Empty Smiles

I never wanted to be an Alpha. It was my brother’s destiny to lead the pack. But Dad refused to give him the position, believing he would lead with his heart, not his head! As his only other child, the title falls to me. Following my father’s death, the Wolf Council is demanding that I find a mate before I turn 21. Or they will choose a new Alpha for the River Valley Pack. Why? Because a female is supposed to be a Luna, not an Alpha.   But I am not a Luna, I am the Female Alpha of the River Valley Pack. I won’t be made to choose a partner who doesn’t deserve me. But I won’t find one hiding in my pack. I need to put myself out there. It’s the only way to save my pack.    I travel to find out what people think of their Alpha. Perfect smiles or fancy cars won’t fool me, not even for a second.     If I find my mate on my journey, I will see if he is worthy. If he’s not, a rejection is in his future. I will not settle. A male Alpha wouldn’t. Why should I?

In her first life, she was a fool. In this one, she’s a weapon. Evelyn Kingston had it all: a powerful husband who would have loved her, a beautiful son who needed her, and a genius-level intellect she threw away to please a snake. Blinded by the smooth words of her lover, Marcus, and the fake smiles of her best friend, Sarah, Evelyn committed the ultimate betrayal. She stole her husband’s corporate secrets, destroyed his legacy, and neglected her son—only to be murdered by the very people she sacrificed everything for. But death wasn't the end. Waking up on the morning of the betrayal that started it all, Evelyn realizes she has been given a second chance. This time, she isn't the fragile socialite they remember. Using her hidden mastery of code and a heart hardened by the grave, she sets out to rewrite her future. She will heal the scars she left on her son’s heart. She will earn the trust of the husband she once despised. And for Marcus and Sarah? She has a special kind of digital hell waiting for them. The "Ice Queen" is back, and she’s playing for keeps.

Caily Galileo believes everyone can change, everyone can become an angel. Everyone except Pietro Giacometti. He is a damned monster who will never change. And not his devilishly charming smiles that are only ever directed to her can change her opinion of him. Pietro Giacometti knows what he wants and what belongs to him and Caily Galileo belongs to him. He has been away from her for years but it is now time Caily knows and accepts that she can only ever belong to one man, Pietro Giacometti... MINE PEACHES NOTE: If you have read any of my books in the past, then you'd know my male leads kill and things can get a little bit dark but this particular book might be darker than all my previous books. Pietro Giacometti is an obsessed man who will do anything and everything to be with Caily even if it's the most unhinged thing ever. He is dark and wild. This book, however does not contain non consensual sex or rape in any form. Thank you for choosing to read 'MINE, PEACHES'. Trigger warnings: Stalking, obsession, explicit violence, BDSM.

Ever since my CEO husband returned from his business trip, he's been acting strange. His hugs are stiff, and his kisses are empty. Even when we're intimate, something just feels off. When I ask him why, he just smiles and says he's tired from work. But everything falls into place the moment I see his first love stepping out of his Maybach, her body covered in hickeys. That's when I finally give up. I don't argue or cry. I just smile… and tear up the 99th love coupon. Once, he wrote me a hundred love letters. On our wedding day, we made a promise—those letters would become 100 love coupons. As long as there were coupons left, I'd grant him anything he asked. Over the four years of our marriage, every time he left me for his first love, he'd cash in one. But what he doesn't know is that there are only two left.

For eight years, I was the ghost in Lorenzo Valenti's empire. By day, I was his executive assistant, the engine of his criminal enterprise. By night, I was the most submissive bird in his gilded cage, and the nameless body in his bed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on madness, a foolish flame I'd nurtured since I was a scholarship student pulled into his orbit. I believed my quiet love could one day melt the ice around his heart. I was wrong. The day his unforgettable first love, Isabella, returned, the man I knew vanished. The rare smiles once reserved for me were now all for her. My presence by his side was erased, replaced by hers. Even when she framed me, he believed her without hesitation. He chose her, again and again. I submitted my resignation. He signed it without looking. He thought I'd crawl back, broken and begging. He was wrong. While he was busy playing house with his "cuore mio", I was quietly packing away my life, preparing to vanish from his world forever.

