Do Insects Bleed

She’s a princess. She’s a weapon. She’s the illegitimate daughter no one was supposed to need. For millenia, peace between supernatural kingdoms has been maintained by a brutal tradition: the Bride Swap. An elven princess for a foreign king. Ten years of marriage to buy one hundred and ninety years of fragile silence. This year, the elves must give a bride to the werewolves. Princess Alicia Sunblade was never meant to be the chosen one. Wild, sharp-tongued, and dangerously gifted by both the goddess of war and the goddess of love, she lives in quiet exile from a father who rules with manipulation and fear. But when her king threatens the one person she loves most, Alicia is forced into an arranged marriage with Alpha Rocco Silvermane — the powerful, feared King of Wolfsreach. Elves and werewolves are natural enemies. Their borders bleed tension. Their histories drip with blood. Rocco is everything Alicia was raised to despise: dominant, ruthless, physically overwhelming — and politically untouchable. Yet he has his own kingdom to protect, his own factions to appease, and his own reasons for accepting the swap. Two rulers. Two unwilling sacrifices. One treaty balanced on a knife’s edge. But Alicia isn’t a lamb being led to slaughter. She is a strategist. A seductress blessed by divine persuasion. A warrior hiding behind silk and ceremony. If her father thinks he’s sending her away to be controlled, he may have just delivered his greatest weapon straight into enemy hands. Because if Alicia is going to be traded… She won’t just survive the wolves. She might just make their king kneel.

Just as she’s starting her new life in Las Vegas, she gets an urgent call to return home to Atlanta. Deila Barbson could be stubborn, witty…among other things but she wasn’t the rogue her family thought her to be so she answered with equal urgency oblivious to what awaited her— her past. She’s faced with the person that’s haunted her beautiful nightmares everyday for two years. Betrayed by her heart, she found herself running again from whom she still longed for as the very air she breaths. Breathing was as difficult as commitments. Would she stand unbroken or she melt under his touch? Time they said healed every wound so why did his heart still bleed at the sight of the woman that left him shattered sixteen months ago? Hard-headed as he was, James Martin felt open as if it were yesterday he got stood up on his planned proposal dinner. He wanted answers, from her, from himself; why didn’t he feel anger towards her for breaking his heart? Why was his heart still thudding with hope at the sight of her? Why did Deila still unman him as if he wasn’t the macho CEO that intimidated even the Mayor? And most importantly, why did she return? Behind the unwilling woman and broken man was the dark secret both their families shared. What would be keeping them apart? Their ego? Or the family secret? Warning: This book contains mature words and sexual encounters that aren't suitable for readers under the age of 18.

“I now pronounce you both, husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” ━━━━━━༺༻ ━━━━━━ Nadia Petrov Jules, barely eighteen years old, only had one dream in her life - to study abroad and become a doctor. She had even managed to convince her traditional and overprotective strict uncle to let her pursue her dreams in New York. Despite her family's political connections to the mafia cartel, her life was surprisingly calm and peacefully simple. Until he claimed her and took away her virginity. Anatoly Kiseleva, the Russian mafia heir is one word only - destruction in human form, a dedicated hunter who hunts down his enemies until he makes them bleed to their death. He is rumored not to have any beating heart inside his left sided chest. His marriage was fixed with the beautiful Ivanova, Nadia's maternal cousin. On the night of his engagement party, he was a bit drunk and met a girl with a mask on who he had believed to be Ivanova. He made love to the girl in the mask and didn't bother to notice the obvious differences. When the morning came, he was beyond furious after he took off the mask. Now they are both married and Anatoly despises and loathes his new bride who doesn't even have two complete legs. Nadia's life was much too sweet before she was forced and pulled into bitterness and sorrow with a husband who hated her and was disgusted by her disability. To Her, it wasn't a marriage but her death sentence. And to Him, it also wasn't a marriage but an endless torment of shame.

