Pilgrim Church

"You were never her, Aria. You were just... there." Jason's words echo in my head as I stand in the back of the church, watching him mourn another woman on her sister's wedding day. Isabelle. The perfect dead girlfriend. The ghost I've been competing with for three years. I thought I could be enough. I thought love could grow where grief once lived. But when I find the evidence, when I see the hotel receipts, the text messages, the photos of Jason with Isabelle's sister Violet, I realize the truth. I was never the love story. I was the intermission. What I don't know yet is that nothing about my marriage was real. Not Jason's cruelty. Not Violet's affair. Not the stranger's rescue. They've all been playing a game, and I'm the prize they're willing to destroy each other for. When the truth comes out, when I discover why Isabelle really died and who's been pulling the strings, I'll have to decide: Do I let them destroy me, or do I burn their whole world down?

“Forgive me, Father… for I’m about to sin again.” "Get on your knees and take my cock like it’s your only salvation. Hold it like you held your rosary tight, desperate. Suck it like it’s the only prayer left to save your filthy soul." She’s temptation wrapped in innocence. And I’m a sinner beneath this collar. ~~~~~~ When Mia Voss escapes heartbreak and moves in with her grandmother, the last thing she expects is to fall for the man behind the altar. Reverend Thorne Maddox—quiet, composed, and dangerously handsome—sees right through her walls.And she sees what he's trying to hide.Their encounters are supposed to be innocent, church duties, quiet confessions, polite conversation. But glances linger too long. Words slip too close to sin. And when she falls into his arms… it stops being holy.In a town full of watching eyes and sacred vows, desire becomes the ultimate sin. But the deeper they fall, the harder it becomes to let go. Where salvation ends… temptation begins. ❕ ❕Trigger/Content Warnings:This story contains themes of religious conflict, age gap, power imbalance, sensual scenes, and morally gray decisions. Reader discretion is advised 100% Sex ❕

“You walked into the wrong place at the wrong time, Alvina,” he said quietly, his eyes cold as steel. “Now, you’re mine….” When Alvina Frost runs away from an arranged marriage to a man ten times her age, the last thing she expects is to stumble into another. Desperate and terrified, she hides inside a church, only to interrupt a grand wedding ceremony that changes her life forever. Before she can understand what’s happening, the groom — billionaire CEO Ethan Kale — claims her as his fiancée in front of the entire congregation. To the world, she’s the woman who stole another’s groom. To Ethan, she’s the perfect solution to his corporate scandal. And to herself, she’s just a pawn trapped in a dangerous game she never agreed to play. Forced to live under the same roof with a man who hides his pain behind a cold façade, Alvina must survive his rules, his silence, and his secrets. But as days turn into nights, she discovers that lies can turn into something far more dangerous—feelings. “Sign the contract,” Ethan said. “Be my wife for six months. No love. No strings attached. No touching.” But as her heart begins to betray her, Alvina realizes that some lies are too deep to escape.

Everything was going downhill. Caterina Mari Santelli is having trouble. At first she struggled to remember who the man in her hospital room was. Now, she doesn't exactly know if she loves him or hates him even more (the thought of planning a wedding to a man you hate isn't exactly inviting). She's also in distress knowing that her plans aren't going the way she planned. To add to her list of dilemmas, she's having PTSD and is afraid to even hold a gun, much more shoot one. Lucas De Marchi is just a dazed man walking. Something warm towards Caterina was building inside of him. He knows exactly what that feeling is and knows exactly how dangerous it is. But despite his efforts to stop his feelings, he always finds himself doing dirty business with her or for her. He's confused about Mari, and he's worried about his family and his sanity. To finally put that luscious cherry on top, Matteo Santelli, Caterina's uncle, has heard of her and Lucas' soon-to- be-wedding and is mad for being uninvited. Now the church doors are open. Only problem is, no one knows exactly if it's for a wedding or a funeral.

My mother has volunteered at our neighborhood church for over a decade. Christmas drives, Sunday service, any neighbor in trouble, she's the first one there. Everyone says God sent her to us. She thinks so too. She says God wants her to be generous, so she is. The thing is, when no one's watching, the generosity always comes out of my pocket. After she remarried, she doted on my half-sister Serena. Serena picked up a box of cold medicine for her, and Mom handed Serena the keys to my Tesla. Serena mentioned she needed to renew her car insurance, and Mom wired her the surgery fund I'd been saving for two years for my daughter Emma. That afternoon, Emma collapsed on the floor, lips turning blue, gasping for air. Her medicine was crushed into the carpet. Mom fished the last pill out of her pocket and dangled it in front of me. "Apologize to your sister, and I'll give Emma the pill." I got on my knees. But that same day, she gave away the cardiology appointment I'd spent three months getting. She gave it to Serena. What she didn't know was that the name on the appointment was her own.

