Number Eleven

I've been pregnant for six months, but my Alpha mate, William, has delayed our mating ceremony 29 times. He's waiting for his adopted sister, Rita, to find a mate so they can have a "two-couple mating ceremony." The 30th time I altered the waist of my beloved mating ceremony dress, the bridal shop assistant looked embarrassed, "Miss, this dress really can't be widened anymore. How about you choose another one?" Disappointment rose in my throat like bile. I called William, asking when the ceremony would finally happen. But William said: "I will give you an unforgettable mating ceremony, but Rita's mate hasn't been matched yet. Darling, can you wait a little longer? We shouldn't ruin her whole life over such a small thing, right? I know you'll understand. You're always so kind." My heart clenched suddenly. So, my dream mating ceremony is just a small thing. Rita's sweet, high-pitched voice chimed in: "Brother, my mating ceremony dress matches yours so perfectly!" That was the moment I realized I was never the one being chosen. I looked down at my round pregnant belly, tears slipping quietly from the corners of my eyes. Then, with a trembling hand, I dialed the number that had always been waiting for me. "I'm ready to leave." After the call ended, the clerk cautiously asked: "Would you like to choose another one?" "No. Just cancel it, please." I took one last glance at the dress that would never belong to me. If this ceremony was never for me, then I won't stay for it.

Si Steel Reynandez ay kilala bilang ang MVP ng Miamiranda University. He was adored by many, not only because of his skills under the basketball ring, but also because of who he was. Maraming mga babae ang nagkakagusto rito dahil sa pagiging misteryoso nito. He was quiet, cold, and had no interest in women. He was basically an introvert who happened to be a skilled basketball player. Kung wala ito sa ilalim ng ring ay nagtatago ito sa madilim nitong silid. But that would soon change. Thanks to Kennary. Si Kennary ay anak ng labandera ng pamilya ni Steel, at malaki ang pagkakagusto nito sa binata. She was a top 1 student in her class and had big dreams for the future. Nagkaroon ito ng pagkakataong makuha ang cellphone number ni Steel dahilan kaya nagagawa nitong padalhan ng mga mensahe ang binata na noong una'y ikinapipikon pa nito. But eventually, Steel would get used to Kennary's existence and they would become regular text mates. Napansin ng ama ni Steel ang malaking pagbabago ng karakter ng binata, at noong nalaman nitong si Ken-Ken ang dahilan ay ni-kombinsi nito ang dalagang tanggapin ang part-time job bilang personal assistant ni Steel. In return, Steel's father would finance her college education. Ito na ba ang pagkakataon ni Kennary upang maging malapit sa iniirog? Mapapaamo ba nito at mapalalambot ang matigas na puso ng binata? And... would she and Steel go beyond text mates?

"Did you kill him?" The detective asked again."I've already answered you like a thousand times... Yes, he was a monster. Yes, he beat me up a lot but I didn't do it. I didn't kill Jude!" Amanda replied."I'm sorry. I know what it's like to be a victim of abuse and all that, but you need to understand that murder is a serious case too. You'll have to forgive us for asking you continually it's just that you were the closest to him we've got here.""I wasn't. There was someone else he was seeing that knew a lot about him than I ever did," Amanda replied.*******The night was growing colder and the rains seemed to have agitated in full force. Amanda sat on one of the soft leather chairs that squeaked with her every move in the living room with tears in her eyes as she watched the rains drop on the floor forming small pools and waited for Jude to come back. She was worried sick about his whereabouts even though all his presence caused her were pain and more tears. The protruding bump on her stomach, made it quite difficult to move around at ease so she was stuck with calling his busied line while she watched the clock tick its way into the midnight mark.*****A heart rending story told differently. Stronger than Pain captures a dysfunctional Nigerian home where a callous man, beats his wife on a daily basis. Time flies and now he is dead. All the characters have a reason to kill him, but she's their number one suspect. The Question still remains, who pulled the trigger?

