8056 Book(s) Related to the cold and the beautiful

Ice slammed through my veins.
My throat locked up, crushed by an invisible fist. My body convulsed violently, mouth gaping open and shut, but no air came.
Through blurring vision, I saw my polished stepbrother Damien standing there, watching his watch—counting down the seconds I had left.
And Sophie—that scholarship kid who used to sob over dead ants—stood holding the empty syringe, her smile twisted and ugly. "Don't worry, Charlotte. I'll take real good care of your Ivy spot and your boyfriend."
The darkness swallowed me whole.

47 deaths.
48 iterations.
He sold his brother a death trap and called it a farm.
When the dead rose, the experiment began—and the only way out was through.

Kael ruined my life, drained my divine blood, and framed me for murder in my past life. Given a second chance, I reject his fake tenderness and tear down every lie he built. The almighty Dark Duke who once played with my life now craves only my mercy. He abandons his army, destroys his status, and begs for my punishment. I end his tyranny, chain him with my golden blood, and turn my worst tormentor into my most obedient hound.

Oak Creek thinks my brother, Cole, is a saint. He saved the family legacy and adopted the orphaned daughter of a killer out of the goodness of his heart.
What they don’t know is the price of his halo: Me.
To keep his 'good guy' image, he sacrificed his real sister. He gave her my bed, my home, and my parents.
When I was driven out of town, sleeping in a vandalized trailer, he left me a note: Come home and apologize.
I did come back. But not to apologize.
I'm holding the microphone at the town's biggest festival, looking down at the two thousand people who threw trash at me.
I have a stack of receipts, an unedited tape, and the truth about how my parents really died.
Are you ready to meet the real Hale family?

Five years ago, on our wedding day, my fiancée Vivian was in the bridal suite fucking my best man.
Five years later, I returned to New York with my wife—the most powerful Mafia matriarch in Naples. At Atelier Milano, Brandon, the same "best man" who betrayed me, fawned over my custom-tailored suit, groveling to the staff about how desperately he wanted to meet the legendary Mr. Salvatore.
He had no idea...
The man he'd once written off as a pathetic loser was the very person he was now begging to impress.

Married for years, I caught my husband in bed with another woman.
He had nothing at all once; it was only after being with me that he became the CEO of a company and made his fortune.
I asked for a divorce, and he flew into a rage and locked me in a dog cage.
But what he never saw coming was that I had long been ready to take my revenge.

To save my dying brother, I signed a million-dollar contract: sleep with a comatose billionaire to secure an heir. My boyfriend swore it was just a harmless formality. One night. One permanently locked door. But as I nervously approached the mattress, the paralyzed heir suddenly opened his eyes. And he whispered a terrifying warning...

On our one-year anniversary, my husband Julian gifted me an antique ring.
Putting it on cost me everything.
I miscarried, grew paralyzed, and rapidly withered into a husk. And Julian? He convinced everyone that the trauma had simply driven a grieving mother insane.
Eventually, even I believed him.
It wasn’t until the moment of my murder that the truth finally clicked.
The ring wasn't a blessing; it was a parasitic siphon.
Then, I opened my eyes—
I was back at the anniversary dinner.

The adoptive brother I'd been secretly in love with for a decade took my virginity on the night of my twentieth birthday, fueled by alcohol.

I thought I had finally found love.

Until I stood outside his half-open apartment door and heard his teammates mocking me.

"Damn, Dax, you actually slept with Elara? That boring good girl?"

My hand froze mid-air above the doorknob.

Dax's tone was dripping with contempt. "Look closely at her face. It's exactly like Cassandra's, isn't it?"

"It's no big deal. She revolves around me every single day. All it took was crooking a finger."

"With Cassandra gone, she's the perfect stand-in to kill time."

The room instantly erupted into a fit of unbridled, mocking laughter.

I dug my nails fiercely into my palms, opened my phone, and found the email I had deliberately ignored for a month.

[Florence Academy of Fine Arts — Exchange Program Confirmation]

Three years ago, my best friend Juliana Pierce was raped and jumped from a twelve-story building. I was there. I saw everything. I know exactly who did it.

