Novels by Ashabi Writes

Maliyla's POVGisselle's loss left me feeling numb and empty, as if a black hole had swallowed me up. Her last words were that she would get water for the flight. Knowing there were drinks on the jet, I felt so stupid for letting her go alone. At the time, I never imagined she wouldn't return. I couldn't say goodbye to Evangeline, even though I knew it wasn't her fault. During the flight back home, I sat in the same seat that Gisselle had sat in on our way to Egypt and just stared out the window.As the plane took off, my heart sank. I lost my best friend, and I felt partly to blame.'If I had just returned to the Blood Rose Pack and given myself to Erick, this wouldn't have happened. If I had stayed, Gisselle would still be here.'I thought as I stared out the window.Immediately, Hathor's voice echoed through

Hector's POVKatia had told me about her conversation with Maliyla. My biggest concern was that she thought I would leave her. It was important that she trusted me and believed what I felt for her was genuine. I needed to remind myself that this was a challenging experience for her and to be as understanding as possible. Being betrayed by your entire family and pack and then having some random people declare their love for you couldn't be easy. There was no doubt that Maliyla was confused, but dodging it wasn't healthy. As much as I wanted her to become independent and develop into the powerful woman she occasionally showed signs of becoming, I would rather not force her into anything.Her view of herself would be different if she saw it from my perspective.(Flashback)"Try not to force it; let her grow out of it," Jonathan advised me.

Maliyla's POVAs soon as I learned Gisselle and Katia would be staying at Crystal Blood Pack, my excitement skyrocketed. Despite being happy to have them both living there, I knew it would not be easy. Gisselle would have to leave her parents behind at Blood Rose Pack, since they would not be welcome at Crystal Blood Pack. Katia, on the other hand, was a different story. I knew moving across the globe would be difficult for her since her entire family was here in Egypt. While leaving her whole family behind would be difficult, knowing Jonathan and I would be there made it a little easier. My gut told me they would be happy once they were settled, and I was glad to have some girls to hang out with.I had one more thing to do before we left the next day."Katia, can I talk to you privately for a moment?" I asked her as I pulled away from Gisselle.Katia nodded, and we both headed toward the balcony. Right away, I burst into laughter.Katia furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she looke

Maliyla's POVI awoke feeling like I had been hit by a truck the following morning. The pain in my head was unbearable. When I turned over, I discovered I was alone in the bed. I sat up and looked around but saw no Hector. My mind was racing as I sprang out of bed and began searching the penthouse, but he was nowhere to be found.'Where could he have gone?'I thought as I entered the kitchen."Good morning," Jonathan chirped."Where is Hector?" I asked."Hector went with Katia and Gisselle to see Evangeline. The High Council is making their decision, so he asked me to stay with you." Jonathan replied.As soon as he mentioned the High Council, my heartbeat quickened. "Did I hurt anyone, Jonathan?" I mumbled.Although I knew I had pinned Adam down,

Hector's POVThe last thing I should have done was leave her side. My promise to Maliyla was that nothing would happen to her, and yet Adam took advantage of the opportunity to get close to her the moment I walked away. Maliyla was usually good at controlling Hathor. It was rare for her wolf to come forward. It was a lesson I wanted to master, except this time, Hathor was uncontrollable. Furthermore, it was the first time a wolf had been heard talking.(Flashback)"Hathor, give Maliyla control back!" I shouted.It was a marvel of nature; her fur shone as if it were glowing. It was as bright as the sun, and her sapphire eyes were as blue as the sea."I beg of you, Hathor. Don't do this. We still have time to resolve this without repercussions," Evangeline begged."Consequences? You think I

Hector's POVAs I expected, the meeting began with all their problems against me. Previously, they claimed I was holding highly destructive weapons and wanted to know what kind they were. My refusal to grant them access led to issues. The High Council tossed me aside, claiming I refused them. Truth be told, I refused to reveal the type of weapon I made due to the irreversible damage it would cause if someone like Adam used it.They were experiments that I had no idea would lead to anything, and yet here it was, a weapon capable of destroying every species on earth, but mainly us wolves. Silver Nitrate, a compound I created during my experiments, was the critical ingredient in the weapon I created. Its unique properties made it lethal to werewolves, causing immediate and irreversible damage to our supernatural physiology. The thought of such power falling into the wrong hands terrified me, and it was the main re

