Mark Twain Library Long Beach Novels & Stories

“Someone will hear,” I whispered, the words breaking into a tremor. His family and the entire Castillo group were gathered just down the hall. Smack. My gasp tangled in my throat. “No, they won’t.” His palm landed again, sharp and claiming. Smack. “Do you want to know why?” All I could manage was a desperate, breathless sound. “Because you’ll stay quiet.” His voice dropped, low and dangerous. “Won’t you, Abigail?” He rubbed the spot where he’d struck, the heat of his touch spreading like fire under my skin. Pins and needles rushed through me, making my breath hitch. I bit down hard on my lip, fighting the sound clawing its way up my throat. “Good girl.” His praise slid over me like sin, a command and a reward all at once. ***** Abigail swore off love the night she caught her boyfriend tangled up with the neighbor’s daughter. Relationships were nothing but heartbreak—until he came along. One touch from her new employer’s grandson, Christian Castillo, awakens a hunger she thought she’d buried forever. She knows it’s forbidden. She knows it can’t last. But desire has a way of burning through reason, and with Christian, surrender feels inevitable. Then her world shatters. Her employer is murdered, and the blame lands squarely on her shoulders. With prison looming and her only lifeline being a man who refuses to forgive her, Abigail is trapped between ruin and a marriage she never chose. But she won’t go down quietly. Someone is pulling the strings, and she’s determined to expose the truth—even if it costs her freedom, her heart, and the man she can’t stop craving. A story of love, betrayal, and the courage to fight for forgiveness—and for the truth.

“Mr Daniel, if we abort the baby, her womb might be damaged, the pregnancy is already a month.” “I do not care, doctor, I know what I have invested in your hospital, are you going to defy my orders? That bastard in her womb needs to be removed and I don’t f**king care if the option is taking out her womb, go on with the process..” What? He is going to kill our baby because of Rosa. “Please, don’t harm our baby, our child is innocent.” I begged in a faint voice, he turned to look at me, hoping he would have mercy instead, his Eyes were dead cold, giving me the chills all over my body, “What are you waiting for doctor, get rid of that thing now. “ The doctor signaled his nurses, I struggled but they gripped me as the doctor prepared the injection to kill my baby. “Please don’t kill my baby, please.” I cried out nonstop with everything left of me. I lost my voice as the doctor pierced the needle into my vein, my vitals became weak. I will never forgive Daniel and Rosa. I will make them pay….. Five years later, I returned as a multibillionaire and now the son of the devil that was once my husband wanted me back ,little did he know I am the devil herself. I am here to steal, destroy and ruin his life, the weak Lisa he once knew died that day at the hospital.

Four years ago, Alpha Matteo Donovan was drugged. On that crazy night, I became his cure. From that moment on, I was his most trusted Beta by day and his lover by night, tangled up in his sheets until dawn. Just when I started drowning in the heat of his gaze, his first love, Sabrina Monroe, came back. To please her, Matteo threw me to the pack’s borderlands, where it was rogue-infested. He even tore up Mom's keepsakes right in front of me. When I finally gave up and applied to leave the pack, Matteo suddenly began to look for me like he had gone mad.

‼️ MATURE: 18+ EXPLICIT SCENES. "I want you on your hands and knees doctor" the alphas voice rumbled as Myra's breath hitched, her core heats with a touch that ignited her feral need for him. "Say it..." he calls with a whisper to her ears earning a shudder to her blood. but she wanted this man. Craved him like nothing she ever felt as she whimpers in his arms. "I am yours." ******* Myra Emerson is a small-town veterinarian doctor who never backs down from the challenge, until she comes in contact with a wounded wolf, and in the process of nursing the wild beast back to health was bitten by him. This cursed bite turned her once small world upside down, changing her life forever. Now Myra has to navigate her new life as a supernatural. He is a brooding prince of darkness. A shifter from another realm. And now, she is bound to the marked claim and sired to his bond. Myra wants her old, simple life back, and to achieve that, she must trust this mysterious male to cure her curse. Which was all too challenging because to trust the prince of darkness was to sleep in a lion’s den and expect to wake up whole. And in the midst of all these, secrets are emerging… Hard ones that threatens everything she knows, and seeks to plunge her even deeper into this mysterious world. And into the arms of the powerful, strange prince.

