Ravenous Butterflies

Hi my name is Julisa. I am 17 and live in the Blood Lake Pack. Alpha Smith says he found me on his border when I was maybe 4 and took me in. I have no idea who my parents are. Alpha Eric Smith normally takes good care of me but he changed after I turned 14. I wish to know who my family was and what happened to them. I have a birth mark of a butterfly on my left shoulder but that's all the information I have. Alpha won't ever let me leave the pack and says it's too dangerous for a girl like me. Whatever that means. I have heard rumor of an Alpha Hades he apparently is supposed to be the cruelest Alpha alive. I'm not sure what it is but whenever I hear his name I get butterflies and feel like I am supposed to meet him. I just need to get away from Alpha.

What if you were held captive by your own family? Emma Rawlins has spent the last year a prisoner. The months following her mother's death dragged her father into a paranoid spiral of conspiracy theories and doomsday premonitions. Obsessing him, controlling him, they now whisper the end days are finally at hand. And he doesn’t intend to face them alone. Emma finds herself drugged and dragged to a secluded cabin, the last refuge from a society supposedly due to collapse. Their cabin a snowbound fortress, her every move controlled, but even that isn't enough to weather the end of the world. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing Everything she knows is out of reach, lost beyond a haze of white. There is no choice but to play her father's game while she plans her escape. But there is a force far colder than the freezing drifts. Ancient, ravenous, it knows no mercy. And it's already had a taste...

"Loving you is the worst sin I've ever committed in my life, Tyron," Lizelle's bitter words seemed to burn her heart. The butterflies in her stomach died, the rain joined her lifeless heart, and above all, her self-loathing could not be erased as if it was a mark engraved on her entire being. What can we bestow for love? What can we waive? And what can we give up? People who were met at the wrong time and chance. How long can they forgive each other to forget the past?

Havoc Alexana Javier over-organized every single thing, but not her thoughts when Meter Ozuluen De Leon was around. Since childhood, Havoc already knew how her eyes sparkled just by seeing Meter from afar. The butterflies, the chills, the blushes—they all started with a happy crush until that feeling developed through time. As they faced the early years of adulthood, things suddenly changed. Meter was a heartthrob and he was always chased by girls. As everyone else expected, he got a girlfriend at a young age. On the other hand, Havoc who had a huge crush on him found herself shocked because she was not that sad. It hurt her but not to the point that she would hysterically slap someone's face for stealing someone she never owned in the first place. Maybe because… Rhyme Okideo De Leon was there. Meter's twin brother. Havoc's closest friend. Rhyme always supported Havoc even with her crazy feelings for his twin and whenever it went overboard, he was still there for her—guiding and protecting her. He was consistent. But as time went by, his actions changed due to some inevitable disasters in Havoc's life. Probably because Rhyme needed to help her in his ways. The Rhyme ways—the things he kept holding for a very long time.

Vampires, I'd never seen one up close before. That is, until one tried to kill me. But he saved me, the Reaver Raphael. I know I'm only Human, but the more I learn of him, the more intrigued I become. He scares me, much more than I'd ever admit. My instincts scream at me to run. I know he's one of the four brothers who control the Underworld. I know he kills people without warning or trigger. I know the other Supernaturals fear him, and I know what he says goes… period. Yet, I find myself drawn to him, my fear tempered by a morbid curiosity. Being around someone as powerful as Raphael is daunting, yet every time I'm near him, I feel a swarm of butterflies in my stomach. But I'm aware of the danger. I've studied the Reavers, and I know their charm is designed to lure you in. Raphael doesn't even have to try… he exudes an effortless allure that draws me, and everyone else, to him. I know I should run, I want to run. But I'm frozen in place, and the warning signs only seem to heighten the allure. I've danced with danger for too long, but playing with fire has never felt so satisfying. That was, until I woke up in a strange place, surrounded by an unsettling array of supernatural creatures. Reality hit me like a slap in the face. And it's in this moment that I regret ever pursuing the man in the silver suit, who meets me in the diner... I've read enough love stories to know that love could be a fatal flaw, or a mans greatest strength. Could I be his? Or would our love become a fatal collision course from which neither of us would escape?

