Ashes Novel Novels & Stories

" I was about to fall to my knees again. I would have. The pride and dignity I'd had walking in here had been gone for hours. I just wanted my father back in my arms. That was when the noise hit the house. A black SUV came through the front gate, straight into the living room. The floor-to-ceiling windows shattered. Glass flew everywhere. Through the dust, the driver's side door was thrown open. A tall figure stepped out, backlit. I could not see her face. I knew her from the way she carried herself. Cassia Wynn. The fear and grief I had been holding in broke loose the moment I saw her.

The wind scattered the ashes, and the rain soaked them, washing them away little by little amidst the flowing water. Sheila fell out of her wheelchair and hit the ground. Ignoring the pain, she crawled toward the drain, desperately trying to gather the ashes with her hands. It was hopeless. "My baby… My baby..." She could only watch as her child's ashes slowly disappeared. There was nothing she could do. It felt as though someone had torn her heart apart. She knelt in the mud, sobbing as she reached deep into the drain again and again. Her hands quickly became caked with filth, but she kept searching.

Pain grounded me better than breath. And then I saw it. The snow. Not white. Gray. Threaded with streaks of black. Faint at first—just a dusting over the driftline—but it thickened the further I looked. Smoke-smudged. Charred. As if ash had fallen from above. I knelt slowly, the fur hem of my coat brushing the frost. There was no fire trail. No embers. Nothing burned nearby. But the ash was real. Cold to the touch. And fresh.

“And Ashley, are you free tomorrow? We can go out and see a movie, what do you say?” “Oh, I am sorry, Anne. I have plans for the evening. Shall we go in the morning,” “Oh, okay,” Anne’s face slightly frowned to see the sudden change in Ashley. She sensed that she’s lying but she didn’t ask. Ashley thought how can she say that she’s going to sleep with a mafia boss yet she’s not allowed to see his face. God this is stupid! Ashley disgusted but she doesn’t want to say NO. Normal 0 false false false EN-US

Venom knows that after the relieved pain, the side-effect of ingesting another drug in the attack other than his usual blood-calming drugs, will cause him to be bedridden for weeks, but that is not his concern at this time. He chased after Asha with a murderous spirit, and saw her after a quarter of an hour. He did not hide his presence at all as he wants to let his prey feel the thrill of a hunt. Asha’s heart thudded against her chest like crazy, and she ran while frantically looking around to use the terrain to slow down her abductor’s pursuit. A few meters down the trail that she is running on, Asha saw a huge broken tree with scattered thick trunks and branches all around next to a harsh

Vivienne's Pov The crash came out of nowhere. One moment we were on the highway, the next a black SUV rammed us from the side. Metal screamed. My head slammed against the window. The world spun, once, twice, then flipped. When everything stopped moving, I was hanging upside down, blood dripping into my eyes. “Miss Ashworth!” the driver groaned. “Are you….” Gunshots. Two quick pops. The driver went silent. I fumbled for the seatbelt with slick fingers. It released and I fell hard onto the crumpled roof. Pain exploded in my shoulder. I crawled through the broken window, glass cutting my palms, and rolled into the ditch.

There could be no hesitation. Ash moved with lethal grace, cutting through lines with a blade in one hand and a sidearm in the other. Each movement was fluid, precise, deadly. He found Henry at the center of a small skirmish, their eyes locking in a brief, icy moment of recognition. Without hesitation, Ash’s blade arced, striking with unflinching force, severing Henry’s head cleanly. The sound was horrendous, but necessary. The line of defense crumbled immediately after, morale shattered by the sudden brutality.

It smells like smoke and old money. Ash fits in like a predator among his own kind. “Let me do most of the talking,” he says under his breath. “And for the love of all things unholy, do not mention Malcolm.” Noted. I clamp my mouth shut and try to channel the icy calm I don’t actually possess. This is for Hilda. And the pack. A waitress appears, all heels and red lipstick. Ash flashes her a smile so charming, I almost believe it’s genuine. He orders something I can’t pronounce, which is undoubtedly ruinously expensive, and she practically purrs her approval.

"Just promise me you'll think about it. Everyone would like to see you, Ash. I know they will. I'm sure they will be surprised when they find out who you really are." The call ended, and Ashley stared at her screen for several minutes without moving. The idea of seeing Harvey again was twisting her chest in knots. Anger, sadness, confusion, they all boiled in her mind, just below the surface. Ashley still remembered how that last night had ended between them. The betrayal, the desperation, the fear. Nathan came into the room several minutes later, carrying two mugs of coffee. He placed one beside Ashley, then took a slow sip of his own.

“Well, for starters, you killed Alpha Bran. Not that it wasn’t warranted since the prick did challenge you. Congrats on expanding the pack, though.” “Yeah, I remember that.” Asher swallowed, the muscles in his throat reacting to the movement. “Everything after that, not so much.” “You said you were getting flashes of memory. What were you seeing?” I asked, lowering myself to sit beside him on the cot. Asher frowned, those full lips of his turning down at the corners. “I think I was running, but I have no clue for how long. Then I remember…well, I remember you.” His voice lowered and a flash of gold hit his eyes, vanishing in a whirlpool of warm hazel. “You were naked. I can still taste you i