Charlotte Sanguinite POV:“What happened to your green dress?” Jazz asks as I sit beside her, the ceremony about to begin.“Robert happened to it,” I mutter.She snickers. “Planning baby number three already?”“Why don’t you worry about your own baby? When’s he due?”“Three months.” Jazz pats her rounded stomach. “Ricky’s a mess. He built half the nursery and then abandoned it to baby-proof the house. He and my dad are driving themselves crazy. Dad wants to move in so he can help out more. I said no, but Ricky agreed.”I laughed at the helpless frustration on her face. “I understand. But this is your first pregnancy, and it’s nice that your Dad likes Ri

Lucian POV:The fireplace provides sufficient light within the chambers; the shadows cast by the flames dance along the walls in a gory mockery of the grief that is thick in the air. I noticed none of that, my hands clasping the withered fingers of the woman lying in the bed before me.I can hear the rattle in her chest with each breath that she draws, and it is like a knife across my heart. She is living on borrowed time, and when her voice, weak and frail, reaches my ears, I want to collapse in her arms and weep.“Has Lillith a—arrived?”“Not yet, my heart,” I bring her hand to my lips and kiss it fervently.A lifetime we have spent with each other, an entire century, and our love has never wavered or weakened. And tonight, she will

Charlotte Sanguinite POV:The next couple of weeks are hectic, to say the least. Each and every affected shifter was reverted and saved, using my blood. For every drop I lost, Robert was there to give me more. The recipe for the drug was found and burned.As I had suspected, there was no shifter blood in the drug. The version Robert had discovered had been planted to throw them off. Terrence had experimented with the drugs and had figured out that putting a vampire’s blood in the drug helped control the shifter who ingested it. But he had never accounted for me.An anomaly, as Ricky has put it. For some reason, the fact that I had both shifter and vampire blood was overpowering for the drugged shifters, and once they caught my scent when Terrence attacked me, their loyalty switch

Charlotte Sanguinite POV:Robert leaps out of the way, with me in his arms.“What do you think you’re doing?!” Terrence shrieks. “Let go of me!”But the creature doesn’t budge. Instead, it looks at me, as if asking me what to do.I call it a “creature,” but on closer inspection, I realize with disgust roiling within me what Terrence meant by enslaving the wolves. I’m looking at a wolf shifter in a weirdly transformed state. His eyes are dull, and I can see my reflection in them.What has Terrence done to them?!“Release me! "I am your master! "You have to obey me!” Terrence is clawing at him, but the shifter doesn’t so much as flinch, ignoring the injuries being inflicted on him. &l

Charlotte Sanguinite POV:My phone is vibrating, but I don’t dare look down, knowing he’ll break it if he sees it. Moving my finger, I accept the call without looking at the screen.“So this is about some wackadoodle prophecy?” I hiss. “You messed up my life because of some stupid writing on a piece of paper?! You didn’t even know that the prophecy was about me or that I was Jean’s reincarnation—”“I knew!” Terrence spouted out the words. I had Jean’s portrait. I knew what she looked like as a child, as a woman. The prophecy was that you would reunite with the animal Jean kept by her side. Did you think I was going to let that happen? I had to be the one to stand by your side. I had always been intelligent; I was ahead of every child my age. I had to be the one to rule this continent, the clans. It was my destiny! So, I knew I had to isolate you f

Charlotte Sanguinite POV:I haven’t stepped foot in the compound since the day I left.“Why did you bring me here, Terrence?” I ask, feeling uncertain. I had already sent a quick message to Robert while Terrance was distracted. I haven’t received a frantic phone call or message in response, so I assume he’s fine with it.“I want to show you the prophecy.” Terrence smiles at me. I found it, and I think you’ll be really interested in seeing it. You were so curious about Jean Sanguinite, so I went looking for it, specifically.”I haven’t told Terrence yet about what my father did and why, back when Terrence was in Europe and I still lived here in the compound. I don’t really know if I should. Perhaps it would be

HARRISONThe sun is warm. Her hair is catching the light. And for the first time in what feels like a month, things don’t feel like they’re falling apart.She looks up halfway through the meal and says, “You know this doesn’t fix everything.”“I know.”“I’m still your assistant.”“I’m still your CFO.”She tilts her head. “You think we can keep pretending?”“No.”She sighs, like she knew I’d say that. Then she says, “Sometimes I think professionalism is a scam.”I glance up. “Picked that up too?”She stirs her lemonade with her straw. “I mean, what does it even mean? Never cry at work? Never need anything? Never fuck up?”“Never want anything,” I say.She lifts her eyes.I lean forward, resting my arms on the table. “You want my definition?”“Hit me.”“Professionalism is the ability to pretend you’re not a human being. To look someone in the eye and pretend their judgment doesn’t hurt. To want something and swallow it anyway. To sit in a room where you’re not welcome and act like you e

