Eighty Eight

A year ago, twenty eight year old Lisa Armstrong Reed 'princess of Oakenville', lost her husband, Keith. And now, she just got invited to her aunt's wedding at Miami. Determined to forget her dead husband for good, Lisa takes a chance at a holiday and hops into the next available flight to the Florida city, in anticipation for a well-deserved vacation. What she doesn't expect is to find herself in the same room with Keith's handsome, half naked brother for whom she harbours a yearlong crush! Damien Reed 'kinda kissed' his brother's wife last year, and she shut him out almost immediately. Now with his brother dead, and Lisa miraculously turns up as a bridesmaid at his friend's wedding, he's more than prepared to let her know how he feels about her. When a simple wedding getaway turns to a war zone, with stalkers and greeting cards claiming to be from Keith, wyill the two finally find a happily ever after together or is a second chance at romance too hot to handle? [Cover design by Mikael]

Zoe Petridis: I had hoped to find my mate on this year-long pack ambassador trip with my papa and brother. I was prepared for what I thought was everything until our trip to the Ironfur Pack in the mountains of New York. I don't need to turn Gunnar and Henrik Kilbourn to stone. They are already made from carved granite. And holy Goddess, they are both mine!? Too bad they seem to think I'm giving up my Beta title to live on this cold mountain just because they are the Alpha's brothers. Gunnar and Henrik Kilbourn: We're the youngest of eight children. Our only brother is Alpha, and he already has a son. So we're less than spare heirs. We didn't care when our brother told us to be on our best behavior for visiting foreign Betas. During the masked event, we both scented our mate. To our surprise, we were smelling the same female… Zoe Petridis. But she seems to think we ought to go to her pack because she's a Beta. The female moves to the male's pack. That's how we were raised.

Twenty-one years old Amber Fernandez, only daughter of the over ambitious Alpha of the Moonlight Pack is spoiled, bratty and always gets whatever she wants. She’s to be mated to a powerful, over-ambitious Alpha in a few days' time when the unexpected happens and her father’s greedy plan backfires, and Amber finds herself paying for her father’s numerous crimes from being captured to be stripped of everything she once has. Amber is tortured, humiliated and turned into a sex slave by the Alpha of the Nightwalker Pack, Alpha Aiden. Twenty eight year old Alpha Aiden can’t seem to be satisfied with the tears of the daughter of the man that killed his sister, and so, he invents new ways to torture her and make her break and beg for mercy. He couldn’t help the attraction he feels towards her. She was sexy, fierce and mouthy; the exact traits he was attracted to, but his hatred for her was definitely stronger. He continuously plays her body like a string, and eventually, the hard hearted Alpha finds himself falling for Amber to his horror. But with an overly jealous girlfriend lurking in the shadows, and more secrets waiting to be unraveled, their love story doesn’t seem to be having a happy ending anytime soon.

My boyfriend and I had been together for eight years. We were already discussing marriage when Robbie suddenly asked me to wait a little longer. He said he needed to hold a grand wedding with his first love before he could marry me. Because, as he explained, for his first love—who struggled with anxiety—marriage was her greatest wish in life. He couldn't bear to see her spiral into self-harm under the weight of her illness, so with tears in his eyes, he promised to give her a home. Stunned, I asked what would happen to me. Instead of answering, he snapped impatiently, "Can't you show some empathy? It's just a year or two more. Are you really that desperate to get married? "And another thing… lend me your ring. Let Lucy wear it for now. You won't be needing it anytime soon." I stared at the man before me, someone both familiar and suddenly a stranger, and felt only a cold, hollow ache in my chest. But at last, I saw his true face behind the mask. Later, I chose to attend their wedding. I brought with me a very special blessing.

Amelia the daughter of an Alpha was orphaned and turned into a slave at the age of ten years when their pack was invaded by an enemy pack. As the only survivor, she was captured by the cruel Khalid the Alpha of the black storm pack that slaughtered her parents. As an omega, she was constantly abused. The only reason why Amelia endured humiliation and burden is to avenge her parent's death in the future. But after eight years of suffering at the hands of the two cruel brothers Albin and Allen, On the day of her eighteen birthday, she found out that she was mated to Albin the future Alpha of the black storm pack who rejected her and punished her even more cruelly to the point of death. Amelia was given another chance to live, she woke on her eighteenth birthday where she found out that Albin was still her mate. This time she vowed never to allow Albin to brutally abuse her at her own will so she took the initiative to reject him. Will Albin accept her rejection? What happens when she finds out that she is also mated to Allen, the hiding Alpha? Will it affect her quest for revenge or will their love conquer all? Note: This story contains a mature scene, sex, violence, and abuse. Read at your own discretion.

