Burned to Beta
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The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.
Chapter 1 No.1
Sage POV:
"Let me kiss you."
The request was a low, hurried murmur—warm, quiet, and laced with the faintest edge of mortification.
Stunned, I snapped my head up toward the sound.
Julian Andrews filled my vision. He easily towered a head over me, his lean, athletic frame silhouetted against the bright morning glare, casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. Briar University's star forward. Team captain. The athletic department's untouchable golden boy.
Campus rumor had it that Julian was notoriously indifferent, never sparing anyone a second glance.
Behind him, a solid wall of navy-and-gold varsity jackets blocked the brick path. His teammates were whistling, shoving each other, and effectively cutting off my only exit.
The sudden commotion immediately bottlenecked the morning foot traffic. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and within seconds, a dozen students reached into their pockets out of sheer muscle memory, black camera lenses catching the light as they aimed squarely at us.
Julian's sharp eyes tracked the movement, his jaw tightening into a hard, irritated line.
Before I could take a single defensive step back, he closed the distance between us. Leaning down into my space, his broad shoulders shifted in a subtle, fluid maneuver—throwing up an impenetrable physical wall that completely shielded my face from the intrusive glare of the cameras.
His sharp, striking face hovered breathtakingly close. His deep baritone brushed against my ear, lost to the autumn wind, meant for me alone:
"Sorry to drop this on you," he whispered, his pale blue eyes disarmingly earnest, holding a quiet heat that sent a tremor straight down my spine. "The guys backed me into a locker-room dare... but I'm not here to use you as a joke. We can fake it. Angle it so it looks real—whatever you're comfortable with. Just help me get them off my back, and I owe you one."
It was only then that my brain finally rebooted.
What on earth? He's actually trying to kiss me?
A sharp flare of pure absurdity hit me, and my gaze dropped to my reflection in the dark glass door of the adjacent building: an oversized, faded gray hoodie that swallowed my frame whole, soft, thin jeans worn at the knees, bare-faced dark circles carved beneath my eyes from forty-eight hours of non-stop coding, my dark hair hastily twisted into a cheap plastic claw clip, and a pair of oversized, thick black-rimmed glasses sitting heavy on the bridge of my nose, completely hiding my face.
I looked like a refugee from an all-night disaster. How had Briar's golden prince ended up in front of me?
When I looked back up, my breath trapped in my throat anyway. He was too close, his clean scent of winter mint and cedar wrapping around my senses. Having those pale blue eyes staring straight down at me made my chest tighten in a way I really didn't want to acknowledge.
"Clock's ticking, Cap!" Landon howled from the sidelines, hands cupped around his mouth as the rest of the players lost their minds laughing. "Plant one on her, or enjoy the five-AM bag skate!"
A raucous chorus of barks and chest-thumping went up from the team.
A few yards away, two girls heading toward the dining hall froze in their tracks, pointing their phones.
"Wait, who the hell is that?" one of them laughed loudly, zooming her camera in on my face. "She looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster. There's no way Julian's actually kissing her. Post it on Sidechat right now—this is going straight to number one."
The cruel words hit like a splash of ice water, snapping me out of my daze and instantly killing the stupid flutter in my chest.
I hated the attention.
Four years ago, after my family and my former training partner framed me and destroyed my competitive skating career, I swore I would never be public entertainment again. I buried my name, switched majors, and hid behind oversized fleece and thick glasses just to live an invisible life. If I ended up on the campus forums with Julian Andrews, the internet vultures would dox me before noon—and drag up the toxic scandal I had bled to walk away from.
My research was already on the verge of falling apart. I didn't have time for this circus.
I locked my grip around my heavy binders, my knuckles straining white.
"Find someone else for your dare, Andrews," I said coldly, taking a step back to put distance between us, my voice tight with adrenaline. "I'm not interested in being part of your game. Move."
I kept my head down, attempting to brush past him.
"You're Sage Kelley, right?"
The sound of my name brought my boots to an immediate halt.
I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard.
"Professor Beaumont's senior research student," Julian straightened up slightly, his cadence measured and even, carrying an intellectual sharpness that seemed impossible beneath a varsity jacket. "I saw your Havenwood Creek senior capstone proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."
My heart gave a hard, hollow thud. Professor Beaumont was my academic advisor—and the guardian of the final research endowment my late father had left behind.
Julian leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper against the whistle of the wind. "I spent an hour going over your codebase."
My lips parted. "You... read my proposal?"
"Your simulation keeps crashing because your core fluid algorithm strategy is flawed," Julian murmured, his pale blue eyes deadly sharp. "And Uncle Des mentioned that if you don't deliver a working version by this Friday, the department is pulling your grant—which means you don't clear your senior thesis, and you don't graduate in May."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Friday was the deadline. If the funding was pulled, the project died, my senior capstone failed, and I would be forced to stay another semester without my degree. Worse, my father's final ecological legacy would be reduced to scrap paper.
I had been panicking over that exact deadline for two days straight, and Julian had just laid it out like it was nothing.