For the hundredth time, my dad hints at us that he really wants to become a grandfather during New Year Eve's dinner. Lydia Cooper, my wife who has insisted on living a childless life for the past decade, just smiles before placing more food on his plate. After dinner, she ducks out to the balcony and murmurs into her phone, "Be good, now. Mommy will visit you a few days later." I can feel my blood running cold in my veins as I stand in the living room with a glass of water. As I approach Lydia, I do my best to keep my voice light and teasing. "I just heard you say the word 'mommy.' Do you have an illegitimate child out there somewhere?" Lydia rubs her nose, her tone now awkward. "You might be hearing things. It was just my friend's child…" My heart plunges into my stomach pit at her words. I've been in love with Lydia for ten years. It's only natural that I know how she acts whenever she's lying.

Lila only wanted to fit in for this one night and this one party. So she had one fake boyfriend to keep her from feeling invisible in a sea of confident smiles and perfect couples. It was supposed to be simple until her fake date ditched her under the blinding strobe lights, leaving her stranded and humiliated in the middle of the hockey team’s Freshers Welcome Party. But humiliation took an unexpected turn when Ethan, her best friend’s brother, and worse, her brother’s best friend stepped in to save her. That moment should have been the start of something new. Instead, it became the beginning of everything she never saw coming. Because while her heart recognized something in his eyes, his stayed shuttered, cold and unreachable. And just when she thought she was ready to forget, the fake boyfriend returns, this time, asking for something real. Between two hearts that shouldn’t collide and a past that refuses to stay buried, Lila must choose: follow the safety of what she knows, or risk everything for what she can’t seem to let go of?

Have you ever pain so raw it feels like your hear is being dragged out of your heart? The type that breaks into pieces you could never find because they are lost to the wind of scorn and shame. Cassandra carries her pain like a weight on her shoulder everyday despite her smiles and jokes, too young to remember what it felt like to have parents before she lost hers to an accident her grandparents do not like talking about she is trying to find the little good life has in store for her. But she is given a brutal awakening when the one person she thought would bring her much needed happiness tosses her aside. So Cassandra runs away from it all, she runs far enough to never feel the despair looming behind her. And she runs into the arms of Ray, handsome, cocky, but caring, considerate, and loving. Cassandra is about to find out love works without the mate ties and build bonds with the most unlikely people. Cassandra is about to find the love acceptance she always yearned for in the most unlikely place.

Akana is a lowly desert nomad, while Sidastir Den Raffiben is the Elven king Eiter Kingdom. Eiter, a once full of life kingdom is now, nothing but the ghost of its past. The story begins with a marriage contract between two people; one who cannot feel cold, and the other is an Ice mage. They say it's pure fate. Together they set out on their path to Virtus Scolaris, the most prestigious institution in all of the Nine Kingdoms. Slowly throughout their time there, the couple nurtures an unbreakable bond. Akana is far from welcomed at the school. He was considered barbaric and should not move among the civilized races of the Nine Kingdoms. However, everything changes when Akana loses his way back to his chambers and stumbles across an empty cold alley. The situation becomes toxic when a violent incident reveals Akana's hidden abilities and brings light to his people's darkest secret. A story in a world where monsters walk amongst humans, the truth is rarely pure and never simple, and to face the truth raw is to face the ugliness of our being. In a world where the price for love is losing your own existence, where you stand one moment away from flipping the switch, what would you choose?

To save his childhood sweetheart suffering from a congenital heart condition, my mate Ethan—the storm pack’s Alpha—forced me to remove my heart to be given to his beloved. "Don't worry, you are the rarest white wolf with the strongest healing ability. I have prepared an artificial heart for you, and you will be fine." Ethan said. I tried to explain to my mate Ethan that my healing ability has become very poor in the past year, so that transplanting my heart would kill me. My mate snarled at me with disgust, "Selene is so gravely ill, and here you are, jealous and fighting for attention! She saved my life when I was suffering from silver poisoning a year ago! You won't die anyway, so why can't you help her?" Under the mandatory order of my mate, I was sent to the pack healer for the heart transplant. He didn’t know that I was the one who had exchanged my rare white wolf's healing ability with a witch to save him from silver poisoning. In the end, with my healing abilities gone, I died miserably in a forgotten corner of the empty healer's cabin.