desert survival

His steely gaze bore into mine, an abyss of emotionless darkness. "Marc-" "SHUT UP!" I flinched, a shudder coursing through me. He came on closer, his fingers tightening around my neck, a cruel parody of a caress. I met his frightening stare, I stared at him breathing heavily. "Just be still." I lowered my face, eyelids fluttering shut, as if seeking solace in the darkness. "I own you." His declaration resounding heavy in the air, an unbreakable chain binding me to this desire’s. In that moment, I knew - there was no escaping the clutches of this man who held me captive, body and soul. **************** In the heart of a city shrouded in shadows and secrets, Elena Santiago's life takes a dangerous plunge. Her father's debts drag them to the doorstep of Don Marco De Luca, an astute and enigmatic mafia overlord, thrusting Elena into a world of scary gambles and lethal allure. Boundaries blur between allegiance and survival as Elena must survive through a web of deception, where every move becomes a battle cry. With her family's future teetering on a razor's edge, she finds herself torn between defying the merciless Don and submitting to a life of total servitude. ******** Will she succumb to his desires… or hers?!

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.

During a competition, my wife's childhood friend switches my climbing chalk out for flour. When I'm about to win the competition, my hands slip, and I fall from a rock climbing wall that's several feet high. I'm covered in blood. My wife doesn't care about my survival, though. She tells the doctor to prioritize her childhood friend, who's feigned a fainting spell from the blood. Later, I discover that my wife condoned her childhood friend in switching out the chalk. Why did she do it? Because she was worried that her childhood friend, who was never good at physical activities, would be sad if I were to win. Yet, when I lose hope in her and ask for a divorce, she cries and tells me I'm the one she loves.

"Aasif," I whispered, my voice shaky with desire. He didn't reply. He only held me tighter, his strong arms a band around my waist. His kisses grew more intense, all I wanted was him, His touch, his scent, him inside me. I was teetering on the edge, yet he held back. He held us back. He pulled away; his breathing as erratic as mine. His voice was rough, filled with an intense battle of restraint and desire   "This is just for curiosity's sake, right?" His voice was deep, husky, a sensual murmur against my skin that made my pulse race even faster. Gabriela a young nurse from a small Mexican town, shoulders the world as she strives to provide for her ailing mother and little sister, Maria. An unexpected opportunity emerges when she's offered a job at a prestigious hospital in Al-Qamar. Thrust into the vibrant but unfamiliar world of the Arabian desert, Gabby grapples with her new reality. But Gabby's life takes a dramatic twist when she crosses paths with a charismatic yet arrogant billionaire Sheikh. Their worlds collide in a whirlwind of opulence and high-stakes power dynamics, their association marked by the Sheikh's emotionally barren, benefit-based approach towards relationships. A tragic accident abruptly turns the tables when the Sheikh suffers memory loss, casting a shadow of uncertainty over Gabby's future. The once arrogant billionaire stands before her, a man without a past, unraveled and vulnerable. As Gabby is pulled into a vortex of caring for the man who once saw her as a mere commodity, she grapples with the strange affectionate ties that emerge. With a newfound bond budding and the Sheikh's memory threatening to return at any moment, Gabby is walking on a tightrope of emotions, what happens when the Sheikh's memory returns?

Like a moth is drawn to a flame, she's drawn to him even when she knows the consequences. She has been attracted to him the very first time she saw him, only that she had no idea how hard she is going to fall for him, how deeply she is going to care for him. Nathalie is an only child, the heiress to her billionaire family's fortune. She isn't interested in the family business, instead she finds comfort in drawing, painting and photographing. Lucas has an assignment to carry out and damn right he's going to do it, he mustn't let one amazing girl with a honey brown hair and eyes sway him. But can he? He came into the house hiding under the mask of being a bodyguard but it is much more than that. Both his survival and that of his twin sister depends on it.

"No! I will never be your mate!" Ariel screamed, swiftly raising her gun and aiming straight at the heart of Elijah Jaeger, the Werewolf King. “You’re mine, Ariel,” he murmured with a possessive voice as he pressed me into the table, I looked up at him to see him placing the tip of the gun in front of my vagina. "What?!" My pupils widened. He was going to **** me with a gun?! I was shaking all over, and I started to back away in fear. "No, please. No..." I begged, crying. *** In the year 2200, humanity exists as slaves under werewolf rule, with humans ranked even lower than omegas, subjected to severe abuse daily. Ariel lives within werewolf-controlled territory. Smart and resilient, she wakes up each day with one burning desire—to shoot a werewolf in the heart with a weapon of her own design. Her father was killed by werewolves, and her mother couldn’t bear the heartbreak, passing away suddenly. Ariel is consumed by pain, yet she steels herself to stay strong because she has a twin sister, Alice, and a friend, Ron, to protect. She’s determined to make the werewolves pay for their actions. But fate is merciless; Alice, driven by her own desires, betrays Ariel, and even Ron—her ever-loyal friend—begins to believe that Ariel’s death could be his ticket to freedom. Ariel refuses to break. Her greatest motivation for survival is to kill the Werewolf King—the one she believes responsible for her father’s murder. But destiny has a cruel twist in store: on the very day she intends to kill Elijah, she’s discovered to be his mate! As she finds allies willing to stand by her, will Ariel abandon revenge, or will she choose to forge a new path with Elijah?

