19th Century American

` It was a cool, breezy and stormy night. Rain came down in sheets, as a dark figure stood before a house. The house was pretty ordinary, white with blue shutters; it didn't have more than two bedrooms. It looked like a cozy little family home with flowers and shrubs lining the front lawn, and then the smell from the pellet stove smoke invaded his nostrils. He took a deep breath and pulled out an old, rusted compass from his black trench coat. It looked like it could have been from the 14th century, the small, brass disc was dented and the Victorian designs were faded. He studied it as it pointed east, towards the small house. He looked the house over carefully, looking for the best entrance, before proceeding towards the side to gaze into the window. Inside you can see the small kitchen; the brand new, all black appliances off set the linoleum floor. Cabinets filled almost every wall of the small space that made it look more crowded than it should have been. The kitchen opened to a larger room which seemed to be used as a living room and a dining room all at once. The whole house looked crowded, with the furniture in the living room all touching except for a small gap to walk through and the dining room was so close to the sofa, it could have been sitting on it. He stepped back into the shadows as he watched a young couple enter the kitchen. The wife was tall and slender, had strawberry blond hair formed around her face accenting her jaw-line and her deep blue eyes stopped your heart as you got lost in them. Her fair complexion was silky and complimented her soft face.

*Hollis Bogard isn’t known for her commitment. In fact, she’s content leading a single, flirtatious life. That might change after meeting Whitney York, a free spirited artist thirsting for adventure.Having been cursed out, chased, and scorned by every broken hearted woman twenty eight year old heroin addict Hollis Bogard has slept around with, she’s not fazed at all by any of it. Always preferring to look for the next best set of kissable lips. Life as an emotionally unavailable bachelorette has served her well, and after all...everyone was warned before anything happened. Feelings were a big no. Hollis had seen what love did to her parents, and wanted nothing to do with the white picket-fenced lie. So long as her bed was warm when she needed it to be, that’s what mattered.Californian Whitney York is ready for a new start. While spontaneity wasn’t a strong suit of her’s, packing up everything she owned into her little black 2008 Toyota Prius and driving cross country to Auburn, Maine was the best idea she’d had all year. No more nagging mother, to hell with her father always comparing Whitney to her successful sister, Theresa. The one with the prestigious acting career, doting husband, and two all American poster children. She wanted to be free to figure out her own destiny. When elusive Hollis bumps into electrifying Whitney at a local bar on the outskirts of town, sparks fly between the unlikely pair.Disclaimer: Strong sexual content, graphic sex scenes, drug usage. 18+, please. This novel won’t be for you if you’re not comfortable with any of the above topics.2019 All Rights Reserved (you know how it goes) Please don’t attempt to steal any part of my work.

The things we want are so very rarely the things we need. Clifton Heights, a modest Adirondack town, offers many unique attractions. Arcane Delights sells both paperbacks and hard-to-find limited editions. The Skylark Diner serves the best home-cooked meals around, with friendly service and a smile. Every August, Mr. Jingo’s County Fair visits, to the delight of children and adults. In essence, Clifton Heights is the quintessential small American town. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is treated like family. It is quiet, simple, and peaceful. But shadows linger here. Flitting in dark corners, from the corner of the eye. If you walk down Main Street after dark, the slight scrape of shoes on asphalt whispers you're not alone, but when you look over your shoulder, no one is there. The moon shines high and bright in the night sky, but instead of throwing light, it only seems to make the shadows lengthen. Children disappear. Teens run away. Hunters get lost in the woods with frightening regularity. Husbands go mad, and wives vanish in the dead of night. And still, when the sun rises in the morning, you are greeted by townspeople with warm waves and friendly smiles, and the shivers pass as everything seems fresh and new... Until night falls once more. Handy's Pawn and Thrift sits several blocks down from Arcane Delights. Like any thrift store, its wares range from the mundane to the bizarre. By daylight, it seems just another slice of small town Americana. But in its window hangs a sign which reads: We Have Things You Need. And when a lonely traveling salesman comes looking for something he desperately wants, after normal visiting hours, after night has fallen, he will face a harsh truth among the shelves of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift: the things we want are rarely the things we need. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Peter Cooper lives in the town of Capistrano. After being dumped by girlfriend Amelia his friend James arranges a job at Trans-Port, bossed by the famous Professor William Carver. Carver’s assistant is an American woman called Claire. Peter is pressurised into being a guinea pig for the company’s teleportation experiments and gets sent to another reality ‘The Projection’. On returning he's told Trans-Port have mentally imprisoned him in Capistrano slnce ten. The programme is a wormhole to another reality and Peter is forced to go back there and bring home its creator, his brilliant scientist father John, so Trans-Port's teleportation system can work successfully. The Projection is only programmed for John and Peter’s DNA. Peter finds the alternate reality called ‘Guildford’ similar to Capistrano but landscape and identities have changed. He meets another ‘Claire’, now English. She helps him find his ‘parents’ who informed his doppelganger (Other Peter) is a successful scientist, married to Amelia and working for Kilgore Industries in ‘Cambridge’. They are also building a teleportation device. Realising 'his' John might have gone there, Peter follows. At Kilgore he finds another ‘James’, now ‘Other Peter’s’ Project Manager. He pretends to be his doppleganger's non-existent brother to find out about an 'accident' on the site. That night a dream shows ‘Other Peter’ involved in a metaphysical reaction to the accident. John asks Peter to help him find out more about it. They force Amelia to take them to ‘Other Peter’ at Kilgore. They find him trapped between two states of reality just like Peter’s dream. Peter forces John to return to Capistrano but Carver appears telling him neither realty actually exists. The accident killed Peter and he is now purely cyber intelligence. But is this true? Can Peter’s REAL life still be saved?

