Wind Bag Odyssey

I took my parents-in-law, Edmund and Macy Hale, out to a restaurant. When it was time to pay, we ran into my husband’s female assistant, Vera Rhodes. Seeing Mrs. Hale packing up the leftover bouillabaisse she had been drinking, Vera marched over and slapped the takeaway bag out of her hands. The soup splashed all over Mrs. Hale in an instant. "If you can’t afford to eat here, then don’t come," she sneered. "Look at you, reeking of poverty. How do people like you deserve to be Mr. Orion Hale’s in-laws? Don’t embarrass him." I asked the restaurant to prepare a fresh portion of fish soup to go. Before anyone could respond, Vera slapped me to the ground. "This is a members-only restaurant. You’re using Mr. Hale’s card, aren’t you?" she mocked. "Can’t you earn your own money? You need his money to support your hillbilly parents?" Mr. Hale was so enraged that he was rushed to the hospital. I called Orion and asked him to come sign the surgery consent form. He laughed coldly. "Vera already told me everything. Your dad even needs to trick me into paying medical bills now? Has your whole family gone insane from poverty? "If you’re going to die, then hurry up and die. Just don’t die in front of me. It’s bad luck."

I ditched a shot at studying abroad to help my boyfriend, Gavin Censori, launch his startup. Stuck it out with him through seven brutal years. Then boom—success hit, and so did the ghosting. On Valentine's Day, he hit me with the classic "work's crazy" excuse. Instead of showing up, he had some random delivery dude drop off a box of cosmetic samples. Samples. Later that night, his secretary Rebecca popped up on my feed, flexing hard. Caption: [With a boss like this, why go home early?] Pic: A box of high-end makeup. Same brand. Hers weren't samples. I dropped a comment: [You're doing great at your sidechick job. Gold star.] Gavin called instantly, losing it. "What's your problem? She's just an employee! I bust my ass making money for you, and you're always jealous!" I laughed. Didn't even yell. Just dumped him. Seven years, and I'd never touched a dime of his. Joke's on him—his precious startup? Secretly bankrolled by me. Fast-forward three years. Business summit. He rolled in wearing a tailored suit. The second he spotted me with a bag of bottles, his smirk kicked in. "Didn't like those cosmetics I gave you, huh? Now look at you—reduced to bottle collecting?"

"They called me a defect from the day I was born. No wolf, no scent, no future." That was the lie the Crescent Moon pack fed me my entire life. I was the dirt beneath their paws. The pack’s punching bag, an empty vessel, kept around only to scrub their floors. All I ever wanted was to survive my eighteenth birthday and vanish into the human world. But the Moon Goddess has a sick, twisted sense of humor. At the brutal Alpha Summit, the kind that happens once every decade, the scent hit me. It wasn't just one intoxicating wave of mate-pull. It was two. One smelled of pine and dark magic. The other smelled of blood and winter fire. Kael, Alpha of the Bloodhound Pack; ruthless, heavily scarred, and the most feared executioner on the continent. Ryker, Alpha of the Silvermane Pack; arrogant, indomitably powerful, and Kael’s sworn, centuries-old blood enemy. When both men roared "MINE" across the summit hall, the fragile peace treaty didn’t just break. It shattered. They don't want to share. They want to conquer. Now, the invisible nobody is the ultimate prize in a territorial war that will tear the shifter world apart. I am physically bound to two men who would rather burn the world to ash than let the other touch me. If I reject one, the mate-bond will kill him. If I choose both, the packs will riot. I just wanted to survive. But to stay alive, I might have to become the most dangerous Luna of them all.

Your wish is my command... Lots of people think that with these words, their life would change. Though, they're not entirely wrong. Just be cautious, for when the wrong wishes are granted, there is only one path left for you to take: Doom. Olivia Lilan Wind; the crown princess of the Kingdom of Air. As the sole heir to one of the most powerful elements and being mated to the next Lycan king, she's got a lot on her back. But what if she were to go to another dimension. Learn to coexist with the beings that live in that world. What if, she were to learn to love someone without being bound to mateship? Which path will she choose? For her Kingdom? Or for herself?--- Everyone thinks that it's normal to waste their childhood years, training... If it's what everyone does then it's normal but in the other world... In that world training their whole childhood and teenage years is what they call... NORMAL? One must always remember the prophecy of the four great war heroes that had saved the world of magic from being an inevitable barren world... 'The child to be born on the rarest light, carrying the symbol of the moon. Mated with the long-lost child of darkness and wielding an immense amount of magic affinity same as that of a goddess. Shall save this world once again from the barren fate that is lurking in the unknown future.'

I plan a family trip at my mother Lucia Sweeney's request. While avoiding the danger zones, my sister Linda Harper and I are ambushed by rogues. To protect her, I throw myself in the path of their claws and get driven into a silver mine. As I fall, my back is slashed open to the bone, and shards of silver embed deep into my right leg. The searing silver poison spreads quickly, burning through me and my wolf. My wolf is whimpering—she's close to death. However, as the pack's chief healer, Mom gathers all the healers around Linda to give her a full check-up over a few minor scrapes. I sob and beg her to save me first. "Mom, the poison has almost reached my heart. I can't hold on anymore." She turns around impatiently and yells, "Are you seriously still fighting with Linda now? Do you have any idea how close she came to getting clawed in the face by a silver claw? Our pack doesn't have a wolf as heartless as you!" And in that moment, I hear my wolf's final whimper, saying goodbye. I finally fall asleep in the cold wind, never waking up again.