CEO's Affair is a gripping tale of love, betrayal, and survival set against the dark, high-stakes world of the mafia. Isabella "Izzy" Romano is a single mother struggling to pay for life-saving medical treatment for her young daughter. Desperate for work, she takes a job as a waitress at a luxury restaurant, but her world is shattered when a dangerous mob threatens her. The last person she ever expects to save her is Dante Vieri, her former boyfriend turned ruthless mafia boss. Once a man who promised to protect her, Dante now demands that Izzy become his mistress in exchange for his protection. Trapped by her circumstances and the dangerous world Dante now rules, Izzy reluctantly agrees. As she is pulled deeper into his shadowy empire, old feelings of resentment and lingering passion resurface, forcing her to confront the man he has become and the man she once knew. The stakes escalate when Izzy’s long-held secret—Dante’s daughter—threatens to unravel everything. As the mafia world closes in, Izzy faces a devastating choice: reveal the truth about their child or risk losing everything to the empire that Dante has built. Torn between protecting her family and surviving in Dante's world, Izzy must navigate the blurred lines between love and loyalty, while Dante grapples with his own feelings of guilt and unresolved desire. In CEO's Affair, both Izzy and Dante are forced to confront their pasts, their deepest fears, and their complicated emotions for each other. Can they rebuild the trust and love they once shared, or will the deadly forces of the mafia tear them apart for good?

In an effort to escape her abusive step-parent, Lyla rejects her pack and flees, but wanders into the Blackhaw pack where she is taken captive alongside other rogues like her and sold to world ruthless alphas. Lyla, now captive of the world's second most cruel alpha, has to find a way to survive or probably escape. But unknowingly and much to her surprise, her every action makes him fall in love with her. Then he gives her a tantalizing offer of freedom or to stay and become his Luna. Becoming a Luna was quite beneficial to her mostly but she runs. Lyla runs because she has no sensual feelings for him and also because he is like a ticking time bomb and could go off any second. And yes he did go off two weeks after she left. This isn't your usual romance book, it is based on survival of the fittest 'regardless' of love, which is exactly what Lyla is struggling to do as a rogue without a master or a pack.

------ Through the small gap, I saw them. Ciaran’s hands were under Elara’s skirt, pushing it up as he pressed his body into hers from behind. Her breathy giggles mixed with his possessive murmurs. They were both facing away from the door, her body nearly bent over the bed. "Later," Elara giggled, her voice teasing, playful. “You have to get to the ceremony.” “I’ll take you later too,” Ciaran growled lustfully, his voice dripping with possession. ------ Cast aside as wolfless, betrayed by her love on the eve of her wedding, Ariana’s world shatters when her fiancé slaughters her family and lays waste to her pack. Barely escaping with her life, Ariana is mistaken for the contract bride of a notorious Alpha after a rogue attack leaves her the sole survivor. Desperate for refuge, she steps into the role of his fake bride, hiding under a guise that shields her from past horrors. But as her days in the Alpha's world turn into something more, survival is no longer enough—Ariana begins to crave revenge on the man who destroyed her life. Yet, every day she spends deceiving this cursed Alpha—whose own brides never survive—brings her closer to a new danger: her growing desire for the very man she’s deceiving. With enemies closing in, will Ariana’s secret destroy her? Or will she risk everything to uncover a future that’s as dangerous as it is seductive?

A single misstep, and the consequences were severe. I am Moxie Guerra, known to all who know me as a devil with the face of an angel. At the age of seventeen, I am a woman with high standards in every aspect of life. I insist on the best food, the most luxurious clothing, and when it comes to men, they must be extraordinarily wealthy, attractive, and well-known. Born to my father's mistress, who passed away after my birth, I am scorned by my father's second family. As the daughter of a mafia boss, I was brought up in a perilous environment. No one perceived me as patient or kind. Instead, I was feared, much like my father, which was my Achilles' heel. However, when I discovered that my father had arranged my marriage to the richest son in the country without my approval, my rebellious streak surfaced. I wasn't just the daughter of a mafia boss for appearances. I was as obstinate and egocentric as my father. I decided to flee to a place where my father would least expect me to be. I stopped at the nearest bar for some liquid courage before driving to my mother's hometown. It was a humble province, filled with trees and dirt roads, a stark contrast to my opulent lifestyle. But my survival was more crucial than my sophisticated tastes. However, my car broke down in the middle of a vast highway on the way there. Despite being inebriated, I managed to survive. A man in a black Hummer arrived and came to my aid. His smile was menacing and disconcerting.