Hollow Zzz

She thought he was just the principal. Strict. Cold. Dangerous in ways no man should be. He never smiled. Never softened. He ruled Hollow Creek College like a god behind glass walls. And yet he watched her. Every time she passed. Every move she made. She was only trying to survive her first year. No friends. No family nearby. But when she stepped into his office for the first time, everything changed. He smelled her innocence. She felt his hunger. What she didn't know what no one knew was that Kael Draven wasn't human. He was an alpha. A wolf bred for dominance, bound by instinct. And she had just awakened the part of him that was never meant to surface. Now she's seated beneath his gaze, caught between fear and desire. She doesn't know why her body burns. She doesn't know why he's looking at her like that. All she knows is that something inside her has changed. And Kael? He's done fighting it. This isn't a love story. It's a claiming.

In Black Salt, love is a sickness you can’t hide—a slow gnawing beneath the skin that leaves you hollowed, grayed, and eventually gone. No one stays long enough to see it through; they leave before the rot finishes its work. It’s what the town teaches you: when it starts, you run. You look away. You survive by pretending not to feel. But Atlas is tired of pretending. The halls of Black Salt High are full of kids pretending they don’t see each other’s bruised hearts, pretending their bones aren’t already whispering warnings. Still, he can’t forget the weight of a father who stayed—not out of love, but because he never felt it deep enough to decay. That truth lingers in Atlas like a second shadow. And then there’s Nova—the outsider with a storm in her bones. And Wren, all sharpness and fight. Milo, who cracks jokes to keep the silence at bay. Luce, who wears her thorns like jewelry. Together, they don’t know how to stop the rot. But they’re learning how to sit with it, how to name it, how to refuse the small, hollow deaths of pretending not to care. In a town where love is a death sentence, staying might be the bravest thing of all.

What would you do when fate binds you to two mates—one who shattered your heart, and the other who's being shattered every day? Alpha Aira Stone—fiery, fearless, and one of the mischievous Stone sextuplets—is no stranger to chaos. But nothing prepares her for the moment her world begins to unravel. The boy she’s loved her entire life—her brother’s Beta, her secret childhood crush—walks away to chase his dreams, leaving her behind with nothing but a hollow “I’m sorry” and a heart full of scars. His silence was rejection. His absence, betrayal. And Aira? She doesn’t forgive easily. But when the Moon Goddess finally reveals her fated mates, the joke is crueler than she could have imagined—because one of them is him. The Beta. The wimp. The one who turned his back on her. And the other? A mysterious transgender demon—shackled by torment, enduring daily abuse at the hands of a monstrous werewolf pack in a distant, brutal land. A soul tethered to hers by pain, fate, and an ache she can’t ignore. Now, with her pride in pieces and her heart pulled in two, Aira must confront what it means to lead, to love—and to choose. Because some bonds are blessed. Others are broken. And some... are born in chaos.

Dr. Hope Stevens has spent her life rooted in logic, medicine, and control. An orphan and accomplished trauma surgeon in the quiet mountain town of Black Hollow, she's devoted herself to saving lives—never expecting hers would be the one in danger. When Hope is kidnapped and taken to a hidden camp deep in the forest, she’s faced with an impossible truth: werewolves are real. And not only is she the fated mate of Malakar, a fierce and powerful alpha fighting to protect his pack, but her arrival may change the course of an ancient war. Thrust into a world she never believed existed, Hope carves out a new identity among the wolves—finding purpose, belonging, and love. But just as she begins to feel like part of something greater, devastating secrets from her past come to light. A lost prophecy. A family legacy steeped in blood. And a shocking truth: Hope isn’t just the daughter of a hunter. She’s also the child of a wolf. As war brews between werewolves and hunters, Hope stands at the center of it all—a bridge between two worlds fated to destroy one another. But when the ultimate tragedy strikes, awakening a power long buried, Hope must embrace every part of who she is… or lose everything. Legacy or love. Blood or pack. Can one woman rewrite destiny?

The city was a cage. The forest is a hunt. Lila Voss ran to the decaying town of Eldridge Hollow to disappear. Broken by the suffocating expectations of her old life, she wanted nothing more than to be invisible. But when she cuts through a rain-slicked alley on her first night, she learns that some things cannot be outrun. She is found by Jax—a massive, feral Alpha wolf shifter who has been tracking her scent. He doesn't offer help; he offers a claim. Driven by a primal biological imperative, Jax bites her, kidnapping her into the depths of the forest to face a destiny she never chose. Now, Lila is no longer human, but she isn’t yet a wolf. Trapped in the pack’s subterranean den, she must survive the agonizing, bone-breaking transformation into a rare Silver Wolf. But her survival isn't just about the shift. Thorne, a sadistic rival Alpha, covets Lila as a trophy to breed a stronger bloodline, and he’s willing to burn the forest down to take her. With a war brewing on the border and a scorching, undeniable bond consuming her from the inside out, Lila must decide: will she remain the victim, or will she embrace the monster within and become the Queen the pack needs?

