These Silent Woods

“I was looking for a man named Zarion, but I ended up here.” Most of them gasped when I uttered Zarions’ name. “Don’t mention that name because it’s cursed!” someone hissed. My brows furrowed at her reaction. “Why? "He's the Alpha of this pack. He was banished because he didn't want to take the position. Rumour says that he's out in the woods, looking for his mate, and..." she trailed off. "And?" I swallowed. "Kill her. He wants to kill his mate." *** Alpha Zarion is on a quest to find his mate and kill her because he despises the idea of a mating bond due to his father leaving his fated mate (his mother) for another woman. During a winter storm, he met Cassidy Bentley who saved him from death. He knows he has no time to waste but Zarion was curious about her, deliriously wanting every inch of her skin and touch…until he found out that the girl is mated to his number one rival, Alpha Brandon. Alpha Brandon rejected Cassidy because she’s a human—which he greatly despises. She eventually started getting over him, pouring out her love to Alpha Zarion who obsessively wants her in return. During the night Alpha Zarion watches Cassidy transforms to a werewolf, leaving her humanity behind for her love for him, Alpha Brandon comes to his senses and goes to find her. But her first mate already found Cassidy in another Alpha's arm, in his half-brother’s arms, who was just about to mark her…

Three years ago, Moon-Lake Pack — once a proud member of Lupus Celestial, the central pack alliance — lost everything in a brutal defeat to the Rogue Packs that had long plagued us. The Lycan King believed my father — the Alpha of Moon-Lake — had conspired with the Rogues, and our pack paid the price. My father and I were enslaved and cast out, becoming the laughingstock of all the packs. Even my mate, Chase, turned his back on me. But three years later, I was sent back to Lupus Celestial by Chase’s order — just as he was preparing to bond with his future Luna. Everyone assumed I had returned to sabotage the ceremony. “Taryn, do you still think you stand a chance of becoming his Luna?” “Chase never liked you. He’s always adored Wynette.” “Why would you show up now — just before he bonds with his mate?” Warnings, veiled threats, and even silent beatings made one thing painfully clear: I was not welcome. And Chase — the one I had once believed was my fated mate, the one I’d felt an unexplainable pull toward — stood by, cold and detached, watching it all in silence. His eyes held nothing but loathing. “You still think you can live freely outside Lupus Celestial after betraying us time and again? What exactly are you plotting at my bonding ceremony?” I let out a bitter laugh and wiped the blood from my lips. He didn’t know my wolf had been gravely wounded by a silver dagger — and I didn’t have much time left. “Don’t worry. If I hadn’t been dragged back, I’d never have returned. And if I truly wanted to cause trouble, I’d have killed myself first.” Chase didn’t respond. He just scoffed. But when I walked away — from his pack, from his world — he was the one who crumbled. He begged me to return, as if losing me shattered something deep inside him.

Eidolon Avenue: Where the secretly guilty go to die. One building. Five floors. Five doors per floor. Twenty-five nightmares feeding the hunger lurking between the bricks and waiting beneath the boards. The sequel to Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast (“a great read...powerful and jarring” - Cemetery Dance) returns to the voracious Eidolon as it savors The Second Feast. A narcoleptic man in apartment 2A battles a vengeful past determined to rob him of everything as he runs from the barbaric disaster of a delusional love. A woman in 2B, reinventing herself to please a callous boyfriend, discovers the horrors that wait in the shadows of her self-renovation. The man in 2C, a teacher at the nearby Catholic girl’s school, collapses beneath the brutal consequences of his lecherous desires. An older woman in 2D, after decades dedicated to the church, is cornered at last by the grisly carnage beating at the hollow center of her faith. And a college student in 2E, hungry to escape an ignored life of invisible anonymity, finds herself captured between the pages of a ravenous book. All thrown into their own private hell as every cruel choice, every drop of spilled blood, every silent, complicit moment of cowardice is remembered, resurrected and relived to feed the ancient evil that lives on Eidolon Avenue. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Jade knows what it feels like to have no one in her corner; she experienced it firsthand when her aunt sweet-talked her parents and took her to the Philippines' when she was eight. After years of abuse and being used, the only thing Jade wished for was an escape to finally go home and be with her family. All Jade wished for was to experience what it feels like to be loved once again and she got that when she finally escaped from her aunt and made her way back home to her pack and family in Detroit. Finding out that the Alpha Heir Hunter was her mate was the best thing to ever happen to Jade, and Hunter gave Jade a home, love, and became the safety and comfort Jade had always wished for. Two years of blissful union came to an abrupt end when Jade woke up in bed with her sister's boyfriend after a party. Her life goes from sweet to bitter in a matter of days as everyone Jade once loved turned their backs on her, refusing to believe them when she said she didn't cheat on her mate. How could she? Hunter was the love of her life. Jade goes from preparing to becoming the Luna of the Blackwood Pack, to being treated no less than a traitor. Hunter doesn't wait another heartbeat before rejecting her, and Jade is soon branded as a defective mate, banished to the woods as a rogue. How will Jade survive life as a pregnant rogue? The cursed brand on her neck makes it impossible for any pack to take her in. Will her mate come after her? Or will Jade find her strength somewhere else and come back to enact her revenge on the people who hurt her?

