Final Offer

Trigger warning!!! miscarriage. Signing that contract might have been a mistake but I knew the rules. I was only there for one reason and one reason only. To bear the Alpha King, a pup, an heir to his throne, while he enjoyed life with his wife, and for some reason it was enough for me. Being his second wife was enough for me, until I fell in love with him, and who could blame me? My husband was what any woman would want in a man but I was not what he wanted in a woman, he loved his first wife! I was just a means to an end.

"You're mine Ariella Vandenberg" his hand firmly wraps around her slender waist, pulling her closer to him. "Jay...I..I hate you... so much" he smirked and without permission, smashed his cold lips unto hers, enveloping in a passionate kiss. "We Both know that's a lie..". * *. * * Following a painful breakup with her fiancé, Arielle Vandenberg finds sanctuary in a darkly lit club, her thoughts clouded by sadness. But when she crosses paths with Jay Sinclair, a dangerously charming billionaire, her night takes an unexpected turn. Jay Sinclair is the last man Arielle shouldn't be engaged with, given his vicious reputation and untouchable status. But, when a controversy threatens Arielle's future, Jay makes her an attractive proposal: a contract marriage to solve both of their issues. The rules are simple: no strings, no love, just business. But when she starts to unwind, she finds out the awful truth: Jay has been using her from the start. Their terrible encounter at the bar wasn't a coincidence; rather, a deliberate plot to wreak revenge on her family's betrayal done years back, which she knows nothing of. However, with her heart now on the line, she must decide between walking away from the only person who can save her and her family and trusting the guy who fooled her. will Arielle find out even more devastating details about the guy she thought she knew, or will love be able to endure betrayal?.

I had been dating Andy Lawson for five years. He had gone bankrupt, and during the worst of it, we had to sleep in parks and scavenge leftovers for food. After a hundred days of that life, I was just going to the blackmarket to sell some blood for money when someone sent me a video. [Surprise.] It was a livestream site, set up for rich kids to prank the common folk—and a video of me was pinned to the top. My finger trembling, I tapped on it and saw myself hidden in a corner of a park, munching on leftovers to nourish my frail body. On the split video, Andy was reclining against the armchair of a five-star hotel and savoring his gourmet menu. "Oh, this is amazing! All Andy has to do is say that he's sick, and she's selling her blood for him!" "On the sixteenth prank, she fell into the ocean… And on the fifteenth, she was sent flying in a car crash! Why is she so hard to kill?" "Well, Andy already made it clear that if she survives until the end, he will marry her and swear off women!" "One month to go! Will she die from the pranks, or marry into the Lawson family with pomp and circumstance?" "I'm betting fifty mil that she dies tragically! Hahaha!"

On the tenth day after I perished in the avalanche, my husband finally remembered me. His first love was suffering from aplastic anemia and urgently needed a bone marrow transplant—one that only I could provide. He came home holding a donation consent form, ready for me to sign, only to find the house empty. Kelly leaned weakly against him. "Vanessa must really hate me. She doesn't want to donate her bone marrow, so she ran away on purpose, didn't she?" "Maybe we should just forget it," she sighed. "I can hold on a little longer." Caden gently comforted her, his heart aching. "I won't let anything happen to you." "It's just a bone marrow donation. It's not like she'll die from it." Then he pulled out his phone and sent me a message: [No matter where you are, come back immediately and sign the donation consent form.] [Don't be so selfish! Kelly is seriously ill. If she doesn't get a transplant soon, she'll die. It's just bone marrow—I'm not asking for your life!] [If you keep refusing, I'll stop paying for your mother's medical bills!] Caden… I died the moment you walked away from the ski resort with Kelly. The avalanche buried me and our unborn child beneath the snow. My mother, in her desperate attempt to save me, was torn apart by wild wolves. How could you not know?

I was a sketch artist acting for the police. On a secret mission, I was discovered by a murderer. My eyes were gouged out, and my body was dismembered, unceremoniously dumped in a garbage bin. On the brink of death, I called my boyfriend, a criminal investigator. However, he hung up on me because he was busy accompanying his first love to a prenatal checkup. A few days later, he received a painting that was a vital clue to finding the murderer, but he thought I was playing tricks on him. In his anger, he tore that portrait to shreds. After he found out the truth, he spent the whole night searching through the garbage to piece it back together.

In an East London lock up, two film makers, Jimmy and Sam, are duct taped to chairs and forced to watch a snuff film by Ashkan, a loan shark to whom they owe a lot of money. If they don’t pay up, they’ll be starring in the next one. Before the film reaches its end, Ashkan and all his men are slaughtered by unknown assailants. Only Jimmy and Sam survive the massacre, leaving them with the sole copy of the snuff film. The film makers decide to build their next movie around the brutal film. While auditioning actors, they stumble upon Melissa, an enigmatic actress who seems perfect for the leading role, not least because she’s the spitting image of the snuff film’s main victim. Neither the film, nor Melissa, are entirely what they seem however. Jimmy and Sam find themselves pulled into a paranormal mystery that leads them through the shadowy streets of the city beneath the city and sees them re-enacting an ancient Mesopotamian myth cycle. As they play out the roles of long forgotten gods and goddesses, they’re drawn into the subtle web of a deadly heresy that stretches from the beginnings of civilization to the end of the world as we know it. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing