French Swear Words

I’d just left a creative meeting when a TikTok video popped up on my feed, slamming my company. The title: "Stay Away! This Austin startup is incredibly cheap. The perks are a joke." The video showed off the pour-over coffee from Austin's hottest independent cafe and pastries from a top-tier French bakery. The same ones I’d just had my assistant, Sam, hand out. I frowned. In the company's Slack channel, I tagged everyone. "@here Any suggestions for this afternoon's Happy Hour?" Leo, the new Gen-Z intern, replied instantly with a voice note. “Asher, with all due respect, these snacks with gluten and dairy are so unhealthy.” “A truly visionary company would hire a private chef to customize raw, vegan bites for everyone's dietary needs. That's what respect looks like.” I laughed. It was an angry laugh. The company's daily snack budget was $25 per person. For an Austin startup, that was top of the line. I typed back: "Since it's impossible to please everyone, the snack perk is canceled. I'll convert the budget into a cash bonus for all of you." Less than five minutes later, the TikTok caption was updated. "UPDATE: Y'all, I can't make this up. I made a suggestion about dietary inclusivity, and my toxic boss just canceled all the perks! This is how toxic bosses act. Can't handle a single piece of feedback!"

Dmitri Volkov is the heir to one of New York’s most ruthless Russian mafia families—cold, controlled, and carrying scars no one is allowed to see. He has spent his life obeying blood oaths and burying every part of himself that doesn’t serve the syndicate. Love, especially love for a man, is a weakness he cannot afford. Ethan Moreau is a twenty-two-year-old French art student on scholarship at NYU—soft-spoken, openly gay, and painfully trusting. He came to New York to chase beauty in a city full of sharp edges, never expecting one of those edges to look back at him with ice-blue eyes. Their worlds collide by chance in Central Park. A fleeting encounter becomes stolen nights, desperate kisses in shadowed alleys, and whispered promises neither of them can keep. For Ethan, Dmitri is intensity and danger wrapped in tenderness he’s never known. For Dmitri, Ethan is the first crack of light in a life built on darkness—and the one thing that could destroy everything he’s been raised to protect. But secrets have weight. Dmitri’s family is closing in, a rival syndicate is circling, and every touch between them pulls the noose tighter. Misunderstandings fester into silence, jealousy into rage, and love into something that hurts to hold. When blood finally stains the canvas of their fragile world, Ethan will have to decide if he can love a man who was born to break hearts—and Dmitri will have to choose between the family that raised him and the only person who ever made him want to be free. In a city that devours the innocent, their story is a slow bleed of devotion, betrayal, and the kind of love that can ruin you completely.

Amara had fallen in love at first sight of that man. The sharp gaze from that man seemed to make Amara trapped in the sense of comfort that Amara did not understand. However? When Amara realized that the marriage had happened because of her mother's insistence. It was a subtle way for her mother to kick Amara out of the house. However, is Amara happy? What is this marriage for? I got You are well-known as a young CEO who is rich in wealth, but you are not rich at heart. I am now pregnant with your child. Why don't you admit that? "Amara protested. The man opened his jacket, dragged his long sleeves up to the elbows "what are you saying? You are my wife, but not necessarily the child you contain is my son," the man grinned. "I swear by my life, I will make you love me, and after you fall in love with me, I will leave you without pity. Thats my promise with my life," said Amara firmly.

Hera is a hired assassin sent to kill the king, but what she doesn’t know is this job will change her entire world. When she arrives at the annual ball and meets King Ambrose, she discovers not only that shifters exist but that the entire court is part of the pack. Ambrose reveals she’s his mate and asks her to stay to find who is behind the plot against him. With no other choice, Hera is thrown into dangerous court politics, flirtatious seductions with both the king and prince and a mystery that continues to evade her.  *** Ambrose takes the second knife and, somehow, without touching my chest, slides it beneath my corset from the top. His lips are inches from mine, his breath warm against my own. I’m still frozen, unable to think or react. I swear I see the light catch his eyes, making them glow. But in the next moment, it’s gone.    *** The Shifter King is written by Amara Nelson, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

The 99th time Owen Anderson slides a ring onto my finger, his adopted sister, Monica Morgan, calls again. And just like that, for the 99th time, he ditches me at the altar to be with her, who's having another depressive episode. I'm fed up. I yell after him as he walks away, "Go ahead! Walk out on me, and I swear I'll marry someone else!" He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he snaps, "Can you stop being so unreasonable? We can get married anytime, but Monica's the only sister I've got." Then, he turns and walks away, leaving me standing there like a complete fool. What he doesn't realize is that this time, I mean it. Later, when he gets down on one knee for the 100th time, his older brother, Chris, slips an arm around my waist and says, "Sorry, Owen. She's your sister-in-law now."

