Watch Chain Crossword Clue

Just one week before my marking ceremony with Lucien, I discovered his heart already belonged to someone else. His secretary, Anika, walked out of his office with a smirk that was a little too knowing. Her blouse was askew, her usually neat hair a tangled mess, and only the faintest trace of her crimson lipstick remained. My heart seized in my chest, and my fingers went cold on the doorknob. Two years ago, she had been a timid girl fresh from the countryside. All that pretense of innocence had vanished, replaced by a brazen ambition written across her face. Her relentless eagerness around Lucien had always grated on my nerves, and I had asked him more than once. "Lucien, can't you replace her?" His smile would always fade. "Anika saved my life," he'd say. "I can't be so heartless." Now, that single triumphant smirk was all it took for me to understand. What others once envied in me had already been trampled beneath her heels. My phone vibrated. It was a new proposal from the event planner. [The marking ceremony plan is nearly perfect. Can we finalize it?] I refused to be consumed by sorrow. I wiped a tear from my cheek and made one last adjustment to the document.——Replaced the bride's name withAnika I didn't want a false love, or a fake Alpha Lucien. Let them have the marking ceremony. Let Anika stand at his side as his Luna, his chosen mate. In seven days, I would be gone with my pup.

• • • FOR ADULT READERS ONLY • • •️️️ I shouldn’t have wanted him. Not when he was older. Not when he was untouchable. Not when he was my father’s best friend. Not when he belonged to a world I was never meant to step into. But I did. I was five years old when I decided he was mine. Standing at his wife’s graveside in the rain, I held his face with my little hands and told him I would grow up and be his. He said: Is that right. Not a question. So I kept my word. Adrian Keller. My father's best friend. The man who watched me grow. The man who built an empire on control. The man no one touches. The man I wasn’t supposed to want. For thirteen years, I loved him the only way I was allowed to. In silence. At a distance. Across rooms that belonged to our families — not to what I was carrying. Until the night I turned eighteen. I said it out loud. He shut it down in one word: “Don’t.” So I did. I stopped looking at him. I stopped wanting him. I stopped being the girl who built her entire world around a man who would never choose her. I walked away. That should have been the end. It wasn’t. Because the moment I stopped reaching for him, was the moment Adrian Keller started looking for me. Across rooms. Across tables. At midnight — staring at a name he shouldn’t want. The man who taught me control is starting to lose his. And this time… He’s not asking. And underneath the empire, Underneath the discipline, Underneath fifteen years of unshakable control— Something ruinous is coming loose.

"You can't handle it. If you try too hard to understand me, what you'll unbosom, that is if you're able to uncover anything, will drive you mad. Because my mind is a dark labyrinth, never understood". “Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind”.——Dean Roontz. A dark, lonely, numb soul wanders the face of the Earth in search of peace. Running and hiding from her hunters and her captives. She's trying all she can to feel something, anything, at all as proof that she's living but all to no avail. She's neither human nor werewolf, Satyr nor mermaid, she doesn't seem to have a place to fit in. Her only mission and the goal that drives her very being is how to get rid of the curse she was born with. A curse that seems to spread its wings of death over any one she dares to care about. A curse that doesn't hesitate to suck the happiness out of all beings of close proximity to her. Will her strive to break this curse be fruitful or futile? Will she be able to protect others from getting consumed by this curse that plagues her very existence? Will she thrive over this seemingly unbreakable curse?

“I reject you.” Those three words should have ended Eiren’s life. Publicly rejected by his fated mate and declared defective by pack law, Eiren is dragged into the darkness to await execution. In a world where omegas are only valued when they are chosen, being unwanted is a death sentence. Broken, scentless, and abandoned, Eiren prepares to die alone in chains. But fate is not finished with him. In the shadows of the pack’s prison, a second bond ignites,violent, forbidden, and impossible. Kael Vorthran, the pack’s feared executioner, claims Eiren without permission, without mercy, and without regret. He does not ask. He does not hesitate. And once he marks Eiren as his, the entire pack becomes his enemy. Protected by the most dangerous alpha alive, Eiren is pulled into a bond that is too strong, too fast, and slowly kills him. As the pack plots his death and ancient laws close in, Kael is forced to choose between power and love, duty and defiance. Because this time, fate didn’t give him a perfect omega. It gave him someone worth burning the world for.

She was running from a man who owned her past. He was the man willing to fight for her future. Cassie Davidson doesn’t do love. At least not anymore. A talented cook with a locked heart, she lives by one rule: never get too close. But when George Sinclair, a soft-spoken billionaire with sharp eyes and a quiet fire, walks into her life, her rulebook starts to crack. George sees through her walls. He doesn’t ask questions but also never misses a detail. And when Cassie begins to let him in, she feels something she thought she lost forever... Safe. Just when she's beginning to breathe again, her nightmare returns. Xavier, the ex she barely escaped, is back. And this time, he's not playing fair. Caught between the ghosts of her past and a man willing to rewrite her future, Cassie must decide: will she keep surviving, or finally choose to live, fight? Hearts Unchained is a slow-burn billionaire romance pulsing with emotional tension, deep healing, and a love worth breaking chains for.

