133 Book(s) Related to hard core vanilla

The moment I gave up wasn't when I found out my husband was cheating. It was when I heard my ten-year-old daughter laugh into the phone and say, "Mom's so clueless. She has no idea about Dad and Summer."

Ten years ago, I was a top biomedical researcher, making six figures. I gave it all up for his promotion and our newborn daughter. Ten years later, the perfect marriage I traded my career and youth for turned out to be nothing but an elaborate lie.

He called me his safe haven, then got in our bed with his mistress and discussed how to keep me in the dark.

This time, I'm not going to cry or make a scene. I'm going to quietly gather my evidence and call the lab director I've turned down seven times.

What happens when Kyrah Bailey falls in love with the son of a tycoon, Blake Dawson and later finds out that he has strings attached with his neighbor Sabrina Johnson? Will Kyrah be able to dig out Blake's past? Will she forgive Blake or not? Torn between her boyfriend, Blake and her best friend, Scott Stone, her world crumbles down as she tries to fight for her lover forgetting about her friends and family. Will she realize her mistakes and who will she end up falling for?

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secretly married at eighteen.

Shortly after the wedding, he was kidnapped. That's when everything fell apart. I threw myself off a cliff to draw the kidnappers away and save him. I was in a coma for three months. But when I came back to him, weak and broken, he thought some woman named Sophia Vanderbilt had saved him instead. He started hating me for "abandoning him" and grew cold. I tried to explain. He only believed what Sophia told him. My words meant nothing. 

Cole wanted to divorce me, but his parents refused to allow it. I refused too. Sophia drugged him to get pregnant and trap him into marriage, but he stumbled into the wrong room. He slept with me instead. I got pregnant. She faked videos to make him think they'd been together. She forged evidence that I'd cheated. He wouldn't listen to a word I said. 

Then we were both kidnapped and held hostage on a rooftop. Cole chose to save Sophia. I fell. I lost the baby. After Sophia was rescued, she went to the hospital for a checkup. They found leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant. I was the only match, but after everything, my body was too weak. Cole used the "debt" I owed his family to force me to donate. 

I refused. Sophia "died." Cole locked me in a psychiatric hospital and tortured me until I died. 

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he demanded my bone marrow. This time, looking at his desperate eyes, I said yes and decided to divorce him and leave him for good.

Three years ago, my pairs skating partner and I had a beautiful wedding surrounded by friends and family—but we never actually got around to signing the legal papers.
Over those three years, he has stood me up at City Hall exactly twenty-eight times.
One time, he stole my cab while I was burning up with a fever, leaving me shivering on the curb because his new, pampered protégée had a stomachache from drinking too much champagne.
Another time, he blew off our anniversary to rush to her side for a minor sprain.
Every single time we were supposed to finally make our marriage official, his precious junior skater somehow had a devastating emergency.
After twenty-eight broken promises, I finally stopped waiting. I dropped our partnership, shredded our application, and boarded a one-way flight to Milan.
But the moment I completely vanished from his life, the man who couldn't spare an hour to marry me suddenly lost his mind—chasing me across the globe to a city he swore he’d never return to, begging on his knees outside my door for a twenty-ninth chance.

"I quit." I slammed the words onto the table like a verdict.
From my purse, I pulled out the papers I had carried for weeks, the ones I had drafted in the dead of night while he was in her bed, and slapped them in front of him.
DIVORCE.
Serena Vaughn had been invisible for too long, the discarded wife of Damien Blackwood, a billionaire who saw her as nothing more than a trophy. But when humiliation became unbearable, she walked away, ignoring the world's bets that she would crawl back.
Months later, Serena returns, but she is no longer the woman he dismissed. Now the CEO of a revolutionary tech empire, her brilliance commands respect, admiration and desire. Society that mocked her now fights for her attention: a Nobel-winning scientist, a Wall Street titan, even Hollywood's hottest star, all vying to be the man in her life.
But Damien is not ready to let go. When he confronts her, demanding to know if her child is his, Serena's icy reply cuts him deeper than any words ever could. "That's none of your business, ex-husband. Step aside."
The game has begun. Old enemies circle like vultures, but Serena is no longer prey. One by one, they fall under her power, until only one question remains: how far will a broken man go when the woman he discarded becomes the queen of his ruin?