Bella French is a peculiar girl. That is what everyone says about her. She would rather have her nose in a book, forgetting the world around her, than to actually live her life. She has an odd father who likes to tinker in the shed and her mother is dead. The way he locks himself in the building and claims to be helping the FBI, people around the town find him crazy, but Bella knows that he isn't. At school she had no friends, because she prefers to be alone. Yet that does not stop Gus Stone from bothering her. For some reason, despite girls throwing themselves at him, he only wants Bella. She dreams of getting out of the small town that they just moved to. They live on the edge of town, next to the 'Forbidden Forest' as the town calls it. She had heard the town legends and lore about entering these woods. Especially not at night. But circumstances lead her there; Where she finds a beast. Adam Prince is King of the Wolves. He is the Alpha and he has even been called a beast. He is so jaded from life that he is angry at the world and he takes it out on anyone stupid enough to be around him. Especially Bella. The way that he finds himself drawn to her infuriates him. Yet, he can not stay away from her, even as he finds himself changing to please her. Can he really be falling in love with her? Is she the one that can break his curse and end his misery?

At the pack's festival, a witch hands me a crystal orb that reveals the truth. When I ask "why," she says she was entrusted to deliver it and reminds me only to use it when I am alone. As the image in the orb grows clearer, and my mate appears, I forget how to breathe. "Jared Hamilton, do you love me?" a woman asks in her sweetest voice, curling her arms around his neck. "I do. Of course, I do. You're the only one I'll love for the rest of my life, Luciana." My hand slips. Even after the crystal orb hits the floor, I can still hear them talking. "I swear before the sacred Moon Goddess that I'll be with you, Luciana Rose, until my very last breath. If I ever break this oath, may I never know joy again." I feel suffocated. All I can do is stare in disbelief. The woman he vows to love for life is none other than my very best friend.

"S..oo it..t wa..s all a liee" I stuttered unable to find a complete sentence due to the fact that I was shoken at the conversation I just heard eairler on. "I can...." I heard Xander begin but didn't let him finish as I turned to Reena's direction. "So yo..u al...so kn...ew" I turned to the direction of Reena totally shocked while still trying to get out a sentence completely but still failing miserably at it, due to my trembling lips. "I swear Aneesa,I tried to tell you but he made me promise not to....that he would tell you himself at his own will cause he had fallen in love with you" she said hurriedly while looking at me with worry and fear evident in her eyes. "Babe listen to me I can explain" "Don't you dare call me that" I snapped finally getting my voice back since the time I walked into the apartment, while storming out of the door with tear streaming down my face.

“I have failed you as a mate and as your leader, Anna.” He cried out in pain, his wolf restlessly wailing, reaching the surface, and running back once realizing that nothing had changed. “But this worthless husband of yours swear by this day to avenge your death in the most brutal way possible. And after that, I’ll come meet you wherever you may be.” ~ After brutally losing his mate in a planned rogue attack, Hunter, the Alpha, and controller of one of the most powerful Packs in all of the East and West becomes the terror he promised the corpse of his late mate to be. Things keep going as planned and he is very close to attaining the werewolf king position that would enable him wipe out everyone that contributed to his mate’s death, when by the engineering of the Moon Goddess, he meets orphaned and abused Annable who is surprisingly the exact replica of his late mate, the worse fact is that she is in love with someone else. Now, his well-calculated plan is suddenly bundled with uncertainty, jealousy, a love triangle, and the desire to live and love.

I can’t tell if we’re at war… or dancing around something far more dangerous. Getting traded to the Montreal Bears should’ve been a dream come true, the team I grew up idolizing, the jersey I always wanted to wear. Except there’s one problem. Luca Moretti. The NHL’s notorious bad boy. My new right wing. And the one man who’s made it his mission to outshine me at every turn. Too bad for him I’m faster, sharper, and my numbers don’t lie. Not that I’m competing. I’d never sink to his level. He’s reckless, infuriating, and impossible to ignore a storm of chaos that throws me completely off balance. When we’re not clashing on the ice, he pushes my buttons with teasing nicknames like Princess, Pretty Boy, and Babygirl. I hate it. I swear I do. So why does my body react like I don’t? Contain Explicit Content