"You keep saying he died of black magic, but you're not telling me exactly how he died. If what you're saying is true... what happened to him??" I ask her with a raise of my brows. "The magic consumed him. He became power hungry. He started absorbing the powers from members of our coven. He wanted it all for himself. He had to be put down. He had to be stopped" She explains "Mom, what are you saying? Are you insinuating what I think you are? What do you mean he had to be put down??" The windows to her room bang open and cool breeze is rushing in, making the papers in her room fly haphazardly. "Layla, you have to calm down." She motions towards me. "So the coven killed him?? They killed my father and you didn't do anything about it????" I scream at the top of my lungs, the lights still flickering, tears pooling in my eyes and wind blowing in through the windows. "He killed two people from our coven! His eyes were completely black! The magic had completely taken over him. Your dad wasn't there anymore. So yes, we killed him to protect the rest of the coven…"

In the land of Westfall, three packs rule: the Night Storm Pack, whose wolves are gifted with wind and storm abilities; the Shadow Rose Pack, who are masters of shadows and poison; and the Fire Moon Pack, who can wield flames and render themselves immune to fire. But only the luckiest packmembers have those powers, and not all who possess them have wolves. Meet Sasha Forster, a wolfless and helpless Slave of the Fire Moon Pack—until the ruthless Alpha Alain of the Shadow Rose Pack, the one who was cursed by her mother to marry Sasha and have an heir with her, saves her from her pack’s tyrannical Alpha. The Fire Moon Pack now whisks Sasha to be the payment to Alpha Alain and Alain is also trying his best to make her his and end the curse. But Sasha’s heart has already begun to beat for her childhood friend and her pack’s new Alpha, Ansel. Worse, Sasha became more perplexed when she accidentally revealed to the entire Fire Moon Pack that she has fire powers, and all the pack now either envy her or hate her. When her life and heart bombarded her with difficult choices, would she choose her heart over her mind? Or will she choose responsibility over love?

When ambitious journalist Quinn lands the scoop of a lifetime - an exclusive with the reclusive billionaire Lachlan McIntyre - she never imagines it will lead her into the eye of a storm... both literally and figuratively. Trapped on Lachlan's private island by a raging typhoon, Quinn finds herself drawn into the orbit of this magnetic older man. As the wind howls outside, Lachlan's carefully constructed walls begin to crumble, revealing dark secrets that could destroy everything he's built. With each passing day, the heat between them intensifies. Quinn knows she should keep things professional, but how can she resist when Lachlan looks at her like she's the answer to every question he's ever had? As Lachlan opens up, sharing his deepest thoughts and desires, Quinn realizes she's stumbled upon the story of a lifetime. But at what cost? The longer she stays, the harder it becomes to decide whether her feelings or career or more important. When the clouds finally part, Quinn faces an impossible choice: pursue the truth that could make her career, or protect the man who's captured her heart? Will Quinn choose ambition or love? Can Lachlan let her go once she knows it all?

On the heavy traffic road rushing my father to the hospital due to a cerebral hemorrhage, we ran into my husband, who was directing traffic as a police officer. My mother was about to wind the window down and beg him for help, but I immediately stopped her and decisively turned the steering wheel, taking a narrow side road instead. In my previous life, at this exact situation, after a brief moment of hesitation, my husband had chosen to clear a path for us and personally escorted my father to the hospital. That very night, his childhood sweetheart, out of spite because he hadn't answered her calls, turned on the gas and killed herself. He seemed utterly unaffected by her death. He even organized a welcome-home party for my father when he was discharged from the hospital. But on the day of the party, he poisoned every dish on the table. "It's because of you and your damn father! If it weren't for you, Rosalin wouldn't have killed herself! You're the ones who drove her to death! You should pay for her life!" When I opened my eyes once more, I had returned to the day my father collapsed. This time, my husband answered the phone. Without a second thought, he ran to his childhood sweetheart. Yet, why had he still come to regret it?

One of the most painful things on earth is to lose a loved one. Whether in death or heartbreak. It's a pain different from all others. You feel every burn, every ache, your senses awaken, and greedily await a memory to sip in and then wreck your entire being. She took everything. His Light. His Heart. His Soul. It had no end. For years it went on like it would never end. But, it did. Just in passing, a normal day, a day like every other, but it was the day, his heart danced truly and his chest tighten as if a fierce wind had passed by, blending with his soul, leaving a suffocating feeling in his chest, a choking sensation in his throat, there was a pressure making it hard to breathe. ******* "My heart has heated for the human and my blood has flown for him. Every time I thought of him, my heart would ache. It would ache so much I couldn't breathe, the feeling of despair, yet sweetness... Even so, I still couldn't stop thinking about him." So...this is how it feels to love a person. "I belong to you, just as this merman belongs to the seas. Like a falling leaf belongs to its roots." "Nothing can stop me from falling into your embrace." ******* ®®