Shi Lin Branches

From my earliest memories, my entire family is cold and distant toward me. When my parents look at my younger sister, Claire Lloyd, their eyes fill with warmth and joy. Yet, when they turn to me, only disgust remains. Claire's life is filled with applause and excessive love, while mine is filled with disdain and suffering. When the explosion erupts at the street corner, I save the stranger beside me. Later, I learn he is Byron Whitmore, a mafia family's Don. He begins pursuing me after I rescue him. Later, I quit my job and move to a new place, but he finds me and proposes in 100 different ways. "Why me?" I ask countless times. "Because it's you," he always answers. The wedding causes a sensation throughout the city. I truly seem to have transformed from an ugly duckling into a swan. That is, until I'm five months pregnant, when Claire needs a transfusion of rare Rh-negative blood after a car accident. The blood bank has a shortage. Because of that, my parents knock me unconscious and send me to the hospital. In my daze, the blood extraction machine hums continuously. As two thousand milliliters of blood leave my body, I see Byron. Tears well up in my eyes. I begin thinking he's here to save me. Instead, I hear him say, "We can't take any more. Sharon and the baby will die." "But Claire has lost too much blood. She'll die, too..." My mother pleads. "No one wants Claire safe more than I do." Byron's voice is thick with pain. "She's my first love. I've never forgotten her. I only married Sharon because her face looks so much like Claire's. "But I can't trade her life for Claire's. Trust me—I'll find another way." So, that's his reason for marrying me. The blood extraction machine continues running, but my heart has already stopped beating. The affection I see in his eyes has never been for me. He's always looking through me at someone else. Everyone in the world loves Claire, and Byron is not the exception that I foolishly believe him to be. That grand wedding is nothing but an ugly duckling's self-deceiving fantasy.

Jeremy He was my friend. The only one who understood me in my silence. I never needed anyone else with him by my side but... Why does he have to do it? He agreed to marry me because my parent's company was in debt and getting married to me was the only option to get my company running. So, he backstabbed me and stole me away from my love. If he thinks he will get my heart and body? He is mistaken. I am not a showpiece or a decoration. I only love Olivier and Magnus will never have me. Magnus.. Jeremy thinks I have married him because of his parent's company. But he is wrong. So wrong. He doesn't even know that I have always loved him, and he is my only Love. Yes, it hurts when he goes to his EX, but I will make him fall in love with me and I will tell him that I don't want his money, but his heart. And I am sure of my love that one day I will. It's an Enemy to Lovers, Happy ending book.

Emmaline Stone is a female Alpha. She’s the Alpha of The Golden Wolves and the only child of Lucas and Michelle Stone. Because of her hardwork, intelligence and morals she is deemed perfect in the eyes of everyone except for the glaring fact that she doesn’t have a mate. Some people thinks she’s cursed because her mates have since found their other halves from eighteen while she’s twenty-three and still mate-less while some other people think she doesn’t have a mate because of her title as Alpha. A short walk outside the pack territory on one fateful evening changes her story. She finds a man at the brink of death and helps him after she realizes that he is her long awaited mate of course she does everything to save him. Emma hides him away from the pack members and stays with him secretly to arouse suspicion from others. She spends all her time with him not knowing that her mate was a spy to a secret organization that wanted something more than her title from her. Caleb finds it hard to do his assignment with each increasing day as he gets to know more about Emmaline Stone, he finds out that she isn’t the picture his superiors painted in his head but he still has a to do which is to strip Emma of her title. In the end he has to choose between his belief and Emma. Who will he choose? His mate or his ?

I thought I felt a spark, not knowing I fell in love. And falling in love wasn't the merry shit they make people believe in, it as simple as being in deep shit. Rose Carson couldn't believe the moon goddess could pair her up with her alpha, her brother's best friend, and what she did hate most is rejection especially if she needs him to make her shifting process easy. She and her wolf, therefore, made a plan, after all, they are both two in one. Find out her plan in the adventure of love and those the plan work when the alpha does not care about who she is

Late one night after getting off work, I was scrolling through my company group chat when a colleague shared a piece of news. The headline was horrifying. "Night-Shift Courier Murdered During Delivery, Police Suspect Robbery." I zoomed in on the crime scene photo that had been partially pixelated, and a chill ran straight down my spine. Lying in a pool of blood, the courier who had been hacked to death was unmistakably me. I had scrolled into news of my own death. Almost at the same time, my delivery app began vibrating violently. "Urgent pickup! Destination: Unit 704 Hawthorne Ridge Apartments, Building 7. Time limit: 15 minutes. Penalty for timeout: Death." As I stared at the notification that read "Pickup failed three times", the searing pain of my brutal death surged through my body. So that was it. I had already died three times. When I forced open the half-closed security door of 704 for the fourth time, a thin delivery envelope lay quietly inside. I tore it open. A photograph slipped out. It was a picture of my dismembered body. The timestamp showed tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. On the back was a single line written in fresh blood: "Next time, remember to pick it up on time." At that moment, the red indicator light on the hallway surveillance camera suddenly went dark. I looked up. From the ventilation opening in the exact same spot, a single eye was staring straight at me. The mole at the corner of that eye was identical to mine.

