8510 Book(s) Related to the day of the jackal by frederick forsyth

Caroline Mercer once believed kindness could be proven by sacrifice. She took in two orphaned children, gave them schools, doctors, tutors, rooms beside her daughter's nursery, and a path into the Mercer name.

Years later, those children returned as witnesses against her. Sloane Vale smiled for the cameras while calling Caroline a monster. Nolan Vale handed federal investigators a beautiful stack of forged evidence. Caroline's husband was broken, her company was seized, and her only daughter, Evelyn, died after being traded into a marriage meant to protect everyone else's reputation.

Then Caroline opened her eyes on the morning the Vale children first arrived at her door.

This time, she would feed them. She would house them. She would educate them. She would keep every receipt, every doctor's report, every legal notice.

But she would never again give strangers the keys to her child's future.

I’m the only person on Earth with a clinically proven antibody capable of neutralizing this rare deadly virus.
I caught the virus when I was six. Its mortality rate was staggeringly high, and everyone thought I’d never pull through. Against all odds, I recovered entirely on my own. By some strange twist of biology, my body made the world’s sole antibody that could fight this virus off.
Once I turned eighteen, I signed up to donate my serum as a volunteer.
For twenty years straight, rain or shine, I showed up to donate free of charge—107 separate donations in total. Each time, I pulled a gravely ill patient back from death’s brink.
I’m no saint living to save the whole world. Every last donation was done for my mother.
Back when I was six, my father’s infidelity drove my mother to take her own life. What happened was cruel beyond measure, completely unforgivable.
A fortune-teller once told me my mom’s lingering resentment ran far too deep. To free her trapped, wandering soul for good, a blood relative of hers had to finish exactly 108 acts of good deeds.
Twenty years in, only one deed remained. Just one more, and my mother’s spirit could finally rest in peace.
But when the hospital sent out an urgent emergency SOS this time around, I did something I’d never done in two decades.
I turned their request down flat.

It was the kind of cold that seeped into your bones.
In my past life, I was locked in the abandoned freezer beneath St. Jude Preparatory Academy.
Outside the door stood my biological brother Spencer, along with Landon—my boyfriend of three years. And between them, wearing Landon's oversized football jacket, was my stepsister Lacey.
"Blythe, just admit you bullied me. Post an apology video to the whole school, and Spencer will let you out." Lacey's voice trembled, fake tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.
Spencer's voice cut through the metal door like ice:
"Blythe, you brought this on yourself. You've been terrorizing Lacey at school, pushed her to the edge. Maybe some time in there will teach you what decency looks like."
Landon's voice dripped with disappointment: "Jesus, Blythe. I thought I knew you. This isn't who you are."
I pounded on the iron door until my fists were raw, screaming until my voice gave out.
I told them the truth—that I never touched Lacey. That she was the one forcing girls to their knees in the bathroom. That she stole my exam. That every shred of "evidence" was manufactured.
No one believed me.
I froze to death in that sub-zero hellhole.
As the cold claimed me, staring at my blue-purple fingers, all I felt was pure, burning hate.
Then I opened my eyes again—back to the day it all began.

In my past life, I was a wild, pureblood witch who tamed my own nature for love, willingly playing the submissive, perfect Luna for my fated Alpha.
But to him, I was just a savage that "needed to be brought to heel." When enemy wolves ambushed us, he held my manipulative, magicless adopted sister tight, leaving me to be ripped apart.
When I opened my eyes, I had been thrust back in time to the day of our Mating Ceremony.
Staring at the white gown that symbolized nothing but my submission, I slapped a thirty-million-dollar price tag on my "fated mate" and sold him right to my sister.
Using a pureblood glamour, I sent her to the altar in my place. Then I hopped on my motorcycle and rode straight into forbidden territory—right into the arms of the ruthless, unhinged "Mad Wolf" Alpha. He didn't want an obedient pet; he wanted a lethal queen to rule the wild by his side.
That night, when my arrogant ex sealed the irreversible mate bond, lifted the bridal veil, and realized the woman eternally bound to his soul wasn't me...
The icy, untouchable Alpha who spent a lifetime trying to break me completely lost his damn mind.

