Conjugal Family

When I was young, my uncle and his family had died in a fire to save me, leaving behind only their three-year-old daughter. Thus, she became the most lovable member of our family. Later, she and I were involved in a car accident. As the blood and amniotic fluid mixed together, I clutched my husband's hand and begged him to save me and our children. However, he swatted my hand away and said impatiently, "Don't you realize Alice had hurt her bones?" My mother also scolded me, "Why are you still craving attention at a crucial moment like this? You are so cruel. Do you want Alice to be crippled for the rest of her life?" Just like that, I watched helplessly as they left with all the doctors, leaving me all alone. In the end, I died along with my adorable twin babies. When they heard the news, the ones who despised me most went crazy.

My mother, Winona Barlowe, who was the medical director at the hospital, decided to let my intern sister, Mia Barlowe, practice her skills by performing a brain tumor surgery on me. I begged my mother to assign another doctor since it was my only chance at survival. She slapped me across the face and cried out, "How did I ever give birth to a selfish girl like you? Mia just started her internship. Can’t you give her the chance to practice?" When I died from the botched surgery, she turned gray overnight.

My parents' enemy kidnapped me and live-streamed cutting off my fingers, just to force them to show up. For a time, the entire internet was searching for my parents. But what no one knew was that the police chief on the live connection was my real father. At that very moment, he was on a beach in Havai, lighting fireworks for his adopted son. And on their barbecue table, the live stream of my fingers being cut off was playing. Later, I survived long enough to be rescued, and I reached out with my severed fingers, wanting to touch my parents. But they recoiled in disgust and, without so much as a backward glance, took their adopted son out for steak. What they never realized was that hidden inside my severed fingers was something that would make them regret everything.

Hanging in the living room is a drawing of Julia Graham's husband, son, and younger sister, Juliette Graham. Julia's son tells her, "If I add a fourth person to the drawing, it'll be the younger sister that Aunt Juliette gives me." Without hesitation or lingering emotions, Julia applies to become an undercover operative in the most dangerous mission to date. From this point onward, she severs all ties with them!

Welcome to Ransom, Texas, where the family ties bind and love runs hot. One of the juciest pieces of gossip around town is what’s happening at The Love Barn, Ransom’s new boutique wedding venue run by the Lively siblings. Word around the tea shop is that Scarlett Lively is getting awfully close to a jilted groom. Then there’s whatever is going on with Benji! We have it on good authority he’s not just teaching his high school crush to play the guitar. And then there’s Garth, who has been noticeably missing from happy hour at The Watering Hole. Will these three break the family curse? Or are they destined to repeat it?The Love Barn is created by Sidney Bristol, an eGlobal Creative Publishing author.

I'm severely allergic to many things, so my husband buys a separate villa for me. It's supposed to be sort of a nursing home. When my future daughter-in-law learns about this, she thinks my son is cheating on her. She breaks my bones to vent her anger. When she finds out I'm her future mother-in-law, she caresses her belly and looks at me smugly. "I'm already pregnant with Shawn's child. Think about whether you want this child to make it into this world." What she doesn't know is that the Ziegler family's fortune belongs to me and that Shawn Ziegler is only my adoptive son.

Around the seventh month of my pregnancy, I overheard a conversation between my mate, Zane Andrews, and Ciara Phillips, the she-wolf I had taken in out of compassion after her family was brutally slaughtered by rogues. In a sultry, flirtatious tone, Ciara purred, “Zane, my love, if your wife discovers that the fertilized egg I planted in her womb isn’t truly hers by blood, she’ll be devastated—perhaps to the point of despairing suicide, don’t you think?” Zane snorted, his voice dripping with disdain at the mention of me. “It’ll work for us if she simply dies from heartbreak. Damn it. I can’t shake the worry that she might sever our bond and leave me with nothing. Let’s keep this under wraps until our child inherits all her assets. Only then will we reveal the bombshell, plunging her into darkness.” Ciara giggled, praising Zane for his cunning. My claws itched to lash out, but I held back, knowing the time for confrontation wasn’t yet. My heart sank as their betrayal cut deep. Years ago, I had defied my pack elders’ warnings about Ciara being a potential threat, taking her in and grooming her into our pack's doctor, funding her education out of sheer empathy. Now, I regretted every moment of my kindness. To think that my mate, who had once begged for my protection for his fragile pack, had the audacity to betray me. If not for my support, his pathetic pack would have crumbled long ago, leaving him nursing his wounds in a dark corner, fretting over survival. After a long moment of contemplation, I made my decision. I would feign ignorance to their schemes and play along by giving birth to Ciara’s baby. Two decades passed. Ciara’s child grew up, bearing the name Simon Andrews. Aware of their treachery, I still transferred all my assets to him. Once the paperwork was completed, Ciara boldly approached me in front of the entire pack, a maternity DNA test in hand. With a smug smile, she declared, “Leia Holland, look at this! I am Simon’s biological mother. Leave h

After being missing for 18 years, Mom and Dad finally found me. Jillian Swain, the fake heiress, crumples to the floor and starts sobbing. "Goodbye, Mom and Dad. Thanks for taking care of me all these years. But now that Wanda is home, I'm sure you don't have any use for me anymore." Mom and Dad hug her, completely heartbroken. "Sweetheart, don't talk like that! You're our only real daughter, now and always!" Even Harvey Schumer, the guy I was promised to as a kid, declares his love for her. "Forget who you really are. You're the only one I love." They're all tripping over each other to fuss over Jillian. They even throw a birthday celebration for her dog while I'm barely hanging on after a car crash. So I pack up my things, accept the space agency's offer, and slip away into a five-year confidential satellite research project. But the whole family freaks out the second I'm gone, turning the country upside down, searching for me.

This marks the third year since Alan Cohen and I became mates, and today's finally the day of the Luna ceremony. As the ceremony begins, Alan takes my hand. But then he hesitates, refusing to move forward. I'm still trying to make sense of it when my adoptive sister, Eden Parker, suddenly breaks into the mind-link. She says she's just ended a failed mate bond with another Alpha and will be back within the hour. That's when I see a flicker of a smile on Alan's face. Then, without a second glance, he lets go of my hand and walks away. I turn to my adoptive brother, Dexter Parker, and my adoptive father, Hank Parker, hoping for some kind of comfort, only to realize they've already left the ceremony with Alan. And just like that, I became the joke of the entire pack. Eden sends me a photo. She's glowing beside Alan, her arm looped through Dexter's, with Hank beaming next to them. That's when I give up. I reach out through the mind-link to my birth father. "Dad, I'm ready to return to the Bloodmoon Pack."

In order to protect my father, I was tortured for ten hours, but my father was busy celebrating his adopted daughter’s eighteenth birthday. With my dying breath, I called my father and said, “Dad, it’s my birthday today. Could you wish me a happy birthday?” “You crazy monster! You got your mother killed in order to celebrate your birthday! How could you still ask me to celebrate your birthday? You should just die!” With that said, he hung up. The next day, my corpse was placed in different flower pots and put in front of a police station. My father was in charge of inspecting my corpse, and he could immediately tell that the murderer did this for revenge. What they did to me was cruel and made a mockery of the police’s authority. But he did not manage to tell that the deceased was the daughter he hated.