Relic

My roommate bought an antique bronze censer online. She burned incense day and night, praying to be with a wealthy boyfriend. I thought it was silly, until her face began to look like mine. Soon, she became the admired heiress, while I was left drowning in debts she had deliberately racked up. I begged her for my identity back, and she pretended to agree. However, she tricked me into giving her my bank account password and pushed me off a rooftop. I learned at that moment that the censer was a cursed relic that grants wishes by draining the life and luck of another. She could take everything from me once my life was ruined, but death was not the end for me. I woke up on the day she first got the cursed censer. The truth was every wish comes with a price, and I was going to make sure she pays.

"You don’t need to see the world to survive it," Lucian whispered. "You just need to belong to the right monster." Seraphina Vellaro, blind, limping, and silenced by years of cruelty, is the forgotten daughter of mafia queen Celeste Vellaro. After her mother's brutal death, she is imprisoned by her father Danta, a sadistic man desperate to seize control of Celeste’s legacy. But fate changes course when Seraphina’s loyal nanny Gloria escapes with a powerful relic—Celeste’s blood-coded journal—and places it in the hands of the most feared family in the underworld: the Morettis. Now under the protection of Lucian Moretti, a scarred mafia prince cold enough to make death shiver, Seraphina becomes the key to a buried empire—and the center of Lucian’s growing obsession. He doesn’t love her. He claims her. But in a world of velvet prisons, power-hungry enemies, and dark inheritances, Seraphina must decide: Is she still someone’s pawn—or will she rise as the queen her mother raised her to be?

In the shadowed depths of the Lycanthrian Forest, Sophia, a long-lost werewolf princess, discovers her true identity when her pack is attacked by mysterious hybrid creatures. As she stands alongside her loyal companion Alex, a fierce warrior, they fend off the attackers and protect their pack. This battle is only the beginning, revealing a sinister conspiracy that threatens all werewolf communities. Determined to uncover the truth, Sophia and Alex encounter an enigmatic figure who challenges them to retrieve a powerful artifact hidden in a secret temple. This relic holds the key to defeating Nyx, a malevolent force with dark ambitions. Together, they venture into the wilderness, facing a trial that tests their strength, courage, and loyalty. Their journey leads them into a cavern where they confront their deepest fears and fight nightmarish creatures. With their bond growing stronger, Sophia and Alex emerge victorious, claiming the artifact and the power it bestows. As they return to the surface, ready to confront Nyx, they realize the stakes are higher than ever. With time running out and the fate of their world hanging in the balance, Sophia and Alex must rely on their newfound strength and their unbreakable bond. Will they overcome the darkness and restore peace to their kingdom, or will the shadows consume them all? The journey is far from over, and their greatest challenges lie ahead.

“Say you’re mateless. No matter what you feel, Laila. Don’t you dare say a word, unless you want your brother to lose everything.” Years of crushing on our Alpha’s son, Cael. Years of secretly dreaming he’d choose me, even while Lysander clung to his side. All those fantasies shatter the night he forces me to deny him at the Moon Ceremony. I thought my life had ended… until one reckless kiss from Cael binds me to a new kind of doom. For my sin, Lysander delivers her price: steal an ancient moon relic from the Fearless Pack, or lose my brother’s freedom, and the scholarship that was supposed to save my future. But how do I steal from a man whose very name is Death? A masked Alpha who watches me with burning restraint, his nostrils flaring, every muscle straining as if he’s one breath away from breaking. Sometimes he fails. Sometimes I feel the ghost of his touch in my hair when he thinks I’m not looking. And sometimes… I wonder if I’ll survive the way he’s already claimed me without a word.

At the Luna Ceremony, my mate—Alpha Ares Grant—appears at the altar with his lover in his arms. He disdainfully throws the Snow Wolf hide, which has been enshrined on the altar, onto the muddy ground. It's something my mother left for me before she died, and it's also a sacred relic passed down through generations of the Moonriver pack. Legend says that if one's mate personally drapes this wolf hide over their shoulders, they will live in harmony and be granted a blessed future. For three years, this is the moment I had been waiting for. The next moment, he turns and places the Luna's Crown on Arthene Smith's head. "I swear on the Moon Goddess that Estella is impure, disloyal, and a fraud. I refuse to accept such a filthy she-wolf as my mate. From now on, my Luna is the pure Arthene, and nothing else," he says. I stare at the scene before me in disbelief and sorrow. "Ares, I'm your fated mate, your one and only Luna—" A heavy slap lands fiercely on my face. Ares strikes me down from the altar. The moment I tumble down the steps, I hear his cold, bone-chilling voice say, "You think a whore like you is worthy of being the Luna?"

Attending the ten-year high school reunion for the cheerleading squad and football team, I arrived in an old domestic Ford, while the parking lot was filled with Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maybachs, and even a gold Bugatti. It was as if I were the only relic from another era. The moment I stepped out of my car, a former classmate, whose name I could no longer remember, looked at me with a sneer. “Well, if it isn’t the coach’s pet. How is it that after all these years, you’re still driving this beat-up old Ford?” “This thing looks like it belongs in a scrapyard from the last century!” During dinner, everyone gathered around the Bugatti owner, raising their glasses in celebration, while I was left ignored at the side. Only the cheerleading assistant sat next to me, raising a glass in my direction with a comforting smile. “Don’t let it get to you. Your car may be old, but I believe you’ll be driving a luxury car one day.” I let a small smirk curl at the corner of my lips and lowered my voice. “This car may look unimpressive, but it’s been fully upgraded with a carbon fiber body. It’s already worth over half a million dollars. Too bad, none of you even recognized its true value.”

