The Darkness Outside Us

I never asked to be his mate. Damien Magnus was everything I could never have, powerful and untouchable. He was the heir to the Moonstone pack. I was the pack's only omega, a disgrace, surviving on scraps and their mercy. When the mate bond finally snapped into place on my eighteenth birthday, I saw the horror reflect deep in his eyes. Rejection even before he spoke the words. But for a single night, he let himself want me. He came to me in darkness a desperate and hungry man. He touched me like I was precious, like I meant the world to him. He made love to me like I mattered. By morning, he'd made his choice. The note he left behind shattered what was left of my heart: "This never happened. You mean nothing." I would have left quietly. Disappeared. Let him have his perfect life with his perfect mate. But I discovered the biggest shock of my life, I was pregnant. Now I'm running for my dear life with his child in my womb, bleeding from wounds his vile chosen mate inflicted and crossing pack borders as a rogue. And five years later, when fate finally forces us back together, Damien discovers the truth. I didn't just survive. I thrived. His daughter has his eyes. His power and strength. He wants us back. He'll do anything. But I've learned the toughest lesson. Sometimes love isn't enough. The mate bond breaks. And sometimes, just sometimes... it can be forged afresh

Tyria Petreon is from the planet Earth. A planet inside Milky Way Galaxy. She always believed that there's an entity living outside her planet. Outside her galaxy. An alien. Something or someone that also thinks like her. Something or someone just waiting to be discovered. She thought that either their machines are not that high-tech to contact them, or the aliens' aren't that high-tech to contact Earth. But when Earth was slowly starting to become uninhabitable, it is time to search the space for any habitable planet. It is time to take a leap. -All rights reserved -Copyright 2021

IT WAS late afternoon when Andy began to pick up the clothes she had hung up this morning, but she stopped what she was doing when she heard shouts and footsteps outside their backyard as if those people are in a hurry. So she peeked through the hole in their wall that is already brittle. But to her surprised, someone suddenly jumped out from the outside and entered their yard-- a man wearing a black hoody jacket. "W-who are you?!" Andy managed to ask, so the man turned slightly to her which caused her to see the man’s face. "Shit," that's all the man said and ran away... carrying her... "Hey, shit! My panties, give them back to me!" Andy shouted but he didn’t look at her again. Her panty which was hung outside was taken by a stranger. And now, the question running to Andy’s mind is… ‘Who’s that guy who stole my panty?’

Sometimes love finds us in the most unexpected places—through the most unexpected person. At 40, Daniel’s life is a careful balance between raising his three children and running the family business. After losing his wife, he built a cold, impenetrable shell around himself—one he has no intention of breaking. Deanna, on the other hand, is full of dreams. With just one year left before earning her degree in Arts, she’s focused on one thing: making it to the opera stage. But when her best friend Harry begs for her help, her life takes an unforeseen turn. An outdated family rule threatens to keep Harry from marrying his pregnant girlfriend. The only solution? His older brother, Daniel, must marry first. To help him, Deanna and Daniel agree to a fake relationship—a temporary arrangement that should have been simple. But the pull between them is undeniable. She brings warmth into his cold world, while he offers her a love she never expected after a painful breakup. Together, they begin to build something real—something worth fighting for. Yet, not everyone wants to see them happy. Between outside forces determined to tear them apart and their own fears whispering doubts, their love faces an uphill battle. And with a 15-year age gap standing between them, one question remains: Can they defy the odds, or will reason win over the heart?

On the night of Halloween, my best friend, Mina Corvelle, rushes to save the black cat before me, triumph dancing in her eyes. That is when I, Elora Aldridge, realize that she has been reincarnated, too. In my past life, she scorned the stray for being filthy, so she kept her distance. So, it was I who took pity on the cat and rescued it. When I walked past an old blind woman manning a roadside stall, she told me that the cat was a rare dark fortune cat. Once it recognized a master, it would draw dark riches from all directions and bring unimaginable wealth. I dismissed it as superstition. Yet, the very next day, I was inexplicably promoted to director of the department. Soon after, my family's dilapidated old house found itself part of a redevelopment scheme, and we were given compensation of eight apartments and 30 million dollars in cash. Even the enigmatic golden boy of Lakeshire, Cassian Mercer, started to pursue me relentlessly, declaring that he would only marry me and no one else. But not long after I married Cassian, Mina trapped me—and the black cat—inside the apartment. She then set it on fire, burning us alive. Outside the inferno, she screamed, "Why should you get everything without even lifting a finger? All those riches should've been mine!" When I open my eyes again, I find myself back at the very intersection.

