Baju Belly Dance

Quentin Yale gets together with me to get revenge on my mother. He grips my neck with one hand and keeps the other on my belly. Then, he snorts at Mom, who's pale. "Do you see this? Your precious daughter is pregnant with my child." I hear him laugh manically when Mom collapses. I stab myself in the belly as he watches. Then, I jump into the ocean. Later, he loses his mind. He tells everyone he comes across that I'm following him while carrying our child. When I see him at the asylum one last time, he lies on the bed and begs me not to leave.

"You mean nothing to me anymore," he spat, his eyes held nothing but disgust as he stared at me, dead in the eyes. "I, Malik Dimitri, Alpha of Blue Moon pack, hereby reject you, Selina Anderson as my mate and future Luna," he affirmed, sending stabs of pain through my already torn heart, slicing it into a million tiny pieces. "As for the punishment for your crime, henceforth, you are no longer a member of this pack, and that means you can never show your face anywhere around here anymore," My entire existence flashed before my eyes, the world seemed to collapse around me, as if everything was crumbling and pulling me into a void. No matter how much effort I put in, I couldn’t stop myself from sinking deeper. Except for the tiny little heartbeat I could feel beneath my belly, horrifically flashing back to a few moments back when I found out I was pregnant. For Malik. ** A week ago, Alpha Malik had discovered that I was his mate after years of fruitless search, nothing had ever felt so right in my life. But then, doom came knocking on my door the night he was going to announce our union to everyone. That same night, I had woken up after a short nap, with a strange man laying naked beside me, and Alpha Malik, my mate standing tall over us, fury ringing in his eyes.

I was five months pregnant when my husband, James Fletcher, allowed his mistress to invade our lives—on the very night of our wedding anniversary. But she didn’t just come to flaunt her presence. She came to take my life. Pregnant and vulnerable, I confronted her, desperately clinging to my dignity. But the fight ended with me tumbling down the staircase, my swollen belly crashing against the cold, hard ground. Blood seeped across the floor, vivid and unrelenting. James only arrived after hearing about his precious mistress’ ordeal. He stood there, staring at the pool of blood, at my broken body. But instead of helping me, he rushed to her side. She had nothing but a few superficial scratches, yet he swept her off to the hospital like she was the one dying. By the time he returned, my child was gone. The doctors barely managed to save me. And what did James do? He struck me in front of everyone, his words sharper than the sting of his hand. "Lisa only wanted to bring you a Christmas gift, and you attacked her out of nowhere! You shameless witch!" “She didn’t force her way in! What nonsense! I gave her the house key ages ago. You just can’t stand that she’s prettier and kinder than you!" “You didn’t just hurt her. You killed my child! You vile, despicable woman. Why couldn’t it have been you instead?” Lisa stood beside him, pretending to comfort him while flashing me a smug, victorious smirk. James’s vicious tirade didn’t stop there. He dragged my name onto the internet, painting me as a monster.

Choosing to live independently in a highly urbanized city is a decision Latisha Thaviya Fallarco made at such a young age. Despite her parents prohibitions, she still managed to convince them by performing well in academics. She wanted to attend parties, get drunk and dance in the club, go shopping, and explore neighboring cities. She wanted to live her life to the fullest in the place she considered the best. Yet, she never saw the coming of an incident that would end that kind of lifestyle. She was forced to leave and be with her family. Latisha thought that living in a province would be hard for her, but she was wrong. In a particular town in Iloilo Province, she found her true home. Ps. This story is written in Filipino and English.

For as long as Chloe can remember, she has been nothing more than a money making machine for Alpha Nathaniel Thorn of the Blue Mountain pack. To be fair, every female is consider no more than an object and a slave. Anyone who can’t serve the Alpha in the way he wants doesn't survive for very long. Dance, strip, sleep, repeat; Chloe doesn’t know any other way of life. But that all changes the night that Lucas Wolfe turns up. Lucas Wolfe has one mission and that’s to bring Alpha Nathaniel Thorn to justice following a months long investigation into the corrupt Alpha. Using his family connections and with the backing of the International Committee for Supernaturals, Lucas is able to infiltrate the Blue Mountain pack. He finds exactly what he needs to bring the Alpha down but what he didn’t count on was finding his mate; Chloe. But something much more sinister is looming over the pack. Girls are turning up dead which initially has nothing to do with the pack or the committee until a supernatural being is found dead for humans to find, opening a can of worms no one is prepared to handle. Meanwhile, someone or something is watching Chloe from the shadows, waiting until the moment is right…

When I went to the hospital for a checkup to see if my fourth IVF attempt had succeeded, I saw Daniel Cooper, who was supposed to be on a business trip. He was carefully supporting a young, beautiful woman as they walked out of the obstetrics and gynecology department. Her belly was unmistakably round, and she looked like she was ready to give birth at any moment. Daniel froze for just a second before stepping in front of her, shielding her from me. He explained, "Abby, the Cooper family needs an heir to carry on the lineage. Once the baby is born, everything will go back to the way it was." I heard the certainty in his words. So I smiled, nodded, and quietly tucked my test results away as he stared at me in surprise. On the day she gave birth, I left the divorce papers on the kitchen table and walked out of his life for good.

Tristan Hayes' life took a sharp turn, one moment he was on the cusp of his dream then suddenly found himself drowning. Trauma surgeon residency was brutal enough; losing his scholarship was a knockout blow. Desperate, he swallowed his pride and became "Titan" at Club Inferno. Six months, and he was their star, his body a commodity. Tonight was his last dance – he was booked for a bachelorette party for a bride-to-be linked to the Mafia family. He remembered the haze of perfume, the clamor, the hands pulling him closer and the willing mouths tasting him. He remembered the bride, her eyes wide, her laughter turning into moans and gasps. He entertained the women, the night ending with the bride's face covered in his thick sticky seed. After this night, he wanted to close this chapter of his life. He wanted to forget it all. He should have. Tristan awoke in a cold, unfamiliar room, the fear paralyzing. Now, bound and gagged in a concrete cell, the memory was a burning brand. He learned why they called Giovanni Sokolov "The Siberian Winter." Giovanni, a face carved from granite, stood before him. "My bride," Giovanni’s voice was a low growl, "You entertained my fiancée, She died a week ago, trying to run away with a man. Your seed was the catalyst. You helped her betray me." Giovanni leaned closer, his eyes devoid of warmth. "She was running away, Dr. Hayes. You helped her crave forbidden fruit. You opened the door to betrayal." He smiled, a cruel, predatory expression. "Now, you will pay the price of her betrayal. You will take her place... as my companion in bed... my slave and my plaything. Don't worry I'll make you'll enjoy every second of it."

To forget the pain she is feeling when she caught her boyfriend cheating with her half-sister, Lumiere went to the club to get drunk and find herself. There, she met Rage Forger, a snobbish but handsome man. At first she thought she wouldn't get his attention however when she drunk danced on the dance floor, suddenly someone hugged her back she immediately felt his warm body and fragrant smell. It's their first time meeting however they ended up in a one night stand. She lost her virginity to a stranger who she thought she would never see again but that's where she made a mistake the next day it's her first day working  in her new job, as the secretary to the CEO.  What she didn't know is that the big boss turned out to be the man on whom she had one night stand with!

That night, I decided to go to the bar along with my friends to release my anguish. I ordered a bottle of beer and I started owning the dance floor. Nevertheless, my friends were there to be crazy with me l. I spotted a handsome man who was a little surprised by my way of dancing. I grabbed him and we both entangled with each other.

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing