7595 Book(s) Related to the strain guillermo del toro

The car crash six months ago destroyed my body. I survive the agony only through the painkillers prescribed by my brother, Fletcher.
While shopping for my wedding dress, I simply swallowed a pill on schedule. My mother responded with a slap that made me spit blood. My father stormed in and kicked my ribs in without asking a single question.
I fled crying to my brother, only for him to grab me in disgust: "You are a disgrace to this family."
I called my fiancé. He rushed to the scene, took one look at the pill, and called the cops without hesitation: "The engagement is off. She makes me sick."
In just a few hours, I went from a bride-to-be to a death row inmate.
But as the gavel fell, I saw our family maid calmly swallow the exact same pill from the gallery…
I lunged at the railing, screaming at the judge. He leaned down, a chilling smile spreading across his face: "Linnea, this is all because…"

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts.

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the son I bled to birth stabbed my arm, screaming, "A bloody monster like you doesn't deserve to be my mom!"

I finally realized my entire life was a meticulously crafted scam.

With my organs rapidly failing and only ten days left to live, I stepped onto the edge of the balcony.

"You're right," I smiled at my husband and brother, watching the color completely drain from their faces. "Six years of my life isn't enough to apologize to her."

"So I'll pay you with my corpse."

"Riccardo, please! I beg you!"
My water broke ten minutes ago. Warm liquid streamed down my legs and slowly froze into ice on the ground beneath me.
He stood on the other side of the bulletproof glass. In his eyes, there was not a trace left of the man I had once loved with all my heart.
In the Bellanona Mafia family, bloodline surpasses everything, and the hierarchy of age is an unyielding iron rule: the firstborn son shall inherit the entire underworld empire.
My sister-in-law Sofia and I were both pregnant, our due dates merely one day apart.
To make sure his elder brother’s child seized the succession right first, my husband coldly chose to sacrifice our own flesh and blood.
"My brother’s child must be born first." Riccardo’s voice came over the intercom, colder and more piercing than bitter winter wind. "This is what you owe them."
He had not only locked me inside this icy cellar. Just moments ago, his men pinned me down ruthlessly and injected a dose of medicine into my vein, solely to forcefully halt my labor.
Writhing in agony, I hugged my heavily pregnant belly tightly with both arms.
I could distinctly feel the little life inside me, once kicking and struggling relentlessly, growing fainter and fainter.
I’m sorry, my baby… Mommy is so sorry for you.

This is a world where humans and fantasy races exist side by side. Werewolves move through city streets between glass towers, and every now and then, a pair of massive wings cuts through the clouds overhead. Twenty years ago, to secure the family's standing, the main house signed a contract with the Dragon Clan.

As the least favored daughter of a branch family, I was chosen to be the Dragon King's mate. The terms were spelled out plainly: if I couldn't get married within five years of coming of age, I'd have to go to Dragon territory and go through with the marriage.

For five years, every wedding I've planned has been blown up by my younger sister, Hannah.

This is year five. I'm finally in a wedding dress, about to marry Derek, the boy I grew up with.

What I didn't expect was that one hour before the ceremony, Hannah collapsed in the dressing room coughing up blood. She grabbed Derek's hand, crying, saying she wouldn't make it through the month.

And my parents are on either side of me, hands pressed down hard on my shoulders.

"Just let Hannah have the wedding. She's dying!"

What they don't know is that if I don't get married today, the Dragon envoys will come for me on the spot.

And I won't be coming back.

My son Emery scored a perfect SAT and got early admission to MIT Physics. Eighteen years old. His future was limitless.

My billionaire husband Reid's assistant—his mistress in everything but name—suggested Emery attend some garbage local business school instead. Inherit the empire. Fall in line.

Emery said no. Reid exploded.

He locked my son in the lumber yard and ordered him to split five tons of oak. "No water until he's done. That'll teach him respect."