They thought he was just another runaway. They never knew she was a storm waiting to rise. After the tragic death of her parents, Alex a girl mistaken for a boy all her life was one step away from being dumped into a foster home. But instead of surrendering to the system, she ran. That night on the streets, she didn’t find safety. She found the mafia. Dragged into the brutal underground world of Vegas, Alex was forced to train like a soldier, live like a ghost, and survive like a killer. No one ever questioned her identity not when she could fight better, bleed harder, and keep her mouth shut longer than anyone else. They called her a boy. She didn’t correct them. Not when being seen as male was the only thing keeping her alive. Sent to Base Two, the deadliest tier of training, Alex learned to fight, spy, kill and to hide her real self behind layers of silence, steel, and scars. Years later, she walks the streets of New York, not as the scared runaway girl from the past, but as The Rival. A faceless vigilante by night. A silent infiltrator by day. And a weapon forged for one purpose: revenge. Alex isn’t just hunting criminals. She’s chasing the truth behind her father’s deathand every masked figure connected to it. But the deeper she digs, the more twisted the game becomes. Hidden enemies, familiar faces, and a web of betrayal that leads right back to the organization that made her. How long can she keep the mask on... before her real identity shatters everything?

Dmitri Volkov is the heir to one of New York’s most ruthless Russian mafia families—cold, controlled, and carrying scars no one is allowed to see. He has spent his life obeying blood oaths and burying every part of himself that doesn’t serve the syndicate. Love, especially love for a man, is a weakness he cannot afford. Ethan Moreau is a twenty-two-year-old French art student on scholarship at NYU—soft-spoken, openly gay, and painfully trusting. He came to New York to chase beauty in a city full of sharp edges, never expecting one of those edges to look back at him with ice-blue eyes. Their worlds collide by chance in Central Park. A fleeting encounter becomes stolen nights, desperate kisses in shadowed alleys, and whispered promises neither of them can keep. For Ethan, Dmitri is intensity and danger wrapped in tenderness he’s never known. For Dmitri, Ethan is the first crack of light in a life built on darkness—and the one thing that could destroy everything he’s been raised to protect. But secrets have weight. Dmitri’s family is closing in, a rival syndicate is circling, and every touch between them pulls the noose tighter. Misunderstandings fester into silence, jealousy into rage, and love into something that hurts to hold. When blood finally stains the canvas of their fragile world, Ethan will have to decide if he can love a man who was born to break hearts—and Dmitri will have to choose between the family that raised him and the only person who ever made him want to be free. In a city that devours the innocent, their story is a slow bleed of devotion, betrayal, and the kind of love that can ruin you completely.

The Devouring Queen is a paranormal revenge fantasy set between a blood drenched Lycan kingdom and a starving vampire empire, where every moon can crown a monarch or claim a corpse. The story follows Elara, once a gentle Luna who was betrayed and murdered on her wedding night. Instead of finding peace, she awakens three years in the past inside the stolen body of a hidden vampire princess. She returns to life in a world already preparing for her death, because in thirty nights the Lycan King must kill his true mate to awaken an ancient god beast. Now two women wear the same face, and only one can survive the prophecy that hungers for blood. Elara, reborn as a ghost wearing royal skin, abandons innocence and embraces the power she never had in her first life. With a quiet voice and a predator’s smile, she steps into a kingdom filled with secrets, manipulations and creatures who underestimate her. Cassius, the beautiful and broken Lycan King, is trapped between the woman he once loved, the version he helped destroy, and a prophecy that demands sacrifice. Their love is poisonous, irresistible and destined to end in ruin. As the nights slip away, Elara weaves a dark game of power and deception. She announces a false pregnancy, visits the chained original bride under midnight moons, and manipulates courts and armies with deadly grace. The mirrors around her begin to bleed, the lies thicken, and the prophecy tightens like a noose. The climax erupts in a courtyard filled with fallen soldiers, where the two identical brides tear the king apart to decide which destiny will rule. The kingdoms that remain have only two choices: kneel or burn.

Aria’s story begins in silence. On the night her child is born beneath a bleeding moon, the world does the unthinkable, the moon answers a power older than mercy and takes her baby from her arms. No prophecy offers comfort. No god explains why. There is only absence, a wound carved so deeply into Aria that something inside her hardens into resolve. She was never meant to be a vessel. In a world ruled by ancient God's, sacred pacts, and power that demands obedience, Aria uncovers a truth far more dangerous than destiny, magic does not always need to be stolen, inherited, or bargained for. Sometimes, it listens. Sometimes, it can be refused. Bound by fate to Kael, a warrior forged for war and sacrifice, Aria is drawn into a conflict far older than the kingdoms trembling in its shadow. Alongside Azrael, Matteo, and Ren, the men shaped by loyalty, loss, and violence, she stands at the center of a prophecy written to break her. The Devourer, an ancient god of control and corruption, seeks to claim Aria as its final vessel and crown her queen. It promises salvation. Restoration. Even the impossible return of what she lost. Aria refuses. At the Hollow Crown, she denies divinity itself, shattering prophecy and forcing a god to retreat. But refusal leaves echoes. Fragments of corrupted power bleed into the world, and greater eyes turn toward her defiance. As stars realign and lost sanctums awaken, forces older than Gods, the Architects, shapers of fate itself, begin to watch. Aria is no ascended queen. She is a reckoning. And the world is no longer prepared for a woman who has already lost everything, and learned how to say no.

