To Bleed A Crystal Bloom Novels & Stories

For three years, Rebecca was the "Shadow Wife." She stood by Silas Vane’s side, endured his family’s cruelty, and loved him in silence, all while knowing she was just a substitute for her runaway sister. On their anniversary, she expected a celebration. Instead, she got divorce papers. "Seraphina is back," Silas told her, his voice devoid of emotion. "It's time you return to the nothingness you came from." But Rebecca didn't come from nothing. She was the secret genius behind the city's most successful tech empire. Now, the divorce papers are signed, the heels are higher, and the heart is colder. Silas wants his "perfect" life back, but he’s about to realize that the woman he scorned is the only one he can’t live without.

After eating a poisonous, hallucination-inducing mushroom, I genuinely thought I’d woken up inside a spicy erotica novel. I was the heroine—a live-in housekeeper working for a rich heir, the kind of impossibly handsome, impossibly wealthy man who only exists in fiction. When I opened my eyes and saw him standing there, I felt… oddly disappointed. I muttered under my breath, “Only six guys? What, do I need to take Sundays off?” The heir let out a short, disbelieving laugh. A slow, dangerous one. “If I’d known you were this bold,” he said, “I wouldn’t have bothered being gentle.” The moment the hallucination faded, I grabbed his sleeve and practically burst into tears. “Honey, I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t mean any of that.” He loosened his tie with maddening calm and murmured, “Relax. No one here takes Sundays off. And if you’re that eager to follow the plot of your little erotica novel… we can start right now.”

Alexis thought she had it all: a thriving career, a charming husband, and a Pinterest-worthy life. That was before she walked in on Kevin and Stephanie, her cousin sleeping together. Without an ounce of shame, Kevin files for divorce from her and takes her company as his draining all her accounts. Left with nothing but a broken heart and empty savings, she’s forced to start from scratch. Desperate to pay a loan shark and too broke , she lands a cleaning job at the Carter Penthouse. It’s not ideal—but it’s a paycheck. And the perfect place to plot her revenge. There she meets Pierce Carter a cold billionaire and devilishly handsome—and unfortunately, her new boss. He’s arrogant. She’s petty. He’s got issues. She’s got bills. When Pierce makes a ridiculous bet with his best friend that he can last a week without firing her, Alexis sees an opportunity: get fired, walk away with a small fortune. But just when they think they’ve rid themselves of each other, fate has other plans. Pierce needs a wife to claim his inheritance from his late father, and Alexis needs the ultimate revenge: showing up married to a billionaire hotter than Kevin could ever dream of. It’s the perfect solution… until real feelings start to get in the way. A fake marriage is born. The rule is simple: You can look but you can't touch. No love. But who will break it first?

When my CEO wife, Nina Wynn, learned I voluntarily handed a multimillion-dollar project to her favorite assistant, Zach Channing, she thought her three-month cold treatment finally worked. Beaming, she suddenly suggested we fly to Ivesland for our long-delayed honeymoon. When Zach found out, he became jealous and threatened to quit. Panicked, she spent three days and nights comforting him, then canceled our honeymoon again with the excuse of a business trip, giving him my ticket instead. Later, she casually explained to me, "Romance is trivial. Work comes first. As the boss, I have to prioritize. You’re my husband; you should understand." I looked at Zach’s latest social post, which was a photo of the two of them leaning intimately with their hands forming a heart, and said nothing. I only nod. Thinking I’d become more thoughtful and obedient, she was pleased. She even promised to make it up to me with a more romantic honeymoon when they got back home. However, unbeknownst to her, I’d already resigned. The divorce papers were already signed, and there was no future for us ever again.

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

“I sacrificed my entire life for you. I have given you everything, sacrificed everything for you. I refuse to settle for scraps, I refuse to settle for this betrayal.’’ “You stopped being anyone that mattered the day you abandoned your crown. You became my wife, my mate, my little pet. The entire world hates you, the only person who can save you is me. So do good, little wolf, and remember your place.’’ He turns, walking back to where Veronica stands, but I’m not done. “I am Riley Moonshadow, daughter of Alpha…’’ My words are cut short when Jason matches back to me, and in seconds, he does the one thing he’s never done in our marriage. ____ For five years, the alpha princess became a disposable Luna who endured her husband’s cruelty. That life shattered the night she found him in bed, passionately riding his sister. For five years, she sacrificed the power of her royal wolf to be with him. She grew weaker because of him, and he repaid her with betrayal. As he plots to steal her crown and break her completely. But as the true power of a nightblood awakens inside her, she finds more than her strength. She finds love.

A month before the SAT exams, I was finally brought back to the Bowen family. In fear that I would take back all the love and attention, Archer Bowen, the adopted heir, pouted to his childhood sweetheart. "Keira, Zane pissed me off. Teach him a lesson. Go after him and make him fall for you. Then get photos of him naked and ruin him completely." The next day, the school queen, Keira Johnston, showed up in front of me with a huge bouquet of roses while smiling like a dream. "Zane, I like you. Be my boyfriend." At the same time, a cold mechanical voice rang out in my mind: [Target has appeared. Host, begin conquering Keira Johnston immediately.] I looked at Keira, who had once bullied me, and curled my lips into a faint smile. "Sure."

“Sign the contract. Give me an heir. Then, disappear.” Liora Hayes has sixty minutes. $500,000 or her mother dies. No money. No hope. No way out. Then Darian Volkov walks in. The ruthless "Ice King" of Luminaire Corp doesn't want her heart. He wants an heir. The deal is simple: 1. Carry his child. 2. Get the money. 3. Never return. But the Volkov mansion is a cage. Inside, Liora finds a lethal secret: Darian didn't choose her by chance. He is the son of the man who destroyed her father. Now, she is carrying the baby of her greatest enemy. The debt was paid in blood. The contract was signed in lies. What happens when the Ice King refuses to let his "asset" go?

Lillian Shaw's childhood sweetheart, Morgan Sullivan, has gotten bullied by others for five long years for her sake. Because of that, he's afflicted with depression. Thanks to Morgan's depression, Lillian has abandoned me countless times just to be with him. Every time, she'll just explain the same thing to me. "I'm just repaying Morgan for his act of kindness from before. Don't overthink it." On the eve of our wedding, I've told Lillian to not invite Morgan to our wedding for fear that he might get affected. Lillian agrees to comply. But on the day of the wedding that I've been looking forward to for five long years, I witness Morgan showing up in a fancy suit.

On our honeymoon tour, my husband and I faced an earthquake. I thought I was lucky to have booked a flight home, but then Ethan Parker snatched my passport and fled with my stepsister, Lily Foster. Stranded on a foreign land, I saw her new post. Lily: [Talking about clinginess, no one beats Ethan.] An attached photo showed their hands intertwined. In the chaos, someone stole my phone and cash. When aftershocks hit, I couldn't escape and got buried in a collapsed building. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day of the first quake. Seeing Ethan bolt from Lily's room, I didn't say a word, just quietly canceled his plane ticket. If they loved each other so much, I'd let them go on and be a doomed couple.