The sun was brutal. My son's asthma attacked. I knelt before Reid's mistress and begged for his inhaler while Reid crushed my right hand—my surgeon's hand.

I got the inhaler and ran back as fast as I could.

But I was too late. My son was already dead.

In my last life, my younger brother made a contract with an S-rank ghost, but it turned out to be completely useless, while I contracted a B-rank ghost, the Starving Ghost, which could not only devour monsters but also consume other awakened humans' ghost servants to evolve.
Under my protection, my family went from scavenging for scraps to living in a luxury mansion inside the government safe zone.
But on the eve of a ghost tide attack, I was prepared to stay behind and defend the base while sending my parents, my sister, and my younger brother away first.
Instead, they killed me, all to take my Starving Ghost so they could have an easier time surviving on the road.
After I died, they didn't even have time to tame the Starving Ghost before it devoured every one of them.
When I opened my eyes again, I had somehow returned to the day we formed our ghost contracts, and this time, my younger brother chose the Starving Ghost.

The day the Gryphon army marched home in victory, my sister's husband came back safe. My husband, Tobias, died on the ice.

Everyone pitied me, and I believed them. I mourned him for years, handed over every resource the Elven Realm had to offer to Crown Prince Nathaniel, and helped him lock down his claim to the throne.

It took me years to find out the man who came back wasn't Nathaniel at all. It was my "dead" husband, Tobias.

He killed his own brother, stole his face with forbidden magic, all so he could marry my sister Sabrina and make her his queen, official and out in the open.

"Sabrina and I are the real thing. Pretending to be my brother, that was for the good of the kingdom."

They framed me for treason and threw me into the Pit of Judgment. As I burned, I watched the two of them hold each other while the kingdom cheered.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the army came home.

My sister begged me to stop grieving, tears in her eyes. "Nathaniel" swore he'd give me a life of luxury. The old king stood in front of everyone and promised to grant me anything I wanted.

This time, I didn't cry. I chose to remarry without a second thought.

Tobias thought wearing his brother's face was all it took to sit on that throne. What he didn't know was that without me, he never stood a chance of getting there at all.

The apocalyptic deluge came, and I rescued the entire village onto a cruise ship.

The villagers were deeply grateful to us.

But somehow a rumor spread—that I had a warehouse full of food and was refusing to feed them properly.

The villagers turned on me, hurling accusations left and right.

Helpless, I opened the warehouse to show them. There was barely anything left. But they still refused to believe me.

"Yu Lei! You must have hidden the food somewhere else!"

"That's right! He never really wanted to save us!"

They beat me with fists and feet, cursing me with every foul word they knew.

Then a gang of thugs stormed the ship.

Under their brutal rule, the entire village was enslaved. Young women became playthings. The children—their fate was even worse.

I tried to rally the villagers to fight back. But someone sold me out to the thugs, trading that information for a single full meal.

In the end, they beat me to death and tossed my body into the sea for the fish.

When I opened my eyes again, time had rewound to three days before the apocalypse. I immediately started packing, ready to get as far away from these ungrateful bastards as possible.

But the villagers were already crowded at my door, demanding I hand over the keys to the cruise ship.

It turned out I wasn't the only one who'd been reborn. The entire village had come back too.

I handed over the keys without a fuss.

After all, the System told me this time it would be a zombie apocalypse. What good was a ship?

On the eve of the apocalypse, magical beasts appeared in our world.
They possessed extraordinary abilities, and humans could master these powers by forming a contract with them.
In my previous life, my adopted brother chose a top-tier Wolf King pup.
But shortly after, the extreme heat apocalypse descended. The low-tier water snake I had contracted possessed the ability to conjure water and lower temperatures, inadvertently making me the envy of everyone.
Meanwhile, my brother’s Wolf King was universally despised for its excruciatingly slow growth and lack of immediate combat power.

Now, I have been reborn to the very day we chose our contracted beasts.
This time, my brother rushed ahead and snatched the water snake.
I know why.
He has been reborn, too.
But this apocalypse is not nearly as simple as he thinks!

