The Thrive Diet

My adoptive parents' long-lost daughter came back. She's a wellness influencer. She eats from crystal bowls she "cleansed." Sleeps with a white noise machine. She will only ride in a custom, climate-controlled car. That's not all. She filled our family's Manhattan law firm with Himalayan salt lamps and energy crystals. The espresso in the conference room? Replaced with gluten-free, organic dandelion root tea. "The energy here is so murky," she'd say. "We need to cleanse the world with love and light!" My guilt-ridden parents gave her everything she wanted. Even my fiancé told me, "Ava, you stole twenty years of her Upper East Side life. Can't you cut her some slack?" The day of the final hearing for our firm's biggest case, the entire court had to wait for her to finish her "emotional cleansing meditation." The judge was furious. I stood up. Delivered a flawless closing argument. I won our client $500 million and secured the future of the firm. But at the party, she had a drunken breakdown, fell into the pool, and drowned. My parents and my fiancé blamed me for everything. "You always have to win, don't you? It was a simple, open-and-shut case. You couldn't even let her have that?" They had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They destroyed my law license and my reputation. They even had me injected with a fatal overdose of sedatives. I died full of hate. The next time I opened my eyes, I was back. Back to the day she was crying on her Instagram Live, begging for the case. This time, I walked straight into our rival's law firm. This "sure-win" case? I'm going to make you lose everything.

My older sister Jenny and I both gained weight easily, so our mother made the decision that we could eat nothing but the diet meals she made. I followed her rules as best I could. I did not even dare drink an extra drop of water. But when I stepped on the scale a month later, I weighed three hundred pounds. I rushed into Jenny's room and found her in a tight dress posing in front of the mirror. She smiled at me. "Shannon, does this dress look good on me?" Then, I saw the number on her scale. I could hardly believe it. She was down to ninety pounds. I suspected something was wrong with Mom's diet meals, so I watched everything she did, from buying groceries to cooking. As soon as my meal was ready, I carried it straight to my room so that no one could do anything with it. Another month passed, and my weight climbed to five hundred pounds. Stretch marks covered my body, and my blood pressure reached two hundred. I lost my job because of my weight, my boyfriend dumped me without warning, and my health problems tortured me. I fell into deep despair. I refused to eat Mom's meals anymore and demanded that they take me to the hospital for gastric sleeve surgery. By then, I weighed eight hundred pounds. I had severe hypertension, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and advanced heart failure. On the second day after the surgery, I died at home from a severe infection. When I opened my eyes again, I had regressed to the day Mom first started making our meals…

I knew Seth Marc was trouble the moment I laid eyes on him. His arresting presence rippled through me and I felt his chaos deep in my bones as our gazes met across the expanse of my father's gym.The alluring fighter wasn't my type with his athletic torso, long, ropy arms, and powerful fists built to destroy men weaker than him, but every fiber in my being was fixated on him.I craved him.And although I knew he was the kind of guy who left a trail of shattered hearts in his wake, I wanted him.I needed him.I had to have him.For the first time in my life, I decided to take a walk on the wild side, consequences be damned."The Consumed Series" is created by Skyla Madi, an eGlobal Creative Publishing author.

Layla was one of the so-called ‘meat’ to be served at the ‘demon’s table’. When midnight came and the howling of the king resounded in the woods, she knew she would die. With strong determination to fulfill at least one of her lifelong dreams, she ran her mouth and desperately asked her predator a favor in exchange for her complete submission to death. In the eyes of the powerful beast, she was nothing but a talking flesh and so her wish was granted. Little did she know, her life was about to change.Under the moonlight glow, two creatures are fated to meet. It's the fateful encounter that would turn the world filled with traitors of own kind upside down. With hatred and vengeance as the core of the bloody havoc, only those with power can survive.Will the burning love and developed compassion be enough to remedy the pain and anger buried deep in one’s heart? Or would it turn into sharp fangs to destroy those who were against the sheer glow of the light?Perhaps it was Layla’s fate to meet the beast who’d change her life or was it the beast whose life going to be ruined with her fatal schemes.Midnight Feast is now serving…Theoria~

I was supposed to be preparing for the end not craving a life I can’t have. At twenty-two, my world is already shrinking. A failing heart. A future that feels more like a countdown and a love that’s safe enough to survive it. Nathan gives me everything certain, the kind of love that doesn’t ask for more than I can give. Then there’s Kai. My boyfriend’s best friend, the one person I should never want. He doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile or temporary. With him, everything is louder, sharper… real in a way I haven’t felt since before my life became something to manage instead of live. He makes me want things I buried a long time ago—risk, freedom, more. But wanting him means breaking everything. And choosing safe might mean losing myself before my heart ever gives out.

On Christmas Day, eight months pregnant, I struggled through the kitchen,cooking for my husband and his secretary. When I finally sat down, hoping to taste a piece of turkey I didn’t even get during Thanksgiving, my husband shoved me aside like I was nothing. He slid the turkey in front of his secretary instead. “Alison,you’re already so fat. Stop eating. Let Daisy have it—she deserves to enjoy your cooking.” Daisy，chewing on the turkey I had painstakingly prepared, had the audacity to mock me under the guise of playing truth or dare with my child. “So, what do you think your mom looks like?” “Mommy looks like a fat pig on a farm!” “Her stretch marks? They’re like disgusting worms crawling all over her. Even Santa would run for his life!” Their laughter erupted like daggers piercing me from all sides. Humiliation and rage burned through me as my dignity was stripped bare. I demanded an apology from that vile woman, but my husband—my husband!—turned his cold, cruel face toward me and said, “Get out of here.” Pregnant, exhausted, and humiliated, I stood there in shock. Then I snapped. I grabbed the Christmas cake and turkey and threw them in the trash. I walked out without looking back. This wretched family doesn’t deserve a second of my effort or a single ounce of my love!