Burt Ward

Evelyn Ward never imagined that a routine walk home could shatter her life. Taken from her small Oregon town, she’s thrown into a velvet prison known as The Bidding Room, an elite underground auction where innocence is rare, and the most powerful men in the world come to buy it. Dressed like a doll, paraded as prey, Evelyn is thrust into a world of wealth, cruelty, and obsession. What should have ended in despair becomes the start of something more twisted - because the man who buys her isn’t a collector or a sadist. He’s something far worse. Lucien Moretti - The Devil of Verona - rules a vast criminal empire, built on fear and blood. He doesn’t pay for what he wants. He takes it. Yet something about Evelyn stops him. A silent challenge in her eyes, a trembling defiance that speaks louder than screams. He buys her not for pleasure - but to destroy what is pure. Except she doesn’t break. And that enrages him more than he expected. Their lives spiral in a dangerous dance of power and obsession. Lucien's enemies circle like vultures, and his own people begin to question his judgment. Evelyn isn’t just a girl anymore - she’s a symbol of his weakness, and they want to exploit that. As Evelyn is drawn deeper into the mafia world, her morality blurs. Can she resist becoming like them? Or is the darkness already inside her? In a story of violence, betrayal, and unnatural love, Evelyn and Lucien are caught in a storm they may not survive. And even if they do - what will be left of them?

Eliza Ward does not fall through time. Time bends toward her. Pulled from the present into Revolutionary America, Eliza becomes trapped in a landscape where history repeats unevenly, battles restart with variations, and memory functions as both anchor and weapon. She is not a chosen heroine, but a constant: a woman whose awareness destabilizes the moment itself. She meets Mercy Hale, a midwife and witch who understands time as a negotiation rather than a force to command. Mercy aids Eliza’s survival while refusing the role of savior, having already learned the cost of standing too close to history’s center. During a looping battle, Eliza saves Thomas Reed, a Continental soldier who does not shift when time does. Thomas is an anchor: steady, observant, unchanged across iterations. Their bond deepens in an almost-normal village where time briefly behaves. Eliza’s intervention triggers time’s response. Rather than immediate destruction, time collects interest. Mercy bargains to spare Eliza and Thomas, sacrificing her own future to stabilize the present. Time extracts payment from Eliza as well, stripping away her voice, the very tool she uses to name and hold moments in place. Silenced and unmoored, Eliza is violently displaced back into the original battle. Unable to anchor the moment, she watches Thomas die in the version of history that was always waiting beneath her defiance. Told in rotating perspectives between Eliza, Thomas, and Mercy, The Hours That Refused to Behave is a lyrical time-travel novel about revolution, restraint, and consequence, asking not whether history can be changed, but who pays when it is.

My father, Benjamin Ward, was bedridden, paralyzed, and unable to move. The AI model he spent his entire life developing—a model powerful enough to cure terminal diseases—had been stolen and published under someone else's name. Humiliated beyond endurance, he suffered a stroke and collapsed. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even write. I swore I'd find the thief who destroyed him. My girlfriend, Maris Dawn, wept and promised to help me uncover the truth. But at a dinner party, when her first love proudly announced that he'd been specially recruited by a national research lab thanks to that very model, she immediately grabbed my arm, whispering, "Don't make a scene. Grayson just wants a good future. Don't ruin his life." Grayson Vale smirked with disdain. "The old man was about to retire anyway. Think of it as recycling waste." My vision went red. I charged at him, ready to make him pay for what he'd done to my father. Maris tripped me before I could reach him. She threw a check for ten million in my face. "Here's for your dad's medical care. Don't be shameless, alright? Grayson is a rising star. You're just a broke grad student. You should learn your place." I tore the check apart, piece by piece. That check could never buy the Dawn family a future in the world of science.

