniversary, we'd go back to Jenny Lake, where Bennett had proposed. Then Brooke mentioned she wanted to surf in Maui. Another vote. Two to one, again.

Bennett finished booking the tickets before it even occurred to him to look at me.

"There were only three business-class seats left, so we grabbed them. Just book yourself an economy seat, okay?"

I nodded and bought a one-way ticket to Wyoming.

This time, I wasn't going with them.

It was Valentine's Day when my fiancé, Gavin Pierce, took me out to that survival course in the Catskills — him, me, and Riley Harper, the girl his family took in when she was fourteen, after her parents died.
I'd asked for a table at the Gramercy Tavern. He'd said he hated standing in line for a reservation, that he wanted to do something that actually got our blood moving.
So he booked the three of us into a couples' wilderness challenge — which should have told me something, right there, when the booking was for three.
The final round was a solo penalty draw. One of us would pull the short stick and spend ten minutes locked inside The Freezer.
Riley hooked her arm through Gavin's, half pouting, half flirting. "Gav, if I pull it, are you gonna come get me out?"
Gavin laughed. "Rules are rules, Ri."
She stuck her lip out in a sulk.
Beside her, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Then Riley drew the black stick, and her tears came instantly, like a faucet turning on.
Less than a second later, Gavin spoke.
"It's too dark in here. Drew the wrong one, didn't I?"
He slid the safe stick out of my hand and swapped it with hers — smooth enough that it took me a beat to understand what I'd just seen.
"You're up, Caro."
Riley's tears dried up on the spot.
Gavin turned and murmured close to my ear, "Come on. Riley has a thing about tight spaces. You're tough. Ten minutes. You'll be fine."
This wasn't the first time Gavin had dropped me the moment it counted.
I looked down at the cold already seeping through the soles of my boots, and the phone sealed in my waterproof pouch lit up.
It was the man my father had been quietly pushing on me for months.
[Valentine's Day, Miss Langley. Have you made up your mind?]

At my boss's mother's funeral, I couldn't hold back my laughter, and as a result, I was treated as a lunatic, stuffed into a garbage cannon, and launched naked into an apocalyptic forest full of zombies. Everyone thought I was doomed, but they didn't know—I had been reborn 1,001 times. Unarmed and surrounded by the zombie horde, about to be torn to shreds, in desperation I clung to the last clue... When I finally uncovered the truth that could overturn everything, I laughed from the bottom of my heart. This time, I would personally end this greatest lie.

I bought a handsome, aloof incubus from a clearance sale online to be my live-in maid.
For a week, he was perfect. Then he started fainting, his skin burning with a fever no amount of rest could fix. Panicked that I’d somehow overworked my best employee, I called the 24/7 Aphrodisiac (companyI bought him from) helpline.

Ma’am, our incubus models have a demonic lineage and you have got a high-output model. They have near-infinite stamina. They don't get 'feverish' from vacuuming. But... why did you have him doing 'housework'?"
"Because the house was dirty?"
The agent suddenly chuckled. "Ah, I see. Everyone has their own fantasies and kinks. Roleplay is very popular. But tell me, according to the log, when was the last time Xanthos received physical intimacy?"
"Huh?"
"Physical intimacy," the agent repeated. "Love, spoiling, skin-to-skin contact. If a male incubus doesn't get intimacy, his internal energy stagnates. They fall sick. Male models are much higher maintenance than females; they need constant affection to stay healthy."
My blood ran cold. "Affection? I bought him to mop the floors!"
"Ma'am," the agent's voice dropped. "You are on Aphrodisiac. We are the world's leading provider of supernatural escorts. Did you... did you not read the site description?"

Turns out, I hadn’t bought a demonic domestic servant.
I’d accidentally purchased a high-maintenance supernatural escort.
And apparently, if I didn’t start showing my “maid” some affection soon, he would die and I would be jailed for abusing my maid.

