Kanao Final Selection

My esports team is engaged in a practice match at midnight. Suddenly, my coach hands a phone over to me. On the other end of the line, my dad cries hysterically. Amid his sobs, he tells me that my mom is currently unconscious in the hospital, and that the doctor has issued him a critical notice. Apparently, my mom's funeral is being prepared in advance, so my dad wants me home immediately. As I stare at the match-up diagram of the final round of the national-level competition as well as the seven-figure prize money, I reply icily, "I'm not going home. I must participate in the final round tomorrow. During the competition, my phone will be turned off. Don't disturb me no matter what."

"Everyone that hurt me and my pack, I will pay back in ten thousand folds." ___Eva Grey "Until my final cursed breath, I will wage your battles with triumph, my mate." –Alpha Ashton McLean.

When the Earth slipped into a relentless, record-breaking heat, I exhausted everything I had to develop a constant-temperature shelter. Yet, my fiancée, Janine O’Connor, insisted on wearing a bikini and going out to sunbathe with her personal secretary. In my previous life, I stopped her. I warned her that an apocalyptic heatwave was coming, and that countless people would be burned to death simply by being exposed to the heat. However, her personal secretary looked as though he had suffered a great injustice. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said. “But I can’t bear to see Miss Janine stuck in a shelter for the rest of her life. I’ve done my research. This is a period of natural selection for the Earth. Only by adapting quickly to the environment can people truly survive.” Even so, I threatened my own life and forcibly brought Janine back into the shelter. Relying on the shelter I built, Janine survived the apocalypse and rapidly built a survivor base. However, on the second day after she became the base’s leader, she had me hanged outside the shelter and burned alive. “If you hadn’t forced me to come back, Mark wouldn’t have been devastated and killed himself in the heat! He was about to develop a new type of shelter, yet you stole all the credit! I’ll make you pay with your life!” Even after my death, her hatred didn’t fade. She ordered someone to skin me and turn my hide into a rug, stepping on it every day. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I tried to stop her from sunbathing with Mark Davis.

My name is Elena, and I died at twenty-two. My parents forced me to take my foster sister’s place and traded me for a territorial alliance. My mate was the most volatile heir of the wolf packs. Beaten bloody and fading fast, I made my eighth call for help. At my adopted sister Seraphina’s birthday party, she played the recording of my final, groveling plea—and laughed. My parents listened to those desperate calls with nothing but irritation, dismissing each one as theatrics, an inconvenience unworthy of their time. My brother snarled over the phone, “Then just die already!” So I did. In the end, it was my three-year-old daughter who made the final call—using her smartwatch to video my mother, live-streaming the freezer where my severed head lay. Now, my spirit watches from above as they all, one by one, begin to unravel.

Rise of the Bloodstone King This is the fifth and final book of the Bloodstone series. It can be read as a standalone but will have cross-over characters from the other books. *** What happens when your dreams are taken from you unexpectedly, and you are thrown into a life you never anticipated? Told to now claim a crown only offered to you because of a life that ended to save it. Damon Bloodstone is the one person who can understand that loss more than anyone. From being the Captain of the Royal Guards to now only months away from becoming King. Damon must embark on one final journey before accepting his new fate—a new weight for him to carry. Find a mate and bring home a Queen to stand by his side. With a world filled with more friends than foes. One realm has an enemy he never saw coming.

Stanley Porter, my wife Jessica Evans’ close male friend, and I are both competing to be the next fire captain. In my first lifetime, I was chosen by a unanimous vote. On my very first night on duty as captain, Jessica came over to the fire station to celebrate with me. Sticking to my duties as captain, I didn't touch a single drop of alcohol. Yet, after drinking the chicken soup Jessica gave me, I fell into a deep sleep. That night, a massive fire broke out in the old district, resulting in the deaths of 58 people. Because I missed the station's alarm, I was accused of dereliction of duty and labeled as the main person responsible for the tragedy. The enraged families of the victims ended up beating me to death. In my second lifetime, I withdrew my name from the selection for captain. I handed the badge over to Stanley instead, saying, "You're better suited to be captain than I am." I'd assumed that this was enough to ensure that the fire couldn't be pinned on me. Yet, when the authorities looked into the fire, they ended up seeing me appear in the security footage from where the fire began. Everyone assumed I'd deliberately started the fire to get back at Stanley out of jealousy for losing out on the captain position. I now open my eyes again to live my third life. I watch as Stanley excitedly gives his speech on the podium after being made the captain. This time around, I submit a request for annual leave and take a cab straight to the airport.

