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possessive

The Enchanted: His outcast bride

Ava, a rare and striking beauty, has been a wanderer since the age of twelve, cast out from her village with no memory of her parents and only a small painting of her mother’s back as a keepsake. She grows up roaming the depths of the forest, her unusual abilities keeping her alive against the wild beasts that lurk among the shadows. Yet the human world is never far behind. Men are drawn to her like moths to a flame, captivated by a beauty that seems almost otherworldly. Fearful of the attention her face brings, Ava turns away from the life she might have had; a quiet village, a warm home, perhaps even love. Then, one person’s words awaken a new longing: perhaps she is not entirely human, for no ordinary being could possess such beauty without a curse. Determined to uncover the truth of who she really is, Ava sets out to find the home she never knew she had, and the secrets behind her mysterious origin. ... Aelric, the feared and prideful ruler of the Dark Clan, has carried a curse since childhood, an invisible enemy that gnaws at his life with every passing year. His strength is legendary, yet time slips through his fingers like shadow, a force no army or sorcery can hold back. The only remedy lies in a fated bride, someone destined to bind with him and halt the decay of his life. But Aelric has always despised women, and the vulnerability they represent. The thought of accepting a bride feels like weakness. To surrender, to trust, to love, to die differently than he intends, is intolerable. He refuses. He abandons it. Yet fate is relentless. Every choice he makes, every battle he fights, draws him closer to the one he has sworn to deny–a dark promise that may claim him utterly, body and soul. A bond that could unravel everything he thought he knew about power, love, and himself.
StrangeCreature · 212 Views

The Quietest Knife

Willow wakes in a hospital bed injured, medicated, and alone. She is informed that her life, as she understood it, ended weeks earlier. Her fiancé is there. Calm. Controlled. He explains that they broke up before the accident and that the separation was mutual. He says he remained by her side only out of decency. He is already involved with someone else, his boss’s daughter, and speaks as though this version of events has always been established fact. No one in the room challenges him. The doctors attribute Willow’s disbelief to concussion and trauma. Nurses lower their voices and repeat the same explanation with careful reassurance until it becomes official, documented, and final. Each repetition strips away her certainty, replacing memory with doubt. When Willow looks to the one person who could contradict him, she finds no relief. Her fiancé’s closest friend, a man who has never hidden his dislike for her, says nothing. He offers a brief nod that confirms the narrative without words. With that single gesture, the past is closed. Every detail they present contradicts what Willow knows she lived. Weeks have been erased. Conversations have been rewritten. A relationship has been reassigned without her consent. If she resists, she will be labeled unstable, emotional, and unreliable. She will be the only one insisting that reality has been altered. So Willow stays silent. Within that silence, something colder begins to take shape. She begins to question why her fiancé needed the past rewritten at a moment when she cannot safely object. She begins to wonder why his closest friend chose this precise moment to agree. She begins to realize that decisions were made about her while she lay unconscious and defenseless. The Quietest Knife is a dark psychological romance centered on gaslighting, betrayal, and power disguised as care. It follows a slow, deliberate descent into manipulation, control, and revenge, where harm is inflicted quietly and authority wears the mask of concern. This is not a story about forgetting. It is a story about being rewritten calmly, professionally, and without resistance.
dr_ban99 · 151.6k Views

