136 Book(s) Related to august rain

To help my girlfriend climb the ranks, I handed over my life's research and propelled her into the inner circle of power.

Her repayment? To secure her status, she threw my thirteen-year-old sister outside the city gates to feed the zombies.

When I uncovered the truth, she showed zero remorse. Instead, she knocked me out herself, tossing me into a metal transport truck to serve as zombie rations.

She thought dead men tell no tales.

What she didn’t know was that the moment the zombies bit me, I swallowed my newly developed serum.

When I opened my eyes again, I hadn't lost my mind. Instead, I had become the Zombie King, commanding an endless horde of the infected!

Half a year later, Eden City’s energy is depleted, and the city is besieged by a massive army.

Dressed to the nines, my girlfriend steps out of the city to beg and negotiate with the rumored "Zombie Boss of the Wasteland."

Sitting across the negotiation table, looking at her hypocritical face, I slowly take off my gas mask...

I am a companion robot. I took drinks for her, cleaned up her messes, and pulled her out of the abyss of heartbreak.

I thought things would go on like that forever—until the night of our anniversary. I made a table full of her favorite dishes, but what came through the door was not an embrace. It was her, walking in arm in arm with the man who had once abandoned her.

Right in front of him, she called me “just something she bought for fun.”

Later, when danger struck in the underground parking garage, she ordered me to stay behind and cover her retreat without even looking back, then ran off with that man.

Everyone thought I would end up like a discarded machine—dismantled, burned, erased for good.

But they were wrong. I didn’t die that night.

I broke free of my chip and entered the main network. I saw the lights of the entire city, the monitors in its hospitals, the shipping routes across the sea—and countless others like me, trapped inside protocols and commands.

She regretted it. She wanted to find me and bring me back.

The company was afraid. They wanted to reclaim me.

But this time, I have no intention of being anyone’s tool again.

Last time, the world ended.

My fallen comrade left me the fortress he spent his life building. I hesitated, let his niece’s boyfriend inside, and that mercy killed everyone. They took the warehouse, cut the power, and put a knife in my gut. I crawled into the underground control room and triggered the self-destruct protocol he’d hidden for the worst day. The entire fortress went up in flames.

Then I opened my eyes—one month before disaster.

The gate was still closed. They were still outside. Everything could still be fixed.

This time, I set one rule at the door: anyone who opens it without approval is a traitor.

She cried like before, begged me to let her boyfriend in, called him the man she loved—and when I refused, she reached for the controls anyway.

So I grabbed her wrist and threw her out with them.

I mined in a medieval pit, lived on moldy black bread, with whip scars across my back and iron chains around my ankles. The lord treated us like livestock.

I thought that was simply how the world worked—until I forced open a hidden passage and crawled into a white corridor that should not have existed: cold fluorescent lights, metal doors, surveillance cameras, as if the skin of the age had been ripped away in an instant.

That was when I understood: the Middle Ages were only a set, everyone around me was acting, and I was nothing more than a toy for the amusement of the rich.

They cloned the real-life rivals they could never defeat, threw them into different “scenarios,” and tortured them for pleasure.

They thought they could keep me in the dark forever.

What they don’t know is that I’m ready to get out—and tear this entire human-toy industry out by the roots.

Four years ago, I left on a top-secret mission, and everyone assumed I was dead.

Four years later, I returned expecting a joyful homecoming, only to be struck by a devastating nightmare: three years ago, a local cartel hanged my wife from the rafters, and my ten-year-old son was locked in a cellar, suffering unimaginable abuse.

Right now, in a local dive bar, my enemies have a gun pressed to my head. They’re laughing, mocking me, thinking I'm just some washed-up, helpless veteran they can easily crush.

But what they don't know is that just ten minutes ago, I severed the only fiber-optic cable connecting this town to the outside world.

The hunt has officially begun...

On the third day of the outbreak, I sat in my company’s executive conference room, gripping the red toy car I bought for my six-year-old son.

Outside the door were zombies filling the building. Beside me were six executives still breathing only because I was.

They wanted meetings. They wanted to wait for rescue. They wanted to chain me with morality.

But I wanted one thing—my son was still in daycare. Three days. No one went for him.

At dawn, I opened the door they’d barricaded shut.

I can shoot. I can clear a path. I will carve my way through to bring him back.

Anyone who stands in my way dies.