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Warning: This story contains explicit scenes and is intended for mature audiences only. Reader discretion is advised. “You said you’d never touch me again.” “I lied. And you like that, don’t you?” “Ten Sinful Commandments? Sounds like a church gone wild.” “More like a sin you’ll beg to confess.” Lydia Grace thought she left her past—and him—behind. But when she walks into a luxury club in Milan and locks eyes with Damian Moretti, the dangerously dominant man who once made her break every rule she lived by… it all comes flooding back. He’s powerful, seductive, and hiding a secret that could burn the world they both know. But Damian isn’t just here to rekindle the flames. He has a plan. One that involves ten unholy rules, whispered against her skin—rules that tempt her deeper into a game of control, surrender, and secrets. “You want me to obey you?” “No, sweetheart. I want you to crave it.” But Lydia has secrets too. A broken past, a ruined family legacy, and a dangerous mission that puts her right back in his arms… and at his mercy. Ten commandments. One forbidden man. And a past that won’t stay buried. Obsession is the first sin. The rest? You’ll have to beg for them.

It was the third year of my marriage to Antonio Rizzo, Don of the Rizzo mafia family. He kept a younger woman on the side and had everyone keep it from me. They all said I was his first love, his weakness, the treasure he brought back from Cocily. However, when he got drunk, he laughed and told the family members, "I love Elena, but she's a bit boring in bed. She's just not wild enough. "You all know how it is. Men like a little excitement, like Caterina. She's young, beautiful, and knows how to have fun." The boy who had sworn in church at 17 that he would love me forever now held a young, beautiful blonde in his arms as he coaxed her, "As long as Elena doesn't find out, you can do whatever you want." The day I left, everything seemed normal. No one noticed anything unusual. The maid, Maria Russo, even smiled and asked me, "Signora, are you going shopping?" I smiled lightly and nodded. "No need to prepare dinner tonight." Antonio did not know that the 'boring' Elena he spoke of was the daughter of the Santoro mafia family. The women of the Santoro family never forgave betrayal.

Today, I am going to marry the man I love, Damon Mark Olson. We didn’t have it easy. I am the veritable Cinderella and he was my handsome prince. People frowned on our relationship. Even his mother never failed to show her dislike for me at every opportunity. But Damon fought hard for me. At the church, I heard the first notes of Pachelbel's Canon in D and started my bridal walk. Damon looked dapper in his suit but he looked distracted, and his hair looked kind of mussed. Tenderness swept over me. When I reached his side, he took my hand. An electric current coursed through our connected skin. Damon looked startled, and I almost laughed, The priest gave us his blessings. And to Damon, he said, “You may now kiss your bride.” I held my breath as Damon very gently lifted my veil. Our eyes connected, and I saw a swirling mass of emotions in his gaze before his head dipped and gave me a kiss that jarred me. He kissed expertly, too expertly, that my eyes flew to his face. And that was when realization sank in. I was not kissing Damon Mark Olson. I was kissing someone who looked exactly like him.

Years ago, I, Ella Marin, became the wife of Andrew Lorenzo, the underboss of the Lorenzo family. Sadly, my last three years were spent in prison after I caused a fatal car accident. I heard plenty of “good news” about my husband while I did my time. Andrew had officially taken over the Lorenzo family once the Don had stepped down. He then spent a fortune on a woman called Rose Gunfire and was rumored to have had a one-night stand with a rival. He was also seen acting intimately with Sophia, the Principessa of the Rossi family, and private photos of them kept appearing online. When the underboss came to warn me about Andrew, I remained calm. “The Don says that as long as you don’t cry or make a scene, you’ll still have a place in the Lorenzo family after your release.” I replied quietly, “So he has women on the side. I can handle that.” Three days before that, the church’s hospital had called to tell me that my mother was terminally ill. Since the Lorenzo family could help find a kidney donor, I agreed to a marriage in name only. All for my mother’s sake.