A Scandal By Any Other Name

BOOK TWO OF THE HAMILTON SERIES WARNING: A Regency Era novel. Adult content with detailed smut…Read at you own risk⚠️⛔️ Genre: Historical Romance / Smut / Enemies-to-Lovers / Mystery / Comedy [Book Two of the Hamilton Series. Can be read as a standalone, but better enjoyed after Lady Ines’ Scandalous Hobby.] To the world, Duke Rowan Hamilton is the perfect gentleman. But in the bedroom, he is a man possessed. Rowan Hamilton has it all: a Ducal title, the face of a fallen angel, and a smile that makes debutantes faint. He is the "Golden Duke"—charming, responsible, and utterly adored by society. But it’s all a lie. Beneath the coats and polite manners, Rowan is a man haunted by a ghost. For three years, he has remained faithful to the memory of a masked woman who stole a kiss, bested him at a game of chance, and vanished into the night. He doesn't want any one as his wife; he wants her. When his domineering aunt tires of his bachelorhood, she hires London’s most notorious underground matchmaker to force the issue. Enter Miss Delaney Kingsley. She is sharp-tongued, infuriatingly competent, and entirely unimpressed by his title. Her mission? To drag Rowan to the altar with the season’s "Diamond," Lady Celine, within three months to collect the juicy payment Rowan’s aunt had to offer. Rowan intends to fire the meddlesome woman. But when Delaney looks at him with those hazel, intelligent eyes and orders him around like a young lad, he feels the first spark of life he’s felt in years. He decides to play her game. He will let her "coach" him on how to woo a lady. He will let her teach him how to dance, how to flirt, and how to seduce. But he has no intention of using those lessons on Lady Celine. "You were hired to find me a Duchess, Miss Kingsley. But the only person I want in my duchy and in my bed... is you." As the lessons turn into forbidden nights and the bickering turns into scorching passion, Rowan begins to suspect that his matchmaker is hiding a secret of her own. She moves like a shadow, handles a rifle like a soldier, and tastes exactly like the ghost he’s been hunting for three years. What to Expect: * The Golden Retriever Duke: Who turns into a possessive Alpha behind closed doors. * The Matchmaker Trope: She’s trying to marry him off; he’s trying to take her clothes off. * High Heat: Slow burn that explodes into intense smut. * Competence Kink: He falls harder every time she bosses him around. * Cameos: Featuring the chaotic domestic life of Duchess Ines and Duke Carcel (and their baby Harry!). Excerpt: "Your Grace, please focus," Delaney snapped, adjusting his cravat with efficient, gloved hands. "Lady Celine is waiting in the ballroom. You must look at her as if she is the only woman in the world." Rowan caught her wrist, stopping her movements. He stepped into her space, backing her against the heavy oak door of the study, his "Golden Boy" mask slipping to reveal the hunger beneath. "And how, exactly, does one do that, Miss Kingsley?" he whispered, his voice rough. "Show me." "I—I cannot show you, I am merely the coach—" "Then teach me," he growled, lowering his head until his lips brushed the sensitive skin of her neck. "Teach me how to pretend I am not burning alive every time you walk into a room."
Cameron_Rose_8326 · 209.9k Views

The Twin Alphas' Broken Mate

WARNING: DARK ROMANCE "Who knew that something so beautiful could come out of Edmund." He says, as he runs the backs of his fingers up and down my bare skin. Goosebumps spring up immediately. "Who would have imagined," he says slowly, savoring every word, "that something so exquisite could be born from a man as vile as your father." His eyes trace me with deliberate leisure, stripping, measuring. I felt skinned under his gaze. "A rapist," he continues lightly, as if reciting lines from a book. "A butcher of children. A coward who kills pregnant women and plunges his weapon into a friend's back." He stepped closer. Too close. "And yet," he murmurs, voice dropping, "he left this behind." His smile sharpened. I can't move. I can't breathe. "You should be grateful," he goes on, almost kindly. "If you had been born uglier, I would have killed you like the rest." A pause, then his hands on my cheek, gentle. "But beauty like yours," he adds, eyes darkening, "is worth breaking slowly." * What is worse than being rejected once? Being rejected two more times. Xira Valeen is a defective wolf who never thought she would get a mate. So when she is mated by one who only wants her for her birthright while his brother only wants her because she rises an uncontrollable hunger in him, she is doubtful. Then they reject her, she accepts quietly. Their enemy steps up and claims her as a mate just to use her against her former mates then he also rejects her. Three times she is rejected. Shunned and alone, Xira disappears and when she returns all three Alphas kneel before her, begging for forgiveness and swearing that they want and love only her. Hardened by their betrayal, she ignores them and joins the Mating Hunt, intent on finding the mate who can save her... However, the Moon goddess sure has a cruel sense of humor, or can this time be different?
SukieWrites · 8.1k Views