I fought with my husband, Alessio, the Don of the Moretti family, over the mistress who'd given him twin sons. The next day, he stormed into my bedroom and put a gun to my head. "Did you take my sons?! You vicious bitch!" While I was still in shock, he ordered his men to lock my eight-year-old daughter, Lucia, in the icehouse for three whole days of "training." He gave me an ultimatum: Lucia would stay there until I brought him his sons. Lucia froze to death in that icehouse. I returned with her death certificate in my hand, my heart a hollow stone in my chest, only to find him moving his mistress and their sons into the home we once shared. He was cheerful, dismissing the whole thing as a misunderstanding. He even had the audacity to tell me to go get Lucia to meet her "new little brothers." I just stared, tears tracking paths down my face, the life inside me extinguished. It wasn't until that thin piece of paper—the death certificate—fluttered to the floor that the color drained from Alessio's face. He finally realized Lucia was gone. Killed by his own blind, cruel pride.

She belongs to a wolf. She's married to the hunter. To the world, Elira Malven is the villainess who stole a princess's betrothed. But her gilded marriage to the legendary war hero, Kael Rennar, is a cage, and her husband has a deadly secret: he is a Wolfhunter, the sworn enemy of her kind. “Why?” The word was a crack in her composure. “Why did you push for this marriage? What do you want from me?” He didn’t turn. A faint, hollow smile touched his lips. “I don’t know why I insisted,” his voice was barely a breath. “I don’t know why I didn’t kill you the moment I suspected what you are.” Her only hope seems to lie with Thane, her true mate, whose touch awakens a primal bond in a dusty library. But he is the one who shattered her heart. “Then why leave?” she asked, raw and painful. “After I begged you—” “Because I was protecting you!” The words tore from him. “You were nobility. The Wolfkiller's wife. And I— I was nobody.” Torn between a hunter haunted by his mercy and a mate haunted by his sacrifice, Elira must choose: remain in a marriage built on a tragic mystery, or risk a love that demands a price neither of them may survive.

Our daughter, Luna Woods, developed a high fever. Her body was burning hot. I immediately dialed 911 for help. The dispatcher on the other end kept repeating his questions. He spoke slowly, as if deliberately stalling for time. By the time I finally heard the ambulance siren, Luna was already turning cold in my arms. In less than a year, my wife and I separated. We were consumed by endless grief and blamed for each other. Afterward, I merely existed for the sake of it. I was a hollow shell of a man. Then, one day, I received a wedding invitation from my ex-wife. The moment I played the audio invitation, a chill ran down my spine. The groom’s voice was identical to that of the slow, dawdling dispatcher from that year! I rushed out, utterly distraught, only to be hit by a roaring train. When I opened my eyes again, I heard Luna crying in the next room. Her forehead was burning hot. My wife hurriedly handed me the phone. “Quick, call 911! I’ll get a wet towel.” My hands trembled as I took the phone. When it was answered, I heard a familiar male voice through the receiver. “911, what’s your emergency?”

When I steal the cheer captain, Cora Knightley's, number one spot in our grade, her childhood sweetheart—an Alpha heir—confesses his love to me the next day. Flashing me a mesmerizing smile, Raymond Knox says, "Join my world and relish the ultimate freedom and recklessness, will you?" Of course, my answer is… yes. I agree, sealing his lips with a passionate kiss. My grades start dropping, until I eventually become one of his kind. At the same time, his body belongs to me. We can't keep our hands off each other. But despite the countless intimate moments we share, he never seems to enjoy kissing me—until the entrance exam for Lycanshire University is finally over. That's when he kisses me and seduces my wolf, luring me to go to Mangy Hollow Community College with him. So this has been his goal all along. But I'd known it since the start. Gently slapping my Lycanshire University admission letter against Raymond's face, I say, "Being with you this year has been fun. I'm very satisfied. "But my future matters more. Let's break up."

I fell for Don Lorenzo Moretti the second I saw him. Hard. As a mafia princess, I wasn't supposed to chase anyone. But for him, I swallowed my pride and made him my mission. A year later, he finally had me, pinning me to the bed as he moved inside me. His eyes were pure fire, and in that mo ment, they saw only me. For ten years, we were electric. We fucked in five-star hotels all over the world. We just fit. I was his lucky charm at the poker table. I took shots for him until I bled from my stomach. I even took a bullet for him. Then came our engagement party. Lorenzo left me standing there alone. Said something "came up." I went back to our apartment, only to find him kissing my stepsister, Juliana. That’s when I knew. He had always loved her. I was just a stand-in. He tried to explain, words tumbling out in a panicked rush, promising a bigger, better party to make up for it. A laugh, cold and hollow, died in my throat. I turned my back on him, pulled out my phone, and called my mother in Sicily. "I'll marry into the Romano family."