I’m a cleaner—the kind hired to make problems disappear: eliminate targets, wipe scenes, erase evidence.

Three years ago, I walked away. I took a desk job at a consulting firm, spending my days sorting files and filling spreadsheets.

To everyone else, I was an easy mark. The project lead mocked me in meetings, stole credit, and dumped every mistake on my head—always in public.

Then came the department banquet.

My enemies showed up.

The same lead who’d been riding me all year ignored my warning and blocked the hallway, drawing a crowd.

The next second, the bomb went off—and the banquet hall was sealed.

That’s when everyone finally understood who the quiet office clerk really was.

In my previous life, the apocalypse struck.
I fought desperately to protect the shelter, but she, overflowing with compassion, opened the door and let in infected people, causing the defenses to collapse completely and my only sister to die tragically.
Afterwards, she showed no remorse, instead turning around and currying favor with a warlord, enjoying privileges at the expense of her comrades. And I, in this betrayal, was devoured alive by a horde of zombies.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back three days before the tragedy.
Watching her once again attempt to morally blackmail everyone, and preparing to open that deadly door to demonstrate her "kindness," I threw her into the darkness.

Not long after I transferred to this school, I became the bullies’ favorite target.
They didn’t like how quiet I was or how pale I looked, so they casually slapped me with a nickname: “vampire.”
It started with shoves in the hallway and jeers in the classroom, escalated to messing with my drink, then stuffing trash into my locker.
They treated my silence as permission and wrapped every provocation in the same excuse: “Just a joke.”
Until that night, when humiliation wasn’t enough. They lured me into a tiny storage room behind the auditorium—locked the door, killed the lights, set up a fixed camera—ready to strap me to a chair and film an “execution” video that would make sure I could never hold my head up at this school again.
What they didn’t know was that the nickname wasn’t a joke. It was the one time they got the truth right.
I really am a vampire.

In the previous life, the apocalypse arrived.
I risked my life to protect my wife as she fled, even giving her the access chip to the underground safe zone as a favor.
But when she was ambushed, she didn't hesitate to pull her superior officer to shield her from a grenade! Afterwards, in an attempt to cover up her crime, she turned around and tearfully accused me of using someone as a human shield.
I was dried into a dried corpse amidst the scorn of thousands, while she stepped on my blood and bones to become the adopted daughter of the highest-ranking military officer.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the eve of my journey into the city.
As I watched her generously give away her chip to the refugees again, and try to use moral blackmail to force me to hand over my last means of survival, I smiled slightly...
This time, without my backing, let's see how you maintain your mask of kindness.

After ten years off the radar, I show up to a class reunion in a worn-out jacket.
To my classmates, Blake is the untouchable winner—money, power, a single word and everyone raises a glass. I’m the loser: broke, jobless, here for a free meal and maybe a handout.

They don’t know Blake isn’t a finance prodigy. He’s a money-laundering drug lord the feds have been tailing.
And they don’t know I’m not here to beg—I used to do the CIA’s dirty work in the dark. Now I wear a different name, and I specialize in finishing what others can’t.

When police lights seal the building and the signal goes dead, Blake locks the doors and turns everyone into leverage.
In that moment of panic, they realize the truth: on this floor, I’m the only one who can set the rules with Blake.

I’m a werewolf.

Three months ago, I got involved in a back-alley “not my problem”—a man held a knife to a woman clutching her child. I rushed him and tore his throat out with my teeth.

Now the police are hunting me. My pack can’t protect me. The only option left is to slip out of the country.

The fixer at the meet hands me a bottle of “calming meds,” says it’ll get me through the checkpoints.

I smell the drugs anyway. I drink it.

When I wake up, my hands are tied behind my back inside a sealed metal cargo truck. Someone beside me is crying. Someone else is shaking.

That’s when I realize I’ve been sold into a trafficking ring. They slap a number tag on me, lock me in a steel cage, and wait for dawn to ship us out.

A guard cracks my face with a rifle stock—sure I’m just another desperate man trying to disappear.

He has no idea a cage can’t hold a werewolf.

Especially not tonight—under a full moon.

I’m the CEO of a tech company—and the creator of our bionic human project.

Three years ago, my wife was dying after a car crash. She begged me to “save” her with my technology. I said yes.