My blood-bonded mate lied to me. He said our bond—a bond of centuries—was fading. It was all for his new lover, Josie. He wanted to let her play princess. He denied me my rightful place. I was walking down a hall lined with ancient tapestries when I heard Josie’s voice, sweet and laced with venom. “Darling, if you make me your princess, just for a little while, can you taste me every night? But… won’t that old relic Lydia get suspicious? Your bond has lasted three centuries, after all.” “What can she do? She can’t leave this castle, and she needs my blood to survive.” Milton’s voice dripped with contempt. “That fool, Lydia. I told her the bond was fading, and she actually believed our connection was broken. Even if she knew the truth, she’d just hand over the Eternal Chalice without a fight and go back to being a quiet little Dreamweaver. You’re the only princess in my heart, my little wildcat.” I froze. And I let him believe his lie was safe. Then, a pain sharp enough to kill a mortal ripped through my soul. The bond shattered. I turned and melted into the shadows. Let them think their little play is flawless. They’ll soon find out what this “fool” is truly capable of.

“You,” Hades snarled, his eyes burning into Claudine’s, “are a viper in my bed. A ticking time bomb.” Claudine’s lips curved into a chillingly beautiful smile. “Darling, in your bed, I’m whatever you desire.” ~~~~ This isn’t your typical enemies-to-lovers romance. This is the story of the infamous daughter of the worlds greatest russian Kalashnikov Omerta,a woman driven by vengeance, who wanted the downfall of Hades Vancouver, the dangerous American mafia leader. Death was too merciful a punishment for the man who murdered her parents. But in a twist of fate, she’s caught in his grip and forced into marriage with him—the very man she swore to destroy. To Hades, she’s not simply his wife. She’s a snake he’s obsessed with, a woman he wants to bend to his will and claim in every way imaginable. Her true identity is hidden from him, but he’s been obsessed since the first night he fingered her into a screaming, squirt-filled orgasm that felt like a soul-shifting experience. The same night she stole from him. Now, trapped in a deadly game of forced proximity, where desire is both a weapon and a weakness, one wrong move could ignite a war that consumes them all. But when Hades discovers the tracker in her old gunshot wound, a relic of a past encounter, the game changes. Read on to find out if things were falling out of place for these characters, or perhaps things were falling into the right places.

His lips trace a path from my nape to my thighs, holding me down while Caleb pistons his hips into my coated folds. “Ah— R-Ragnar….” A depraved groan escapes my lips, unable to hold back as i thrash under the sheets. His thumb circles my clit. “Do you want us to take turns breeding you, love?” The warmth of his tongue encases my taut buds in a rhythm that kept riding me endlessly to a waiting combustion. “Or do you want us both at the same time?” “Please. Please. Fuck. Yes.” ____ When her brother is murdered on the night of his selection, Thalia Ashen makes a risky choice to impersonate him at the deadliest werewolf academy in existence. Weak, unable to shift properly, and hiding her identity as a woman in an all-male institution, Thalia should have died on her first day. Instead, she catches the attention of two dangerous Alphas, Ragnar, gruff and grumpy, her brother's sworn enemy, and Caleb, an angel with secrets of his own. They discover her deception. Instead of exposing her, they offer a deal, because they too have alternate business within the academy. But as Thalia's power awakens in ways no one expected, she realizes that she is not just an imposter surviving on borrowed time. She is the key to a relic that could reshape the werewolf world—or destroy it. And with the mysteries surrounding the academy, the lines between romance and danger might as well blur into each other.

MATED is book #2 in a new paranormal romance series by bestselling author Bella Lore, whose series MY TRUE MATE and THE ALPHA’S MATE have over 500 five-star reviews.

“I couldn’t stop reading.”

--Reader review (My True Mate)

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When her father suddenly dies, Winter Grace, 17, is forced to fly across the country and attend a mysterious prep school, an ancient castle in a fog-covered island on the coast of Maine. Nothing here is what it seems, and it isn’t long before Winter, feeling a surging power for the first time, realizes that she is not who—or what—she thinks she is.

But when Winter feels an inexplicable crush for an elusive and dangerous boy at the school, she realizes a greater destiny is at play. She knows the relationship might destroy them both—yet she also knows that they can never be apart.

In MATED, Winter and her crush embark on a dangerous quest to retrieve the magic relic and save their friends their school.

Yet they have no idea of the fate awaiting them—or what they will need to do for each other to survive.

Creating an unforgettable world of vampires, werewolves, shifters and magic of all sorts, a world of fantasy, love and sacrifice, MORTAL will take you to another place, rife with shocking twists and turns. Fans of books such as Vampire Academy and Twilight and Crush are sure to fall in love!

Future books in the series are also available.

"The story was very well written and was unique as compared to other shifter stories.”

--Reader review (The Alpha’s Mate)

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“Excellent from start to finish and leaves you wanting more.”

--Reader review (My True Mate)

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