One week after moving into my new home, my neighbor, Penny Halpern, suddenly knocks on my door and claims that my son, Benedict Geller, has been spying on her daughter, Monica Ritter, when the latter is bathing. "I saw everything with my own eyes! Every day, he'd cling to the windowsill and spy on me when I'm bathing! He even took pictures of me with a camera! "I'm so scared! Who knows what he's doing with those pictures? That boy really is disgusting!" Penny and Monica threaten me to call the police on Benedict if I don't pay them soon. Feeling rather puzzled, I just kick them out of my apartment. Unexpectedly, Penny summons all the neighbors in the residential area over to my place the next day. They all gather outside my door and begin insulting us at the top of their lungs. "Hey, pervert! Get out here and apologize to the victim!" "Take that perverted son of yours and leave this place! We want peace to be returned to our neighborhood!" When I tune the neighbors out, they begin smashing everything they can see at my front door. So, I can only call the police. When the police arrive, I bring Benedict out of the apartment before taking his sunglasses off. "Officer, I'd like to ask just how can my son spy on others, in this case?"

To protect his biological child, the mafia Don deliberately announces to the world that my fiance is his long-lost son. A Rolls-Royce pulls up outside my house. My fiance stares at his custom-tailored suit, his entire body trembling with excitement. I'm about to tell him it's all a lie when he shoves me aside and brushes off his sleeves with disgust, like he's touching something filthy. "Stay away from me. I can smell the poverty on you from here!" "Since I'm the Don's son, our engagement is over. An unwanted nobody like you isn't even fit to lick my boots." I try to explain, but he pulls out a check and slams it against my face—the sharp paper edge slices across my cheek. "Here's a million dollars. Consider it a breakup fee, and don't bother me again. We're not from the same world anymore." Watching the check flutter down into the mud, I quietly dim my phone screen. On it is a text from my father, the mafia Don. "Mia cara figlia, bear with it a little longer. Papa will bring you home soon to take over the family." Since he wants to burn every bridge between us, fine. He can have all this fortune on a silver platter. Whether he'll live long enough to enjoy it is another question entirely.

The day Yancy Shepherd died, Benedict Page poisoned our dinner. His eyes were wild, and bloodshot, as he watched me writhe in agony. There was a madness in his gaze, but worse was the hatred, a disgust so deep it twisted his face into something unrecognizable. "If it weren't for you forcing your way into our lives, Yancy wouldn’t have died from heartbreak. You ruined us! It’s all your fault!" A photo slipped from his trembling hand and landed at my feet—Yancy at twenty, looking radiant, her smile as bright as a blooming flower. I collapsed to the ground, my strength fading fast like a rose withering in the final grasp of winter. Helpless, I waited for the darkness to claim me, consumed by despair and bitter regret. Why hadn’t I listened to the system and killed him when I had the chance? But when I opened my eyes again, everything was different. I stood watching Benedict flee our engagement ceremony. My brother moved to chase after him, but I quietly raised a hand, stopping him. This time, things would be different.

“What happens if I don’t give you what you want” “Then we’ll make you worship us on your knees, piccola.” Rafael muttered with certainty. Leone’s lips brushed my ear. “You’ll fight, you’ll curse…but in the end, amore mio, you’ll beg.” “…And you’ll beg for all of us.” Enzo added, as he crouched between my legs. Aurelia Reed has spent her life trying to outrun her family’s shadow. Being the daughter of a traitor, and a rising model means she has to work twice as hard to make a name for herself outside the Outfit. She is stubborn, opinionated, and the last woman who would ever submit quietly to a mafia marriage. But when her cousin refuses to wed, Aurelia is forced into her place, and handed to the infamous Moretti twins, two brothers who despise each other but are now bound to her. Different in every way, neither brother is particularly eager for her presence, and Aurelia quickly learns that her marriage is less about love than it is about survival. And then there’s Enzo, the youngest. He was never supposed to be hers, yet every stolen moment with him crosses another forbidden line. Caught between two husbands locked in rivalry and the brother she was never meant to touch, Aurelia soon realizes that in the Morretti's world, nothing is safe—not her heart, not her body, and certainly not the line she’s about to cross.

"I’m a good girl—until I got drunk in Vegas and married a panties-flaming-hot Irishman. Oops. I’ve always lived my life by the rules. Unlike my two sisters, I’m the good one. The responsible one. Going outside my comfort zone is when I wear red lipstick before five PM. That comfort zone of mine? It’s smashed to smithereens on a wild night in Las Vegas when I met—and married—Liam Gallagher. After one shot of tequila, then two, then too many to count, a good girl’s rules tend to disappear. And so do her panties, and her bra, and various other articles of clothing when she’s with an Irishman who knows his way around a woman’s body. Now my husband wants us to stay married. For six months. He says it’ll be worth my while. Considering our chemistry underneath the sheets, I can’t say that he’s wrong. Liam isn’t safe, though. Liam definitely isn’t comfortable. He’s like the male equivalent of wearing red lipstick in the daytime all wrapped up in an irresistible, dangerous package. Yet this stubborn Irishman isn’t about to let me go, drunken Princess Bride-themed Vegas wedding or no. Now I have to decide if I’m brave enough to break the rules for love."