In my previous life, I was cruelly exploited by my wicked stepmother.
Not only was I drained of my military discharge money, but I was also driven into a subterranean warehouse that could collapse at any moment.
In darkness and despair, I was frozen to death by a cold wave that dropped surface temperatures to minus 60 degrees.
The moment I opened my eyes again, I had reincarnated back to three days before the outbreak of the cataclysm!
Staring at my stepmother's face, which was filled with greed and harshness, I wasted no words, threw on my heavy coat, and marched straight toward the underground warehouse.
For I knew that with sufficient supplies and energy, this nuclear-grade subterranean warehouse would become the ark of the apocalypse!

Damien thought he could balance loyalty to his childhood friend and love for his angel fiancée. He had no idea he was dragging me into a living nightmare. Four years of false heavenly missions turned into endless torment upon the altar. The lies crumbled the moment my angelheart was torn out of my chest. After uncovering Chloe’s deception and his own heinous crimes, Damien meted out brutal justice, gave away all his ducal fortune as atonement, and leaped into hell, hoping to be reunited with me. From the divine realm, I watched him perish with cold detachment. Love that arrives only after everything has been destroyed deserves not an ounce of mercy.

"You good-for-nothing should get out and save your food rations. I'll use your truckload of supplies for you!"

The man-eating scarlet spores swept through the town. My good brother locked the security door tightly and locked me in the corridor filled with blood mist.

He stared intently at me through the peephole, waiting to see the horrific sight of my internal organs being drained by the fungus.

But a second before I was devoured by the spores, I hid in my personal space and with a single thought drained the last drop of water and every grain of rice from the room.

Three days later, in this impregnable "vacuum tomb".

When he was so thirsty that he swallowed blood, and knelt on the ground desperately pounding on the door.

I kicked the door open, tied him up with nylon rope, and hung him upside down in the blood-red storm outside the window.

For five years, my crime boss husband made me take off my wedding ring nine times—all for his precious damsel in distress.

When we first married, he promised me: "From now on, you're my queen, the queen of New Orleans."

But whenever Brianna came crying for help, he'd change his tune: "Mr. Parker saved my life, Claire. I owe his family everything."

And like a fool, I believed him eight times.

Eight times I watched from the shadows as he took another woman to our favorite restaurants.

Eight times I explained to the crew that our "separation" was just giving each other space.

Eight times I watched her move into my bedroom, use my dishes, sleep in my bed.

All for a man who kept making me slip off my ring, then slide it back on, over and over again.

Until the ninth time, when he said he needed to provide sperm for her fertility treatment, and I offered to leave.

He still thinks this is just another temporary break, expecting me to come crawling back in a month like always.

He'll never know I've already booked my ticket out of here.

Betrayed and killed by the wolf king in my past life, I came back from hell. On the wedding day, I turned down his proposal without hesitation. I made a blood pact with his greatest enemy—the vampire king. Together, we avenged my child and family, and built a new future in the dark.

My daughter begged me, tears in her eyes, to take her to gymnastics camp—just the two of us.

I thought it was her way of proving she loved me.

I was wrong.

In that hotel room in Toronto, I overheard my husband's voice—with another woman.

“Don't worry, Sophia will find a way to stay a few more days. I promised her that blue limited-edition leotard.”

“Her body now… after giving birth, it's ruined.”

In that moment, my world collapsed.

I thought I'd only been betrayed by my husband.
But the daughter I raised with everything I had—she was his accomplice.

The child I nurtured with my own hands kept clearing the path: so that woman could sleep in my bed, wear the lingerie I could no longer fit into, sneer in front of the mirror at every single mark my body earned from bringing life into this world.

I once believed that giving up my career would be enough to hold my family together.

But they joined hands to tell me: my sacrifice was never honored. It was a joke.

When a woman who has given everything to her family finally wakes up—

Her revenge will make every single one of them remember exactly what they did.

"Sloane, where there's smoke, there's fire. If you're really clean, why is it only burning you?"
In my last life, when those fabricated hotel records went viral on the company Slack, I scrambled to explain. I cried. I begged.
What I got was a suspension, a blacklist, and a foster mother who died on a hospital bed because I could no longer pay for her meds.
The person who started it all? Walked right over my corpse into a partnership.
Then I opened my eyes—and I was back. Three days before the promotion list dropped.
I stared at the pixelated "explicit screenshot" on my screen, and I didn't cry. Didn't rage.
I just smiled and hit screen record.
This time, I'm not proving I'm clean.
I'm proving they're guilty.

