Ayakashi: Ghost Guild Novels & Stories

I was eighteen when I'd given my heart to Julian Thorne, friend of my father and a silver-haired god who ruled the city. He'd laughed, called me a child, and then exiled me to Europe. Five years later, I returned, no longer a naive princess but a desperate pawn, destined to be sold into an abusive marriage to save my bankrupt family. Julian was the only key to my cage. He agreed to save me. He bought my father's debt and claimed me as his own. His price was my submission-my body in his bed, my life under his thumb. All along, I'd thought I was playing a game of seduction to survive, when, in fact, Julian was playing a game of war. And when I found out he used our nights to steal my inheritance and destroy my family, I ran. I disappeared, faked my own death, and took the one thing he could never reclaim his son. Three years of freedom reduced to naught the instant he found us. He dragged me back into his gilded cage, intent on revenge. But before his vengeance could take root, a rival's sabotage put him in a coma. The moment Julian opened his eyes, he remembered his empire, his rivalries, his treacherous ex-fiancée, Seraphina. He remembered everything.except the woman he'd risked his life for, and the son who carried his eyes. Now, I am trapped: in a fight with a forgotten man, haunted by the ghost who swore his love to me in a final dying letter, facing an enemy who wants to eradicate the only thing Julian cannot forget: our connection. To save myself and my child, I have to make the monster fall in love with me all over again-before his past decides I'm a risk worth killing.

For three years, Eleanor Newton believed she had found her happily ever after. When she rejected an arranged mating and abandoned her powerful birthright, she did it for love. She chose Alpha Owen Belmont over the future her family had planned for her. She believed love would be enough. She was wrong. As Luna of the Belmont Pack, Eleanor slowly finds herself becoming an outsider in her own marriage. Everywhere she turns stands Susana Howell—Owen's lifelong female best friend. Susana attends private meetings. Susana accompanies them on trips. Susana has access to Owen at all hours. Susana always seems to come first. Every time Eleanor voices her concerns, she is made to feel unreasonable. But unknown to Eleanor, Owen's devotion to Susana stems Years ago, Susana's mother died protecting him during a rogue attack. The guilt never left him. Since that day, Owen has dedicated himself to protecting Susana, believing it is a debt he can never repay. What begins as loyalty slowly evolves into a toxic dependency that neither Owen nor Susana is willing to acknowledge. Over the years, Eleanor becomes trapped in a marriage where she is constantly competing with a ghost and a promise. Then everything changes. After years of humiliation, she catches Owen and Susana in a compromising situation that destroys the last remnants of trust between them. For the first time, Eleanor stops fighting for her marriage. Instead, she walks away. She returns to the powerful family she once abandoned and accepts the arranged mating she fled years ago. On the night Eleanor had fled her ancestral home to escape the arranged mating, Thaneus Del Caspian, Alpha of the feared Del Caspian pack, had watched her with inscrutable eyes. "Ellie," he had promised, his voice low and dangerous, "someday you'll return to my side willingly."