Virtue & Vanity

"You can't reject me!" She pleaded with tears glistening her eyes, while he stands there indifferent. Hatred evident in his grey orbs. "Please!" He moves closer to her , entrapping her body between the wall and his big frame. Looking at her from top to bottom in disgust, he seethes at her. "You should have thought about it before sleeping with the bast***" "You should have thought about it before betraying me mate." ............ She was a havoc created by nature, found wrapped in a blanked at the side of a river. Bullied and shunned by the werewolf society. She was a mere rogue who was surviving. Untill he came , hating her. Cursing her and playing with her like a prey. Doing everything to break her like her betrayal has broken her. If only he knew she has not surrendered her virtue by choice, if only he knew she was an innocent. If only he knew he could never break her for she was not a weak pathetic rogue. She was the girl born with the power to summon the strongest known wolf in the world. She was the very soul referred to in the werewolf books of philosophy. She was none other than the summoner. The summoner of the death wolf.

Ella Miller had the childhood of a princess until she lost her mother. Her father remarried soon so little Ella could have a mother. Alas, her new mother came with two step-sisters who made her life a living hell. She thought Joe, her first boyfriend would rescue her from this life but he ended up cheating on her.Distraught, she goes to the coolest rooftop bar in New York with the aim of losing her virtue once and for all to this hot stranger who mistakes her for a prostitute. The following morning, she leaves money behind as revenge but fate had other plans.Her only job at a Fortune 500 company was about to end unless she got a billion dollar client account; but her hopes were squashed when the CEO of Holt Enterprises proposed a 12 month contract marriage in exchange for a 12 month contract with her company.Playboy billionaire James Holt is calm and composed as a lion but this girl Ella, invoked his anger when she tipped him for a night he'll never forget. He vows to find and punish her in every way possible. Shall James be able to tame Cinderella or will it be the other way around?

After a century of war between humans and the Otherkin, both sides finally agree to a ceasefire. To preserve peace and coexistence, an intermarriage pact is established—every hundred years, humans and the Otherkin must marry. The first Otherkin to produce an Otherkin child will become the chairman of the Otherkin Alliance. In my last life, I married Kevin Walker, the famously devoted Alpha of the Whitefang pack. One year after our wedding, I gave birth to a wolf pup, and Kevin ascended smoothly to the chairman of the alliance. My sister, Meredith Singer—driven by vanity and a thirst for power—married Simon Lynch, the leader of the vampires. However, she didn't expect his chaotic private life, overflowing with mistresses, to leave her with a disease that robbed her of her ability to bear children. Bitter over her ruined life, Meredith blamed everything on me. She drugged both me and my pup before setting a fire that burned us alive. "Annabelle, everything you have should've been mine! I should be the one married to the Alpha! I should be the chairman's mate! You're nothing!" As the fire roared around us, I clutched my pup tightly in my arms. He sobbed against my chest. "Mom... it hurts..." I couldn't do anything but watch as the flames consumed us both. In the final moments of my life, I saw someone I never expected—the zombie king, Landon Zeller. Without hesitation, he charged into the inferno, cradling me and my pup in his arms, trying desperately to save us. However, it was too late. We'd already taken our last breaths.

My mother-in-law is extremely frugal. She reuses paper others have discarded, carefully saving the unmarked portions. She even takes the black waste oil from the kitchen range hood and uses it to cook our meals. She says, "Frugality is a virtue—it brings blessings!" I try tirelessly to convince her otherwise, throwing out all her filthy items to protect my family's health. But while she praises me to my face, behind my back, she uses my baby's food scissors to clip her grimy toenails. My child eventually dies of a lung infection, leaving me heartbroken. My mother-in-law, however, points her finger at me, saying I'm unlucky and that I've brought misfortune to their family. Even my husband blames me. In the end, they use a knitting needle to pierce my throat and stab me to death. When I open my eyes again, I find myself back on the day I first see her picking up dirty paper. The first thing I do is hide all the high-quality tissue paper I had stocked up on before my pregnancy, pretending I knew nothing. She calls these blessings, right? Fine. The blessings of this miserly frugality—she can reap them all herself!

*Book 4* Isolde's life was full of love and joy. She was set to be High Priestess of the makkari, but everything changed in a single night when she lost everything at the hands of someone she thought she could trust. For centuries she has been on the run, helping the supernatural community under the cloak of anonymity while she works to clear her name and save the very people after her, from destruction. Enemies are closing in, but an unexpected complication befalls her when she realises she's been fated to someone who wants her species exterminated. After all, an evil chance seldom comes alone. A Queen Among Darkness is the fourth book in the Queen Among series. Each story is set up in the previous book, so reading the books in order is recommended. 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 A Queen Among Blood - Book 3 Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4 Dark Invocation - A Queen Among Darkness spin-off A Queen Among Tides - Book 5 Valor, Virtue, and Verve - A Queen Among Tides Prequel Spin-off A Queen Among Gods - Book 6 A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7

"How about a one-night stand? You are the first and only person to ever show me your filthy middle finger! Don't you think I should show your place?" My frustration boils over hearing him, can't gather my thoughts over how dark the other side of the handsome face can be! ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gracia Judy is a 25-year-old independent girl currently living alone in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. She is an orphan who was raised by her grandmother. She attains every virtue from her grandmother. Some days, Judy and Smith fall in love with each other. His presence makes her life heavenly. Everything is going well despite a lack of funds until she gets into an argument about her rights with a well-known, arrogant billionaire named Ellen John. How can the powerful, rich, and arrogant billionaire tolerate an ordinary girl’s pride? Her life turns upside down when she slaps him in return for his disrespectful words against her, and she becomes his one and only enemy, whom he keeps chasing nonstop to ruin her life. When she discovers his nefarious plot against her, she has no choice but to flee to avoid his lethal clutches. Ellen keeps looking for her everywhere; however, he finds no clue about her, but the real shock comes when he discovers his enemy standing in front of him as his bride!