In this era of universal awakening, I've drawn the most tragic "BOSS" route.

For the sake of my fiancée Celine's guild, I signed an exclusive binding agreement. For four whole years, I was treated like an ATM for loot drops, and was mercilessly killed 2173 times.

When Celine led 137 elite members of her guild, armed with a permanent kill item, to stab me in the heart, preparing to dig out my core to pave the way for her new love, she thought she was about to usher in the supreme glory of being the first to kill me on the entire server.

But what she didn't know was that the hidden max-level reward for the BOSS route was "system administrator privileges".

The sword tip stopped at my chest, freezing time across the entire server. I looked at the greedy traitor before me, smiled, and pressed the "Level Reset" button.
"Sorry, this game is now in my hands."

Strip away god-tier equipment and wipe out max-level accounts. This time, I will bring down the reigning number one in the entire server, making him start from level 1 in the newbie village and personally pay the price for those two thousand bloody battles!

My fiancée Chloe dumped me, a veteran, for Seth's multi-million dollar fortune. As she left, she threw $100,000 at me with contempt in her eyes.
Little did I know that while I was using the money to stockpile weapons and food and upgrade the steel fortress, she and Seth were squandering it all in their luxurious villa.
Seven days later, the zombie outbreak occurred. I was enjoying steak and red wine in the fortress, while that despicable couple was slapping each other over a mouthful of dirty water in the ruins.
Thanks to my ex-girlfriend's generous sponsorship, I lived like a king in the apocalypse.

Travis Savage and I were a notorious public pair, bound together by nothing but hatred.

In the glittering, indulgent world of Chicago, he was an untouchable mafia king who ruled with absolute power, making and breaking rules on a whim. And I? I was the wife he loathed above all others in his criminal empire.

It all started when my parents lost their lives saving him, gunned down by his rivals. After their deaths, he kept me close as I grew up, and eventually, our marriage became what everyone expected. For a long time, he was my only anchor in this lonely world.

Once, he’d knelt before me and sworn to protect me for the rest of my life.

Now, he hated me.

He hated that I refused to sign the divorce papers, that I stood in the way of him running off with Renee Sutton — the orphan girl he claimed to have rescued off the streets.

He let her walk all over me and flaunt herself openly in front of me. To get back at them, I leaked their sordid secrets overnight across all of Chicago: their flirty messages, their hotel stays. Word spread through both the criminal underworld and high society alike, leaving the pair mocked and shunned by everyone.

Our marriage had rotted away years ago, worn thin by endless mutual resentment. It was stagnant, foul, and long dead.

Until three days ago.

A string of ambushes left Travis a hunted man. While swerving to avoid an oncoming truck, he was involved in a devastating car crash.

He lay unconscious in the ICU for three full days. When he woke, he claimed he’d forgotten every ounce of the nine years of hatred between us. In his mind, he was still nineteen — the age when he loved me with everything he had.

Mara Vale has survived Moonspire Academy by staying quiet.

She is a treaty ward, a scholarship student, and the wolf everyone expects to fail. During the public Moon Rank rite, the Alpha Stone gives her no rank at all. The Council calls her defective. Her foster pack calls her unstable. Before nightfall, they order her wolf sealed before her first full shift.

Then Mara bleeds on the stone, and the stone cracks.

Her blood hears what powerful wolves have buried: broken Alpha commands, rotten pack oaths, and the erased scent of a mother she was never allowed to remember. The more they try to silence her, the more the old territory answers.

Kael Draven, heir to the strongest Alpha house, is ordered to stand against her. Protecting Mara could cost him his succession, his pack, and every future he was raised to inherit. But obeying means letting the girl his mark answers be sealed as nothing.

