Philippine Rituals

Isadora didn’t want to come to Ashwyck Academy. It wasn’t the haunting towers or the iron gates that unnerved her. It wasn’t the students—dark, beautiful, terrifying things cloaked in magic and menace. It was what it meant. Coming here was a last resort. A whispered admission from her parents that something was wrong with her. That despite being born of a temptress and a mind-bending killer, despite all the bloodlines and rituals and whispered prophecies—Isadora was still painfully, tragically human. She was quiet, clever, and careful. Not powerful. Not wicked. Not like the others. Her parents called it “late blooming.” The High Table called it “defective.” But no one said it out loud. Instead, they tucked her into Ashwyck like a final gamble and hoped the academy could awaken whatever dark inheritance slumbered beneath her skin. She hadn’t wanted to come. She still doesn’t belong. But Ashwyck has its own secrets. And Isadora is about to discover that the parts of her she’s most afraid of are the ones they’ve been waiting for.

---> if you are interested in my work, please check out my novel The Starving Vulture. Available on Amazon, $3.99 for the Ebook and $14.95 for the Paperback https://www.amazon.com/Starving-Vulture-Miguel-Monta%C3%B1a/dp/1951150899<---------The Pacific Capital. A product of an altered world, the legacy of the dead Philippine nation. A congested megacity holding 50 million people all huddled in what was once Metro Manila. It is the center for Pacific Maritime Trade, the world's largest Tax Haven and one of the few places in the world free from the Draconian but necessary environmental laws that saved the world since Cometfall. Ruled by Megacorporations, Corrupt Politicians, Invested Nobility and Criminals. It is one of the world's most important agricultural and pharmaceutical centers. H-6 is an Arbiter of the Court. As Judge Jury and Executioner, they maintain the essential Power Plant Canals and Massive weather controlled Dome Districts. Two elements that even the all powerful Megacorps need maximize their profits. Making Arbiter's Court the true rulers of the city. But even an all powerful Arbiter of the Court like H-6 knows, that Ambition and Greed will always find ways to ignore the rule of Law. Solus Valentine is a Security Consultant, plying her trade to anyone in need. She is a gun for hire who has the street smarts for the city's underworld. Whether in the gilded halls or the most flooded streets, she's ready for your contract. But while completing a contract, she stumbles into a vast conspiracy that just might threaten the city's fragile power balance, if not the world. She just might need an Arbiter's help for this one. One who might be someone from her past.

The Moon has ruled the werewolves for centuries—granting power, choosing Alphas, crowning Lunas, and demanding obedience. Nyxara was never meant to exist. Born without a howl, without a lunar mark, and without the Moon’s blessing, she should have been weak. Instead, the Moon grows dim whenever she draws near. Rituals collapse. Alphas lose control. Wolves feel hunger where faith once lived. Hidden by the Moonscar Pack and condemned by ancient law, Nyxara is whispered about as a coming disaster—until Kaelion, a Moon-bound Alpha raised to serve prophecy, crosses her path. His authority falters in her presence. His bond to the Moon fractures. And for the first time in werewolf history, the Moon does not answer its chosen Alpha. As the night sky begins to darken and packs turn on one another, forbidden truths rise from buried myths: the Moon Goddess is dying, and Nyxara is not a curse sent to destroy them. She is the vessel meant to replace her. To survive, the werewolves must choose between clinging to a fading god… or kneeling before the woman who was born to end an age.

For sixty-six full moons, Alpha Zephyr showered me with lavish courtship rituals, begging me to be his mate. On the sixty-seventh, I finally said yes. On our bonding night, I gave him an enchanted pouch with sixty-six moonlight crystals. We made a deal. Every time he broke my heart, I would crush one. It was the price of my forgiveness. In the six years since we mated, he has broken my heart over and over for his childhood friend, Chloe. Each time, I crushed a crystal. After the sixty-fourth crystal turned to dust, Zephyr finally seemed to notice something was off. I stopped telling him to keep his distance from Chloe. I stopped needing him around. But when he tried to leave me for that Omega one more time, I grabbed his arm. “You’re going to her. Should I crush another crystal for this?” Zephyr froze, his expression weary. “Do what you want. You have plenty left anyway.” I just nodded, watching his back as he disappeared. He still thought the moonlight crystals were endless. He had no idea there were only two left in the pouch.