TWO PINK LINES, ONE NIGHT STAND --- Beth Williams knew the rules at Knight Tower: clean, stay invisible, never look the billionaire in the eye. She broke them all at the masquerade gala. One spilled drink on CEO Adrian Knight became a $50,000 dance. One dance became one elevator. One night in a masked stranger’s arms became two pink lines six weeks later. Now Beth is fired, homeless, and pregnant with Adrian’s baby. He doesn’t remember her face from that night, but he remembers the scandal: a cleaner accused of corporate espionage. When she tells him the truth, Adrian voids his engagement to shipping heiress Valeria D’Souza and moves Beth into his penthouse that night. There are no phones. No unlocked doors. No escape. Adrian calls it “protection.” Beth calls it a gilded cage. He’s haunted by his mother’s death in childbirth and believes control keeps people alive. His heir will not grow up poor, endangered, or unloved, even if he has to become a monster to guarantee it. But Valeria brings a knife to Beth’s throat. The board demands a paternity test. And when Beth bleeds at 14 weeks, Adrian flies them to a private island with no way out. Trapped together, Beth learns Adrian kept her hairpin from that night. He never forgot her. She was his first choice in ten years, not a mistake. When premature labor, CPS, and his own trauma collide, Adrian must decide what he fears more: losing control, or losing her. Because Knights don’t lose what’s theirs. The question is whether Beth will choose to be his.

Beatrice is back to face her greatest threat since. . .well, the last time! In Cooper’s Cove a hapless team of archaeologists unleash the vengeful spirit of a 16th Century witch on the sleepy seaside town of Dorsal Finn. Hexes and curses fly as Beatrice and her friends must find out what links the appearance of this incredible foe and The Spirit of the Ocean, a super-yacht hosting the biggest celebrity charity event the town has ever seen. As the population of Dorsal Finn succumbs to witchcraft, so Beatrice must gate-crash the party with her motley-crew of friends and allies in the hope of stopping the witch's sinister plan, and save everyone from endless oblivion. . . Again. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Meera Gupta, daughter of Niyati and Manish is an architect who comes back to India, after a long interval to visit her ailing grandfather, Prithviraj, whom she is most attached to. Her grandfather's last wish is getting her married and even though Meera is commitment phobic she knew she couldn't rest without fulfilling her grandfather's last wish. Arjun, son of Shantanu and Pratibha Goenka is a young man, working with his father and brothers for Goenka Constructions. He isn't ready for marriage, especially not arranged as he considers all the girls considered for his marriage to be immature and materialistic. The real fact is also that he isn't ready for marriage owing to the baggage from his past. Arjun's younger brother is Aakash is married to Divya who is Meera's cousin and confidante. To make matters worse for Arjun and Meera, Shantanu gives his word to Prithviraj to ensure that Arjun and Meera are married. To headstrong characters, who aren't ready for marriage are woven into a relationship, will they ever fall in love? Is love the only thing you need to make a marriage work?

Aisling Maverick life becomes living hell when her mate Azelaic Rowen who was a beta disappear from her life without any trace. Aisling was left heartbroken but with only one choice to return to her pack, to family. Being the weakest omega in her pack she faced a lot of backlash from the pack members and from her father but Aisling's life took a unexpected turn when she met Archard harvest. The ruthless heir of Dark wolves Pack. Aisling unknownly, challenge him and found herself in the plan of him. The lights above me began to flicker. A few seconds later, the lights went out, turning the hallway utterly dark, which made me stop from running because I couldn't see anything. " No..No…No… Not now, please goddammit!" I thought. Suddenly, a sharp pain cuts through my thoughts, a hand that grips my arm and squeezes too tight. It's Him. He caught me and I felt an inmes pressure on my arm and had a vise-like grip on my arm. He could rip my arm out of my torso.My heart was pounding out of my chest. He could hear it. The only thing I could see was his glowing eyes in the dark void. His eyes were devastated. Large, dark, and inviting, they were the sort of open windows that decent people draped. I was so caught up in them that I forgot about my pain for a moment

Sophia Ward never imagined her life would spiral this way. One moment, she’s struggling to keep her family afloat; the next, she’s kidnapped by Adrian Vale—a ruthless criminal who threatens her family’s very existence if she doesn’t obey his orders. His mission? Infiltrate Blackwood Enterprises and manipulate its enigmatic CEO, Desmond Blackwood, into signing a contract that could change everything. Every choice she makes is a gamble. Every lie she tells is a risk. Desmond Blackwood has always lived by control and calculation. Blind yet unyielding, he’s nothing like the whispers that surround him. And when Sophia steps into his world—fragile, terrified, yet stubbornly brave—he senses a storm in her heart he can’t ignore. Then Sophia Ward walked into his life. Fragile, terrified, yet strangely bold. She carried secrets he didn’t yet understand—and a courage that defied her circumstances. Something about her stirred something in him he hadn’t felt in years. Curiosity. Protection. And perhaps, against all reason, something more. With the fact he knows, she is hiding a dangerous secret of her own— He still leans in more for her to trust him because somehow that matters to him. But in a world where trust is a luxury, Desmond would have to decide: Could he risk believing in her, even if it might cost him everything? And Sophia must navigate love, danger, and deception. Can she protect her family without losing herself—or the one person she never thought she’d trust