Mara does not want to be claimed. She wants her wolf alive.

With a disgraced Luna candidate, a rival pack commander, and a healer hiding survivor scars, Mara must walk into the rites built to erase girls like her and make the Pack smell the truth.

They marked her omega.

The Moon called her heir.

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.

In my previous life, I gave away all my resources to save people, but my godfather broke my legs and fed me to the zombies.
Reincarnated 30 days before the apocalypse, I borrowed millions to build a nuclear-proof bunker and bought twelve retired, violent, and rabid dogs.
Extreme cold descends. With nowhere else to turn and in a desperate attempt to survive, the priest forces a space-age ability user to pinpoint the coordinates of the area inside the bunker with the "highest concentration of heat," and then forcibly teleports to steal the bunker.
He landed laughing wildly, feeling the scorching heat wave hitting him, thinking he had taken over my generator room and greenhouse.
I sneered and remained silent through the bulletproof glass.
This idiot has no idea that the hottest place in my shelter... has never been the generator.

My husband Michael's father and my own father shared the same name—Robert. His was Robert Carter; mine, Robert Smith. I once thought it a sweet coincidence, until that 3 AM phone call turned this quirk of fate into a living nightmare.
The nursing home called to say Robert Carter had died, but when Michael returned from his business trip, he assumed it was my father who had passed. "Old Robert's finally gone," he smirked. "Should've moved him to the cheaper nursing home ages ago." Can you believe it? His own father—the man who'd left him an inheritance—and there he was, helping his medical intern mistress cover up malpractice, dismissing the death as "just some useless old man."
He has no idea he's protecting his father's killer. No clue I've seen through his cold-bloodedness all along.
I wonder, when the truth finally hits him, how will this absurd tragedy end?

At the dinner party, Alexander had his arm around my waist, chatting and laughing with clients in German.
I was about to tell him the happy news that I was pregnant.
He was tender and affectionate in front of me, kissing my cheek from time to time.
But they didn't know my German was fluent enough to understand every dirty detail.
Like right now, I heard him bragging to the client about how wild things got last night with his stepsister Lillian.

“Does Mr. Howard Have an STD?”
With one sentence, Sienna tore apart her marriage to Ethan.
For three years of their secret marriage, she was his obedient wife, his silent assistant, and the woman he always overlooked.
Until she discovered that every business trip he took was spent living with his adopted sister.
While he was hospitalized after a car accident, she slipped divorce papers into his documents and tricked him into signing them.
She quit her job, moved out, and inherited a massive fortune.
The whole city mocked her, saying she was nothing without Ethan.
But she turned around and climbed back to the top of the industry, standing beside a man even more powerful than him.
Only then did Ethan realize what he had lost, kneeling before her and begging for another chance.
She leaned down slightly and smiled.
“Mr. Howard, when you cheated on me… did you ever think I could choose someone else too?”

"Very entertaining. Highly recommended for the permanent library of any reader who appreciates a well-written mystery with twists and an intelligent plot. You will not be disappointed. Excellent way to spend a cold weekend!" --Books and Movie Reviews (regarding Murder in the Manor)A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER is the debut novel in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Fiona Grace, author of Murder in the Manor, a #1 Bestseller with over 100 five-star reviews (and a free download)!Audrey Smart, 34, is a brilliant vet—yet fed up by her demanding clients who think they know more than her and who don’t care about their animals. Burnt-out with the endless hours, she wonders if the time has come for a new direction. And when her 15th year high school reunion (and her hopes for re-sparking on old flame) end in disaster, Audrey knows the time has come to make a change.When Audrey sees an ad for a $1 home in Sicily, it captivates her. The only catch is that the house requires renovation, something she knows little about. She wonders if it could be real—and if she may really be crazy enough to go for it. Can Audrey create a life and career—and the home of her dreams—in a beautiful Sicilian village? And perhaps even find love while she’s there?Or will an unexpected death—one that only she can solve—put an end to all of her plans?Are some dreams too good to be true?A laugh-out-loud cozy packed with mystery, intrigue, renovation, animals, food, wine—and of course, love—A VILLA IN SICILY will capture your heart and keep you glued to the very last page.“The book had heart and the entire story worked together seamlessly that didn't sacrifice either intrigue or personality. I loved the characters - so many great characters! I can't wait to read whatever Fiona Grace writes next!”--Amazon reviewer (regarding Murder in the Manor)“Wow, this book takes off & never stops! I couldn't put it down! Highly recommended for those who love a great mystery with twists, turns, romance, and a long lost family member! I am reading the next book right now!” --Amazon reviewer (regarding Murder in the Manor)“This book is rather fast paced. It has the right blend of characters, place, and emotions. It was hard to put down and I hope to read the next book in the series.”--Amazon reviewer (regarding Murder in the Manor)Books #2 and #3 in the series—FIGS AND A CADAVER and VINO AND DEATH—are now also available!

He waited for me for two years. I turned him down twelve times. Every time he told me he liked me, I stayed silent. Every time he asked, "Have you really never felt anything for me?" I would turn my face away. I thought I would have endless chances. I thought he would always be there. Now when I close my eyes, all I can see is the last question he asked me under the moonlight. I thought it was glory. Freedom. The victory I deserved. Not until his body fell beneath the moonlight, not until I had everything, not until I started jolting awake from nightmares on countless full-moon nights, did I realize that the silver sword I drove into his heart had also pierced my own life.

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.

When the zombie apocalypse hit, my elder brother shoved me into a horde of the undead. Now, I've been reborn exactly five days before the end of the world, and he's trying to scam me out of my winning lottery ticket with a beat-up old ring. What he doesn't know is that this ring is a genuine pocket dimension artifact. He thinks he's pulling the ultimate con, completely unaware that I'm going to use this very relic to forge my own post-apocalyptic empire. This time, I'm going to make them pay back every last thing they owe me.

I inherited a family heirloom watch. It heats up when I'm in danger, shoves me out of the way when I'm attacked, and in the middle of the night it folds my clothes and makes me a cup of tea at exactly the right temperature. I know there's a guardian spirit living inside it, but I've never asked who he is, what his name is, or why he's here. I got used to his presence—so used to it that I started taking it for granted. Then I met an antiques dealer. He was gentle, polished, and thoughtful in every way. But the guardian spirit reacted like he'd gone insane. I snapped at it, "You're just a watch. What right do you have to interfere in my life?"

Freya Ashford's biggest regret in life wasn't marrying me, but that she never truly looked at me. We were sleeping in the same bed but dreaming different dreams; she was researching immortality, and I was researching how to win her love—"It is an eternal power, and an eternal pain." This riddle led us down different paths. On the day of the prom, in front of the entire school, she pointed her finger at me and said, "You can't prove your love for me at all." But she didn't know that she would lose miserably.

Five years ago, I woke up after surgery with my mind completely blank. The doctor said I had been in a training accident, and I was lucky just to be alive. Due to my injuries, after being discharged from the military, I was assigned to the mess hall at Fort Kiernan. Every day, I stood behind the same serving window, dishing out the same beef and potato stew to the same group of new recruits. I thought my life would always be like this. Then one day, a female journalist from the detention cell was escorted over by military police to get her meal. She slid her tray toward me and spoke a word I had never heard before. The ladle slipped right out of my left hand. My right arm dropped to my side, and my fingers curled instinctively into the shape of a gun grip. Who on earth am I?

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

Ten years ago, Iron Throne, Mexico's largest drug cartel, slaughtered my entire family. A decade later, I defected voluntarily and stepped into their manor with a token of allegiance. Everyone thought I had fallen into depravity. What they never knew was that I came to Iron Throne neither for wealth nor power. I came because I had memorized five names from the hit list that destroyed my family, and kept them in my heart for ten long years. I chose to lie low, until I rose to become the second-in-command of Iron Throne. On the night the kingpin handed the entire criminal empire over to me, I walked into his study, raised my gun with a smile.