Three weeks after my son's death, I found the blood-stained cloth doll meant to "ward off disaster" with his name stitched on it.

Right there, in the hands of my husband's mistress, who was giggling as she idly toyed with it.
 
"The psychic said my life force was too weak to keep the baby, and that I needed a substitute to take the curse."
 
"I only sewed Leo's name into the doll. I never imagined... he would actually get sick and die."
 
"Declan, do you think Leo traded his life for our baby's?"
 
Through the crack in the door, the same man who had sobbed until he passed out at the funeral was gently stroking his lover's belly. "He was just unlucky. As long as our baby is safe, that's all that matters."
 
I turned away, pulled up the invitation for Chief Medical Examiner from the International Criminal Court in The Hague that I had shelved for a month, and hit accept.

My husband's first love was in trouble.
When the news came, I was lying on the operating table.
Dr. Miller put down his scalpel and said to Dr. Johnson, "I'll leave my wife's surgery to you."

"If I don’t go now, I might regret it for the rest of my life."

With that, he turned and walked away.
Watching my husband's retreating figure, I couldn't hold back—tears fell.
The next second, the cold blade of a scalpel touched my skin.

Dr. Johnson spoke calmly, "Why the tears? With me here, you'll be fine."

My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.

"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."

I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.

He answers with a kick to the stomach.

For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.

His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.

"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."

Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.

"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."

No one answers him.

He has no idea. I already am.

The second the avalanche came down, I called my mate. Karl. Captain of the Pack Guard's First Squad.

He dug me out, carried me onto the helicopter, and told the pilot to take off before the second rescue team even got there.

He didn't know Delilah was buried in the same slide. The girl he'd never gotten over.

By the time they reached her, she'd been under the snow for three hours in twenty below.

Karl stood in the morgue all night.

He came back the next day and just gave me a small smile. "It wasn't your fault. You were carrying our pup. Of course you came first."

For a month after that, he was gentler than he'd ever been. He cleared his schedule to take me to every checkup. Cooked for me himself. Put the crib together, the dresser too. Every single thing in the nursery lined up exactly right.

I thought that avalanche had finally buried Delilah. That it had given him back to me.

Until the day I went into labor.

He sent every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room. There was a silver scalpel in his hand.

The moment he cut me open, I saw the red in his eyes.

Our pup was still crying, small and weak, and he never even looked. He threw us both into the incinerator.

"If it weren't for you, Delilah would still be alive. Your life for hers."

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the moment the avalanche hit.

At the scene of the car accident, my parents frantically scooped up my sister—who only had a scraped knee—then kicked me aside as I lay there dying.
"Don't be a burden to your sister. Just wait by the roadside and croak!"
They drove off without a second thought. In that moment, my heart turned to stone.
What they didn't know was that I didn't die. Instead, I got adopted by a top-tier professor and became a math prodigy worth tens of millions.
Two years later, when my birth parents went bankrupt and got on their knees begging me for a handout, I smiled coldly and played the recording of their attempted murder...

My fiancée's father called me a stray dog, worse than trash.
My rival forced me to crawl between his legs and trampled me into the mud.
They all thought I was just a piece of trash to be trampled on at will.
But they didn't know that I endured humiliation and hardship for a shocking secret order.

I was once the daughter of the Alpha of Dawn Pack.
After my parents were killed and I was kicked out of the Pack, I was left with nothing.
I was brought back to William’s Pack and became the one he treasured in the palm of his hand.
When the car accident happened, he shielded me with his body, saying he couldn’t live without me.

But after I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, all I wanted was to quietly leave and not burden him.
However, after I tried to escape from the wedding, he captured me and imprisoned me.
Refusing to eat and losing weight, it was just the toll of my illness.
But he thought I was intentionally torturing him.

