Did Ethan Winters Die Novels & Stories

Daddy brought me to Aunt Jenny’s party. As I was eating a piece of cake, I tasted a cherry between the layers and hurriedly spat it out. Once, I broke out in rashes after eating a cherry and nearly died, so I was deeply traumatized by that flavor even as a young child. However, Aunt Jenny looked heartbroken. “I hid a cherry in the cake as a little surprise, just like it’s good luck to get a bay leaf in a pie. How could you be so rude, Kenny?” Daddy did not even let me explain. He chased me out in the yard and made me stand there as punishment. Mommy said it had been more than a hundred degrees out lately, so she told me to stay home and not go out to play. Now I knew just how hot 104 degrees could be! My body was all itchy, too. I was finding it hard to breathe. I wanted to ask Daddy to forgive me, but he refused to open the door no matter how hard I knocked. He glanced at me coldly through the floor-to-ceiling window. He was not going to let me back in.

Tonight Daddy said he was going out with Auntie Benita, and Mommy didn’t fight him about it. She had a handkerchief balled up in her hand, soaked through with the blood she kept coughing up. I knew Mommy was going to heaven soon. That was how Grandpa told me it would be, back when Grandma coughed up blood like this. Daddy looked at Mommy, narrowed his eyes, and his voice went cold. “Isa needs a whole family. A smart woman learns to look the other way.” Mommy didn’t shield me and argue back the way she used to. She just said, softly, “Fine. I’ll charge by the visit. Every night you spend with her is one million.” Daddy laughed and wired her the money. After that night, Daddy went out a lot, and every time, Mommy reminded him to send the money. Mommy got so thin that her cheeks caved in, but her eyes were still bright. She took me lots of places, introduced me to lots of people, and made me write my own name over and over. She said she was going to leave everything to me. I held her tight. “I don’t want your things, Mommy. I just want you.”

On the day of our daughter's full-month celebration, Harvey McKinzie walked onto the stage holding the hand of his widowed, heavily pregnant sister-in-law. "Honey, to be honest with you—my sister-in-law's baby is mine." His parents followed behind, looking completely unapologetic. "We're the ones who made it happen. We drugged them. Our oldest son may be gone, but the family can't be without an heir. "Harvey is taking on the responsibility of carrying on both family lines—it hasn't been easy for him. From now on, you need to take good care of Lydia and the child she's carrying." The sister-in-law, now eight months pregnant, glanced at me shyly. "Jennifer, we're sister-wives now." I stood there frozen, holding my daughter, my voice trembling. "Why are you doing this to me?" Harvey frowned and let out a long sigh. "You're always saying how hard Lydia has it, right? Isn't it better if I just take care of her openly and properly? "I promise—you'll be the first wife, and she'll be the second. On paper, you're still my only legal wife." In that moment, my blood ran cold. Then, for the first time in a long while, I heard the system's alert in my head. [Host emotional fluctuation detected. Would you like to use all remaining points to exit the current world?]

On Valentine’s Day, I discovered that my brother’s fiancee, Erika Gibson, was cheating on him. So, I tried to tell my brother, Nathan Clinton, about it. However, he yelled at me. He said that I was trying to ruin his relationship and told me to leave. Erika then asked her lover to deal with me, so he kidnapped me. He mocked me for being unable to speak and forced me to sell 200 roses at the night market. I asked Nathan for help, but he replied impatiently. [Moon, I can’t believe you’d lie about something like this… I don’t have time for your games.] I was accidentally hit by a truck while Nathan was having a wonderful time with Erika. Haha. I was finally free, but I wished I had a different brother.

In a world where werewolves rule, independent human, Ruby Mason struggles to accept her place as a second-class citizen. She lives by the strict rules the wolves have set out, but it doesn't stop her from wishing for more. Ruby does all she can to avoid contact with the werewolves of the city, certain that they are ruthless monsters. What happens when one bad decision puts her in the path of the king of all monsters?

BLURB Dennis Talker thought his biggest problem was losing his well deserved promotion to some trust-fund brat he didn't know. He never imagined that a hot drunken one night stand with a gorgeous stranger would come back to shoot him in the leg. When Dennis wakes up the next day in bed with Dominic Rivera, his embarrassment is the least of all his worries. But he panics when he finds out that he is the mysterious new department head who had just stolen his dream job. And that is necause Dominic isn't just another corporate climber. He is the heir to the most powerful crime family on the East Coast. And to top it all, he has been hunting for Dennis for reasons that have nothing to do with official quarterly reports. It turns out Dennis isn't just some middle management nobody too. He is the missing piece of a puzzle that could topple elite empires. He is the key to a fortune that most powerful men would have killed for. He is also the one person who could either save the Dominic's family legacy or choose to have it destroyed completely. But in a world where boardroom deals are sealed with blood, is love not the most dangerous weapon of all? Dennis must choose either the life he has always known or a future that could cost him everything, including his heart. Some contracts are written in ink. Some are penned with blood. And some are written in both.