My mother-in-law was a spoiled and soft woman.
Fifty years old and she couldn't book a rideshare. Couldn't pick up a package. When the breaker tripped, she cried into a video call to her husband and her son.
The whole family agreed on it. Her only skills were clinging and being adorable.
Then I bled at nine weeks and took myself to the ER.
The OB who picked up my chart was my husband's best female friend. Sable.
She saw me, photographed my chart into their med-school group chat, and hit record.
"Come look, everybody. Dog's wife. Pregnant five minutes and already bleeding from bed."
"Twenty-eight and she's already a geriatric pregnancy. You've got to pace yourself, honey."
The whole room laughed and looked at my stomach.
My face burned white. My nails went numb in my palm.
Thirty minutes later the door hit the wall.
My mother-in-law, the woman who covered her ears in her husband's arms over a tripped fuse, walked in on four-inch heels.
Behind her: hospital administration, the compliance office, and the sitting Chief of Obstetrics.
She pulled the chart out of my hand without lifting her eyes.
"Twenty-eight is advanced maternal age? Normal physiologic fluid, and you called it too much sex?"
"Dr. Smith, is your mouth that filthy because your brain's been marinating in locker-room jokes, or did your ethics get eaten by a dog?"

The world knew my grandfather as Professor Guo Zhenghua—a man who spent fifty years lecturing about justice.
They knew his wife as Lin Wanyu, a celebrated artist admired for her integrity.
Both reputations were built on a stolen identity.
The real Lin Wanyu was my grandmother.
She died in a mountain village with no legal name, no recognized grave, and her eyes still open.
When their grandson demanded a place at my law firm, I gave him the answer no one had ever dared give his family.
“No.”
By morning, they had taken my job.
By noon, I was ready to take everything else.

Contract Marriage+Kickass Heroine+Hidden Identity+Regret
For two long years, Aria Smith devoted everything to Ethan Holt, convinced she was his beloved Luna and his fated mate.
Until a trip to replace her lost marriage certificate shattered every lie.
Ethan had never loved her. Her closest best friend Clara was his real destined mate. The adopted son Aria had raised with all her love for two years was actually their biological child.
Before she could process the brutal truth, a sudden call overturned her whole life. She was not a lonely, powerless human orphan as she had always believed. She was the sole legitimate heir to Vincent Smith's staggering cross-realm fortune, inheriting his massive business empire that dominated both human and werewolf worlds.
Her heart completely broken, Aria made her choice without hesitation.
"I am single. Legally, I have never been anyone's wife."
She cut off all ties with the Silver Creek Pack and stepped into her rightful identity as a billionaire heiress overnight.
Ethan and Clara mocked her relentlessly. They believed the helpless human orphan could never survive outside the pack, and she would soon come crawling back begging for forgiveness.
They never foresaw the day they met again.
When Aria returned, she was no longer the humble, gentle human Luna who lived for Ethan. She stood powerful, wealthy, and untouchable, holding unmatched commercial power that shook the entire werewolf realm.
And right by her side stood a dominant, peerless Alpha King—someone far more powerful than Ethan could ever dare to rival, ready to burn the whole world down for her revenge.

"I, Owen Greystone, reject you, Ember Frost, as my future Luna and mate."
"Accept your rejection, you worthless human—and get lost."
Wolfless. Powerless. Unwanted.
Ember Frost had always known her place in the Moonshine Pack—at the very bottom. Taken in after being found in the woods as a child, she survived only through the love of her adoptive family.
On her twentieth birthday, everything should have changed. Owen Greystone, the future Alpha, turned out to be her fated mate—a bond meant to elevate her from insignificance.
But instead of acceptance, Ember received the ultimate humiliation. Before the entire pack, Owen rejected her with cruel contempt, crushing whatever fragile hope she had left.
Broken and desperate, Ember leapt from a cliff, believing her story had ended.
But fate wasn't done with her.
Rescued on the brink of death, Ember awakens to a truth that rewrites her entire existence: she is the long-lost daughter of the Lycan King, heir to the most powerful bloodline in the realm.
No longer the wolfless girl mocked by her pack, Ember begins her rebirth—training, rising, and claiming the strength that was always hers by birthright. And as she steps into her role as princess and future queen, she discovers a new kind of love—one she chooses for herself, not one dictated by destiny.
When Owen learns who she truly is, regret consumes him. Now he wants her back.
But Ember's heart belongs to someone else—and she is no longer the girl he once destroyed.
Owen will stop at nothing to reclaim her.
Ember will stop at nothing to protect her new world—even if it means facing the man who turned her life into ashes.
Because this time, Ember isn't the one who needs to "get lost."
This time, she's the one calling the shots.

