Towel Drop

When my family was at its poorest, a wealthy family found me and claimed that I was their real daughter. The school heartthrob I crushed on? He was my fiancé all along! Still reeling from all these surprises, a mysterious message suddenly popped up in front of me. "This is where everything changes. The cannon fodder is taken home by the female lead's parents, forced to drop out of school, and then gets pregnant by her fiancé. In the end, everyone thinks she's a harbringer of misfortune, and she's beaten to death." My hand froze as I held the paternity test results. My mom's eyes filled with tears as she took the report from me. "My poor child, you've suffered enough all these years! Don't worry. Just come home with us and rest. You're our daughter now. The family business is enough for you to live comfortably forever. You don't even need to take the SAT if you don't want to." The school heartthrob lowered his head and whispered sensually into my ear, "Listen to me, Lucia. Studying is hard. I'll take care of you from now on."

“Tell me,” he said, low and dangerous. “Tell me who this cunt belongs to.” “You,” I panted, spreading wider, shameless. “It’s yours—please, Micaiah—” “Come on my cock,” he ordered through gritted teeth. “Show me how much you love being fucked by me.” ★⁠☆ Maliya comes home after two years abroad, hoping everything she ran from has finally cooled. But the moment she steps through the door, she realizes nothing has changed—especially not the one person she never wanted to face again. Micaiah. Her stepbrother. Her almost. Her reason for disappearing. She plans to keep her distance, start classes, rebuild her life… until her parents drop the news: they’ve transferred her to a new university, the one where Micaiah works as a professor. And they’re leaving for a three-month honeymoon, meaning she and Micaiah will be living in the same house. Alone. Maliya tells herself she can handle it. But Micaiah has his own ideas about unfinished business. Three months isn’t long… unless you’re stuck with the one person you swore you’d never fall for again.

Adonis smirked, loosening his tie as he stepped closer. “Stop pretending, Zoe. Or should I say… Mrs. Walter?” His voice was low, teasing. “You’re drooling over me, admit it. I know exactly how happy you are to be married to Adonis Walter.” Zoe folded her arms, rolling her eyes. “Over my dead body.” “Oh, come on,” he said, shrugging off his tuxedo and letting it drop carelessly to the floor. “You get to have all this.” He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside, leaving his toned chest on full display. Defined abs, sharp collarbones, muscles that flexed with every slight movement—he looked like he walked straight out of a magazine. Zoe’s eyes betrayed her for a split second before she quickly looked away. Damn it. Even if she disliked him, she couldn’t deny the truth. This man was hot. Zoe Powers agrees to an 18-month contract marriage with Adonis Walter to save her father’s company. What starts as a deal soon turns into something real. But with Adonis’ bitter ex-girlfriend and jealous brother scheming against them, will their love survive the storm?

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

Sophia’s world shatters when her cheating boyfriend and backstabbing best friend smear her name across the city with vicious lies. Jobless, homeless, and desperate to vanish, she stumbles across a cryptic online ad: live-in tutor, remote estate, one thousand dollars an hour. She clicks apply before doubt can stop her. The mansion is breathtaking, the little girl heartbreakingly quiet, and the contract… written in blood. One crimson signature later, the gates lock behind her, and the truth claws its way out: wolves in tailored suits, monsters in the shadows, and a ruthless Alpha who orchestrated her arrival. Ethan Blackwell—billionaire, pack leader, and the stranger from her drunken one-night escape—claims her as his fated mate. He doesn’t want the bond; he’s too proud for a fragile human. But he’ll never let her leave. Worse? His two brothers circle closer, eyes glowing with the same primal hunger, ready to challenge tradition and tear the pack apart to possess her. Sophia came to hide. Now she’s the prize in a war of teeth, fate, and forbidden desire. One click. One drop of blood. No way out.

As the college entrance exams approached, I paid the top student in our class to tutor me. But the day she came over, she brought along her childhood sweetheart and insisted that he join our study sessions. I declined her request politely, and she did not press the matter further. The boy left my house in defeat and was struck by a car, suffering injuries so severe that they left him crippled. He could no longer continue his education and was forced to drop out, taking on grueling manual labor to survive. The girl continued tutoring me nonetheless. We both gained admission to the same university, grew close over time, fell in love, got married, and started a family. But on the night of our wedding anniversary, Sharon slipped poison into my soup and watched impassively as I began to convulse and vomit blood, the crimson stain spreading slowly across the floor. "This is what you owe Harry," she said with cold venom. "Taste what it's like to lose all hope." It turned out that she had harbored resentment toward me for all those years. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day she first came to my house with her friend.