To get pregnant, I gave up a career my peers all envied. The day I finally conceived, my husband brought his mistress home to live with us.
He shoved me into the table without a second thought.
Nana Mae fell trying to protect me—her head cracking against the marble floor.
"Call an ambulance!" Blood soaked through my hands. My abdomen tore with pain.
"Sienna's too fragile. She can't handle the sight of blood." He scooped up his mistress and walked out, leaving the two of us on the floor.
"You can't leave this bed—it could hurt the baby." I ignored the doctor's warning and stayed at Nana Mae's bedside anyway.
Ten minutes earlier, she'd posted on Instagram: a tiny band-aid on her hand, his fingers wrapped around hers.

I was the unluckiest kid in my family—always the one pulling the black-tipped stick from that pretty little "Fairness Jar."
In our house, red meant new dresses, Disneyland, and a goodnight kiss from Mom. Black meant endless chores, lockup in the attic, and the kind of hunger that ate you from the inside out.
Mom loved to stroke my hair in front of the neighbors. "God gives everyone a fair shake," she'd say. "Riley's just a little unlucky, is all."
I believed her for fourteen years.
Until I had an asthma attack and died on that dusty attic floor.
The moment my soul slipped free, I looked down at the overturned Jar, its sticks scattered across the floorboards—and I finally understood why I'd drawn black every single time.

A year ago, my ex abandoned me when I was broke and buried in debt, choosing the Russo family heiress instead.

On the day of his engagement party, he sent me a vicious text: "Wear a wedding dress to Plaza Hotel. Changed my mind. You're marrying me."

I showed up in white.

Luca and his crew waited at the entrance, ready to watch me humiliate myself.

He thought this was my degradation.

But what he didn't know was—I was getting married.

Just not to him.

To Dante Valentino—the most dangerous man in this godforsaken city.

I died from campus rumors and elite prejudice in my last life.
Reborn, I no longer choose to explain. I collect every timestamp, fingerprint and hidden deal.
I expose my traitorous boyfriend, fake weak rival, and the school’s biased protection of the privileged.
With ironclad proof, I overturned all injustice and let every hypocrite pay the price.

Dorian, my boyfriend of three years, was a partner at a top-tier Boston law firm. He was gentle, refined, and absolutely flawless.
A week ago, he buried his face in my neck late at night, whispering that the city was suffocating him. He wanted to take me back to his hometown to meet Octavia, the grandmother who had single-handedly raised him.
I agreed without hesitation.
But on Crane Island, every night Dorian would slip out of our bed, using Octavia's gout as an excuse.
Until that night. I crept barefoot to Octavia’s door and pressed my ear against the wood.
What I heard wasn’t a sick old woman. It was Dorian’s heavy panting, mixed with the shameless, breathy moans of a young woman...

In bed, he gripped my hips, whispering, "Principessa." In public, he was Cosimo—the ruthless mafia don who dismissed me with an icy, "Piccola."
For three years after he bought me, he never touched me. But a year ago, when Caterina returned, everything changed. He became a man possessed, tearing my dresses to shreds in the dead of night, claiming me with wild fury. He even promised to marry me in seven days.
On a storm-drenched afternoon, clutching my positive pregnancy test, I rushed to his private club to surprise him.
But as my hand touched the doorknob, Cosimo’s cold warning drifted through the door.
"Marcellino, know your place as a double. My things—especially Serenella—are strictly off-limits."
My blood ran cold. I peeked through the gap.
Cosimo sat on the sofa, completely indifferent. And by the pool table stood a man with a face identical to his.

To help his life-saving benefactor, he personally pressed a pregnant me on the operating table to draw bone marrow.
I cried and begged him, "James, I'm pregnant. It's your child. Don't do this to me..."
But he had a look of disgust in his eyes. "Elizabeth, you'd lie about something like that just to get out of helping Mandy?"
Until there was a river of blood in the operating room and that unformed child turned into a pool of bloody water, he finally panicked.
Later, when he knew that the person who saved him in the fire ten years ago was actually me, he held my ashes and knelt outside the operating room for a full three days.

