Astrid is caught masturbating by her boss. How humiliating? Tensions build between Astrid and Caius. She gets infected with sex magic and Caius decides to help out. Astrid deals with the aftermath of The Heat. Caius gets pissed and marks Astrid for life. Astrid deals with Caius' markings...poorly and gets an advice from her sister. Caius makes a decision that will change everything. But Astrid always does things her own way which she later regrets and discovers the consequences of angering an Alpha.
In Astrid's humble opinion, Coven meetings had to be the biggest waste of time ever. Coven meetings, magic, witches. she knew it was supposed to be cool, it was supposed to be a sisterhood, and all wonderful and blah, blah, blah. But Astrid found it was mostly just incredibly boring.
A prime example? Astrid spent the last 2 hours listening to her sister, Ana, argue with Lola - the Coven's enforcer. Ever since Ana come into her power as Coven Mother a few months ago, the two had been going head to head arguing about how things were to be run in the coven constantly. It was enough to drive a witch mad. And Astrid felt that there are definitely better things she could be doing at that very moment instead of listening to the fiftieth argument about Putris Root versus Lizard Lotus for treating magic inflicted wounds.
Like who cared?
They both did the same thing. So one of them was possibly slightly toxic to humans. There were a lot of things that could be slightly toxic to humans and it didn't seem to bother them much.
The fights were always about the magic shop. And quite frankly Astrid didn't think she should be forced to attend the meetings because unlike most of the coven, including her sisters, she didn't actually work in the Coven shop.
Most days of the week Astrid was busy being amazing and doing a top job working providing her magical expertise with the team at Marche Enterprises, the business which provided security to The Underground. She knew she wasn't much good at potions and prayers, but she was pretty damn good with enchantments and hexes. As it turned out that made her pretty valuable to a security company.
And working at The Underground was something else, it was an absolute dream. The Underground was a series of rooms and tunnels underneath Sydney which housed the city's preternatural denizens and kept them safe. And boy-o did they need to keep themselves safe. While supernaturals had co-existed with humans for centuries it wasn't really until around seventy years ago that they all started living in integrated society so openly.
Despite this, things were still tense between the two communities and that meant that it was vital to keep supernaturals safe from zealots and others who don't like the idea of a supernatural/human integrated society (And un- suprisingly there were a lot of those).
So, while it made things tense and unpredictable, Astrid actually loved her job. Much more than she love attending annoying Coven meetings at any rate.
Times like these made her wish she was back in Italy living with the vampires there. She had spent the last three months there helping some of the supernatural from Sydney settle down and only just returned home that very morning (Which was another reason she really hated today's coven meeting, because it was boring and she had jet -lag). Suffice to say when the meeting was over she was going to enjoy settling back into her room at The Underground.
For a moment a glint of gold caught her eye, and Astrid looked over to see her younger sister, Lena. Like her, Lena was a junior priestess in the coven. Although she was far more gifted in the arts of healing and potions than Astrid was. Lena was also sweet and kind - the sweetest and kindest witch in the Coven, actually. Although she was also kind of vague and distracted a lot of the time too. It'd been worse lately. While Astrid was away in Italy, something terrible had happened to Lena. She hasn't been the same since. Every time Astrid see her sweet face, it remind herself that there was a reason she came to the stupid coven meetings.
Just when the argument seemed like it was about to end, it started up again. Round Fifty -one of Ana vs. Lola was about to begin and Astrid was counting down the seconds until she was able to back to The Underground.
----
When the meeting finally finished, Astrid ran out of there as fast as she could manage - Ana had tried to convince her to stay the night, but she managed to get out of it by promising her she'd be over on Friday for Coven dinner. Ana wasn't super happy about the compromise, but she was too busy to even bother arguing. As it turned out being Coven Mother was exhausting, time consuming and didn't leave much room for an actual life. Which was sad, because Ana was barely twenty-nine and Astrid couldn't remember the last time Ana actually did something slightly selfish, even before she ascended to the leader of the Coven.
As soon as she could Astrid raced across town, when she stepped into the tunnels she could physically feel my body relax. Although the relaxation was short lived because soon after she stepped through and got my bags into her room, Lachlan a very excitable and hyperactive werewolf - bombarded her.
Lachlan was best described as Astrid's best friend. Or would be if she weren't twenty-one and kind of passed the whole 'best friend' age. She'd known him since she started working in The Underground - like Astrid, he also worked in the security team. Lachlan was a sweet if slightly overbearing person. He also had a massive crush on the Coven's enforcer, Lola. It was hilarious watching him flirt with Lola when she came down to visit because she was a no-nonsense, tough bitch and Lachlan was just about the nicest guy Astrid had ever met.
