The Stepping Stone

I'm eight months pregnant when I suddenly faint on the train. My husband panics and cries for help as he kneels beside me. An interning doctor hurries to me. She doesn't bother checking my condition before saying, "The patient needs to undergo a C-section! We have to get the baby out now, or it might die of suffocation!" Then, she slices me open with a fruit knife—she doesn't take any precautionary measures before doing so. She takes my child out. I'm in so much pain that I don't even have the strength to scream. My blood flows everywhere. Yet, a photo of her holding my baby while standing in a pool of blood goes viral. People call her the prettiest doctor alive. My husband and his family are eternally grateful to her. They don't go after her for causing my death; they even make her my child's godmother! Meanwhile, I'm given a simple cremation. No one cares about me. After my death, all my assets go to my husband and his family. Only then do I hear my husband and the doctor talking to each other, sounding smug. "This plan killed two birds with one stone. We got rid of that woman and made ourselves out to be heroes!" That's when I learn the interning doctor is my husband's junior from high school. They got together when he accompanied me to my prenatal checkups! She failed her internship, so my husband came up with this idea—he wanted to use my death to boost her reputation and help her! Even my child eventually died under their "care". When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to the day we get on the train.

“You love the way I touch you, don’t you, kitten? You can’t hide it. Tell me to stop, and I will do that immediately?” I couldn’t say anything; I was a complete wreck of nerves. He inched his face closer, and I arched my back so that it pushed my chest towards him.  I couldn’t control myself. I just wanted him to touch me. Needed him to touch me.   “Do you still think that this is a mistake?” He asked, his lips curved in a teasing smirk.  However, I was far too gone to argue.  “I’m not going to touch you until you beg me.” He stepped even closer. “Now, kitten, do you still think that this is a mistake?” *** *** *** **** In one single day, my entire life is turned upside down when Dad is brought back to the pack, lifeless and dead in every way. However, the last thing I would have expected was my mother to show up on our doorstep after thirteen years to take me in. Or maybe not, because nothing else can beat the insane attraction that I feel to this man. This man walking down the stairs and looking every bit like some Greek god of seduction. “Olivia, my husband, André.” Wait… He’s my stepfather?

Alpha Draven didn’t come to save her. He came to punish her. Liora Hale spent five years hiding in the human world, trying to forget the pain she was born into. Raised by a foster family who treated her like filth, she endured years of cruelty until the day they threw her out like garbage, bloody and broken in the street. That’s when Draven found her. Her former stepbrother. Now the cold-hearted Alpha of a ruthless biker pack. He didn’t come out of love. He didn’t come out of guilt. He came because someone had to pay, and she was all that was left. To him, she’s a ghost of everything he lost. A name tied to betrayal. And yet… he doesn’t kill her. He keeps her. In his world. In his darkness. In his hell. Liora Hale should have run. She should have hated him. But she stayed, because going back to Dawson’s would’ve been worse. At least with Draven, in all his fury and coldness, she had a reason to breathe, to endure, to live. But will Liora survive the Alpha who swore to break her, or choose the one who offers the freedom she’s never known? And when every buried truth comes to light, will Draven finally see her as his mate, before it’s too late?

My aunt has one leg amputated after getting into an accident. It's at this time that her beloved daughter chooses to leave the country. From that day onward, I care for my aunt like she's my own mother. We spend 15 years together. She's grateful for my care and promises she'll leave all her money to me after her death. However, my cousin returns to the country when my aunt is on the brink of death. My aunt goes back on her word and gives my cousin everything. She only gives me 50 thousand dollars as compensation for my "caretaking services". I've spent 15 years on her only to get 50 thousand dollars—it's such an insult. I'm so stunned by this that I trip and fall into a river. I drown. When I open my eyes, I've been taken back 15 years in time…

Outcasted and lost Willow Addison has no idea what to do. Unable to go home she finds herself in the middle of the forest and confused about how she got there. She is blocking a deep dark secret that could mean her life. Luke Ashton is young, charming and extremely gorgeous. When Willow first comes in to his families land he feels an immediate pull to her. He feels everything she is feeling and immediately wants nothing but to help her and be near her. But when an ancient enemy threatens everything he will fight to keep her safe. The only problem is she knows nothing about her true heritage and how special she really is. Can he help her find herself before it is to late? Is she meant for him or is he just a stepping stone for her to reach her greatness? Join Luke and Willow in their journey against this ancient enemy and to finding Willow's true place.

