Whispers In The Shadow Novels & Stories

There's an unspoken rule in my household—everyone has to engage in a drinking competition during the holidays. Whoever gets wasted first will have to pay off one year's worth of house and car mortgages for the other two siblings. In the first year, I collapsed after my first glass of alcohol. I had to pay the house mortgage for my oldest sister, Dahlia Zeller. In the second year, as soon as I picked up my glass, I fainted right away. Since then, I had to pay off Jasmine Zeller, my second sister's car loan. For the next 20 years, I've always been the loser. In the end, my wife, Jean McCarthy, is forced to jump off a building because of the huge debt I've racked up. The debtors keep dumping paint onto my residence, forcing me to deter away from it. Ransacked by guilt, I end up damaging my stomach from overdrinking when I attempt to train my alcohol tolerance. As a result, half of my liver has gotten removed. When I'm on the verge of death, I hear my parents snickering outside my ward. "Don't you think we've laced too many sleeping pills in his drink? He almost didn't wake up back then!" "It's fine. He's an idiot who merely thinks he has a low alcohol tolerance. Our family still relies on him for financial survival, you see. We can keep drugging him so that he'll keep getting wasted." When I open my eyes again, I've already gotten reborn in the timeframe when I'm sitting at the dining table in the 20th year.

To inherit his father’s empire and merge two powerful companies, Xavier Blackwell must obey one condition… He must marry his late mother’s nurse. Cold, ambitious, and emotionally unavailable, Xavier agrees only for business. Love is not part of the deal. Laura Grey is drowning in debt and hiding from a dangerous stalker. When a billionaire offers her marriage, protection, and security, she accepts… even though she knows she is walking into a world she does not belong in. What begins as a contract marriage soon turns into a dangerous game of desire, secrets, and betrayal. Because Xavier is hiding the truth about his family… And Laura’s past may destroy them both. In a world of power, obsession, and forbidden love, will their forced marriage become their greatest mistake… or their only salvation?

Hugo Laurent is determined to have me as his wife. He pursues me for a decade, resolute in winning my heart. But the night before our wedding, I overhear his conversation with his friends. "Are you going to marry Katherine just like that? What about your secret girlfriend?" Hugo is silent. Then, he says, "She's just a stand-in. She can't compare to Katherine. I'll consider keeping her by my side if she doesn't kick up a fuss. Katherine's generous—she won't mind." The following day, his secret girlfriend crashes our wedding and causes a stir. She shoves me off the stage, but Hugo darts toward her to protect her—she holds a jagged shard of glass to her neck and threatens suicide. "Are you going to choose me or her?" Hugo panics. He shoves me aside despite my injuries and snaps, "Get out of the way—I need to take her to the hospital! I'll make you pay if anything happens to her!" My heart dies in that instant. That very night, I purchase a flight ticket out of the country and leave him behind.

Rachel Larson was adamant about marrying me, and she spent ten years stealing my heart. On the night before our wedding, I overheard her conversation with her friend. "You're marrying Leonardo? What about your side piece?" A moment of silence later, Rachel answered, "That guy? He's just a cheap replacement. Leonardo's the real deal. Don't compare my side piece to him. If he stays put and keeps his mouth shut, I might let him stay around. Leonardo's a broad-minded man. He won't mind." The side piece did not stay put. In fact, he caused a scene at the wedding the next day. He shoved me off the stage, but the woman who was supposed to marry me darted over to his side instead. Why? He was holding a piece of broken glass against his throat. Gutturally, he roared, "Choose! Me or him?" Panicked, Rachel kicked me away despite my injuries, and she roared, "Get out of the way! I need to take him to the hospital! If anything happens to him, I'll kill you!" She didn't need to wait that long. My heart died right there and then. … That night, I bought a flight ticket that would take me abroad and left her.

After being missing for eighteen years, I was finally found by my wealthy birth parents. The impostor—the young man who had taken my place all this time—dropped to his knees, sobbing. "Goodbye, Mom and Dad. Thank you for raising me. Now that Jason is back, this family doesn't need me anymore." My parents hugged him with heartbreaking tenderness. "Don't be ridiculous," they said. "You're our only real son." Even my fiancée confessed her love to him. "I don't care who you really are. You're the only one I love." They all orbited around him, like planets around the sun. When I was nearly killed in a car accident, they were too busy throwing a birthday party for his dog. So I packed my things in silence. Without a word, I accepted an invitation from the space agency to join a five-year satellite research mission in complete isolation. Yet after I left, it was like the whole family lost their minds. They scoured the entire country, desperate to find any trace of me.

So what if you're formidable or filthy rich? Don't you dare get cocky with me. I'm Cassian York. I can save your life, and I can end it, too!

We were on our way to celebrate our son’s birthday when we got into a car crash. When I woke up, I looked at my family gathered around my hospital bed and cracked a joke: “Sorry, but who are you guys?” I held back a smile, curious to see how they'd humor their "amnesiac" patient. Would my mother grab my hand in a panic? Would my husband look at me with worry? Would my son rush over, crying and calling me Mom? What I didn't expect was for them to freeze for a moment—and then, almost in unison, let out sighs of relief. My mother was the first to speak, her tone unmistakably lighter, as if a huge weight had been lifted. "If you don’t remember, it’s probably for the best. This is Lindsay—your sister, she’s my daughter. You were adopted." My husband then pointed at me and said to our son, "You should call her Aunt Wendy." Before the shock could even sink in, I watched the child I'd fought so hard to protect turn and throw himself into the arms of Lindsay. "Mom! I played outside all day. I missed you so much!" So that was the truth. My amnesia was exactly what they'd been hoping for. In that case, I didn't need this made-up life anymore.

Jasmine must face a difficult choice when her father flees money from his employer, Mr. Hawthorne. As payment for her father's wrongdoing, Jasmine is forced to become Mr. Hawthorne's mistress. The meeting is the beginning of a journey full of conflict and forbidden feelings, the unraveling of mysteries, and the revelation of the true power of their relationship.

LUNA: My entire life, I believed I was a simple human with a desire to assist shifters at the hospital where I work. But I could never have foreseen what fate had in store for me the moment I laid eyes on Blazes. For anyone of us. As soon as our worlds collided, all we could see was each other, and our destinies were soon intertwined by a curse that revealed my true identity. Mated to two shifters, it is up to us to break the curse placed on their pack before their demise is written in stone. BLAZE: With every male born into my pack, I can feel my grip on reality slipping, and I know that time is running out. As the future Alpha, it is my responsibility to track down the witch who has caused all of our sufferings and compel her to either break the curse or accept death. It was not part of the mission to find my mate, but it turns out that she is the only one who can save us, and she quickly becomes my addiction… My every desire… Mine. We are bound by our curse. And our passion will only lead us to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession, beyond our limits. SAFFRON: I can see how Blaze regards our mate, and I refuse to kiss the ground she walks on as he does. My body aches for her, I cannot deny it. Unfortunately for me, my wolf is loyal to the point of willing self-destruction to protect her. And when the time comes for us to fulfill our destinies and break the curse... Will I be able to succumb to my temptation and then turn it off like a dripping faucet once the ritual is over?

I was a soldier's wife. Less than two years into our marriage, I asked Lucian Summers for a divorce because I found a little handmade bracelet at home. It was not mine, and Lucian had never bought me cute little trinkets like this before. Lucian scoffed and said, "All because of that little thing?" I could not be bothered to explain this time, so I replied coldly, "Yeah. It's exactly because of that little thing."