Inspirational Phone Wallpaper

As my murderer's claws tear into my abdomen inch by inch, my father and brother are seated in our family's banquet hall. They're celebrating Carly's 18th birthday and coming-of-age. "You'll always be my little girl." "Happy birthday, Carly." They light 18 pink candles for her. On top of the exquisite red velvet cake is a wolf figurine that they carved for her, and there are well wishes and laughter all around. Meanwhile, I'm curled up in a sewer filled with liquid silver as I bleed to death. My phone has been crushed, and I can't get out. I can only cry for help. A few days later, my father and brother show up together at the autopsy room. My brother stands by the operating table with a scalpel. He slices open the body and sews it back up like it's nothing. My father just covers his nose as he shoots a disgusted glance at my body. He urges my brother to hurry up with the autopsy report. "The victim is a young female wolf presumed to be of pure lineage. Before her death, she was subjected to prolonged captivity and torture. Her throat is nearly severed, her cervical spine is dislocated, and her chest cavity has collapsed. She was also injected with liquid silver before death." Hearing the report, my father looks so calm that it's just like a case study of no consequence. Neither of them can recognize that the body belongs to me—their daughter and sister!

Despite a decade of marriage, Simon never once shared my bed, claiming that he had pledged himself to ascetic practices and that it was beneath him. I thought that he suffered from some shameful ailment and guarded his secret like a devoted fool, until my birthday, when I came home to find him entangled with a brothel worker before the floor-length mirror. When I lunged forward in rage, he drove a shard of that broken mirror straight through my heart. When I awoke, I was gripping my phone, its screen illuminating a message Simon had just sent: [I’ll still give you a lavish wedding, but the marriage certificate? That belongs to her.]

Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

On the night of my 30th birthday, I waited until the early hours of the morning, but my husband, Theodore Hawk never showed up. Instead, I came across an Instagram post from his childhood sweetheart, Emily Gallagher. [What romantic is not the starry night, it is having you by my side.] In the picture, she was wearing a delicate, sky-blue camisole that revealed just enough to charm and seduce. A man stood close behind her, his hand firmly gripping her waist. The scene was set in the seaside villa that Theodore had gifted her, their figures intimately entwined under the soft glow of the night. Someone had commented beneath the post: [I can’t stand you two being this lovey-dovey all the time! Just get married already!] Emily had responded with a shy-face emoji. I had just liked the post when Theodore, who I had failed to reach all night, blew up my phone with calls. "Are you out of your mind, Camilla? Emi and I grew up together! If we wanted to be together, we would’ve done so long ago! Why are you being so petty?" Looking at how Theodore gently held her in his arms, comforting her, I realized something. Letting go of someone you’ve loved for seven years... can take only a moment.

At the wedding I've spent months planning, my usually stoic fiancé, Anthony Scott, is about to run off with his assistant, Erica Jones. To top it all off, she is wearing a wedding gown. Out of nowhere, his younger brother, Christopher Scott, grabs my hand and plans to pull me straight to City Hall. He disregards my panicking eyes. "Let's get married," he says, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Then, the stage decorations suddenly collapse, revealing a room full of guests mocking and laughing at me. The two men who once swore to love me forever do all just to make Erica smile. The three of them clink glasses and drink a love toast on stage, completely lost in their own moment. "The wedding you planned was way too outdated. You should thank Erica for turning it into a bachelorette party!" "The real wedding will be this Sunday. Isn't Erica's idea amazing?" Anthony and Christopher were confident that I wouldn't dare leave them. But I quietly pick up my phone and type a message. "Let's set the wedding date for this Sunday, Levi."

When I started college, my new roommate secretly used my phone to take a selfie. She sent it to the guy I was in an online relationship with and added the caption: [Baby, do you think I'm beautiful?] My boyfriend replied with a giant question mark, followed by a voice message full of curses. "Just thinking about dating someone with that face makes me want to puke!" "Let's break up, you ugly freak. Stay far away from me!" By the time I got out of the shower and tried to explain, I realized he had already blocked me. My roommate, holding her own phone, smugly told me, "The streamer I've had my eye on just added me. He says he wants to start an online relationship." When I looked at the account, I saw it was none other than my ex-boyfriend.