Alexander Knight—Juliana's boyfriend, brilliant scientist, the man I've secretly loved for seven years—has spent every moment since hunting for answers. He believes I'm shielding a predator. He's dedicated his life to making mine hell.

Now I'm dying of ALS, and Alexander's dragged my broken body onto his "Memory Judgment Stage" for the world to see. His new technology can rip memories straight from my brain and broadcast them as holograms.

"Tell them who killed Juliana," he shouted.

I refuse. So he cranks up the machine, letting the neural probes tear through my dying brain. My hand shatters. My body convulses. But I won't break.

Until the memories start bleeding out anyway.

And when Alexander sees the rapist's face—Completely loses his mind.

Everyone said I was the happiest woman of the Northern Plains Clan, blessed with the purest love from Eric, the Wolf King.
Then my wolf let out a tormented howl.
Through the soul bond of fated mates, I felt it clearly—
my husband held my maid in his arms, drowning in desperate lust.
That nourishing tonic I’d drunk for three years, which I’d believed was filled with his affection, had only been brewed to keep me barren all along.
"Eric, I want you..."
"All of me is yours, my love. Bear our cub soon."
Those sweet whispers I once held dear shattered me to pieces in an instant.
The whole clan praised us as the perfect pair.
Yet who could have imagined this marriage had been built entirely on lies from the very start?
Since he is such a master of pretense, I suppose it’s time I put on a show of my own.
I will expose the true face of this flawless husband for everyone to see.

"They said I was just a piece of trash, only fit to be a substitute bride for the lunatic Abyssal Dragon Duke." I smirked, twisting the bone bracelet that sealed my venomous power. My fake sister wept pitifully, "Visenya, at worst, I'll bear the Duke's wrath myself." Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea. When the bloodthirsty Duke finally cornered me, he didn't tear me apart. Instead, he kissed my fingertips and chuckled. "So, my little bride, shall we slaughter the Emperor and take the throne for fun?" "Deal," I smiled. "But if you drag me down, I'll kill you too."

My fiancé was going to humiliate me at our own wedding.

I know because I heard him think it.

I'm Isabella Rossi — mafia heiress, future bride to Lorenzo Falcone, the golden boy of New York's underworld. Our marriage was supposed to unite two empires.

I also have a secret. I can read minds. But only when people want to use me, hurt me, or destroy me.

Lorenzo's thoughts had been silent for three years. I thought that meant he loved me.

The night before the wedding, I finally heard him. The mistress he'd planted in the crowd. The fake pregnancy reveal. The plan to humiliate me at the altar so he could play the victim — and steal my family's power in the chaos.

I was born able to see threads tying certain people to one another. A thin red thread stretched right above Mom and Dad’s heads.
I hurried over to Mom at once. “Mom, why is there a red thread connecting you and Dad?”
Mom laughed when she heard me, booping my nose fondly.
“That’s proof that Daddy loves me.”
Later, at our family gathering, Aunt Celia brought me a present just like she always did.
“Luna? Come see what Auntie brought you.”
I trotted over and found a cloth doll.
Just then, Dad walked up, knelt down beside me, and stroked my head.
“Luna, what do you say?”
I glanced up at Dad, then turned to look at Aunt Celia.
Little me was filled with huge confusion.
“It’s weird. Why is there such a thick red thread connecting Dad and Celia?”

Landon Rhodes and I grew up together, both dreaming of becoming top chefs. But I knew he was the one with a palate kissed by God.

So when Rowan Stone, this street-rat punk, got her claws into him, I took the drinks, the smoke, the slaps for him. When he wanted to skip the National Young Chefs Competition to stay with her drunk ass, I dragged him back to the culinary lab.

He won the championship, got recruited by a three-star Michelin restaurant, graduated and made millions. I became the most invisible prep cook in his kitchen.

Until Rowan wrapped her car around a pole during one of her episodes, and he lured me into a basement.

"This is all your fault! If you'd minded your own damn business, she'd still be alive!"

His foot came down on my right hand. Bones cracking. My fingers ground to pulp.