On the night of their third wedding anniversary, Aelara watches the man she has loved since childhood drive a blade through her heart and say her sister's name as he does it. She dies on the ballroom floor making one wish — not for revenge, not for answers, just the day before everything was decided. The day before she chose wrong. Fate listens. Because Aelara is not just a king's daughter. She is the Goddess of Fate and Life, and even dying, her power answers her own prayer. Reborn to the morning of the choosing ceremony, she faces four suitors and a kingdom that expects her to name Caelan Dray the God of Conquest, the man who will one day kill her. She does not. She names Riven Ashveil, the quiet, unbothered God of Sovereignty who has spent nine years showing up for her in every way that mattered and never once asking for anything back. No one understands the choice. Caelan does not grieve it. He starts watching her instead. And Lysa, her half-sister and Caelan's secret lover, goes very still. What follows is not a simple love story. It is a slow war for a kingdom, a throne, and a goddess's life fought in corridors and courtrooms and dark divine channels by two people who believed they were owed something and could not accept that they were wrong. Riven is the most powerful god in the kingdom. But power means nothing if you do not know what is coming for you. Aelara knows. She died once already. She is not dying again.

Nova Ellis has three problems. The first is Drey — her best friend, the boy who held her together when her dad died. She doesn't love him that way. She doesn't. But somehow they ended up in a school restroom doing things best friends should never do, promised each other never again, and have broken that promise five times. Five. They keep saying last time like either of them actually means it. The second is the letter. Three pages of everything she has ever felt for Leo Carter — the sweet parts, the embarrassing parts, the midnight fantasy parts that should never have left her diary. Handed to the wrong person by accident. Read out loud. Every word. The third is Rhys Caldwell. The boy who read that letter with a straight face. The boy she planned to avoid forever. The boy now living in her stepfather's house, down the hall, separated by one very thin wall. Same house. Same dinner table. Same dangerous, electric, completely impossible situation. Nova had one plan this year. One boy. One letter. She didn't plan for any of this. But the real question is — How long can you share a home with someone who already knows your deepest secret before you give them something even more dangerous? Your heart.

I was Alpha Damon’s Head Beta. For six years, I had been his partner in bed and his second-in-command. When he announced our mating ceremony, the entire pack celebrated. My dream was finally within reach. But then, outside his private trophy room, I heard him bragging about his “Luna trials.” And just like that, I learned the truth. I wasn’t his one and only. I was one of thirty candidates. He’d spent a month with each of us, grading our bodies, our submission, our performance. My score? Lower than an Omega’s. Lower than Lydia’s. “Fucking Lydia was incredible,” he boasted. “I could barely pull myself away. Then I look at Elysia—so stiff, so in control—and I’m just… bored.” Ice flooded my veins. My body went numb. Six years of devotion. Countless nights tangled in his sheets. It all meant less than a cheap thrill and a wolf who knew how to kneel. My heartbreak hardened into ice. I sent a message to an Alpha who had wanted me long ago. “Adrian, you once said your offer to mate was a standing one. Does it still stand? Damon and I are over now.”

I was an ordinary mortal girl who lived at the foot of Mount Olympus. Caelum, King of the Gods, descended from the heavens for me once, transforming himself into a shower of gold. He took me to the peak of Olympus over every other god’s objection. He built a shrine on the mountain that belonged to me alone, every god on Olympus knew the same truth: I was the only mortal love of Caelum’s endless life. Then I gave birth to our daughter, Nia. The Fates declared her a cursed child whose existence would bring disaster to the gods, and Nia and I were sent back down to the small cottage at the foot of the mountain. Seraphina, Goddess of Flame, said she could help cleanse Nia of the curse, and with Caelum’s quiet consent she came every month and burned my daughter with divine fire. Nia screamed under that fire, sobbing for me . I ran into the temple to beg Caelum to stop it, and I found him in bed with Seraphina. The pure, holy Goddess of Flame was moaning beneath him. They threw me into the depths of Tartarus, where Seraphina handed me over to the Erinyes to be torn apart day after day. When Nia turned five, they finally let me out, but by then my Nia had been burned to ash. The day I was gathering her ashes, the message stone in my room suddenly lit up, and a projection flickered out of it: Caelum, as he had been five years ago. His eyes were full of joy and anticipation, and his voice was so gentle it almost made me believe time had folded back on itself. “Sweetheart, is it a boy or a girl? Did our child inherit my power?” In the projection his expression shifted, and the smile froze on his face. That was when the door of my room was pushed open, and the present-day Caelum, five years older than the man in the stone, strode inside. I turned the message stone around so the Caelum from five years ago could see Nia’s urn with his own eyes. “It’s a girl,” I said. “But she didn’t live long enough to inherit your power. She was burned to ash.”