Himawari Bag

For a $5 million research stipend, I agreed to let the System install an empathic link inside my body. "Subject. Are you sure you want to proceed? Once installed, the procedure cannot be reversed. This is a prototype. Side effects are not fully characterized." I looked at the sidewalk-stall clothes my girlfriend Cara Lake had bought herself, and the drugstore-grade makeup on her vanity. I nodded. That night, while she was out at her bar job. A current came up out of nowhere inside me. My whole body lit up with a sickening pleasure that did not belong to me. Seven times. A few days later I waited near the club where she worked. I overheard her with her friends. "Cara. You're something else. Pouring La Prairie into a plastic bag and using it like that? Faking poor like a champion. Doesn't Adam ever notice?" "Notice? He's stupid. He'll believe anything I say. His father got hit by a car, lay in bed without the money for treatment, died alone. I told Adam I couldn't help. He stayed up all night comforting me. I almost died laughing." The laughter went into me like a knife. I got out of there. The tears came on the walk home. I picked up the phone. "Professor. I'll go to the classified institute. I'll go now."

I had a best friend who was sweet as honey but only with her mouth. Behind my back, she was a demon. She stole my boyfriend, the underboss of the Chicago Outfit. Her excuse? She wanted to keep me away from the darkness and the blood, so she'd take the suffering in my place. She pawned her wedding ring and fed her husband some story about a limited edition bag for me. She skimmed from her husband's company accounts and pinned it on my male escort habit. She was pregnant and still wanted thrills. So she went to a full-blown orgy with her husband's uncle and a group of his associates. That's how she ended up hemorrhaging. But somehow it was my fault. I was the one who organized that kind of party, according to her. And her story? She tried to stop me, so I pushed her down and made her lose the baby. In the end, her husband sent me to a cartel hellhole in Mexico to atone for my sins. There, her lover sold me to the red-light district. First came the addiction. Then the streets. I served every man in their outfit, one after another. My body rotted. I died slow, sick, and alone. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night my best friend miscarried because of her own filthy party.

The boy, George Larson, whom I once saved as a child, when he was struggling with asthma, repaid my kindness by imprisoning me for seven long years. "Luna, you're my everything. I won’t let you out of my sight," he said, his voice filled with obsession. He tied my hands and feet, keeping me bound to the bed like a helpless doll, but I did not love him; I wanted to escape. In his madness, he set fire to my family’s ancestral home. The last traces of the Sachs burned to ashes, disappearing into the wind. He said that since my home was gone, I could just live with him and that it would be my new home. However, because I refused to let him touch me, he found someone else—a girl with a beauty mark under her eye, just like mine. The girl, drunk on his affection, thought I was trying to imitate her by faking the same tear-shaped mark. In a fit of jealousy, she gouged out my eyes. My face was covered with tiny, bleeding holes, blood streaming down my body. When George came home, the girl gleefully stuffed me into a trash bag, proud of her handiwork. “George, look! I caught some trash that broke into the house!” George did not even glance at me. He just loosened his tie, his voice calm and detached. “Just toss it where trash belongs.”

As the son of Isabella and Elijah, Isaiah takes his legacy as the King of werewolves seriously! He is a just and fair King, but something is missing inside him. His mate. Although he is still young, he longs for that true love that all of his family have. Everyone else except for him has found their mates. He is happy for them. But also kind of jealous. Ivy was born between two strong parents, but there was a problem. She was forbidden. A love child born of a werewolf father and fae mother. She is a hybrid. Something that has been forbidden from the Goddesses since before anyone living can remember. When her mother dies, her father remarry his mistress and Ivy is finally kicked all the way out of the family. She is a Princess by right, but treated as the family's personal punching bag and slave. What happens when Isaiah finds his mate in the most unlikely of places? Will he accept her, despite her status as a hybrid, or will he reject her because of her heritage? Can the world survive with a hybrid as their Queen? Will they accept her? Follow the story of Isaiah and Ivy, who both are looking for their rightful place in a world on the brink of a civil interspecies war. Can the young people change the fatal outcome of bloodshed and hatred? Will hybrids once again be allowed and accepted? The Alpha King's Forbidden Mate is the sequel to Her Second Chance Alpha.

“It’s our anniversary today. I planned our day together,” I declare. “I have work to do,” “But I asked your PA to clear your schedule for the day,” “That’s the thing. You made plans behind my back without talking to me about it first, Ariel,” He then walks past me and walks out of the closet. “I thought I was doing something nice for you – for us at least. You have always worked so hard, so at least take this day off with me. We never got to celebrate our wedding anniversary,” I rebuke. He decides not to say anything. He opens his bag on the couch facing our bed and takes out a white A4 envelope, tossing it on the little table in the middle of our room. “Is it so hard for you to read the room all the time? How would you celebrate a wedding anniversary when there is no love between us? Are you not tired of all this pretence because I am!" He chastises. "That’s for you. Sign it so that we can get it over and done with,” With that said, he puts on his black sunglasses and walks out of the room. Only then do I breathe out the air I didn’t even know I was holding. I’m confused and, most of all, hurt. I didn’t see this coming. I drop my eyes on the envelope with bold printed letters of the name of the law firm our lawyer works at.