When his "resurrected" ex-wife, Jessica, returned,
At the celebration banquet, I merely gagged once while eating.
He flipped the table, shoved garbage into my mouth, and screamed for me to die.
I hid in the bathroom, wrapped in his clothes, vomiting blood, and no medicine could stop the cold shivers.
For the first time, I called him and begged him to let me go.
But all I received was his scolding and the merciless hang-up.

I'm proud to say that this is book 3 to the Judas series. It follows the story of how the Alpha's of the infamous pack known as The Black Jewel Pack find their second chance mate after waiting over nine years to see if they had another one out there.

And since Zachary killed their first chance at having true love with a mate, can Levi and Jordan get him to see that he too deserves to be just as happy with this new opportunity to show the Moon Goddess how sorry he was for killing his first mate?

Or will he stand by his rejection and pretend she don't exist, and that he isn't envious of both his brothers for having what he craves more than life itself. The love of a woman.

But what will happen when he finally gives in and something happens to her? What happens when his old nemesis comes back to remind him why he can't ever be happy?

The man who was married to his first mate when he killed her before his eyes, the leader of thr Hunter's Rebellion against all Werewolves and Lycans alike.

Can the boys save her before it's too late? Or will they have to call in back up from people they didn't think he would need to call?

Follow the story to find out how Zachary, Lei and Jordan fare in this twister of a story.

In my past life, I personally dug up two alien meteorites, handing the blue one that granted "Frost Mastery" to my childhood friend, Mike. He repaid me by sealing me inside an ice wall, cursing me to "die like a piece of trash" in the minus 70-degree blizzard.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the initial blast site.
This time, I didn't even spare him a glance; I stuffed both meteorites into my pocket.
I transformed a missile silo into a doomsday bunker, brought my parents inside, and stockpiled ten years' worth of supplies.
When Mike arrived with a gang of thugs to smash my door down, I stood in the warm command center, watching half his face rot with frostbite on the monitor.
I didn't open the door.
This time, I am sending back the despair of my past life tenfold.

“I wonder why you aren’t good at bed? Is it the small penis or just the stamina?” she added and this time he dragged her by her hair and flew her across the room and she hit the window.

Despite bleeding, she didn’t stop but his anger just made her want to provoke him more. “Wow, little boy doesn’t want to admit he has problems in the bedroom?” she asked with a smirk.

Hendricks knew then and that if he got any closer to her he would rip her apart and later regret it...

Grace, a hybrid, her mate killed her entire pack and spared only her but for his own gain. he marked her forcefully, when Grace finally runs away from him she looks for a way to get rid of his mark.
She does find it but she has to pay a price, if they remove the mark then a part of Grace would go with it. But it’s a price she is willing to pay. The mark is removed then Grace becomes a shell of a person, she doesn’t feel love anymore and all she wants is to kill her so-called mate.

In the path of revenge, Grace finds her second chance mate, an Alpha prince, and she saves him as a prisoner. He is perfect and wants to be with her, but, Grace can’t ever love him back.

The price of getting rid of the mark is that she cant love anyone else, she is not capable of love...

Is she?

In Valmere, magic is ranked—and those without it are meant to be forgotten.

Serina has lived her entire life invisible in the city’s Lower Rings, where survival leaves no room for longing. But when she breaks into a forbidden shrine and awakens the legendary World-End Dragon, everything changes. The power burning beneath her skin is uncontrollable, intoxicating—and deadly.

Sent to eliminate her is Alaric Nightfall, the High Council’s most feared enforcer. Cold, devastatingly magnetic, and sworn to eradicate forbidden magic, Alaric has never hesitated before. Until Serina. From the moment their eyes meet, something dangerous ignites—an unspoken pull that coils tighter with every stolen glance, every charged moment where duty collides with desire.

Hunted by the Council and bound together by secrets neither can escape, Serina and Alaric are forced into a reluctant partnership that smolders with tension. Her raw fire threatens to unravel his perfect control, while his presence awakens a hunger she never knew she was allowed to feel.

