Twenty-sixth

As Jimmy investigates an abandoned car, he finds a journal that sheds light on a mystery from twenty years before. As he explores his memories he discovers the truth behind the city and the supernaturals who run it. ~~~ Inside of each of us is the darkness wanting out. But what if that darkness is the ending and the beginning of us all? The full moon hung like a ghost in the night sky as Yada overlooked the lights of the city below from her tenth-floor apartment. She studied the diamond twilight for over an hour before turning away--No longer able to stomach the sight. It had been nearly a month since she had been home, having stayed in the coven’s inner chambers since the city fell under siege to a rival house a little over three weeks ago. Over the years, the city had seen many battles for control of the streets. To date, the two bloodiest battles took place within the last fifteen years. The Badens orchestrated both attacks. Led by Darius, the Badens seemed hell-bent on ruling the city with little regard for the Michelsons. The Michelsons governed the streets for nearly two hundred years and were a formidable force. Led by Gabriel, the Michelsons protected the city, and it survived unscathed. The streets were free from the blood deals, which went unnoticed by the public eye, normally. However, this last battle proved more difficult to keep quiet. It had been an all-out war for control, drawing innocent people into the blood feud as the Badens raided the streets for warriors to fortify their numbers. The Michelsons retaliated through unusual ventures to keep the war silent.

All her life Magma has experienced people leaving her because she was different. When her parents could no longer tolerate her difference they sent her away to live with relatives. As a child she wasn’t willing to take all the types of love that were offered. As an adult she became a smokejumper due to her ability to control flames. Even though she does more than those in her crew she is alone and an outsider because they fear her. When the Captain of another station goes missing they send her on a rescue mission only for her to find that the man she is sent to save is the only one who belongs to her. She will be the first of her kind to experience the bond that a dragon can have with their mate. Igneous has never come from a loving family. Over his twenty eight years he has spent more time away from his parents than with them. When he goes missing after the rescue they come to his aid and have him removed from Magma not knowing that it threatens his life. After a harsh truth is revealed he is returned to her and once bound he is able to see her true purpose. Magma becomes more than just his mate and becomes the keeper of the past to give all dragons hope that someone is out there for them. Igneous gives her all the things she wanted in life while she gives him what he didn’t know he was missing. They are the first dragon and human couple inspiring more to come.

Xander (Alexander Michelle) is hated by his family not because he was the sole survivor of the tragic accident that claimed the lives his parents. He’s hated because his father left everything to him—every cent, every asset, the entire Michelle empire. But, the Will provided a clause: until he is married, he can't assess his fortune. For twenty years, Xander was cast out, exiled by the same man who now reminds him of the clause— the same man who spent the last two decades burning through what wasn’t his—his grandfather, Jacob Michelle. Now, Xander is back. And he’s furious. He is ready to marry just to reclaim what’s his. But there’s another condition: he must marry the woman his grandfather chooses: Tatiana Richardson (Tiana), a woman who is willing to marry Xander to escape harassment from her uncle and her mother's taunts. Both are desperate to get what they want, Xander, his fortune and Tiana, her freedom. But freedom isn’t that simple. A deal is struck: 7-days-marriage. No strings. No real vows. Just seven days to fulfill a legal requirement. Will this be enough for Tiana to gain the freedom from her problems? Will these seven days be a total freedom for Tatiana when Xander sees her as nothing but a desperate woman after his money, just like his family? Will there be a chance where Xander will take a pause and look differently at Tiana when he doesn't believe she is as feeble as she looks, especially since Tiana has his grandfather's backing?

