Embers And Ashes

He shattered her heart to avenge a past that wasn’t hers. Now he desires her in his bed—as his wife. Marceline Valino once believed in love. She gave her heart—and her innocence—to Cross Dejava, the boy who whispered promises in the dark, igniting dreams of a forever that felt so real. But by morning, her world was left in ruins. Private photos were leaked, her name dragged through the mud, and at the eye of the storm? Cross, smirking, cold, and ruthless. “You mean nothing to me,” he said, delivering a blow that would leave scars. “You’re just the bastard daughter of my father’s mistress.” His vengeance had never aimed at her heart; it was meant to punish the daughter for her mother’s sins—an ex-lover who had torn his family apart. Pregnant and abandoned, Marceline begged for mercy, but all she received was the echo of his silence. When she lost the child, she lost every last piece of the girl she used to be. Now, five years later, she’s preparing to return—broke, desperate, and willing to do anything to save her ailing mother. Anything… except this. Because the man extending a lifeline isn’t a savior. It’s Cross. And he has no desire for her heartfelt apologies; he craves her complete submission. A contract marriage awaits her. No love. No escape. No mercy. But Marceline isn’t the naive girl he once broke. She’s a woman who has risen from the ashes, ready to play his game. And as the pieces of their lives fall into place, she’s determining when—exactly—she will ignite a fire that could burn it all down. The future promises a reckoning, and she's preparing to seize it.

The Falcon Ridge Series Book 5 Set two months after the Battle of Black Rock. In an old growth forest east of Aurora, the city of Dragons. Wren Miller: You can sum up the story of my life in three words I. Am. Alone. I was raised by the Falcon Ridge Security Unit after they told me everyone I ever knew and loved was dead. I traveled through life pretending I felt like I had a pack, but in truth I longed for my own. I often wished for death. That all changes when I find out some of my pack was alive. Living like Nomads in the wilderness. I'm elated to find them, but my happiness is crushed when the Alpha is not even remotely happy to see me. As much as it pains me, I don't want to see him either after finding out what he has become. Lucius Drake: For 10 years I survived in the wilderness. I built us back up from the ashes that were left of the attack on us. I was happy to live this way. Living off the land. Taking care of my pack. Then she shows up. Seeing her makes my blood boil. Not only did she abandon her pack. She abandoned me. I don't care what the Alliance told her. I never gave up on the hope she was alive. Apparently, she did. I'm jaded and angry. It also doesn't help that I have the Dragons breathing down my neck. We've been relying on them for protection and trade, but now they want more. They want us to join them permanently, which I will only do if I'm dead.

“Hands on the wall, and stick your perfect ass out for me,” Cole demands. I lean my sweaty palms against the concrete slab and step my feet apart, bracing myself, as I bend my torso until I’m at a ninety-degree angle with my ass and torso parallel to the floor. Cole lightly slaps one of my redden ass cheeks, and a flame of desire mixed with pain bursts through my body. Everyone is gathered around now, watching. “Fuck her hard, Cole!” Someone yells. “Wreck her little pussy!” “Fill the little slut up!” All the taunts and comments are making me blush with embarrassment while my pussy gets wetter. •°• What begins as a sugar baby deal soon becomes a whirlwind of rough spankings, wicked bondage, and pulse-pounding group encounters, threesomes, foursomes, even gangbangs that leave Jacqueline trembling, breathless, and begging for more. As a top physics student, Jacqueline never expected her reply to a sultry ad would drag her into Cole’s orbit, a cocky financier whose magnetic charm was a trap and whose control was absolute. Every lash of his whip, every ruthless thrust, and every scorching gaze pulls her deeper into his dark world—a world where secrets simmer and desire burns hotter than she ever imagined. Now Jacqueline is caught between the thrill of surrender and the fight for her soul. Will she rise from the ashes of her corruption, or will she give in completely to his iron grip? Content Warning: Packed with BDSM, free-use fantasies, edging, humiliation, tantalizing toys, double/triple penetration, and flashes of F/f heat woven into blazing M/f seduction, Punished by Passion is not for the faint of heart. This is danger, desire, and dark romance at its most addictive, enter only if you dare.

