Twenty-sixth

When Chloe Samson married her childhood sweetheart, CEO Tom Hayden, at twenty, she thought she'd found her forever. But forever shatters fast when April Sunday—Tom’s enigmatic childhood friend—accuses Chloe of a violent assault and has her committed to a mental hospital. Now, trapped between the sterile walls of the institution and the crumbling illusion of her perfect marriage, Chloe must piece together the truth. Is April lying? Is Tom hiding something? And how much of her own past can Chloe trust? To survive, Chloe must confront betrayal, untangle buried memories, and find the strength to escape—not just the hospital, but the life she thought she wanted.

It’s end of October 1985 and the crumbling river town of Dubois, Iowa is shocked by the gruesome murder of one of the pillars of the community. Detective David Carlson has no motive, no evidence, and only one lead: the macabre local legend of “Boris Orlof,” a late night horror movie host who burned to death during a stage performance at the drive-in on Halloween night twenty years ago and the teenage loner obsessed with keeping his memory alive. The body count is rising and the darkness that hangs over the town grows by the hour. Time is running out as Carlson desperately chases shadows into a nightmare world of living horrors. On Halloween the drive-in re-opens at midnight for a show no one will ever forget. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Anastasia Crane, twenty years old low rank maid is in love with Prince Kai, the crown prince of Gardenia. Now that's a very bad decision. Fate brings them together and Kai returned Anna's feelings. Thier forbidden love was sure to go down the drain in the end. Kai is betrothed and said to marry in few weeks time. Thier secret affair went on and on the end, they were caught. Anastasia was locked in the dungeon, set to be beheaded the next day but Kai broke her out. He set her in a carriage and promised to come search for her. What Kai didn't know was that Anastasia was pregnant. She was carrying a royal seed in her. The royal seed that got lost.

Small town girl Rayne Summers just wants to make enough money working her parttime job at the local diner to pay her way through her last semester of college. But everything changes when her best friend Emma takes her on a birthday getaway for her twenty first birthday to her old hometown of Ridgewood. As Rayne and Emma enjoy a night out at the local bar called Rider’s, the one person that has plagued her dreams for years walks into the bar and their eyes meet for the first time in six years. Everything that happens that night will change Rayne’s life forever and she will realize the ones you trust the most are the ones that will betray you.

As a Catholic girl I was just trying to make it through college. I wasn't looking for a lot in life. Just good grades, getting married before twenty two, having a few kids and God's blessings. People say that in life, you don't always get what you want and life has a way of roaming from the trail you planned to follow. I never realised how true the saying was. Religion was my everything, so what happens when I end up falling for the same gender? It couldn't get worse, right? But as life always feels the need to show you, it could... And it would.

"Callum, why don't you spend more time with me?" As Callum Kilbourne's Beta, Lena Morrison keeps using sending documents to him as an excuse to badger him. Her voice is sickly sweet to the point I feel like puking. Thanks to my sharp sixth sense as a werewolf, I know immediately that Lena has feelings for Callum the first time she follows him into this house. At first, I thought even if this mate bond started from a mistake, at least my daughter, Mia Kilbourne's presence would serve as an anchor for both Callum and me. We'd at least make an effort to keep things peaceful on the surface. But when my five-year-old goes missing, I spend the whole night calling Callum on the phone. All I can hear is a cold, repetitive dial tone in return. The next day, Callum finally comes home, reeking of alcohol and carrying the faintest trace of an unfamiliar perfume. Suddenly, I feel exhausted. I don't even have the energy to fight with Callum anymore. A moment of silence later, I look up at him. "Let's break the bond, Callum." The Alpha, who's used to keeping everything under control at all times, suddenly glares at me with bloodshot eyes. He grabs me by the neck and pins me on the wall immediately, his claws soon tightening around my neck. "Break the bond, you say? What right do you even have to bring that up, Ayla Townsend?"

