the galaxy and the ground within

*Daily updates*She felt as if she were floating. Her eyes were closed, and everything about her felt soft, a luxuriating fluffiness like the satin down comforter her grandma used to have. She thought she must have been sleeping. There was a not-unpleasant heaviness to her limbs, like the time she could finally sit down after standing and walking in the market for hours.Then her brain started to focus in a peculiar sort of way, powerless over thoughts that surfaced unbidden. Abubakar suddenly came to mind...how he had gotten her this way, and how she longed to tell Maama, but couldn't. Maama. . .As her consciousness began to return, she tried without success to open her eyes. Something tight and sticky was holding her lids together. Now she knew she was sleeping. She'd felt that strange paralysis before when wrapped in layers of her dreams, her legs turned to lead as she ran from shadowy pursuers and her eyes became inert shutters. She was scared, what frightened her most was her breathing. Her hand blindly went to her mouth, where she found the tube.Yaa Rahman! She was in a hospital!Her heart was thunderously racing, filling her chest with explosive fear. She blindly pulled at the tube, ripping it from her throat, gagging violently as it made her gasp and choke. But finally, finally, It was free, and she flung it far away.

Falling for the man who is paying you for sex is a dangerous business. Stella Kaye Wyatt is running from an abusive past she'd like to forget. She secures a new identity by working at a brothel to stay hidden. When her once knight-in-shining armor boyfriend becomes what she escaped, she feels responsible for trying to save him at a high cost to herself. Alaric John Carter is an adventure seeker who uses adrenaline highs to forget his own troubled past. When his life crosses paths with Stella's and he's informed of her sexual job, he takes advantage as a paying customer with surprisingly deep pockets. Despite strictly being a business arrangement, real feelings begin to develop between the two. Stella begins to dream of a better life, but will handsome Alaric accept her for who she truly is when he learns the dark truth she's hiding? As Stella's past returns to reclaim her and Alaric's secrets are revealed, the truth will potentially end not only their feelings for each other, but their lives.

" the fire takes everything with it, love, pain, happiness. worst of all, it's never enough. "Ruby Hart did everything she could to maintain a normal life with nothing out of the ordinary but the discovery of her older adoptive sister being a Nyx turns everything upside down. A very old and powerful vampire comes into town determined to take the life of Eliza Hart and break a thousands of years old curse. In doing so, he discovers that Eliza's sister is his soulmate, Ruby. Ruby thought her life couldn't get more hectic, then it did. She realized her ancestry and how extremely dangerous she could be when ticked off and the fact that she could blow up a place with her mind, like, literally.

They said the boarding schools are a training ground for the best students but they also said it was a deep quagmire for students who forgot what their motives were. But, who told the seniors that the junior girls were their servants? Who brought up referring to juniors as fags? Who said the 'journey of no return' was fun? Who claimed that 10 minutes was enough for mealtimes? Who said siestas' were opportunities for punishments? "Come you junior girl, why did you walk past the front of your seniors' classroom" "Senior I..." "Go down low" And so another junior girl gets into a day's worth of troubles.

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? He hunts the monsters, and he protects the innocent, but Damon just never expected to become a monster. CIA Special Agent Damon Hunt spent his days–and his nights–tracking real-life monsters. Most humans weren’t aware of the vampires and werewolves that walked among them. They didn’t realize the danger that they face, but Damon knew about the horror that waited in the darkness. He hunted the monsters but after a brutal werewolf attack, Damon begun to change…and soon he was one of the very beasts that he has hunted. Dr. Hellen Young was supposed to help Damon during his transition. It was her job to keep him sane so that he could continue working with the CIA’s Para Unit. But as Damon’s beast grew stronger, the passion that she and Damon had held carefully in check pushed to the surface. The desire that was raging between them could be a very dangerous thing…because Hellen wasn’t exactly human, not any longer. As the monsters circle in, determined to take out all of the agents working at the Para Unit, Hellen and Damon would have to use their own supernatural strengths in order to survive. But as they gave up more of their humanity and embraced the beasts within them both, they realize that the passion between them wasn’t safe, it wasn’t controllable, and their dark need may just be an obsession that could destroy them both.