"You shouldn't be touching me." he growled, his voice low and ragged, every muscle beneath her nimble fingers felt the tremors of restrained power. The heat of his skin radiated through her gloves. "If I stop, you'll bleed out." His hand shot up, curling gently-but firmly around her wrist. His eyes, a shade of hellish red in the dim lights, locked onto hers. "No, doctor," he whispered, his lips forming a stern pressed line. "If you stop, it won't be the blood that kills me. It'll be the hunger." Dr. Eleanor Airlea never believed in myths-until the night a wounded stranger staggered into her veterinary clinic under a blood-red moon. The wolfs injuries should have killed him, but his body healed with a feral strength she couldn't explain. His piercing eyes, wild and magnetic, left her both terrified and captivated. Raphael is no ordinary man-he's a werewolf, royalty no less with a bloodline that binds him to the violent laws of his pack and the forbidden desire that burns whenever Eleanor is near. In a world where hunters stalk the night and betrayal lurks under every silver light, their passion becomes as dangerous as it is irresistible. She's the healer who should fear him. He's the predator who has set his eyes upon her. And when blood and desire mix under the next full moon, neither of them will be able to resist the pull of destiny. "I don't care what you are," she said, her pulse racing as she held his gaze. "You were bleeding. You needed me." His lips curved into a dangerous smile. "Careful, doctor. Saving a wolf can make you his."

“You’ve spent seven years running from my scent, Madeline, but you’re still wearing the bruises I gave you like jewelry. Did you really think I’d let you come home without putting you back on your knees?” The North Reach is a kingdom of ice, iron, and ancient blood, where the weak are exiled and the strong are hunted. Seven years ago, Madeline Cruz was the disgrace of the pack—a girl with a sharp tongue and a wooden bat who broke the arm of the Alpha-heir and was cast into the sun-bleached purgatory of Los Angeles. She returns not as the girl they broke, but as a woman forged in fire, hiding scars that run deeper than any claw mark and carrying a family heirloom that marks her for a destiny she never asked for. But the Reach hasn't forgotten her. Harrison Cole, the boy she once leveled in the dirt, is now a man of lethal ambition and predatory grace. He is the future Alpha, a king-in-waiting who views Madeline’s return as a challenge to his crown—and a feast for his wolf. He doesn't just want her gone; he wants her ruined. He wants to hear her scream his name in the dark and watch her defiance shatter under the weight of his command. As the Cruz family’s dark secrets begin to bleed through the polished floors of their estate, Madeline finds herself caught between a father who sold her out and a lifelong enemy who tastes like woodsmoke and danger. In a world where wolfsbane and silver are the only laws, Maddie must decide if she’s back to reclaim her throne... or to burn the entire pack to the ground.

I wasn't supposed to be here. The dress wasn't made for my body. The vows weren't written for my name. The man standing at the altar — cold-eyed, jaw like carved stone, power rolling off him like a second skin — he wasn't waiting for me. He was waiting for my sister. But my sister is gone, and someone had to bleed in her place. So here I am — Nyra, an Omega nobody, the pack's afterthought, the girl they forgot existed — standing before the most feared Alpha in the known world, about to become his wife. Kael Dravon doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't tolerate them either. And I am the biggest one he's ever been handed. He makes that clear from the moment our eyes meet — mine full of barely-swallowed terror, his full of nothing at all. He doesn't want me. He doesn't intend to keep me any longer than the treaty requires. I'm a placeholder. A warm body with the wrong name wearing the right bloodline. I tell myself I can survive this. That I've survived worse. But surviving Kael Dravon means staying invisible, staying small, staying quiet — and the longer I live inside his world, the harder all three become. Because his world is brutal. His enemies are vicious. And the secrets buried inside his pack's walls are the kind that get people killed. Including girls who ask too many questions. Including girls who start to feel things they were never supposed to feel. Including me. I wasn't supposed to be here. But maybe — just maybe — neither was he.