Just one week before my marking ceremony with Lucien, I discovered his heart already belonged to someone else. His secretary, Anika, walked out of his office with a smirk that was a little too knowing. Her blouse was askew, her usually neat hair a tangled mess, and only the faintest trace of her crimson lipstick remained. My heart seized in my chest, and my fingers went cold on the doorknob. Two years ago, she had been a timid girl fresh from the countryside. All that pretense of innocence had vanished, replaced by a brazen ambition written across her face. Her relentless eagerness around Lucien had always grated on my nerves, and I had asked him more than once. "Lucien, can't you replace her?" His smile would always fade. "Anika saved my life," he'd say. "I can't be so heartless." Now, that single triumphant smirk was all it took for me to understand. What others once envied in me had already been trampled beneath her heels. My phone vibrated. It was a new proposal from the event planner. [The marking ceremony plan is nearly perfect. Can we finalize it?] I refused to be consumed by sorrow. I wiped a tear from my cheek and made one last adjustment to the document.——Replaced the bride's name withAnika I didn't want a false love, or a fake Alpha Lucien. Let them have the marking ceremony. Let Anika stand at his side as his Luna, his chosen mate. In seven days, I would be gone with my pup.

My husband doesn't love me or our daughter. It's been six years since she was born, but he's never held her. The doctors say he has an emotional disorder, and that he doesn't know how to express the way he feels. But when his true love returns, he smiles at us for the first time. He even brings our daughter a gift. I think it's because he's finally seen sense… until she and I see the photo he uses as his phone's wallpaper. In it, his eyes are crinkled as he smiles. He has one arm around a little girl whose front tooth is missing, and he holds his true love's hand with the other. My daughter tugs on my hand, and her eyes redden. "Mommy, do you think we should leave? Should we give Daddy three final chances? Let's leave him if he still doesn't want us after that."

It was our tenth anniversary, and I thought Joseph Lynch was finally going to propose to me. However, I accidentally saw the texts on his phone and realized what a joke I had been these past ten years. [It’s our first anniversary. Darling, I want you to spend time with me.] That woman uttered such sweet and intimate words, which I rarely said to Joseph. [I’ll give her some sleeping pills before I see you.] I could not believe Joseph would say such a thing. My fingers trembled as I scrolled down their conversation. [Don’t marry her. Marry me instead!] Then, she sent him a cute and attractive photo of her. She looked like a student. [Let’s see how you behave tonight. I bought you some new lingerie. Be good and put them on. Wait for me next door.] I was wearing some ill-fitting undies while sitting in bed. Right then, I was filled with bitterness. It turned out that Joseph had bought these undies for someone else.

For seven years, Grace has been the dutiful "moon goddess" at the side of Alpha King Ethan Silver, enduring his indifference while desperately trying to strengthen the weakening MATE bond between them. On her birthday, she returns to the eastern territories only to find her home empty - her partner absent and her daughter, whom she brought up as a child, estranged. "I've got something going on here, tomorrow." Ethan's impatient voice came over the phone, but Grace caught another female voice in the background. Olivia Stone. Her half-sister. "Aunt Liv is so handsome, I love Aunt Liv so much, why is mommy so annoying." She heard her daughter Emma complain. The truth becomes irrelevant when Grace finds Ethan and Olivia in an intimate embrace in his office. The mate bond she tried so hard to defend meant nothing to him. "Who gave you permission to come in here!" Ethan's expression was justified, and Grace stood rigid, the coffee tray trembling in her hands. Determined to leave them and rebuild her work and her life, Grace ditches the Silver family and her position at pack medical to return to her roots as a therapist and reconnects with her former partner, Dominic Hayes. As Grace rebuilds her life and professional standing, Ethan begins to notice her absence. But is it too late? Grace has awakened to the fact that she doesn't want to be his Luna anymore. Can she truly sever the seven-year mate bond? And what happens when Ethan finally realizes what he's lost?