Because when dragonfire stirs and hearts betray their orders, desire becomes the most powerful—and perilous—magic of all.

Mara Quinn doesn’t believe in fairy tales—only exhaustion, overdue rent, and clawing her way through nursing school one brutal shift at a time. Brooklyn has taught her one rule: no one saves you for free.

So when she finds a devastatingly beautiful stranger bleeding out in an alley, she does what nurses do. She helps. She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t fall for the way his voice roughens when he says no hospitals.

She should have let him die.

Lucien Dravayne—Ren to those foolish enough to get close—isn’t human. He’s an immortal werewolf–vampire hybrid, an ancient alpha who rules a supernatural empire hidden behind the Veil. For a thousand years, he’s been untouchable.

Until a sharp-tongued human nurse patches him together in her shabby apartment… and becomes his greatest liability.

Now Mara is marked as his weakness. Hunted by enemies who want to tear his kingdom apart, she’s dragged into a world of blood laws, pack politics, and a possessive alpha who insists he owes her his life.

She blames him for destroying everything she worked for.
He knows he’ll destroy the world to keep her breathing.

And when Mara is taken from his lands, Ren must choose between the empire he’s built over centuries…
or the human woman who was never meant to survive his darkness—let alone rule beside him.

"You look at me like it means something," Austin said. "Then you pull away like it scares you, Emily."

Austin Wood used to be the easiest person in my life.

Before the fight.
Before he begged me not to marry the wrong man.
Before I ignored him... and ended up getting left at the altar.

Now everyone thinks he's my fiancé.

The engagement is fake.
The wedding plans aren't.

Pretending should've been the easy part.

But Austin remembers everything.
I still react to everything.
And every fake touch feels a little too real.

The biggest danger isn't getting caught.

It's forgetting we were never supposed to fall in love.

My family let me die. My fiancé watched. My sister smiled.
I was the real daughter, dragged from the orphanage to donate my bone marrow, then thrown away like garbage. When the monsters came for the imposter, they shielded her and left me to rot.
But death wasn’t the end. It was a deal.
I woke with a system tethered to my pulse—one that trades public admiration for the power to survive.​ And behind these hands are two identities they never suspected: the legend whose music they worship, and the ghost in the machine who owns their secrets.
They think I’m back to beg for love.
They’re wrong. I’m here to collect.
This time, I won’t just take back my music and my name. I’ll make them need me—right before I watch them lose everything.
They wanted me erased.
I’m about to become the only name that matters.

THIS FANTASY ROMANCE IS RATED 18+ AND NOT SUITABLE FOR PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 18

Ever since Greg’s parents were gruesomely murdered by a radial alpha king by name Lord Mayor, he has been out to bring vengeance upon Lord Mayor and his household, and he would stop at nothing.
Meanwhile Greg has a mate, Sasha, whom he loves so much and on her eighteenth birthday after she scented him to be her mate she made a maddening revelation that would definitely spark up enmity between them.
What would be the fate of Greg now he knows that Lord Mayor is Sasha’s father and it is he that murdered his parents some time ago?
Would their Cinderella-love conquer all or would Greg’s vengeance say otherwise?
Their destiny has a role to play; either of them would decide. .
Let’s flip the pages to find out.

She saved his life. He gave his heart to the wrong woman.

Years ago, Evelyn—a fierce and loyal she-wolf—risked everything to save a broken stranger. That stranger was Alec, the destined Alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack.
But when he rose to power, Alec claimed her conniving stepsister, Miriam, as his fated mate… mistaking her for the one who'd saved him.

Shattered by betrayal and silenced by pride, Evelyn vanished into the shadows of her heartbreak. In the Silver Pine Pack, she rebuilt herself—stronger, wiser, and untouchable—rising to the rank of Beta under the watchful eye of Alpha Callum.
Her past was behind her… until it crashed into her world once more.

