6 Book(s) Related to cerpen 21

Twenty-one times.

I've signed the mate bond with Kael Nightshade, Lord of the Black Panther Clan, twenty-one times.

And dissolved it twenty-one times.

Not because we didn't love each other.

But because every few months, she comes back.

Seraphine. His first love. The angel who shattered her wings saving him, leaving her mind fractured and fragile.

"Seeing the mate mark sends her into psychotic breaks," he'd say, burning the bond from my skin. "I owe her my life."

So I'd erase the mark. Burn the contract. Pretend we were never bound.

The first time, I cried and begged. He backhanded me: "Cut the bullshit. We'll rebond once she's back in the sanatorium."

The thirteenth time, I followed them to a tavern and watched him tenderly kiss the scarred stumps where her wings used to be. When I confronted them, he knocked me down and locked me in enchanted restraints for seven days straight.

Sign. Burn. Erase. An endless cycle I couldn't escape.

Until the twenty-first time.

Fire engulfed the manor. Seraphine and I were trapped in different wings. Kael could only save one of us.

"Kael!" I collapsed at the window, smoke choking my lungs. "I'm pregnant—please—"

He shifted into his panther form and bolted toward her room.

The guards dragged me out thirty minutes later. Third-degree burns across my back, lungs filled with ash, blood pooling beneath me.

No heartbeat.

Kael stood in the safe zone, holding an unscathed Seraphine in his arms. From the moment the flames erupted until they pulled me from the rubble, he never looked back.

Not once.

The twenty-first dissolution was my choice.

There won't be a twenty-second.

BLURB

“I don’t love Selena anymore. All I see is a broken shell…a barren woman.”

Those words, spoken by my husband behind the closed door of his study, were the jagged shards of glass that finally shattered my world.

For years, I endured the physical agony of ten miscarriages and five failed IVFs, believing Franklin was the anchor holding me together. I didn’t know I was actually the anchor dragging him down.

He wants a divorce.

He wants a woman who can give him the family I couldn't.

He wants to be free of the burden of a wife who is falling apart.

But Franklin doesn't know my biggest secret. It isn't just my womb that is failing; it’s my entire body.

I am dying.

Stage four cancer is aggressive, and my time is measured in hours, not years.

I could tell him the truth.

I could watch him stay out of pity, trapped by guilt for the rest of my numbered days, but I love him too much to let him become my martyr.

So, I’ve made him a deal.

I will sign the divorce papers and walk out of his life forever but first, I want twenty-one hours.

One hour for every year we’ve known each other.

One last day to pretend we are still the awkward intern and the protective man who fell in love.

He thinks he’s spending these hours saying goodbye to a woman he no longer wants.

He has no idea he’s actually saying goodbye to a woman who will be dead before the ink on our divorce papers is even dry.

Twenty-one hours of lies.

Twenty-one hours of love.

And then, I’ll let him go.

Forever

At the red carpet event, Maddie, my partner of three years, in an attempt to curry favor with a popular male star, publicly humiliated me, trampling on my foot and yelling, "Ethan, you're just a backstage errand boy

. Don't interfere with Ryan's shots. Go back to carrying materials." The whole room burst into laughter; everyone thought I was a lowly sycophant forced to swallow my humiliation.

But I didn't get angry. I calmly took out my tablet, cut off all her studio's basic permissions with a single click, and immediately sent the irrefutable evidence of her breach of contract to the brand's legal department.

Three minutes later, she was completely stripped of her control and faced a multi-million dollar claim for breach of contract.

At first, she thought I was just acting out of spite, that a little charity would win me back. It wasn't until the day her assets were forcibly liquidated and she was completely blacklisted from the industry that she desperately realized: for the past three years, she had only been able to sit at the table because of my charity.

Later, shamelessly, she crawled through garbage cans, barefoot, to the airport, knelt before my bulletproof Maybach, and begged me to come back.

As for me, I simply walked onto the private jet surrounded by executives from top European conglomerates.

Cara is a talented, humble, and ambitious actress who longs for success and fame in the entertainment world. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Vincent, a handsome werewolf with dark secrets. Fascinated by his mysterious aura and his promise to make all her dreams come true, Cara is tempted to make a deal with the devil to sell her soul. With Vincent's supernatural power, her career takes off, but as she gains fame and fortune, she begins to realize that she has made a deal with devastating consequences. In order to save her soul and break free from Vincent's grasp, Cara must fight against the darkness that surrounds her, facing her worst fears and discovering that there are more important things in life than success and fame.

Plot Twist:
Just when Cara thinks she has found a way to break the pact and free herself from Vincent's control, she discovers that he is not really the leader of the werewolves but merely a pawn in a much larger game. It turns out that there is a Supreme Alpha in their species, who has been manipulating Vincent and others like him to achieve his malicious objectives. Now, Cara finds herself caught in a war among werewolves, where she must decide whether to join the rebel forces seeking to overthrow the Alpha or seek her own revenge against Vincent for deceiving her. In an unexpected turn of events, Cara discovers a hidden power within herself that could change the course of the battle and bring an end to the tyranny of the Supreme Alpha. On her journey for revenge, Cara becomes the last hope for her species and desperately fights to liberate the werewolves from their oppressor and reclaim her own freedom.

“Next! Male. Aged seventeen. Would make a good butler or servant. Starting bid is one hundred coins…”

Ellie couldn’t believe that she was seeing people being bought and sold like cattle.

“I want my human.”

“Humans are not meant to be our slaves! You cannot have her!”


“My, my. You are stunning. For a human, of course. I would love to take you out to dinner some time.” Avery said suavely.

“Thank you. I’d really just like to get home. I’m not interested in you or staying here longer than necessary.”

Avery was surprised that she had so blatantly rejected him. He looked as though he had been slapped across his perfect face. His violet eyes widened in disbelief.

***Ellie is a human who is kidnapped by a fairy. She is supposed to be sold at an auction where fairies buy humans as slaves, but the Ozul takes a liking to her and decides to keep her for her own. She escapes with help from Elvin who is infiltrating the auction and goes to the castle. She learns that there are 'tunnels' between the realms that a mythical being can use to travel through, but they only open once every three months, so Ellie is trapped until the next cycle begins.

Avery, arrogant, prideful, handsome. Knows he can have whatever woman he wants and finds himself only wanting Ellie.

She came to steal his most dangerous secret. She never planned on becoming it.
Silver Ardent is the best thief in Ardenmoor, and she works alone for a reason. Four years ago, her pack cast her out — publicly, without explanation, in front of everyone she had ever loved. Since then she has built a life that needs no one and answers to nothing. So when a vampire lord offers her a fortune to break into the vault of the Lycan King and lift a relic called the Iron Shard, she takes the job. It is just another door.
What her employer neglects to mention: she was never hired to steal the Shard. She was sent to absorb it. She isn't the thief on this job. She's the cargo.
Rustan Veyr — King of the lycans, twenty-third guardian of the Shard — knows exactly what she is before she ever touches his wards. He should put her down on sight. Instead, when word reaches him that she is coming, he writes three words and leaves the gate open: Let them come.
Neither of them planned on the mate bond.
Now Silver is trapped inside the one place she came to rob, chained by something older than either of them to a man she was built to betray, with a power waking in her blood that could remake the world or break it. Falling for her mark was never the plan.
Trusting him might be the most dangerous heist of all.