“I am betrothed to marry you…” Esmé mumbled, shivering from her shoulders down her spine. Maybe it was because her clothes were soaked from the rain or the cold stare that the man was grazing towards her—piercing, cold, and judging. "You’re sexy underneath those already-drenched clothes. I could understand if you wanted to tempt me. But you’re crazy enough to tell me you’re marrying me,” he said with a smirk. She never thought she’d be on her knees in front of any man, crying and begging for him to take her in. Left with no options but to beg for shelter at the hands of the most dangerous mafia in their city, Esmé lets go of shame and pride just to talk to the man who is promised to her. With no parents to support her claim that she is betrothed to the billionaire mafia praised by many, she only has her words which he labeled as lies. But Esmé won’t give up that easily, especially when she has dedicated her life to honor her parent’s words before they were assassinated. It was then that Esmé knew she had to stay alive to avenge her parent’s death. But nothing comes easy, especially when it’s a forced marriage to a man who doesn’t want her. By virtue of courage, trust, and seduction—Esmé will go to the depths of hell just so she’ll get his attention, devotion, love... and never let her go.

*Book 2* Mei Liu learned suffering from an early age. After experiencing great loss, she spent years enduring abuse at the hands of a sadistic pack of wolves, while hiding her identity. All until the day she was saved by her fated soulmate arriving at her doorstep. Mei was finally free, loved and accepted, with her happily ever after on the horizon. But an unknown enemy has been searching for her and once he finds her he has no intentions of letting her go. Dark secrets will be revealed, and she will be pushed beyond her limits. Can she rise up and fight back and become the strong woman she was destined to be? Or will it all be too much for her to handle? A Queen Among Snakes is the second book in the Queen Among series. Each story is set up in the previous book, so reading the books in order is recommended. 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 A Queen Among Blood - Book 3 Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4 Dark Invocation - A Queen Among Darkness spin-off A Queen Among Tides - Book 5 Valor, Virtue, and Verve - A Queen Among Tides Prequel Spin-off A Queen Among Gods - Book 6 A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7

They called her "mad." The woman who once ruled Zhou's halls with laughter and grace now sat hollow in a white cell. Rose Sallow had lost everything. Her inheritance. Her child... her little boy, whose last breath faded against her trembling arms after the poison took hold. Her husband, Duke Sallow, once sworn to never leave her, now stood beside another. Lisa Zhou. Her cousin. Her sister in all but blood Now the new "Madam Sallow." She was carrying Duke’s child, the 'heir' he publicly acknowledged as his first child, and Rose's son’s name was erased from the family records. In the mental hospital room, she laughed when they handed her the divorce papers. That night, Rose decided to end it all. But fate, cruel, capricious fate, had other plans. When her eyes fluttered open, she didn’t find herself among the angels. She was staring at her reflection in a golden mirror, and on the bed behind her was her wedding gown. It was her wedding day. A chance to change it all. To rewrite fate. But as she rose from the bed, a shiver crawled down her spine. There, on the vanity, a note written in red... "Congrats... You have been granted a second chance." Then came the knock. Three slow, deliberate taps on the door. She froze. “Lady Rose?” a deep voice called. It wasn’t Duke’s voice. Softer, steadier, yet commanding. “Forgive the intrusion, but… I couldn’t wait any longer.” She opened the door. Standing there was a man she had never seen before. He bowed slightly, eyes dark as midnight. “Marry me,” he said simply. In her first life, this had never happened. No mysterious man. No interruption. No warning. Why now?

Liliana Andrea Cabrera, preferably Lily or Andrea,the supposedly tough-skinned adopted daughter of the simple lovely Perkins family, struggles dealing with the trauma from her childhood; the fear of her biological mother and the curse against love bestowed as a gift, as well as the guilt of her father and brother's deaths. Antonio Robles, tge business tycoon, devoted to work only because "All others? Vanity!" Aside the lack of affection growing up, after parents'plane crash and death, he buttresses this view with the determination to find his undisclosed enemy, "The Godfather", orchestrator of the attempts to snatch his most priced company, using his ex-fiance, the infamous Rachel, to do so. Things take a wild turn upon an encounter at the airport. The unexpected and novel reaction of a woman to him, leaves Antonio stunned, intrigued, still, infuriated. Unmoved by the threatening aura of the young man followed by body guards, she speaks her mind with ease. "Do you have any idea who I am?" "I believe your question should be do I care who you are and my answer is a sure bloody no....what I do know is that you need to learn some manner, jerk," she said nonchalantly. Now, she finally has his full attention. Antonio vows to bring her to her knees, no matter what. Finally succeeding in trapping "Miss Manners" who believes him to be all bark and no bite, it turns out he was rather underestimated by everyone. Regardless, an undeniable heat trolls their journey together, defying all odds. Love; they both combat tooth and nail. A feisty self-righteous lady; an arrogant self-centered gentleman; wild but tender in mysterious ways; a relationship many cannot fathom. This love-hate affair, secrets, action, comedy, and romance is packed with great nerve-racking suspense and heartwarming emotions.