Check Phrases

After I hand over my five-million-dollar commission to my departmental colleagues, they drag me to a hotel and celebrate with me for three days straight. But when I walk past the bathroom, I overhear a conversation between two of my colleagues that stops me cold. "Have the results of the vote been released yet?" What vote? Confused, I check my phone and find that I've been removed from the Project Department's group chat. "Who else could it be? Our hero, Zane Carter, received 11 votes. It was unanimous, and the motion was passed." "Serves him right. I've never liked him anyway." I freeze. I can't believe that my colleagues would betray me after what I've done for them. After taking a moment to calm down, I immediately decide to resign. The next thing I know, I receive a call from the company chairman, Wilson Smith. "Have you made up your mind? Quitting now would breach your contract. As a result, your five-million-dollar commission would be revoked. "You're also a key technical staff member. If you leave, your entire department would most likely be dismissed. Once that happens, your colleagues will end up unemployed. Are you sure about this?" I lower my gaze and let out a cold laugh. "Absolutely."

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

I was at the Blood Registry office to reissue my Blood Covenant Certificate with Lord Ethan when the registrar looked up at me and said, “Your Blood Covenant Certificate is forged.” “There is no record of your bond in the vampire consort system.” I froze. “That’s impossible,” I whispered. “I registered my union with Lord Ethan five years ago. Please check again.” The clerk searched once more. “Lord Ethan’s record is here,” he said calmly. “His lawful consort is Ella.” Ella? The name fell like a blade. Before he said it, I still hoped it was a clerical mistake. But Ella… was his childhood companion. In that moment, everything made sense. In five years, he had never marked me. He had publicly acknowledged me as his Blood Queen, letting the entire Coven believe I stood beside him by right. He had given me titles, a throne at his side, and a crown to wear in front of the world. Titles can be announced. Only the Registry makes it law. The certificate he gave me had been nothing but a beautiful lie. The five years I believed were happiness— were nothing more than a carefully forged illusion. An illusion crafted to keep me obedient, grateful, and blind. If none of it was ever truly mine, if even the title of “Blood Queen” was only a performance, then leaving should be easy.

The night I found out, I almost fixed it. Almost. My assignment had been changed to Everglades Academy. Two thousand miles south. Swamp territory. Three omegas died there last year. I'd asked Kael to file my school preference. Silver Peak Academy. Together. The way we'd planned since we were twelve, lying in the snow making promises to the stars. Now the screen said Everglades. I called him immediately. He picked up on the second ring, relaxed as always. "Hey." "My assignment," I said. "It says Everglades." "Oh." Not guilt. Recalibration. "Lil came by while I was filing yours. She wanted to play a prank—switched it to Everglades for a laugh." He laughed. Light. Careless. "Deadline's tomorrow night. Just override it yourself. It takes thirty seconds." "If I hadn't checked—" "But you did check." That patience. "Fen. You always check everything. That's why she knew you'd catch it. It was just a joke." Just a joke. So my future was a punchline. My life, someone else's entertainment. I said nothing. I packed my gear. I left for the transport hub on departure day. Kael found me at the platform. His smile was gone. "I told you to override it. You didn't change it back?" "No."

I am Novella Fontana. My sister-in-law, Carla Rossi, and I check into a resort owned by our family, intending to have a quiet vacation there. But while we are at the ski resort, a lavishly dressed woman shows up out of nowhere and sneers at us, "This is a high-end ski resort. How can you let some random nobodies get in here? Where are the guards? Throw them out before they bring in germs from outside." Upon hearing this, my expression turns frosty. Before I can say anything, Carla beats me to it. She snaps, "It's not like your family owns this place. What right do you have to kick us out? If you think we're an eyesore, go build your own ski resort!" The woman's face darkens instantly. She shrieks angrily, "How dare you speak to me like that! This is my fiancé's property! Do you have any idea? When Aldo Rossi gets here, you two are done for!" Carla and I exchange a glance, and we both see the same confusion in each other's eyes. It is because I am Aldo's wife. But before we can react, that woman lifts her chin impatiently and orders, "Roberto, teach them a lesson." In the next second, Carla and I are pressed down forcefully into the snow.

He was told her she was "broken." He’s the monster who’ll break anyone who touched her. Elena Vance is a high-achieving woman living a lie. To appease her husband Marcus’s fragile ego, she’s dimmed her light and accepted the label of the "frigid wife." When Marcus demands she see a sex therapist to "fix" her inadequacies, Elena expects more shame. Instead, she finds Dr. Jaxon “Doc” DeLuca—the lethal, leather-clad stranger she shared a volcanic, anonymous dance with nights before. Jaxon wears two masks: by day, he’s the city’s most elite therapist; by night, he’s the brutal Enforcer for the Iron Hearts MC. He sees through Marcus’s gaslighting instantly. Elena isn't broken, she’s a woman with deep, kinky desires her husband is too weak to handle. Professional boundaries shatter as Jaxon takes Elena on as a private client, awakening a fire that threatens to consume them both. But Jaxon has a secret, he’s using Elena to investigate Marcus’s ties to a rival syndicate. Between a marriage built on lies and a doctor with blood on his hands, Elena must decide, Is Jaxon her salvation, or is she just a pawn in a deadly MC war to come? Check out Tempted By Dr. Dangerous to find out what happens next.