Lily Maxwell, a young, bright, beautiful, French girl. She has nothing but works hard to have enough. She won a scholarship to study in the best University in Los Angeles. Thomas Anderson, the only surviving son of a multi-billionaire family in Los Angeles who only has his emotionless but independent mom who wants him to marry a daughter of another multi billionaire family in L.A Fate brought Tommy and Lily together. They fell in love and in the third year, Lily got pregnant which threatened the academic life of both Tommy and Lily. "I'm sure you know me so I'll just go straight to the point. You have just two options" the woman In black said in a limousine with a face showing zero emotion. "You take that money" pointed to the briefcase beside Lily, abort the pregnancy and have it in mind that as of now my son doesn't exist to you or you do what you want and risk your life and that of everyone that has ever come close to you" Mrs. Anderson threatened. "I believe this is Tommy's life. And we both have the right to decide what we want without interference from anyone" Lily defended with confidence. "This is what Tommy wants. Trust me. But if you want proof, you shall have it" Mrs Anderson dialed Tommy's number and.. "She took the money didn't she?...Hope you didn't forget to tell her to abort the Baby to avoid future connection" Tommy said over the phone And that was it. Lily lost it all to love and the Andersons. Her social, love and academic life, all gone. She vowed to come back for the Andersons' downfall when it is VENGEANCE HOUR.

My boyfriend, Victor Pearson, was ranked number one in the world in horror games. Meanwhile, I was secretly working part-time as a monster NPC inside one of those dungeons. Every dungeon he cleared was SSS rank, whereas the one I worked in was the beginner level. We were never supposed to run into each other… until he nearly wiped out all the monsters in an SSS dungeon. The system pulled me in at the last second as emergency backup. When I tried to scare players with my awful acting, the live chat tore me apart. [Hahaha, since when did the monsters in this dungeon get so cowardly? She’s supposed to scare us, but we actually scared her instead.] [This is next-level dumb. Getting lost in a dungeon is embarrassing. Is this monster here for comic relief?] [Poor thing. She'd better hide. Anyone else might let her go, but if she runs into Big V, she's dead before she knows it.] [Come on. Big V only hunts the nastiest bosses. He wouldn’t even bother with trash like that. She would probably scare herself to death first.] I did everything I could to avoid Victor, to keep him from realizing I was the monster working there. But somehow, I stumbled right into him anyway. The chat exploded, waiting for my instant death. After all, he was a legend on the leaderboards, a god among players. But instead of killing me, he bent down and gently pinched my cheek. "Hey, babe. How many players do you wanna take out? I'll help you." The people in the chat lost their minds. [What the hell?!]

It was something that Lissa had wanted ever she laid eyes on their newly appointed supervisor over the small but continuously growing company that she works for. He's gorgeous as hell. And everybody wants him. Sometimes, Lissa even thinks about whenever she 'plays' with herself. But of course, everything that she fantasies will remain as a fantasy. That supervisor of hers is bisexual and prefers to do the deed with men. But that's until she hears a little something from a little birdie in the table next to her. "Karma is a bitch, and revenge is best served cold --- bitter and kicking." As the messed up relationship between Anthony and Lissa grows passionately everyday, a text message from an unknown number will disrupt their lives. The text message contained a few sentences, something vague and Anthony thought it was only a scam for there are so many opportunistic folks in the world. However, the next day when he turned up for work with Lissa holding his hand, a certain woman wearing a Burgundy lipstick rattled him to the core. It was Tessa. Armed with vengeance and a story that could potentially destroy the empire Anthony's father has built. "So... what's your plan now, Mr. Lee?" Tessa leaned closer, whispering words laced with venom to his ear. "Will you cave in, or... would you like the world to know what kind of twisted son a of a bitch you really are." Anthony swallowed, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His head was spinning and his world was crashing and burning and breaking in different places. And so it's true, Karma comes after everyone eventually. And this is his. "What do you want?" Tessa licked her lips then smirked. "Isn't it obvious?" She chuckled, her fingers traveling down his pants. "You."

