PradaInPink

A god wants me dead. My ancestors stole half his soul then imprisoned him in Tartarus, thinking he'd be forgotten. That he could never return. They were wrong. The day he rips open a portal between our worlds, my life is over. As the current guardian of his cursed soul, my head is on the chopping block, but there's a snag in his plan. This dark god believes he's my fated mate. We're not, but he refuses to take no for an answer. When he kidnaps my cousin, I'm forced to make a deal. To rescue her, I have to spend six months in Tartarus. Pretending to be his mate. His queen.

I should have known better, I should have seen the signs, but now all I'm left with is heartache and disappointment. They may think they've got the better of me, but I won't go down without a fight. Especially when it comes to the ones I love. Even if I have to protect them from themselves.

Riggs Malone. Star quarterback and captain of the football team. The boy all the girls wanted and all the boys wanted to be. My first love. And the only person who ever broke me. I have a great life. I've fulfilled my dream of running my own coffee shop-slash-library in my hometown, I own my own home, and I have the best group of friends a girl could ask for. Everything is perfect. Or it was. When a neighboring town starts its very own professional football franchise, he gets himself traded to be the starting quarterback of the Branston Bandits.

When I return to Winter Grove early and end up relying on the pack to help me out, I’m sure it’s a new form of torture. Instead, I find myself growing closer to August and Foster. I can’t help but think they’re dragging me deeper underwater, with no intention of letting me up for air anytime soon. To add to the confusion, a new arrival at the university has a grudge against the pack, and she knows that getting to them is easier when she’s targeting anyone who’s more vulnerable than the boys.

Fighting is what saved me. It shed the old me, and I became a newer shinier version of myself. Until it took away everything I loved. I gave up and tapped out. Then one day, she came back into my life and reminded me that some things are worth fighting for. Now, I'm fighting for us, day by day, proving to her that our happily ever after is worth fighting for.

Charlie is everything I want and didn’t realize I need. It’s clear to me now, the woman I met at the club is only one layer of the woman I’m falling for. I’m a fixer by nature, but for the first time, I wouldn't fix a thing. I want her just the way she is. Broken pieces and all. Who needs the fairy tale, when we can have the reality.

Eamon Tauk was literally born into the Space Corps. They spent two decades forging him into a Marine. Training him to be a killer. Twisting him into a fanatic. Then they assigned him to protect Dr. Jella Duverii, a mildly subversive alien zoologist who could very well undo all the work they put into him. When the young cadet and his charge crash land on Kanaris with the survivors of their Recon battalion, they find themselves leagues away from their objective, marooned in an environment so hostile even the trees seem hellbent on killing them.

After years of breaking my back to make it in country music, a songwriter penned me a masterpiece. Then Music City called and that demo landed me my first contract. We’d spent all summer writing music and getting close, but when Harper wanted more, I walked away. And became a star. Seven years later, I’m raising my daughter alone and hanging on by a thread. My career is tanking, but my manager signed me to a small Nashville label.

My name is River for some, Rose for others. Everyone gets a piece of me but no one gets it all. Becoming a high-class escort wasn’t my dream but fate decided otherwise. Now, I’m caught between the one who broke my heart, the one who pays for my screams, and the one who intrigues me. I think I have everything under control until danger comes knocking on my door. The world as I know it is on fire and all I can do is watch it burn. I just need to try and avoid the flames to get out alive.

My mom once said, "Love isn't concrete. It's an emotion, and emotions are abstract. They change. You don't make decisions based on something abstract because if you do, you’re setting yourself up for failure." I didn't understand her words at the time. I was young and in love, and if you had asked me to define what I was feeling, it would’ve consisted of words such as affection, warmth, happiness, butterflies, happily ever after. Now, after experiencing heartbreak firsthand, my definition of love is a bit different. It consists of words like messy, heartbreak, waste of time, unrealistic, fake.