How Does Young Goodman Brown End?

“He pressed me to the wall with one hand tight around my throat, the other sliding beneath the thin silk clinging to my skin. I should’ve been begging for help. Instead, my knees went weak when he leaned in, his mouth hot against my ear. ‘Does it hurt, darling?’ he whispered. I shook my head, even as his fingers left bruises. ‘Good. I like it when you take it.’ God, I hated him. God, I wanted him to never let go.” A DARK, EROTIC TALE OF OBSESSION, HUMILIATION, AND HUNGER. They called him the Devil, a sadist with a crooked smile and hands built for breaking men. In the underworld’s most perverse auction, Luca Ruelle is nothing but trembling prey, sold for a price no soul should fetch. Silk-wrapped, bare, choking on shame and smoke, he should be praying for rescue. But Kain Astor doesn’t rescue. He claims, corrupts, and devours. He teaches Luca how it feels to be owned. How pain can bloom where fear lives. How pleasure is just another kind of cruelty. Every command is a dare, every punishment a promise. Under Kain’s hands, Luca learns the exquisite agony of surrender, and the terror of how badly he needs it. He should be fighting for his life. Instead, he’s sinking to his knees, eyes glazed, lips parted, whispering the one word that seals his fate— “Please.”

After the car accident, one of the Johnson sons was dead and the other gravely injured. When my devout, devoted husband woke up in the hospital, he called out, "Dorothy." He claimed that his body then held the soul of his brother, Elias Johnson. I went mad, calling doctors, priests, anyone I could, desperate to bring my husband back. It was not until that night that I overheard his conversation with our son: "Father, you've loved aunt for years. You even kept yourself chaste in your private prayer room, waiting. Now, finally, you can be with her openly." The man in the bed reached out to stroke our son's hair. "If it weren't to stop your mother from destroying her relationship, I wouldn't have married her." I hid in the shadows, still reeling from their words, when I saw what happened after our son left. The husband I had always known, icy, composed, and ascetic to maintain his devout faith for seven years, was then holding his sister-in-law close on that tiny hospital bed, sharing a warmth meant for lovers. The next day, I applied for Jim Johnson's death certificate and burned our marriage certificate. At his grand wedding, I climbed aboard the helicopter sent to fetch me. However, my once-cold husband went mad, chasing after us down several streets, desperate and unhinged.

The Lighthouse at Black Hollow The storm came in without warning. One moment the sea beyond Black Hollow was silver and calm, and the next it was a heaving wall of iron-gray waves crashing against the cliffs. Wind screamed through the narrow streets, slamming shutters and rattling doors like impatient fists. Sixteen-year-old Mara Ellison stood at her bedroom window, heart pounding—not from the thunder, but from the light. It had flashed three times. Not lightning. The lighthouse. The old lighthouse had been dark for years.

By day, I was a maid in Chester Graham's household. By night, I was nothing more than a way for him to satisfy his desires. After one encounter, he dragged me from the bed, indifferent to my pain. "You don't have to come back," he said flatly. I collapsed to the floor in terror. "Did I do something wrong? Please don't send me away." The man who had murmured comforts to me only moments earlier now gazed down with icy detachment. "Wendy has agreed to marry me. "She's afraid of pain. You were nothing more than a tool for me to practice on. Once used, you're thrown away. "You've always been obedient. You know what you're supposed to do."

Ama West had to step up and raise herself and her sister after their father abandoned them when she was just 16, leaving their mother lost in her own depression. Faced with the daunting prospect of survival, Ama accepted a high-stakes job to steal a neck piece from the formidable Blackwood family. However, when she was caught by the merciless Grayson Blackwood, she found herself at a crossroads. Grayson offered her a stark choice: either become his personal spy or face an excruciating end. The decision was clear; she would fight for her survival and take control of her fate. She gets thrown into the complicated Blackwoods family, where she unfolds secret that were never meant to be reviewed. And when her heart gets involved she's left to make difficult choices that could either make or break her.

Machines of Iron and guns of alchemy rule the battlefields. While a world faces the consequences of a Steam empire. Molag Broner, is a soldier of Remas. A member of the fabled Legion, he and his brothers have long served loyal Legionnaires in battle with the Persian Empire. For 300 years, Remas and Persia have been locked in an Eternal War. But that is about to end. Unbeknown to Molag and his brothers. Dark forces intend to reignite a new war. Throwing Rome and her Legions, into a new conflict