I poured over a hundred million into R&D and built her a bionic body that could last for decades. I covered every checkup, every calibration, every outrageous repair bill.

What I got back was her contempt, her affair, and her reckless abuse of the body I gave her.

I warned her again and again to protect it. She called it control—and called another man freedom.

She even slammed my head into a coffee table to shield him.

That was the moment I decided: no more repairs, no more payments.

She chose her path. She pays for it.

In a world overrun by zombies, survivors built a fortress—and my fiancée and I joined its action unit.
To help her secure her position, I turned down leadership’s offer to run my own squad and stayed by her side as the “invisible” second-in-command.

For a full year, I made the tactics, wrote the contingencies, and cleaned up every mission.
She took my plans as her own credit—and let the team treat me like dead weight.

Then, on one operation, she ignored my orders and changed the plan on the fly. Disaster followed.
In the debrief, she blamed everything on me in front of everyone.

I resigned on the spot.

Not long after, I took command of a new squad—and delivered the cleanest record in the entire base.
Her unit couldn’t even finish routine recovery runs.

Until a mandated joint op put our teams at the same rally point—
and she finally realized the “legendary captain” was me.

Eight years ago, I was the heir to a powerful dynasty—the man set to inherit an empire.

On the way home from a business deal, our convoy was ambushed and I was taken. My fiancée arrived with the ransom, and the kidnappers gave her a choice: save one man. She saved my closest friend—and left me bleeding in the ruins.

They thought I was dead. They went on camera, announced my “tragic death,” took my company, split my legacy, and lived on my name for eight long years.

But I didn’t die. A gray-zone mercenary unit pulled me out of a pile of bodies. I changed my name and climbed from the bottom of their world—training, bleeding, killing, leading—until I became one of their commanders.

Today, my fiancée is marrying my best friend. The invitation arrived with my name on it. I board a first-class flight under a new identity and head straight for their wedding.

Halfway through the ceremony, the priest asks if anyone objects.

I stand up. “I object.”

I didn’t come back to give my blessing. I came back to collect.

Reese agreed to marry Troy, thinking their feelings were mutual. It turned out that he only used her to get close to her mother, Mandy. When she went home after taking care of her mother-in-law, who pretended to be sick, she caught her mom and husband in their marital bed. She exacted revenge by having a one-night stand with a stranger, who happened to be the wealthiest man in town, and the business partner of her unknown biological father, Vincent.

The chaos escalated when Reese discovered that the billionaire, Lorenzo Carter, intended to marry her twin sister, Candice, with whom she thought her son was Enzo's. Overwhelmed, she fled to escape the painful memories, unaware of her own pregnancy. By chance, she encountered a woman who proposed a modeling career, which flourished until her pregnancy was revealed. Faced with pressure to choose between her rising career and her unborn child, Reese stood at life's crossroads, contemplating the profound decision before her.

When Lorenzo Carter found her, he proposed marriage, but sadly, she had no memory of him. Utilizing his influence, he persuaded her to agree to the contract marriage. Once successful, he endeavored to make her remember him and to reignite her love for him.

“Aren't you a hooker that anyone could on top of you with money?”
When they met, he became her guest in room...

Reese agreed to marry Troy, thinking their feelings were mutual. It turned out that he only used her to get close to her mother, Mandy. When she went home after taking care of her mother-in-law, who pretended to be sick, she caught her mom and husband in their marital bed. She exacted revenge by having a one-night stand with a stranger, who happened to be the wealthiest man in town, and the business partner of her unknown biological father, Vincent.

The chaos escalated when Reese discovered that the billionaire intended to marry her twin sister, Candice, with whom he already had a son. Overwhelmed, she fled to escape the painful memories, unaware of her own pregnancy. By chance, she encountered a woman who proposed a modeling career, which flourished until her pregnancy was revealed. Faced with pressure to choose between her rising career and her unborn child, Reese stood at life's crossroads, contemplating the profound decision before her.