All those 5 AM trips to the fish market for him. All those nights watching stock simmer for forty-eight hours straight. All the praise he soaked up at final practicals. My sacrifices, and all I got in return was his hatred.

"These worthless hands that can only cut vegetables deserve to rot in the ground with her."

The pain swallowed me whole.

When I wake up again, I'm back to that afternoon when he said he was going to the bar to find her.

This time, I won't stop him.

At seven years old, he pulled me from the rapids—and for the eleven years that followed, I loved this man I called "Uncle."

Then Sophia appeared. She accused me of pushing her down the stairs, and Michael didn't spare me so much as a glance before throwing me out into the storm. I knocked until my hands were raw and bleeding. He never opened the door.

Three years later, he showed up at my workplace, demanding I "come home" with him. His pregnant girlfriend flaunted a twelve-week ultrasound, cooing about how the baby already "looked just like him"—then staged yet another fall, told yet another lie, let out yet another shriek, casting me once more as the heartless monster.

But this time, I won't beg.

This time, I know secrets they don't.

Because that miscarriage three years ago? That baby? That ultrasound?

None of it was real.

The question is—how much has Michael already lost, and can he see the truth before the one person who ever truly loved him is gone for good?

That was supposed to be one of the most anticipated days of my life—the wedding of my best friend, Sarah.
But when I put on my bridesmaid dress, she called me a bitch.
"Get out." Sarah looked at me like I was trash.
"I don't want to see you at my wedding."
I stood frozen in place, staring down at the broken Cartier bracelet she had given me, now lying scattered on the floor.

I'm a blind girl, and I've always been close with the old lady living next door.
One day, I caught the smell of blood coming from her apartment.
Worried something had happened to her, I pushed her door open—and instantly realized my mistake.
I had walked right into a murder scene.
The killer was still there.
I had to take a chance.
Betting that my pale, sightless eyes could fool those blood-crazed ones.
I stepped into the blood-soaked room, smiled toward where the body lay, and called out,
"Ma'am, the store has oranges on sale—I brought some over for you..."

I'm a forensic audio specialist. I make a living digging up the truths people deliberately erase from static and noise.
My 19-year-old brother was accused of pushing a billionaire's bride to her death at her wedding.
The police presented their "smoking gun" recording. I heard exactly twelve seconds missing from it.
Those twelve seconds hold the truth about how the bride really died—and the billionaire family's dark secret that will get both me and my brother killed.
They smashed my equipment, threatened my life, bribed the cops, and tried to bury the truth forever.
But what they don't know is—
Some voices refuse to stay silent. Even when they're cut out.

I chased after my first love, Joe, for years and finally worked up the courage to confess—only to overhear him plotting to get me drunk as a plaything.
Just when I was in utter despair, his mafia brother, David, showed up and saved me from deep sorrow. He treated me gently like I was made of glass, gifted me a private estate, got down on one knee and proposed, saying he'd had a crush on me for years.
I thought I'd finally escaped hell and found my one true love—until his “lover” Ann came back with a boy who looked exactly like him and stole every bit of his attention.
David swore Ann was just my stand-in, but he kept leaving me for her again and again, even throwing himself in front of bullets for her in a shootout, saying, “For you, I can risk my life.”

In my past life, I died in a freezing, damp basement.
The person who destroyed me was Evelina, the daughter of my father’s mistress. She set a trap at a charity gala, dragged my reputation through the mud, and forced me into a hellish marriage—all so she could strip away everything that rightfully belonged to me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty-two. The gala that sealed my fate was happening tonight.
Before the banquet officially began, I seamlessly swapped two champagne flutes, handing her meticulously woven trap right back to her. When the scandal detonated, sending shockwaves through the ballroom, my eyes landed on Killian—the Vance family's notoriously cold-blooded illegitimate son.
The trust fund my mother left me was still firmly under my control. I walked straight up to him and laid my chips on the table.
My enemies had retreated to the shadows, waiting to strike back. But I was going to use their own conspiracies as stepping stones, clawing back everything I owned, one piece at a time.