My daughter, Annabelle Turner, was diagnosed with hereditary heart disease. I spent the past five years searching for a compatible heart donor for her. Now, I finally found one. Right before Annabelle is sent into the surgery room, my husband and renowned cardiologist, Gabriel Turner, tearfully makes me a promise. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll make sure Annabelle gets a shot at life again." Yet halfway through the surgery, Gabriel suddenly leaves in a hurry without giving any explanation. I stumble into the surgery room and see Annabelle lying on the operating table, covered in blood. Her chest is cut wide open, laid bare for all to see. Tyler Rotwell, Gabriel's assistant, stammers out, "Dr. Turner said… that Anna can still hold on a little longer, but Ms. Byron's son can't. "Dr. Turner took the heart that was meant for Anna and left…" I immediately break down and repeatedly call Gabriel's number, but Gabriel never answers a single call, not even when Anna's blood has completely dried… While settling my daughter's post-mortem affairs, I happen to see a newly posted update on Gabriel's childhood friend, Suzanne Byron's social media. "Turns out it was just a misdiagnosis," was what the caption read. "In that case, let's give this useless little thing to our good boy Oscar as a treat!" The video attached depicts Suzanne's dog Oscar tearing into the heart that was supposed to be donated to Annabelle. As I turn to look at Annabelle's cold body, the last shred of love I have for Gabriel starts crumbling apart. By the time Gabriel finally remembers Annabelle, whom he left on the operating table, only an empty bedroom and an urn containing her ashes would greet him…

When I got reborn into my youthful years, I turned down the marriage proposal of Seth Klein, the future major general. Instead, I chose to be with Nathan Prescott, who lived a poor life. My mother thought I was possessed. After all, the entire village knew that I, the village chief's daughter, used to follow the well-educated Mr. Klein around all the time. Apparently, I was willing to do anything just to marry him. I soon recalled what happened in my previous life. After I married Seth, we never consummated our marriage. He even brought back a child, claiming that said child belonged to a fellow soldier who had passed on in the war. I viewed the child as my own and made an effort to raise him. It wasn't until our fiftieth anniversary that I discovered a secret after barging into Seth's study, which had always been forbidden to me. It turned out that the study was plastered with photos of my older cousin, Catherine Parker—the most beautiful woman in the village. The thing was, she had been dead for a long time. The truth was, Seth has always been capable of performing in bed. He was merely practicing abstinence because of Catherine. Furious, I collapsed and was admitted to the hospital. But my son, whom I treated as my own, was the one who unplugged my life support with his own hands. "If it weren't for you taking over my mom's position as the actual wife, she wouldn't have died as an unknown mistress!" After my death, I witnessed Seth getting a joint burial with Catherine as husband and wife. As for my ashes, they were randomly scattered into a dried-up river. Now that I was reborn, I chose to fulfill their wish!

In Alabama’s rot-soaked bayous, Drucilla Drakes survives by three rules: silence, scars, and never letting Louise—her Bible-thumping captor—catch her hoping. But when a schoolyard ambush leaves her bleeding beneath a stranger’s leather jacket, invisibility becomes a death sentence. Enter Dragon Morales: New Orleans’ most notorious runaway, a cartel prince turned outlaw mechanic with grease-stained hands and a death wish. He doesn’t save people—he survives them. Yet in Dru’s lashed flesh and hellfire gaze, he sees his own shattered reflection. Their bond is gasoline and matches. Dragon’s father—Colombia’s cartel kingpin—hunts them relentlessly. Louise, armed with voodoo rites and the chaos-hungry loa Marinette, vows to break Dru. Their only allies? The Lou Nwa, a bayou biker gang trading in bullets and black magic, and Papa Legba, the crossroads spirit who offers Dru a lethal bargain: *“Her soul or yours.”* Fleeing through the Deep South’s cursed underbelly, they dodge cartel hitmen, haunted swamps, and safehouses reeking of betrayal. Dark magic seeps into old wounds; family secrets tighten like nooses. Dragon swears he’s too ruined to love. Dru knows she’s too shattered to trust. But in the bayou’s choking heat, desire is a grenade they can’t outrun. This isn’t a fairytale. It’s switchblade kisses and saintly curses—a collision of fire and ruin where protectors become predators. Dru doesn’t need saving; she needs an inferno. And Dragon? He’s got a lighter and nothing left to burn. Will they raze the South to ashes, or become the sacrifice the crossroads demands? One truth remains: in the bayou, even survival leaves scars. **Warning:** No princes here. Just bayou smoke, blood-soaked magic, and the kind of love that devours.

Jessa Gencianeo, a woman who married secretly to her long-time boyfriend, because she unexpectedly got pregnant by him. Her life wasn’t indeed a fairytale throughout their marriage, because she suffered hell especially in the hands of her husband’s family. But the hell she was suffering intensified when her OB-Gynecologist told all of them that her son was positive for Down Syndrome. With that, her husband suddenly became cold and distant to her, because she was carrying a baby with Down Syndrome which made her heart shattered, especially that her husband started to cheat on her, and committed an affair behind her back with his childhood bestfriend who eventually got pregnant which made her husband, and his family thrilled. She felt alone and rejected while being pregnant, because they were even really proud of her husband’s infidelity. She couldn’t take it anymore when her mother-in-law wanted to kill her and her child, so she ran away after she signed the annulment papers. She thought after she was freed from her first marriage, she would live at peace, but still being chased by chaos. Her ex-husband’s family wanted to kill her and her baby inside her womb. Out of nowhere, she was being hit and run by a mysterious car which made her life at risk. But before she passed out, she saw who the mastermind behind it was, and it was her mother-in-law with a triumphant smirk. But little did she know that a miracle would change her life, and make her rise from the ashes after she was being saved by a Zillionaire Old Lady who was Doña McKenna Hermosa-Accardi who would help her to avenge, and would also play cupid to be a matchmaker for her to be a Mafia Lord’s Zillionaire Wife.