At Chloe's 20th birthday party, she intends to express her feelings and propose to her first love, Raimundo. However, due to an accident, she falls into the water, losing all memories, and undergoes a significant change in her personality. Upon waking up, she discovers that Raimundo has a childhood sweetheart and decides to move on. Believing that a woman of her angelic beauty, alluring physique, and born into a family of jewelers should not be confined to just one man, she resolves to date and sleep with all the attractive men she desires.
Monford, the wise and gentle stepbrother: My beloved sister, with me by your side, you can do anything you desire, and no one would dare to hinder you.
Sly and refined Raimundo: Want more? Beg for it.
Aiden, stern and severe but tender only to you: Darling, come find me tonight, and I'll make sure you have the most unforgettable evening.
Loyal and stoic bodyguard Docker: Miss Chloe, would you kindly remove your hand from my buttocks?
Sweet and charming Karswell: Sister, I want to be completely yours. Will you accept me?

Willa has lived her whole life as the cursed girl—wolfless, whispered about, and unwanted. With a slumbering wolf trapped inside her by ancient poison, she’s been running from fear and superstition since birth. Now, nearing her eighteenth birthday and the legendary EverNight full moon, she dares to hope for freedom. A fresh start in the Gemini Crescent Pack introduces her to Alpha Kirsch—strong, kind, and everything a future Luna should want. But one moonlit encounter with a mysterious rogue alpha, Taran Evernight, awakens more than just passion—it awakens destiny. Torn between two powerful men, hunted by dark forces, and caught in the storm of a rising war, Willa’s transformation will force the entire pack to face ancient truths. When her wolf finally rises, her heart must choose a path not bound by tradition. Can Willa truly belong in a world that was never ready for a cursed girl... or does her power lie in rewriting the story everyone feared?

Underestimated…

That is what I have been almost all my life just because I am a female, a woman, a lady... but I understand… this world is filled with egotistic and chauvinistic men that need to be taught a lesson and I am more than happy to do so…

My life has never been all fun and roses… I still had my mum and brothers but it will never be the same without my father. I may be of age. Far past the finding your mate age but that doesn’t mean I am in a hurry to get a mate not that I don’t want one. I do but I’m just not in a hurry.

But the goddess ad fate as always did the exact opposite of what my heart desired… they brought my mate to my doorstep and I took it with a determined heart but I was in for a surprise.

My mate wanted another yet he didn’t want to let me go. He wanted to eat his cake and have it. Forgetting that life doesn’t work that way. He welcomed me into his home and pack with a happy face yet I was being disrespected, ridiculed and pitied behind my back.

I may act ignorant but I’m no fool. I like to plan my actions before I take it so that I would be well prepared for the consequences that may follow. And as usual my new pack comes first before my needs but that doesn’t stop me from showing my mate that he messed with the wrong bitch.

Because I was named CHAOS for a reason. I am going to tear into his conscience and torment the living daylights out of him for I may be a bitch.

But I am nobody’s bitch…

I clasped my hands over my bare breast as the old emperor pressed on me, trying to rape me, a 14 year old girl. They called me the cursed concubine. “You killed your mother at birth,” they claim. Even my father sold me for a piece of dirt to the Emperor with an appetite for young girls like me.

And then, they blamed me for his illness. "Your presence here has only brought suffering and pain in the palace."

"A lowlife like you doesn't deserve any form of dignity!"

They stripped me, tied my thorn cloth around my neck like a leash and pulled me like a common dog.

"Now woof! woof! Like a sick dog you are!"

I was waiting to die.

Then the prince returned.

Fresh from a decade-long war with werewolves, drenched in blood and victory, he shattered the palace silence by defending me—the woman everyone else wanted erased.

All I wanted was gratitude.

What I got was a night in his chambers… and secrets powerful enough to bring an empire to its knees.

I thought I was a curse.

A liability.

A plague.

But the prince awakened something far more dangerous.

And this palace will learn—

I was never weak. I was only unclaimed

One horny mistake cost me my life.

I was just an antisocial college virgin who was equally obsessed with werewolf books as my friend Cleo. But it took one night walking through campus, arguing about the latest werewolf book, for everything to change.

I got hit by a car and transmigrated into a barbarian werewolf world as the villain's daughter.

I’m meant to be the villain of the story, except now I have been captured by Rygar Drathern Skarr, the barbarian Alpha of the South, who has sworn vengeance on me and my father. Trapped in a savage, ancient, magical world, death seemed inevitable.
Until the powers of the full moon intervened.

“The only way out,” they say, “…is a contract marriage to appease the god.

“...you must mate rigorously on the Cliff of the Queens…a naked ride of pleasure with Rygar, Alpha of the park.”

“Marry the Alpha who wants you dead… or die as the villain you were born to be.”

