The Silk Road

“Amara Cross, are you trying to drive me insane? I agree to go to a club and find you swaying like a pro whore, throwing your ass at hungry eyes, and you are proud of it too.” His grip crushed my arms, sharp and painful. My hand slipped between my thighs, pressing hard, pain mixing with heat, and he did not notice. But when he saw my bloodshot eyes, he let out a hot, frustrated breath. “Amara, are you drunk?” I nodded, confused. Tears spilled like a flood, driven by that brutal pulse burning deep inside me. “Dean Dorian, I am very drunk.” His eyes widened. Then they darkened even more. “What nonsense are you saying, little girl? What did you take to end up like this?” I was shaking. A soft moan escaped me as my fingers pressed harder. I could not hold it in anymore. I covered my mouth, then dropped my hand, speaking to him in miserable pleasure. “Dean Dorian, touch me.” I whispered it, begging. His eyes, drowned in darkness, searched my face like a man looking for salvation. Everything stopped when his hand settled on the back of my head. He leaned in and crushed his mouth against mine, hungry and savage. ------------------- Amara Cross did not enter university looking for love. She entered to survive. A quiet scholarship student with no one behind her, carrying a fragile past, dreaming of one thing only. Safety. But on a dark night, on a road with no mercy, a man saves her. A man who was never supposed to be part of her life. Dorian Vale. The university dean. Powerful. Cold. Controlling. Dangerous. What starts as silent rescue turns into attention. Then protection. Then obsession with no rules. He knows everything. Watches her. Decides for her.

Sera Quinn had one job. Marry a dying man, keep her head down, and wait. Nobody told her that Damien Voss did not die on anyone's schedule but his own. She was twenty two years old when her stepfather sat her down at the kitchen table and explained her options. Her mother was sick. The bills were swallowing everything. And the most powerful billionaire in the country was lying unconscious in a private hospital ward with his family desperate enough to pay a small fortune to any woman willing to stand beside him at the altar. All Sera had to do was say yes. She said yes. She had no other word left. She moved into his mansion and tried to be invisible. She talked to him in the dark of his room every night because there was nobody else and because she was sure he could not hear her. She told him things she had never told anyone. She told him she was scared. She told him she was pregnant. Then she overheard four words that changed everything and she ran before the sun came up. Four years later she had rebuilt herself from nothing. A career. A spine. Twin children with their father's eyes. A case file she had been building alone, one quiet hour at a time, that connected a road barrier report to a name that would put people in prison. She had one rule. Stay away from Damien Voss. Then her four year old daughter hacked into his private server and left him a message. Damien was already in his car before Sera found out what her daughter had done. He was not coming to talk. And Sera Quinn was finally done running.

Penelope Quinn once Penelope Nowak, a rich successful business woman hasn’t always been the independent rich successful woman she is. She is the daughter of a criminal minded art thief, working for her father as the Midnight Fox. Wanting a better life for herself she plots to leave home only to have her plans thwarted when her father contracts her to be married off. In an act of defiance, Penelope goes out to get drunk and has a one-night stand with a handsome stranger. He turns out to be Noel Greer, the man she was supposed to marry. Noel is furious to learn that his bride-to-be was the innocent blue-eyed, blonde princess who had seduced him the day before and he cancels their marriage. Heartbroken, Penelope runs away from home. A new start. Years later, Noel Greer wants Penelope back in his life and is willing to do anything to get her back – including blackmail. He wants to possess her. Soon after, her father comes back into her life needing her for one more heist. Someone is blackmailing him and he needs Penelope to help him. But there are obstacles. Albert Kowalski. Her father’s former right-hand man who says he is a friend but Penelope is not sure she can trust him especially when he has a seemingly successful business now. Another obstacle is the Phantom. No one knows who is he but seems to be the reason the chain of events begin unfolding in her life. Every road links to him, every heist points at him. He is neither enemy nor foe but he is dangerous nonetheless. Penny realizes old friends can't trusted when she suspects Noel may be her father's blackmailer. Or was it Albert the stunning, cool-headed ghost from her past?