When they threw me overboard, they thought a man with a broken leg couldn't possibly come back alive. When the floodwaters engulfed the world, turning land into a graveyard, I found a forgotten submarine in the deep sea. From underwater, I built my empire step by step . Not by pity, not by luck. By the time the survivors of this sea finally realized what lay beneath the surface, I no longer needed to hide. They called me the Deep Sea Ghost. I didn't care what they called me. I knew only one thing—from this day forward, this sea was mine to rule.

Twenty years ago, he took the blame for my murder, was branded with the Silver Flame mark, and banished to the wilderness. Twenty years later, I escaped from a prison-like marriage and searched the world for him. He wasn't there in the Alaskan blizzards. He wasn't there in the deep mountains of Romania. Under the polar night in the Arctic Circle, I called his name into the darkness. No one answered. Until a hunter told me: deep in the Yukon, someone had seen a lone wolf with the Silver Flame mark.

Three years ago, my twelve brothers died in the desert at night. A traitor stepped over my death notice and took the place that should have been mine. Three years later, I hide in a run-down convenience store, wiping shelves. I endure being spat on, having my beer stolen, and being called trash—I endured it all. Because I'm waiting. Waiting for someone to return, waiting for an answer. Some ask me: Is it worth it, for a bunch of dead men? I don't know if it's worth it. I only know that when they were alive, they called me Captain. Three years in seclusion, all for the day the God of War returns!

I was born into a cursed bloodline of witches. My mother told me that every firstborn daughter had to sacrifice the one she loved most to break the chains binding our blood. She said it was the only way to save my child. I lied to myself, and I lied to him, leading him to the altar with my own two hands. But I couldn't survive a single day without him. No curse, no matter how horrific, could ever compare to the sheer ugliness of the human heart. Waking up in that empty house, the truth finally hit me: I had absolutely nothing left.

Everyone in the tribe looked down on me. My father declared someone else the heir to the chieftaincy, my wife tore up our engagement and followed a new master, and I lived in a beast pen at the edge of the hunting grounds, sharing a wall with the hunting dogs. I thought this was my life. Only later did I realize that the entire tribe had spent twenty years of coldness building me a fortress. Those airtight shields would one day need me to prove them myself. On the day I awakened, the tribe's totem pole exploded. The true king was about to return.

I used to be the Federation's top agent, codename Frostblade. Until my fiancée and my partner stabbed me in the back and threw me into Blackrock Fortress—a black site hellhole that doesn't exist on any map. Against all odds, I broke out and made it back home, only to find my family's graves dug up, my mother murdered in the bathtub, and a shell casing stamped with a cartel insignia. My sister is missing, my father has been framed, and six of my informants were butchered—all signs point to the exact same name. Nobody believes a man who was supposed to rot in a cell can flip the board, but I'm back.

In my past life, I was tricked into a trap by my neighbor, my leg broken, and thrown into acid rain to die. Reborn, I returned to nine months before the acid rain apocalypse. Meteorites struck, radiation contaminated, water sources dried up, and civilization collapsed. I still had one last chance to save myself and reverse the future. When I mortgaged my house, borrowed heavily from loan sharks, and finally found the water purification engineer whom everyone considered crazy, I was met with merciless ridicule. Faced with humiliation, I simply smiled faintly—"Do you know when water is more precious than gold?"

Introduction: Monsters have invaded the world, and humanity is in grave danger. I transformed into a demon-sealing war god, guarding the abyss for twenty years. But I was met with betrayal after betrayal; my position as war god was revoked, and the people, believing rumors, sought to punish me. They smashed my wife's tombstone, turned my son into a monster , and drained my blood... Now the monsters have returned, kneeling and weeping, begging me to intervene . This time, I will not intervene!

