Thicker Than Water

His magnificently beautiful eyes looked into mine with possessiveness. I exhaled out a shuddered breath, and he grabbed my jaw. “This is not who you are to me, Isabella. And I want more than what we have. Understood?” The dominance in his tone was obvious, while his words sounded like a fantasy I’ve always dreamt of. More than what we have. More than step-brother. ______________________________ I, a 19-year-old girl, had always had a secret crush on someone I shouldn’t have. That’s right—it was none other than Achilles Roman, my stepbrother, who was two years older than me. I had kept my feelings dumped in a Tupperware box for as long as I could remember. But how could I control myself when he himself started making moves on me? And what should I do when I realize that he was nowhere near the Achilles I thought I knew? Read to find out.

Ean's face twisted with anger as he grabbed me by the arm, dragging me toward the old, rusted freezer in the corner of the warehouse. "You're going to feel what Helen felt," he spat. "Maybe that'll teach you not to mess with her." I struggled against him, panic rising in my chest. "Ean, this is insane! It was an accident! Let me explain—" He wasn’t listening. He shoved me inside the freezing metal box and slammed the door shut. The echo of the lock clicking into place made my heart pound in my ears. I banged on the door with my fists. "Ean, please! You can’t do this!" I screamed, but the sound of his footsteps grew fainter as he walked away. He left me with nothing but a single bowl of water, like I was some kind of prisoner. I slumped against the cold metal, shivering. The temperature plummeted almost instantly. The hum of the freezer kicked in, and I realized too late—it wasn’t broken like he thought. It was working, and I was trapped. My body shook uncontrollably as the cold seeped into my bones. I screamed for help until my throat was raw, clawing at the walls in desperation. My bloody handprints smeared across the icy surface, a silent plea for mercy that no one would hear. Seven days passed. When Ean finally returned, the look on his face was one of smug satisfaction. He had expected me to beg, to apologize. But when they pried open the freezer, all they found was my frozen body, stiff and silent, my suffering long over.

On the way home during the holidays, my fiance's sister-in-law, Pamela Kensington, brings out an electric pot that requires 2,000 watts in order to function so that she can cook some meatballs. "The sockets in the electric car are meant for us to use, no? If we can't have hot food during our trips, then what's the use of having an electric car in the first place?" My fiance, Mason Vance, who is driving, doesn't bother to stop Pamela. Instead, he helps her fill up the pot with water while smiling. In my previous life, I had strictly stopped them from cooking meatballs and told them that we didn't have enough power left in the electric car. If they were to cook the meatballs, the car would stop in the middle of the journey, and we wouldn't be able to make it home. Pamela, who tagged along for the ride, thought that I refused to let her son have a piping hot meal, so she began criticizing me. Mason, on the other hand, thought that I was being too much of a busybody. He slapped me in front of everyone before pushing me out of the car. I was frozen to the bone in the blizzard as I watched everyone else leave me behind happily. In the end, I died from hypothermia. When I woke up again, I realized I'd returned to the moment when Pamela is about to plug the electric pot into the socket. This time, I hand her a power strip. "Go ahead and use this power strip. It can channel more power for your meatballs to cook quickly."

Everyone thinks Jimmy Hudson, my college roommate, is the typical brutally honest and socially clueless guy who just has zero filter sometimes. A friend and I meet up to go boxing and practice our hooks, but he calls it a hookup when texting the group chat about it. He even nonchalantly says he won't be deleting his message. When I meet my boxing buddy, he says I'm meeting my hookup buddy. He even has the nerve to say, "It's just a joke. Don't be overly sensitive and read so much into it." Thanks to a few more of his dirty tricks, my reputation is ruined, and the entire class ostracizes me. But Jimmy doesn't stop there. He slips sleeping pills into my drink, which leads me to miss an exam. Later, he claims it was just a careless mistake and blames it on his scatterbrained tendencies. Eventually, he dumps crushed cherry pits into my water bottle, which ends up poisoning me to death. This all happened because our campus belle, whom he has a crush on, helped me with my luggage on our first day on campus. All of a sudden, my eyes open again. I've returned to the first day of my freshman year at college. This time, I'm going to let Jimmy get a taste of what it's like to have his life ruined with a helping of some social cluelessness of my own.

The Beast Nation sent our royal family two beast slaves as a token of goodwill after they were defeated. My concubine-born younger sister took the tall and upstanding white tiger with piercing eyes, leaving me and the dying merman to look at each other. In my previous life, I took the merman as my personal bodyguard and trained him out of compassion. I spent a fortune to treat his injuries, and I even bought his slave contract at the price of ten cities and set him free. He also took great care of me, staying by my side day and night. I thought we were both in love, so I turned down dozens of marriages and stood by him with all my heart despite everyone's loud disapproval. However, when the beasts attacked again and threw my sister and me into the surging river, I frantically pleaded with the merman to save me, only to be violently slammed under the water by his massive tail. I watched helplessly as he carried my sister away. I realized at that moment that he had only given himself to me to save his own life. He had remained loyal to me even after regaining his freedom because he wanted to see my younger sister. I struggled in the filthy river, eventually suffocating as my lungs filled with mud and sand. When I reopened my eyes, I was transported back to the day of the beast slave selection. Looking at the dying merman, I covered my nose and taunted, "Where did this dead fish come from? It reeks!"

