The Defining Decade Novels & Stories

The impostor took his own life the day I married Cathy Jones. By the second year of our marriage, we had turned against each other completely because of him. She despised me because my return had driven Zac Lowe to his death. And I despised her for longing after the man who had stolen my name for twenty years. For a decade, we hurled the cruelest words and wished death upon each other until the earthquake came. She shielded me under her body and used her back to bear the weight of the collapsing beam to keep me alive. The ceiling fell. Blood and debris blurred together. As her life slipped away, she whispered in my ear, “If I had known he would die, I would have never brought you home. “If there’s another life, your only family should be me.” In the end, I still died in the aftershock. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day she first took me to meet my biological parents. But she suddenly changed her mind. “Harry, I was wrong! You’re not the son the Lowe family lost twenty years ago.”

When April Caddel was just a child, her world changed with the arrival of Orion King, a guarded teenager taken in by her loving parents. For over a decade, Orion was her protector, her strict older “brother,” and the unshakable force in her life… until he vanished without a goodbye. Now, six years later, Orion is back. No longer the boy she knew, he’s a powerful, aloof businessman with a new name and carefully guarded secrets. But April’s heart remembers the boy who saw her when no one else did. And her body reacts to the man he’s become. Orion is determined to help April rebuild her life, all while clinging to the one rule he’s never dared to break, he is her brother in every way that counts. But April is no longer the little girl who followed his lead. She’s falling for the one man she was never supposed to want. As boundaries blur and emotions spiral, forbidden love burns between them, threatening to upend everything they thought was safe. The arrival of Orion’s entitled half-siblings and a father who wants his son back only adds fuel to the fire. They share no blood. But will that ever be enough? When love dares to bloom in forbidden soil, will it survive the storm? Or would their love story become one more secret they can never afford to tell?

For a decade, Yolande and Don were the definition of endgame. From high school sweethearts to navigating the grueling world of medicine, they built a life together. Now an adult, Yolande works tirelessly as a hospital nurse, while Don has climbed the ranks to become a surgeon alongside Yolande’s lifelong best friend, Maria. It was supposed to be their dream team. But the sterile, high-stress walls of the hospital quickly turn into a pressure cooker for betrayal. Bonded by life-or-death surgeries, late-night shifts, and exhaustion, Don and Maria begin to drift into a world where Yolande doesn't fit. What starts as innocent coffee dates and trauma-bonding evolves into a quiet, devastating erasure. Yolande is forced to watch from the sidelines as her boyfriend and her best friend slowly build a life together, leaving her invisible in her own skin. When the emotional neglect finally shatters her heart, Yolande finds herself in a dark bar, drinking to numb the agony of a love completely lost. But her grief calls out to something darker. In the shadows of the bar, she crosses paths with an entity that shouldn't exist: a creature with no human presence, born from the forbidden, impossible fusion of a vampire and a werewolf bloodline. An anomaly of nature, it is an outcast wandering the edges of reality. Bound by mutual isolation, two entities that the world forgot are about to collide—and reality will never be the same.

Ten years of marriage, and my husband slid the divorce papers across his mahogany desk. "You contributed nothing to this family. Under the prenup, you walk away with nothing." "Consider this a courtesy. Ten thousand a year. A hundred grand for a decade of your youth." "Don't even think about touching a cent of family money." I smiled and signed. I'm the kind of woman who's already died once. The next day, I took that hundred-thousand-dollar check and walked straight into the territory of his most dangerous enemy—Dominic Salucci. The man who controls half the East Coast underworld looked at me like I was inventory he hadn't ordered. "Why should I help you?" I leaned in close. "Because I know every decision Vincent Moretti is going to make for the next ten years. Every property. Every shipping route. And I know about the son he's hiding in Zurich." He studied me for a long moment. Then he smiled. "Interesting." What he doesn't know—what Vincent doesn't know—is that in my last life, men like them buried me without a second thought. This time, I'm going to watch every last one of them kneel.

After my twin sister Harper died, my Alpha mate hated me for ten years. For a whole decade, I was his Luna, and I tried every possible way to be good to him. One day, he said, “If you really want to please me so much, then just die.” So when a truck was coming at me, I didn’t even move, but I had never expected that Noah would push me out of the way to save me. He was badly injured. Before he died, he looked at me and whispered, “Charlotte, if only I had never met you, everything would have been better.” At Noah’s funeral, all the elders and members of the pack came. “I should have let Noah choose Harper as his Luna. I regret forcing him to choose you back then. You killed him!” Noah’s mother was overcome with grief. Noah’s father also said, “You know? Noah saved your life three times! He was such a kind-hearted Alpha. Why didn’t you die instead?” Everyone at the funeral stared at me with blame. Finally, I was thrown out of the funeral, lost and devastated. Three years later, with the help of a witch, I returned to the past through her spell. This time, I have made a decision. No matter what, I will never be Noah’s Luna again.

