Forty Thousand

"What are they doing? Why have you brought me here? This can't be the heir's office, is it?" She questioned, tensed. "It is. If you want to get admitted, you have to do what they're doing." She said to her and Carly's eyes widened. "Holy Christ! I cover myself with the blood of Jesus! It's against my belief to commit such sin. I can't." She panicked, almost in tears. "Then forget about this school." The girl said and walked away. "No wait... Hey!" She called and made to rush to the door, but the girl already slammed the door on her face. She made to open it but stopped. She could feel the thousand eyes boring holes into her skin, so she slowly turned to see them all staring at her, but that wasn't her business. What bothered her the most was the guy's eyes which was lusting over her. He gestured her with a finger the moment their eyes locked. "Come and give me a blowjob newbie." Reed said huskily and Carly gulped down. "Wh-- what's that??" ***** Imagine being the sole heir to a prestigious institution like Silver Hill College, the most esteemed school in England, where both the affluent and talented students from all walks of life come to learn. Sounds impressive, right? But, unbeknownst to many, the school's heir, Reed Knight, has a peculiar way of doing things. His mantra? 'Get fuck by me, or forget your dreams of studying here.' What happens when Carly, a bright and ambitious student, decides to take a chance and apply to Silver Hill? Will she succumb to Reed's demands or stand her ground and risk losing her spot? And if she does become a student, will she become the target of Reed's obsession?

She wasn’t his weakness. She was his ruin, and he would bring the world to its knees before he let her go. *** Kisarel thought she had it all figured out, until the night she caught her fiancé in bed with her cousin. The same cousin who was engaged to her boss, the ruthless and untouchable billionaire, Mr. Oceans Stark. Heartbroken, humiliated, and trapped on a business trip with the man her cousin was set to marry, Kisarel did the unthinkable – she begged her boss to make her forget her boyfriend's betrayal. Oceans swore he didn’t touch his employees. He swore his heart only belonged to a certain strange woman he'd been looking for, who saved his life so many years ago. But the moment Kisarel kissed him, every resolution he made shattered. And after their one sinful night together, Mr. Stark couldn't let Kisarel go. He began to do everything within his power to get her even more entangled in his web of obsession. There were a thousand reasons she should have stayed away from him. She ignored every single one. He knew every part of her belonged to someone else. But every part of him didn’t care. What neither of them knows is that Kisarel was the woman he’s been searching for all along. Now, Oceans is set to call off his wedding with Kisarel's cousin, and he expects Kisarel to also call off her wedding with her cheating fiancé. Kisarel is now tangled in an obsession so hot that it might consume her whole. And Oceans is ready to drown his entire empire just to keep the woman he truly loves.

When my Alpha mate, Logan noticed I hadn't submitted a single expense request in three days, he reached out to me on his own for the first time ever. "Baby, I've already approved the next phase of your wolf's healing. See? As long as you learn to behave, there's nothing I won't give you." His tone was still so affectionate, as if he were truly a good Alpha, worried sick over his mate. But he didn't know that as his "Baby" flashed across my phone screen, I had already finished drafting the agreement to sever our mate bond. Before I left, the only thing I could take with me was the old T-shirt I had worn when he marked me. No one would ever believe that the beloved Luna of the Blackmoon Pack, in the three years since our bonding ceremony, couldn't even scrape together five decent dresses of her own. Every household expense I incurred had to be approved by the Luna's seal, the very symbol of my power. "Sienna, managing the books is too tiring. It will wear you out." "Just let Chloe handle the tedious work with the seal. All you have to do is be beautiful, be my perfect Luna." And so, the Luna's seal, which should have been mine, became something I had to beg for from Chloe, the Alpha's secretary who was supposedly "handling the tedious work for me." Three days ago, my wolf was on the verge of collapsing. I cried and begged him for the two hundred thousand needed for an emergency intervention. But Chloe deliberately withheld the seal, delaying approval by claiming improper procedure. Finally, my already fractured wolf went completely silent in the depths of my soul. And with that, I was done with this Alpha, too.

