We Are Not Okay

I was nineteen the first time Cole Whitfield broke me. Not with cruelty. With a single word. Why. Not did you — why. Like the answer was already settled and he just wanted the story to make sense. I told him the truth anyway. He said nothing that mattered. So I picked up my bag, walked out of his apartment, and decided that a man who trusted a rumor over two years of me wasn’t worth a correction. I spent the next two years becoming someone I actually liked. New city. Graduate program. A published paper with my name on it. I was done with Cole Whitfield in every way a person can be done. Then I walked into Seminar Room 114 and he was sitting right there, gray eyes already on the door, like some part of him knew. I sat down. I opened my notebook. I did not look up. Here’s the thing about studying how people form beliefs: you understand exactly why he believed it. That doesn’t mean you forgive it. That doesn’t mean two years of silence disappear because he’s learned how to look at you like he’s sorry. He wants a conversation. I want my degree. But the campus is small, the seminar table is round, and the boy who broke my heart at nineteen is doing everything right at twenty-one — and I’m starting to understand that composed isn’t the same thing as healed. I hate that I still know the exact sound of his voice.

Skai, a shy, sweet, innocent girl, ran away from home in the hopes of escaping her abusive father, only to be thrown into a world she had no idea existed. With no choice but to stay among the vampires, she falls in love with a 200-year-old hybrid king.

I always had it all. I never expected for everything to change after only one night. One second I'm out having fun and the next I'm knee deep in crap with only a boy I just met to help me see it through.

BLURB: He's a grief counselor who lost his own family. He's an immigrant fighting for permission to stay. When Owen meets Lucas at a small restaurant called Roots, neither expects what happens next. Owen is isolated after his family abandoned him for being gay. Lucas carries the weight of an entire family his disabled brother, struggling sister, and the constant pressure to prove they all deserve to stay in the country. What begins as a chance encounter becomes something real. Between stolen moments at the restaurant and late-night conversations, Owen and Lucas find each other. But as they fall deeper, the world closes in. When Owen's boss discovers their relationship and forces him to choose his job or Lucas everything shatters. Owen can't afford to lose his income. Lucas can't bear to be the reason Owen loses everything. They're trapped between love and survival, belonging and rejection. Because sometimes permission to stay isn't about immigration. Sometimes it's about whether love is worth fighting for.

Lurking in the shadows, werewolves have always been there. For millions of years, they've been guided by powerful Alpha, subjected to the powers of those monsters, until one day, that hierarchy was dropped. This part of history is dark and unknown to the average population. Now living side by side with humans, they were getting closer to extinction till an unknown Alpha raised out of the darkness to rule and tame the wild beast left to roam freely. Seen as the new hope of an entire nation, he was feared and praised, but overall, cursed with a position he never wished to be in. But he's not sane, nor is she. When unhinged mates met, what else could unfold unless complete disaster and further destruction of what"normal" once signified? But what breaks, the world or themselves? What baggage have they buried deep down for no one to see? What crime has been committed? Does love between themselves exist, or is it just fake lusting for each other's bodies? Watch the world crumble because of both.

I loved Alpha Lucien Grey with all my heart. From the moment I first saw him, I was drawn to him. However, I always knew the one Lucien loved was someone else. Her name was Summer White. I thought I’d be like one of those tragic side characters in romance stories—forever on the sidelines, watching the man I loved build a life with another woman. However, everything changed three years ago when Summer ran away on the night of the marking ceremony, saying she wasn’t ready to be claimed. Lucien had to make a decision and announced he would find a new partner. So, I stepped forward. Wearing a dress that didn’t quite fit, my hands trembling, I stood in for Summer. That day, Lucien and I formed a bond as mates. For the past three years, Lucien had treated me with warmth and kindness. He was gentle and thoughtful. He took care of me in every way. However, just over a month ago, Summer came back to our pack. On the night of our anniversary, she got drunk and called Lucien in tears, sobbing that she regretted everything. Lucien’s hands were shaking so hard he almost dropped his phone, but he didn’t hang up. He just stood there, torn. When his eyes met mine, full of confusion and pain, I took his hand—still trembling—and said softly, “Go to her.” The moment he left, I filed the mate-bond termination papers at City Hall, requesting to break the bond. After all, these years of stolen happiness were never really mine to keep. It was time for me to leave, too.