Cornelius Crane Novels & Stories

After losing her mother to royal games and securing her revenge, Alba Crane leaves Ketria after her eighteenth birthday, carrying two dangerous secrets. Eight years pass, and a coincidental meeting with her stepbrother, the new Lycan king, has her back where she lost everything, chained and bound for his revenge as he unravels all her hidden secrets. Marko Ivanov desires to be the greatest ruler of Ketria. He would do anything for his dream to come to fruition; right the wrongs of his father, marry the perfect queen that would strengthen his Kingdom, and live a repressive scandal-free life. However, all his efforts shatter at the realisation that the person he hated most in the world, his irresponsible 'runaway' stepsister, is his mate. Blinded by his desire for revenge for the havoc she wreaked before her departure, Marko keeps Alba bound to Ketria using everything he can, including their mate bond. When using the lust between them as revenge spirals beyond their control, blurring the lines between love and hate, their inevitability dawns. Will the two enemies in heat reconcile their differences to find a way for the existence of their scandalous happy-ever-after, or will they settle for dragging each other to ruin at the cost of everything? ** "Which part of him aroused you? Or was it that you played naughty games under the table?” "Is that something you should ask your sister?” "Step.” The Lycan King growls in correction.

When my husband from the arranged marriage lost his memory, I couldn't resist messing with him. “Adrian. Say 'Boss.'“ The man in the hospital bed hugged his pillow and looked up at me like a good little boy. “Boss.” I nodded, satisfied. Perfect. A whole year of marriage, and he never once called me his wife. One car crash, and he'd been demoted to calling me Boss. Adrian and I had an arranged marriage. I did it for my family's dying factory. After the wedding he was colder than the fridge. We slept in separate rooms. He wouldn't eat my cooking and wouldn't take my calls. He even saved my number in his phone as “the Bell girl.” I lived in the Crane house more carefully than the hired help. His mother thought I was poor. His aunt thought I was trash. Adrian thought I was an eyesore. Then came the crash. A clot pressing on the nerves in his brain. The doctor said his mind had rolled back to about six years old. I looked at the man in the bed, clutching my sleeve and refusing to let go, and on the inside, I was glowing. Payback. My moment had finally come. I wanted money. I wanted revenge. I wanted a divorce and a clean getaway.

The year is 2232 in a post-apocalyptic realm, where shifters and humans are far and few between. The packs are still at war, ranking females are in high demand and humans struggle to survive under the laws of shifters. Gabriel Grayson is the alpha of the Renegade pack, a pack for hire. They are seen as deserters, rogues, who go against everything a pack ought to be in this era. Paid for their services as mercenaries, they didn’t care what the cause was, just who could put their money where their mouth was. That is until Gabe meets Hope Jordan, better known as Stixs. A sassy and gutsy blond, who has Gabe thinking twice about whose money to take and which side he should be fighting with. With impending war between the Raven Knights and Cardinal Moon pack, Stix’s father reaches out to the Renegades, in a desperate attempt to save his daughter and his pack. When the Renegades are offered a substantial amount more to fight for the enemy, it’s more than Stix’s father has, and she finds herself willing to submit to the power-hungry Alpha Crane who is willing to start a war just so he can have her. Until she meets Gabe Grayson, the mysterious and dangerous Renegade; His looks and brooding have Stixs drawn to him, and she hoped he would be the one to save her from the clutches of their enemy. Gabe has a choice to make, the highest bidder or doing the right thing. Can Stixs convince Gabe and his renegades that she is worth fighting for or will she have to give in to save the lives of her pack? Because no one survives The Renegades.

I always had a weakness for handsome men, so I camped out online to grab one of the very first AI incubi. The brand's whole pitch was seduction tuned a hundred percent to its owner's taste. But every time I got within ten minutes of Lucien Crane, he'd force-start a system cleaning cycle, go dark, and idle out. "Master, please don't overuse me. Bacteria buildup can cause a malfunction." Left unsatisfied every single time, I finally went to customer service, and the rep looked as baffled as I felt. "An incubus unit would never break off contact with its owner. We'd recommend restarting him at home." But on the drive back, I happened to scroll past a livestream from my live-in housekeeper. The title sat right there in bold: How a Seasoned Queen Subdues In Her AI Incubus. The lighting was low. The man's earlobes were flushed, and he knelt on one knee, every inch of bared skin crossed with messy whip marks. My housekeeper wiggled her red-painted toes, all smiles. "This one's got real stamina. Five hours straight and he never once tapped out." As the comments poured in, envious, a chill ran through me. So the so-called "cleaning system" was just his excuse to slack off and idle. Behind my back, he was happily playing somebody else's obedient little sub. If he wouldn't serve me the way he was built to, then he could wait to get shipped back to the factory and scrapped for parts.

For two years, Isabella Crane played the perfect wife to New York billionaire Ethan Sinclair. Elegant, obedient and invisible. Their marriage was nothing more than a contract designed to save her family from financial ruin, and Ethan made sure she never forgot it. He gave her his last name, his penthouse, and his rules, but never his heart. While the world envied her glamorous life, Isabella spent every night alone, watching her husband give the attention that should have been hers to another woman. Then she discovers she’s pregnant. With twins. And on the same night she realizes Ethan had secretly planned to end their marriage early, Isabella decides she’s done begging to be seen. She files for divorce, disappears without a trace, and starts over with a new career, a new apartment, and a secret powerful enough to destroy the cold billionaire who never truly looked at her. But Ethan Sinclair was never supposed to lose control. When his quiet, forgotten wife suddenly vanishes from his life, the emptiness she leaves behind begins tearing apart the carefully constructed empire around him. And when he discovers the truth months later...that Isabella left carrying his children...obsession replaces indifference. Now the man who once ignored her wants back into her life. Back into her home and into her heart. But Isabella refuses to become the invisible wife he abandoned. Ethan will have to prove he deserves more than a second chance. Because this time, loving her won’t be enough. He’ll have to see her. Before another man does.

I could see the countdown above a person’s head when they had already decided to leave their partner. The day my father’s countdown hit zero, he slapped a lawyer’s letter on the breakfast table and walked out on my mother and me. The day my best friend’s countdown hit zero, she finally threw her parasite of a boyfriend out of her apartment and changed the locks before sunset. That was why I’d always been terrified of seeing a countdown above my fiancé, Lucian Bellandi. Luckily, for seven years by his side, the space above his head had stayed clean. Lucian was the youngest Don the Bellandi family had ever seen. He owned the docks, the casinos, and half the South Side’s dirty money, yet he saved every soft part of himself for me. Until last month, when he picked me up after a family auction. I looked up and saw blood-red numbers stabbing into my eyes. [702 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes.] Less than two years. My heart tightened like a cold hand had closed around it. I started searching for an answer like a woman losing her mind. Had I done something wrong? Then, during a blizzard by the lake, we ran into Mia Crane at the back entrance of the Bellandi Hotel. Lucian had just brought her into his charity foundation as a new assistant. Snow clung to her hair and lashes. She was shivering from head to toe, but her smile was bright and painfully innocent. Lucian pulled a black silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to her. His face was calm. There was nothing openly improper in the gesture. But in that exact second, the countdown above his head jumped. [327 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes.] More than three hundred days, gone. And I knew I had found the reason.