In the world of werewolves, tradition is everything. Ancient customs, passed down through generations, dictate that females endure brutal mating ceremonies, leaving them scarred both physically and emotionally. When Celeste faces her own impending mating, she makes a daring choice: to escape the pack and forge her own path. Only days before her Hunt, she runs away to the Marines. The next Alpha of the Crystal River Pack can scent his mate while he is at the Hunt at the Silver Lake Pack. Yet he can't find her. The new Alpha warns Wyatt that if he chases after Celeste, she will run from him. He courts her through old fashioned letters carefully orchestrated through her brother. While he is in the Navy and she's in the Marines, they cross paths, but he keeps his distance. Will she manage to break free from the oppressive traditions that have claimed so many before her, or will the relentless pull of her family and heritage drag her back? The Hunt chronicles the terrifying mating rituals of the werewolves. However, interwoven in a story of masochism, true love is born. Are the bonds of love, friendship, and the fight against tradition strong enough to save Celeste? Find out in this moving narrative about challenging the status quo and the courage it takes to forge a new destiny.

My mate, Kane Blackwood, was the most feared Alpha in the Northlands. For three years, he treated me like something that belonged to him. He would drag me into his arms on the stone steps after moon rituals, pin me against the wall in Blackthorn Keep’s long corridors, and bite the mark on the back of my neck beside the patrol trails in the border woods, as if he needed everyone to remember exactly whose Luna I was. I used to think that was his way of loving me. Rough. Possessive. Lacking tenderness. But love, all the same. Until one night, I stopped outside the council hall and heard an elder say in a furious voice, “Those charcoal sketches on the black market were released by your people, weren’t they? Every one of them is of you and Elena in bed. She has become a joke across the pack. Do you even understand what you’ve done?” There was a brief silence. Then Kane said, coldly, “She is the Luna the council chose for me. She is not the woman I wanted.” I stood frozen outside the door. All those years, I thought his roughness meant he loved me too fiercely to be gentle. But it was never love. It was humiliation. Punishment for taking the place of the woman he actually wanted. I lowered my eyes to the moonstone bracelet on my wrist, the one he had clasped there the day our mating contract was sealed. If that was all I had ever been to him, then I would leave.

Kilala sa high society ng Pilipinas ang five year relationship nina Nevaeh Solene Dizon at Jeston Stefan Ferrer. Sigurado ang lahat na kasal na ang susunod na mangyayari. Pero sa araw mismo na pipirma na sana sila ng marriage certificate, hindi dumating si Jeston dahil sa adopted sister nito. Doon na napuno si Nevaeh. Nakipaghiwalay siya at piniling talikuran ang lalaking akala niya’y makakasama niya habang-buhay. Ngunit dahil sa isang mapang-asar na phone call, bigla siyang gumawa ng impulsive decision, ang magpakasal sa ibang lalaki. Kay Sven Antonius Ferrer. Si Sven ang kinatatakutang “Prince” ng Philippine Entertainment Industry at ang utak sa likod ng isang malaking financial empire sa ibang bansa. Powerful, Cold, and no one could easily approach him. Pero may isang mas malaking problema… si Sven ang nakatatandang kapatid ng ex-boyfriend ni Nevaeh kaya laking gulat ng lahat nang bigla silang maging mag-asawa. Mas lalo pang nagulat ang mga tao nang makita kung paano tratuhin ni Sven si Nevaeh. Sobra ang pag-aalaga ni Sven kay Nevaeh: pinoprotektahan, inaalagaan, at tinatrato na parang reyna. At nang muli si Nevaeh maliitin ng ex-boyfriend, hindi nagdalawang-isip si Sven na ipagtanggol siya, kahit kapatid pa nito ang kaaway. Doon lang nalaman ni Nevaeh ang totoo: sampung taon na palang may lihim na pagtingin si Sven sa kanya. Ang kasal nila ay hindi aksidente… bahagi ito ng planong matagal na niyang hinihintay. Ngayon na alam na niya ang lahat, tatakbo ba si Nevaeh… o pipiliin niyang mahalin ang lalaking sampung taon na naghintay para sa kanya?

