Eight Hundred Grapes

The year I was at my poorest, I impersonated my sister to take care of her blind fiancé in exchange for one hundred thousand dollars. On the day he regained his sight, I left without a word. When we met again, it was during a business interview. I was a nameless intern reporter. He had returned to his rightful status as the heir of the influential Hughes family. During the interview, the host asked, "We’ve heard that during your illness, your fiancée, Miss Dawson, stayed by your side through thick and thin. The two of you are about to get married?" He lifted his hand slightly, revealing a ring, and his lips curled into a faint smile. "Yes, we’re getting engaged soon." Yet, his gaze, through the lens of his glasses, landed—intentionally or not—on me, standing in the corner.

In the eighth year of helping Keith Hunter pay off his debts, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I tested the waters and asked him, half joking, "If I got cancer, would you save me?" He laughed, saying I was overthinking it. Then he added firmly, "If it ever came to that, I would sell my blood to pay for your treatment." I lay awake all night, tossing and turning, still feeling like I couldn't drag him down with me. Before taking a sleeping pill, a notification popped up on my phone about a social media post. [How do I dump an older woman who paid off my debts for eight years without too much drama?] The profile picture looked eerily like Keith's silhouette from behind. He wrote, [Eight years ago, my family went bankrupt. She stuck with me, living off dry toast and squeezing into a rented apartment. She helped me pay back over 600 thousand dollars in debt. [Back then, I thought she was innocent and cute. Now, I feel like she's just a materialistic woman putting on an act. [Last month, she even asked whether I would save her if she got cancer. How does someone even ask that? [Obviously, she was trying to get money out of me. Good thing I didn't tell her that my family recovered three years ago. [Now, my family has arranged a fiancée for me. She's the daughter of a publicly listed company. [I want to cut things off with my girlfriend, but I'm afraid she'll cling to me. After all, she wasted a lot of her youth on me.] By the time I finished reading, I had crushed the stomach cancer diagnosis in my hand into a wrinkled mess.

Alpha Khyrix, the first true Alpha born in over a hundred years of leaderless chaos in the werewolf pack. Avelora, a wolfless girl, earned a scholarship to Northshire High, a place that promised greatness. Instead, she was treated like a maid. No different from her own pack. On the night of Alpha Khyrix’s coronation, he shocked everyone by declaring her his mate… only to reveal to her in private that she was nothing more than a pretend mate. He turned her world upside down just to tell her it was all a lie. Now, he offers a deal: pretend to be his mate in public, and he will grant her any wish. Avelora agrees, she’s always wanted to belong, and this might be her chance. But chaos blooms from their forced proximity. Every touch sends Avelora into a frenzy… and the Alpha harbors a secret that could turn their lie into a dangerous, undeniable truth.

After I started working at the zoo, I was added to a group chat called “A Hundred Ways to Kill a Human.” Every member had an animal as their profile picture. At first, I thought it was some quirky staff group. I even found it kind of cute. That was, until I realized they were discussing how to eat me. Pedro the Parrot: [The new human has beautiful eyes. I can’t wait till Christmas. I want to peck them out right now!] George the Gorilla: [Relax. There’ll be many visitors during Christmas. We’ll have more eyeballs than we can eat! Also, I’m calling dibs on her thigh.] Thor the Tiger: [Nobody’s taking her head, right? That’s mine.] Tucker the Elephant: [I’m a vegetarian, but I can crush her bones to dust.]

The Empire rules on the wings of dragons. Riders are hand-selected for training from childhood, and Anzi is one of the rare few who wait to hatch theirs this year. Until she discovers the terrible truth that the dragon riders are not partners with their dragons: they're slavers. The dragons are bred in captivity and enslaved from within the egg, and they are nothing but mindless shadows of what their once-noble species used to be. After two hundred years, the surviving dragons in the wild are coming back to rescue their brethren. How they survived the Purge, no one knows, but they are angry and they are coming, in fire and in storm. And as she struggles to come to terms with the realization that the nation she loves so much that she would give her life for it may be nothing more than propaganda and illusion, she discovers something else: The dragons who survived the Purge are shifters, able to hide in human form. And Anzi has met one of them already. Her mate.

After the night castle, home to the vampires is attacked by angry humans, Alyssa is forced to flee from her home. Daylight burns her skin, but upon remembering the angel she saved, she makes it to his castle, hoping he will provide her with a roof above her head. It's dangerous living with an angel—falling in love with one will kill you if the feelings aren't mutual; Alyssa is willing to take that risk. She becomes his slave, determined to survive; her work turns into her everything. But what happens when the angel Azrael finds his mate and Alyssa stays alive despite being in love with him? Follow Alyssa as she tries to survive in a world that wants her dead. She is hunted for her species, wanted for her blood—Alyssa's life is anything but easy, and falling in love with an angel is about to make it a hundred times more complicated.

"I Lillian Camilla Vincent promise to make your life a living hell for as long as I live," I whispered to him, to anyone we were just husband and wife exchanging quiet talk on the altar, but they didn't know we were making a promise to torment each other's life. " And I promise to return the favor dear wife, in a hundred fold," Forced to marry a boy she once bullied, Lillian is determined to make his life a living hell, only problem is, he's not that boy anymore but now a man and he is Antonio Giovanni Gonzalez. The scrawny boy she tormented has become the powerful Antonio Giovanni Gonzalez. She's soon to discover revenge is a dish best served with a side sizzling of passion. Two Captains, one ship, can this ship sail? Or will their quest for revenge consume them? Find out.

A star shines brightly for the first time in hundred years. Two fated souls meet. But how will they know? If the other one is cursed, and the other one is human. Valen Ashton Craige was born to be great powerful Alpha, but he was cursed by a witch due to his father's mistake. He was a lovely and sweet boy to his parents, but he became cold when he learned about the curse. He focused on ruling his pack and company while keeping his deepest secret. Selene Brown, daughter of the most influential man in the City of Blooms, was found at the borders of Valen's Pack known as the Red Moon Pack. She was full of bruises and didn't have consciousness when found by Valen's Mother, Elina. The pack doesn't want her to stay, but Valen grants her permission due to his mother's request.

Juliette...! You can fall for anyone...but him. I repeated it a hundred times in my mind. No...! Not that way...! Don't look at him...! Suppressing my untamable desires to see him, I had been struggling hard. Why is life so complicated? Why out of all it has to be him? *** Juliette Stanford, a university student, had a crush on her new, handsome and charming professor for not long but that crush became a tangled love when he turned out to be her brother-in-law-to-be. It was a one sided love and she tried hard not to get deeper in her fantasies as there was nothing mutual and he was the one in the forbidden sides for her to fall in love. But...! Nothing goes as the will...! She thought it was only her who was struggling until the day of her sister's engagement when he suddenly grabbed Juliette in his arms and announced that he loves her...!! Wait...! What happened...!!

Ten days before the wedding, my fiancée spent over a hundred million to buy Marcus Collins a luxury yacht. So, I silently threw away the matching rings I had once planned to give her. Seven days before the wedding, she spent 50 million dollars to celebrate Marcus' birthday. Thus, I set fire to the photo album that held every memory of our past. Three days before the wedding, she wore the ring I had used to propose, and she kissed him deeply by the sea. Today, I finally chose to step aside. I notified our families and friends that the wedding was canceled, and I personally returned the engagement tokens to the Yardley family. Lowering my head, I said softly, "Mr. and Mrs. Yardley…I've always known I'm not worthy of Claire. I hope you can understand."