My brother chose my enemy, and the man I loved joined forces with her to sell me into a club.
Pregnancy, miscarriage, imprisonment, beatings—every cry for help I made was dismissed as "just an act."
It wasn't until I was truly dead that they lost their minds, dropping to their knees at my grave and sobbing that they were sorry.
But by then, I could no longer hear them.

At the family dinner, a Wall Street rising star flaunted his power in front of me, boasting that he was the chief agent of the "Godfather of the Underworld."
My ex-wife's family fawned over me like dogs, pointing their fingers at me and taunting, "You spineless, gigolo trash, you're not even worthy to carry Mr. Victor's shoes!"
Victor, even more smug, turned on speakerphone, trying to use my privileges to curry favor with my wife.
I stood silently in the corner, coldly pressing a blood-red command: [Permanently Delete Account].
The next second, the system's cold pronouncement came through his phone: "Warning, you have overstepped your authority and have been banned across the entire network!"
The room fell silent instantly.
They had no idea that I was the true Godfather, the one who controlled a multi-billion dollar empire and ruled the Western underworld!

On the execution platform, my noble and beautiful wife used her dagger to carve open my chest.
My nominal adopted son pressed a red-hot iron into my skin, branding me with the "F"-class mark of the lowest outcast, draining my transcendent bloodline dry.
"The Storm Kingdom has no use for a cripple with zero beast-spirit affinity. You belong rotting in the abyss!"
They cut the chains and kicked me into the Black Abyss—a place from which no one returns—then turned to carve up my throne.
They thought I was as good as dead.
They had no idea that the deepest darkness of that abyss harbored the most terrifying ancient demon in existence.
Two weeks later, as they raised their glasses to toast the new king's coronation, I kicked down the castle gates, wielding the ember-fire of annihilation and a tide of ten thousand beasts.
Looking down at the woman who once stood so high above me, now groveling in the mud and begging for mercy, I tossed the bloodstained broken blade onto the hem of her dress:
"Remember this forever—it was you who took a nobody you crushed beneath your feet and turned him into a king you'll kneel before and never win back. Now, hand over your lives."

I loved Finley for two years.
Until 1:00 AM on a Tuesday, when his best friend, Orion, sent me a half-naked photo and a jarring voice note."
If I actually bag her, don't go flipping out on me. A deal's a deal."
I booked the first flight out to confront him, only to catch the boy I loved naked and thrusting into another woman.
But that wasn't even the part that broke me.
When my roommate bypassed the hockey team's private Discord server, I found a channel named: #locker-room-bets.
There was my boyfriend, typing the words that shattered my world: "She's boring... She's like a lost puppy, you can't shake her... Play with her all you want."
My loyalty and two years of my life were nothing but a sick joke.
The entire hockey team had put money down on when I would willingly spread my legs for his best friend.

I used to believe the most beautiful sound in the world was a baby's first cry.

Until I watched my three children die, one by one, at the hands of a woman with the sweetest smile.

Her name was Isabella, my husband's cousin. She would tenderly offer tissues after my miscarriages, frantically call for help when I fell down the stairs, thoughtfully make soup to comfort me after I lost each child.

She was such a talented actress. So convincing that even my mafia don husband said, "Isabella is more suited to be the lady of this house than you are."

But they didn't know—

A docile sheep, once it learns the wolf's rules, becomes far more dangerous than any real wolf.

When Dominick smashed Antonio's skull with the holy chalice, when Isabella screamed through her miscarriage in the basement, when blood splattered across the Virgin Mary's face...

No matter how far I ran, no matter how deep I hid, I knew one truth… He would always find me.

Knock. Knock.

I jolted up from my sitting position, with my heart hammering in my chest.

Just as I was saying... He had found me.

But by the time he broke down the rickety door, I was already standing and facing him with a knife to my wrist.

I'd rather die than return home with him as his mate.


Eve thought she and her mother had successfully escaped her abusive father by getting married to the former Alpha of a pack far away from where they lived.