HARRISONShe’s quieter than usual.Not in the “focused on work” way either. I know that version of Parker. She hunches a little when she’s deep in a spreadsheet, furrows her brow when she’s double-checking something. But this? This is different.She’s stiff. Eyes a little too blank when she looks up from her desk.I stand in my doorway with a coffee in one hand and no real plan. I’ve been in meetings all morning, and all I wanted after was caffeine and ten minutes of quiet. But then I passed her desk, and now quiet feels wrong.I take one more sip, then walk over. She doesn’t see me until I’m close. “Hey.”She blinks, then gives me a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Morning.”“You’ve said fifteen words today. Want to make it twenty?”That gets me a flicker of something—amusement, maybe—but it fades too fast. “I’m fine,” she says. “Just catching up.”“That’s bullshit, and we both know it. Office,” I say, tilting my head.She hesitates. “Harrison, really, I⁠—”“Parker.”She exh

GAVIN“You want to know what Parker’s real crime is?” I ask. “It’s not her résumé. It’s that she didn’t beg for your approval before being good at her job.”Vivian says nothing.“You don’t get to sabotage her because she didn’t kiss the ring.”“This isn’t about her.”“Of course it is.”“No,” she snaps. “It’s about you. Letting your hormones compromise your leadership. You’ve gotten involved with someone you can’t protect. Not forever.”I step back. There it is. The core of it. The threat.She’s not just scared of Parker. She’s scared of what Parker represents—an emotional vulnerability she spent her whole life trying to train out of me. If I care for someone else, she loses her power over me.“Well,” I say. “We’ll see about that.”Vivian narrows her eyes. “If you let her bring this company down, I will not bail you out.”“You won’t have to. Because she’s not going to.”“She’s reckless. She doesn’t understand who she’s dealing with.”“She’s handling your bullshit better than most of th

GAVINI call my mother the way I fire people. Politely. Firmly. Without offering options. “Thursday morning, ten sharp,” I say. “At my office.”Vivian Thatcher doesn’t ask why. She never has to. She says she’ll be there with the sort of clipped elegance that carries undertones of disapproval and barely concealed curiosity.Perfect.I arrive twenty minutes early on Thursday and spend exactly ten of those staring at the glass wall that looks out over the executive floor, waiting for her.When she arrives, she doesn’t stop at reception. She doesn’t greet the staff. She doesn’t look at the client decks being assembled on the table for this afternoon’s donor pre-meet. She simply walks in, her heels sharp on the hardwood, coat draped over one arm, sunglasses still on despite the fact that we’re fifty feet from any natural light.And I watch her pass Parker’s desk.Parker’s head is down, focused on her screen, dark hair pulled back into a sleek twist. She’s in navy today, a pencil skirt and

JACKGood. Because if he even hinted at the possibility, I’d have to reconsider working here, and I’ve grown accustomed to my career. I don’t want to start over somewhere else. “Then what are we doing?”“I’m trying to keep the gala from turning into a referendum on my decision-making.”“It already is,” Harrison says. “You just haven’t responded yet.”Silence falls again. Heavy. Charged. He’s not wrong, and we all know it. I finish the last of my coffee. Cold now. Bitter in a different way. Then I look at Gavin. Really look at him.And I see the weight on him—the pressure of being his mother’s son in a company she built with gold-plated claws. He’s trying to run forward with her hand still clenched in his shoulder blades.It won’t work. I clear my throat. “She’s testing you.”“No shit,” he says without malice.“She wants to know if she can still pull your strings.”His jaw clenches. “She can’t.”“Then prove it.”He meets my eyes.And I say, quietly but clearly, “It’s time she understoo

JACKThe coffee’s hotter than usual this morning. I don’t ask why. Harrison always makes it strong, but when it’s bordering on nuclear, it usually means he didn’t sleep—or he’s thinking too hard and needed something to burn the thoughts off.For me, the first burn of the morning is the only kind I trust anymore. Wakes me up better than alarms or news alerts. Better than guilt, even.He hands me a mug without a word and sinks into the chair across from my desk, stretching out like he owns the place. One ankle propped on his knee, mug in one hand, the other resting on the armrest like a man waiting for the next fire.I take a sip and almost cough. “You trying to kill me?”“You’re awake now, aren’t you?”“Barely.”“Then it’s working.”It’s early. The kind of early where the hallways outside are still quiet, where the sky over the city’s still gray and gold instead of full sun, and where everything feels a little more honest before the day dresses itself in PR and politics.We don’t usual