All I've done is say something to my first love, whom I haven't met for many years. Since then, my wife, Linda Weber, demands that I report my whereabouts to her constantly. Otherwise, she won't hesitate to stop paying for our daughter, Lily Colt's medical bills. The first time happened when I was buying groceries. Linda told me to record a video of myself and tell the camera that I was her simp. The second time happened when I was accompanying Lily when she was undergoing a dialysis procedure. Linda demanded that I strip myself naked just so she could check if I was fooling around with other women in the same room. The third time happened when Lily finally got a kidney match. Linda demanded that I travel to the other end of the city just to buy the roasted sweet potatoes she had eaten on our first date together. By the time I have the roasted potatoes delivered to her with sweat drenching my form, I witness Linda giving the kidney source to her first love's mother just because I'm one minute later than the designated time. Only then do I realize that Linda has done all those things to me just so she can please James Harmon by pulling pranks on me purposefully.

Angelinne (Angel) is a young she-wolf who is close to making her dream come true, starting her warrior training after her upcoming 18th birthday and becoming a great warrior like her father and her best friend, Bianca. However, things don’t go as she expected and on the day of her birthday her father dies in a tragic attack on her pack, which makes her and her five year-old sister orphans. Besides having to grow up fast and become her sister’s mother, Angel is confronted with enthralling news: the Alpha is her mate. However, when Angel meets a stranger she is not sure about her fate and her desire for her mate any more. All her beliefs and plans are put on check by the presence of this man and suddenly the sweetness of finding love with her mate is cut short and tainted by the feeling that something is off. A rejection ruins all her dreams and puts her life in danger. *** On the other side of the Realm, danger approaches in the form of Elijah, a Hybrid-Demon wolf. He is chasing a she-wolf with the moon mark on her lower belly. A mark that can change the Realms and bring a powerful magic back to the world. He succeeds in his plans and kills Angel, what he couldn’t imagine is that not even death could stop her. Angel is destined to a divine mission, but all she wishes now is pure and mundane revenge. Will Angel follow her destiny or make her own fate as an avenging Angel?

In a world where ancient treaties keep monsters in check, Lyra Hale has spent her life hiding what she is. A human witch born of a forbidden bloodline, Lyra’s magic first awakened in childhood, wild, powerful, and dangerous enough to draw the attention of forces her mother spent years running from. When her mother vanishes without a trace, Lyra follows the only clue left behind to Transylvania, a land ruled by vampires and werewolves haunted by the aftermath of forbidden magic. Her arrival does not go unnoticed. Once human, once powerless, Caspian has built his reign on control and fear of vulnerability. Lyra’s magic, ancient, untamed, and resistant to domination, becomes both his greatest threat and his darkest obsession. As witches, vampires, and werewolves close in, Lyra is pulled into a hidden war between covens, courts, and prophecies long buried. Ancient elders awaken, feral creatures stalk the shadows, and whispers of a forbidden creation resurface, proof of what happens when love and power cross sacred lines. Bound to Caspian by dangerous magic neither fully understands, Lyra must choose whether to submit to the laws that seek to control her… or defy them and risk destroying the fragile balance holding the supernatural world together. Because in a realm built on blood and fear, purity is a provocation, love is rebellion, and some bonds were never meant to exist, yet refuse to be broken.

Jace is a wanted criminal. Out of sheer luck or fate, as most people would say, he landed a job as a household manager—a position that didn't require a background check, which felt like a miracle. However, he soon finds himself drawn to the quadruplet bosses he serves. Damon, Peter, Jacob, and Garrett were the first quadruplets in the Bloodlust Pack to survive. Before their birth, quadruplets were seen as abominations and were to be killed immediately after birth. It was only because their mother, the Luna, and their father, the Alpha, had tried for years to have a child but to no avail that they were allowed to live. This brought about mixed feelings among the members of the pack, especially the elders. The quadruplets lived their lives trying to prove to everyone that they weren't abominations. For every good deed other members of the pack accomplished, they had to do ten times more to gain acceptance. What happens when they discover that they have a mate, and not just any mate, but a human male mate?! Will they accept him? Remember, they are already hanging by a thread in their quest for full acceptance into their pack. Will being gay jeopardize all their years of hard work? What about Jace? He is a victim of abuse but somehow was convicted of murder. Is he in the right mental state to fall in love? Let’s say he eventually does fall for the quadruplets—will he accept them, knowing they are werewolves? Even if he does accept the fact that they are werewolves, who will he choose to mate with? If the quadruplets accept Jace, what comes next? Can they fight against their pack for his sake?