When Alec appears at a summit, their bond reignites—and so does the truth. As Miriam’s lies unravel, Alec will stop at nothing to reclaim the woman he should have never let go.
But Evelyn isn’t the girl he lost—she’s a warrior now, with scars he helped carve and a heart that refuses to be broken again.

What if the irritating man that Eve liked but also hated because of his arrogancy turned out to be her new boss at work?
Could Eve endure her internship there when Gery, the boss, kept looking for her mistakes to make her get fired?
Then, what if life's twists led them to an arranged marriage? Would they be able to come together or there would endless conflicts arise?

Bound by Shadow and Moonlight is a dark romantic fantasy about exile, forbidden magic, and a love born from survival.
When Princess Elara Thorneleaf touches the forbidden Nightroot Tree, she is cursed and stripped of her elven powers, transformed into a feared “Shadow Elf.” Branded an abomination by her own people, Elara is cast out and hunted as the shadow inside her slowly consumes her body and identity.

Her escape leads her beyond the borders of her homeland, where she encounters Cael Raithe, a renegade wizard exiled by the Wizard Guild for practicing forbidden shadow magic. Cael discovers that his unstable spells can temporarily suppress Elara’s curse, while her ancient elven blood stabilizes his volatile power. Bound by necessity, they form a dangerous pact and set out to find the legendary Moonlight Crystal—the only relic said to lift her curse.

Their journey takes them through treacherous swamps, ruined temples, and frozen mountain passes, pursued by elven hunters, Guild inquisitors, and dark wizards who covet Elara’s cursed power. As danger closes in, their fragile alliance deepens into forbidden love, forcing them to confront the truth behind her curse and choose between the worlds that rejected them—or a future forged together in shadow and moonlight.

Lucien Moreau has spent over four centuries mastering control. As a powerful, reclusive vampire and billionaire, he has accepted that eternity comes with one cruel limitation: monsters do not get families.

Then Isla Bennett crosses his path.

Human. Innocent. Untouched by love—and fiercely protective of the one thing she’s never given away. Drawn to Lucien despite every warning instinct, Isla awakens a hunger in him that has nothing to do with blood and everything to do with longing.

There is something different in her veins. Something that doesn’t weaken him in the sun. Something that calls to him not as prey, but as possibility.

Vampires cannot create life.

Until Isla.

As desire ignites between them, Lucien must fight his nature to protect the woman who could destroy everything he’s ever known—or give him the one thing eternity denied him. Isla must decide if trusting a monster with her first surrender is worth stepping into a world of shadows, danger, and forbidden love.

When the impossible happens and Isla carries a child born of blood and miracle, their passion becomes a battle for survival.

Because the night does not give up its secrets easily.

And some forever stories are written in crimson.

Six years ago, I died.
At least, that is what everyone believes.
I staged my death to escape a powerful family, a violent past, and the secrets that nearly destroyed me. Since then, I have lived quietly beneath a stolen name, careful never to give anyone a reason to look too closely.
Then my boss calls me into his office and places a photograph of my funeral on the desk.
He knows who I am.
Worse, he has known for years.
Instead of exposing me, he offers me a deal: pretend to be his fiancée, step back into the world I escaped, and help him uncover the person hunting everyone connected to my past.
I should refuse.
Especially because he belongs to the family I have spent six years blaming for my father’s murder.
But when bodies begin appearing, someone breaks into my home, and secrets from my childhood resurface, I realise hiding will not save me anymore.
Then we open my grave.
It was supposed to be empty.
It isn’t.
Someone was buried in my place.
And whoever put her there is finally coming back for me.