For the third time, Kael fled before the wedding—this time to deliver medicine to the neighbor girl he grew up with.
As compensation, the pack elders offered me two chests of rare ore and the deed to an island.
Someone, still hopeful, called Kael on speakerphone.
His careless voice echoed through the hall:
“Why bother with compensation? Ella loves me so much; she’ll come around as soon as I go back and sweet-talk her a little.”
“Sophia’s health is what matters now. Once she recovers, I’ll just hold another ceremony for Ella.”
The elders tried to explain, but the surrounding werewolves were all waiting to see the show—waiting to see how much humiliation I would swallow.
Just like the first two times.
But I’d had enough. And I’d lost all interest in Kael.
I kicked over the chest of ore and let my gaze fall on Kael’s uncle.
Then, I smiled.
“I heard the old Alpha left a will: whoever can claim me… becomes the next Alpha.”

I thought Auden was the most devoted husband in the world—until the day I regained my sight and recognized him on the front page: a serial killer who had murdered eight blonde women.
I had to play blind. I swallowed the liquid the maid brought me—a brew soaked in dead people's eyeballs. I chewed on a human molar in my dinner. I sat perfectly still as I watched him fuck our maid right in front of me, not daring to let a single expression slip.
Because the exact second my vision returned, an anonymous text had popped up on my phone: Don't let Auden know you can see.

"Help! Somebody help me! Julian is trying to kill my baby!" I scream at the top of my lungs, bursting into my gender reveal party.

Just minutes ago, Julian was my perfect, doting husband. Then he opens my unborn baby's genetic screening report. The unadulterated ferocity and revulsion simmering in his eyes makes my entire body shake. He grips my arm, demanding I terminate the pregnancy.

I already died once because of that piece of paper. In my past life, they dragged me to a freezing lab, pumped me full of drugs, and murdered my child before locking me in an asylum.

This time, I hide behind the guests. But my parents storm in. After seeing the report, instead of saving me, Dad kicks me squarely in the stomach.

"You shameless little whore," he spits.

They are about to drag me out the back door when two police officers step through the glass doors. The cop hands me the confiscated report.

I look down at the printed words... and finally understand.

For love, I gave up my identity as a wealthy heiress and eloped with my poor boyfriend. To help him raise startup capital for his business, I spent Christmas Eve dressed as Santa Claus handing out flyers.
And he, just to make his first love smile, kicked me into the pool with one swift kick...

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started ticking backward, slower and slower, until it stopped completely. He died peacefully in his sleep that same night.

When I was eighteen, my father, a drunk who lied about everything, slammed the door on his way out. I watched his clock vanish completely and knew right then he was never coming back.

Ever since, clocks scare me. I'm always afraid of watching someone I love get taken away from me.

So I keep my head down, holding on tight to the quiet, stable life I've fought so hard for.

Then tonight, I watch the clock above Marcus Hargrove's head start spinning backward.

What scares me even more is Willow's clock doing the same thing.

While I'm still trying to figure out why, the storm hits that night. He walks out on his daughter while she's burning up with fever and having convulsions, and runs straight to another woman.

His clock jumps back another notch.

Dad was in critical condition and had just been wheeled into the operating room.
My husband—also Dad’s attending surgeon—was nowhere to be found.
I stood in the corridor in my pajamas until past midnight, hands shaking as I kept calling Jason.
When the call finally connected, a sweet, girlish voice spilled through the speaker:
"I’m watching the Eiffel Tower lights with Jason!"
A male voice followed, impatient and familiar—Jason’s:
"Is it her again? Ava, tell her to stop calling. The lights are about to go out. Can she stop making a scene?"
A chill sliced through me. Before I could speak, the line went dead.

AN AGE GAP, FORCED PROXIMITY, BLACK FLAG ROMANCE

Vincenzo Valentini is a man who sees the world as a business counter and human beings as merchandise.

The owner of an empire built upon corpses and submission, he is the reflection of pure perversity.

When fate places Andrew Thompson, the son of his greatest rival, into his hands, the plan was simple: use him, break him, and discard him like a toy that has lost its appeal.

What Vincenzo did not expect was that, beneath the youthful skin and the appearance of innocence, Andrew hid the same abyss as he did.

Vincenzo never wanted redemption. He never wanted someone to save him from his own darkness. He was seeking a mirror. And in Andrew, he found the partner who, upon seeing his blood-stained hands, does not recoil in terror, but trembles with desire.

In this perverse game, the "little toy" proves to be the perfect executioner. The mafia leader found someone who not only accepts his cruel side but cultivates it, feeding the monster Vincenzo has always been.

Where there should have been fear, lust emerged. Where there should have been hatred, a perverse loyalty was born. Andrew Thompson is the dark reflection of Vincenzo, the soldier the underworld did not see coming, and the man who proved that, for some, paradise only makes sense if it is in the middle of chaos.

Vincenzo opened the doors to his empire, but Andrew was the only one capable of invading his heart.

They are not heroes. They are hell on earth.

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.

“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!

I was a herbalist, a healer who saved lives, but I was falsely accused of spreading plague and hanged on the gallows, awaiting the flames. Then I heard them—a swarm of rats emerging from the earth, gnawing through the noose and dragging me back to the world of the living. But this was not salvation, but the beginning of a curse. Plague swept across the land, the church peddled counterfeit medicines, and lords squeezed every last grain from the farmers. The rats looked at me and whispered to me — the end has come, and you will become the calamity.

I am the top algorithm genius on Wall Street.
When my wife's first love got into serious trouble, she didn't hesitate to cut off my daughter's medical expenses and force me to go to jail for that scumbag.
But she didn't know that without me, her multi-billion dollar empire was just an empty shell that could explode at any moment.
She could never have known that the little girl she cursed as a "bastard" and who was driven to her death by her own hands was actually her own flesh and blood, whom she thought had died at birth.
When, a few days later, I, who should have been dying in prison, suddenly arrived with short-selling capital and a top-secret paternity test... I wonder if this high and mighty queen will still be able to laugh.

My husband's childhood sweetheart lost her entry for the competition,
so he gave mine to her.
It was I who saved him all those years ago,
and that's why he married me.
But he turned his back on me right after our wedding.
I've been childhood sweetheart all these years.
But this time,
I suddenly feel like this marriage has lost all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away. all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away.

"What do you think I want to do Amelia?" Mr handsome asked as he brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, he placed his lips just below it as he sucked on it.
"Nngh don't do that" Amelia practically moaned as Mr handsome's tongue swirled on her sensitive spot, far too urgently. Amelia forced her hand out of his grip as she pushed his chest gently.
Mr handsome pulled out a red velvet box from his pocket, Amelia stared at it skeptically. "What is that?" She asked as she looked up at it.
Mr handsome thought she knew what it was but sadly she didn't.
"It's a wedding ring, Amelia. I'm agreeing to that tempting proposal of yours and I'll have my lawyer draft out the agreement," Mr handsome said as he stood up from the bed, standing in front of her as he put on a sexy smirk.


On her wedding day, Amelia’s world shatters when she catches her fiancé, Diego, betraying her with her best friend, Viola. Devastated, she flees, only to be involved in a car accident—yet a mysterious man saves her.
That man is Colton—Diego’s uncle—who, coincidentally, needs a wife for his own reasons. Seeing an opportunity for revenge, she proposes a deal: she’ll pose as Colton’s fiancée and take down Diego and Viola.
As their scheme unfolds, Amelia and Colton find themselves drawn to each other in ways they never expected. But their growing feelings are tangled in deception, old wounds, and unresolved secrets. When Amelia is poisoned and barely survives, Colton vows to uncover the truth and protect her at all costs.
Can their love survive the weight of revenge, or will the truth tear them apart?

“A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) FACE OF DEATH is book #1 in a new FBI thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews. FBI Special Agent Zoe Prime suffers from a rare condition which also gives her a unique talent—she views the world through a lens of numbers. The numbers torment her, make her unable to relate to people, and give her a failed romantic life—yet they also allow her to see patterns that no other FBI agent can see. Zoe keeps her condition a secret, ashamed, in fear her colleagues may find out.Yet when a serial killer strikes across the Midwest, strangling women in remote places and seemingly at random, Zoe, for the first time, is stumped. Is there a pattern? Can there be no pattern at all? Or is this killer as obsessed with numbers as she is?In a mad race against time, Zoe must enter the diabolical mind of a killer who always seems to be one step ahead of her, and stop him from claiming his next victim before it’s too late. At the same time, she must keep at bay her own demons, which may ultimately prove to be even more threatening.An action-packed thriller with heart-pounding suspense, FACE OF DEATH is book #1 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Books #2 and #3 in the series—FACE OF MURDER and FACE OF FEAR—are also available for pre-order.

