Only the Bold (The Way of Steel—Book 4)

Isolde’s life was full of love and joy. She was set to be High priestess of the makkari, but everything changed in a single night when she lost everything at the hands of someone she thought she could trust.

For centuries, she has been on the run, helping the supernatural community under the cloak of anonymity while she works to clear her name and save the very people after her from destruction.

Enemies are closing in, but an unexpected complication befalls her when she realises she’s been fated to someone who wants her species exterminated. After all, an evil chance seldom comes alone.

A Queen Among Darkness is the 4th book in the Queen Among Series/The Gods' Saga. This is an interconnected series. To see how it ends, I recommend reading the full series.

Books in the series in order:
A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1
Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2
A Queen Among Blood - Book 3
A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4
Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Tides - Book 5
Valor, Virtue, and Verve - Tides Prequel Spin-off (will be available under book 5)
A Queen Among Gods - Book 6
Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (will be available under book 2)
A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7
Dark Vocation - Darkness spin-off (will be available under book 4)
A Court of Arcane Souls Anthology (side character short stories exclusive to Ream)
Royal Shadow Series (Next Generation Coming Soon)

Have you ever seen a screaming toddler and thought, wow, they just can’t be the same good-natured kid who was eating cereal ten minutes ago?
Well… Sometimes you just might turn out to be right.
It turns out, the fae stole my little brother. In his place? A pixie with boundary issues and a talent for home repairs.
I’ve spent my life taking care of everyone else. So when my baby brother is taken, I don’t hesitate. I walk straight into a faerie mansion and make a bargain with its infuriatingly charming master.
Kie is everything you’d expect from a dangerous fae, beautiful, political, and entirely too amused by me. Power wrapped in a smirk. Sensual, mischievous, and far too aware of the effect he has on people. He agrees to help me find my brother.
For a price.
Now I’m bound by a faerie bargain and navigating a world of glamour, manipulation, and ancient rules I definitely should have learned sooner, enchanted forests, political games, magical contracts, and a fae lord who treats seduction like a perfectly reasonable negotiation tactic.
Iron is how I keep people out.
Glamour is how he draws them in.
And apparently, they just don’t mix.

Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination

My name is Audrey, and I'm the adopted daughter of the Bailey family.
Four years ago, the Bailey family faced a devastating financial crisis.
Just when bankruptcy seemed inevitable, a mysterious benefactor emerged, offering salvation with one condition: a contract marriage.
Rumors swirled about this enigmatic man—whispers claimed he was hideously ugly and too ashamed to show his face, possibly harboring dark, twisted obsessions.
Without hesitation, the Baileys sacrificed me to protect their precious biological daughter, forcing me to take her place as a pawn in this cold, calculated arrangement.
Luckily, in those four years, the mysterious husband never asked to meet in person.
Now, in the final year of our arrangement, the husband I've never met is demanding we meet face to face.
But disaster struck the night before my return—drunk and disoriented, I stumbled into the wrong hotel room and ended up sleeping with the legendary financial mogul, Caspar Thornton.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?

One Night. One Mistake. One Lifetime of Consequences.

I thought I was waiting for love. Instead, I got fucked by a beast.

My world was supposed to bloom at the Moonshade Bay Full Moon Festival—champagne buzzing in my veins, a hotel room booked for Jason and me to finally cross that line after two years. I’d slipped into lacy lingerie, left the door unlocked, and lay on the bed, heart pounding with nervous excitement.

But the man who climbed into my bed wasn’t Jason.

In the pitch-black room, drowned in a heady, spicy scent that made my head spin, I felt hands—urgent, scorching—searing my skin. His thick, pulsing cock pressed against my dripping cunt, and before I could gasp, he thrust hard, tearing through my innocence with ruthless force. Pain burned, my walls clenching as I clawed at his iron shoulders, stifling sobs. Wet, slick sounds echoed with every brutal stroke, his body unrelenting until he shuddered, spilling hot and deep inside me.

"That was amazing, Jason," I managed to say.

"Who the fuck is Jason?"

My blood turned to ice. Light slashed across his face—Brad Rayne, Alpha of Moonshade Pack, a werewolf, not my boyfriend. Horror choked me as I realized what I’d done.

I ran away for my life!

But weeks later, I woke up pregnant with his heir!

They say my heterochromatic eyes mark me as a rare true mate. But I’m no wolf. I’m just Elle, a nobody from the human district, now trapped in Brad's world.

