Instinct Survival

I wasn’t meant to survive. My sister killed me, and I should have stayed dead. Instead, I woke in Lenore, a nightmare kingdom built on blood and lies. Here, monsters wear human faces, and Hunters like me are forced into a system that counts every kill and punishes every weakness. They gave me a body that isn’t mine. A name that isn’t mine. A life I never chose. And now I can’t run. I can’t escape. I can only fight… and hunger. Because it isn’t just the monsters that consume me. It’s the men who circle too close. One forged from shadows, dangerous in his silence, the kind of man whose restraint makes me want to shatter it. The other drips temptation like poison, every word a sin, every touch a fire I shouldn’t survive, and yet I reach for him anyway. I shouldn’t need them. I shouldn’t crave them. But I do. God, I do. And while I’m torn between danger and desire, Lenore itself is tearing apart. The Houses want me erased. The monsters want my blood. And the truth of who I really am will destroy everything.

On the day my dad, the Don of the Capone family, comes to the orphanage to take me home, I show up in a tactical helmet and a bulletproof vest. "I'm not going home with you. You're definitely doing this to trick me into getting married to a perverted old geezer in a marriage alliance. I bet my adopted sister has made preparations to start fake-crying anytime by loading up on her eyedrops." My dad is amused, to say the least. "Why would any of that happen? Silvia is nothing but welcoming you to our home! Also, our family isn't a lowly organization that deals with human trafficking." But I refuse to believe my dad at all. On the way home, I keep typing something on my phone. My mom, the Donna, leans over curiously. "Are you writing a diary entry?" "Nope. I'm writing tips on 'How to Survive the Mafia.'" 1) My food will definitely be poisoned. 2) If I get close to a staircase, I'll definitely get pushed down the stairs. 3) I'll get framed for something that I've never done before. My parents swear to me that none of the things I've written will ever happen. They tell me that my adopted sister, Silvia Capone, has a great personality, and things are amicable in the family. However, everything changes when Silvia brings me a glass of juice before lunchtime and insists on watching me drink it. Instead, I dump the juice into a nearby vase of flowers. Just as my parents are about to scold me for wasting the juice, smoke begins drifting from the flowers inside the vase. Then, they start wilting rapidly. I calmly leave a bright red checkmark behind the "poison" tip. As my parents stare at the dead flowers, they can feel color draining from their faces. "You should send the juice to a chem lab for analysis."

Willa Roane dies the same night she catches her boyfriend in bed with her sister. Instead of waking in peace, she’s dragged onto a ghostly bus and informed—by a mocking intercom—that she’s entered the Survival Game: a twisted show where the dead are thrown into lethal, terrifying worlds for the cruel amusement of an unseen audience. The rule is simple: survive each round… or your soul is erased forever. Her only ally is Corvin Thorne, the devastatingly beautiful stranger who yanked her off the road and onto the bus. A hybrid vampire–werewolf with a past soaked in blood, Corvin is bound by a wicked secret contract to keep Willa alive… or forfeit his own soul to the game. As they descend deeper into the nightmare realms—from a monster-ruled Dracula Castle to ruined neon cities—Willa realizes she is the key. The deadly worlds are twisting around her darkest fears and fantasies, turning her own horror stories into elaborate traps. She isn’t just a player; she’s the author of the chaos. And the man sworn to protect her may be the only thing she can’t control. Now Willa must rely on the dangerous man she’s falling for, a man who swore he would never love again. The heat between them is undeniable, but as their bond deepens, it’s impossible to tell which is more dangerous: the monsters hunting them… or the love that could destroy them both. Love might be beautiful—but in this game, it’s never sweet. It’s a weapon, a weakness, and the one thing that might rewrite the rules of Hell itself: desire. ---