After being given a second chance, a fresh lease on life, Liana was determined not to find herself back in the situation that led to her demise, no matter what. But it soon felt like she got kicked to the curb by fate as her only ticket out turned out to be the cold exiled rogue, Trevor, "The Alpha who never was." He is a man who lost everything for a sin he never committed, but he was punished for it. Bound by mistake, they find themselves in a union they never bargained for. She is supposed to be nothing but a dead weight he'd have to tolerate for the time being. And it was so for some time, until it wasn't. Lines begin to blur, boundaries begin to get crossed. From hate, something is born that only death can come between. As secrets are unveiled, and pasts catch up to the present, they must decide - whether to fight for what fate has thrown at them, or tear each other apart.

Maya Lancroff blames the Lycan king for the death of her beloved parents, leaving her and her siblings to fend for themselves. The festival of seasons occurs once every four years, under the full moon, to celebrate the end of a fruitful season and the beginning of a new one. Maya uses this chance to exact her revenge but things don't go as expected. She ends up with a pregnancy and a heart that beats for the King. Scared and confused, she takes to the wind, taking refuge in the hands of the enemy. Four years later, there are no full moons and the Lycan kingdom isn't doing well. A seer prophecies about the King's missing child and it must be found before the end of that year, else the festival of seasons will not take place and chaos shall befall them. Determined, the King goes out in search of his child and finds more than he ever bargained for.

To save her brother from execution, an unmarked wolf is forced into marriage with the Blind Alpha..a feared leader who lost his sight and mate in a war her pack caused. The moment they touch, fate binds them… and he publicly rejects her as a traitor’s daughter unfit to be Luna. Cast as a servant, she discovers a dangerous secret: through the rejected bond, she can share her vision with him. From the shadows, she becomes his unseen guide and the woman he falls for. But if he learns the truth, will he claim her… or destroy her?

The night Enzo was made boss of the Moretti family, I gave him my virginity. He was the heir I'd been promised to since before I could speak. We kissed against the floor-to-ceiling windows, tangled in the humid, twilight heat... His rough, urgent hands hurt me, but I didn't pull away. Even the pain felt sacred, a sacrifice I was willing to make for love. Lost in the heat of the moment, he promised me a pair of the most beautiful crystal shoes, so I could dance the opening waltz with him at his coronation ceremony the next day. The first dance is always reserved for the new boss and his future bride. I cried with joy, believing my years of secret pining and patient waiting would finally culminate in a fairytale ending. But I was wrong. So terribly wrong. The next morning, I dragged my aching body out to get his favorite espresso, only to overhear the guys joking as I returned: "So you finally popped the family cherry, huh? How was Vivian on your first night as boss?" Enzo's voice was lazy, mocking. "Face of an angel, body of a devil. She's a hot little viper in bed." The room erupted in sleazy whistles. "So, you really gonna marry her, young boss?" "Are you kidding me?" Enzo scoffed. "Vivian's just a warm-up. Once I get some practice in, I'll go tame the Falcone ice princess. When I get bored, I can always circle back and put a ring on her." I stood frozen in the doorway, my vision blurring, the coffee cup trembling in my hand. Before the world faded to black, I sent a coded message to the Don: "Uncle Romano, for the promotion in three days, get me a transfer. As far away from Enzo as possible."

"Let’s call off this wedding. Even in hell, may we never meet again." After ten years of living in neglect and betrayal, Roselyn chose to end her life by leaping from the balcony. However, she wakes up in the past—right on the night she almost surrendered her body to Derrick. This time, Roselyn vows to never seal her own tragic fate as his puppet again. In her desperate attempt to flee from her cruel father and her cunning fiancé, she receives an unexpected offer from her fiancé's arch-rival, Grand Duke Valthorne. Kaelus, the "Monster of the North," harbors a massive secret: he has turned back the clock countless times just to save Roselyn from death. Under Kaelus's protection in the frozen Valthorne lands, she must learn to grow thorns to become stronger, while facing the past traumas that haunt her.

They called her weak. Worthless. A wolf-less orphan doomed to suffer. But when Elara is cast out of her pack and falls into the arms of a powerful stranger, her fate changes forever. One night of passion with the Lycan King leaves her pregnant with twins—and awakens the powerful wolf within her. Hunted by those who once broke her, torn between a mate who rejected her and a king who would burn the world for her, Elara must rise. Because her children carry a prophecy that could save the world… or destroy it. ONE WILL BE KING. THE OTHER, A DESTROYER. Will Elara survive the storm she was born to command?