Like Wind On A Dry Branch

“How dare you disgrace the family?” Richard Donovan’s voice was as sharp as his grasp on little Samantha's arm. At twelve years old, Samantha Donovan realized one thing, some dreams aren't made for girls. Samantha Donovan gets exiled for six years, because she dared to play hockey in her twin brother's place. Not until a phone call changes everything, her twin brother is brutally injured, and Richard has a condition. She gets to play again, but in disguise of her brother, the very reason he exiled her. She has to take Adrian Volkov's place by any means possible. Adrian Volkov was the son of her father's number one enemy. The real danger was not in hiding her identity, but having Adrian Volkov, the insanely hot captain and guy she's supposed to beat as a roommate. He is cold, arrogant, calculative and very suspicious of Samantha. Each encounter brings them dangerously close together, heat and passion sparks on and off the rink. Samantha fears Adrian finding her secret, and their family feud was another factor she has to consider.

Twenty-five-year-old socialite and businesswoman, Quinn Rothschild has always done what is expected of her. The dutiful daughter that went to school to work in the family’s publishing company and tailored her life to keep up her father’s reputation has now been asked to do the unthinkable. Marry the son of the most powerful mafia don in the city to keep their family’s business afloat. A marriage that started out as just on paper to Dante Luciano, an infamous womanizer and lethal asshole. He has made it clear that he hates her and she feels the same. Quinn nearly refuses, until she finds out that her marriage to Dante is payment to the Luciano family for paying off her father’s gambling debts that threaten to take away their home, their business, and possibly her father’s life. Negotiating with the Don, Quinn agrees to marry Dante, though she knows that he is unfaithful to their vows from the very start. But when she starts being followed and threatened, who can she go to for help? The father who failed her? Or her husband who hates her?

Isaac is a troubled boy who soon has to come to terms with his past. What ails young Isaac enough to convince him that he is going mad.

I manage to drag Jared Sheppard from death's door. Since then, I've accompanied him from his poorest times all the way to the current moment, when he's now worth tens of millions of dollars. On the day his company goes public, he gets engaged to another woman. "Gabrielle, she's different from you. She's an actual princess of the elite. I need to give her an official title, so I can't fool around with you anymore." I never bothered defending myself. It's time for this farce to end, anyway. After all, there's still a man waiting for me at home, who's been calling me his princess since I was a little girl.

To rebel against my family's arranged marriage, I run away from home. Six months later, I decide to return to university and continue my studies, only to be told by a professor that Adam Richmond enrolled six months ago. Not only that, but he and my fiancée have apparently become the campus' picture-perfect couple. I go to confront him, but the woman claiming to be Adam's fiancée drives me away. "You beggar and fraud, how dare you call yourself Mr. Richmond? Besides, I am Erica Wright, the eldest daughter of the Wright family. How could I not recognize my own fiancé?" I stare at the woman before me, unable to hide my doubts. I've never met her, yet I've always heard that the eldest daughter of the Wright family is supposed to be gentle and poised. Could this proud, overbearing woman really be my fiancée?

When Asher Terrell's family crumbled into bankruptcy, I stood steadfast by his side. We lived in a dank basement, where I toiled through three jobs to help clear their crushing debts. He bounced back and proposed, promising me a true home. Three years into our marriage, I discovered the deed to our house bore the name of his first love. "This is what I owe her," he confessed. Swallowing my pain, I nodded and pushed forward a photo from back when we were crammed in that basement, with a whole table piled high with debt notices. "You've paid your debt to her with our house," I said. "But what about the debt you owe me?"

Evelyn Harper, a jaded thirty-two-year-old archivist fleeing a bitter divorce, purchases a sprawling Victorian mansion on remote Harrow Hill for an absurdly low price. Locals whisper that the house claimed its last three owners each found dead in ecstasy, bodies marked with impossible bruises and expressions of unbearable bliss. From the moment Evelyn crosses the threshold, she is no longer alone. An ancient, unseen entity once a man, now something far worse has waited decades for a new vessel. It feeds on desire, amplifies it, twists it into obsession until the boundary between pleasure and terror dissolves. Night after night, the presence invades her dreams and her body, forcing her to confront hungers she never knew she possessed. Each surrender binds her tighter to the house, eroding her will, rewriting her flesh, and awakening something dormant inside her own bloodline. As Evelyn spirals into a fever of increasingly depraved encounters some consensual in the heat of the moment, others unmistakably forced she uncovers the house’s history: a century of owners corrupted and consumed, their final moments preserved in hidden photographs and journals. The entity promises eternal ecstasy if she yields completely, but the cost is her humanity. In the end, Evelyn must decide whether to flee before she’s lost forever… or embrace the darkness and become the house’s new eternal mistress, luring the next lonely soul up the hill.

I was halfway through a sad cafeteria lunch when a livestream popped up: [Ring toss—whoever lands it gets the dog.] Onscreen, Alverton University's rich-boy squad cracked up, betting on who'd "own" me. Adrian Locke, the student council golden boy, flicked his ring. It landed dead center on my nameplate. "One month. Let's see which owner the little bitch wags her tail for." I closed the stream. Right then, a text from my dad lit up my phone: [Sweetheart, have you chosen your fiancé candidate?] I smirked, snapped a screenshot of the stream, and sent it. [Evaluation complete. All four disqualified.]

Mated to the Alpha and being the target of his cruelty, Lianna had almost given up on life. Until, his elder brother came back, the chemistry between them was hot enough to set off fire alarms, but he is here with promises to save her and take back his place as the true Alpha with her as his Luna. Even as she does it to get her revenge and her life back, her heart might be in danger.

George Sunther doesn't show up on the day we're supposed to get engaged. His family is nowhere to be seen either. Mom's and Dad's faces become increasingly darker as our relatives whisper disapprovingly. I'm about to contact George when I see a social media update from Winona Sunther, the Sunther family's adopted daughter. "From today onward, we're siblings and also spouses." A photo of her and George decked out in wedding attire while holding each other close is attached. Later, I find George, and he says guiltily, "Winnie is pregnant out of wedlock, and her boyfriend has made a run for it. I have to marry her first so that her reputation remains untainted. It's all so she can have the baby without any hitches." I'm stunned. The invitations for our wedding have already been sent out! George wraps an arm around my waist, his tone as gentle as always. "I'll marry you once the baby is born, okay? You're the only woman I'll call my wife, Mary. You have to trust me." I look into his eyes, which I had once loved with all my heart. My heart twists painfully. He's always like this. He always tells me I have to be more tolerant and magnanimous when it comes to Winona because she's his sister. I watch as he leaves in a hurry after answering a call from Winona. Then, I stop hesitating and call my parents. "Mom, is the Zowski family still up for a wedding?"