L’Instinct du Loup Synopsis : Dans un monde où les créatures surnaturelles ne se cachent plus, l’équilibre fragile entre les espèces est maintenu par la peur… et le pouvoir. Les loups-garous dominent, les vampires complotent dans l’ombre, et les humains tentent de survivre dans ce nouvel ordre brutal. Phoebé Brown, dix-neuf ans, humaine discrète et étudiante en comptabilité, mène une vie simple entre ses études et sa famille adoptive. Jusqu’au jour où elle croise le regard de Chad, un Alpha loup-garou à la réputation sanguinaire, incarcéré pour des crimes atroces. Lui sait immédiatement qu’elle est sa destinée, son âme sœur. Mais Phoebé, fière et lucide, refuse l’idée d’un lien avec un monstre. Pourtant, un lien profond, primitif, commence malgré elle à se tisser. Et l’étau se resserre quand Hayden, un vampire assoiffé de vengeance, jure de la voir morte. Pourquoi elle ? Que cache le passé de Chad, et quel terrible secret les relie tous les trois ? Piégée entre instinct, passion et danger, Phoebé devra choisir entre fuir… ou embrasser le destin sauvage qui menace de tout emporter.

Even in her wildest dreams, Elara never imagined she would be loving her own reaper. Given all she gained and had to her boyfriend only to find him humping her stepmother, Elara thought this the worst possible thing to happen in life. Just to find herself in hell, surrounded by dead people and trapped in a survival game. Would she survive and chase after her oppressors? Or would she simply die... Forever?

The year I hit rock bottom, I got sucked into a game. The rule was to survive a week on 50 dollars, and the winner would walk away with one million dollars. Everyone else was desperate to win, but I was the only one trying to escape. What they did not know was that I was the previous round's winner, and killing me meant they could steal my 500 million dollars.

When the heat wave hit, I was working at the National Weather Service and was the first to spot the climate irregularities. I warned my family to get ready ahead of time. My parents trusted me without question. They even proposed starting a "family survival fund." They told me to use the savings I'd built up since graduating to stock up on supplies, promising that they and my little sister would chip in every dollar they had too. If we were going to make it, we had to stick together as a family. I smiled. "Sure. I'll take care of the plans." That same night, I converted every penny into gold and locked it in a safe. I also went all out into building an apocalypse-proof bunker. When doomsday finally came, they showed up demanding the money we'd pooled together. "Hand over all the gold," they said coldly. "A deadweight like you is just wasting resources by staying alive." Smiling, I tossed them the safe with the gold inside, then sealed the bunker, locking them out completely. Laughing triumphantly, they opened the safe… and stared in shock at what they saw inside.

Our entire class gets dragged into The Tyrant's Atonement game. The only way to escape alive is to reach a 100% atonement score. The system lets us choose our roles. The class belle, Isolde Adler, picks the tyrant's first love. Her atonement score shoots straight to 99% on the first day. The class president, Asher Brooks, chooses to be a loyal chancellor. His atonement score jumps to 80%. Spectators watching the game flood the screen with comments. "This new batch is smart and way better at picking roles than the last. They might just clear the game in three days." "Even if just one person hits 100%, the whole class goes free. I'm looking forward to seeing who finishes first." "My money's on the first love. She's already at 99%." Just as everyone starts celebrating, the next morning hits us with bad news. All 20 classmates who picked their roles are dead, and Isolde suffers the cruelest fate of all.

During a long holiday, my husband booked flights for a family vacation. On the way to the airport, I suddenly saw numbers appearing on everyone’s head. The numbers on my husband’s head indicated sixty years, but my parents and I had only six hours indicated on our heads. While I was puzzled over the meaning of those numbers, I noticed that the driver next to us only had six seconds indicated over his head through the car window. Five… Four… Three… Two… One. When the number turned zero, a massive truck immediately rammed into the car next to us. I saw flickers of fire, flesh and blood exploding before my eyes. People were screaming for help, but I could not hear anything. I trembled as cold sweat drenched my entire body. It was because my flight would be taking off in six hours.

My coworkers and I are forcibly dragged into a bizarre game with the initial title displayed as "War of the Plants". Everyone crowds around to choose camps or safe houses with abundant water resources. I am the only one who picks a plastic apartment in the desert with no water or electricity. My female supervisor mocks me in front of everyone, saying I must be out of my mind. No one is willing to team up with me, and they even bet I won't last three days. When choosing abilities, everyone rushes for practical powers like spatial storage or metal control. I, however, choose reverse photosynthesis that allows me to gain energy from air humidity. Everyone immediately mutes me in the game. Clearly, no one wants to hear my desperate cries for help later. But when the system revokes team permissions and administrator functions, everyone is stunned. The game's name is reset to "Magnet Apocalypse".