Chrysanthemum Garden

My father and brother had preferred my sister over me since we were kids. In fact, they hated me. When I was bullied at a party, it was a mafia boss, Edwin Carlson, who stepped in. He saved me and announced right there in front of everyone that I was the woman he loved. He warned that anyone who dared mess with me again would have to deal with him. Edwin bought a castle deep in the forest just for me. He filled the garden with my favorite tulips and held a grand wedding there that made headlines across the country. For a while, I became the woman everyone envied. Seven months pregnant, I attended my father's birthday party. But that night, a sudden fire broke out. My biased father and brother only cared about saving my sister, Kelsey Grant. They rushed her out while I was left behind to die in the flames. In the end, it was Edwin who carried me out. But when I woke up in the hospital, I saw something that shattered my heart. "What the hell were you thinking, starting that fire?" Edwin's face was dark with rage. "Stephanie's only seven months pregnant! Are you trying to force her into early labor? Were you trying to kill her and the baby?" My father and brother spoke in hushed voices, trying to explain. "Kelsey has leukemia. The doctors said we can't wait anymore—she needs surgery soon. And she needs the baby's bone marrow..." "I care about Kelsey's life more than you do. Why else would I have married Stephanie? But you can't hurt her. I have my own plan!" Edwin warned coldly. "Saving Kelsey is the goal, yes—but if you try to save her at the cost of Stephanie's life, I won't allow it!" After hearing that, I fled the hospital room in a panic. So that was why he married me. Not because he loved me, but to save Kelsey. Everything he did for me—his kindness, his care—was all for her. Just like my father and brother, he loved Kelsey. Not me. If no one loved me, then I figured I might as well just disappear.

I ended up with the person who used to bully me in school. As the morning sunlight seeped into the room, I barely moved my arm when the arm wrapped around my waist tightened, pulling me closer. Ethan Chambers lowered his head to kiss my neck, his deep voice tinged with a husky tone from just waking up. "Did you fall asleep last night?" I froze for a moment before nodding obediently. In the past, I might have resisted, but three weeks with him taught me a simple lesson to be compliant. He took my hand, which rested at my side, and interlaced his fingers with mine, playing with them as if amused. Leaning close to my hair, he let out a low chuckle full of interest. "This time, you didn’t throw away the ring I gave you?" He was referring to the diamond ring on my finger. There had been two others before this one—one I hid in the freezer, and the other I threw into the fountain in the garden downstairs. I didn’t want to think about the consequences of losing the first two rings for now, but the result of the third ring was clear: I was going to marry him, the person I once feared the most.

Amanda would sit at the garden in the orphanage just staring out of space thinking and day dreaming if there was more of her outside the huge walls. Her questions were answered the moment Mrs Carol dropped by the orphanage with her escorts and best cars to have her adopted. Why would a woman with two sons and a daughter who are all teenagers adopt another girl??... This was left for her to find out when she arrived at the mansion.

At age 18 Sarah Daniels married the love of her life, but not by choice. She still thought she had years to go until that happened. The Daniels family depicted the average normal family in Curo. But behind closed doors, their were skeletons in the closet,snakes in the garden and a big fairytale lie.

Staring at the garden doors, waiting for her to walk in after her first shift, the doors swing open and I stuck in place at the sight, her long beautiful blonde curls cascading down the front of another Alpha's chest, her face buried in his neck, her tan legs wrapped around his waist as her body lays against his back. I stumble backwards, I can't breathe, my wolf growls in my head, "MINE!" Looking in the rearview she's waving her arms and jumping up and down in a white t-shirt. I know what she wants, and I'll need to go off grid until I can convince my wolf to take the rejection. I scream, "STOP, COME BACK!" as I watched as the small red taillights disappear into the darkness. A tear rolled down my cheek as I turned and looked at the pack house, my wolf howled in my head, "MATE, GO AFTER HIM NOW!" This isn’t how I imagined my 18th birthday would go. I return to the Alpha Academy in Denver, only to find him gone, I steal his car and now sit at a crossroad, my wolf stirs, "go east." I sarcastically laughed, "really and you know this how?" She giggles, "his wolf will direct him back to the last place he scented you, he's heading back to NY." I arch a brow, " we'll track our Alpha, and hear his explanation." Following the path of bloody bodies, in the dodgiest bars, I know I'm on the right path but finding a young girl with his scent all over her, crying in a car outside of one, not what I was expecting. He did it to her too, captured her heart and walked away, just like he did me. Now I want a rejection not an explanation.

Avery hired a gardener after his mother passed. He was left to maintain the huge garden that his mother has worked on for years after she passed. Little did he know, his gardener changes his life in ways he never expected.

"“Do you know how to get to the rose garden?” “No, you can’t go there. A monster lives there.” Shaw Hollander is desperate. Broke, unemployed, and determined to help his ailing mother, he falls on the good graces of a wealthy benefactor who is willing to give Shaw a job at his mansion in order to pay off his mother’s debts. Suddenly finding himself surrounded by lavish riches, he has no idea what his duties truly entail until he’s sent to the rose garden and meets the tragically mutilated Isobel. This Beauty and the Beast story holds true to the core of the fable while shaking off the element of fantasy and dragging it into present-day reality. Shaw and Isobel are ready to let you climb into their four-wheel-drive pickup and take a ride with them into their version of happily ever after, but only if you first dare to gaze upon the monster among the roses."

The day I received my medical report and found out I was pregnant, my husband—Alpha Scott Hansen—held a small wedding ceremony in the hospital garden with his first love and former mate, Gillian Boyd. He explained, “Her final wish in this life was to be my bride.” But what about me? What was I to him? A replacement? It finally hit me—ten years of unwavering devotion and sacrifice meant nothing compared to a single tear shed by his first love.

"I should've ended you years ago, the moment you soaked me in the garden," my alpha mate said through gritting teeth with anger. There were little times spent without threats and exhaustion. Working as the pack alpha’s maid was better than living with less protection on the streets. But as I yearned for freedom from this nightmarish pack, I suddenly got sent to the past! As my Alpha bully too! That’s not it all, my mate now lives inside my body! Now, what do I do? Should I teach him a lesson? Can I survive living as an alpha of the pack?

“I, Emily Blakesley, reject you, Calix Ledger as my mate and Alpha.” Emily Blakesely has suffered bouts of nightmares since she was a child, the reason her parents have kept her locked behind the walls of the castle. They believe they’re protecting her from whatsoever that was causing the nightmares. What happens when on her eighteenth birthday ball, Emily meets a stranger from her nightmare, in an encounter in the garden which leaves Emily unable to shift at the chime of midnight? And now everybody believes the princess has gone mad. Broken, rejected, and wolfless, can Emily find her redemption? * * * * * Calix Ledger was on his way to exerting revenge on the Alpha who took everything from him when he caught sight of a beautiful girl on the bridge of Cathena. One moment of distraction and he misses his only chance at revenge, and now he learns the girl he just saved is the enemy's daughter. What happens when the moon goddess plays games and matches Calix with no other but the mentally deranged daughter of his enemy? And she just had the effrontery to reject him. Would Calix find himself protecting the same girl he vowed to destroy?