Why Was Book Of Maccabees 1 Excluded From Protestant Bibles?

"I only want you, Theia. Always have always will and this shall never change. How could I ever want another when I possess the one I solely exist for?" "Phobos," I call his name fondly a need to hug him and breathe in his calming scent surfaces. "I do not wish to treat you like you are made of glass because you aren't. Your body was made for me and it can handle everything I choose to give it. And this I will prove it to you." "When?" I ask breathlessly as he ultimately turns around to meet my curious eyes. Golden rings outline his irises his beast announcing his presence and they stand as one before me. A wicked smile paints his face with a flash of canine displayed to me. A promise he gives that I will be ruthlessly devoured. "When I fuck you senseless." ~~~ After years of excruciating loneliness, Phobos approached me. A frightening beast, my soulmate who emerged from within the bounds of a ruthless storm. The male I yearned for. He caught me off guard and I was under the spell he cast through his ocean eyes. A spell I couldn't defeat and that very moment I knew I was in trouble. The second our eyes met I knew he would bring me endless heartache. We were childhood friends, him and I. Phobos the gentle juvenile I grew up with vanished and was replaced by a cold-hearted barbarian, he terrified me as he killed many with a blink of his eyes where his beast was often in control surging forward consuming his senses. They were equals. How can I connect with a beast like him? How could I make him call me his? How can I love my childhood friend who has become a monster?

Bound by visions, torn by time, pulled together by something ancient. No distance could sever it. No pain could silence it. Surrendering to the bond that nearly tore them apart— It didn’t claim them. It consumed them. What begins as a sacred bond between Alpha and Luna… evolves. Into something older. Rarer. An Ailm bond—whispered through bloodlines long extinct. Their souls don’t touch—they merge. Two bodies. One pulse. One wrath. One love so fierce it bends time, shatters fate, and redraws the lines of what’s possible. Now the humans rise with purpose. Demanding the impossible— Baylee and Caden. But they weren’t made to be owned. They were crowned in fire, baptized in blood, forged by fate and fury. Together—a reckoning. A key. Whispered about in prophecy. Buried in blood. If used to unseal what sleeps beneath the earth… It won’t just cost them their lives. It will unmake the world. This is Book 4 of The Blood Moon Saga series, Crowned in fire, Baptized in Blood, the continuation of Caden and Baylee’s story.

I’m a mortal priestess, but a Tartarus death curse is killing me. The only cure is a Golden Apple from Olympus, which blooms once a century to purify a soul. But my soulmate—Zale, son of Poseidon—snatched my apple away. He fed it to my sister, Melora, just to heal a minor magical burn. I abandoned my final treatments at the Temple of Apollo. Instead, I drank a vial of Lethe poison, laced with water from the Styx. It silences all pain. The price? In three days, my soul will turn to ash. No afterlife. No reincarnation. In my final three days on earth, I let everything go. I gave my Healing Temple to Melora. My parents, the high priests, smiled in relief. When Zale drew the Blade of Olympus to sever our soulmate bond, I gladly offered my heart's blood. He stroked my cheek and praised my “generosity.” As if I’d finally learned my lesson. I pushed my son, Philon, toward Melora and told him to call her “Mom.” He cheered and threw himself into her arms, crying out that her lullabies were sweeter. I gave up everything. None of them even noticed I was dying. They just looked at me proudly. "Our Kressa has finally learned her place." But I can't help wondering... when I fade into stardust forever, will they even remember me?

Zylia Nightshade has always been the pack’s shame — the omega everyone mocked, ignored, and unwanted. But when the Moon Goddess reveals her fated mate to be Killian Silverclaw, the ruthless Alpha of Howlborne Pack, her world shatters. Their bond was meant to be destiny… until a prophecy declared her as the one who would bring his downfall. Terrified of the unknown, Killian rejects her under the Blood Moon and casts her into exile. Alone and broken, Zylia learns to survive among rogues — and discovers a rare gift tied to the Moon Goddess herself. Now, with darkness rising and old powers awakening, she must decide: Will she let the prophecy define her fate… or will she rise and rewrite it?

Genevieve is a fun-loving, tough as nails college student who just wants to have fun. Her life changes when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her. Determined to get away, she and her bestie travel up the mountains to a forest wonderland where Gen encounters Talon. She's thrown into a world of the supernatural and discovers something about herself that will change her life forever.

The Thornes built their aromatherapy business generations ago, but their ancestors made a fatal mistake and brought down a divine curse. For ninety-nine generations, every Thorne heir drew their punishment on their eighteenth birthday. Julian Thorne was the last. He drew the worst punishment: death from hemorrhage in ten months. The only way to break it was to marry a witch from the Old Bloodline and complete the life transference ritual. The witch inscribes a sigil on a parchment and infuses the child's blood essence on it, and the curse transfers to the parchment. I was that witch. My family owed the Thornes a blood debt going back three generations, so I married Julian, gave him a child, and performed the ritual to save his life. I was terrified of missing the ritual window, so I didn't even use anesthesia as the baby was cut out of my womb. However, Julian drove ninety-nine soul spikes into my body while I was still bleeding from the delivery, then set me on fire. "Miriam is the real heir. You're nothing but a fraud who wanted to marry up. "You drove her into the wilderness to protect your position. She went into labor alone and died with the baby. Even dying, she thought of me. She finished the ritual and saved my life. "You deceived my father. I'm destroying your soul. You'll pay for what you did to them." He ignored my screaming while he drained our newborn's blood essence. I watched helplessly as my child's life faded. Then I was nailed to a cross and burned until there was nothing left. When I opened my eyes, I was back on my wedding day.