Icarus Laughed Novels & Stories

Dangerous Desires Book One. I, Zia Walker, take you, Xavier Luciano, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will honor you all the days of my life. 'And above all, I vow not to fall for you.' ~~ Trapped with the responsibility to my family, fate forced me to marry Xavier Luciano. He was the perfect solution to my problems, but there was only one condition he asked before promising me his ‘I do.’ “Don’t fall for me,” was his unbreakable rule. I laughed at him that day, thinking how easy it is to follow his stupid rule. I’m in love with my ex-fiance, his younger brother Calvin, so what could possibly go wrong? I agreed without hesitation, seeing him as the ticket out of my life’s predicament. Like a raging wave, the realization of my vow’s weight crashed on me. How can I fulfill my promise, when even in the darkness and danger that surrounds him, I’m hauled like a moth to a flame? How can I fight the slow burn of falling for my husband? The man I swore to cherish and adore, until death do us part, and the one my heart chose to love. ~~ [Mature Content] ~~ Follow me on lnstagram Castiel_Lj Cover by DobolyuV

As Gamma of the Creed Pack, I'd held the Northern Border alone for three full years. Every time I called in to ask when I could come home, my mate — the Alpha of Creed — picked up the phone himself. He told me the rogues weren't cleared. He told me the rival packs were still circling. He said, "Nora. One more year. Once we have completely eliminated all our enemies, I will hold the grandest mating ceremony for you. I swear it on the Moon." I believed him. When I dragged myself out of a pile of dead rogues with a silver arrowhead still lodged an inch from my heart, bleeding too fast for a medevac, my warriors had to shift and run me back in wolf form all the way to Creed territory. The moment we crossed the border, I saw fairy lights strung from every streetlamp along the road to the pack house. Pack wolves on the sidewalks were talking loud, smiling at each other. "The Alpha's Mating Ceremony is tonight. He's taking the Elder's daughter as Luna. Three years of peace on the border. It's a good time to be Creed." I coughed dark blood into the fur on the back of my warrior's neck and laughed, short and bitter. He hadn't needed me holding the border. He just hadn't wanted me home.

Eight months pregnant, I had every bank card frozen by my husband’s female secretary. Over the phone, she laughed coldly and said, “From now on, every cent you spend needs my approval. Jack works too hard to waste his money on a useless woman who only knows how to shop.” That same day, I was rushed to the hospital with contractions. Every card I tried was declined. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had also moved my parents out of their private senior suite and into the cheapest room available. Her reason? Two ordinary old people had no right to waste Jack’s money. I laughed. She had no idea those “ordinary old people” were the Don and Donna of the Bellandi family, the couple who had controlled Italy’s underworld for decades. She had no idea Jack’s company, his reputation, his fortune—everything he owned—had come from the Bellandi family. My parents had already planned to retire completely after my child was born. They were going to hand the entire family over to me. And to Jack. Too bad. Jack had allowed her to humiliate the only real power he would ever have the chance to stand beside. Three days later, Jack held a welcome party for his mysterious investor. In front of everyone, his secretary dialed the investor’s number. The next second, my phone rang.

As I stepped out of my older brother's newly opened supermarket, the alarm suddenly rang. The sales assistant grimly reached out and grabbed me, "Miss, you haven't paid yet." I remembered that my buttons were made of metal, which triggered the alarm. After patiently explaining and easing the atmosphere, I said, "The owner of this supermarket is my older brother. He'll pay the bill." The sales assistant scoffed. "Your brother's the boss? Why not say he's your husband instead? You stole and refused to admit it. Pay up or I'll call the police immediately," she said and crumpled the receipt into a ball before throwing it at my face. I endured the humiliation and unfolded it. A baby pacifier for 100,000 dollars. Two packs of baby wet wipes for 200,000 dollars. Security personnel's hush fee, 300,000 dollars. All of the miscellaneous expenses added up to exactly one million dollars. I laughed in anger. "One million dollars? Why don't you just rob a bank? Go and get Chad Surrey. I want to see how I ended up with such a heartless brother." She rolled her eyes. "Don't pretend if you can't afford it, thief. Is Mr. Surrey someone you can see whenever you want?" When my parents came to help me, I said, "Only one of us exists in this family. It's either me or her."

“You are a virgin, Celine, so I am trying to make things right,” Nicholas said in a whisper and my face flushed with anger and shame. He caught on. He knew I was a virgin. Fuck! I laughed out and slapped his chest tightly. I needed to defend myself and try to appear like a whore. I can't give him the satisfaction of believing he is the one who deflowered me. “Wait, I thought you were drunk? I think you are being delusional here Nicholas. A virgin at this age?” I asked and tried to hide the nervousness in my voice. “Sorry to hurt your ego. I have been with many men before you. Don't think…” I began but Nicholas turned his back to me, ignoring me. ******* Life didn’t truly end when Celine discovered her husband never loved her. He stood by while his cousin tormented her simply because of her size, leaving Celine humiliated and broken. But fate gave her another chance. Celine got reborn three years earlier, on the very night she had a one-night stand with Nicholas. This lifetime, Celine vows not to repeat the same mistakes. This time, she refuses to marry Nicholas. But Nicholas isn’t the man she remembers. Determined and unyielding, he wants Celine and he’ll stop at nothing to prove that her size is the very last thing that could keep him away.

