The Cat Who Saw Stars

My best friend gave me an orange cat named Marmalade as a birthday gift. But one night, the cat suddenly shook its head and sighed at me. "You look pretty, so how can you be this clueless? Your best friend and your boyfriend have been betraying you, and you didn't even notice." I thought I was hearing things. I took my resignation letter out of the drawer, planning to quit my job and travel the world with my best friend. "While you're busy quitting, Vivian is already preparing to replace you and become the new general manager. Your boyfriend's move is cold, no doubt. What a shame. Word is, your company's about to land a billion‑dollar investment. The future's looking pretty damn bright." I heard the cat's thoughts again. I stopped writing immediately and tore my resignation letter into pieces.

Maya Ellison thought the hardest thing she would ever face was watching people die. After a painful divorce and years spent as a hospice nurse, she accepts a three-month assignment aboard The Oasis, a deep-space research vessel traveling far beyond Earth. Her patient is Dr. Elias Vance, a brilliant astrophysicist living out what he believes are the final months of his life after a terminal cancer diagnosis. Elias has spent years pushing people away. Maya has learned to guard her heart. Neither expects the quiet connection that begins to form between them beneath an endless sea of stars. Elias's illness doesn't behave like cancer. The deeper she investigates, the more disturbing the truth becomes. Hidden beneath medical records, buried family secrets, and a decades-old scientific mystery, lies a conspiracy tied to a forgotten interstellar signal, one that has already destroyed lives, and fueled a dangerous obsession. How far is she willing to go to save the man she loves... when he still trusts the person destroying him?

The zombie apocalypse had arrived, and pets could transform into guardians to protect their owners—each person was allowed no more than three. My best friend had spent a fortune on three Tibetan mastiffs. The landlord cleared out a fish tank to raise a crocodile. My boyfriend? He had stormed the zoo and dragged a lion home. And me? I only had three stray cats. The eldest was blind, the second one limped, and the youngest had just turned one month old. The moment the apocalypse system announced that pet slots were locked, I knew I was doomed. I tried to hide with my three disabled cats, hoping to survive quietly. Day one of the apocalypse: terrified… Day two: helpless… Day three: my cats sauntered over, tails swishing, carrying some unidentifiable object. "Mama, I bit off all the zombie heads on this street. How's that? Solid enough?" I was rendered speechless.

I had been with Elias, a renowned astrophotographer, for five years. With that said, I had never asked him to take me on a shoot with him, all because he once told me, "The first rule of astrophotography is to avoid any kind of light pollution. Even a flicker of your phone screen can ruin an entire night's long exposure." This was why I never even dared to send so much as a text to ask him if he had arrived at the location. I was afraid of ruining his work. All I did was wait at home. Whenever he went to the snowy mountains or the wilderness for a shoot, I would fold a paper star. In each of these paper stars, I would write down the things I did not get to say to him because I did not want to disturb him. [Make sure you layer up.] [I'll wait for you to come back.] I accumulated a thousand and ninety-six origami stars over five years, filling three glass bottles. He never opened a single one of them. Just last week, he was shortlisted for an international astrophotography competition. I was happy for him and went to the website to see his entry called “Light.” Framed at the center of the image was his assistant dressed in a red windbreaker. She was toying with a sparkler and laughing cheerily. The judges' comment read, "In this submission, the photographer voluntarily passed up the chance to capture a once-in-seventy-years comet. Instead, he dedicated the shot to the figure in the image who exuded all the light for him." This whole time, his world was never devoid of light. He simply wanted to snuff out my light. That same night, I poured all of the stars out of the bottles. I opened them one by one, to read the messages within to myself. Then, I burned them all. At dawn, after washing the three empty glass bottles, I had them neatly arranged next to the box he used for his camera lens. There were tens of thousands of galaxies in the universe. There was no reason I should linger outside the frame and wait for someone's light to bleed into mine.

Wandering in the wastelands of Earth, Sirius found himself suddenly in a different world. Longing for peace, he'll have to fight for the happiness he was deprived of until now...

When Archer’s fated mate rejects him and is taken to marry the Lycan king, his world shatters in a single night. Ariadne did not choose freedom; she chose survival. Trapped in a brutal political marriage and carrying a secret that could cost her life, she must endure the claws of a king who sees her as a prize, not a person. Far from pack politics and broken bonds, Peggy, a rebellious royal with more curiosity than caution, is sent on her "Excursion" beyond her kingdom’s borders, carrying a letter meant for a sisterhood of moon-bound priestesses. Her path soon collides with Archer and his companions, Mikael and Eli, drawing them all into a journey that will test loyalty, fate, and the bonds they thought unbreakable. As rogue wolves rise, the stars begin to shift, and old gods stir. When the Wolf Star comes, survival may demand more than love alone. Contains dark romance, violence, horror, and cosmic horror themes.