I almost died on the operating table trying to give Alexander Volkov a child, unaware he already had a pair of illegitimate twins with his childhood sweetheart.
My heart stopped when I saw the DNA results. Alec, the man who made the New York underworld tremble, the man who flew back on a private jet just to hold my hand, was a flawless liar.
I turned my face away, tears soaking the hospital pillow. My hand drifted to my belly. God had finally decided to give me a break after five years of needles and agony—I was pregnant. But now, it felt like the cruelest joke.
He pulled me into his arms, smelling of expensive cologne and... baby formula.
"Tell me what's wrong, honey. Whoever made you unhappy, I'll make them pay."
I stared into his lying eyes and made my decision.
I would vanish with his unborn child, leaving him to rot in eternal regret.

"Mommy's just a housewife! I don't want Mommy anymore—I want Aunt Jessica!"

Those words from my eight-year-old son, Jimmy, hit harder than any physical blow. I stood frozen in our living room, surrounded by the shards of the vase I’d just smashed. My husband, Robert, didn't even flinch. He just pulled Jessica closer, his hand resting possessively on her waist.

"Stop being dramatic, Scarlett," Robert sneered, his eyes cold. "Jessica is my soulmate. She understands my work. You? You just clean."

Eight years of devotion. Eight years of sacrificing my career to build this home. And now, my husband and son were looking at a stranger with the love that belonged to me.

I tried to reach for Jimmy, but he pushed me away with his small, angry fists. "Bad Mommy! Aunt Jessica buys me candy! You're just an ugly hag!"

My heart twisted until it snapped. I watched them leave for Jessica's award party—an award for a paper I practically wrote but couldn't claim. I was left alone in the silence of the house I paid for, bleeding from the glass cuts on my hands.

Later that night, at the hospital, after I’d been injured by Robert’s own hand, the nurse asked Jimmy who I was. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "I don't know her. Jessica is my mom."

That was the moment the old Scarlett died. I wiped the blood from my face, picked up my phone, and dialed my lawyer.

"Mr. Owens," I whispered, my voice trembling but resolute. "Let's redraft the agreement. I don't want custody. They can have each other."

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.

"Si... Sienna, you're drunk..." he rasps.
"Nope." I smile. "I know exactly what I'm doing. And... I've always wanted this."
"I've had a crush on you since forever... so I can never be wrong."
I never expected that crashing at my best friend's family lake house while her parents were away would lead to something forbidden. Her father—the man I'd known all my life—became the center of a night I couldn't resist. The attraction between us ignited into a dangerous, consuming connection that left me trembling until dawn. I slipped away quietly in the morning, hoping to forget and avoid him entirely.
But fate had other plans. Soon, I found him sitting across from me as my new boss. Every glance, every word carried an unspoken tension, a power struggle I couldn't escape. I tried to resist, but the pull between us was irresistible. In the privacy of my office, I indulged in the memory of that night, testing boundaries, surrendering to desire while he watched and controlled, reminding me who held the power.
Eventually, the line between defiance and submission, punishment and reward, blurred. And just when I thought our secret was safe... his daughter walked in, shattering everything.

A hundred years ago, that curse was meant for him. I'm the one who threw myself in front of it.
It cost me my elven heart, shattered on the spot—and a name I could never wash off. Traitor.
I never argued. Because the moment I speak the truth, the curse goes straight back to him.
So I stayed. I became his blood servant and let him drain me, one bottle at a time, to feed the woman he'd waited a century for. I told myself that if I endured long enough, someday he'd see my heart for what it was.
Then the healer told me my heart had thirty days left.
And he walked in, knife in hand, to say his beloved needed more of my blood.
This time, I'm not enduring anything.
I'm going to give him back this heart—at the exact moment he's most sure he's won.

EXCERPT:

"Rayne stood looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her a pale green ballgown clung to her curves and left little to the imagination. Her jet-black curls are swept up and pinned to her head, leaving her neck exposed. Tonight was the night that most of the unmated wolves in all the North American packs would hopefully find their mates. She was sure all of them were just oozing with excitement.

She was not.

She didn’t want a mate. She didn’t need a mate...."

“...but the sudden scent of jasmine and vanilla hit her nose from somewhere close. That meant only one thing. Her mate was near..."


Rayne met her mate at the Moonlight Ball when she was eighteen, her mate that she never wanted to find, that she never wanted in her life. He showed up out of nowhere. His actions that night unknowingly set her free. She took the freedom he gave her, ran away, and never once looked back.

Now five years later he shows back up in her life after rejecting her five years ago, demanding that she take up her rightful place by his side. He walked away from her after calling her weak. No way was she going to just let him back into her life as if he belonged there. Rayne never wanted a mate, would he being here now change that? Her body and soul beg for him to claim her, yet her heart belongs to another.

