Why Does The Killer Target Swallows In The Swallow Murders An Avalon Mystery?

I’m trained to do one thing: kill. I was put into a school where the concepts of love and forgiveness were treated as weaknesses. When I graduated, they told me I’d be lucky to survive; now I’m the best of the best and the person who gets the job done no matter what. I’ve assassinated Presidents, housewives, Navy SEALS and more shifters than I can count. I have more kills than anyone in my business, so when a new order comes in to kill Alpha Gideon, I take it without a second thought. ​He’s a job like any other, but during my scouting, I see something I’ve never seen before. Alpha Gideon isn’t a tyrant or a bully; he’s kind to his Pack. I start asking questions, which is when everything goes to shit. My signal is found, and for the first time in my life, my target has me in his sights. I expect pain and maybe even death, but Alpha Gideon treats me like a welcomed guest; his warmth and kindness open up something inside of me that I didn’t know I had. I should kill him before he changes me completely. I tell him I’m cold and heartless, and he laughs. Loving a mark has never been done, but no matter what I do, every touch sets me on fire and with each longing glance, my past becomes a distant memory. I’m ready to put everything I was aside to stay with Alpha Gideon when the call comes in; my fellow assassins have been called. The bounty on Alpha Gideon has been doubled. I have two choices: protect the man who has opened up my heart or kill the target and get the job done.

When I was 18 years old, I stepped between Eric Ludlow and a silver arrow loosed by another contender so I could help him win the Alpha Trials. The silver sank deep into my wolf. Ever since then, I've lived as a broken werewolf without a mind-link and unable to conceive. Drowning in guilt, Eric decided to mark me. He pulled me close and vowed, "I'll love you for the rest of my life, Evelyn. I'll never see you as less." I really did believe him back then. At 25, he wins the pack war again and emerges as the strongest Alpha. But he turns our mate bond into a joke. At the celebration dinner, during a thoughtless game of Truth or Dare with his secretary, Mia Sadler, he speaks across the mind-link to everyone. "Evelyn, you're painfully dull. You're not the least bit appealing, your scent is thin, and you can't even bear a pup. You're just dead weight. I wish you'd never been saved back then. I wish you'd died." I clutch the medical report that says my wolf is about to be gone for good, staying silent. He assumes I can't hear anything since I don't have a mind-link. I beg the pack healer for a brutal, life-draining potion, just to know what a mate bond with him feels like. It's fine. I'll be dead soon, just the way Eric wants.

Alice Warren was the daughter of two famous murderers. Her fate, which was full of bad luck, finally met its end when the Le Blancs adopted her. The Le Blancs were good and kind people; they helped the poor, donated to charities, and built an organization for the orphans called UNITY. Alice was already contented with her life, but all of her beliefs and luck crumbled down when she entered Saint Clair Academy, and the series of accidents and deaths started again. Of course, it did not help that an irritating genius artist, Thomas Saint Clair, was always at her tail. Now that the number of dead bodies increased, Alice had to investigate whether the accidents were just lousy luck full of coincidence or carefully planned-out murders.

To save the merfolk from slaughter, I seduced the vampire lord himself-Lazarus. He still loved me after all. For three days and three nights, he drowned himself in my body, unwilling to let me out of his arms for even a second. I roused from the haze of fleeting bliss, only to have a searing, corrosive liquid poured mercilessly over my head. "You with eternal healing can taste the sting of agony？" "Yet your trivial suffering pales in comparison to the loss of my kin you brought upon me. It is nothing at all!" "This is merely the beginning. Refuse to reveal where my parents lie hidden, and you shall never break free from this castle." He was convinced that I alone had destroyed everything he held dear. Holding the entire merfolk’s lives hostage, he confined me within the castle. Time and again, he tore open my chest by force, wrenching out my pearl of the mer, feeding its essence to Isolde to mend her frail flesh. He condemned me to sleepless nights, forcing me to cleanse the filth he left behind. Barefoot, I was made to dance the mermaid’s lament upon razor-sharp silver blades, writhing in pain to lull Isolde into slumber. Later, Isolde feigned a pregnancy. Driven by false tenderness for her, Lazarus took to slicing chunks of my immortal mermaid flesh with cold blades, brewing them into nourishing potions for her. Hatred for me burned deep in his bones, yet whenever I was on the brink of death, he would still force his own blood down my throat to keep me alive. "You presume too much on my lingering love for you, choosing silence over the truth, do you not? Aurora… tell me, what became of my parents?" I endured in silence, bearing witness to his love torn between hatred and longing. Soon, I would no longer need to guard that fatal secret. For a mermaid who dwells on land for three years shall wither and perish, severed from the sea that gives her life. Only three days remained until my final breath.

My sister, Lily, was torn to pieces by Rogues. I sobbed, begging my Fated Mate, Alpha Ethan, to find her killers. He never did. A year later, on the anniversary of her death. I went to find Ethan, ready to tell him I was pregnant. Instead, I found him holding another omega, Bella, in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he soothed her. “No one will find out you dropped the pack's mental shield and got Lily killed. Once Harper gives up her title as Luna at the ceremony, you will be my one and only.” My heart shattered. So that was it. He never marked me, never rejected me… he wanted me to step down on my own. He was protecting my sister’s murderer. He wanted to make her Luna. I stormed in, screaming, but Bella suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed. Wolfsbane poisoning, she claimed. "She was poisoned saving me! Give me your heart's blood! It's the only thing that can save her!" Ethan looked at me with more disgust than if I were trash. “I’m pregnant! It’ll kill the baby!” I pleaded. But his Alpha Command crashed down. My body was no longer my own. I could only watch as the thick needle pierced my chest, right over my heart. Golden blood flowed out. A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach… He had killed my baby. My wolf shattered inside me. I closed my eyes, reaching for a forbidden connection in the werewolf world. "Lycan King Rogan. Tomorrow, I need you to help me destroy everything in the Blackwood Pack. Including Alpha Ethan."

LA, Land of Sunshine... Celebrities, Stardom ... and Serial Killers. Two twin sisters, struggling to get by in a world that reared its cruel ugly head when their older sibling was ripped away from them, without a trace, are suddenly thrown into a dangerous world when they come face to face with a gang of men who are single-handedly responsible for death and disappearance of hundreds of women across the United States of America. Now it's time for Ella and Peyton to face down the demons that roam the City of Angels, but, in the end, will they survive?