On the day we receive our bonus, one of the staff members of the finance department gives me 500 dollars worth of vouchers for the fast food restaurant downstairs. He tells me that my wife, Jillian Dunn, who is also the company's president, specifically ordered him to do so. In utter disbelief, I seek out Jillian and question her. "Didn't we agree that whoever secures the project will get a 50,000-dollar bonus? Stop messing around! I still need to pay for Freya's cochlear implant!" "I'm not messing around with you," Jillian answers seriously. "These vouchers can last you for a whole month. I wouldn't even give them to you if you were anyone else. "Money is tight right now at the company. Besides, Freya has been deaf for more than a decade now. She can survive being deaf for another decade." The next day, Jillian gives one of the interns a sports car that's worth 50,000 dollars. I look at the photo she uploads of her and the intern grinning widely as they sit in the car and give it a like. Jillian must assume that everything is proceeding smoothly since she has signed the contract. However, she misses the additional condition that's printed on the last page of the contract. I dial her rival's number, asking, "Ms. Swan, are you interested in Project Charlie?"

Elena Moore spent ten years sharpening herself into a weapon. Her target: Damian Morton—the billionaire who called her family’s destruction “market correction.” To get close enough to slit his throat, she signs a contract to become his surrogate. But the first blood test shatters everything. Silver threads ignite beneath her skin. Wounds close before the needle leaves. And a second heartbeat begins to pulse low in her abdomen. The DNA Key her father hid in her bloodline is waking up. The child isn’t an heir. It’s a biological trigger powerful enough to control the world. Damian Morton isn’t the monster she expected. He’s the man who watched her mother die ten years ago—and has spent a decade building walls of surveillance and obsession to never be powerless again. Now he protects Elena with the same ruthless control he once used to cage her. “Touch her and you’re dead,” he growls, blood on his hands. Elena hates him enough to kill him. She needs him enough to survive him. As silver hair begins to fall and the child’s pulse syncs with her veins, the hunters on her revenge list start hunting her back. Now Elena must choose: Finish the revenge she lived for— or trust the monster who may be the only man capable of keeping her human. Blood remembers.And revenge never ends clean.

At first, I believed that the worst thing that could happen was my father abandoning me in that store, but I was mistaken. I was kidnapped, sold, and betrayed by the only man I trusted: my father. And I was bought by Lucian Moretti, my childhood love, Luke, who I thought was gone. "Do you remember me, Jules?” His voice was velvet over steel, low, threatening, and hauntingly familiar. Julia hadn't heard Lucian Moretti's name in almost a decade, since the boy next door disappeared without a goodbye, leaving her with only a stolen summer and a thousand unsolved questions.  Now he was no longer the boy I used to know. He was Lucian Moretti, the man who had just taken control of her life.  Julia is lured into the shadows to settle a debt she never owed, and she ends up confined in the home of the city's most feared mafia don.  BCaptivity is just the beginning.  Lucian isn't just after her body; he's seeking the truth that she is unaware she is concealing. This truth has the potential to destroy his empire.  Their reunion is not nice; it is nasty.  His smile is not tender; it is poisonous.  And what games are they playing?  It concludes with one of them kneeling. But in the dark, the line between revenge and passion blurs, and Julia is unsure if she is his prisoner... or his obsession.  Lucian desires more than just retribution; he wants "her." This time, he won't let go.

Two days before my wedding, I was sorting through some old belongings when I suddenly remembered the time capsules Ethan Shaw and I buried ten years ago. His expression froze the moment he heard it. He tried to talk me out of going. “It’s been so long. Someone must’ve dug them up already.” I didn’t think much of it and went back to our old school on my own. But at the spot where we buried it, I unearthed five metal boxes of different sizes. Two of them were the ones Ethan and I buried a decade ago, now rusted all over. The other three didn’t belong there—one was just as rusty, while the remaining two looked brand-new. The old box had Rose Quinn’s name carved on it. On top were the words: “My secret crush was a war of myself. Ethan, I wish you happiness.” I remembered her then—an unremarkable girl who used to sit behind us. And the two new boxes were engraved with the names Ethan Shaw and Rose Quinn. The date marked on them was today. On Ethan’s box, it read: “My greatest regret in life is that I can’t give you a wedding.” On Rose’s box, it read: “My greatest regret in life is that I can’t openly wish you a happy wedding day.”

Leah, Logan’s adopted sister, threw a tantrum at our first engagement party, an episode of her pup dependency anxiety. But after that night, I gave him an ultimatum: if he couldn’t bond me before I turned thirty, he’d have to choose—me or Leah. Logan believed I’d never walk away. After all, I was bonded by my dying mother’s last wish: to be bonded with the werewolf warrior who’d loved me for ten years. Ten years together. Twelve promises that he’d keep Leah in line. And then came my twenty-ninth birthday—our thirteenth engagement party. Leah locked me in a restroom, stole my gown, and stood beside Logan in my place. She was smiling, glowing, claiming everything that was mine. When I finally stepped out, my gown was tattered. I confronted Logan, but he only said, “Alison, forgive her. I promise, this is the last time.” I looked at the torn gown my mother had sewn through sickness and pain… and I laughed. Logan sighed in relief, thinking I’d let it slide again. But I didn’t. I turned and walked away without a word. After a decade together, he thought I belonged to him. Well, he was wrong. He didn’t know that there was someone else who could give me happiness and fulfill my mother’s wish.