In my last life, my mother-in-law locked me in the attic, and my wife openly cheated on me with the neighbor. Even when I was dying of terminal cancer, they bled me dry until my very last breath! Now that I've been reborn, the extreme-heat apocalypse is just around the corner. In this life, I'm living for myself. I spend every last cent of my savings stockpiling three years' worth of supplies and building a heat-proof survival villa! Now I can sit back and watch my mother-in-law's family struggle to survive in the deadly heat. Beg on their knees for my forgiveness? No! I will never forgive them!

Twelve years after the geomagnetic reversal, the death ray scorched every inch of the land. Survivors huddled beneath the dome, weaving their last refuge with lies . I was just a scavenger, digging for palladium in the ruins, just to buy my sister a breath of pure oxygen. But I also kept a secret— I could hear the voice of metal. When the Council of Order threatened my sister's life, forcing me into the forbidden zone to carry out a suicide mission, those whispers of steel finally became clear. They called to me, guiding me down another dead end.

Five years ago, they stripped me of my rank and stopped my retirement pay. Now, with the Imperial army at the gates, they kneel at my door, begging for my services. My daughter is wearing last year's shoes, her big toe practically sticking out. My wife is still refilling coffee at a fast-food restaurant at 3 a.m. The neighbors call me "that welfare-dependent guy" behind my back. I pulled my five-year-old dismissal order from under the bill and slipped it under the door. "You've got the wrong person."

My father said an honest man can't run a farm. My brother called me nothing but a burden. My ex-girlfriend dropped her engagement ring into a glass of champagne and handed it back to me. They all thought I was worthless. None of them knew I'd been reborn, and had stockpiled five years' worth of supplies in the cold storage. When the blizzard hit, the walkie-talkie crackled to life. I heard their cries and the unspoken thoughts swirling inside their heads. Really? You're still trying to scheme against me right now?

Ten years of secret service honed my Phantom Legion, a force I built that could make a small nation tremble. On the day I retired and returned to New York, I found a cardboard tent next to a garbage dump in a Bronx back alley. Curled up inside was my daughter, whom I hadn't seen in five years. She was covered in bruises, barefoot, and clutching half a moldy loaf of bread. I picked her up and dialed the phone—"I want everyone who wronged her to suffer a fate worse than death! "

Introduction: I spent 20 years cultivating alone in the forest. Returning home, I discovered my brother, who had cared for me since childhood, was missing. They said he died under the terms of the contract, an "accident." The Magic Guild made me wait in line for two months. I waited three days, only to be greeted by a wagon delivering potion ingredients to a murderer. Since your laws don't protect me—then I will be my own law. I will show you with my fists what a melee mage truly is.

I was bought into this world. For twenty-three years, my adoptive mother swept floors, scrubbed toilets, and endured endless orders from others just to keep me alive. Then one day, I discovered she had been depositing forty-four thousand dollars into an overseas account every single year for two decades. They called it a "custody fee". When a mysterious organization showed up, slammed coins in her face and threw a contract written in blood right in front of me, I finally learned whose blood runs through my veins. From that day on, I will prove to everyone: no one shall ever hurt my family.

Three years ago, I was the sole surviving legendary mage of Ash Valley. To fulfill my comrade's dying wish, I married into the Robert family, becoming a despised and bullied son-in-law . For three years, I endured torment and humiliation; my entire family treated me like trash . My wife handed me divorce papers , then accepted the marriage proposal of a nobleman. On my wedding day, I walked into the hall in old clothes, and everyone laughed, thinking I was crazy. Until I shattered all magic with a wave of my hand, my legendary presence overwhelming everyone present, the woman who had once despised me finally cried and asked me: Why did you lie to me?

A red dragon heir locked me in an iron shed and scorched me with his breath for ten minutes straight.Didn't kill me.He woke a Black Dragon buried under a three-hundred-year curse.The Tri-Dragon Council tore down my home, beat my father, threw me in jail, and live-streamed it all so the whole city could laugh.What they didn't know: every ancestor's soul in the Black Dragon cemetery had fused into me.I smashed through the Council's dome and slammed the dissolution order onto the table.