TangShi is a girl without much luck in the world. Despised by her father after her mother died giving birth to her, she has grown up in a cold and unloving environment and hated by her stepmother. Blamed for things she could never control and treated as an outcast by her own blood. Forced to come home after finally escaping to school on a self achieved scholarship abroad, she is promised to the son of the Leng family. To create a beneficial business alliance to further her own father's greed in the corporate world. Only YuZhi Leng is as unwilling as she is, with a girlfriend already in place that he adores and no desire to honor the contract put in place - to produce an heir in the first year of marriage and solidify the two families union. TangShi must bear living as a third wheel in this unwanted life and accept or be thrown aside by her family. Until upon meeting, she realizes that YuZhi may not be the stranger to her she thought he was and recognizes him on sight. Could he be the man she met eight years ago at a masked ball, who swept her off her feet and made her feel alive, and yet left her heartbroken that fateful night? A rollercoaster of a marriage is about to be embarked upon.

Liam Chase and I were legendary in Celandre City—the most infamous enemies ever bound by marriage. He hated me for being shameless, convinced I'd schemed my way into becoming his wife. I despised him for playing the celibate knight for Alexa Conley and treating me coldly. In eight years of marriage, his most frequent words to me were, "Get out." Then the flood came. The man who'd never spared me a single kindness shoved me onto the last lifeboat. Over the roaring water, he shouted, "Don't look back! Go! Khloe, my debt to you is paid. In the next life, I belong only to Alexa." I lunged for him, but someone wrenched me back. I could only watch as the water swallowed Liam whole. When rescue teams finally came, they found his body bloated, his fingers locked around Alexa's pendant in a grip no one could break. Afterward, I sold everything we owned, donated it all to the disaster relief, and jumped off a building. But when I opened my eyes, I was back… on the night Liam got drugged.

My husband insisted that I wear high heels at the company’s annual meeting despite being pregnant. He compared me to his female secretary with a look of disdain. "Can’t you learn from Lucille? She’s eight months pregnant and still comes to work in full makeup, handling her tasks efficiently. If you don’t wear them, don’t go. I’ll be embarrassed!" He even tried to give the high heels to his secretary and take her as his date. Left with no choice, I forced myself to wear them. However, on the balcony, the secretary tripped me, spilling red wine all over me. Limping, I found my husband, only for him to sneer, "Tripping on flat ground? How clumsy!" Furious and pale with anger, I turned to leave. Someone urged him to chase after me, but he only got angrier. "How bad could it be? She’s so timid—she can’t survive without me! Just wait. When the event’s over, she’ll definitely be waiting in the car to drive me home." Alas, he was wrong. I turned and went straight to the hospital for an abortion.

“Let go of me Adam! You don’t own me anymore and you never will!” “No! I’m not letting you walk away thinking this bullshit is true,” he says, his voice shaking between begging and fury. As if he has the right to be angry after he's done cheating on me. ~~~ He married her for revenge. He wanted to destroy her family. But Adam Hilton didn’t plan to stupidly fall in love with Hermione, the woman he swore to use and ruin. To remove her from the cruel plan he made against her dad and family, he serves her divorce papers while she’s still in prison. When she’s finally released, Hermione finds Adam in bed with another woman. Broken, she signs the papers and disappears. But Adam finds out the truth—she isn’t the real daughter of the family he wanted to destroy. Now, Adam is drowning in guilt. For eight months he searches for her. When he finally finds her, Hermione swears never to forgive him, but Adam swore to never let her go. PS: He has reckless ways of begging. As wild and consuming as his love for her.

By my third month on the job, I discovered that my coworkers had been calling me "the old crow" behind my back. The nickname came from none other than Jace's condescending secretary—because at 32, I was still clutching onto an eight-year relationship that hadn't ended in marriage. I confronted Jace. "Do you know your employees have been calling me the old crow?" He didn't even bother to look up. "That's just Sadie—she speaks her mind and means no harm. You're 32; why get so worked up over what a young girl says?" Then he gave me a faint, mocking smile. "Though honestly, it's a pretty fitting nickname." It felt like a cold hand had wrapped around my heart. So that was it—eight years of my youth, nothing more than a joke to him. I turned and walked away, handed in my resignation, and blocked every way he could reach me. But for the first time, the man who had always seemed so calm and untouchable finally panicked. "Elara," he pleaded, "please come back."