When tenacious journalist Vivienne Thorne infiltrates a secretive gathering to investigate a string of disappearances, she never expects to be captured by Damien Blackthorn—the enigmatic CEO of Blackthorn Industries who harbors a deadly secret: he's a vampire lord whose powers are mysteriously waning.
Instead of killing her, Damien makes Vivienne an impossible offer: marry him in a binding blood contract to help him keep control over his territory, or watch as everyone she loves becomes collateral damage in a brewing vampire civil war.
As their reluctant alliance evolves into dangerous attraction, Vivienne learns her mysterious blood disorder is actually proof of a heritage she never knew existed—one that makes her both invaluable and deadly to the vampire world. When her apparently dead father reappears as a vampire hunter determined to destroy Damien, Vivienne must choose between the family ties she's always longed for and the forbidden bond forming with a man she should consider her enemy.
But in Shadowveil, nothing is as it seems. As ancient conspiracies surface and enemies emerge from within their closest friends, Damien and Vivienne find themselves pawns in a game centuries in the making. Their blood bond may be their best weapon—or the catalyst that awakens an ancient darkness threatening to consume them both.

After being abandoned by my husband one last time and rejected by my own son, I finally hit my breaking point.
Because I was dying.
At the very end, fate sent me back to the world I once knew.
And there, love and glory swept over me like a flood.

My family used me as bait to destroy my sister's happiness.

The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."

But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.

Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.

But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."

My pain was her wake-up call.

SOPHIE HUNTSBERGER found her way to a new life and new family when she ran from the physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. She has blossomed and healed in ways she never imagined she would or could be within the safe arms of her adoptive family.
ARRICK CARRERO has been her rock, her best friend, and her protector for years, but even he cannot get to the root of her growing emptiness.
Sophie is lost.
And she's reaching out for anything to fill the void and cure whatever ails her.
When Sophie realizes the answer has been within arms reach all along, she’s unable to prepare herself for Arrick’s spiraling emotions.
What was once innocent now comes into question - and life does not always let the heart prevail.
Characters that will break your heart, as well as each other.
Contains some mature, adult content and language.

I can't breathe. Every touch, every kiss from Tristan set my body on fire, drowning me in a sensation I shouldn't have wanted—especially not that night.
"You're like a sister to me."
Those were the actual words that broke the camel's back.
Not after what just happened. Not after the hot, breathless, soul-shaking night we spent tangled in each other's arms.
I knew from the beginning that Tristan Hayes was a line I shouldn't cross.
He wasn't just anyone, he was my brother's best friend. The man I spent years secretly wanting.
But that night... we were broken. We had just buried our parents. And the grief was too heavy, too real...so I begged him to touch me.
To make me forget. To fill the silence that death left behind.
And he did. He held me like I was something fragile.
Kissed me like I was the only thing he needed to breathe.
Then left me bleeding with six words that burned deeper than rejection ever could.
So, I ran. Away from everything that cost me pain.
Now, five years later, I'm back.
Fresh from rejecting the mate who abused me. Still carrying the scars of a pup I never got to hold.
And the man waiting for me at the airport isn't my brother.
It's Tristan.
And he's not the guy I left behind.
He's a biker.
An Alpha.
And when he looked at me, I knew there was no where else to run to.

Another fight with my boyfriend made me agree to my best friend's crazy idea to party at a nightclub. But then, she spiked my drink and I ended up in the arms of a terrifyingly handsome stranger, Michelangelo.

We spent the night together underneath his sheets, as he took me through wild realms of pleasure. But the next morning, he was gone.

And then I caught my boyfriend with my best friend so my life utterly shattered from that day.

Weeks later, I realized that I was pregnant, and I also got hit by the news of my boyfriend's wedding to my best friend.

Devastated, I moved to a Pack in New York City to start anew with my unborn child, and then three years later, guess who I bumped into? The one and only Michelangelo, the real father of my son.

But then, he lied that night. He didn't give me his full name or his real identity. He didn't tell me that he was the formidable Nico 'Michelangelo' Ferrari, a Mafian Alpha and an insane force to reckon with.

Realizing who he is sends me into a panic attack, but for some reason, he won't stop chasing after me, trying to convince me that he loves me, that he's my fated mate and that he wants to be with me and our son.

What the heck do I do?!