“Elena Verlice, you are under arrest for aiding and possibly abetting the escape of an inmate. All you say now may or may not be used against you in the court of law so, you have the right to remain silent.” The voice of the fat policeman that looked like he had lived his whole life on donuts resounded in my office as he cuffed me. Oh my God! What the hell is going on? Why am I being accused of helping her escape? Wait…. He escaped? Tears started to well in my eyes. “How could he betray me this way? I had risked everything for him and this is all I get? I really hoped that he wasn't going to do it. I guess I was only a stepping stone in his elaborate plan. I guess I was the only one who fell, both in love and in life. I thought he…...” I trailed off in thought tears began to pour from my face for the first time in forever.

Selena has always been a down-to-earth level-headed girl, the type to prioritize responsibility for everything. Even after she ends up stuck carting her toxic soon-to-be-ex around the streets of Akron. That is until a mysterious stranger in golden glowing Egyptian tattoos runs into her on the street. After a few colorful words and the strange man helping her carry her soon-to-be-ex to her car. She is dumbstruck when he touches her and both their hands begin to glow resulting in a strange golden luminescent tattoo identical to his appearing on her wrist. Freaked out Selena quickly thanks to the man, who now seems furious at the sudden appearance of the mark on her. Then takes off thinking she would never see him again. Only to run into the man the next day, to her surprise he claims that he is an alien from a long-forgotten race. A race that once came to earth long ago and created the humans, and a demigod race she and twelve other families are descendants of. Now she is tasked with trusting him to keep her safe as one of her mates. She has no idea if she should should trust him, but the only thing she can be sure of is she needs to survive. That means trusting him to keep her safe from the mercenaries of his race.

As each finger was cruelly broken, the agony that surged through her body revealed the truth—her nanny and maids had betrayed her long ago. When her sister confessed to carrying her husband's child, Miranda realized that their prior kindness had been nothing but an act in a sinister play. When her gentle husband, a man she had once loved, directed his new lover to claim her life, she understood she had been nothing more than a stepping stone to his ascent to power... Twenty years in this mortal world, and she was merely a puppet manipulated by others. Yet, fate, in its mercy, offered her a second chance. This time, it was her turn to consign those deceivers to hell! Although she returned only to exact vengeance, how did she unwittingly capture the interest of a powerful magnate this time around? Watching the delicate yet resilient girl, the Duke turned to his subordinate and said “Remove the filth that marred her eyes. Feed it to the dogs."

Tara isn't your everyday beauty shit she wasn't a size 0 runway model, she was curvey thick and flawless nonetheless. It took her years to see that in herself after going through the ups and downs of being tossed through the foster system she had all but lost her faith in herself. This is why she chooses to become an advocate for foster kids like her. When she first launched her UFCP program she had only one private supporter. Now here she was at a huge charity banquet representing her program publicly and the program would now be recognized nationally. It was like a dream come true especially when she runs into the investor who happens to be an old friend from the foster system who was in the same house as her. Giovanni Berlusconi, he had glowed up since she last saw him all those years ago and he apparently felt the same about her. The only problem was he was a mafia king pin and Tara might have known much about the mob, but she sure as hell knew she wanted no parts of it. Especially after two of her colleagues end up dead in a mysterious car crash after questioning Gio's family connections to the recent spike in missing persons cases in the city. Tara had tried to blow him off politely but Gio wasn't having it. Stopping by her office unannounced. Tara was desperate to avoid the mob boss at all cost that is until she accidentally stumbles on to a private family meeting and witnesses him killing someone. Now she has only two choices marry the very man she fears or die.

My friend and I transmigrated into a melodramatic novel about a wealthy family. When the mission ended, I chose to leave. He fell for the obsessive female lead and chose to stay with her. Eight years later, the system told me that she had locked him in a mental hospital, and he had only three days left to live. When I rushed to him, he was tied to the bed. His eyes were dull, and he kept repeating my name. His crush, Sterling Group's CEO, was planning a grand wedding with the man she truly loved. I looked at my friend’s hands. They had once played the piano with grace. This time, they were covered in countless needle marks. “You came, I knew you would...” He mustered the last of his strength to look at me. “I was a fool. I thought staying by her side was the truest form of my love for her. “I never realized I was only a stepping stone in her path. “Take me home. I don’t want to die here...”