"You think this is love?" Victor growls, his grip tightening around my wrist. "This is survival. Don't mistake me for someone who cares."
Valerie Bridge had everything—until betrayal landed her in prison. Now she's forced to marry Victor Regal, a ruthless man who sees her as nothing but a pawn. His touch burns like ownership though he belongs to another.
When passion ignites between them, Valerie finds herself trapped between desire and deception. Her past haunts her, enemies circle, and the truth threatens to destroy what remains of her soul.
Will she fight for freedom—or will love be the thing that finally breaks her?

Five years ago, Emeline Maxwell fled her fated mate and his pack in the middle of the night, saved at the border by her brother, who took her home to safety. Five years of healing, five years of pain... and she then found her second chance mate, a feat that many didn't even believe possible, in the last place she expected. In the middle of a summit to better support werewolf and Lycan unity. The Lycan King was her second chance mate. Not everyone was happy with this arrangement; traditionalists called it traitorous, and her first mate had his own 'concerns'. Can Emeline and Theodore make it? That's the question.

Even if I kick you out, you can't be with any other man because you're mine!
.....
The life of Filippa, the beloved omega daughter of the Red flame pack Alpha and Luna, made a 180° change after her parents died during a fight with the rogues.
As soon as her parents died, her father's brother, Henry, took over the pack with the promise to return the pack to Filippa when she came of age.
Not long after Henry became the Alpha, he changed from being her favorite uncle to a cruel monster who made her life a living hell.
However, Filippa always had a belief that she'd become the ruler of the Red Flame pack as soon as she clocked 18.
Unfortunately, she never expected that Henry wasn't willing to give the red flame pack.
Henry ordered Filippa to be thrown down a cliff.
Filippa ended up being saved by Wyatt, the ruthless cold beta of the power axis pack, who took her to the power axis pack after Filippa weaved a big lie.
Filippa arrived at the Power Axis pack to discovered that she was a mate to Alpha Oswald.
Oswald already had a lovely partner; so he planned to kick Filippa out of the pack by bringing up a trial.
However, things began to fall out of hand.
Filippa discovered that her love for Oswald was reducing and instead leaning toward Wyatt.
There was also the existence of playboy Asher, who was always flirting with Filippa at every chance he got.
Although Oswald wanted to kick Filippa out of the power axis pack, he was unwilling to see her with another man.
Caught in between three men, Filippa will have to choose between her mate Alpha Oswald, her crush beta Wyatt, and the flirty playboy Asher.

"Why should I save you?"
His voice was calm, cruel—even as the fire raged below her.
"Because... I don't want to die," Emma choked, tears mixing with soot.
He smirked, lighting a cigarette. "Not my problem."
Betrayed by the only pack she ever called home, accused of killing the Alpha's mate, and left for dead, Emma—an abused, wolfless omega—finds herself at the mercy of Leo, the infamous Hybrid King. He saves her, but only after forcing her to agree to one thing:
"You're mine now. My Slave"
But as days turn to nights, and pain gives way to sparks, Leo begins to see something more in the broken girl he claimed. And Emma? She begins to feel something dangerously close to power.
When she discovers she's the destined Savior of the very pack that tried to execute her, the lines between love, loyalty, and vengeance begin to blur. Especially when Alpha Damon comes crawling back, begging for forgiveness.
Two kings. One omega. A prophecy soaked in blood.
Will Emma return to the monster she once loved… or rise with the one who saw her worth in the ashes?

At sixteen, Clara Bennett lost the last place she could call home.

After years of feeling unwanted by the father who should have protected her, Clara is finally forced to leave the only home she has ever known. Her stepmother’s pregnancy only makes it easier for her family to let her go.