Worse, I couldn't even brush him off. I had heard the rumors about Beaumont's nephew—the CS prodigy everyone in the department talked about. I just had never realized it was him.
"I know how to fix your algorithm," Julian stated plainly, laying his cards on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with an unshakeable, quiet certainty. "Help me get through this bet. In return, I'll rewrite your boundary calculations tonight. Deal?"
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Burned By Desire
After the death of her mother, Vanessa was tormented by both her stepmother and step-sister, who vowed to make her stay in the house a living nightmare. After successfully turning her father against her, Vanessa was forced to leave home to live with her best friend when she figured her presence woul
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THE BETA
Morcant takes on a journey into the woods alongside with his friend. They are curious and have guts. What happens when they are captured by strange men? Will they ever be found?
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The Vow That Burned
"I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I opened that door". On the day that should have been the happiest of her life, Amara Okafor walks into the grand cathedral in Lagos, her heart pounding with excitement-only to freeze at the altar. There, standing beside her supposed groom, Tade W
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Once Burned, Twice Desired
She thought she was the one he chose. Until she saw him on live TV - waiting at the airport with flowers... for the woman he never forgot. That same night, he came home and handed her divorce papers. Now she's back - richer, colder, untouchable. And suddenly, he wants her again. But so does the m
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Twice Burned Twice Desired
"You're back."Dominic's voice was low, unreadable. Elena tilted her chin, her lips curling into a smirk. "Did you miss me? Or just the woman who let you walk all over her?" His jaw tightened. "You left." "You threw me away,"she shot back, eyes blazing. "And now, I'm here to return the favor."
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Burned by the Devil
Desperate to get her crumbling marriage to work out, Halal turns to her ex for help. she believes he can give her what she desires the most. A child to rekindle the love her husband has for her, in a bid to get a child, secrets are discovered, the love that was lost is found once again.
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Twice Burned, Twice Desired
Five years ago, he used her. Now, she's back to destroy him, until revenge starts to feel a lot like love. Rita Hale once loved Cosmas Moretti so deeply, she married him only to be betrayed, humiliated, and discarded like a pawn in his corporate game. Now, she's returned as a ruthless CEO with a b
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Burned by his lies
BLURB Zara Winterborn believed that marrying Adrian Leighhton was a dream come true and the best thing that had ever happened to her broken childhood. Instead, it tied her to a man whose love hid a dark truth that burned her to ashes. She overhears a phone call on their honeymoon that shatters her
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The Summer We Burned
They thought summer would be simple-sunlight, laughter, and long nights by the sea. But when a single reckless kiss turns into a wildfire of desire, nothing can ever go back to the way it was. Between stolen glances and forbidden touches, their love becomes a dangerous secret-too hot to hide, too d
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When London Burned
A fantastic historical adventure novel set during the time of the Great Fire of London by the master of the genre G. A. Henty.
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Burned Alive, Reborn Anew
The smell of gasoline and burning flesh clung to my last breath, a horrific perfume of my own end. My wife, Olivia, and her grandmother, the woman I' d sacrificed everything to save, celebrated my agonizing death. "You staged the kidnapping, you killed my lover and my son, how dare you still be a
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Deceiving the Beta
Aleena always dreamt of having someone like Alpha Daniel as her mate, hearing all his heroic activities. Before she would have realized her admiration and like toward Alpha Daniel turned into an obsession, and she wanted to be nothing but his Luna. And to make the situation worst, her mother kept in
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Beta Kael's Rogue Mate
Megan has always been a rogue, even as far back as she can remember. Except for her elder brother Ben, she has no pack, no mate, and no one at all after her parents passed away. She's gotten accustomed to being unimportant. mostly alone, and the butt of other people's jokes. However, Megan encounter
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Beauty And The Beta
Bailey seems to be never destined to fit in, a little geeky, but under it all, a hidden beauty that so many seem to miss, but still not what her pack Alpha is looking for in a fated mate... so he is determined to reject her and make her life hell. Bailey, knowing her life will likely never be the sa
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The Badass & The Beta
Oh, God, I am going to be sick, and I can't stand Jayson Woods! "So, why are you staring over at him, Ashely? My inner voice inside my mind told me with a smug voice. "I am not! Oh, shut up! I spoke. I looked over at him with two girls under his arms. Oh, Look at him! Like he doesn't have a care i
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The Beta She Rejected
Luna Scarlett, mate to the dying alpha of the Mooncrest wolf pack has been given leadership over the whole pack earning unspoken murmuring and grudges from the wolves around. What happens when a Luna suddenly came to be the leader of the Mooncrest pack when her mate and Alpha died in war in her ow
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She's my feisty beta
When fate wants to bring two mates together, it has its way to do so. All Emma wanted was a fake boyfriend who wouldn't fall in love with her during their act and her choice was her mate who was a secret gangster and the secret son of the alpha. "No love or any feelings between us." She said to
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The Beta Desires Me
Declan Stone was the very definition of certainty. Known for his devastating charm and his ability to make anyone fall for his smile with a single blink, he had always believed himself to be the master of the game. Emotions were for others. He preferred simple pleasures, easy conquests, and above al
