Freida Mcfadden Ward D Novels & Stories

Before Christmas Eve, all of Nowevik was betting. Not on money. On me. Would I finally pull the winning lot? Would Leon Fabian finally take me to his family estate for Christmas? The Fabians had a rule. A new bride had to attend the Christmas Eve dinner with the whole family before she counted as one of them. I'd been married five years. Five years. The lot never landed on me. I'd become Nowevik's favorite joke. This year, the winning ticket went to a nightclub hostess. She lounged on Leon's lap and flicked it onto the table in front of me, smiling like she'd already won. The room went silent. Everyone waited— for me to lunge at her like I had the last four years. Claws out. A scene. But I didn't move. "Congratulations." Leon leaned in, breath warm at my ear, smiling like he'd just proved something. "Wynne, you're finally learning how to behave. Keep this up and you might actually become a proper lady of my house." I lowered my eyes and tore the ticket in half. My face stayed blank. Leon had no idea the five-year deal between my brother and me was already over. Soon, he'd come take me home.

"Jump. You love me to death, don't you? Didn't you say you'd do anything for me?" Ethan Hart wanted me to throw myself off the observation deck of the tallest tower downtown, live, in front of the millions of people watching the broadcast. I stood on the wrong side of the railing. Below me, traffic streamed through the streets and neon flickered in the distance. His friends clapped and cheered. Vivian Lane laughed softly and curled herself against his arm. Ethan's grin turned vicious. "Come on, don't waste everyone's time. Jump, and I'll marry you." He'd made me a promise once. Finish a hundred of his demands, and he would marry me. When his company was circling bankruptcy, he told me to hand over everything I owned, and I did. Then he moved Vivian into my house in the suburbs and left me to sleep in a motel. The night he was tangled up with Vivian at a private party, he sent me over with something for his hangover, and made a point of telling me to bring a box of condoms, the right size. I stood at the door holding the soup I'd made, and heard him laugh. "She's my ATM. I use her, then I throw her out." No matter how far it went, I'd done all ninety-nine. This was the last one: jump. He thought I'd hesitate, thought I'd cry and beg him to pick something else. I didn't. I let go and fell. The wind roared in my ears, and the whole lit-up city slid past me. I heard him shout, heard the crowd scream, and underneath all of it, the one voice I'd waited too long to hear. [Congratulations, host. Emotional conquest progress: one hundred percent. Reward delivered. Your mother's terminal illness is fully cured.]

My fiancé presented two engagement rings—one for me, one for my sister to choose first. The first was a three-carat fancy pink diamond, flown in from Antwerp, the kind that made dealers go quiet. The second was a plain platinum band, standard issue, the sort you buy off the tray as a backup. For the first time in my life, I pointed at the pink diamond. "I'll choose first this time." Dante Moretti ran his hand through my hair, the way you soothe a restless dog. "Eleanor, you know Grace has always been particular. If she can't have the best, she'd rather have nothing. You've never cared about any of this. The other one is fine." I didn't answer. My chest felt hollow. We'd grown up together—his father ran the West Coast territory, mine the East. But in Dante's eyes, I'd always been the second daughter, the one who got what Grace didn't want. Every summer, he'd cut watermelon and bring the first plate to Grace. She'd take the center slice—sweetest, seedless, deepest red. He'd push the rest toward me—the pale pink near the rind. "This part's still good. Just not as sweet." When he bought his first Maserati, Grace picked the front seat—less motion sickness. He gestured at the back. "A little tight, but you can pick either side." Even our love was secondhand. He'd loved Grace first. She chose her academic career over him. So Dante, wounded and restless, came to me. In his world, Grace was always the first choice. I looked at the platinum band and pushed it across the table. "Give them both to Grace. I don't want either."

I'd been lonely lately. Having accrued enough wealth to no longer need to go on the raids I was well off. Now I just needed a little slave girl to warm my bed. I'd considered a docile thing with a warm spot for me. But instead, I was intrigued by the spitfire commanding she'd not be touched. I saw her body and thought her too tiny but when I touched her, I wanted her. And what I want. I get. Afterall, I'm a wolf at heart. And a full moon is coming. She'll learn the way of things. One way or another.

