Operating Systems: Internals And Design Principles Novels & Stories

My older brother, Ethan Earnhart, was the Alpha of the Shadow Pack. Right now, he was slicing my chest open with a silver surgical blade. Beside him, my adopted sister, Sara, had tear-filled eyes. "Elina went as far as faking her own death just to escape the loan sharks. She even used the body of a disfigured rogue." Ethan's gaze was filled with disgust. He pointed at the bruises covering my body, marks left when I was alive, and explained calmly to the young healer beside him. "Look. This is what happens to a traitor who betrays the pack and sleeps with filthy rogues. Elina, being the liar she's always been, even found a stand-in for her little performance." My wolf soul hovered beside the operating table and watched in despair as he handled my body the way one would process prey. 'Ethan, that really is me. I was trying to retrieve something you lost. That was why they–' "Check the stomach contents," Ethan said flatly as he cut open my stomach. Unexpectedly, there was no food residue. Instead, there was a single ring. It was corroded black by stomach acid, but the emblem engraved on it was unmistakable. It was the Alpha heirloom Ethan had lost five years ago. I had swallowed it just before I died. I had to protect that secret even if I were dead. Ethan's hand trembled violently while holding the forceps. He tore into my facial flesh like a madman. "Elina?"

After my wealthy biological parents found me and brought me home, the vicious family drama I had imagined never happened. Both the fake heiress and I entered arranged marriages. However, after getting married, I, who was perfectly healthy, struggled to get pregnant for a long time. Meanwhile, Angela Miller, who had been diagnosed with a cold womb condition, quickly gave birth to a daughter with her husband, who suffered from low sperm count. Outside the delivery room, the private doctor mistook me for the fake heiress and comforted me gently. "Everyone has their own fate. Your sister has a good constitution for pregnancy, but that doesn't mean you have no hope." Forcing a smile, I explained who I really was. The doctor stared at me in disbelief. "Then why haven't you gotten pregnant yet...?" His words cut deeply into me, and I thought maybe I simply had not worked hard enough while trying to conceive. After returning home, I desperately adjusted my diet and managed my figure. I even accepted Angela's recommendation and went to the hospital for IVF treatment. The moment I came off the operating table, my back aching so badly I could barely straighten up, I received a message. Angela, whose first pregnancy had already been considered a medical miracle, was pregnant with a second child again.

My younger sister and I unlocked our systems on the same day? The setting? The nation decades ago. She went for the learning system and married an intellectual. I had no choice but to go with the useless storage space system. Then, I was forced to marry a thug. A very rude and crass one at that. Thanks to the storage space system, I got through a famine and became the village's richest person. My sister's learning system was useless, and she almost died of starvation. Driven by jealousy, my sister seduced my husband and slept with him. To get my wealth, they came up with a plan and pushed me down a cliff. When I came to, I realized we'd returned to the day we awakened our systems. My sister shoved me away and picked the useless storage space system. "Move, you bitch! Now I have your system! I'll survive the famine and get rich! You'll live in my shadow forever, as you should!" She was so smug. She was gloating. I took the learning system and smiled to myself. Unbeknownst to my sister, I got rich during the famine, not because of the system, and my dream was to score high on the exam and get into a good college. My sister managed to mess up her life even when she had the better system. Now she took the useless one. I could practically see the misery waving at her down the path.

Camille Valentin was never meant to survive the night she landed on Adrien Duval’s operating table. Broken, bruised, pregnant, and hollowed out by a marriage that nearly destroyed her, she becomes just another patient to the most feared surgeon in Paris. Cold hands. Steady eyes. No questions asked. Except Adrien knows her. She is the ex-wife of his best friend. The woman he was never allowed to look at twice. He saves her life and sends her away, determined to forget the way her scars haunt him. But fate is cruel. Weeks later, Camille walks back into his world as his son’s new nanny. Living under his roof. Breathing his air. Healing in his shadow. Too soft for the darkness that surrounds him. Too broken to run. Adrien Duval is a billionaire, a surgeon, a man built on control and restraint. He has rules he never breaks. He does not touch patients. He does not betray friends. He does not want what does not belong to him. Camille is all three. Every glance is forbidden. Every touch is dangerous. Every heartbeat between them is a sin waiting to happen. And when enemies resurface, secrets bleed into the open, and the past comes to collect its debt, Adrien must decide whether to protect the world he built… or burn it down for the woman who was never supposed to be his. Some love stories are written in stars. Theirs is written in scars, silence, and the things you are never allowed to want.

“The contract was only for a year, Mr Gray. I marry you for one year and you stay the fuck away from my properties,” her tone was high-pitched annoyance and anger. “You got it all wrong, sugar. The contract was to quench my thirst for you but all you did was fuel that desire. Now, I want to own you. Your body, heart and fucking soul,” that honeylike baritone was void of its usual teasing now. He meant every word of it. There was no escape for her. ********** As she lay on the operating table, bleeding to death from an abortion her husband, Regal had arranged, Claire saw her life flash before her eyes. Even in her dying state, he refused her a transfusion because donating blood would ‘hurt’ his unborn child. The words pierced through her heart. The man she'd given her world to chose her sister over her without blinking. But then life smiled at her and she was given a second chance to correct her mistakes. What happens when she gambles this chance by stealing from the famous trillionaire, Asher Gray? What will be her fate when he barges into her life and overturns her world with his wicked seduction? When life throws Regal at her feet, begging for a second chance, when old flames ignite, will she let go of the past and forgive or pursue the prospect of a beautiful new love?