But all her hopes were cut short the moment she realized her new stepbrother, Alpha Saint, who was also the current Alpha of her new pack, was the same man she had a one-night stand with eight months ago, along with his best friend, Beta Kyrie. And on that fateful night, she had stolen very valuable items from these men.

Hated and controlled by her stepbrother, who saw her as nothing but a thieving whore, Eve decided to find solace in Kyrie, who was already falling madly in love with her. But Saint would rather fight his bestfriend to the death than let him anywhere close to the woman he was secretly obsessed with from the day he set eyes on her.

All hell was let loose when Eve turned twenty-one and found out that not only was she mated to the man she loved and desired – Kyrie. She was also mated to her overly possessive stepbrother, whom she dreaded with her life.


TRIGGER WARNING!

This is a dark romance novel, which might contain some unsettling themes rated 18+. It is everything dark and forbidden. Please, be guided.

LISA
I was supposed to hate Tobias Thomas. Everyone else did.
The arrogant quarterback with the perfect smile, the cruel mouth, and a talent for ruining lives—especially mine.
So I made a plan. My bully would fall in love with me.
He would finally understand what it felt like to be the one left bleeding.
I just never imagined I’d be the one who needed redemption too.
Somewhere along the way, I forgot revenge had an expiration date.
I fell for him too.
And for eight months, I loved the boy who wasn’t supposed to have a heart.
Until one accident erased me from his life.
Now he looks at me like we’ve never met.
Like he’s never kissed me.
Like he never begged me to stay.
Everyone says this is my chance to move on.
Maybe they’re right.
Because making Tobias Thomas fall in love with me once nearly broke me.
Making him do it again?
That might destroy me.
Especially if he ever remembers why I wanted revenge in the first place.

TOBIAS
Everyone keeps telling me I’ve forgotten pieces of my life.They’re right.
Because every time I look at Lisa…
It feels like my heart knows something my mind doesn’t.
She avoids me.
Lies to me.
Looks at me like I’m holding the weapon that ruined her life.
Yet I can’t stop chasing someone I don’t even remember.
Not when I keep dreaming about a girl whose face I can’t quite see.
Not when my hands know exactly how she fits against me…
Even if my mind insists we’ve never touched.
Something happened before my accident.
Something everyone is hiding.
And if I have to tear my own life apart to remember it…
Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

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."

I don’t remember who I am. Not where I came from. Not who I can trust.
All I know is that I woke up at a party, surrounded by strangers—until Killian, Khai, Elijah, and Asher, four hot dragons, stepped in to help me. There’s something about them that makes me feel safe around them. And when they tell I'm their fated mate, I finally feel like I can breathe again.
But it’s not that simple.
They tell me one thing, but I can feel it—they’re holding back. They promised me no lies, but when I found out one of them is engaged, I ran. I panicked. And it turned out to be my biggest mistake.
Because I fell into the hands of some very dangerous people.
Now, all I can do is hope they come for me.
And if they don’t… I’ll have to fight my way out.
And that won’t be easy, especially when I’m trapped on a ship surrounded by a magical mist.


“See what you are doing to me, Muffin?” I nod, my eyes fixed on the tip of his dick. I want to taste him. “Do you want to help me feel good?”
I swallow hard. “I don’t think that will fit inside me,” I squeak.
The corners of his mouth twitch. “You will take every inch of my cock, because you are my sweet girl and you want to please me.”
My clit throbs again.
Khai inhales deeply. “Fuck, Muffin. You’re wet again.”

I pursued Kaelzen, Alpha of the Frostfang Tribe, for four years and was about to marry him, only to expose his deception shortly before the wedding. A serious head injury erased all my memories of him. My family arranged a new marriage with the Duskthorn Tribe heir, and I agreed, planning to leave once the Ash Gate opens in seven days. Unaware of my memory loss, Kaelzen still treats me arrogantly, yet he is just a stranger to me now.