**Dez** Dezmond woke in a cold sweat. The ache in his heart was worse than ever before. It had been growing more intense over the past few weeks. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face. He didn't bother looking in the mirror, he knew what he would see. His face would be white and his eyes haunted with the need to find answers. Dezmond needed to know why he was being tormented in his dreams. He was never supposed to dream again. "I can't take this anymore." said Dezmond gloomily. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Ruby** Ruby couldn't focus in class, another night of tossing and turning. Seeing the flames consume her house. Hearing the screams as her family slowly died, knowing there was nothing she could do. It had been almost three years since the incident. The day she lost her family in the fire. She was the only one who wasn't in the house. And she relived that horror every night in her dreams. Though recently her nightmares felt different. More like a warning rather than a memory. "Rough night?" whispered Haven. Haven had been friends with Ruby since they were little kids. "Yeah, they started happening again." Ruby whispered back. They never really stopped. "Have you talked to anyone about it? Ruby, you can't keep it a secret forever." This is the same discussion they had just after the incident.

The Falcon Ridge Series Book 5 Set two months after the Battle of Black Rock. In an old growth forest east of Aurora, the city of Dragons. Wren Miller: You can sum up the story of my life in three words I. Am. Alone. I was raised by the Falcon Ridge Security Unit after they told me everyone I ever knew and loved was dead. I traveled through life pretending I felt like I had a pack, but in truth I longed for my own. I often wished for death. That all changes when I find out some of my pack was alive. Living like Nomads in the wilderness. I'm elated to find them, but my happiness is crushed when the Alpha is not even remotely happy to see me. As much as it pains me, I don't want to see him either after finding out what he has become. Lucius Drake: For 10 years I survived in the wilderness. I built us back up from the ashes that were left of the attack on us. I was happy to live this way. Living off the land. Taking care of my pack. Then she shows up. Seeing her makes my blood boil. Not only did she abandon her pack. She abandoned me. I don't care what the Alliance told her. I never gave up on the hope she was alive. Apparently, she did. I'm jaded and angry. It also doesn't help that I have the Dragons breathing down my neck. We've been relying on them for protection and trade, but now they want more. They want us to join them permanently, which I will only do if I'm dead.

During the mating ball, Rhea, the omega she-wolf who lost her parents for unknown reasons, finds out that her fated mate is no other than Matthew- her childhood friend who became a handsome man. However, he rejected and despises her as his fated mate because his father unfolds the truth about her identity that she has a witch running through her vein. Being a cursed Omega witch, she ran from the fear of becoming the most hated woman in the entire pack. What fate awaits Rhea and how determined is Matthew to fight for his childhood sweetheart knowing that his father would do everything to separate them? What is the real reason behind Rhea's parents' death? Are they still together when the world seemed to be against their romance?

The saying goes that the moon and the sun were once lovers, destined to be together for all time. And that in a jealous rage the stars cursed them to be separated for all eternity. They say the sun loved the moon very much, so much so, that the sun died every day just to let the moon breathe. Alexa was a normal teenage girl, or at least she believed she was. When she and her family moved to a small town in South Dakota after the loss of her father she didn't expect to be into a world she believed didn't exist. Now Alexa has to fight the crushing feelings of her past, discover the truths about the lies told to her, her entire life, and accept the affections of a man she has never met. On top of it all, she has to accept the truth about who she really is. Can she do it?

Sophia Ava Valentine and Noah Parker are in love with each other for over three years. The lovebirds had nothing to worry until Sophia's father arranges her marriage with a ruthless billionaire playboy, Irwin Pierce to seal their business partnership. When Irwin discovers her love with Noah Parker, he makes it his mission to ruin his life and that of Sophia's friends. Sophia accepts his proposal with one condition - Irwin must leave her friends alone. Now, it's up to Noah & her best friends to save her from Irwin and his not so innocent schemes.