“Let me go!” He laughed, crimson bleeding into his irises and his fangs glinting with delight. Wrapping her legs around himself he cupped her behind that peeked from under the shorts she had on, licking at her ear, purring. “Did you like my presents?” Nyx scowled, pushing hard at his chest, hating the way her breath hitched in her throat from his touch, hating the little gasps that left her lips from the tingles she felt when his hands continued to graze her skin. “The flimsy clothes or the fact that you just turned me a feeder?” “Both. I thought you'd appreciate my gifts.” “Give me the antidote,” Draven cocked a brow, almost laughing at her pinced expression. Slowly bringing his face closer to hers, their lips merely inches apart he spoke, “Beg for it,” “You promised! You said you would give it to me!” “I didn't say when, did I? Maybe if you try to be a good little girl, I might as well be generous and offer you the cure you so desperately seek.” ††★★†† On the verge of the 21th century with vampires seizing power from humans, domineering them and plunging them back into the medieval times, Nyx a human hunter struggling to adapt to having the undead around becomes a vampire killer herself. Until she crosses path with the ever-so-deadly King of vampires, Draven. Claiming her under the ruse of a mate bond and condemning her to a life of slavery, he makes her the empire's whore. But as the pair grows close, Nyx slowly begins to pry off his bravado and shatter his world, opening the cold hearted vampire to a new kind of emotion. When the court demands a pure blooded queen, he knows he has more to protect than just the empire.

Reagan is the youngest in this generation of Guardians. Because she is much younger than the others, she was never as close to the Guardians as her siblings. Thankfully, when her older brother found his mate, she had a younger sister, Meadow, who was Reagan’s age. The two have become best friends and they have the same close friendship that her siblings share with the other Guardians. Kieran is an Alpha who lives in the western part of the country. He has been waiting a long time to find his mate. He’s refused to take a chosen mate, but at twenty-six, he’s becoming feral, and time is running out. He must either find his fated mate, take a chosen mate, or be put down by his pack. Because she is the last of the Guardians, Reagan’s eighteenth birthday has been opened to all eligible males throughout the country. Her birthday is considered the event of the century, with Alpha werewolves, royal elves, royal vampires, and even warlocks attending. As Kieran's last chance, he attends. The moment he smells his mate, his wolf pushes forward, marking her without consent. Amid the fury of the Guardians and others in attendance, Reagan decides to give Kieran a chance to prove himself before marking him and completing their bond. She leaves the only home she’s ever known to travel across the country, with Meadow insisting that she come. When they arrive at Kieran's home, Reagan finds a pack in chaos. Bullying, manipulation, and subterfuge have been used to run the pack while Kieran has been fighting his demons. Can Reagan, with Meadow’s help, turn the pack around, or will she decide that Kieran isn’t worth the effort, rejecting him and returning home, leaving him to go feral?

Zephyr is the last air dragon in existence. For a century and a half, she has searched for her mate. Finally, she decides to have a true dragon with Avani, the last earth dragon and only remaining male dragon. Her son, Ancalagon, is the last of the pure dragons. Ishir is a Bengal tiger shifter. He became friends with Avani before he was captured and placed into an Arena. There he met Tana, the fire dragon. He befriended her, her hybrid daughter and eventually her Lycan mate. He has been working to rescue shifters and sometimes even missing humans as his job for years. It was during a meeting to discuss taking down a new Arena that Ishir met Zephyr and realized that he was mated to a dragon. When Zephyr recognizes Ishir as her mate, she refuses to acknowledge him. After all this time, she finally finds her mate when she’s just had her son. But a dragon can’t stay away from their mate, and in a moment of weakness, she goes to Ishir, spending a night of passion more intense than anything she could have imagined. However, when she returns home, she finds that her son has been kidnapped, taken by hunters. She begins searching for him, half crazed to protect him from the people who so willingly kill shifters. When she finally finds her son, Oliver, the lead hunter makes an agreement with Zephyr. She will work for him in exchange for her son’s life. Now Zephyr will have to go against her very nature, becoming an assassin to kill those she is sworn to protect in order to save her son. Can Ishir find Ancalagon, protect the shifters and save Zephyr from herself, or will she lose herself to save her son?