On her birthday, Jasmine instead received destruction. Her face was ruined by an accident, and the love she believed would last forever collapsed in an instant. “I’m disgusted by the way you look now,” Christopher said coldly, canceling their wedding without guilt. “Didn’t you promise you would stay with me?” Jasmine’s voice trembled. “That promise applied when you were still perfect,” the man replied cruelly. The betrayal did not stop there. Christopher chose Valentina—Jasmine’s stepsister, who had long been jealous and full of ambition. Even more painful, Jasmine’s biological father took Valentina’s side. The house turned into hell; insults and mockery became daily fare. Leaving with wounds and shattered pride, Jasmine nearly lost everything—until fate brought her together with a mysterious old man. Jasmine’s courage in saving the old man led her to Jaden King, the heir to a respected business empire. “You don’t need to be perfect to be worthy,” Jaden said gently, looking at Jasmine without disgust, without pity. From a discarded woman, Jasmine rose to become the wife of a business ruler. When she returned, Christopher and Valentina laughed at her. “Jaden King’s wife? Don’t joke,” they mocked. But the laughter turned into fear when Jaden appeared and said firmly, “She is my wife. And starting today, your lives are over.” Love, betrayal, rebirth, and revenge—will Jasmine forgive, or will she settle every wound that once destroyed her? Is this conversation helpful so far?

On our wedding night, my wife led my younger brother onto our marital bed. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. She expected him to consummate our marriage in my place. "Sweetheart, I feel awful about your legs and what the doctors said about your infertility," she said softly. "Elliot will just have to help us for one night." My face hardened as I stepped forward. I was ready to throw Elliot Charlton out of the bedroom. However, my parents immediately sided against me. "You're the one who can't fulfill your role as a husband," they said sharply. "Elliot is willing to sacrifice himself so that you can have a child. What's wrong with that?" Even my brother laughed at me. He said I was not a real man and told me to accept things while I still could. According to him, I should be thankful to gain a son without doing anything. They even suggested that I stay and watch, claiming it would prove the two were only trying to conceive a child and nothing else. I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, then turned and called my wife's greatest rival. "You win," I said quietly. "The Wallace family's investment will be transferred to your account tomorrow." After ending the call, I raised my eyes and looked at Janet Wallace. "You share his bed tonight," I said. "Tomorrow, we get divorced."

“You’re a liar. And a coward. And you broke me twice.” I laughed—hollow, bitter. Then bent to pick up the torn pieces of the file. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for the same man twice in one lifetime. If this was a dream, it was a cruel one. When I walked past him, I didn’t look back. “I know I hurt you,” he said behind me, his voice low and raw. “But I never stopped loving you… not even for a single day.” --- They were never supposed to end up together...again, but fate had other plans. Alina has always been the unwanted twin—the quiet, overlooked sister living in the shadow of her perfect twin. So when her father faces financial ruin, he makes a chilling decision: marry one of his daughters off to save the family name. The groom? A powerful, mysterious heir hidden from the public eye. The chosen bride? Alina’s stunning sister. But at the last moment, her father switches them. Now, Alina finds herself married to a man she doesn’t know—yet strangely feels drawn to. A man who might just remember her from a forgotten moment in their past. As sparks begin to fly, she finds herself falling in love with a familiar stranger again. But dark secrets begin to unfold—and a family desperate to reclaim their “true” daughter fights dirty. She was never supposed to be the bride. But she just might be the woman he’s waited for all along.

First day back in the office. I was face down at my desk during lunch when the desk next to mine started rattling under a series of hard knocks. I looked up. It was the firm's new architect, Flora Reeves. "Lunch time ended five minutes ago. You're still asleep at your desk? Don't bother coming in tomorrow. You're fired!" I told her I had just come back from a client meeting. I had been pulling all-nighters on the project for a week. She looked at me like I was something on her shoe. "All you do is take clients out, drink with them, and scribble a few sketches. "You don't even punch in. You're barely in the office. What gives you the right to nap at your desk during work hours?" I almost laughed in her face! I was the firm's chief architect. The bulk of the projects on Walsh & Co.'s books had my name on them. The firm's success was, frankly, carried by me. She saw me out of the office most days. She did not see me in another city, on another job site, talking down another client. And in our industry, most of those clients had hired Walsh & Co. because of my name and reputation. I kept my composure. "You're not in HR. On what authority are you firing me?" She said, "On the authority that my husband is the president of this company." I went still. When did my boyfriend get married?

The day I land a hundred-million-dollar deal for the company, my girlfriend—Paisley Needham, the CEO—finally agrees to marry me. The next day, I wait at the city hall until it closes. She never shows up. Instead, what I get is her official announcement with her assistant, Jude Grayford. In the photo, she nestles in his arms. A crisp marriage license sits in her hand, impossible to miss. The caption reads, "My CEO, Ms. Paisley Needham, couldn't bear to see me going on blind dates, so she just went ahead and got the marriage license with me today. I'm so happy!" My colleagues gossip, assuming I'll be jealous and furious. I don't. I just like the post and comment, "So, when's the ceremony? Don't forget to invite me!" Paisley calls immediately, cursing me out. "I just didn't want to see him being pressured into blind dates by his parents, so I agreed to get married on paper to keep them off his back. It's not like we're actually married. Do you really have to be so petty? "Delete your comment right now and get on your knees to apologize to Jude. If you don't, I'll never marry you." I laughed bitterly. "Even better," I say. "I hope you two have a long, happy life together… and have lots of kids."