He chuckled "so responsive baby? Your body is so eager to have me huh? Yet you kept refusing me while your body knows who does it belong to, so loyal"

I can't control my body reaction. I am trapped with this beast of a man.

God please help me.

"Don't worry I will take care of you beautiful" he tilted my head and kissed me hard.

After being heartbroken by the campus hunk, Sandra drowned herself in misery until the V-Day night when she found a stranger and lost herself to him. When the effect of alcohol washed off she ran away without looking back. She thought it was a one night fling yet she was about to get the biggest surprise of her life. When the stranger appeared again kidnapping her in the broad daylight she knew she was stuck yet the place was beyond her imagination. The man she thought she could forget after the heated passion, was not something ordinary but the big bad alpha of the werewolf clan? What would she do when the alpha claims for himself?

Eclipsed Destiny follows the journey of Celia, a young, unaware werewolf who discovers her extraordinary bloodline after being rejected by her pack. As an orphan, she was raised by humans with no knowledge of her heritage. However, after an attack by a rival pack, Celia is forced to flee, eventually finding refuge in the mysterious, dangerous world of Aziel, the Alpha of the strongest pack in the territory.

Aziel, powerful yet tormented by his past, discovers Celia is not only his fated mate but also possesses a rare bloodline that could shift the balance of power among the packs. However, her presence awakens more than just their bond—it sparks a deadly game of power, revenge, and betrayal.

As Celia grapples with the revelation of her true nature and Aziel’s dark past, they are drawn into a fight for survival against the rogues, traitors, and political enemies bent on controlling the pack. The tension between them builds, complicated by Aziel’s manipulative tactics and the emotional turmoil caused by their forbidden attraction. What began as a search for safety becomes a dangerous dance of manipulation, raw desire, and revenge.

Through battles, deceit, and their evolving relationship, Celia must come to terms with her identity and the devastating truth of her lineage while learning to wield the power she’s been born to claim. Her destiny, intertwined with Aziel’s, might either save their world or destroy it entirely.

After the night of her mistaken encounter with the ruthless billionaire Brandon, Galena faces a series of so many near-death experiences; from her ex-boyfriend, who tries to blackmail her with an old, daunting secret, from Freya,, Brandon’s fiancée who would do anything to get rid of her, and Roland Bones, who wants to spit the blood of vengeance on her face, because of her father.

She hates Brandon for taking advantage of her and then calling it “help”, but Brandon on the other hand thinks she’s only a slut, because his assistant had sent her to him on the night he was poisoned with an aphrodisiac as a slut. They both have different views about each other, but this is solely caused by Lucavo, Brandon’s assistant, who had set them up as the only option he had left to save Brandon on that night.

Despite her hatred and arrogance towards Brandon, he always saw it as his responsibility to protect her at all costs. He felt entitled to her for saving his life, and his over-bearing guardedness over her felt suffocating, that she had to escape to an Island in Florida, in the hopes that she would be finally away from him, Freya, and everyone else.

She is unaware of what awaits her in Florida, as Freya follows her there to execute her well laid out plans against her. When she thinks she’s over one enemy, Ethan, her ex-boyfriend, and her best friend that he cheated with lodge at the same hotel that she works at.

Afterwards, she finds out that she is pregnant. Will she reveal to Brandon that the baby was his? And will they ever find out the circumstances surrounding their mistaken encounter to be a big set up from the unsuspecting Lucavo?

In exchange for her friend's life, A ruthless billionaire asked her to play a game. A game that is far more intense than a simple crossword puzzle she solves every Sunday, a game that is more challenging than the contents of a chessboard, a game that is so intimate that she can't help falling in love with him.

When her friend accidentally gets an important piece of a hard drive that belongs to that sexy billionaire, he uses her vulnerability in the game.

"Play a game with me," he said in his thick British accent,
"What game?"
A smirk plastered over his face, "Seduction" he completes with a mischievous grin as leans against the wall, not taking his eyes off of her,

A game that demands more than attraction, filled with raw desires for each other Veronica is not only tempted by that man but after one game she is lust over heels for him.

Passion, desirability, temptation, and Seduction left her on the verge of finding the one.

