Dog Scratching Until Bleeding

I brought my son, who was around a year old, to visit my parents’ graves, only to run into my childhood friend’s mother. She asked me whether I had returned because I was no longer angry. “Yelena, you’re finally back! You must’ve returned to marry Niel. “I’ll make sure your wedding goes smoothly this time. I won’t allow any random person to ruin it!” Niel Stalner was my childhood friend and ex-fiance. During my engagement party, Cloud Stalner, his foster sister, had barged in while wearing the same gown as I did. She also said that she would kill herself if Niel refused to leave with her. The guests burst into a ruckus, and in the end, I was left alone in the venue. Everyone criticized me, and Niel’s family abandoned me. Eventually, I left the country like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. I smiled at Neil’s mother, Iris, and pushed the baby stroller forward. “Iris, are you seriously telling me that Niel hasn’t married Cloud yet? Anyway, Michael, say hello.”

At twelve years old, Zevran Ilvane was already a monster in the making. He was cold, Ruthless, and a psychopath. But that all changes when his father kidnaps Vesper Grey Lysan and brings her home. Zevran takes one look at her, and she becomes the object of his obsessive devotion. Broken but desperate to survive, Vesper is ready to do whatever it takes to escape her hell, so she manipulates Zevran's obsession to her advantage. She gains his trust and promises to take him with her if he helps her escape. But she does not keep to her word. Instead, she kills his father with the weapon he gave her and runs, leaving Zevran bleeding and betrayed. But the boy she betrayed didn't die—he became something far worse. Ten years later, Zevran Ilvane is no longer a boy. He's a cold, calculating Mafia king, and he's been waiting. Watching. Planning. Vesper owes him a promise. And he intends to collect–with her body, her soul, and every breath she takes. She used his love to escape him once. Now he'll use it to break her.

I've dated Andrew Carter, my surgeon boyfriend, for seven years. We plan 66 weddings, and he cancels every single one for Selena Merrick. The first time, Selena botched a patient's injection. "Wait for me," he said, and I waited the entire day. The second time, she slipped and fell in the shower. We were just about to exchange rings, but he ditched me at the altar without a second thought, leaving me to face the ridicule from the guests. For all 65 weddings I held, Selena always found an excuse to lure Andrew away. At the 65th wedding, she claimed her dog was dying and threatened to take her life. My mom collapsed from stress-induced angina, yet Andrew still ran to Selena. Afterward, he kneels and begs us for forgiveness. "Selena is just a pitiful orphan, but you're the one I'll always love," he declares. I give him one last chance, yet he never fails to disappoint me. That is it. I break up with Andrew and join Doctors without Borders. Goodbye. Let's never meet again.

"I, Primitivo Alexander O' Cleirigh, accept you—where are you going, woman?!" "Enough, Fluffy. Or I'll get you back on a leash." --- Soraya takes the kid she babysits to an animal shelter to get her first puppy. Of all the dogs she could pick, the little girl chooses the aloof massive dog. It turns out that the dog is a werewolf who comes to the mortal world to find the mate he's been looking for hundreds of years, and it's the babysitter. Primitivo is frustrated to have to travel to another world for his mate and to find out she's a human, to say the least. Yet he cannot complain as the mating process becomes a life-and-death situation. She's crazy to think he's crazy. Primo's trying to be patient with her. He's a tyrant in his world, and he doesn't want to show that early on to his mate and risk scaring her. Soon, he will love his stay in her world, but time is ticking in his world and his pack without their Alpha. He must take her to Agartha to bear his heir before the second full moon — or risk going extinct.

On the night of my graduation party, just before my first shift, my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart discovered I might awaken Alpha bloodline. She tricked me into eating a layered cake laced with silver powder. I'm extremely sensitive to silver. After eating it, my chest heaved violently, my eardrums buzzed, and I gasped desperately for air with my mouth wide open. Lynette laughed like a maniac. "There's just a tiny bit of silver powder in that cake. Are you seriously overreacting like this? Who are you putting on this show for?" I collapsed on the ground like a dying dog, begging my boyfriend. "Tyler, please take me to the hospital. I'm really going to die." My boyfriend Tyler Cross looked at me coldly. "How much silver powder could possibly be in such a small piece of cake?" "Lynette's writing her graduation thesis on how Alpha bloodlines suppress silver poisoning. She just needs a little help from you. Do you really need to fake being dead?" My breathing became more and more labored. I stopped begging him. Instead, I pulled out my phone and sent an emergency message with my location to my father, the Alpha King.