With nothing but her mother’s old violin, she arrives in a small Pennsylvania town carrying the fear that she will never truly belong anywhere.

The last thing she expects is Adrian Cole.

Once the town’s basketball star, Adrian gave up his dreams after his father disappeared and left him with debts he never should have carried. Now he spends his days repairing cars, avoiding the court, and pretending he doesn’t want anything more from life.

Clara thinks she is too broken to be loved.

Adrian thinks his future is already over.

But somewhere between physics lessons, late nights at the repair shop, and a forgotten small-town high school, two lonely people begin to find something they both thought they had lost forever:

A reason to stay.

✦ ✦ ✦

A tough exterior with a soft heart x A soft exterior with a strong heart

✦ ✦ ✦

The first half is set in high school, and the second half is set during their college years. Hope you enjoy the journey!

This is a slow-paced story, focused more on emotions, healing, and the small moments in life rather than intense action or dramatic twists.

If you find any mistakes while reading, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to correct them.

I hope ordinary Clara, ordinary Adrian, and all of us ordinary people can find the happiness we deserve.

Cecilia has planned a night of raw passion with her oblivious boyfriend, Julian, on his 21st birthday. Shy and a virgin, Cecilia plans to gift him her virginity. However, a case of mistaken identity in the dark leads her to a passionate, unexpected encounter with Julian's roommate and her own long-time best friend, Asher.

The intense, raw intimacy with Asher awakens a confusing mix of guilt and undeniable arousal within Cecilia. The hot night leads to more spicy encounters, as she navigates her feelings for her best friend and her oblivious boyfriend.

Kruz has always been strong, disciplined, controlled, and unbreakable. Nothing prepares him for losing his mother… or what comes after.
Pulled into a hidden world he never knew existed, Kruz is forced to face the truth—he isn’t just different.
He’s a vampire.
The transformation is only the beginning. Thrust from a life of survival into one of power, wealth, and expectation, Kruz is given a position no one his age should hold: District Elder.
With it comes authority. Responsibility. And enemies he doesn’t yet understand.
And then there’s the bond.
Forced into a connection he didn’t choose, Kruz is tied to a girl—whether he wants it or not. She’s a complication. A problem. A constant reminder that his life is no longer his own.
Because the one person he wants… is the one he can’t have.
As pressure builds and danger closes in, Kruz is forced to walk a line few survive—between duty and desire, control and instinct, the life he had and the one being forced upon him.
Because in this world, power isn’t earned slowly.
It’s given.
And if you’re not ready for it—
It will destroy you.

"I, Alpha Drake Collins Thaddeus, reject you, Layla Diana Montez, as my mate. You are nothing to me now—banished from this pack. Forever."
What would you do if the man you gave your heart,tossed you aside like yesterday's trash?
I gave Alpha Drake everything—my loyalty, my love, my body. I nearly died saving him. But when I needed him most, he turned cold, mocked my scars, and cast me out like I meant nothing.
Scarred. Wolfless. Pregnant.
I stumbled into Shadowsville Pack, broken and barely alive. That's when he found me—Antoine Del Morino, the elusive Southern Lycan King. He saved me, sheltered me, and gave me the strength to rise again.
Years later, I'm no longer the omega who begged to be loved. I'm one of the strongest, wealthiest Lunas alive. And just when I finally start healing, Alpha Drake returns… begging for another chance.
But my heart now beats for the man behind the mask.
Should I give Drake a taste of his own rejection—or fully surrender to the love Antoine offers me?

Stabbed in the back by the people she called her family, Tinsley William's life ended up in shreds. Her sister called her names and tainted her reputation. She was all over the news as a husband snatcher and desperate jealous bitch which resulted in her having a one night stand with a well known Billionaire at the club she went to drink out her sorrows before leaving the country.
Fast forward seven years later, now a successful anonymous Millionaire author and a mother of three, Tinsley regained her fame and decided to move back to the place she called home.
Little did she know that her sudden appearance would stir up a crisis in the life of her family and everyone around her, including the Triplets father, but her three little genius kids were one step ahead of her.

She was supposed to walk down the aisle in white.