"Tasha..."
She turned. He was right behind her and they stood so close that she could smell him. It was intoxicating. She hadn't realized how much she had loved the smell of him until having gone without it for so long.
"We can't be here for long, people will start to wonder-"
"You have no idea how much I missed you." He stepped even closer to her. "I thought about you every day. You're even more beautiful than I remember." He reached up and ran his hand through the hair that framed her face, her eyes closing involuntarily at his touch.
"Calder, you know we can't."
"I spent five years with nothing to keep me going through the hardest trials of my life but the thought of seeing you again," his hand touched her cheek. "holding you in my arms, kissing you." His thumb trailed across her lips and every fiber of her being felt like it would burst into flame. His eyes, like the ocean, looked into her soul, his body standing over her, so close she could feel the heat of him, and it made her yearn for more.
"Please, it's forbidden." Her voice was barely a whisper.
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching over her lips that were slightly open, her eyes that danced with flames of desire. "I don't care."


The young sorceress Astasha only wanted a simple life. Now, however, she finds herself in the service of the King as his Royal Fire Witch, and in love with the one true heir to the throne, his son, Calder. But their love is forbidden and when a demon threatens to destroy everything she holds dear, she must use the fire within to save the man she loves and his kingdom.

"What if I want to escape?"

I looked at the man before me.

He was Alexei Cardis, vampire prince, and the one who would sacrifice me with his own hands at the Eclipse Ritual.

"Then escape," he said, lowering his gaze to meet mine, his tone calm. "Just don't get caught."

—

At seven years old, I was brought into this vampire castle.

From that day on, I had the best teachers, and the most dangerous guardian.

Alexei taught me to read, taught me to calculate, taught me how to survive amid lies and conspiracies.

But he never told me—that the meaning of my existence was to become the offering on the altar.

As the Eclipse Ritual drew closer, I began searching for a way to survive.

Forging evidence, sowing discord among nobles, stealing weapons, planning my escape.

Everyone wanted to use me.

Everyone wanted me dead.

Only Alexei was different.

He stopped others from getting close to me again and again, yet pushed me toward my destined fate with his own hands.

I could no longer understand him.

Until later, when I discovered a secret hidden in a wooden box.

It turned out that behind all these years of what I thought was captivity and exploitation, there was another, more dangerous emotion.

But if he truly cared about me—

Why would he raise me only to personally send me to the altar?

And when the night of sacrifice arrives,

Will I kill him and escape to freedom,

Or will he, for the sake of the entire vampire race, kill me with his own hands?

“You think you can use me and walk away?”
His voice was ice, his hand around her throat.
“You signed the contract, sweetheart. That makes you mine.”

Camila agreed to marry billionaire Asher Reyes to save her dying mother — one year, no strings attached.
But behind his perfect smile lies the truth about her father’s death.
Now she’s trapped in a marriage built on secrets and vengeance, where every kiss feels like a lie.
When love starts to blur the line between victim and enemy…who will destroy whom first?

"Why won't you ask me for help?"

Vincent pinned me against the wall, his green eyes cold and dangerous.

"Because I want to destroy them myself."

I smiled anyway.

—

My name is Irene Perot.

Ever since my mother married into wealth, I've been the outsider no one wanted. My stepsister Johanna treated me like a stain on her perfect life. My fiancé betrayed me. Rumors spread through school like wildfire, and everyone waited for me to break.

But I've never been the helpless girl they imagined.

When they tried to ruin my reputation, I exposed every lie. When they tried to bury me, I climbed higher.

Then there was Vincent Green.

The most powerful man in the Green family. My ex-fiancé's uncle. Dangerous. Untouchable. A man who always appeared when my world was falling apart.

He wanted me to rely on him.

I refused.

Yet the deeper I dug into the secrets surrounding my family, the closer I was drawn to him—and to a truth neither of us could escape.

Because what began as a battle of wills soon became something far more dangerous.

And when Vincent finally offered me his protection, I had to decide:

Would I become the woman standing beside his throne...

Or the one who burns his empire to the ground?