Everyone said I was Domenico Calvetti's most obedient woman. On our first wedding anniversary, he flirted with a pair of twins at the gambling table. He had lipstick smeared all over his shirt. I smiled and wiped it away with a silk handkerchief, but he swatted my hand aside. "Don't kill the mood." In the third year, the star performer from the club he ran showed up at my door with a gun pressed to my temple, demanding to take my place. Without flinching, I disarmed her using the technique he taught me and disposed of the body myself. Behind me, he held his new lover and laughed softly. "Lucia, you always know what to do." In the fifth year, he blew up the library my father left behind just to make his new flame, Marilena Rossetti, smile. That library was my mother's favorite spot when she was alive, and it held the only photographs of our family of three. The explosion made me the laughingstock of the city. People whispered, "Signora Calvetti can't even protect her own memories." Everyone believed I could never leave the Calvetti family or Domenico, but they forgot how this all started. Back then, he rescued me from my adoptive father and fell in love with me at first sight. He knelt and begged to marry me, swearing he would protect me from blood and pain for the rest of my life. For ten years, I held onto those empty words. At our tenth anniversary party, his hundredth mistress arrived. Alice Russo, fresh out of college, held a glass of red wine and poured it down my gown while Domenico watched. "Signora Calvetti, this dress is so old. Given your position, you should be wearing something better." Everyone at the party waited to see my humiliation. Instead, I lowered my eyes and dialed Domenico's father's number. "Father, the ten-year agreement is over. I won't be Signora Calvetti anymore."

It happened on Thanksgiving Day. I was on my way to my girlfriend's house when a car slammed straight into mine. The road was deserted, not a single person was around. The doors were jammed shut from the impact, and flames were licking toward the engine. I fumbled for the safety hammer, only to find that someone had replaced it with a toy hammer shaped like a cartoon bear. Panicking, I called my girlfriend. But before she could even pick up, her ringtone started playing from the car that had just hit me. Luna Hill stepped out, hand in hand with her childhood sweetheart, Julian Ford. Julian put on a show of alarm. "Oh no, I'm such an idiot! My first time driving, and I already hit a car." When Luna saw that it was me in the crushed car, she quickly tried to calm him down. "It's fine. He probably did it on purpose." I pounded on the window, shouting for her. "Luna, the safety hammer's been switched out! Please, help me get out!" Julian burst into a grin. "Sebastian, that was me! The little bear hammer's adorable, isn't it?" Luna's face twisted in disgust. "You're fine. Stop being dramatic. Figure it out yourself." Thick smoke was billowing inside the car, and it was about to explode. I begged her to get me out. Julian chuckled. "Sebastian, are you cooking in there or what? That smoke's killing me!" He patted his stomach and said with a laugh, "Man, I'm starving. Luna, let's go home and eat." Luna hooked her arm through his and tossed a parting line over her shoulder. "Enough already. My parents are waiting for us to start dinner." Just as I was about to pass out from the smoke, I slammed my hand on the car's emergency button.

The road to success isn't an easy one . Especially when you are poor and meet a rich spoiled jerk . The first time we saw each other was when I saved an old lady from being crushed by his car . After saving the old lady his car slashed the rainwater on the hole of the ground was splashed on me , making me a public laughing stock , just his presence gets me to my nerves . I had enough problems , a jerk like him was all I needed to make my life turn upside down . Four years passed . I finished university and graduated with top grades as a lawyer and bodyguard . Just when I thought that I could finally start my plan of becoming successful , our paths crossed again . This time he had become the arrogant devil with a cold face . Fate is being unfair by making me suffer in the hands of this devil once again . The leader of a huge empire died without naming the name of the inheritor to his fortune . In order to protect my family and give them a better future , I had no choice but to comply with his wishes and help him sit on that throne . How could I , a normal girl , help the heir to a multi-billion company sit on the chair of the leader ? Turns out that the devil needs a lawyer to play in his favor . After he had succeeded, after we each got what we were aiming for , we would go our separate ways . I never wanted to be entangled with him . Meeting him was a mistake from the very beginning . When our collaboration came to an end , he was supposed to let me go but instead of gaining my freedom , I got locked up again . Can I ever escape this man ?