Aria Walker, 25, walks into a society party expecting to face her cheating ex, Ethan Kane, with dignity. Instead, she’s humiliated, betrayed again, and overhears Ethan bragging she was only “practice.” Her heartbreak turns into fury... the kind that demands revenge. That’s when she meets Daniel Kane, Ethan’s father. Daniel is powerful, dangerously controlled, and twenty years older. He’s the kind of man whose presence changes the air, which equally deadly enemies. When he calls Aria “little one,” it’s a warning… and a temptation she doesn’t yet understand. Fuelled by rage, Aria makes the unthinkable decision: She will destroy Ethan by seducing his father. It's a reckless game and a poisonous idea. And the one forbidden sin Aria should never touch. But she can't resist him, and Daniel doesn’t push her away, instead he steps into the game willingly. What begins as spite becomes something darker filled with tests, spiralling obsession, stalking and mysterious messages and warnings following Aria everywhere, and secrets that could ruin them all. Each passing night blurs the line between revenge and desire and each moment with Aria feels like stepping deeper into a world she’s not prepared for. But when Aria finally discovers the locked room in Daniel's mansion, everything shatters. Daniel catches her in the act and refuses to let her go. Aria, torn between fear and longing, must decide: Was Daniel her salvation…or the final betrayal she will never recover from? Their relationship is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

In our galaxy, there are at least twenty billion Earth-like planets able to sustain life. My name is Skye. I am eighteen years old. Our astronautic scientists discovered a planet within our galaxy with human life similar to ours. By probing this planet’s satellite systems, they have learnt that wars have wracked this world over many millennia, where various zealots strive for dominance. Before setting out on a twenty-year expedition to visit this planet, our group has spent a year being educated in the various languages of this alien world and acquiring the skills to survive in any hostile environment we may find ourselves in. OUR DESTINATION IS EARTH. SKYE is the first book in a trilogy. It is a coming-of-age adventure of Skye, a young alien girl, and her fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic world governed by fundamentalists. After surviving a meteoroid tsunami, her spaceship crash lands in the Mexican wilderness. One of the survivors, Judah, a gifted physician from a superior technological civilization, is discovered in the desert and taken to Texas. Judah is promoted as the new Messiah by a right-wing extremist known as ‘The Preacher’. The Preacher’s propaganda machine convinces America’s devastated survivors that it was the sins of the world’s population that, as prophesized in the Bible, brought down the wrath of God. Judah is exploited to restore the people’s faith in the divinity of God as decreed by the Preacher’s tyrannical interpretation. The Preacher aims to reverse the emancipation achieved by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and bring about a dictatorship through the reunification of America. Skye must put her trust in a member of the Preacher’s security team to rescue Judah from this new confederacy.

Xiania Irish Flint, a wild and seductive twenty five year old woman who never had any boyfriends and boyfriend in her whole existence. However, it doesn't make her innocent though. It's actually the opposite. Dahil sa pananaw nito at mga prinsipyong ayaw tibagin tungkol sa mga kalalakihan, natutunan niyang mamuhay ng dalawamput-limang taon nang walang umaaligid sa kanyang lalaki. Well, aside from her cousins. Her life was simple—working on the Organization that was lead by her Family. An organization that helps people in a not so good and bad way. Iyon lamang ang pinagka kaabalahan niya, nang aakit ng mga lalaki bago ito papatayin. O kaya naman ay tutulungan ang mga kababaihang wina-walanghiya na ng iba. Career is way better than Men. That was her Motto. Mas yayaman daw siya doon, mas matututo, mas sasaya, mas may mapapala, not until her parents suddenly pushed her to marry someone she doesn't even know. Ang mga prinsipyong matagal nang hindi natibag nino man ay siyang susubukin nito. She badly wants to disobey her parents, but the Commander of the Organization, which is her Uncle —would never let her. Aalisin raw siya nito sa Organisasyong minahal niya kapag hindi pinakasalan ang lalaking naipakilala. And just like in some cliche stories, her principles were successfully broken by her soon to be husband, none other than Vraxx Caldwell. But well, that's what she thought.