Being born out of wedlock, Scarlet Beckers was bullied by both her pack members and schoolmates. She couldn't wait to finish high school to go to WOLFIE’S ACADEMY with her boyfriend-her pack’s incoming Alpha- after graduation. Then on graduation day, she caught him sleeping with the pack’s most popular girl and instead of feeling guilty, he tried to kill her, but her mother came in, fought him and saved her. That night Scarlet’s mother informed her she was finally getting married to the number one Alpha in the world and they were leaving the pack to his pack to start a new life. Scarlet didn't want to go because she still loved her boyfriend despite what he did to her, but her mother convinced her they had to leave or she will be punished for fighting the Alpha’s son. On getting to the new pack, Scarlet finds out she was mated to her brutal triplet stepbrothers. Scarlet will be conflicted with her new situation and even more so because she finds herself attracted to the three of them at the same time. She decides to stick with the three of them until she finally decides which of them she will settle with but then, with every day, she finds herself falling deeper for these men even though they were bullies, brutal, reckless and too possessive of her to a fault. And to add to that they had deadly secrets that could implicate them and threaten their positions as Alphas if Scarlet let them out to the public. What is she going to do and how are they going to surmount the challenges that would arise from their abnormal circumstances? But most importantly, who will she end up with in the end? ...

I was dying from my fear of heights, but my husband, Don Vincent, was busy with his assistant, savoring the latest coffee flown in from Hawaii that morning. "You're a grown woman, Bella. What's the big deal? You're stuck on a roof, figure it out." Then he hung up on me. I collapsed onto the hot tar of the roof, my body shaking uncontrollably before everything went black. It was two hours before building security found me. When I got home, I asked Vincent for a divorce. He rubbed his temples, his patience worn thin, looking at me as if I were a child throwing a tantrum. "Over a cup of coffee? I told you, the heights are all in your head. You’re perfectly safe now. Stop making a scene alright? What's this nonsense about a divorce? I have more important things to deal with. Calm yourself down." I stared at his back as he left, tears already streaming down my face. Something important? Did he really think I couldn't hear his assistant, Sophia, murmuring in the background? Did he think I didn't know he took her to the last family gathering? I had loved Vincent for three years. Everyone knew he was the center of my world. They all thought an orphan like me could never leave him. But now, all the love I had was eclipsed by a profound, soul-crushing exhaustion. I was done. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't touched in three long years. "Uncle, book me a flight to Seattle. I'm ready to leave Vincent."

Being the only child to the Queen of Castle Grey, lost within the confines of mount Trenon, Kilvic is made to learn a number of things best suited to the heir to the Elzcrid bloodline at the hands of tutors handpicked by his mother. However, his fifteenth birthday sends him beyond the reaches of his mother’s domain. She has tasked him with the duty of learning more. Understanding greater things than she can teach him, greater things with which to cope with the curse upon his bloodline as she had been taught by her father and mother. Finding himself in a new kingdom, in an academy designed for only the most elite of mages, Kilvic is tasked to survive the new things he will come to learn, while struggling with the chaos of human association, as he comes to understand that while he may know a great deal about the world from the castle archives, it is a different thing to experience them. The association between people isn’t as easily deciphered as the books made them seem. As he struggles with the task of becoming a mage and a student along with surviving new friendships, failure threatens him at every turn and people prove pettier than the books would have him believe. Yet, despite all these, somewhere hidden in the shadows of the kingdom, a creature stirs, taking from the academy the one thing it values most. Kilvic must survive the trials of the academy, keep his friends, best his first enemy, and ensure that what stirs must not cause more damage than the kingdom can bear, lest the supremacy of Castle Grey be called into question in realms beyond that which most know. And all in time to attend the Winter Hall Fest.

"A week ago, if you had told me that the world as I knew it was all a lie, that all of the fairy tales that my father used to tell me at bed time were actually not fairy tales and that all these supernatural beings, such as vampires, shapeshifters, fairies and dragons, were actually real, I would have laughed at you until I had peed myself and then called the men in white coats to come and get you. Now, a week later, as I am in the middle of a forest standing by the most beautiful lake I have ever seen, surrounded by wolves in various sizes and colours, and a number of very large, very muscular and very, very naked men, I am starting to think that maybe it is I, who is in need of the straight jacket and padded room and a hell of a lot of medication and sedatives as i am pretty certain i have completely lost the use of all my faculties and you are soon going to find me sat in a corner, rocking back and forth and talking to myself as none of this is making any sense to my primitive brain." Kari Has grown up alone, Her father disappeared when she was 5 and her mother killed herself when she was 8. After a string of Foster homes, she finds her self working as a Research Scientist where her boss and Best Friend sends her to Norway to work for The Nordic Research Corporation. When she gets there she finds that she is in for a shock. Not only does she find out she does have a family, but everything she ever knew is going to change. Her life becomes more complicated than she could ever have thought it would.