2001: A Space Odyssey

“Are you going to kill me?” Shawn whispered. Owen’s fingers slid up his throat, squeezing lightly as he backed him against the wall. “If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t still be talking.” Shawn swallowed hard. “Then what do you want?” His mouth curved, giving him that dangerous rugged smile. “I’m deciding.” *** That morning, Shawn only wanted to finish his shift, collect his pay, and get back to the real problems waiting for him outside the hotel: tuition he couldn’t afford, a mother dying in a hospital bed, and a younger sister who still believed he could fix everything. Then he walked into the wrong suite. There was blood on white sheets. Fangs buried deep in a dying man’s throat. Crimson eyes meeting his across the room. The creature should have killed him. But no, it didn't. It let him run. Now it’s everywhere. In his dreams, his space and in his thoughts. Watching him. Waiting… And just when he thinks the nightmare can’t follow him into daylight, he learns. The vampire has a name. Owen Rothwell de Valemont, as old as history. And he’s Shawn’s new boss. Owen doesn’t chase him. He doesn’t threaten. He simply moves closer, adjusting the world around Shawn until escape becomes impossible. And Shawn, fear should drive him away. Instead it turns into something darker. Something harder to resist.

"How does it feel to submit Jade, how does it feel to kneel at the feet of your owner," he asked, in a low voice that rumbled like the storm. Raising my head, I stared at him defiantly, knowing deep down that I was consciously breaking his rule and that I would be punished for it. I smirked. "It feels like I'm going to have to return the favor once I get out of here". His lips twisted into a dark smile, his eyes glowing in the darkened space as his gaze lingered on me. I couldn't move or breathe. "You're never getting out of here." Jade wanted one thing only: to become the Mafia king. Betrayed by her half-brother, she flees for her life but gets trapped in the hands of hunters until she is rescued by Dearil Vaughn, a sadist with a chaotic wolf that feeds off torture and destruction. To survive his dangerous games, she'd have to learn to submit and keep her heart in a place where his cold hands couldn't reach. It was supposed to be easy, but Dearil was much harder to resist. Jade calmed Dearil's wolf, so he was never going to let her go, especially since she was the only beacon of light in his dark world where he'd been rejected by both blood and foes... But winning her heart proves difficult, especially when the monsters within him are too hard to tame. It was war! A war with two contenders that planned to come out winners.

For five years, I was married to Joshua Grayson. He was known as the gentleman of the tech industry and was never arrogant. In fact, he was always cool and collected. A shame we never had any children of our own. I asked every single doctor I could get my hands on, but nothing helped. For that, I kept beating myself up. Joshua told me that it was fine if we had no children, and that what mattered was that our souls were perfect for each other. We did not need any children to secure our bonds. I believed him. And then I found an unsealed box of Plan B in a secret space in his study. It looked exactly the same as the vitamin tablets he fed me all the time. A phone sat under the box. The screen was a photo of him with his top secretary, Yvonne Wellington. It was a family of three. Then, a message popped up on the screen. 'Our girl's born, Joshua! Haven't thought of her full name yet, so we'll call her Cece for now.' 'Oh, right, you fed your wife contraceptives for five years. Now that we have a perfect family, you should kick her out and make me your wife instead. When's that going to happen?' The message hit me like a lightning bolt that came out of nowhere. To think I wasted five years beating myself up for never getting a baby. To think I looked forward to one. And now, everything was crumbling around me.

The Vale family was the most powerful mafia syndicate in the New York City. And I—along with a few other carefully chosen girls—had been handpicked to join their ranks, trained from the ground up so that the next head of the family could choose his wife from among us. Wife. That was the kinder word for it. The truth was whoever got picked would become his shield, his weapon, his most loyal protector. Someone who would kill for him. Die for him. Years passed. One by one, the others fell away. In the end, only Elara Quinn and I remained. And then, Elara died—killed on a secret mission. After that, there were no more choices left. I became Adrian Vale’s wife by default. I had given everything to Adrian. And I loved him. I thought he loved me too until I took a bullet to the chest—meant for him. As I lay there, barely breathing, I heard Adrian talking to his assistant, “Don’t bury her in the Vale cemetery. My half is reserved for Elara.” That was it. Elara—who had never even lived long enough to marry him—still had a space carved beside him in death. I? I had taken the hit that should have ended him… and yet I wasn’t even good enough to be buried near him. I slowly closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, I was back on the day the Vale family formally announced Adrian as their new head. The day everything began.

The following book contains mature contents. I laid beside her and turned her body to make it face mine. I slid my one hand under her waist and pulled her even closer to me until there was no space left between us. I hugged her feeling a lot of things; love, care, pain, hate. “Gabriel?” she whispered. “Yes love.” “I Love You!” There. She said those words to me. If she'd said to me before yesterday then I would've been the happiest and most probably the craziest person on earth. I would declare a holiday in the entire city, I would take her in my arms and kiss her until we both run out of breathe, but today, it was different. I felt only pain. “Zayla?” She did not speak. She was already in her wonderland. “I don't want to love you anymore Love.” ------------------------------------------------------------ Her past was a Werewolf, her present is a Lycan. Her past broke her heart, her present deceived her feelings. Stuck in between Worse and Worst, Then and Now, yet she goes for the odd option; end her life and finish everything at once. "Everything will be fine as long as I'm gone." Experience the life of Zayla; a girl for whom luck never favored and no good cards were ever dealt to her, as she is torn in between a Werewolf whom she loved immensely and was her pride and a Lycan whom she trusted blindly and went against all the prejudice. ... Be ready for Pain, Hate, Betrayal and a Love like no other.