"Pregnant patient, corpus luteum rupture, heavy bleeding! We need a consent form signed—now!" I stood there holding the clipboard, waiting, when a voice I knew way too well cut through the chaos. "I'm here!" Jimmy. My husband. The same guy who vanished on our anniversary—now signing off on emergency surgery for another woman. He didn't even blink before writing "husband" on the form. Still had our wedding ring on, too. He didn't recognize me behind the mask. Just grabbed my hand and begged. "Please save her. It's my fault. She's pregnant. I messed up. I love her. I can't lose her." His grip tightened. My wedding ring slipped off and hit the floor. I didn't say a word. Just turned and walked into the OR. A doctor beside me, totally clueless, beamed and said, "Dr. Meyer, your test results came back—twins! Your husband's gonna be so happy. Congrats!" I smiled, barely. "Schedule the termination after surgery."

Crimson, a 21-year-old orphan with no idea about her real family, was working hard to save money for her schooling as she wanted to finish college and wanted to have a dog someday that would be her companion. One day, she met a handsome yet dangerous man named Solo. Solo, a werewolf lycan vampire, living with humans for almost five decades, became so powerful that he controlled the underground world of mafias. No one among his people knows his secret that he ate a virgin’s heart just to maintain his young looks. When he met Crimson, a simple delivery girl. He became obsessed with her heart and wanted to eat it as he was told that Crimson’s heart would make him immortal because he envied the vampire’s immortality. She wanted to have a simple yet happy life with a dog. He wanted to have her heart to make him immortal. She wants to finish college and have her dreams come true. He wanted to sacrifice her in the blood moon ritual. Monstrosity. Immortality. Endlessly. This story will make us realize that love can change someone’s point of view and dreams... that love is the most dangerous emotion because it will truly change you... and that love is the most dangerous karma a bad wolf could ever get.

Everyone in the social circle of Kingsford said I was nothing more than a lapdog raised by Charles Mankin. I was always at his beck and call. I did every filthy, ludicrous thing for him under the sun. When he street raced, I rode shotgun. When he drank himself senseless, I made him hangover soup. When he chased girls, I prepared protection for them. Over time, everyone knew: Charles had a dog who never ran, never bit back, no matter how hard he kicked. They all said I must be madly in love with him. Even Charles started to believe it. So he pushed further, more freely, more cruelly, crossing lines as if they never existed. Then came my twenty-fifth birthday. He, in a rare stroke of mercy, said he'd celebrate it with me. But instead, what he got was the news that I was leaving the country. He went berserk, charging through the airport like a man possessed. I peeled his fingers off my wrist one by one, smiling like I'd never been happier. "Don't be stupid," I told him, still smiling. "That was never love." That night, Charles smashed apart his family home like a rabid dog.

I've planned seven wedding ceremonies in total, and not once has my fiance, Zachary Gardner, ever shown up for it. The first time, his adopted younger sister, Louise Foster, bursts into tears because she lost her passport at the airport. It was the dead of winter, but he dumped me by the side of the road and left me. The second time, Louise's dog sprained its ankle. Zachary stuffed the ring back into its box and rushed to the animal hospital to accompany her. Every time I argue with him about it, he declares nonchalantly, "We can get married anytime, but I can't let Louise be upset." Everyone around us agrees with him, saying that we're all family anyway, so I shouldn't be so petty. None of them has seen Zachary and Louise kissing fiercely on the dance floor. Today is the seventh wedding ceremony. Once again, he turns to leave after getting a call. I grab the corner of his shirt and say in a choked voice, "If you leave this time, Zachary, I won't marry you anymore." He stops in his tracks and peels off my fingers. "Wait for me," he says before rushing off. What he doesn't know is that this time, I won't be waiting for him any longer.

"You can never run away from me Cristina, never," were his words. And she was ready to prove them wrong. So to save herself from a dog she sold herself to a lion. Cristina DeCarlo, a young actress, was living a life under the clutches of Vincenzo La Russo, a political leader who was anything but a dog. On a fateful night, she broke all his boundaries and ran away only to fall into the hand of a man who was none other than the biggest Mafia in the country. Roman Scuderi, a mafia lord who was hidden in the shadows yet just the initials of his name were enough to shake the world. A man feared by all. But she was ready to make a deal with him as long as he could protect her from Vincenzo. ###Excerpt### "Why did you cage me?" Cristina asked the man who was sitting in front of her, watching her as she stood in the sexy black dress holding the iron bars of the cage she was in. At her words, he stood up and walked up to her. "Because I'm afraid if I don't, you, my little dove will ascend too high in heaven where this devil can't reach you," he replied in his sexy voice and pulled her towards him to share a kiss.