Elena had left her past behind her to start a law firm of her own. Uknown to her, a business rival had dug up her past dirt and was blackmailing her. That night she met up with Luis Mathew, she'd done something really dreadful. Something she thought no one else saw. As she made her way outside the old deserted house, she was sure she had done what she did to protect herself, little did she know that she'd encounter a more dreadful fate from, "the eyes that watched". Gregory knew he was sick in his dark mind, and as he watched the fragile girl take a life, he knew he'd have her at all cost. They were dark together in hearts. Warning: This book contains sexual encounters, graphic languages and dark happenings that some readers may find inappropriate and so is not suitable for anyone under tha age of 18.

On the night of my awakening, which was also my 18th birthday, my parents locked me in a silver cage in the basement while my foster sister Emma prepared for her ceremony upstairs. Then, the Blood Moon Eclipse struck, forcing every member of the pack to evacuate. Emma urged our parents to help. My heart warmed, and I thought they would come to save me. However, the only thing my father carried out was Emma’s stuffed wolf doll. They clutched Emma and fled for their lives, leaving me behind in the collapsing basement. When I crawled out of the ruins, they were already in the safehouse, celebrating Emma’s successful awakening as a White Wolf. Ten years later, I became the heir to Blackstone Consortium, controlling half of the werewolf world’s economy. When we met again, the former leader of the Silvermoon Pack knelt before me. “I've finally found you, my daughter.” My gaze was cold as I faced the stranger in front of me. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

On my wedding day, I jumped from the 38th floor of the hotel. It all started when I got together with my first love, Colin Frey. My best friend, Alice Manning, came to me and said she had bound herself to some kind of love system. She claimed that every guy I dated would fall for her and dump me. I thought she was just messing around and did not believe her. However, just a few days later, Colin came to me and confessed that he wanted to break up because he had fallen in love with Alice. After that, I got smart about it. I stopped telling anyone about my relationships and did not even post anything on social media. Yet, somehow Alice always knew. It was as if she had installed some kind of tracking device on me. No matter who I dated, she would find out. Then, within days, they would all fall head over heels for her and leave me behind. I was completely heartbroken, so I moved back to my hometown to get as far away from Alice as possible. Through my parents' arrangement, I was set to marry a guy through a blind date setup. Yet, on the actual wedding day, he stood up in front of everyone and confessed his love to Alice, saying he wanted to marry her instead. My parents, who were sitting in the audience, were so furious and devastated that they collapsed on the spot. They were rushed to the hospital, but it was too late. They were gone. Meanwhile, Alice was wearing the ring that was supposed to be mine, looking absolutely smug as she boasted, "A man this amazing? As if you deserve him. Now he's mine, so why don't you just step aside like a good girl?" I could not take the blow, so I climbed to the hotel rooftop and leapt off without hesitation. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the very moment before Alice had ever mentioned that so-called system.

SHE WAS a typical student who always got bullied in the Stoneheart University, not because of her looks but because of her magic. She always believed that she was just a weak enchanter since the first time she used magic. However, things started to change the moment she encountered a weird guy who seemed to love black at an abandoned building's rooftop inside their school. Slowly, her unknown fate started to unfold. Out of the ten types of magic existing in their world with a lot of subtypes, why would she have to possess such a controversial one? Instead of not being able to use mana the way she wanted to, why must she have to obtain the one that is unwanted? Dark. Black. Two similar words that were always seen by people as evil. Light. White. Two words that were always regarded as good. In a world where everyone has a negative thought about black magic, could a person born with it last until the end while assuming she has such a difficult task she didn't even wish for? Book cover by Ate Angelica Maghirang

Lillian Hawthorne is the embodiment of perfection in the eyes of the public, burdened by the expectation of setting an impeccable example. As a member of the powerful Hawthorne clan, she understands that any misstep is unforgivable. Following orders has always come naturally to Lillian, but as she grows older, she finds herself gradually falling for Alexander Montgomery, her father's best friend who happens to be twice her age. Lillian is well aware that her attraction to Alexander is considered sinful by her father and society, so she keeps her desire hidden from prying eyes. Just when Lillian believes her secret is safe, her stepbrother, Marcus Sullivan, unexpectedly appears and discovers her forbidden romance with Alexander. Marcus becomes a threat to Lillian's flawless facade, compelling her to do everything possible to please him and protect her secret. In her efforts to safeguard her forbidden love, Lillian finds herself developing feelings for Marcus, further complicating an already tangled situation. As her heart begins to beat for her stepbrother, Lillian is faced with an agonizing choice. Will she choose Alexander, her father's best friend, with whom she shares a forbidden connection? Or will she succumb to the complex emotions stirring within her for her stepbrother, Marcus? In this tale of forbidden love and intricate relationships, Lillian must navigate the treacherous waters of her own heart to discover where her true desires lie.