Alaric Thorn was just a blacksmith in the 12th century—a husband, a father, a simple man. Until the day everything was taken from him. His wife murdered. His daughters stolen. And he himself slaughtered, powerless to protect the people he loved. But death did not end his story. Dragged into a supernatural realm after dying, Alaric made a desperate bargain: power in exchange for completing a mission in the future. A mission he did not understand. He returned to Earth centuries later—only to realize his revenge no longer existed. Four hundred years had passed. His family long gone. Their killer long dead. And Alaric… could no longer die. Cursed with immortality, he wandered through ages and empires, trying every possible way to end his life—failing each time. All he wanted was to go back in time and fix what he had lost. But when he finally stepped into a time machine, fate betrayed him again. Instead of the past… Alaric was thrown into another realm entirely—a brutal world crawling with monsters, ancient races, and system-like powers. Here, strength must be earned through blood, each battle pushing him closer to awakening his true potential. In this realm, he is no longer just a wanderer. He is a rising lord. A conqueror. A man destined to build an empire strong enough to challenge a king— a king who bears the same name as the monster who destroyed his life on Earth. As Alaric fights beasts, defeats tyrants, and gathers allies and armies, he discovers the truth behind the mission he accepted centuries ago: To reclaim his fate… To break his immortal curse… To rewrite the destiny stolen from him… He must rise as the Immortal King. The true master of the Dark Realm he was fated to rule.

So there I was, stuck in this dark Victorian mansion for a whole freaking century, thinking I'd never get out. Then, out of nowhere, these two gorgeous girls swoop in and rescue me! I couldn't believe it, and we instantly hit it off. They showed me a whole new world I'd only ever imagined, and I was all about living a normal human life.   But just when I thought things were looking up, this vampire named Vivaldi pops up out of thin air, grinning like a possessed Jack-o'-lantern. I mean, a name like Vivaldi is bound to give you the creeps, right? He claimed I had some ancient first blood running through my veins and demanded that I sign some crazy blood contract with him—the kind of deal that comes with some seriously freaky consequences.   Vivaldi was trying to sell me the idea that this blood contract was his only lifeline, the only way to save his skin from something worse than death. But I wasn't some clueless newborn vamp; I knew better than to just dive into something as serious as a blood contract. Those things come with some heavy consequences, and I wasn't about to sign up for that without a second thought.   The problem was, if I didn't go along with his messed-up plan, he promised to make my friends' lives a living hell—the very people I'd started to care about. I was trapped between a rock and a hard place. If I decided to team up with Vivaldi, I'd be keeping him around, which is far from ideal. But if I refused, my friends and the whole town of Shadowvale would be in serious danger.    It felt like I was caught in this impossible situation, like I was trying to choose between two rotten apples.

VANESSA: ~"You will marry him!" Dad thundered, his veins bulging and his sickly pallor only enhancing how close to death's door he was. I was more worried about his health than this insane idea he was spouting, but. "This is the 21st century! You can't force to marry anyone! That's preposterous!" I wanted to yell several more words, to impress on him how absurd his demand was, but then the heart monitor started beeping loudly. A nurse and his hairless doctor rushed in. Mum and I were pushed out gently but firmly.~ Vanessa Anders might not have a lot of love for her father, but she couldn't stand by and let his empire crumble, not when it will lead to his death. Besides, the man she was more or less being sold off to was easy on the eyes, rich and very nice! Okay, she might have a crush on the billionaire, but isn't that a good thing? Except, after marriage, the nice charming man disappears and a beast takes his place. A beast that loves to make Vanessa hurt. CALLUM: Callum Gray hates two things in life; being lied to and people who try to manipulate him. The exact two things Shawn Anders and his daughter were. What kind of desperate girl holds a man to ransom just to get him to marry her? It didn't matter. What she wanted was a marriage, right? Well, that's exactly what she would get. A marriage, not of convenience, but of hell. Callum was going to make her suffer for every single bit of her manipulation and then some. Author's Note; This book features a deceitful father, a mean and sadistic CEO and an oblivious young woman who is a pawn in her father's game and the recipient of a revenge plot.