Austin is a twenty years old high school student raised by a single mother, his mother was a young and talented businesswoman and he's the heir to all her properties. His parents divorced when he was an infant and since then he hasn't got the chance to meet his father. Even if he came across his father he won't recognise him, not even by his name because his mother changed his last name to her parent's immediately they divorced. He hopes to see his father someday, he has a lot of questions to ask, he wants to know why he abandoned them even though his mother said she was the one feeding him when he had nothing. They finally met and he asked him all the questions that have been bothering his mind, but his father's explanation made him hate himself for hating him without hearing his side of the story and he also despised his mother for lying to him. Jennie is an industrious young lady from a poor family. She has to do four to five jobs a day to support her family. Her father being a man who believes in early marriage forced Jennie to find a husband at the of eighteen, she remembered the kind of life she wants for her younger one's and what her senior sister was going through in her husband house. She disobeyed her parent for the first time and it resulted in Jennie leaving the house.

For the first twenty years of my life, nothing interesting happened to me, nothing at all. I was just an orphan, trapped inside a prison of my own creation. My life was mundane, colourless, predictable, and for the longest time, I liked it that way. Life scared me. People scared me. Hell, everything scared me. Then Adrian walks into my life. Devilishly handsome and mysterious, the new priest sets me alight with desires I never knew existed. It's a sin, I know, but I can't help myself. His touch is magic. But Adrian is not what he appears to be. Our new priest is a Lycan King on the run from his enemies. And me? I'm not who I thought I was. I'm neither human nor wolf. I'm something else. Something that puts my life in danger. Just like that, my life is filled with excitement, adventure and more colour than I can handle. * I feel, more than see, as the priest kneels next to me. “Are you afraid of me, Pippa?" A little,”I answer. It's easier to be honest when you can't see the person's face. "Why?” "You- you make me…feel things.” "Hm-hm,”he grunts."And you've never felt these things before?" "No.” Out of nowhere, his warm hand falls on my hip, and a solitary finger traces along the length of my hipbone. My body comes alive and crackles with electricity, but I don't move, I don't even breathe.

“You.” I snapped my head up. A naked man marched into the kitchen. Heat rushed to my face. The man draped in tattoos and bronze skin glared at me. “What are you doing here?” I squeaked. “I should be the one asking you that.” He closed the gap between us, and his body slammed against mine, pinning me against the door. His hand wrapped around my neck. I dug my nails into his flesh but he didn’t flinch. “You’re with the Red Claw pack aren’t you?” He sneered and tightened his hold. “Screw…you,” I rasped. “Ezra,” Dad barked. “What?” “Put her down. She’s my daughter.” His hold loosened and I dropped to the floor. I held my neck and glared at him. “You have an eighteen-year-old daughter?” Alpha Ezra asked. Dad shrugged, “Twenty, but yes.” Summer is on the run from her former Alpha, and seeks refuge with her estranged Father. She hides a secret that could get her killed so the one person she must stay away from is the one she's drawn to the most. Alpha Ezra is sort of her Dad's best friend and logically off-limits but soon the lines between them blur and before they know it the desire is too hot to put out. Summer's past catches up with her and the only option is to cheat fate or repeat history. Ezra and Summer must work together or risk being ripped apart.

“It’s still her.” Three words. That was all it took for the carefully constructed world of my last five years to shatter into dust at my feet. Zane didn’t even have the decency to look away as he said it. For twenty years, I had been the third wheel. The reliable shadow to Jovienne’s brilliant sun. I had buried my own feelings for Zane so deep I almost forgot they existed, only daring to dig them up and confess them after Jovi had left the country and broken his heart. We built a life. A marriage. I truly believed, in my foolish, hopeful heart, that it was my happy ending. Now Jovienne was back, and the illusion was gone. The love of my life saw me only as a consolation prize. As my world collapses, the last person I expect comfort from is her husband—a man as cold and polished as he is powerful. Vance sees the same betrayal in my eyes that he sees in his wife's. Leaning in, his voice a dangerous whisper, he proposed the unthinkable: "They are living in the past. Let's be each other's revenge. What do you say, Nerissa?" I should avoid at all costs. It was a game that could burn our broken worlds to the ground. But as I looked into his eyes and saw the same raw, humiliating betrayal reflected back at me, the answer poised on my lips wasn't "no." It was a terrifying, thrilling question. “What,” I whispered, my voice steadier than I felt, “did you have in mind?”