I used to be the one and only girl spoiled by my family. But everything changed on my 18th birthday, when my father adopted a she-wolf orphan named Sophia from the Werewolf Charity House. My elder brother, Alex, started to love her more and began to look down on me. My mate, John, who had grown up with me, liked her and ignored me. Even my father said that Sophia, an orphan, was ten thousand times better than his own birth daughter. It was my graduation day from Werewolf University. But instead of celebrating with me, they broke their promise because of Sophia.The 101st time. I counted. And it hurt worse than all the hundred before. I couldn't help crying out, "Am I really part of this family?" My father looked at Sophia—whose eyes turned red because of my words—with pity. Then he slapped me across the face. "You're still fighting for affection? I wish I had never given birth to you," he shouted. Alex snapped at me too. "You make me sick. I'm ashamed to have a sister like you. Get out of this den!" I didn't say a word. I simply packed up my things and left in silence. After I left, the den fell into a strange quiet. They took Sophia to the South Pole to see penguins, as if nothing had happened. No one contacted me or showed concern, because they assumed I would eventually come back—just like before. They never planned to do anything for me. They never had. But this time, they didn't know I was leaving for real. I called my mother, who lived in another pack far away, and told her I'd finally agreed to go live with her. Because this time, the family… Was no longer a place I needed.

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.

The train to Centraford was about to depart. That was the ride we'd spent our entire life savings—30 thousand bucks—to get a ticket for. I was gripping my mate, Byron Reynolds's, hand tightly, trying to pull him onto the last train to Centraford. This was the chance I'd waited three long years for. Once we entered Centraford, we could rise from being low-tier civilian werewolves to official Silvren Talons workers—registered, salaried, and numbered. If we missed this train, we'd be stuck forever in Sidersville, a chaotic melting pot, never able to enter the heart of the werewolf city-state. But Byron held us back, refusing to leave without Lisa Peters, who was still down by the river, washing her face. In the very last second before the train took off, I had our friends forcibly drag Byron aboard. We made it to Centraford and became Silvren Talons workers. But Lisa missed her chance. She was left behind in Sidersville and became a rogue, a plaything passed around by countless men. A few years later, she was tortured to death. Byron looked fine on the surface. But on the day of our marking ceremony, he drove a silver blade into my stomach, killing the pup growing inside me, and tore out my heart. His eyes burned red as he growled through clenched teeth, "This is all your fault. You're the reason Lisa never made it to Centraford. "She suffered so much before she died. Why do you get to be happy?" After killing me, he chopped my body up and fed it to the stray dogs. Then I opened my eyes—and found myself right back at the train station, before it departed. This time, I'd wait with him for the woman he loved so much. And I'd make him pay for everything he did to me and my pup.

She left cash on his pillow. He's been hunting her for eighteen years. Now they're neighbors—and she's carrying his baby. Evelyn Hart's revenge plan was simple: hire the hottest escort money could buy, have one night of mind-blowing sex, and finally forget her cheating ex-husband exists. What she got instead: Sebastian Creed. Six-foot-four of sinful perfection who made her body sing in ways she didn't know were possible. She left ten thousand dollars on the bed and ran before dawn, convinced she'd never see him again. Six weeks later, reality hits like a freight train. The "escort" is actually a billionaire. He owns the mansion next door. He's been obsessively searching for her since the night he saved her from a car crash when she was fourteen. Oh, and she's pregnant with twins the doctors said she could never have. Sebastian isn't just her neighbor—he's her stalker, her savior, and apparently, her fated mate. Because plot twist: he's a werewolf. And the supernatural bond between them is turning her inconvenient attraction into a soul-deep craving that's impossible to fight. Now he's breaking into her house at 3 a.m., showing up uninvited to her OB appointments, and making it very clear that the one night she paid for was just the beginning of forever. But their twisted love story is about to get deadlier. Sebastian's dying father wants him to claim a werewolf throne. His ex-husband wants her land for a billion-dollar deal. Werewolf royalty wants her dead for contaminating the bloodline. And Evelyn? She just wants to survive pregnancy, figure out how to be a queen in a world that thinks she's prey, and maybe—maybe—learn to trust the alpha who's been obsessed with her since she was a teenager.

