Unlikely Valentine Novels & Stories

Julian didn’t get cold feet. He got on a plane, back to Selene, back to the woman he swore was history, and left Mira to realize, in real time, in front of everyone she knew, that three years meant absolutely nothing to him. Atherton doesn’t forget things like that. It doesn’t even try. So when Sebastian Calloway offers his name, Mira takes it. She signs the contract, lifts her chin, and tells herself it’s just survival. A cold arrangement between two people who have never liked each other. He tells her he wants it real. She almost believes him. She hates herself a little for that. Because Sebastian isn’t doing this out of kindness. Mira is useful, her name, her influence, the quiet authority she carries without even trying. A woman still raw from humiliation is a woman who won’t look too carefully at the hand she’s reaching for. He knows that. He counts on it. What he doesn’t count on is actually falling for her. Initially it seemed like he was overthinking things, but it happened at once, the way she rebuilds herself without complaint, the way she challenges him without flinching. By the time Sebastian realizes he stopped strategizing and started feeling. Then Julian returns. Regretful. He made a mistake. Mira doesn’t take him back. That’s when he stops being sorry and starts being dangerous. Bitter and bruised, Julian finds an unlikely ally in Tracy, Sebastian’s best friend, who has her own quiet grievances and her own score to settle. Together they become exactly what Mira and Sebastian’s fragile, complicated marriage cannot afford, two people who know exactly where to press to make everything collapse.

On the day I was due to give birth to my twins, I bought up every dose of moonsleep suppressant in the healing den and forced my labor to stop. I endured the pain until the next day, just to watch my Alpha mate, Damien Thorne, stand before the entire Black Moon Pack and declare that Victoria Hale—the tenth mistress he had brought in to bear him an heir—had given birth first. Her child, he announced, would be the future heir of Black Moon. Only then did I finally breathe out and let my own twins come into the world. In my past life, Damien had been told he was unlikely to ever produce an heir of strong blood. Desperate to secure a successor, he brought one she-wolf after another into our pack and declared that whichever woman gave birth first, her child would inherit everything. But he promised me this: if I delivered first, he would send every last mistress away, and my children would be the only heirs of Black Moon. I believed him. So when I found out I was carrying twins, I thought the Moon Goddess had finally shown me mercy. But on the day I went into labor, what greeted me was not joy, but Damien’s rage. To protect Victoria and her pup’s claim, he forced my labor to stop and left my twins to die inside me, little by little. Then he dragged me to kneel before Victoria’s grave and smashed my head against the stone until blood covered my face. “Victoria had nothing,” he snarled. “I only wanted her child to become heir, so no one in this pack would ever dare look down on them.” “But you couldn’t even give her that. She died in labor. Her child died with her. You should pay for both their lives.” I was beaten to death before her grave. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day my twins were due. This time, I would not fight him. I would give Damien exactly what he wanted—the perfect family of three.