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and just barely recognizing yourself in the reflection? Well that is me, I have loved and lost. Survived and thrived, screamed and cried into my pillow tears nobody else got to see. But I never gave up hope, never lied down and never let them see me cry. Until him, he could see past the facade and see the real me. He wanted to love me, concole me and protect me. But I have lost hope in humanity, men, true love because life just arent a fairytale right? Its hard work and nothing comes easy even if you would like to believe it does it just doesnt. He is my mothers new husbands son and 10 years older than me. His blue eyes keep staring at me, it should warm me to the core right. Make me feel something anything. But it doesn't he makes women run after him and beg on their knees. But me, I have been down this road before. The charming smile, arrogant cocky attitude. It always ends the same, me covered in bruises crying on the bathroom floor. Thinking its all my fault, all me. But he just wouldn't let go. He wouldn't give up. And the more I turn him down the more it turns him on. I am only that strong before I give in,and even though I know how this is about to end. If he keeps staring at me with desire in his eyes as if I am the reason he is breathing. I know I am about to take the leap this can go down to damn ways. But the question is do I or dont I. Because fear can be your anchor or it can be your wings

Having her life upside down, Lily Peters being adopted by two amazing dads when she was a baby is the best of both worlds. She didn't care what other people thought. She has always loved her family. But, her mind was sometimes adrift, and she would wonder why anyone like her parents would give her up. After eighteen years, things became complicated when her grandparents from India suddenly showed up at her doorsteps and announced her engagement. Things got crazier, and the road to her future had turmoil when her best friend's grandfather announced her engagement to none other than the boy who always got away...Liam Wolfe. Liam and his brothers would be flocked by women all the time, and they wanted them so bad that they would do anything. But, since he and his brothers moved to the beautiful city of Long Beach, it would just be healthy living in a different town. Plenty of women would go down on their knees before an introduction. That all changed when he first gazed at large beautiful chocolate-brown eyes, hair like the night, and inky and sun-kissed skin that could be too delicate to touch. Liam had never believed in fairy tales until meeting Lily changed his mind and found his princess. Obstacles got in the way between Liam and Lily, including his dark past. He did not want her to have become of that past. But pretending to be engaged to the girl that stirred inside his pants can be challenging. When his past followed him, Liam had no choice but to keep Lily away from him if hurting her would keep her safe. Liam would have to become a black knight to protect his Indian princess.

As an Omega, 17-year-old Sarah is used to being at the bottom of the pecking order, even in her new pack and new high school. But her usually-boring life changes when she turns 18. She expects to shift—and nothing happens.Now, as if being an Omega isn’t bad enough, Sarah is also human. But Sarah, to her surprise, soon finds her mate: in the pack’s handsome and compassionate Alpha. And the lowly Omega finds herself rocketing to the top of her pack’s status as the new Luna. Just as it seems that life is finally going her way, Sarah learns of a terrible betrayal that results in tragic death, exile, and upheaval of what should have been her storybook ending… Or does it?Sarah continues her journey, as she is put to the test with just how many life-shattering changes she can take. Will she live as an outcast? Or as the most respected member of her pack?Sarah joins forces with her trusted and true friend, Ayala. Together, they search for Ayala’s true mate, attempt to unlock her shifter powers, and fend off threats from the deadly Coello. Can they escape his mercenaries, Isaac and Regan? Or will Sarah and Ayala fall prey before they can find their true mates?Ayala, 18, has always been a hopeless romantic and a dreamer. After a whirlwind year, she’s ready to settle into her new life at the Santa Cruz tree house, with Jasper, Isaac, Regan, and the other members of the pack. When she suggests they host a bonfire, Jasper and the rest agree. It seems like a magical night. But when Ayala leans in to kiss Jasper, he backs away. She’s ready to give up on him as her mate when fate forces them into a cross-country road trip together. Soon, they learn they have more in common than they thought. Might he be her true mate after all?

When Heather first moved in with her Grandmother, after the loss of her parents, at the age of fourteen she thought she would live a quiet life. That all changed when she met the young Alphas of the Twin Moon pack. The strong attraction that they have towards each other can't be normal. She has been pulled into curses and family secrets. All while trying to navigate high school, boys, jealous mean girls and learning to understand her own desires in life and love. They weren't kidding when they said growing up isn't easy. Lucas POV I inhale deeply, taking in the mouth-watering scent of roasted walnuts. I have always liked her scent, but I could never place it. For some reason, it has become so strong there is no doubt what it is. I nuzzle into the side of her neck. “You are so beautiful, and I don't think I could ever get enough of you.” Reed starts placing kisses on the other side of her neck, as he says. “I agree, brother, she does smell divine and her body feels amazing under my touch. We should mark her as ours now. Can you smell how much she wants us too?” Heather POV I just want to get off this road and away from this feeling of being watched. As that thought goes through my head my car is hit from the side. I'm not sure what hit me but I'm pinned between the seat and all the airbags. I'm still trying to clear my fuzzy head when I hear what sounds like footsteps coming towards the car. I feel a sharp jab in the side of my neck. Before I back out I get the hint of a familiar scent.