Deck the halls with daddy issues and scream "yes, Santa" until the neighbors complain. She sold herself to save her mother. He bought her to settle a score. Neither expected twelve days of captivity to feel like coming home. Ten years ago, Evangeline Rose fled Willow Creek and the cruel boy who made her life hell. Now she’s back with a new name, a new body, and one desperate choice: enter the town’s secret Christmas auction where wealthy men bid on willing women. When the hammer falls at five hundred thousand dollars, Eva expects a stranger. Instead, she gets Grayson Holt—her former tormentor, now a devastatingly dangerous man in a half-open Santa jacket who just bought twelve uninterrupted nights with the virgin he once swore no one would ever want. She should be terrified. He's the reason she hid in bathroom stalls and cried herself to sleep. But the first time he kisses her, his hands shake. The first time she fights back, he groans her name like a prayer. And somewhere between the firelight and the snow and the silk ribbons around her wrists, they both realize the ugly truth: He didn't buy her to break her. He bought her because he's been broken without her. The boy who spray-painted "fat ugly bitch" on her locker is the same man who falls to his knees in the snow on the last morning and begs her not to leave. The girl who swore she'd never forgive him is the same woman who has to choose: walk away free, or stay with the monster who finally admitted he's been in love with her since the day he made her cry. Eva spent a decade learning to hate Grayson Holt. Turns out she's been loving him the whole damn time.

Four years into her marriage, when the dazzling woman from her husband’s past returned, Alyssa Jones finally understood the truth. Her husband, Justin Scott, was not cold by nature; he had withheld both affection and intimacy, saving them for his first love. He gave Alyssa a monthly allowance of six hundred dollars yet spent six hundred thousand dollars on research for the woman he truly cherished. The difference between being loved and being ignored was revealed in the most humiliating way. Justin claimed he couldn’t bear to let his “true love” be worn down by the trivialities of marriage. Yet he demanded that Alyssa quit her one-thousand-a-month job and settle into the role of a full-time housewife, willingly fading into obscurity. What Justin never knew was that Alyssa was no ordinary employee. For four years, she had been in charge of a nationally classified research project. Her clearance was so high that even the woman he idolized was qualified only to work under her. What he also never realized was that the document he signed so casually was the divorce agreement that ended their marriage. One month later, Alyssa’s identity as a leading scientific authority was made public and the finalized divorce certificate was delivered to Justin. The CEO who had always been gentle and composed tore it apart, disbelief turning into red-eyed fury. “Other than me, who would want a divorced woman like her?” Yet the one who spoke so harshly was also the one who later knelt, begging for reconciliation. When they met again, Alyssa appeared with her arm lightly linked through the hand of Lucien Wells, the man in control of one of the most powerful elite families. She looked at her ex-husband without the slightest trace of emotion. Lucien raised an eyebrow and calmly produced a marriage certificate. “Mind your manners, Mr. Scott. You should address her as Mrs. Wells.”

As a low-income student who's specifically recruited by the elite college this year, I can still feel my hands trembling as I clutch the letter that tells me I get to study for free. Not only are my tuition and miscellaneous fees waived, but I also get to receive 30 thousand dollars' worth of student grant per year. I even get to have free access to the leather seats inside the library, the equipment inside the gym, as well as the aerial garden on the roof. The best surprise for me has to be the cafeteria. All low-income students get a 50% discount on their meals, but the quality of their food doesn't decrease at all. Best beef is used in the steak dinners offered by the cafeteria, whereas a seafood platter showcases the entire huge lobster. Even the most basic mac and cheese meal has different types of freshly grated cheese baked into it. As I sit in the brightly lit classroom and look at the rich students around me, who wear custom-made uniforms and have branded watches latched around their wrists, all I have is one thought. I must be on good terms with them. But my seatmate, who's also a low-income student, isn't as thrilled as me. In fact, she just looks at the people around her with disdain in her eyes. After the first lesson, a rich student arrives at our table. He might not sound polite at all, but at least he's not putting on airs. "Do any of you have time to head over to the cafeteria and buy me breakfast?" I'm about to respond to him when a shrill voice booms out next to me. "You're so annoying! What, you think you rule the campus since you're rich? Had I known that this classroom is filled with useless scions like you who just waste their lives away on nothing, I wouldn't have enrolled in this college in the first place!"