The other good thing about Lachlan was that he was also a beacon for gossip, and the best person for up to date information on the runnings of The Underground. Which was why, at precisely 9.30pm as Astrid was walking through the tunnels, She was also getting up to date on all the gossip that had happened since She had been in Italy.
The day i tried to live a normal life, after my werewolf boyfriend was killed mysteriously in New Summer, a fictional town in Denver. In search of peace, Melissa Bryan tries to come to terms with her grief far away from home. Little did she expect that an encounter with a young, rich, handsome man would sway her judgment over her promise of never falling in love again. Will she give him a chance, or let the opportunity of finding true love slip?
"Never let anyone treat you like shit!" I learned that the hard way. For three years, I lived with my in-laws. They didn't treat me as their son-in-law but as a slave. I put up with everything because of my wife, Yolanda Lambert. She was the light of my life. Unfortunately, my whole world came crashing down the day I caught my wife cheating on me. I have never been so heartbroken. To have my revenge, I revealed my true identity. I was none other than Liam Hoffman—the heir of a family with trillions of dollars in assets! The Lamberts were utterly shocked after the big reveal. They realized what fools they had been for treating me like trash. My wife even knelt down and begged for my forgiveness. What do you think I did? Did I take her back or made her suffer? Find out!
To the public, she was the CEO's executive secretary. Behind closed doors, she was the wife he never officially acknowledged. Jenessa was elated when she learned that she was pregnant. But that joy was replaced with dread as her husband, Ryan, showered his affections on his first love. With a heavy heart, she chose to set him free and leave. When they met again, Ryan's attention was caught by Jenessa's protruding belly. "Whose child are you carrying?!" he demanded. But she only scoffed. "It's none of your business, my dear ex-husband!"
Natalie used to think she could melt Connor’s icy heart, but she was sorely mistaken. When at last she decided to leave, she discovered that she was pregnant. Even so, she chose to quietly leave his world, prompting Connor to mobilize all of his resources and expand his business to a global scale—all in a bid to find her. But there was no trace of Natalie. Connor slowly spiraled into madness, turning the city upside down and leaving chaos in his wake. Natalie finally surfaced years later, with wealth and power of her own, only to find herself entangled with Connor once again.
Iris grew from an orphaned child to the adopted daughter of the Stewart family at age ten, finding warmth in her nominal uncle Vincent's kindness. Seven years later, she became his secret lover. When Vincent's engagement was announced, gossip spread about the notorious playboy CEO finally settling down. But only Iris knew the extent of his cold, two-faced nature. Iris fell for Vincent and, through tears, begged, "Marry me," only to be met with his frosty refusal. Defeated, she accepted a lawyer's proposal, sparking public excitement. Then, on her wedding day, Vincent pleaded desperately, "Don't marry him…"
Janet was adopted when she was a kid -- a dream come true for orphans. However, her life was anything but happy. Her adoptive mother taunted and bullied her all her life. Janet got the love and affection of a parent from the old maid who raised her. Unfortunately, the old woman fell ill, and Janet had to marry a worthless man in place of her parents' biological daughter to meet the maid's medical expenses. Could this be a Cinderella's tale? But the man was far from a prince, except for his handsome appearance. Ethan was the illegitimate son of a wealthy family who lived a reckless life and barely made ends meet. He got married to fulfill his mother's last wish. However, on his wedding night, he had an inkling that his wife was different from what he had heard about her. Fate had united the two people with deep secrets. Was Ethan truly the man we thought he was? Surprisingly, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the impenetrable wealthiest man in the city. Would he find out that Janet married him in place of her sister? Would their marriage be a romantic tale or an utter disaster? Read on to unravel Janet and Ethan's journey.
"There will be no falling in love, we will only act as a loving couple when we are in public, we will share a room to make it believable, but no intimacy, touching is off-limits. We'll only have sex once a month, and that's solely to produce an heir. You won't interfere in my business, and I won't interfere in yours. You will be my wife in every sense and you will not be involved with any other man," he said, arrogance seeping from every word. I watch his mouth move, I'm not ready to fall in love with any man, especially not one as arrogant and egoistic as him. I can handle acting as a loving couple, and as for intimacy once a month. I can agree to that just to satisfy my sexual cravings with no strings attached. "Where can I sign?" I asked since I had nothing to lose. *** Nadine's wedding dreams turned to nightmares when she caught her sister and fiancé cheating! With a secret recording, she's ready for revenge. But then mysterious billionaire Logan West offers a deal: A Contract Marriage to take down her ex's empire. But what Nadine doesn't know is her life is getting complicated as she takes her chance to get revenge or risks everything for a chance at love?"