Every orphan dreams of one thing—finding a home. When my parents finally found me, I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. But the moment I stepped through their door, I saw her—a girl my age, dressed like a princess, calling them "mom" and "dad." That girl, Cassia, had been living the life that should have been mine. She was their pride and joy, while I was nothing but an outsider. In front of others, she played the perfect sister. Behind closed doors, she made sure I knew my place. I was her shadow, her punching bag. She was my tormentor—my fake sister. I thought my husband could save me from the misery of that home. He was kind, gentle—or so I believed—until he demanded I give up my unborn child, because the only baby he wanted was hers. Betrayed by the two people I trusted most, my world crumbled as I bled alone on an operating table, my life slipping away. But destiny had other plans. I was given another chance—a chance to rewrite my story. This time, I’m ready. I’ll expose Cassia for who she truly is. I’ll protect everything that was stolen from me. I’ll no longer be the weak girl in her shadow. I’ll become my own strength, and Cassia will never have power over me again.

Kyle Waugh wants something from Dawn. That's all. They decide to give this marriage a go for one year, and if it works out, Dawn will become the senior design editor in Kyle's parent firm and receive a fantastic divorce settlement. Kyle wants her to sleep in his bed, hold his hand at night, wear his ring on his finger at all times, and keep working for him. He also wants to convince his sceptical father that they are happily married and in love, and he's settled enough to run Waugh Industries. Dawn Brooks wants nothing more than stability and would marry a mysterious man to give her the stability she deserves. Even though she slowly learns that Kyle's heart has inbuilt cold walls, she'll do anything to keep the company job and never return to her parents. For now, she'll sleep in his bed, kiss him goodnight with a hole in her heart. Her heart may skip whenever Kyle is around, and his touch may ignite nerves that she never knew existed, but she won't actually give in to him. Would she? After all, she can be his wife if she can put her mind to it.

When her brother’s life is buried under a crushing gambling debt, Alina Dusk agrees to marry Dorian Vale—the ruthless black-market king feared across the underworld. The bargain is simple: her brother’s freedom in exchange for her hand. But from the moment their vows are spoken, Dorian reveals a terrifying truth—he has been watching her for years, and now she is his to cage forever. What begins as a marriage of convenience spirals into a dangerous game of obsession, secrets, and betrayal. Alina tries to run, only to discover that Dorian knows her darkest secret: the night she killed a man. Caught in his grip, she becomes both his queen and his prisoner, forced to navigate a world of blood and power where nothing is what it seems. When Alina learns her brother’s debt—and even his betrayal—were part of Dorian’s design, her world shatters. Yet, amid the manipulation, she finds herself carrying his child. As enemies close in, a spy infiltrates her trust, and a tragic miscarriage ignites a mafia war. Torn between love and hatred, freedom and chains, Alina must decide: is Dorian Vale truly her monster—or the only man who can keep her alive

In our galaxy, there are at least twenty billion Earth-like planets able to sustain life. My name is Skye. I am eighteen years old. Our astronautic scientists discovered a planet within our galaxy with human life similar to ours. By probing this planet’s satellite systems, they have learnt that wars have wracked this world over many millennia, where various zealots strive for dominance. Before setting out on a twenty-year expedition to visit this planet, our group has spent a year being educated in the various languages of this alien world and acquiring the skills to survive in any hostile environment we may find ourselves in. OUR DESTINATION IS EARTH. SKYE is the first book in a trilogy. It is a coming-of-age adventure of Skye, a young alien girl, and her fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic world governed by fundamentalists. After surviving a meteoroid tsunami, her spaceship crash lands in the Mexican wilderness. One of the survivors, Judah, a gifted physician from a superior technological civilization, is discovered in the desert and taken to Texas. Judah is promoted as the new Messiah by a right-wing extremist known as ‘The Preacher’. The Preacher’s propaganda machine convinces America’s devastated survivors that it was the sins of the world’s population that, as prophesized in the Bible, brought down the wrath of God. Judah is exploited to restore the people’s faith in the divinity of God as decreed by the Preacher’s tyrannical interpretation. The Preacher aims to reverse the emancipation achieved by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and bring about a dictatorship through the reunification of America. Skye must put her trust in a member of the Preacher’s security team to rescue Judah from this new confederacy.

I died the day my husband forced the doctors to take our baby from my womb. I thought I’d never love again after losing my ex-boyfriend to a heart attack. But fate gave me a second chance. I married the man I adored, a billionaire named Maxwell. Just when I was about to share the joyful news of my pregnancy, I caught him getting cozy with my best friend, Morgana. Worse, he believed her lies: I was a drug addict. The truth? I was battling a severe mental illness triggered by my ex’s death. I needed medication to cope, but Maxwell never cared to understand. He refused to believe a word I said. They locked me away in a private rehab clinic. But that place wasn’t for healing, it was a trap. Morgana used it to cut me off from Maxwell and torment me without consequence. And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse… Maxwell signed off on a surgery to take my baby. I lay on that cold operating table, tears streaming down my face, and died in the fire that followed—broken, betrayed, and alone. But I never expected to wake up again. This time, I have a new life. A new family. And even one of my children survived. Maxwell, Morgana—this time, I’m coming back. And you’re both going to pay.