"You’re worthless, Evelyn. Tell me, what real Alpha would stay with a barren woman in this world?!" With trembling hands, I wiped away the tears streaming down my face. My body was weak from days without food in the cold dungeon. Evelyn’s life has never made sense. Rejected by her first mate at eighteen, she becomes an Omega slave. Fate offers her a second chance with Alpha John Xavier, who marries her, but the marriage is no better. She is treated like a servant, and two years later, his first love, Diane, returns to reclaim her place in his heart. John lavishes Diane with the affection Evelyn longs for and ultimately rejects and divorces her. Thrown into a cold dungeon as punishment, she endures days without food and water, all because of Diane who was later revealed to be pregnant for John. Just when she thinks John might have a change of heart, he demands that she sacrifice her kidney for Diane. Evelyn discovered a secret that changed everything, she was carrying John’s child. Now, five years later, Evelyn and John meet again as business partners, working together to save his struggling pack. John, filled with regret, is desperate to win her back. But there’s another man who loves her and is willing to keep her by his side. Will Evelyn forgive John and give him a second chance or will she choose the man who has vowed to never let her go?

“Kneel, Little thing,” he orders, his breath running down my neck. I find myself kneeling. It’s not like I have a choice. He’s going to hurt me if I don’t. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ll enjoy every bit of it. My core throbs, and my mouth water hungrily as he frees his cock from his briefs. “You want it, don’t you?” He fists himself and my eyes follow the movement. I can feel the wetness dripping down my legs despite my position. The room is dark, and there’s no means of escape for me. Not that I want to. “Yes,” I whisper, my face coloring in shame. “Louder, Little thing. Don’t you hate me? Don’t you want to kill me—the man who killed your only brother?” He taunts. I don’t reply. The next moment, he grips my hair hard, and I gasp. “I want to.” I force myself to say. His face lifts up in a mocking smirk. “Good girl. Now, suck my cock like my pretty little toy.” He demands, slamming himself into my mouth and stealing my breath with one hard thrust. * Her life faces a brutal turn when a cruel Mafia Don breaks into her home, demanding the stash of diamonds that her brother supposedly stole. She tries to pick herself up and avenge her brother’s death, but falls instead into the trap Don Luca set for her. What is meant to be vengeance changes into something irresistible. Something dangerous. Something that might kill her if she gives in…

I sponsored Emily Fagan from an underprivileged background just to help her get through school. She was good-looking but wasn't exactly the brightest. Despite my warning not to tamper with my things, she slipped stimulants into my water bottle. Thanks to her, I was accused of cheating in the swimming competition. Our team's score was nullified. As for me, I was banned from competing for life and kicked out of college. When I confronted her, she cried pitifully, "Julie, I just wanted you to win. I didn't know that'd happen." My boyfriend, Elijah Strauss, held her and comforted her. He even snapped at me, claiming, "Em had good intentions. Why are you giving her a hard time?" Crushed, I shut myself in at home. Feeling sorry, she and Elijah visited me and brought along some vodka as an apology. After I took ten shots, I asked her to buy some over-the-counter pain relievers for my splitting headache. Little did I know that she'd make me take a dangerous dose of Ibuprofen mixed with alcohol. The bleeding in my stomach was what killed me. Emily looked pitifully remorseful at the hospital. "I'm so sorry. I couldn't even tell what I shouldn't have given her…" During the police interrogation, my boyfriend gave false testimony to protect her. He accused me of taking my own life by mixing Ibuprofen and alcohol because I couldn't handle the mental stress from cheating in the competition. When I reopened my eyes, I found out that I was transported to the day before the competition.

When my heart will be on fire and turn black, will you come and pour water to soothe it? Time and again I want to you, time and again I wanna destroy you, yet time and again I wanna snatch you from all and you mine... Samaira Khanna, a superstar and the daughter of the famous Khanna family that ruled the entire film Industry has her life turned upside down overnight when her father was charged with a rape allegation, unable to bear the humiliation, he commits suicide . The entire Khanna empire crumbles and is in shambles. Samaira's acting career comes to a stop when she is offered cheap sidey roles, her mother follows suit with her father and kills herself as well. Samaira is left alone to look after her little ill nephew and her brother who was beaten to pulp by loan sharks Siddharth Kapoor, A ruthless, arrogant scion of the Kapoor empire, master of destiny of Indo Asian economy, a of few words and someone who is notorious for his connections with the underworld is a to be steered clear of at any cost, yet somehow Samaira finds that her paths had crossed with him on several occasions recently. What surprised her more was the fact that everytime they met, she was in a situation where this so called ruthless appeared like an angel, as her saviour who bailed her out.. even if it was just by offering her his shoulder to lean on. That was why when he proposed her for marriage, she didn't think much about refusing, eventually marrying him out of .. at least that's what she thought ! She gave him her heart, will he be able to hold it forever?

Roxanna Harlowe never wanted anything more than a traditional life. She was born as a runt, rejected by her own mother and pushed on an abusive father, her life wasn't all that great. When she discovered her mate to be none other than the Alpha of the Redwood Pack, she found herself facing her own rejection, hoping for nothing more than to be given a second chance and hoping that there was some kind of hope for a future after all.