Adrian Quirrel, the heir to the Quirrel family, had been in poor health since childhood. Guided by the old superstition that marriage could restore his health, his family had taken in four young women, with only one to be chosen as his bride. On the selection day, they invited a renowned astrologer to read our birth charts. As soon as he said I carried a healing energy and could bear healthy heirs, the Quirrels decided on the spot that I would be Adrian's bride. Three months later, his health miraculously improved, and I soon found myself pregnant with twins—a boy and a girl. The family elders were ecstatic and even promised that my son would become the Quirrels' future heir. But on the night of the christening, Adrian locked me and the babies in the basement. I broke down and demanded an explanation. He sneered and replied, "If it weren't for your so-called 'healing energy,' Emily would've been my wife. "She wouldn't have jumped to her death at such a young age if she hadn't been pushed to that point. Tonight, I want you and your children to accompany her in death." He grabbed a nearby iron rod and savagely brought it down onto our babies. I threw myself over the babies, but Adrian kicked me aside. Blood splattered across the walls and floor, and my babies' breathing gradually weakened until it stopped. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Adrian chose his bride.

Maeve Edgar's life plan was simple: survive until Selection Day, then disappear forever. As the pack's favorite scapegoat, she's spent years perfecting the art of being invisible. But when she gets kidnapped and dumped in front of the most dangerous prince in the kingdom, invisible stops being an option. Prince Riven is everything the rumors say - cold, lethal, and absolutely not interested in playing nice. So why does he choose her for some mysterious academy that nobody's ever heard of? And why does being near him feel like remembering something she never knew she'd forgotten? Turns out the Blood Moon Academy is where pack heirs compete in brutal trials to earn a place in the Royal Court. Now she's stuck fighting alongside the same spoiled brats who used to torment her, trying to prove she belongs somewhere she was never supposed to be. The connection between them grows stronger with every moment they're in the same room. It's the kind of bond wolves used to have before the Great War - the kind everyone says is just a myth now. But people are asking questions about her family, her past, her dreams of faces she's never seen. The wrong kind of people. And some of them seem very interested in making sure she doesn't get the answers she's looking for. The Academy was supposed to be about earning her place in the world. Turns out it might be about remembering who she used to be.

Dragons hoard gold. Korth the Dread hoards last words. Hidden above the clouds, his vast archive holds the final truths of kings, liars, and killers—sealed in glass, never meant to be heard. Because a single sentence, spoken at the wrong time, can start a war. When a vial is found empty, Korth faces the impossible: someone hasn’t stolen a last word… they’ve become it. Now a stranger walks the world carrying a dead king’s final truth along with his memories, his will… and his thirst for justice. If that truth is spoken, a kingdom will fall. With only a sharp-tongued human accountant at his side, Korth descends from his mountain to hunt what was never meant to live again. Because in a world built on fragile lies, the most dangerous thing isn’t power. It’s the truth.

“How audacious!” a rich baritone rasped in the darkness, irritation seeping through. “An omega harboring such vulgar thoughts about her superior.” My heart skipped a beat as the aura in the room flared again. I didn’t even get the chance to think when a gush of air brushed past me and in a blink, my back slammed hard against the wall, cold fingers wrapping around my throat. “Be gone, insect,” he hissed. I should have been afraid, hell, my body was shuddering. But a smirk played on my lips instead. “Found you,” I whispered, throwing my arms around his shoulders. It landed perfectly and before he could react, I gripped the back of his neck, pulling him towards me as I slammed my lips against his instinctively in the dark. Ariee has nothing—no wolf, no family, no place in the world. After a night of betrayal and humiliation, she stumbles into the arms of a dangerous stranger… and unknowingly binds herself to the most feared man alive—the Lycan King. Now trapped in a deadly bride selection she was never meant to enter, Ariee must hide the truth of that night while serving the very girl who wants to destroy her. But the King remembers her scent. And the closer he gets, the more dangerous everything becomes—because Ariee is his fated mate… the one woman he should never have touched. When love, power, and betrayal collide, Ariee must make a choice: Claim the King… or run from the bond that could destroy them both.