Sixteen Candles

“Alex… I’m dying.” Amara’s trembling voice over the phone should have shaken her husband, but the renowned Dr. Alex Spencer simply replied, “Buy medicine and let me work.” The world envied their marriage to the perfect doctor, but behind closed doors, Amara carried every pain alone. Until the day she received two verdicts: brain cancer… and a divorce she signed with her own hands. She walked away, whispering, “This is the last meal I’ll ever cook for you,” leaving Alex furious and unable to accept the truth. And when he rushed into a house decorated with flowers and candles, her smiling picture greeted him instead. She was gone. He fell down, weeping like a child. But something still told him, this was all a setup. That Amara was still alive and he won’t rest until he finds her. Is Amara truly still alive? Read to find out!

Our third anniversary trip to Hawaii was supposed to be a new beginning—just me, Tom, and our son. But then she showed up. Blair. Our single, sexy neighbor with a killer smile and a suitcase full of charm. I thought she was just tagging along. I was wrong. One night, I overheard her hiss, “Why the hell didn’t you just let her die?” That’s when it hit me—Blair wasn’t just having an affair with my husband. She had planned to let me drown in the tsunami. I survived. But I kept quiet. I decided to play dumb—to smile, to act fragile, to stay close—for my son’s sake. I needed to know what they really wanted… and how far they’d go. Then, on my son Noah’s birthday, he made a wish. “I want Aunty Blair to be my new mommy.” The candles flickered. My heart cracked. Had Blair already replaced me?

When I was struck by a stomach illness, my boyfriend, Charles Fischer, was busy blowing out birthday candles with his assistant, Beverly Wagner. I lay there in excruciating pain, but he didn't even glance at me. Instead, he affectionately stroked her nose.  “Bev is a year older! Make a wish, birthday girl!” Later, after I had fainted and was rushed to the hospital, I called Charles, only for him to ignore me.  Meanwhile, Beverly posted a photo on Instagram. Gifts filled the screen, with the caption, [Yay! Charles is the best ever! Charles and Bev, together forever!] When I confronted him, Charles didn’t care at all. "It's Bev’s birthday. Were you expecting me not to spend it with her? If you can't handle it, we're done!" This was the umpteenth time he'd threatened to break up with me, always confident that I wouldn't dare to leave him.  Not this time.

Sage is a young silver wolf who grew up as an orphaned Omega. At a young age she awakened a powerful wolf, a silver wolf which was considered to be ominous. To survive, she hid her identity from everyone. At sixteen she was unexpectedly found by her family who revealed that she was the biological daughter of the Alpha King and the true princess of their pack. She returned home only to find there's no place for her. In her absence she had been replaced with another girl, Eleanor who had been the princess for the last sixteen years, receiving everything that should have been hers. Replaced by Eleanor, Sage struggled to earn her family's love but instead became the scapegoat. Forced to marry Aegon, the feared Lycan prince of an enemy nation in place of Eleanor, Sage sought escape and revenge against her parent for giving her away. Unknown to her, Alpha Knox, Aegon's uncle is her true mate but he refuses to tell her since she's to be wed to his nephew. On a full moon, Knox accidentally bites Sage, marking her and entwining all three of them in a love triangle.

I've painstakingly prepared a nice feast for my son's fifth birthday. My wife, Cheryl Bennett, looks a little impatient. She complains, "You really love making things hard for yourself, huh? How are we supposed to finish everything with just the three of us?" I just smile at her. Then, I whip out a birthday cake and get my son, Jasper Ford, to make a birthday wish. After the candles are lit, I close my eyes as well and make a sincere wish in my mind. When I open my eyes again, I hear Cheryl's system exclaiming in surprise, "Congratulations, Cheryl! You've completed the quest! You and Jasper can now leave this world!" Yes, both Cheryl and Jasper have already made up their minds to abandon me so that they can return to their original world. That's great news. After all, I no longer want them by my side either.

The Devil You Called Grimace. Hunger. Love like a curse. They say some doors open only once. She opened hers with three red candles, a drop of blood, and a whisper. Lonely nights, overdue rent, and a heart too heavy to carry — that’s all it took to call him through. Malik. The man made of smoke, shadow, and everything her prayers forgot to protect her from. He came smiling, with promises sweet as sin — protection, money, revenge. Every favor he gave her tasted like salvation until she realized he was feeding on her, one piece at a time. A memory here. A dream there. Her laughter swallowed whole. Now he’s the warmth in her sheets and the whisper in her nightmares. The devil she named, the lover she can’t unmake. Because Malik wasn’t summoned. He was chosen. And love — the kind that burns red under candlelight — always demands a body to keep it alive.

In a world of warring wolf and clans, a seventeen-year-old princess is determined to reclaim her kingdom from the traitorous wolves who betrayed her family. As she gathers an army, she meets two very different men, a prince and an eastern wolf king, both of whom declare their love for her. between her duty to her kingdom and her growing feelings for them, the princess must decide who to trust before the fate of her entire kingdom rests on her shoulders. Ashina's heart hurt when she was sixteen and found the man who stated he was in love with her, balls deep into some dragoness. Even if Cadma had never cheated on her, their love was not meant to be. The young prince did not see it the same way Ashina did and was not letting go of her without a fight. Angry at her true-mate, Andor, who did not save himself for her, she decides saving the kingdom is more important than having a mate. Is it possible for her fated mate and her to be together? Ashina had made the decision that love would not be part of her life at that point. As Ashina's heart was broken at sixteen, she realized that it was time to build an army to reclaim her kingdom.

Laurent Leyva grew up in Valencia, Spain and moved to the Philippines when he was sixteen years old after the death of his mother. Being the secret bastard of the country's head of state and later on introduced as the president's nephew; Laurent never anticipated it. He eventually met his half-brother named Sebastian Gabrielle Blanco, who was numb, cold, and slightly a temperamental artist. Until one night, Sebastian and Laurent did something that shocks the entire country. Something that people did not expect at all.

My mother hated me, to the point that she wished I were dead. I knew I deserved to die. Sixteen years ago, if I hadn’t insisted on going out, my brother wouldn’t have died while trying to save me. Eventually, both of us got what we wished for. I got brain cancer. She had become a stranger to me as I forgot everything and went to die in blissful ignorance. Then, she went mad.

The witch told us my older sister would die at sixteen, and her prophecies had never been wrong. From that moment on, my sister became the most important one in the family. The best venison was saved for her. The rare white fox fur was given to her. Every night, our parents told her bedtime stories. I knew she was pitiful, but I still felt hurt and resentful. Then, on the day she turned sixteen, a sharp pain spread through my chest. Afraid I would cause trouble, my parents locked me in the basement. “Mom, please…” I cried, pounding on the door. “I can feel my wolf spirit getting weaker. Let me out…” However, Mom said without hesitation, “No! Today is an important day for your sister. “She only has one day left. Just bear with it…” When I finally closed my eyes and my soul drifted out of my body, I saw the living room filled with warm candlelight. My parents were holding my sister who was alive and well as they cried. Only then did I realize that the witch’s prophecy had never been wrong. The one meant to die was never my sister.