Bloody ! Those dark blue eyes pierces me like he can actually see my soul, like he could see the demons lurking in my mind “W–who a–re you?” I stutter unable to form a single word right under his burning gaze. His dark, soulless eyes rake my body in a ravenous manner. “I am your Alpha.” he growls, stretching his hand forward. He spins me around and slams my body against the wall. A grunt leaves my lips at the force that presses my front to the wall. “You are mine.” he whispered, his calm voice sending shivers down my spine. *** Grace's life takes a tragic turn when her father dies mysteriously, and all his wealth is taken in a claim of paying an unknown debt. It gets even worse when her mother becomes a drunkard, and she has to be the breadwinner of the family to ensure her brother is well taken care of. Dreams shattered, and abandoned when she found out about her cheating boyfriend. She feels it's all when life throws her another curveball as someone sets her up to be raped. What happens when her turns out to be none other than Nelson Divine. The richest man in the country. Not only that, he is her mate. Love, hate, betrayal, and nigh more is Grace faced with. Will her life change after encountering the demigod of an Alpha? Or is she bound to suffer forever?

“Do you take Shane Medes, Great and mighty Alpha King, leader of the blood moon pack to be your lawful wedded mate?” Lauren coaxed her words, holding a book in her hand. “Yes.” I smiled, the butterflies in my belly started to dance as I looked at the Alpha king in his face. “Now, your turn Shane.” Lauren darted her eye at him, “do you take Harley Steven, this ordinary human, a lowlife and outcast from her family to be your lawfully wedded Luna and mate?” I look at Shane waiting for his reply in anticipation. I have always wanted this day to come. To finally get married to Shane, just as the moon goddess has promised. “Yes! I would till death separates us.” He pulled me by my waist, my belly hitting his. He raised my chin with his hand, his lips curly to a kiss, and he…

"All she wanted was a spark, a fire that would burn her skin. She craved passion, wildness, and insanity." Among all the reckless things she'd done, sleeping with a complete stranger might have been the craziest. Things would have been different if she wasn’t still haunted by thoughts of the man who, for one night, brought three-fourths of her fantasies to life. Coral had given up hope, knowing that in a city of over two million people, finding a man whose face and name she didn’t know was impossible. But then she met him again—on a blind date. Lucian Andersen, the son of one of her father’s closest friends. He was devastatingly handsome, a cold heartthrob, dangerous, and whenever he smirked, shivers danced down her spine. Her mind went blank, reeling from the shock that out of all the people in the world, it was him she had shared that wild night with in an unknown room. The date might have been ordinary, but then the man, with an ego larger than a football stadium, said something that left her breathless. “I want to marry you, Coral Shen.” The butterflies in her belly might have danced at his proposal, but they died instantly upon hearing his true intentions. He didn’t love her. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if he liked her. But she knew one thing: the marriage proposal was purely for business. Coral refused, but the twists of fate had other plans. Against all odds, she found herself asking him to be her fiancé.

Life is unpredictable. The people whom we deem to be closer to us may not be one. The people whom we think love us may not love us. Laya, who is twenty-two years old, has high ambitions. But they were shattered when she heard that she was going to get married. No one asked her opinion or cared about it. Shattered. She wondered if her parents were alive. But sadly, there were no if’s and maybe in life. But she felt blessed when she got married to Rahul Ravi Raj, a billionaire. He is sinfully handsome, whenever he was close to her, butterflies fluttered all over her body. And he never left a chance to tease her sexually. When she thought her married life would be glad for him, fate had its last laugh. He left her for business for three months, with his mother. And his mother who was pressuring Laya to get pregnant got to know they didn’t consummate their marriage. Taking her son's absence as the chance, she tortured her. Laya almost died because of her physical abuse. By the time, Rahul returned she was in the hospital. Seeing her in that state, he realized whatever positive and budding feelings she had for him were dead. Now, all she had for him were hate and fear. But little did Laya not know was her marriage wasn’t a flash marriage or an arranged marriage. Rahul married her for his reasons. And one of the biggest reasons for marrying her was to save her from dangers. Can he win back her love for him? Can he save her if she goes away from him? What were his reasons for him to marry her?

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