"Can you move back please?" I whispered but the wall of muscles invading my personal space didn't budge. Why did he look so hot doing nothing and everything? Lucian leaned down and pinched my chin up with his thumb stroking the soft flesh. His black orbs lock on my shimmering blue ones. "You kept looking, staring and eye-fucking me. I can give you what you want, again" His deep voice sent waves of shivers down my spine. I could feel his other hand trailing down my waist, thrumming me like I was s violin, my core dripped with wetness at the thought of what happened the last time we got so close. Feeling lust for my new stepbrother should be the last thing on my mind but I couldn't get him off my head. *** Violet hated her mother for changing husbands as she deemed fit. Begrudged, she parked up her bags and moved from one mansion to another. The new mansion was bigger than the last as usual but the new stepfather looked familiar. Violet couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Lucian, the school's most handsome and popular boy introducing himself as her stepbrother! Lucian found himself getting addicted to his new stepsister, a feeling he found strange. He was used to having a girl once and never going back but not Violet. He always slips back to her bed.

When a relationship begins with an arranged marriage, it’s often expected to end in disappointment. However, Aliya’s situation was different; the man she was forced to marry showed her care more than she could have imagined, and that alone captured her heart. Aliya and Richard got married under forced agreement because of their families to build a business relationship. Both of them stay in the marriage for three years, and Richard has always been there for Aliya; he makes sure she doesn’t feel lonely, he is ready to make her comfortable, and he shows too much care that makes Aliya feel their marriage was never a mistake but the right one. She fell in love and had the hope their fake relationship would come to an end, but her hope was shattered when Richard returned one night with a divorce agreement. Then, it came to her that he had never loved her, but he kept his first love in his heart all through the years. And now, she has to give space to his first love and leave his life. Packing all her things, she left his house feeling miserable. Feeling ashamed, she couldn’t return to her family, so she walked up to a bar and got herself drunk, and she had a nightstand with a stranger. Five years later, Aliya had become successful on her own, and she had to take care of her son alone as a result of the nightstand of five years ago. She did not know the man she had the son for.

“I want a divorce, Sera. It’s time we both moved on.” She had heard those words before, rehearsed in the cold space between them, in the silences that stretched too long over dinner, in the way he never quite looked at her anymore. But hearing them out loud was different. Hearing them made it real. Sera Calloway had spent four years being the perfect wife. Quiet when she should have been loud. Patient when she should have been angry. She had loved Elliot with the kind of love that asks for nothing — and received exactly that in return. She thought their marriage was simply struggling. Broken, maybe. But still theirs. Until she found out it was never only theirs to begin with. Another woman. Another home. Another life he had carefully built in the hours she never thought to question. She hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t shattered. She had simply gone still, the way a person does when the ground disappears beneath them and there is nothing left to hold onto. Sera left without a word. No ultimatums. No tears he would ever see. Because some heartbreaks are too deep for noise. Now Elliot is unraveling. The life he thought he could keep — the one he hid behind — is falling apart without the woman he took for granted holding everything together. He never knew what she was. Not really. Not until she was gone. And now the question isn’t whether he still loves her. The question is — did Sera ever stop?

My lips trailed his soft cheeks to his ears and I bit softly on his lobe while my hand moved to the back of his dark tendrils. My fingers ran through them, giving a slight tug and they were just as soft as I imagined.  My free hand trailed down his grey jeans, stopping at his crotch and I placed a soft grip, earning a moan. "What was it you said again?" I rubbed him through the fabric, his cock turning harder. My face remained nonchalant like wasn't openly groping and caressing his cock.  "I think they went around the lines of not being attracted to me." I let out a chuckle at the irony. "I never said that," he voiced between a whimper and a groan With one hot breath, I mumbled easing into his lips, "but you thought it. Insinuated it."  His hand crept up my neck as he pulled me closer, leaving no space between us. "Never," he growled. The kiss was rough and wild, expressing the attraction we had bottled up. It was only a matter of time till it exploded, leaving us with raging hormones and unsatisfied, throbbing, and aching bodies. My hands slipped into in his pants as I rubbed his hard cock, getting moans of pleasure from him as I gave soft strokes. I was ultimately immersed in the kiss that I didn't realize he had gained back control. He pushed me harshly, his hand moving over his cherry-stained lips as he gave a swift wipe. All he said was one word. One word that meant absolutely nothing to me but coming from him, shattered me. "Slut."

Hugo: I am the undisputed king of the underworld. I rule the country and being the only manufacturer of quality weapons, I own every life. As the head, I get to choose first and then I can choose to throw the remains for everyone to have a bite. There is no one who can leave my claws, I can have whoever I want, be it a boy or a girl. No strings attached. My heart is woven in black. No time and space for any colors in my life. I can’t tolerate deceit and breaking trusts. Loyalty means everything to me. To me dishonesty is equivalent to death, that’s why I never trust anyone. I am happy being the emotionless person in this world until she came into my life as a payment and I was supposed to kill her after using her, only if I knew…. Caterina: I was living my life in a romantic fantasy. I had dream of a prince coming and taking me away to a far land. There came someone to take me away. But he wasn’t a prince. He was a ruthless king of underworld. I had heard about him in hushed whispers but I had never thought of meeting him face to face. I was nothing to him, nothing worthy. And I had accepted my fate but he took away from me the only thing I had vowed to keep for the one I would love. I hate him and he gets off my anger and hurt. He likes to flaunt himself with a new girl everyday and every night. It should not make me feel anything but hatred towards him. And I want to run away from this dark world. And I did succeed but at what cost….. .