The Past As Prologue

We had been married for three years, yet my husband, Richard Thornton, who suffered from touch deprivation syndrome, still refused to consummate our marriage. Every time his condition flared up, he would only press his forehead tightly against the curve of my neck. I assumed he was saving himself for his first love, the woman who had left years ago. Then, I overheard him talking to his friends. "Stop teasing her next time. It makes her tense up every time." "Got it, Richard. But if you care about Valeria so much, why won't you touch her? It's been three years. Aren't you worried she'll leave you for someone else?" Richard shook his head. "You don't understand. The longer we're together, the harder it is to control myself around her. She's so delicate. I'm terrified I'll hurt her. As long as she's mine, I wouldn't care even if she slept with someone else first." His friends burst out laughing. "Richard, you're all talk. If you could really handle her being with another man, you wouldn't keep running to the hospital. You think we don't know what you're up to?" The next day, I found Richard's medical records. Visit after visit, he kept asking the same question, "How can I be gentler in bed? I don't want to hurt the woman I love."

ZELIA is a proud woman. She's one of the most popular business women out there who lead for success. But behind those smiles and prim gestures, she's actually a brat. She sees herself as a princess—no, not just a princess but a Queen. She's the type of a woman who would pay tenfolds with someone who would mess with her. However, she died in a tragic way and her death led her to be reincarnated. Ironically, she was reincarnated as the Emperor's servant, which was the word she hated to be called with. Could a proud, independent woman like her survive this reincarnated life as the Emperor's servant?

Indiana Sage wakes up inside her own werewolf novel—not as the loved main character but as the hated villain. Now reborn as Lady Lucindabella Pendragon, she’s doomed to die painfully. She’s already ruined lives, forced an engagement, and tried to destroy the kingdom’s greatest love story. Worse, she’s engaged to Alpha Romanov “Rome” Windsor, the cold, dangerously powerful wolf prince who despises her and has every reason to. Determined to survive, Indy breaks the engagement and steps off the villain’s path. She helps Rome fall in love with Clara, the woman he’s meant to choose. But the more she stays out of the spotlight, the more attention she draws. The kingdom starts watching. Other men start wanting her. And Rome can’t stop watching the woman who now refuses to fight for him. As desire tangles with regret, Indy realizes the story is no longer following the script she wrote. She was supposed to fade into the background. Instead, she becomes the one everyone wants.

I was prepping the ceremonial cloak for our seventh mating anniversary. The front door suddenly banged open. My son rushed inside, tears streaming down his face. "The teacher yelled at me," he sobbed. He shoved the wrinkled drawing into my hands before burying his face in my shirt. I smoothed out the paper to see what the drama was about. It was a sketch of a faceless woman titled: The Substitute Mom. My heart stopped as I read the scribbles underneath. "Daddy said she is the backup." "She does the chores but gets no wages." "The Real Mom is responsible for being beautiful and guarding the treasury." My fingertips turned ice-cold against the paper. My mate, Ethan, had just returned from a patrol. He kissed my forehead. "What did our pup draw?" The next second, his smile froze when he saw the content. His voice tightened, and he reached out to snatch the book. "He watches too many cartoons! He's writing nonsense!" I stared at the man I had shared a den with for seven years. He looked like a stranger now. If I was the substitute. Who was this beautiful real mother? And where had my true son been all these years?

Sienna Valeria Storm thought her only crime was surviving. As the last Ruby Wolf, she has been hunted, accused of murdering an Alpha, and forced into hiding. But when she stumbles into the path of Kieran Draven Wolfe, the most feared Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack, her fate is sealed. He offers her a choice—stand trial and face execution or become his mate to break his deadly curse. But Kieran isn’t the only one drawn to her. Ronan Voss, an assassin from her forgotten past, has been ordered to kill her, yet his heart refuses. Caius Blackthorne, a vampire prince, offers her power in exchange for her loyalty. As the Celestial Trials force her to choose a mate, dark forces rise, and secrets long buried begin to surface. Because the Midnight Syndicate doesn’t just want her dead—they want her power. And the truth? If she bonds with the wrong mate, she could doom them all. She was born a legend. She will die a queen—or a monster.

Amara is cursed as a second chance mate to her alpha who blames her for getting his first mate killed. Alpha Matteo doesn't want a second chance mate as his first mate was in love with someone else and had to be with him. He's tired of being someone's second choice, but when he gets a second chance mate in the she wolf who is his daughters nanny and the one he pretends to blame for his first mate's death, well what is an Alpha to do? Lana, his daughter, loves Amara and will be thrileld to have her as her mom. The two have a special relationship. As Matteo wrestles with himself to do things better with his second chance mate, he also struggles with his grief. Amara isn't sure how to react to Matteo as she is attracted to him, but loving him is painful as she fears his hate for her will never allow him to love her back. Can the two work past all the challenges they face, can their painful love turn into true love, or are second chance mates really the curse everyone things they are?

After a devastating car crash, Nicole awakens with no memory of her past life, only to discover she is pregnant. Taken in by Brenda, an old nurse living in a remote cabin, she learns to navigate a life without modern conveniences while grappling with her lost identity. As she slowly recovers, fragments of her past begin to resurface. Years later, she returns to the city, now with a young child, only to find her husband engaged to someone she once knew very well. Confronted with a new reality and old betrayals, she must uncover the truth about her past, navigate complex relationships, and decide the future for herself and her child.

Cesare Xandri, the rising gangster of the Nalitan mafia, unexpectedly lost a bet at an elite private casino in Ithel, the kind that smells like cigar smoke and blood money. The penalty was simple, he had to call his hard-to-tame pet. The phone was on speaker. The men circled him, whistling and hooting, waiting to be entertained. He asked what I was up to in a relaxed and amused tone. I replied softly, insinuating he was sinful, hiding my defiance behind innocence and fake devotion. When I finished my insult, the room fell silent, then burst into loud and uncontrollable laughter. The call ended. Less than thirty minutes later, the mansion gates were smashed open. He stormed in smelling of gunpowder, a Beretta still in his hand. He pushed me against the wall furiously beneath the Virgin Mary statue. I leaned into him without hesitation, fingers brushing the heated gun, and I met his gaze without fear. I chose virtue and rejected him in my past life, in return I was thrown into the open sea to die. I intended to be his temptation when I got a second chance at life, I wanted to be a beautiful sin that ends his story under the Cecilian sun.

Hansel Hill, 121 years old, a female werewolf, is forced to go to high school to look after her brother, Alexus Hill (aka Alex). Alex is in his earliest stage in life, 13 years old and first high school, so he needs to have a guide with him in interacting with humans. Hansel hates the idea of going to high school again because she has gone through it three times already, and all of her high school lives are nothing near fun. But, she learns that going to high school again is not all about babysitting her brother. Something happened in their old neighborhood that makes Hansel's existence a threat to their wolf family. Hansel's wolf family believes that she can't handle human interactions anymore and that they need Hansel to be sent to the wilderness. Hansel hates such ideas more than going to high school, so she will prove them wrong by going to high school again maintaining an average simple life of a nerd. On her stay, she will unexpectedly find her mate in the person of Arche Jones, a popular guy who will oddly find her disguise amusing. But as far as Hansel knows, Arche is a human. Can a human mate be possible? Can her planned average simple life be possible? Let's read and see.

In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Helen wakes up one morning with an atomized heart. A week later, she throws herself off a cliff. What caused her heart to self-destruct? Her on-and-off relationship with the odd Tom? The circumstances of a global crisis? Or the alleged accident that killed her neighbour Paul a few days ago?