She died on Christmas Eve—betrayed, hunted, and sacrificed by the mate who promised her forever. But the Moon Goddess isn’t done with Mara Hartwell. Returned to the past with only days before her doomed wedding, Mara is given one impossible path to survival: Make the Alpha who refuses to celebrate Christmas fall in love with her. Alpha Aldrich Valtor is everything danger should look like—cold, feared, marked by a Christmas Eve tragedy that shattered him, and bound to secrets no one dares question. He doesn’t want a mate. He doesn’t believe in fate. And he certainly doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Yet when Mara crosses into his world—bleeding, desperate, and more alluring than she should be—something inside him answers. A contract becomes a lifeline. A stranger becomes a shield. And a forbidden pull neither understands begins to burn between them. But the past is never far behind. Enemies circle. Old debts rise. Shadows whisper of curses, rituals, and a truth that could ruin them both. As Christmas draws near, Mara must decide whether to trust the dangerous Alpha who could save her life… or break her heart worse than destiny ever did. Because this Christmas, survival isn’t guaranteed. Love might be the only thing powerful enough to rewrite fate—and it might also be the price.

Shamia Gyllette Sandler. Filipino-American. A famous Enterprenuer who owns the biggest magazine company, the Shamia’s Magazine located in London, the agency also have offices in New York City, Los Angeles and here in the Philippines. And as for the moment she’s giving her full attention in the SM that located in the Philippines.In her status in life she badly needed a skilled and trusted bodyguard that can protect and defend her in anything that may happen to her. She also wants the kind of bodyguard that she can bring anywhere around the world because she has many appointment and meetings around Philippine premises and abroad.Kaya lamang ay tila mahihirapan siya sa paghahanap ng ganoong klase ng bodyguard dahil hindi niya kayang ipagkatiwala ng basta ang kanyang buhay. Lalo na sa estado ng pamumuhay ng dalaga.Marami na siyang agencies na nakausap dahil na rin sa suhestiyon ng kanyang pamilya pero wala siyang natipuhan sa mga tauhan ng nasabing agencies. Hanggang sa may agency na nabanggit ang kaibigan niyang si Krystaleen. The good thing in the said agency is that she can choose whoever she wants to entrust her life. At nang papiliin at iharap na sa dalaga ang mga tauhan na maari niyang pagpilian nakuha ang atensiyon ni Shamia ng isang lalaki.Lalaking nag-ngangalang Kaiser Pineda. Ang lalaking pakiramdam niya’y ligtas siya sa mga bisig nito at kapag nasa tabi niya ito. Kaya’t ginawa niya ang sa tingin niya’y tama. Ngunit tama ba ang desisyon ng dalaga? Paano kung mahulog ang loob niya sa kaniyang bodyguard?Ngunit paano kung ang binatang kaniyang iniibig ay may mahal na palang iba? Ipaglalaban ba niya ang pusong umiibig o magparaya at palayain ang binatang minamahal, para sa sarili nitong kaligayahan?

The Mother That Fed the Dark is a study of inherited guilt, ritual, and the long reach of a mother's choices. Amahle, a woman who practices the old rituals in secret, believes that her younger son , Sipho, was born as a spiritual "door" to be sacrificed for the sake of power and protection. During the ritual she performed , she got interrupted by the older son, Thando, who died instead. While the community believes Thando's death was accidental, Amahle knows better: it was the wrong son who died, and the ritual was left unfinished. Drenched in fear and resentment , Amahle raises Sipho as if he is the love of her life, while at the same time working to destroy him. Behind closed doors, she feeds the supernatural force from the failed ritual, which weakens Sipho, making him fearful and dependent. As Sipho grows, so do the misfortunes that follow him, and an unseen entity begins to present itself-first in dreams and whispers, then in the physical world . What we see is that the ritual did not bind to the house but to Sipho's bloodline. When Sipho leaves home, the haunting grows stronger. After Amahle's death, Sipho finds her secret notebooks , which reveal to him the shocking truth: that his brother's death was a mistake and, in fact, Sipho was never meant to die but to be the vehicle for the ritual, which he indeed is. Setting the family home on fire brings only temporary relief , but the curse does not break. In the final revelation, Sipho realizes that he is not the offering but the keeper, the living portal through which harmony, hardship, and magical power flow. Unlike his mother, he comes to the realization that he has a choice.