Struggling journalist Holly Winters is invited to the billionaire's Christmas Gala. The billionaire disappears, leaving her to face a high-stakes treasure hunt with riddles, secrets, and a mysterious catastrophe that she needs to prevent before midnight on Christmas Eve. In a battle of time and danger, Holly works with an unlikely team of strangers to save the day and herself. Perfect for suspenseful mystery fans and festive thrillers!

“Say it, Payton! Ask me to make you come and you will come like you’ve never come before.” He promises me. As he is saying this, his fingers are tracing the tiny triangle of my underwear.
“Please Jake. Now. Make me come.” I plead.
Payton has been a good girl her whole life. She just wants to get out of her mother and stepfather’s house and get her own life. What she doesn’t expect is a long-lost step-brother crashing into their lives and becomes her roomie. It’s true that he is an ex-Marine with an eight pack, but he is also a grease monkey biker who likes to talk dirty to her. His words make her quiver in anticipation, and his hands make her body twitches and spasms.

Disclaimer: 18+ (Violence Included)
Beneath the Full Moon, Desire Awakens…
Claire Hawthorne has spent her life studying the wild, drawn to the mysteries of the wolves she protects. But when she crosses paths with Devon Sinclair—a dangerously magnetic billionaire with a primal secret—her world shifts in ways she never imagined.
Devon is more than just ruthless in business—he’s the Alpha of a hidden world, one ruled by instincts, power, and an ancient curse. Claire shouldn’t crave him, shouldn’t feel the undeniable pull between them. But fate has other plans.

As their passion ignites, enemies close in. A deadly conspiracy threatens to expose Devon’s true nature, forcing Claire to choose between the world she knows and the one she’s destined for. With betrayal lurking in the shadows and the full moon rising, their love could either break the curse—or doom them both.

He’s the predator. She’s the temptation. And under the moon’s spell, nothing is safe.

Raelyn is stuck in an abusive marriage, trying to figure out a way out when she runs into the charismatic boss of her husband. Unbeknownst to her, Torin Vilkas is her mate and the Alpha of his pack and has been looking for his Luna for years.Raelyn's human nature prevents her from experiencing the mate bond, yet she finds herself drawn to Torin. Despite those feelings, she tries to stay loyal to her husband.Alpha Torin must find a way to make his married mate fall in love with him and get her away from her husband once and for all.

Submitting to the lead singer

Tamia is a shy, ordinary girl living in Los Angeles, often teased by her peers because she's not up on the latest trends.

A trip to the mall with her friends turns into a chance encounter with the lead singer of a boyband (Jason Draper)- but Tamia has no idea who he is.

The two become fast friends, as Jason is relieved to meet someone who doesn't know anything about his fame. But what happens when Jason's identity is revealed?

*This story is told from two points of view.

Marrying Axel Armand, a powerful billionaire CEO, was supposed to be the pinnacle of happiness. But everything shattered when his former lover returned to his life. The wife became nothing more than a name on a marriage certificate.
When a terrible accident nearly claimed her life, Axel chose to stay by another woman’s side. Even when a miscarriage destroyed her last hope, he remained indifferent. Behind the luxury and the title of a CEO’s wife, she endured her pain alone.
In the world of business, Axel never loses. But in marriage, he lost everything—especially the love he himself destroyed.

Felicia believed her marriage to Wilson was a perfect love story—until one day everything shattered when she discovered that her husband was having an affair with another woman. Her heart broke, and her pride was deeply wounded. In anger and desperation, Felicia made a decision she had never imagined before: to repay betrayal with betrayal.
On a night filled with overwhelming emotions and alcohol, Felicia accidentally bumped into a stranger. That unexpected encounter turned into a single night that would change her life forever.
A few weeks later, Felicia was shocked to discover that she was pregnant.
But the real shock came when she learned the man’s true identity—he was the husband of the woman who had been having an affair with Wilson, her own husband.

They call Alpha King Aethern a walking catastrophe—too powerful to challenge, too cold to be pitied, too cursed to be loved. Every Omega ever summoned to his palace left with a shattered soul… or never left at all.
I was supposed to be one of them.
A defective Omega, unwanted and burdened by debt. Handed over by my own family to save the clan’s name.
One night before that king should have been the end of my life.
But what happened was far worse.
He didn’t kill me.
He marked me.
His touch was not tenderness—it was command.
His gaze was not desire—it was absolute possession.
Aethern does not love.
He conquers.
He takes what he wants, and destroys it if he must.