The day my adopted sister Xina was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, I was captured by rival pack hunters and taken across pack territories. In a hidden den beneath the mountains, I was chained like an omega during the day and subjected to endless humiliation. At night, they locked me in a moonless chamber and extracted my blood and bone marrow while I was conscious. By the time my pack found me, my body was broken beyond recognition, covered in bite marks, and infected with numerous diseases that even our supernatural healing couldn't combat. My mother, Alpha Serena, looked at me barely clinging to life, and howled so painfully she collapsed several times. My brother Ivan even traveled beyond our ancestral lands to find healers who could treat me. But in my half-conscious state, I accidentally overheard their conversation: "Mother, we captured Lisa just to save Xina, and let her be violated by so many rogues. Now we're taking one of her kidneys too—isn't that going to kill her?" Mother was silent for a long time, then choked up and said: "For Xina, I had no choice." "Besides, Lisa challenged Xina's rank all these years, made her severely depressed. This is just me atoning to Xina on her behalf." "It doesn't matter if she's been tainted. From now on, we'll keep her in the packhouse and take care of her. That'll count as compensation." As the silver blade sliced into my body, tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes. A den with four wolves... was simply too crowded.

For the last eight years, Estelle has lived as a rogue and has adapted to the cruel life of the woods, surviving the harsh environments all on her own and having to always run from packs and other rogue wolves, it wasn't really easy because she's a female. She's among the very few female rogue wolves that roamed the woods and she was lucky with survival because she has a strong wolf trait because her father was a beta second in command to their pack's Alpha. She came from a little peaceful pack, but their peace was soiled and their little happy family was ruined by another pack who attacked them. Estelle was lucky to be among the few to escape and has gone rogue since then with revenge rooted in her heart. Mica is the ruling Alpha of his pack, Nightfall pack. He's rumoured to be heartless and one of the most powerful Alphas, also the Alpha that hates Rogues the most, Almost every pack hates Rogue but his hate for them had no match. What happens when Estelle is chased into Nightfall territory and she's being arrested for trespassing but ends up being the mate to their Alpha, also finding out that Nightfall pack was the pack that brought doom on her pack? And finds some of her pack family captured as slaves by her Alpha mate? As Estelle grapples with her inexorable feeling for her Alpha mate and the truth about her past, she's faced with an impossible choice. Can she really ignore her feelings for her mate and Instead choose to revenge her pack family? Can love truly over the hatred they have for each other or will it lead to heartbreak and regret?.

Chamicka Ventura (Chika) hails from a powerful family of South America Hunters. She finds herself in the woods, crying on her way to school, escaping her abusive parents; today she was told that she will be sold to a family in exchange for their help in hunting down a myth; running from her parents at the age of five, she quickly learned where to go and hide. She is just twelve years old today, and she is out walking in the rain with her raincoat on when she comes upon a metal box similar to the one her father uses, which she opens to discover two pups inside. She stuffs them inside her bag. Despite the fact that they are enormous for puppies, she runs to school, claiming to the school that her parents had hurt her again, and they send her to the local orphanage, where she hides with her two rescued puppies and raises them. During this period, her parents made several efforts to locate her; long after, wolves appeared and took the puppies from her; yet, they always hid together, until the day she awoke next to two strong, attractive men in her bed; where did these guys come from?

Growing up as an orphan, Fenrir never expected to be loved by anyone until he met his girlfriend, Lisa. His dedication to her made him join the cruelest Mafia gang(City thugs) however his naivety was exploited by the mafia gang leader and he committed suicide by falling off a tall building. Without any remembrance of the past, Fenrir woke up on a full moon night as an Alpha werewolf after a disturbing curse was placed on him. “Never to love, or beloved.” Unfamiliar with his new body development, the full moon effect, and the impact of the curse inflicted on him, Fenrir could only follow the lingering fascinating smell he perceived into a small pack where he broke into a killing spree. After killing the Alpha, Luna, and a few members of the pack, he declared the marriage between him and the deceased Alpha’s daughter. What happens when he finds out that the scent of the person who saved him back in the woods was the same as hers? Will Marsai forgive his crimes after finding out they are mated to each other? What will be the end of their predestined love story?

Eloïse Woods, who adheres to her mom's footsteps in becoming an Ankara fashion designer, Meets the elegant embodiment of a telenovela model. Like water to a dying plant is this mysterious man to a desiccating heart. Eloïse breaks the suffocating chains of her dad's guidance as she plunges into the arms of the first man she decides to donate her heart to. A building begins to crumble, Fingers are pointed, Someone is used, A heart is broken. Can every broken heart really be mended? Romance/Mystery