Who Is The Antagonist In 'A World Of Curiosities'?

“What did I promise would happen if you threw another punch, Artemis?” Professor Lucian's silky tone hardened into a dark fascinating baritone. “Let me see…” Artemis licked his lips with a menacing smile, his cold dark eyes piercing through the professor's oceanic ones. “You said you'll bring me to my knees but something tells me I'll do more than just begging.” The air in the room shifted as the older man took a step closer. “Hit me, Artemis,” Lucian took another step closer. “Every second you hesitate, your punishment doubles.” Artemis lips curled in a smirk as he stepped closer. He raised his hand slowly to the professor's lips but the older man caught it before it could make contact. An amused chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Twenty seconds gone, Professor. You better punish me hard,” he smirked. ******* Artemis McAlester was feared for two reasons. His ability to break anything and his power to own everything. Kingston College was his playground until a red-haired professor with oceanic blue eyes and a dangerous intolerance for spoiled bullies. Not only did Lucian defy every rule he set, but he was also the one thing Artemis couldn’t own. And that defiance? It was the sexiest thing of all. Except Lucian wasn't someone he could break. To own the blue-eyed professor, Artemis would have to do the unthinkable. Submit. Break. Let himself be owned. As long as the only thing between them was desire and pure unadulterated hate.

Family is everything. Blood is everything. You only live, die and kill for your family." Born and raised in secret, like a ghost who never existed, Lilliana Moretti was brought up to be used as a secret weapon against one of the most ruthless crime families-the Romanos. And when she walked into the devil's lair willingly-pretending to be in love with the second-in-command of the Romano Empire, Dominic Romano-too many buried secrets were unearthed, leaving her shattered. An uphill battle between two crime families unleashed chaos like never before. While two people were out for each other's blood with bleeding hearts, little did they realize their love was more lethal than their hatred for each other. ************************* E X C E R P T - My fingers tangled in her hair as I forced her downward. “I’m not going to kneel before you like you’re some kind of god,” she snarled. The corner of my mouth curved into a slow, dark smile. “No,” I agreed, voice low and steady. “You’re not going to kneel for me.” I leaned in closer, eyes locked on hers. “You’re going to spread your legs for me, Lilliana—because I’m the monster, baby. The real one.”

A broken watch. A misdirected text. And a playful mistake that plunges Hala’s world into delicious chaos. When Hala sends a fiery text venting about her brutally strict professor—calling him a cold-hearted tyrant—she thinks she's texting her father. The devastating shock? The shadow lurking on the other side of the screen, playing along with her game, is none other than Professor Youssef himself. Now, stepping into his lecture hall feels like walking into a trap. Wrapped in a tense truce, a wicked game of psychological warfare begins. He wants to break her stubborn pride. She wants to survive his absolute control. But beneath his cold, calculated mask lies a dark secret and a past that refuses to stay buried. Between lethal stares and an undeniable, burning friction, they trigger a forbidden obsession that society condemns. Can hate and rivalry ignite an all-consuming fire? Or will the ghosts of his past burn their impossible love to ash?

“You’ve come to kill me detective?” He whispered against her skin as he gently grasped her arm and turned her to him. Jude swallowed a gulp and looked up at him. His eyes were a cobalt shade of blue behind the mask, daring, cold and terrifying. “And you’ve come to me to be killed?” She replied in a hushed tone, gathering a lot of nerve and taking a step closer to him. Detective Jude Laurent should arrest Cassien, the deadly Maestro who now controls The Black Rose syndicate. Instead, she finds herself drawn into a dangerous game of cat and mouse, risking everything to uncover the truth about the organization that has haunted her since childhood. The same organization she believes holds the answers to her parents’ death in what everyone called a tragic house fire. But Jude has no idea she’s been walking straight into a trap years in the making. The real mastermind behind The Black Rose has been watching her every move, orchestrating her pain from the shadows. Someone who shaped her into the perfect weapon for revenge. And they’ve been waiting for this moment since the night her world burned. Now, as Jude hunts the man who’s becoming her obsession, and Cassien finds himself equally captivated by the detective who should be his enemy, neither realizes they’re both pawns in a much deadlier game. Because the person who destroyed Jude’s world isn’t the criminal she’s chasing. It’s someone far closer than she could ever imagine. And their final move is about to destroy everything she’s ever believed about her past, her purpose, and the man she can’t stop wanting. Some obsessions are worth dying for. Others are designed to kill you.

The world ended but escaping him was always the harder part. Alone in a dying world filled with abandoned villages, hidden secrets, and creatures lurking in the dark, she fights to survive while running from the man who once destroyed her life. But the deeper she goes, the more she uncovers a terrifying truth connecting her, the village she escaped, and the thing hunting her through the ruins of the world. Some monsters are born after the apocalypse. Others were always human.

He died killing the Demon King. He woke up sixty years too early. Now the monster is a young man. And he is running out of reasons to stay away. --- Lysan Dusk was the hero who saved humanity. He killed the Demon King, ended the war, and delivered the world from suffering, and his reward was betrayal. He wakes up in a young student's body in a dormitory room of a magical academy, and the calender shows that the date sixty years before he was born. The world outside hasn't broken yet. The war hasn't happened. Lysan's plan is to keep it that way by staying completely out of it. Fail his combat exams, spend whatever borrowed time he has left, living a quiet life, where nothing requires him to be a hero. The man who will become the Demon King, the most feared monster in history is still young and beautiful, with pale grey eyes that find Lysan across every crowded room like he is the only person worth seeing. Lysan knows what those eyes will become. He has looked into them across battlefields, spent a lifetime seeing them in nightmares. He never expected it to feel like this up close. Roman is everything Lysan was warned about — magnetic, dangerous, impossible to ignore. Everyone except Lysan, refuses to be charmed, refuses to feel anything at all. But now, he is failing spectacularly at them because Roman keeps finding him. Keeps watching him and making Lysan's carefully rebuilt walls feel like paper. Lysan knows the ending. But for the first time in two lifetimes, he is wondering if the ending can change. If the monster can be loved instead of killed. If staying is braver than running.