“Thirty minutes for 10 thousand dollars.” That was the deal. Julian Valentino is the “Holy Billionaire,” an ice-cold CEO who views love as a liability. After a brutal Valentine’s Day betrayal, he didn’t just swear off women…. he chose a path of strict celibacy, vowing to keep his body as untouchable as his empire. For years, he has been a saint in a world of sinners, until he is anonymously drugged in his own hotel. With his control now crumbling and his body on fire, he turns to the only woman who can quench the flame: THALIA. Popularly known as "Tee" in elite lounges, she is a high-end sex worker who doesn’t believe in fairytales love and only lives for the bag to fund the search for her lost identity. What she expects to be an easy paycheck turns into a nightmare when a city-wide murder triggers a 48-hour security lockdown. Now trapped with a possessive, drug-fevered billionaire, thirty minutes of service becomes two days of raw heat and secret whispers. But when the doors finally open, Julian doesn't want to let her go. He wants a new deal... a new contract to buy her time and be her exclusive client. And that is when it dawns on Thalia that she has walked into a trap. Behind the closed doors, another contract was waiting. She isn’t just a worker anymore… with the outside contract? She’s now the very weapon sent to destroy the Valentino empire. CONTENT WARNING: This story is strongly 18+

Pain was all Bridget knew. For the past ten years of her life, a man she thought she could trust to have her back and protect her, was the one man who beat her mercilessly for the mistake that his own son made.  Pulled away from her family and forced to become not only the Alpha’s slave but also his mute punching bag, Bridget believed this was all she was destined to have in life and pleaded for the day she’d die as release. But that all changed the day the highly respected and powerful Alpha King was set to visit their pack, with everyone distracted, Bridget took her chance and fled. Stopped by a border guard whose main objective was to kill her, that very same Alpha King who had intended to meet the Alpha, found Bridget instead. Realising this beautiful but mute woman in front of him was his mate, the Alpha King wasted not a moment killing the border guard and returning to his palace with Bridget beside him. Past enemies, gruesome memories and a crazed Alpha hoping to fully silence his once complicit slave, threatened to tear the pair apart, but for the Alpha King, Bridget was his to protect and he’d stop at nothing to keep it that way. Can Bridget put the fear of the past behind her and fully embrace her new life with her mate, or will she forever be silenced by the past? Read on to find out. 

When I'm working as a deliveryman, I receive a delivery order from a hotel. As I look at the bag of adult toys in my hand, I can't help but snicker knowingly. "Youngsters nowadays sure are wild in bed." The moment I open the hotel room door and see my girlfriend, Natalie Brooks, I feel as though all color has been drained from my face. Natalie's work junior, Brandon Clark, laughs arrogantly in my face with a bath towel wrapped around his waist. "How did that broke bastard track us down?" Natalie just frowns at me in displeasure. "Brandon helped me secure many projects at work. His only wish is that he gets to spend a night with a woman. "This is nothing but physical collision between bodies! This is the 21st century, Oliver! Must you be such a prude? "But don't worry, though. Even though I'm spending the night with Brandon, I'll still marry you according to my family's wishes." I shake my head immediately out of fear. "I'm not interested in marrying a woman who's been used by others, so I hope you two have a great life together! But I'll also withdraw my funds from your company. You'd better kiss those projects of yours goodbye!"

I ditched a shot at studying abroad to help my boyfriend, Gavin Censori, launch his startup. Stuck it out with him through seven brutal years. Then boom—success hit, and so did the ghosting. On Valentine's Day, he hit me with the classic "work's crazy" excuse. Instead of showing up, he had some random delivery dude drop off a box of cosmetic samples. Samples. Later that night, his secretary Rebecca popped up on my feed, flexing hard. Caption: [With a boss like this, why go home early?] Pic: A box of high-end makeup. Same brand. Hers weren't samples. I dropped a comment: [You're doing great at your sidechick job. Gold star.] Gavin called instantly, losing it. "What's your problem? She's just an employee! I bust my ass making money for you, and you're always jealous!" I laughed. Didn't even yell. Just dumped him. Seven years, and I'd never touched a dime of his. Joke's on him—his precious startup? Secretly bankrolled by me. Fast-forward three years. Business summit. He rolled in wearing a tailored suit. The second he spotted me with a bag of bottles, his smirk kicked in. "Didn't like those cosmetics I gave you, huh? Now look at you—reduced to bottle collecting?"

I took my parents-in-law, Edmund and Macy Hale, out to a restaurant. When it was time to pay, we ran into my husband’s female assistant, Vera Rhodes. Seeing Mrs. Hale packing up the leftover bouillabaisse she had been drinking, Vera marched over and slapped the takeaway bag out of her hands. The soup splashed all over Mrs. Hale in an instant. "If you can’t afford to eat here, then don’t come," she sneered. "Look at you, reeking of poverty. How do people like you deserve to be Mr. Orion Hale’s in-laws? Don’t embarrass him." I asked the restaurant to prepare a fresh portion of fish soup to go. Before anyone could respond, Vera slapped me to the ground. "This is a members-only restaurant. You’re using Mr. Hale’s card, aren’t you?" she mocked. "Can’t you earn your own money? You need his money to support your hillbilly parents?" Mr. Hale was so enraged that he was rushed to the hospital. I called Orion and asked him to come sign the surgery consent form. He laughed coldly. "Vera already told me everything. Your dad even needs to trick me into paying medical bills now? Has your whole family gone insane from poverty? "If you’re going to die, then hurry up and die. Just don’t die in front of me. It’s bad luck."