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

In my last life, my parents favored my younger brother. They promised him to the angel who would remain on the surface, and shoved me to an abyssal demon.
When the apocalypse came, the angel burned through her divine power and fell. I took my family in out of kindness, and they repaid me with a bowl of poisoned soup.
When I opened my eyes again, our whole family had reincarnated.
This time, my parents couldn’t wait to push my brother into the demon’s arms, dreaming of living off him inside the abyssal lair.
I watched them sign the shadow contract like they were grabbing a priceless treasure, then took the rejected holy-light angel without hesitation.
They had no idea the Abyss’s shelter is paid for in flesh and blood.
But an angel’s loyalty can raise an iron divine kingdom that never falls, even in this world-ending flood.

I never meant to want him. Gianni Rossetti—tattooed, dangerous, twice my age, and my best friend’s father.

He was supposed to be off-limits. Untouchable. The kind of man you only fantasize about when you’re alone in the dark with your hand between your thighs.

But the night I caught him eating another woman alive by the pool, I couldn’t look away.
And he knew it.
The moment his dark eyes locked on mine through the glass, I became prey. His filthy smirk promised one thing—he saw me touching myself to him, and he wasn’t about to let me forget it.

Now, every time I’m in his house, I can’t breathe without thinking of his mouth between my legs.
I left my cheating boyfriend behind, only to fall into something even more dangerous:
a man who could ruin me, break me, and make me beg for his cock while his own daughter sleeps in the next room.

He’s too old. Too powerful. Too forbidden.
But Gianni doesn’t ask—he takes.
And I don’t want him to stop.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold.
Mine's been chilling for five years.
The night James Reed kicked me out of his life, I was pregnant, penniless, and naive enough to believe love mattered more than money.
He taught me better. When you're bleeding out in the rain, clutching your stomach while your best friend laughs from his doorway, you learn exactly what you're worth to people like them.
Zero.
But the woman who nearly died that night? She stayed dead. The one who came back is someone else entirely.
Anna Quinn. Lost daughter of California's most powerful family. CEO of her own pharmaceutical empire. And the silent majority shareholder in James Reed's failing company.
He's about to learn what happens when you build an empire on stolen foundations. His marriage has cracks he doesn't see. And the investors keeping him afloat? They answer to me now.
He thinks he's untouchable. That my formula made him invincible.
But success built on stolen work has a way of crumbling when the original genius decides to pull the rug out.
I don't want him back.
I want him ruined.
And this time, I'm the one holding all the cards.

Stacy was a brilliant and beautiful girl in her days in Hillary High School, Everyone want to be friend with her.

She is one of the hottest girl in the School. She was indeed the Queen in the Hillary High.

Her Parents were business Tycoons. So they were super dopey Rich.

They were not always home and not always available though they provided her with more than enough money.

She sometimes lack parental care and this has always sadden her, she never got the love and attention she needed. She was a genius, always taking the First position.

She had a lot of admirers, boys always trying to woo her but she declines them and hates to be pestered. But Luckily that's gonna change as a matter of time.

It was a new day in Hillary High School. This day was the day of Resumption. Stacy was now in Grade 11 {SS2}, she had done well asusal in collecting most Prices at the Price giving day Emerging as the Overall Best Student, but she is ignorant of a New Rivalry.

As Stacy been the goddess of Hillary High.

One day, came a god

His name is.

My name is Arabella. I sold 20 years of my life to become a vampire’s attendant after my father’s death in order to help my family. I should have been scared of blood and fangs, but instead, I long for my master's touches.

What I didn't know was that my desire for him would bring me nothing but destruction.


“You taste delicious.” He licks his lips, pulling me closer to him.
The warmth of his skin against mine, and the soothing rhythm of his beating heart calms me a bit. I relax my shoulders and lie there with my head on his chest.
“Ara, I'm your master and it’s my responsibility to keep you safe, but I failed today.”
His words sound sincere, and I really wish I could believe him.
But all vampires are monsters.
He just happens to be the monster I wish I could trust.

My Vampire Master: A Contract of Blood and Lust is created by Angeline Hartwood, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

Are you single? Or married?

I’m single ma’am

Why would a beautiful girl like you be single?

Well, I’d say it’s because I have to work hard to fend for myself so I could meet up with my bills. So I really wouldn’t have time for relationships.

