Thorns Beneath The Veil Novels & Stories

Shawn Hansen, Wigston's most notorious playboy, always has a thing for dazzling women. This time, his eyes are set on Carrie Myers, my fiance Harvey Anderson's close friend. And now, he decides to marry her on the same day as my wedding. When I go to Harvey to discuss the wedding details, I walk in on him holding Carrie and promising, "Don't worry. I'll marry you. Our churches are side by side, and with your face hidden under the veil, I'll swap you in for her. No one will ever notice." Carrie sobbed, her voice filled with concern. "Angelina is clever. She will undoubtedly notice something is wrong." He kisses her forehead gently and comforts her, "I'll drug her so she won't be able to think straight or resist." Only then does she relax, yet she asks curiously, "You really don't mind letting her marry Shawn?" Harvey thinks seriously before replying, "I love you and must marry you first. Shawn is my good friend, so even if he marries her, he wouldn't touch her. I'll bring her back once he realizes the bride has been switched. By then, the two of you can serve me together." I can't bear to listen any longer, and I turn to leave with a broken heart. Despite the sorrow, I am determined to become Shawn's wife.

In the heart of the opulent Veridian Heights, two souls from opposite ends of the spectrum are drawn together by forces beyond their control, setting the stage for a love story as tumultuous as it is irresistible. Meet Mace Sinclair, a formidable business mastermind with a ruthless edge, a genius mind, and a grin that could seduce the devil himself. The heir to the city's most influential dynasty, he thrives on control, power, and dominance. Yet beneath his cold, manipulative exterior lies a man haunted by a tragic past, and a thirst for redemption he never thought possible. Then there's Nysaa Everhart, a spirited and sharp-tongued troublemaker who refuses to bow to anyone. Beneath her fearless facade, she carries the scars of a painful history that has left her with trust issues and a determination to never rely on anyone but herself. Her unyielding spirit and unpredictable nature make her a force to be reckoned with. When their paths collide, the sparks of conflict ignite a slow-burning desire that neither can deny. Mace, in a twisted game of power, coerces Nysaa into taking care of his defiant niece, Seraphina, as payback for her challenges. As they navigate the forced proximity and constant battles of wills, their banter evolves into something deeper and more dangerous. Can they withstand it? Can they withstand the haunting clutches of their past?

I opened my eyes to a sharp sting in my arm. Pushing up my sleeve, I froze. A dense line of jagged letters had been carved into the skin of my right forearm: [This house has monsters! Every time I'm killed, I'm thrown into a loop and lose all my memories. With each death, I mark my hand.] Beneath the warning, three crooked tally marks were etched deep into my arm.

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

Synopsis From the moment I took my first breath, life made it clear I wasn’t wanted. Born to parents who never looked back, tossed into the arms of an adoptive family who caged my dreams, and then traded me to the most feared man in Italy, Stefan Rossi. Billionaire and Mafia king, a man whose name alone commands terror. I was forced into a marriage with a man who despises me, tied to a bloodline that sees me as a stain, taunted by the return of his bitchy ex right after our vows. How do you survive in a world where love is seen as a weakness. Stefan Rossi I built my empire with blood and fear, turning Empire Steel into a global beast and myself into the most powerful man in the underworld. I never believed in love or fate only contracts, control, and calculated. So when my late father bound me in marriage to a woman far beneath my world, I planned to claim an heir and cut her out like a tumor. But what I didn’t plan for, was her fire. Her defiance and her chaos. And the truth buried beneath the lies my father left behind. In a world of power, betrayal, and passion. we are either going to burn together or destroy each other.

Banished. Broken. Betrayed. Selene Virellian was cast out of her pack carrying the child of an enemy—left to freeze beneath the stars with nothing but her shame. But the wildlands didn’t claim her. The Ashfang did. Now, among rogues and outcasts, Selene is forged into something stronger. Something dangerous. And when the enemy Alpha comes for her, he won’t find the frightened girl he once touched—he’ll face the Queen of the Forsaken.

Beneath the opera house...indeed, someone is there. Watching and musing as he watches the theatre he loved and hated. Noelle is a talented dancer but is pushed aside in favour of the ballerinas. Until one night, he hears music and encounters the origin of many ghost stories; Julian is an enigmatic loner whose only companions are the rats. In Noelle, he sees the spark of talent and knows he can kindle it. And the story begins. Genius and passion are a painful mix...

"Max, I'm so itchy down there. Could you use your stick to scratch it for me?" Beneath the desk, my boss's daughter was perched on my lap, her round little bottom in the air. I was in the middle of a project meeting with my team, a whole group of them standing in front of my desk. She was driving me crazy. My hardness was itching and swelling by the second. I was about to lose it.

At the wedding, I immediately recognized that the woman under the veil wasn't Selene, but an impostor. But I still went through with the ceremony as if nothing was wrong. In my previous life, Selene had been forced to return and complete the wedding with me after I exposed the fake bride in front of everyone. That very night, however, her childhood sweetheart was rushed to the ICU with acute alcohol poisoning. When Selene heard the news, she didn't shed a tear. Instead, she cursed him, saying he got what he deserved. … After we married, Selene and I appeared to be a loving couple on the surface. I kept funneling money from my family to save her family business from collapse. But on our first anniversary, my wife—with not even a sliver of warmth in her eyes—tied me to a helicopter with her own hands. "If you hadn't forced me to come back and marry you that day, Chase wouldn't have ended up like that," she snarled. "What right do you have to live so happily? I'll make sure you feel the pain he went through before he died." She threw me from ten thousand yards up, and I hit the ground as nothing more than a broken heap of flesh. So, this time, I pretended to know nothing and went through with the wedding alongside the fake bride. I wanted to see just how Selene would manage to save the crumbling Liraine Co. without the Schreiber family's support.

Abby Barns is about to turn eighteen and face the Capitol, where every heir must meet to try and find their fated mate. But Abby isn’t ready to bind herself to a mate she hasn’t even met, not when she’s never felt her wolf stir since she was twelve and not when her family’s secrets keep gnawing at her like a hidden ache. Her sister Melody, once lively and fierce, is presumed dead behind a veil of illness that strikes their clan with increasing ferocity. Abby’s father, Graham, clings to a truth he refuses to admit: Melody’s condition might be more than misfortune. It might be poison. With two friends who are all sunshine and all spark, Abby steps into a city of glittering banners and looming danger, where a prince is guardian to the realm but aloof to the heart. Adrian, the silent, powerful protector with the deepest green eyes, seems to deny Abby’s presence even as her own pulse answers to his almost unspoken call. As old wounds surface, a rogue threat grows louder, and the mystery of Melody’s poisoning unravels a legacy that could redefine who Abby is and who she is fated to become. As Abby discovers the truth about wolf’s bane coursing through her veins, she must decide whether trust is a risk worth taking or a trap designed to hold her forever. In a world where love is both weapon and salvation, Abby’s journey from uncertainty to a life altering bond will test family loyalties, awaken a dormant wolf, and force her to choose between a dangerous future and a love she never expected.