Instead, Sophia Hart was left standing alone in front of three hundred guests while her groom, billionaire Alexander Blackwood, announced he was leaving her for her best friend.

Humiliated, heartbroken, and burning with rage, Sophia vanished that night with five million dollars mysteriously wired into her account and a single note: This is your freedom. Use it.

For three years, she disappeared into Paris, remade into the cool, untouchable Elise Moreau under the ruthless guidance of a mentor who knew Alexander’s cruelty all too well. She learned power, seduction, and how to ruin a man without ever raising her voice.

Now she’s back in New York, a stranger to the world that once watched her fall. No one recognizes the poised Frenchwoman who walks into the room and turns every head.

Especially not Alexander.

Old sparks still burn between them, hotter and darker than before. Stolen glances across crowded ballrooms.

A brush of fingers that lingers too long. Late-night encounters in empty offices where walls echo with heavy breaths and whispered names.

He wants her.

She lets him think he can have her.

But every touch, every kiss, every fevered moment against cool glass or silk sheets is on her terms and every second brings him closer to losing everything he thought was his.

But revenge isn’t cold. It’s hot, slow, and very, very personal.

This time, she’s not the bride he left.
She’s the woman who’ll bring him to his knees.

A time of ancient ignorance. Humans did not yet exist, the ancestors of the elves were still trolls, and the titans ruled the earth and the dragons ruled the skies. At the end of the Age, the Titans and Dragons fought and lost. At this time, a traveler descended on a tribe of Hawkmen, leading them gradually out of their own evolutionary path, and eventually became a tribe of angels. Countless years later. The King of Angels, the Lord of Judgment, Jiang You, was on the throne of heaven. Endless beings sang in unison: 'Holy! Holy! Sinners can't look upon the majesty and glory of God. Each one is crowned with a crown of jade and honored with a golden throne."

Sienna Alexander's mate didn't just betray her. He stood there and let it happen.
On her coronation night, Lucas broke their bond and claimed her stepsister in front of the entire pack, too proud to see what his own mother-in-law was doing behind him.
While the crowd was still cheering, Morrigan carved Sienna's power out of her body, vein by vein, and planted it inside her own daughter's womb like something she'd been owed for years.
Then they left the body behind. Nobody checks if a corpse is still breathing. They should have.
Half-dead in the woods, Sienna feels her wolf clawing to break free, and every instinct in her screams to let it happen. But the Moon Goddess's law is older than her pain: an omega who shifts before her power settles doesn't survive it. Shifting means dying.
She shifts anyway.
A rival Alpha finds her collapsed at the tree line before the goddess can collect what she's owed. His name is Damien, and he has no idea he just pulled the Millennium Wolf out of the dirt.
Call the dead, owe the dead.
Lucas and Morrigan are about to learn what that means.

She needed to save her scholarship. He needed to save his career. Falling in love was never part of the deal.

Nova Arden lives by one rule: stay under the radar, keep her scholarship, and stay far away from the arrogant campus jerks.

But when the university threatens to cut her figure skating program due to a lack of recognition, her entire future is on the brink of collapse.

Enter Colt Callahan, the golden-boy captain of the school's hockey team who gets everything he wants. The fame, trophy wins, and endless attention. But behind the arrogant smirk, Colt is hiding a serious injury that could cost him his NHL draft.

When Colt’s hockey coach decides his stiff skating is costing him on the ice, he arranges for Nova to train him. The tension between them explodes.

Nova has no patience for Julian’s entitled attitude, and Colt finds her refusal to be impressed by him strangely irresistible. Their practices quickly become a mix of bantering, teasing and lingering looks. Somewhere along the way, their dislike turns into a passion both of them can’t ignore.

Just as their hidden romance deepens, Nova’s past comes knocking. When things start to fall apart, the player who usually runs from drama is ready to take drastic measures to protect his girl.

Will their secret love survive the scandal, or will the ghosts of her past freeze them both out?