Kathalina Ruiz never believed in fairy tales. Her mother's dying wish bound her to enigmatic CEO Thirdie Stone in an arranged marriage she accepted out of duty, not romance. Yet somewhere between quiet nights and fragile smiles, Kathalina fell deeply for her distant husband only to keep her love locked away, too afraid it would never be returned. For three years, their marriage balanced on politeness and silence. Then one stormy afternoon shattered it all. Kathalina walked into Thirdie's office and found another woman-half-naked-sitting on his lap. Without demanding an explanation, she signed the divorce papers he placed before her, his gaze as cold as the ink that sealed their separation. What she never knew was that Thirdie's betrayal was a lie... a desperate act to protect her from the dangerous threats circling his empire. Heartbroken and grieving, Kathalina fled abroad. From the ashes of her pain, she rebuilt herself into a celebrated jewelry designer, admired for her elegance and independence. But fate had other plans. Years later, her mother's lawyer makes a revelation she has inherited a vast fortune and controlling shares in Stone Corporation. The life and the man she tried to escape are waiting for her return. Back in the city where it all began, Kathalina comes face-to-face with Thirdie once more. Old wounds resurface, secrets linger in every shadow, and danger draws closer than ever. Now, she must decide to protect her heart from the man who once broke it or uncover the truth he buried......a truth that could change everything she thought she knew about their past. A story of love, sacrifice, and second chances, The Stones We Keep asks.....is it ever too late to believe in a love that never truly died?

Adele has been married for 10 years, being a full-time, dutiful wife and mother who sacrified her life and career for her family. But in return, their 7-year- old son, Ethan, suddenly began to despise her. “You make me sick, I wish Aunt Julia was my mother. I'm embarrassed to call you my mother, bitch!” Ethan barked. Adele was humiliated, shamed, and dragged by the public and Julia, who stole her design, yet her husband, Ryan, bowed to them and apologized. “I'm sorry, my wife has been stressed lately. Being a full-time housewife, she has no idea what the world is like. Please don't hold her accountable for this.” He turned to Julia, “Can you forgive her for crashing your daughter's birthday? I'm sure she didn't mean to. I agree, she's mentally unstable.” Adele was left reeling from heartbreak after heartbreak. She had never imagined that one day both her husband and son would choose someone else over her. Tired of trying to mend a broken relationship, she calmly finalized the divorce and even gave up custody of her son, but would Ryan let her enjoy freedom and peace, just like that? Adele soon found out that divorcing a prominent CEO who has so much power and influence than she was made aware, was no joke. God on her side, she got into a marriage contract with a bigger monster. But this monster and his 7-year-old daughter worshipped the ground she walked on. Adele rose from ashes: a net worth of over a 100 billion, one of the most influential women in the country, and a happy wife and stepmother. And now, her ex-husband and son wants her back and would do anything! But come on, the ship has sailed! However, it seems there are secrets to unravel...

"Spread your fucking legs for Daddy…" The moment those growled words hit my ears, my thighs trembled, going weak at the knees. I swallowed hard, my throat dry with envy, aching to be the one spread wide and commanded by that deep, dominant voice. Heat flooded my core, soaking my panties with slick arousal, my pussy clenching desperately around nothing. Like the foolish, needy girl I was, I nudged the door open just a crack, peeking into the dim light of his bedroom to see who he was claiming on that massive bed. But shock slammed into me—Alpha Kane wasn't with anyone else. He lounged against the headboard, his massive hand wrapped around his thick, veined cock, stroking it slow and firm while his piercing eyes locked on a spread of my photos scattered across the sheets. Pictures of me in innocent poses, but the way he pumped his shaft, pre-cum beading at the tip and dripping down his length, turned them filthy in his gaze. **** I'd been just ten when rogues tore through our pack in a brutal war, slaughtering my parents and leaving me orphaned in the blood-soaked ruins. Alpha Kane Laskovic had charged in like a storm, ripping through the attackers with savage fury, saving me and the survivors. He became my guardian, my armored knight, pulling me from the ashes and raising me under his powerful protection. I was supposed to call him Dad—respectful, safe. Not Daddy, not while fantasizing about him pinning me down, growling filthy commands as he fucked me raw, claiming every inch of my body as his. But gods, I couldn't stop. The taboo hunger burned too hot, making me crave his cum flooding my womb, marking me as his forbidden little slut.