Invitation To A Beheading

....."most things are best left unknown". The wolf she had just seen transform into a muscular man said..... **** Vanessa just ran away from a marriage she is being forced to go into, with a man she doesn't love. Thinking she was running to start a better life, she didn't know she just ran into a secret. One she is not supposed to discover. What's that secret that turns her whole life around?

My younger fraternal twin brother finally gets a girlfriend. Our parents, who are overseas, entrust me with the task of welcoming her. I instruct the maids to prepare a feast to welcome her. As we sit around the dining table, my brother scoops a bowl of soup for me himself. After that meal, my brother's girlfriend pulls a long face at me. "Who gave you the right to eat the soup my darling scooped? How could you be so lazy? You can't even cook, yet you're not even embarrassed to stuff yourself with all that food!" I'm stunned by her outrageous words. I reply in annoyance, "What does that have to do with you anyway? I'll do as I please!" She glares at me with hatred written all over her face and yells, "Why aren't you married yet? The family's assets belong to me and my darling. Who do you think you are that you can spend our money? "Just look at you. You will never be able to get married like this. Perhaps it'll be better for you if you beg me to introduce my elder cousin to you. He doesn't mind that you're lazy. All he wants is for you to give him a son. He earns over ten thousand dollars a month!" I'm dumbstruck by her shamelessness. I storm straight to the bathroom where my brother is and bang on the door repeatedly. "Come out here right now! What is with your girlfriend? And since when have our family's assets become yours and yours alone?"

Once a year the Iridescence Pack opens their gates to the world. Once a year an event unlike any other takes place. Ruled by an Alpha with a penchant for trickery, Iridian is a game where nothing is what it seems. Werewolves around the world beg for a coveted invitation to Iridian, desperate for a shot at the grand prize. Invitations sent across the world; their recipients chosen at random. For an entire week werewolves gather for the anticipated Iridian, held by the infamous Game Master. Each year the Game Master changes the game, challenging the mind and tricking the senses.The only thing Rachel Thornton cares about is finding her mate and getting the hell out of her small pack. Located in the middle of nowhere, Rachel longs to see the world. When an invitation finds its way into her hands, she wants nothing more than to refuse and move on with her life. This year the rules have changed, and something important was taken from Rachel. The only way to recover what was stolen is to venture to the Iridescence Pack, becoming a pawn in a game she never wanted to play.

Catherine Vergara accepts her friend's invitation to a party to avoid attending her cousin's wedding, who had betrayed her with her ex-boyfriend. She has a fleeting encounter with a stranger at the party and becomes pregnant by a man whose identity she doesn't know and could never find. She keeps the memory of this stranger until she meets Alexander Miller when she starts working as an executive assistant to this stressed, impatient, and incredibly handsome CEO at a major company. But Alexander didn't want to get involved with her. He was searching for a woman who simply vanished.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

Sometimes, getting over pain and betrayal means Getting Up, Getting Even and Getting a Better Man! Astrid has planned out her perfect wedding. That is before she found out that her fiance, Bryan, is cheating on her with her cousin-slash-best-friend-slash-maid-of-honor, Geena. Worse, Bryan got Geena pregnant. Just when Astrid thought it couldn't get any worse, she received an invitation telling her that her Fairy Tale wedding will happen exactly the way she planned it. Except that she is no longer going to be the bride! So when her parents urged her to attend the wedding "as family", she planned the perfect revenge. She hired Ryder, the smoking hot bartender she met, to pretend to be the perfect Prince Charming--rich, smart and totally in love with her. Ryder pulled off the role quite well. And soon, everybody thought Astrid was really with a smoking hot guy who wears expensive suits on a daily basis, drives a luxurious sports car, and is totally in love with her. Astrid invented the perfect guy every girl would kill to date, and every ex-boyfriend would hate to be compared with. Or did she really just invent him? What if she really did kiss a frog and tamed a beast? And her quest for revenge was really the start of her happily ever after?