Well, I want to offer you a contract.

What contract ma’am?

I want you to get married to my son and produce heirs for my family, he’s the only child I have and I wouldn’t want our name to be dragged to the mud because of his refusal to get married.

I’m a dying woman, I’m battling with cancer and I have just one year left for me and I wouldn’t want him to be unmarried while I leave this earth.

I’m ready to pay you five hundred thousand dollars monthly (500,000 USD) for staying with my son and a million dollars when you produce an heir.

What?

“Morgan Rice has come up with what promises to be another brilliant series, immersing us in a fantasy of valor, honor, courage, magic and faith in your destiny. Morgan has managed again to produce a strong set of characters that make us cheer for them on every page.…Recommended for the permanent library of all readers that love a well-written fantasy.”--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (regarding Rise of the Dragons)From #1 Bestselling author Morgan Rice comes a sweeping new fantasy series. 17 year old Ceres, a beautiful, poor girl in the Empire city of Delos, lives the harsh and unforgiving life of a commoner. By day she delivers her father’s forged weapons to the palace training grounds, and by night she secretly trains with them, yearning to be a warrior in a land where girls are forbidden to fight. With her pending sale to slavehood, she is desperate.18 year old Prince Thanos despises everything his royal family stands for. He abhors their harsh treatment of the masses, especially the brutal competition—The Killings—that lies at the heart of the city. He yearns to break free from the restraints of his upbringing, yet he, a fine warrior, sees no way out.When Ceres stuns the court with her hidden powers, she finds herself wrongfully imprisoned, doomed to an even worse life than she could imagine. Thanos, smitten, must choose if he will risk it all for her. Yet, thrust into a world of duplicity and deadly secrets, Ceres quickly learns there are those who rule, and those who are their pawns. And that sometimes, being chosen is the worst that can happen.SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN tells an epic tale of tragic love, vengeance, betrayal, ambition, and destiny. Filled with unforgettable characters and heart-pounding action, it transports us into a world we will never forget, and makes us fall in love with fantasy all over again.Book #2 in OF CROWNS AND GLORY will be released soon!

The night my husband George took our five-year-old son to celebrate his mistress winning Best Actress, I found a video on his laptop that shattered everything.
On our seventh anniversary, after waiting hours for a husband who never came home, I made a decision that would destroy him forever.
I didn't confront him. I didn't file for divorce. I didn't beg him to choose me.
Instead, I chose to disappear.
When George came home with exotic wines and a designer dress, trying to cover his lies with expensive gifts, he had no idea he only had six days left with me.
Six days before my car would plunge off Riverside Bridge.
Six days before Brenda Taylor would cease to exist.

For seven years, I'd been the perfect wife. I'd survived the pain of childbirth, the changes to my body he could no longer love, and the slow death of our marriage while he built a new life with actress Candice Black and took our son along for the ride.
He thought I was too devoted to leave. Too broken to fight back. Too in love to see the truth.
But he was wrong.
I didn't leave him. I vanished.

And when my car goes over that bridge, when he realizes what he's lost, that will be the beginning of his end.
Because some betrayals don't deserve confrontation.
They deserve ghosts.

In my past life, I went into labor and they wheeled me into surgery. When I woke up, my stomach was flat. My baby was gone.

My husband held my hand, his eyes rimmed red, and told me I'd never been pregnant at all. He said the thing growing in me was a ten-pound tumor.

My own mother held me and cried, saying I'd wanted a baby so badly that I'd started imagining things.

The doctor pulled out my entire medical file. Even the head nurse, the one who'd felt my belly the night before and told me how healthy my pup was, looked at me with pity and swore she'd never seen me before in her life.

But I felt him kick. I heard his heartbeat. I'm sure of it.

I ran through that hospital barefoot, screaming, tearing through every room, grabbing every person who walked past me, until the enforcers dragged me off like I was some lunatic.

They chained me up and threw me in the deepest cell in the Abyss.

I rotted down there alone, half out of my mind, until I died.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the car, contractions ripping through me, on my way to Silverleaf Medical Center.

The baby is still kicking.