“The Devil always collects his debts.”
Sold by my father to settle his gambling debt, I walked down the cathedral aisle toward a sadistic mafia tyrant. Meanwhile beneath my wedding dress, I hid a lethal secret: I was three weeks pregnant by my bodyguard.
Then the doors blew off their hinges.
Through the smoke walked Lorenzo Genovese, the Devil of the East Coast. I grew up amongst powerful, dangerous men. And I saw the way they flinched at the sound of his name. That was the kind of man I was promised to by my father ten years ago.
Ten years ago, my father signed a blood oath to save his life. The price was my hand, delivered to the devil the day I turned twenty-three.
One bullet ended my wedding. One command stole my freedom.
“You are going to take off this dead man’s blood, you are going to put on my ring, and you are going to be my wife.”
I should have agreed. That's what he expected of me. Instead, I looked into his silver eyes and whispered, “I’m not yours.”
Now, I am a captive inside his mountain fortress. Lorenzo demands pureblood heirs, oblivious to the rival bastard growing in my womb. To survive, I must play a dangerous game—enticing the devil into my bed to pin the pregnancy on him and save myself and my baby.
But the Don is an enigma who sees through every lie. And then I discover that even the Devil hides secrets of his own.
But if he uncovers mine... I won't be the only one he destroys.

They call it a curse whispered beneath the Blood Moon, a prophecy that binds lovers in chains of fate and rips packs apart in rivers of blood. Iria Korrin has spent her life running from it, hiding her true name, her true bloodline, and the shadows that stalk her every step. When she arrives at Lunar Crest University, she swears she’ll keep her head down, stay invisible, and finally build a life that belongs to her. But fate has other plans.

Two brothers feel the pull of Grey, the brutal, magnetic Alpha whose touch is command and destruction in equal measure, and Brian, the cold strategist whose silence conceals the hunger he cannot fight. To be chosen by one is rare. To be claimed by both is impossible. It means the curse has awakened again.

As secrets unravel, false friends circle like vultures, and betrayal burns hotter than love, Iria must decide whether she will be the curse’s victim… or its breaker. But breaking it may demand the ultimate price: her blood, her crown, or her heart.

Dark romance, deadly games, and forbidden desire weave together beneath the Blood Moon where love is a weapon, betrayal is destiny, and survival is never guaranteed.

“Know who you belong to.”

For three years, Levi had only one answer. Then a stranger asked her what she wanted.

She escaped the man who owned her and hid in the one place he would never look.

At 25, Levi has spent three years as mafia don Matteo Calderone’s obsession, controlled, punished and displayed. With a stolen ledger and forged papers, she crosses the river and becomes Lena Hart, a waitress at a roadside bar called The Last Mile.

She does not know the bar belongs to Logan, president of the Iron Wraiths, the man whose father Matteo killed. Logan asks before he touches her, every time, and no one has ever asked her anything. But he is watching her, the club is divided, and someone inside it will do anything to keep her from talking.

When Matteo finds out where she went, Levi must choose between running again, hiding forever, or trusting the one thing she swore never to give away.

Can a woman who was owned learn to love a man who only asks, before the man who owns her takes everything?

I was trained to seduce, to deceive, and to kill if I had to. Love was never part of the mission.

My body became my weapon, the one thing no man could ever truly own. I couldn’t give life so I learned to use sex as a tool to take whatever I wanted.

As one of O.A.S.I.S.’s top operatives, I’ve faced warlords, dictators, and men who thought they owned the world. None of them ever got under my skin until billionaire playboy, Zayne Beaumont, walked into my crosshairs.

He’s infuriatingly charming, dangerously beautiful, and the reason my pulse forgets its rhythm. But when his past comes for him in the form of Dominik D’Angelo, the ruthless Mafia Don who wants him dead—my world fractures in ways no training could prepare me for.

Because Dominik doesn’t just want revenge.

He wants me.

Now I’m trapped between two men—one who tempts my heart, and one who consumes my soul. Both powerful, dangerous, and willing to burn the world to claim me.

And I’m the prize neither of them intends to lose.

After suddenly being rejected by her mate on her birthday after two years of relationship, Isabelle travels to the territory of humans where she meets her second chance mate who is not quite as he seems.