When the illegitimate daughter, Sophia Gracia, married Alexei Dè Sokolov, a so-called old pervert by some, she thought her life was over.  She had no idea it was the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Alexei Dè Sokolov, a billonaire who was dubbed as a "old pervert" because he never appeared in public and for some nasty rumors. He'd had his eye on Sophia since high school.  So when she received an offer from the Gracia family, he couldn't refuse it. Alexei had no idea that taking this risk would save Sophia and give her a reason to start a new life.

Thirty years after the apocalypse, the world belongs to darkness. When a failed climate weapon shattered Earth’s atmosphere, sunlight became lethal. Entire cities burned beneath toxic ultraviolet storms while humanity fled underground into fortress-cities powered by artificial UV towers. Above the surface, civilization rotted beneath snow, ash, and endless night. And the vampires emerged. Seraphine Ward (Sera) grew up hating them. A hunter from the human city of Zelios, Sera is sharp-tongued, reckless, and fueled almost entirely by anger after vampires destroyed her childhood settlement years ago. He isentirely too amused by the hunter who immediately tries to stab him through the throat. Unfortunately, it barely slows him down. Their first meeting should have ended in bloodshed. Instead, it begins an uneasy alliance neither of them wants. When Zelios’ UV towers begin failing, Sera is forced to travel through the deadly wastelands beyond civilization in search of an abandoned underground laboratory rumored to contain pre-apocalypse atmospheric research capable of restoring sunlight. Husen claims he knows where it is. And Husen, a monster feared even among immortals, becomes increasingly unstable around Sera. Because her blood is different. Not sweeter. Not rare. Before the apocalypse, Zelios scientists secretly experimented on unborn children using altered vampire blood in desperate attempts to engineer immunity against blood sickness and ultraviolet radiation. Sera was one of the few surviving subjects. Her blood isn’t natural. She was created. And Zelios knew. Once Zelios discovers what her blood can do, its leaders betray her immediately, planning to drain and replicate her blood to create biological weapons and controlled vampire armies. Husen responds exactly as expected. Violently. As war erupts between humans and vampires, Sera and Husen journey through ruined cities while their hatred slowly turns into obsession, intimacy, and dangerous love.

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

Salvatore Greco is genius and monster. As the right hand man and brother of the Capo of the D’Angelo, his lack of feelings is a blessing, not a curse – until his brother asks him to marry for the sake of the D’Angelo. Celestina Romano, cousin of the Capo of the New York Famiglia, is chosen to marry Salvatore Greco to prevent war with the D’Angelo, but what she hears about Las Vegas makes her veins pulse with terror. After her father betrayed his Capo and paid with his life, her family thinks marriage is her only chance to bring honor to her name; but only Celestina knows she’s a faulty prize given in return for peace.

My Valenese neighbor dressed like a temptress—curves in all the right places, a delicate body topped with a pair of full, heavy breasts. Her name was Ayame. When she came by that evening to ask my husband to fix her computer, I heard the unmistakable sounds of pleasure drifting from the other room. "Wanna try my new tongue stud? Consider it your payment for the repair." Then came my husband's moans of pure, shameless delight. I couldn't help but feel jealous. It had been so long since he'd sounded that happy with me. As I listened, my hand slid slowly beneath the waistband of my pants. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough. I'd heard that Ayame's husband had a full ring of piercings down below. I'd been craving a taste for ages. If Ayame could seduce my husband, then I'd take my own turn sampling those piercings.

"What do you want slut?" Mara could hear the cold, but demanding voice. She'd had never been insulted before with such a name, she had her dignity and yes she was still a virgin. Her face contorted with rage as she made to slap him, just because she bumped into him doesn't warrant him calling her such a name. One minute she was contemplating on slapping him, the next, she was drawned into his hard muscle chest as she peered into the fascinating blue eyes she'd had ever seen. ***** Ryan had never wanted anything in his life like he had wanted Mina, he'd thought he had everything in his feet, but once he had his eyes set on Mina, he swore with his life that he'd do anything within his power to have her in his bed. How would he tame the innocent Mina who would never take a second look at him?