Jadelynn never suspects that the Dreamworld is a real place until she is abducted by one of the most dangerous supernaturals there ever was. Vanosti seeks to control the Dreamworld and knows that Jadelynn is the key to doing that. The Dreamworld is a place for one's best dreams or worst nightmares. Night after night, she is thrust into there to find what Vanosti is searching for. Unfortunately, the world is filled with monsters that seek her blood. Thad and Jadelynn have been inseparable since the day they met in second grade. He has been in love with her since the sixth grade. Thad finds out that he is her Guardian a few months before she is taken. Guardians are tasked with protecting supernaturals of interest. Unfortunately, he is unable to tell her what he is until her birthday. He is tasked with finding her because there is a tether that connects a Guardian with their charge, and he stops at nothing until he finds her. Camden, a covert specialist with the elite Zeta-Force is tasked with extracting her. Once she is found, he is placed inside her dreamscape night after night as they await the perfect opportunity to extract her. What happens when she develops feelings for Camden as well as Thad? Vanosti is not about to let her slip through his fingers. Can they get her out safely, or will Vanosti always have his claws in her? A prophecy and destiny tie these three together, and it is up to them to return the Dreamworld to what it once was. Vanosti will stop at nothing to obtain the power of the Dreamworld. He will do whatever it takes to force Jadelynn into getting him that power. Can they destroy him before he destroys her?

*Book 6* Gabriella is a no nonsense kind of woman. She loves deeply and fights for what matters to her. Her life was going along just fine, that is until she catches her boyfriend cheating on her. That should have been the worst of her issues, but soon a cheating boyfriend pales in comparison to being fated to a God, and a brooding one at that. Quickly Gabriella will be pulled into thousand year old drama and find out she is part of a prophecy that could potentially destroy the world depending on what choices she makes. How will this simple human handle carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and a possessive God on her back? A Queen Among Gods is the sixth book in the Queen Among series. Characters and plot pots have been meticulously set up in previous books building up to this one. So, many events and terms in this book will not make sense if you haven't read the previous books. Here are the books in the series: A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1 Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2 Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (coming soon) A Queen Among Blood - Book 3 Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4 Dark Vocation - A Queen Among Darkness spin-off (coming soon) A Queen Among Tides - Book 5 Valor, Virtue, and Verve - A Queen Among Tides Prequel Spin-off (coming soon) A Queen Among Gods - Book 6 A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7 (coming soon)

On the day of the mating ceremony, a crazed witch bursts in and points straight at me, shrieking, "Six years later, your Alpha will betray you!" Troy Hudson, my soon-to-be mate, turns livid. He swats the purple-glowing crystal ball from her hand, shattering it on the floor. "Nonsense! Estelle is my fated mate! I'll only ever love her in this lifetime!" After that, he becomes even more devoted to me. At the Moon Goddess' altar, he drapes the Luna shawl over my shoulders. He marks me with his scent so the entire pack knows I belong to him. Every full moon, he deepens the mark on my neck, whispering that I am his forever. I believe his love is unbreakable until our sixth anniversary. A box waits at our front door. Inside lies a pair of lace panties and a photograph. In the photo, Troy is pressed over his foster sister, Rue Youngblood, the wolf tattoo on his body glowing faintly. His hand grips her waist, his eyes burning with the same heat I've dreamed of a million times. And Rue? She's wearing that same pair of panties. On the back of the photo, written in ink as red as blood, is a line of pure provocation. "The Alpha's heart may belong to you, but his body belongs to me." Agony ripped through my chest, yet not a single tear fell. Instead, I rest my hand on my belly and quietly send word to the Witch Association. "I accept your invitation. Please help me vanish."

I, Xavier Locke, had married the same woman, Melanie Slater, seven times. But for the sake of her first love, Leonard Blueman, she divorced me seven times. The first time we got married, she told me, "I'll only love you for the rest of my life." But every time Leonard came back to the country, she sang a different tune. "Can't you be more sensible? How can you bear to stand by and let Lenny be called a homewrecker who snatches a married woman from her husband?" The first time we divorced, I cut my wrists to make her stay. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but she never showed up even once to see me. The third time we divorced, I humbled myself and applied to be her assistant at her company. I did that just so I could see her a little more. By the sixth divorce, I had learned to quietly pack my things and move out of the home we shared. My hysteria, my repeated backing down, and my tolerant compromises brought me nothing—just Melanie repeatedly divorcing and remarrying me. Time and time again, she pulled the same trick. With history repeating itself, I decided enough was enough. After hearing that Leonard was coming back again, this time, I handed her the divorce papers myself. As always, she set a date for our next remarriage. But what she didn't know… was that I was leaving for good this time.