A Player Who Can't Level Up

From a stall in the office restroom, I overhear someone badmouthing me. Henry Fielder, the intern I've been mentoring for three months, grumbles, "The guy's got zero people skills. He's a total fossil, like a robot stuck in one mode." I'm about to push the door open and jump in when someone laughs and piles on. "The paperwork is incomplete. The receipts aren't compliant. I can't reimburse it without a manager's signature. We could recite his canned empathy lines in our sleep!" Once they're gone, I quietly head back to my office. Later, Henry drops a thick stack of expense reports onto my desk. "Quit waving the rulebook and rejecting everyone's reimbursements." I skim the fake receipts, and for once, I don't call him out. Instead, I give a thin smile and say, "I have a headache. I can't make out the words."

"Abby Davison only wants to focus on her career as a nurse, as she has no time for dating after a bad breakup over a year ago. When her mother presses her about settling down, Abby tells her a little white lie: she’s dating Mark Thornton, the handsome and gruff rancher who both frustrates and makes her heart flutter every time they meet. When Mark overhears Abby's lie, he decides to cut her a deal: to keep his silence regarding their make-believe relationship, she'll come to live with him on his ranch until his broken arm heals. Despite her wounded pride and initial trepidation, Abby can’t help but begin to fall for the guarded Thornton brother as the days pass on his ranch. The black sheep of the family, Mark makes no secret that he prefers horses over people. His brusque exterior, though, only conceals hidden depths and a wounded heart that Abby understands all too clearly. As feelings start to bloom between them, neither is sure what is real and what’s make-believe. Yet the sizzling attraction between them is anything but fake, and with every kiss and every touch, they fall harder for each other. But as their pasts begin to creep toward them, unearthing secrets both would rather keep buried, Abby and Mark must learn to trust each other—or risk losing the love both never knew they needed."

Rejected. Burned. Left for dead. Thalia was nothing more than an omega in the shadows—until Catastrophy strikes their park and kills her mother. They label her as cursed and reduce her to a slave. The first daughter of the Alpha king. Her mated Alpha whom she loved publicly rejected her and chose her sister as his Luna. Her father ordered Thalia’s execution by death in the flames. They thought the fire would consume her. But the fire doesn’t kill a phoenix. It awakens her. Now, Thalia has returned—reborn with power no pack has ever seen, cloaked in mystery, chosen by the moon goddess and bound to a darkness that answers only to her. She’s not back for love. She’s back for vengeance, revenge. But when fate ties her to the Lycan prince with secrets of his own, she is armed with power and authority. She could choose to go solo and destroy everything in her path as she returns to Greenwood Park for revenge or she could give herself to this new found burning desire that could destroy her. Thalia is here to stay and no mated Alpha can take what rightfully belongs to her. Not when the moon goddess has not ordained it.

After dating Scott Kenta for 10 years, I said to him, "Scott, I'm pregnant." The file in his hands slipped and hit the floor. He frowned, clearly irritated. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "This is a critical moment—my company's going public. I never planned on having a child." "It's fine. Your career matters more," I said, smiling gently. He didn't catch the meaning behind my words. I was pregnant, yes. But he wasn't the father.

In my previous life, my husband had suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage, leaving behind a massive mountain of debt. For the sake of my son, who was still in high school, I sold the house my parents had left me, gritted my teeth, and worked three jobs to pay off the debt. Overworked and exhausted, my health deteriorated, and I eventually collapsed in the hospital. From my bed, I could hear my son, now a graduate from a prestigious university, smiling as he spoke on the phone. "Hello? Dad, it's me. Yeah, she's about to die. I bought insurance for her, so we should get close to one million. You and Aunt Rena should come back home right away." The "Aunt Rena" he spoke of was none other than my husband's childhood friend and neighbor who had known him for years. It turned out that the debts were all part of a massive money-laundering scheme between my husband and his childhood sweetheart. They had fabricated false accounts to hide their crime, and he had faked his death to escape the law. My son, eager to become the heir to wealth, had stood by and watched me work myself to death. When I next opened my eyes, I was back in the moment of my husband's feigned brain hemorrhage, the day it had all begun.

I donated 45 million to the city's best kindergarten, but my daughter failed the enrollment interview. She was a polymath. Furious, I demanded an explanation from admissions. She hurled an assessment file at my face. "Your daughter's brilliant, but you're the exact opposite! You're dead last among the parents!" She continued, "The others have tech domes! You're nothing but a regular Ivy League graduate! Your degree's worth about as much as toilet paper!" The other teachers laughed as well. "If we admit her daughter, it's going to look bad on the other kids. She can't take that responsibility." "Yeah, I can't believe she's demanding an explanation from Ms. Johnson. Her husband is the kindergarten's biggest stakeholder. He can make sure her daughter has nowhere to go." The admission teacher shoved me away. With disdain in her eyes, she said, "Out of my sight if you know what's good for you. My husband is picking me up in his Rolls-Royce. His car plate alone is worth more than your life! It's lucky 777! Only one in Georgeport!" Three sevens? That was my husband's car. I laughed mirthlessly and texted my husband. "I had no idea you had another wife behind me."

I grew up alongside Griffith, the Alpha of the Avalora Pack. Everyone said I was the luckiest woman in the entire kingdom of Mycintia. Griffith rejected the mate bond arranged for him by the Moon Goddess to be with me. He declared to the world that I was his one and only love. But after my miscarriage, I accidentally overheard him speaking to the healer, "Find a way to drug the Luna and remove her womb. Make sure she can never bear children again." Then, I saw him gently caressing another woman's stomach and saying, "Give her the best prenatal medicine. I want her to give birth to the strongest and most intelligent child." I knew that woman. She was Giselle, the fated mate the Moon Goddess had originally chosen for him. Griffith's voice turned grave as he issued his next command. "The Luna must never find out about this. And you must take care of her health at all costs. Otherwise, you'll suffer the consequences." Pain sliced through me. I had never imagined that the man who once swore he loved me more than life itself could betray me so cruelly. In the end, I left without a word. Since they wanted to be together so much, I stepped aside to let him and his destined mate be together. Yet, he told me later that after losing me, he lost the ability to love.

The mate bond was supposed to be a blessing. For Sera, it became a nightmare. Alpha Kade took one look at her and said the words that shattered her world: "Not you. Anyone but you." Now she's stuck living with him for three months, watching him wish she was someone else—someone dead, someone better. But Sera's done being invisible. If he wants to hate her, fine. She'll survive anyway. She always does.

Growing up as a human in a werewolf world has not been nothing short of a nightmare for Katie but she’s strong and won’t allow her circumstances to deter her from living her life to the fullest. When circumstances beyond her control pushes her to get married to a male she hardly knows, nothing prepared her for a roller-coaster of emotions that follows. ****** Dominic is the richest man in the city and the future alpha of the most powerful pack in the city. As a wealthy and powerful men, he was been surrounded by females who don’t care about him but his status and want to use him to climb up the social ladder. With his family desperate for him to have a bride and an heir, they set up a marriage for him with a human while he keeps his real identity hidden from her. Will the marriage between Katie and Dominic bloom into true love or are they getting more than they bargained for?

Nicholas becomes a lone wolf at the age of eighteen. His parents were murdered because of the power of truth he possesses against their alpha pack. Wolfless and mateless, he was despised by all. He melted his wolf in the human world and used his ability who knows the truth against humans in exchange for money. Misses no one, corrupt government officials, wealthy murderers, and ordinary ones. Their truth and lies are his survival. Then he came to a point when is he knowing the truth about everyone he could meet a gift or a curse?