Brad’s cold gaze pins me: “You carry my blood. You’re mine.”

There is no other choice for me but to chose this cage. My body also betrays me, craving the beast who ruined me.

WARNING: Mature Readers Only

“Who is she?” I asked, feeling tears well up in my eyes.
“He met her at the Alpha training camp,” he said. “She is a perfect suitor for him. It snowed last night, indicating that his wolf is happy with his choice.”
My heart sank, and tears made their way down my cheeks.
Alexander took my innocence last night, and now he is taking that thing in his office as his Luna.


Emily became the laughingstock of the pack on her 18th birthday and never expected the Alpha's son to be her mate.
After a night of passionate love, Emily finds out that her mate has taken a chosen mate. Heartbroken and humiliated, she disappears from the pack.
Now, five years later, Emily is a respected high-ranking warrior in King Alpha’s army.
When her best friend invites her to a night of music and laughter, she never expects to run into her mate.
Will her mate figure out it is her?
Will he chase after her, and most of all, will Emily be able to keep her secrets safe?

I never knew my blood could kill a king—until I met one. Sebastian, the ruthless and immortal King, rules with precision. For centuries, he's ruled with ruthless precision, his heart as cold as the stone throne beneath him. One moment, I'm nothing. The next, I'm his obsession. His touch burns like ice fire. His stare follows me through shadows. And when he feeds from me—God help me—it feels like drowning in darkness and craving more. He tells me my blood is unlike any he's tasted, that my scent drives him to the edge of madness.


He reached for the back of my head and pulled me up just enough to reach my neck. When his fangs slid into me, the pain was instant, electric. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My hands found his shoulders, clawing for something to hold. My legs kicked. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

He moaned against my throat as he drank, and the sound was devastating.

Soft hot lips find the shell of my ear and he whispers, "You think I don't want you?" He pushes his hips forward, grinding into the back of my ass and I groan. "Really?" He chuckles.

"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."

I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.

Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.

"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."


New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.

Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates

When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.

But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?

A wild party night leaves me with fuzzy memories and a mortifying encounter I can't quite piece together. Then I meet Marco—the quiet basketball player who just transferred for training—and there's an instant spark I can't explain.

As the team's benchwarmer, Marco practices harder than anyone, though few seems to notice. There's something about his quiet determination that draws me in, and I find myself falling for the underdog.

But when Marco's true story starts unraveling—about that first night, about who he really is, about the future he's destined for—I realize I might have gotten in way over my head.

And there's another problem: this was always meant to be temporary. His training program has an end date, and we're both fighting against a reality that seems determined to pull us apart.

When everything is on the line, how far are we willing to go for love?

For three years, Sable loved Alpha Darrell with everything she had, spending her salary to support their household while being called an orphan and gold-digger. But just as Darrell was about to mark her as his Luna, his ex-girlfriend returned, texting: "I'm not wearing underwear. My plane lands soon—pick me up and fuck me immediately."

Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.

Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.

In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?

From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!

At sixteen, Clara Bennett lost the last place she could call home.

After years of feeling unwanted by the father who should have protected her, Clara is finally forced to leave the only home she has ever known. Her stepmother’s pregnancy only makes it easier for her family to let her go.

With nothing but her mother’s old violin, she arrives in a small Pennsylvania town carrying the fear that she will never truly belong anywhere.

The last thing she expects is Adrian Cole.

Once the town’s basketball star, Adrian gave up his dreams after his father disappeared and left him with debts he never should have carried. Now he spends his days repairing cars, avoiding the court, and pretending he doesn’t want anything more from life.

Clara thinks she is too broken to be loved.

Adrian thinks his future is already over.

But somewhere between physics lessons, late nights at the repair shop, and a forgotten small-town high school, two lonely people begin to find something they both thought they had lost forever:

A reason to stay.

✦ ✦ ✦

A tough exterior with a soft heart x A soft exterior with a strong heart

✦ ✦ ✦

The first half is set in high school, and the second half is set during their college years. Hope you enjoy the journey!

This is a slow-paced story, focused more on emotions, healing, and the small moments in life rather than intense action or dramatic twists.

If you find any mistakes while reading, please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to correct them.

I hope ordinary Clara, ordinary Adrian, and all of us ordinary people can find the happiness we deserve.

For all the little girls who grew up wondering what happens after the prince kisses the girl—this is the story they never told you.
.
Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?

.
"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."