The supernatural creatures of the world have long been governed by The Council, made of representatives of each faction: werewolves, vampires, witches, and fae. The Council’s main goals were to keep the existence of magic from humans and keep any one group from becoming too powerful. Legends of a creature, a hybrid capable of being more than one supernatural creature, have existed as long as the beings themselves. A hybrid would be able to topple The Council, and whichever faction they were loyal to would rule with ease. As such, the purposeful creation of such a creature was forbidden. In 2012, ancient vampire Elias Elhassan found Claire Luna. After years of living in and out of the oncology ward, the 26-year-old was ready for death. Until he approached her and offered her a way to live without the constant pain she had become so accustomed to. 24-year-old Colin Lucin, the youngest, bastard son of the Alpha of the Half-Moon pack, did not want much from life. After a childhood filled with loss and pain, he was more than satisfied to be the pack’s nurse and stay out of the way of his father and eldest brothers. But in order to maintain a long-held pact with a local coven, once every generation, a witch is destined to mate with a wolf of the Alpha line. Thrown into a political battle that neither knows anything about, Claire and Colin are forced to navigate a centuries-old web of lies, torture, and manipulation. Though they are fated to be together, can they trust each other’s words? Can they even survive long enough to find out? Trigger warnings: Depictions of: violence, blood, language, sexual content (to what degree is yet to be decided) Implied: abuse, sexual content

One night of rebellion. A lifetime of consequences. I was the princess of the High Pack, destined for a life of luxury and a bonded mate. Then the fire happened. My father was imprisoned, our lands were seized, and my name became a curse. Now, I’m just Ivy Mercer, a struggling medical intern fighting to keep my mother alive in a sterile ward I can’t afford. When my fiancé, Blake Ryder, publicly discards me for a cruel opportunist, I do the unthinkable. I walk into SkyDeck 71, drown my sorrows in moon-essence, and surrender my virtue to a lethal, golden-eyed stranger. I didn't know he was Cole Ryder. The "Ice King" of the West Coast. The Alpha of Alphas. And my ex-fiancé’s uncle. Now, I’m caught in a dangerous game of territory and temptation. Cole is cold, controlling, and far too powerful to cross, yet he’s the only one standing between me and the vipers who want to see me crawl. He offers me a contract to save my family, but his touch demands a much steeper price: my absolute submission. As the pack secrets unravel and my heart begins to heal under his unexpected tenderness, I have to wonder—is he protecting me from the wolves at my door, or is he the most dangerous predator of them all? He’s the Alpha I should fear. He’s the protector I crave. And in the dark of the moon, he’s the only one who can make me feel whole again.

My boyfriend is trapped in the mountains, and I head there alone to search for him. However, I don't find him despite a night of searching. Instead, I end up falling off a cliff and passing out due to severe blood loss. When I open my eyes again, I hear laughter coming from outside my hospital ward. "Sonya's such a fool! She fell for it again!" "This is our 99th time tricking her, right?" "When you pretended to fall into the water, she jumped into an icy lake to save you in the middle of winter. When you pretended to be poisoned, she went to dig up the herbs that you'd need for the antidote… "This time, you pretended to be trapped in the mountains, and she ran there without a care for her life! She's truly head over heels for you!" I struggle to sit up. That's when I see my boyfriend, Austin Miller, standing at the ward's door. He stands out among the crowd and has a bright smile on his face. He doesn't look like he's lost his way at all. His friends continue talking. "It's her fault for abandoning Austin when he was down on his luck!" "She deserves to get played like this! When this is all over, we can throw the invitation to Austin and Dion's engagement party in her face!" It turns out Austin is already engaged. Yet, to this day, he has no idea why I broke up with him in the first place.

Just before her husband and son have her locked in a psychiatric ward, Nora Yates wakes up—reborn, wide awake, and done playing nice. Two men who never truly loved her? Who used and discarded her? Fine. She’s cutting them out for good. When she signs the divorce papers and walks away, the world cheers—including the internet. Oddly, the only one upset is her adoptive sister, the mistress. “Come on, Nora,” she pouts. “I only borrowed your husband and son for my birthday. Was that really worth all this drama?” “You’re lucky to have a husband and son like that. You should count your blessings.” Nora lets out a sharp laugh. “Then consider this ‘blessing’ my personal gift to you. After all, trash belongs in the dumpster.” She walks off without a second glance—glowing, untouchable, and ready to run the world. Soon, her business is booming. Suitors line up. The woman they tried to destroy becomes the woman everyone wants to be. Years later, now a titan in her field, she sits down for a high-profile interview. “Ms. Yates,” the reporter asks, “it’s rumored that Mr. Luther, CEO of Luther Corp, is your ex-husband. Do you still keep in touch?” Nora smiles politely. “Sorry. I’m a widow with no children.” Then she turns to the camera, smiles straight through the lens—at the ex-husband and son losing their minds behind the scenes—and adds, “Just remarried. Baby girl on the way.”