Can her mate convince her to give him a chance? Will her lover convince her to stay with him? The Moon Goddess paired her with someone not of her choice, all Rayne has ever wanted was the chance to choose for herself. Who will win? Rayne or the fate that the moon set for her?

For mature readers 18+
Warning for abusive past trauma
Her Returned Mate is Book 1 in the Gathering Shadows Series. Book 2 His Redemption is also available for reading now on Anystories.

A glass of drugged water left me completely naked on a hotel bed.

The task in the notebook was to accompany a stranger for three months, or else my nude photos would be exposed to everyone.

I had no choice but to agree and sacrifice my first time.

That night was extremely painful!

Because I was still a virgin, when his strong body pressed down on me, all I could do was grip the bedsheets tightly.

My inexperience made the man frown; "Emily, you slut, why are you suddenly so tight?"

He had mistaken me for someone else. Clearly, the woman named Emily was not a virgin. I couldn't reveal that it was my first time, so I bit my lip and endured the pain as best as I could. It hurt so much!

"Does it feel good, woman?" The man smirked at me, "You just moaned, you know. At least you've made some progress tonight."

Oh my God, did I really moan?

Alison felt unbearable shyness, closing her eyes tightly, desperately hoping for everything to end soon...

"Give birth to my child, then get out."

With those words, Sean’s kiss fell brutally, ripping Susan’s nightgown open.

His fingers pressed against her clitoris. Sean flipped her over, pinning her under him. His swollen, turgid member quickly found her secret path. He thrust in violently.

Susan broke into a cold sweat. Sean nipped her ear. "Does it feel good? Is this what you like? I’ll make you pregnant, but you can’t stay by my side—this position is reserved for Victoria."

——

Years ago, Susan saved Sean and earned the chance to marry him. But she was damaged in that accident and couldn't conceive. She took countless hormone injections, losing her figure and becoming ugly. Finally, she could get pregnant, only to catch Sean cheating with the young, hot Victoria.

"In that case," Susan said, "let’s divorce."

Susan was bloated and had been a housewife for three years with no skills. Yet, she chose to divorce, even though she couldn't take her own child with her...

After three years of a secret marriage, my husband refused to pay for a life-saving surgery—
yet spent a fortune on another woman.

I filed for divorce.

He thought I would come back, broken and begging.

Instead, I picked up my scalpel again.

While my ex-husband looked down on me, I saved countless lives.

When my breakthrough medicine won an international award,
and the world’s richest man proposed to me,
my ex-husband finally lost his mind—
showing up at my proposal ceremony too late to stop anything.

“Sign the contract. Be my incubator. And I will let you live.”
That was the deal I made with the tyrant named Damon Lexton.
I was his medicine. His prisoner. He did not love me—only the rare blood in my veins that kept him alive. When I died in the fire, he did not mourn his wife. He mourned the loss of his cure.
Five years later, I returned from the dead with a new face and a heart of stone, ready to watch him suffer.
Then my five-year-old son walked into his office.
“Hey, Old Man. Are you the one who made my mom cry?”
Damon stared at the child—the son he once called a bastard. For the first time, the tyrant fell to his knees.
He cornered me against the wall, his eyes burning with madness and obsession.
“You can run, Anna. But you and our son belong to me. I used to need your blood to live. Now I need your heartbeat to breathe.”

A ruthless campus royalty. A plus-sized outcast. A toxic double life born in the dark.

Nova Vance is the campus charity case—plus-sized, fiercely sarcastic, and the favorite target of the elite crowd. For two years, she has harbored a silent, self-destructive crush on Ashton King, the arrogant captain of the rugby team. But after a brutal public humiliation in the cafeteria leaves her drenched in soup while Ashton watches with freezing indifference, Nova promises herself she is done pining.

Ashton King has a crown to wear. As the school's golden boy, he is expected to stay with his sassy, wealthy cheerleader girlfriend, Chloe.

Nobody knows that Ashton is harboring a dark, unhinged obsession with Nova.

He craves her curves, her wit, and her defiance. He sits in silence during the day to protect his status, but at night, he is losing his mind over her.

When a wild, alcohol-fueled party ends in a messy, breathless alleyway kiss, the boundaries shatter. In public, he passes her cold notes and walks with his girlfriend. In the dark, he is a feral, possessive predator who claims her body as his own.