Can Warm Water Help With Red Bruises?

"I, Amelie Ashwood, Reject you, Tate Cozad, as my mate. I REJECT YOU!" I screamed. I took the silver blade dipped in my own blood to my mate mark. Amelie only ever wanted to live a simple life out of the spotlight of her Alpha bloodline. She felt she had that when she found her first mate. After years together, her mate was not the man he claimed to be. Amelie is forced to perform the Rejection Ritual to set herself feel. Her freedom comes at a price, one of which is an ugly black scar."Nothing! There's nothing! Bring her back!" I scream with every part of my being. I knew before he said anything. I felt her in my heart say goodbye and let go. At that moment, an unimaginable pain radiated to my core. Alpha Gideon Alios loses his mate, on which should be the happiest day of his life, the birth of his twins. Gideon doesn't have time to grieve, left mateless, alone, and a newly single father of two infant daughters. Gideon never lets his sadness show as it would be showing weakness, and he is the Alpha of the Durit Guard, the army and investigative arm of the Council; he doesn't have time for weakness. Amelie Ashwood and Gideon Alios are two broken werewolves that fate has twisted together. This is their second chance at love, or is it their first? As these two fated mates come together, sinister plots come to life all around them. How will they come unite to keep what they deem the most precious safe?

Despite me being three months pregnant, my husband asked me to jump into the water to help his first love look for her necklace. I teared up and begged my husband not to make me do this . Yet his friends all criticized me. “He’s just asking you to jump into the water. You’re the only one who can swim here. Nothing will go wrong if you’re only in for a little while.” “Minerva, that’s the memento Violet’s mother left for her.” I tried to keep fighting against it and grabbed the hem of Shaun’s shirt. But he shoved me into the sea. I struggled against the water as I hoped to see any hint of pity in Shaun’s eyes. Yet he said, “Minerva, you’re an excellent swimmer. You’ll be fine.”

I am the center of my parents' world. They turn my bedroom into every little boy's dream, with soccer balls, LEGO sets, and Transformers everywhere. They even spend a fortune installing a bathtub for me because I love taking baths. They always tell my little brother, Jason Tucker, that he has to protect me for the rest of my life. But everything changes when I take him into a hot bath with me, and he accidentally chokes on water. Mommy loses it. She grabs me by the throat and screams, "We thought you'd learn to care for your brother after all the love we gave you. We never imagined you'd turn out to be so ungrateful and try to drown him!" I shake my head frantically, but Mommy shoves me into the washing machine without hesitation. "You like taking baths, don't you? I'll give you a bath you'll never forget!" Mommy and Daddy take Jason out to play, but they fail to realize that they have accidentally pressed the washing machine's start button. The water keeps rising, but I can't climb out. As I'm tangled up with the clothes, I struggle to open my eyes and see Mommy and Daddy returning. I don't want to take baths anymore. Can Mommy and Daddy stop being mad at me?

I've traveled to Southgate to attend a water-splashing festival. A cheeky kid, who's about eight years old, keeps spraying the back of my head and my ears with water ejected from her high-pressure water gun. Half of my body is soon drenched in water. That's when I berate the kid and tell her not to aim her gun at my face. She doesn't bother stopping. On the contrary, she even has the gall to spray more water right in my face. I feel the cold water spritzing into my left eye. The pain is so intense that I can't even open my eyes. To make things worse, that kid is even howling with laughter while raising her gun proudly. "Look, Dad! He's all soggy and wet, like a limp noodle! This is fun!" The kid's father merely watches from the side. Not only does he not offer an apology to me, but he also records the whole thing on his phone. "Hey, my daughter is washing your eyes for you for free! This is an honor that no one else can ever receive, you know! Why are you acting like a complete wuss?" I swipe the liquid off my face before drawing to my feet and yelling at the crowd around me. "There's strong acid contained inside that kid's water gun! Just now, she burned my eye with it!"

Just because Tristan Whitfield wants to know how long I can hold my breath, Celine Harper kicks me straight into the pool. I go pale, screaming for help, but nobody pulls me out until I've already blacked out. Someone nearby whispers, "Don't you think Celine went a little too far?" But she just scoffs, not the least bit worried. "Relax. Gavin's a pushover. Give him a plane ticket to go somewhere fun, and he'll forget all about it." When I come to, I do exactly what she predicts. I get on the flight to Ridgemont and never return. Two weeks later, Celine can't stand it anymore and flies out after me, furious. "You're really holding a grudge over that?"

The Color of Healing Some scars are invisible, and some smiles are carefully practiced. Seventeen-year-old Elif has spent years surviving a life that no one truly sees. At school, she is the quiet girl who keeps to herself, avoids attention, and hides behind perfect grades. At home, she walks on broken glass, trapped in a house where fear has become part of her daily routine. Believing that trusting people only leads to heartbreak, Elif convinces herself that loneliness is the safest place to live. Everything begins to change when she is paired with Adrian—a confident, charming senior whose carefree smile hides wounds of his own. What starts as a simple school project slowly turns into an unexpected friendship that neither of them saw coming. Adrian notices the pain Elif tries so desperately to hide, while Elif discovers that even the brightest smiles can conceal the deepest scars. As the walls around her heart begin to crumble, buried secrets, painful memories, and dangerous truths threaten to pull them apart. Healing is never easy, and love alone cannot erase the past. Together, they must face their fears, learn to trust again, and decide whether two broken souls can truly help each other find the light. The Color of Healing is a heartfelt slow-burn romance about hope, resilience, friendship, and finding the courage to believe in tomorrow. Filled with emotional moments, unforgettable characters, and the reminder that even the darkest nights eventually give way to dawn, this story proves that healing is not about forgetting the pain—it is about discovering the strength to keep moving forward. Sometimes, the person who changes your life forever is the one you never expected to meet.