On the night of our engagement, the ward my family sponsored left without a word. She went alone to the Mexican border, a lawless land crawling with cartels, to become a combat medic. From then on, Dante and I tortured each other for ten years. He hated me for trapping him with my birthright as the heir, stealing the spot of the woman he loved. I hated him for humiliating me while still craving the power and wealth the Moretti family provided. In countless fights, we spewed the most vicious curses at each other. Until that raid on the underwater sanctuary. The base was rigged to blow and sinking fast. Dante didn't hesitate. He strapped the only oxygen mask onto my face and turned to jump into the swarm of sharks. He slit his own wrist, using his blood to lure the predators away. Moments before the sea swallowed him, he roared at me: “I don't owe you anything anymore, Sophia!” “If there's a next life, please, let me go!” After I was rescued, the family only recovered his mangled remains. Clutched in his palm was that charity case's cross necklace. That was when I learned Elena had died from a stray bullet years ago. And he, in the end, chose this brutal suicide to join her. Dante's death shook the entire Underworld. The family Elders took their anger out on me. I was accused of being a "Black Widow" who sent her husband to his death to save herself. I was beaten to death by a mob of angry thugs on the street. When I opened my eyes again, I stopped my father. This time, I’ll let them have their epic love story.

In a war-torn world where supernatural beings known as "subnaturals" or "subs" have emerged from hiding, triggering a global conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, eighteen-year-old Lena Hargrove has spent the past six years as a ward of the state following her parents' deaths. Renowned as war heroes who sacrificed themselves to rescue their daughter from kidnappers, Lena's parents were largely absent throughout her childhood, leaving her with complicated feelings about their legacy and her own identity. As Lena struggles to understand her newfound identity and the abilities that begin to manifest, she uncovers a web of secrets about her parents' true role in the war. They weren't just fighting for humanity; they were part of a hidden movement working toward peace between humans and subnaturals. More importantly, Lena learns she was kidnapped not by chance. Hunted by extremists from both sides who either want to use her power or eliminate her entirely, Lena must navigate a dangerous landscape of political intrigue and ancient supernatural factions. Along the way, she assembles an unlikely group of allies—humans sympathetic to the sub cause, subs living in hiding among humans, and others like her caught between worlds. As her powers grow and her understanding of both sides deepens, Lena realizes that ending the war might require more than diplomacy or combat—it might demand a fundamental reimagining of what it means to be human or supernatural in a world where the boundaries between the two are increasingly blurred. But to fulfill her destiny, Lena must first confront the truth about her kidnapping, her parents' sacrifice, —a truth that will test her loyalty to both sides of her heritage and force her to decide what kind of world she wants to fight for.

My son just had surgery. I'm sitting by his bedside in the hospital when I come across a post online. "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" One anonymous comment stands out. "I used the upperclassman who funded me as a stepping stone. My sponsor was rich but clueless. After she paid for my entire college, I slept with her husband and got pregnant. "The craziest part? My son and her son were born on the same day, but my husband swapped the babies. Now, she treats my son like he's her whole world, working day and night to give him a better life. "But her own son lives with me, wearing hand-me-downs and eating leftovers. Today, my son had surgery. I was worried sick, so I slapped her son hard a few times. "Oh, and her family just got a three-million-dollar payout for relocation. My husband is going to the hospital later. He's going to use the excuse of buying a house near the schools to get the money. "Once we have the money, I'm buying a villa. Then I'll get my son back and kick her out!" The post includes a blurry photo of a boy begging on his knees. My breath catches because the charm on his wrist is the same lucky charm I gave my son the day he was born. Just then, my husband pushes open the door to the ward and walks in. "Honey, Sean's starting elementary school soon. Let's use that relocation money your mom received to buy a house near the schools."