"Yes”, I say slowly, tears welling up in my eyes as each drop run down my cheeks, hot and carrying the weight of my emotions, I feel my throat closing up and my chest tightening as I struggle to find words. What have I done to him? I think to myself, it dawn on me that maybe, just maybe, his aching and bothersome affection towards me could be sincere and I was at the brink of losing it. Billionaire CEO Elias Vermontary seems to only care about raising stocks and making investments, anything and everything to diversify the Vermontary enterprise. He is considered the most eligible bachelor in the country but marriage is unfortunately the last thing on his mind. In a bid to die down the rising rumors of his sexuality and the conniving efforts of his family, he decides to get married to Selene Argraval a struggling lawyer, who has a nerve wrecking disdain for the wealthy and their lavish lifestyle. As their worlds collide, they must learn to face the challenges of life together, forgoing their differences and withstanding the pressures of their contrasting lives. Will a love that doesn’t seem to exist brew, and will it be better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Unravel the sacrifices made in a bid to love harder and longer.

“Soraya Barata tidak lebih dari seorang gadis polos yang mudah diperdaya!” Kalimat itu selalu terngiang dalam benak gadis berusia 21 tahun bernama Soraya Barata. Bagaimana tidak? Saat ini dia tengah bersedih. Lantaran dikhianati kekasihnya di saat Ayahnya tengah drop dan harus menjalani perawatan di sebuah Rumah Sakit. Bukan hanya itu. Sebastian Danu—kekasih Raya juga merampas kekuasaan perusahaan Barata. Memblokir semua rekening, hingga Raya harus terlunta-lunta mencari uang untuk biaya operasi ayahnya. Bahkan Raya terpaksa menipu seorang pria paruh baya untuk mendapatkan uang yang dia butuhkan. Masa depannya hampir saja berakhir. Untungnya datanglah seorang pria misterius bernama Raiden yang saat ini menjadi malaikat untuk Raya. Walau Raya dan Raiden harus menjalani hidup dengan terus kucing-kucingan dari kejaran anak buah pria yang sudah Raya tipu. Hidup Raya semakin hancur saat dia mengetahui pengkhianatan yang luar biasa dari orang-orang terdekatnya. Ia pun bertekad untuk membalaskan dendam dan merebut kembali apa yang menjadi haknya. Apakah Raya mampu mencapai tujuannya?

On my wedding night, I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after a tampered condom left me in excruciating pain. The surgery took over twenty-four hours, and the story spread like wildfire. My husband, Alexander, let it be known that anyone who managed to photograph me in my post-surgery state would be rewarded with ten million dollars. Overnight, I went from being a billionaire's new wife to the laughingstock of every elite circle in New York. The next day, Alexander's childhood sweetheart Dahlia showed up at my door. That was when I learned the truth: she'd coated the condom with industrial-strength adhesive as part of what she called a "social experiment." She didn't show a shred of remorse. Her tone was flippant and cruel: "It was just an experiment. I mean, how was I supposed to know you'd react like that? Besides, we both know you were never good enough for Alexander. So drop the act." Alexander stood beside her, his gaze cold and dismissive: "If it weren't for the marriage contract, no one would've touched you. You know that, right?" What he didn't know was that the woman he was calling a slut had saved his life more times than he could count.

In her third year of dating Jackson Hunter, the cool and proud Lumina Walker took out a secret loan of one million dollars to repay his debt. She even resorted to performing stripteases in a bar. Everything changed when she overheard a shocking conversation between him and his friends. "You're ruthless even to yourself! Just to get back at Lumina, you pretended to be a bartender for three years, tricked her into taking out a loan for you, and used her nude video as collateral. You even got her to strip at your bar! " "If she ever found out that you're the loan shark and own the bar she stripped at… She'd probably drop dead from anger right there and then!" another chimed in. Celia Price was Lumina's living nightmare, her tormentor for nine years since their middle school days—relentless bullying, harassment, and abuse. The painful twist? Celia was Jackson's secret love all along—for a decade, to be exact. Yet Lumina didn't cry, didn't fight back. So when her Uncle Howard called and ordered her to marry the mute oldest son of the powerful Morgan family from Crown City, she agreed without hesitation.