Showing results by author "L y C" in All Categories

Christmas in Chicago is a beautiful time of the year - but not for Merry, who has been kidnapped and locked in a dark room with only a friendly, sexy voice for company. He's been kidnapped, too, but the difference is, he knows why. The story continues as the first bloods decide to celebrate Christmas for the first time in centuries for the first blood children. From Africa, to Iceland, to France, the children of the moon and the children of the sun come together to show appreciation for family and friends newly found and yet to be.

He'd never really be all right again, but it was what he deserved after the war. He was broken; he knew it. Life messed you up, and all that was left to do was the best you can to survive. Yeah, he was messed up, but so was she, worse than he could ever imagine. Any chance that two people so shattered could help each other to heal and learn to love? Especially when one is human - and one is not.

Life is what happens when you're making other plans. Boy did it! Lauren graduated top of her class, ready for her career in genetic research. But when she was presented with the opportunity to study the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, a virus that completely rewrites human DNA, altering someone to become a Vampire, she couldn't refuse. When she realized that the research society were actually the villains, that the Vampires were not evil, or undead, she helps them destroy the lab where she worked.

Loveday Brooke is the first female detective created by a woman writer. Catherine Louisa Pirkis published stories about this smart, spirited sleuth in the 1880s, and they were collected into this anthology in 1894. In these tales, Loveday takes on cases involving wayward nuns, missing debutantes, a mysterious princess, and a ghost who resembles Napoleon, among other strange phenomena.

When her fifteen-year-old son Milo goes off the rails, Alex Harding is terrified she’s passed on her abusive father’s ‘bad’ genes. When she then makes the shocking discovery that her estranged son, Samuel, who she gave up for adoption as a baby, has been accused of murder, she becomes even more convinced nature not nurture is the cause. The only way Alex sees to help Milo, is to get to know Samuel and understand the crime that he has been accused of. But it isn’t long before Alex starts to wonder if she has made the biggest mistake of her life by inviting this man into her family.

For most of the year, Summer reigns peacefully over Alderland. Then, for six brutal weeks, Winter rages, obliterating towns and wreaking casualties. Magicians bond with powerful wands of Summer to defend the nation, a duty that costs many their lives. Now, as the unprecedented Chosen Two, Domenic and Ellery must thwart the oncoming cataclysm together. Until they discover the unthinkable truth. The Chosen Two aren't fated allies, but eternal rivals, and the only way to save their home is for one of them to slay the other.

Serving in a leadership role can be rewarding and exhilarating but not always easy. You may find yourself in situations where you need guidance — perhaps to get out of a negative situation or handle the challenges of leadership. Dr. Sarah Lukas and Dr. Carla Sparks have been there and want to help you through these potentially difficult moments in your leadership journey and help you find the positive outcomes that may be just around the corner.

Folkloric, Tales of Folklore & Horror is a collection of 16 terrifying tales, drenched in ritual, superstition, and myth. Featuring stories from authors all around the world, this anthology delves into the dark traditions of ages past, and the uncanny sources that inspired them.

Honor hin'Bellvue is a young lady from a minor noble house - with a newly-discovered submissive streak that aches to be satisfied. Natasha Volkova is an army veteran, a commoner, a foreigner - and a sexual dominant, whose commanding persona can reduce Honor to a quivering puddle of need. Thrown together by a twist of fate, these two very different women surprised and delighted each other with their unexpected liaison - but they never thought it would be more than a fling.

Honor hin'Bellvue, a young lady from a minor noble house, has found her life changing in ways she never could have expected. Her companion and bodyguard, Natasha Volkova, is a powerful sexual dominant who has awakened Honor's need for submission and service. Their new friend Alix, a noble scion and asexual romantic, may offer the perfect chance for them to continue their "arrangement" under a cover of social respectability. And by joining a new women's rights movement among Metamor's nobility, Honor is staking a claim for control over her own destiny.

Bram Morrison, an aspiring astronaut, has always believed that death is where it all ends. Until he gets a phone call from a dead friend. He tries to dismiss it as somebody’s bad joke, but the chilling mystery proves far too compelling. When Torula Jackson, a botanist, tells him her laboratory might be haunted, she offers him a chance to investigate - and he dares to look behind death’s door. That choice puts a risk on his lifelong dream. NASA wants him to deepen the science of our world - not the afterworld.

A fortuitous encounter at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; a father-and-son outing that echoes a childhood trauma; a harrowing haunting finally laid to rest; two young brothers at their innocent play; the recovery of a lost family keepsake; Grandma sharing a fairy tale with her granddaughter. These captured moments, ordinary though they may seem, reveal the blessings of love and hope in the course of everyday life.

Scotland 1862. A murder, a terrifying creature, and a battle for his affections were not what Midnight Gunn expected when he journeyed to Scotland for the summer. Bodies are mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue, Midnight’s growing household is in turmoil, and someone or something lurks in the shadows, watching.

Love shouldn’t come in threes, so why is this happening to me? They say love is spilled from the veins and onto the skin of lovers. Bleed, bleed, bleed until they set you free. My blood will shed until one wins. They’re destined to destroy one another, and I’m caught in the middle. Will there be anyone left?

The Shadow Children's greatest enemies have been unmasked, and the stakes are far higher than Grace had ever feared. With her friends imprisoned and the Circle determined to annihilate the human race, Grace and The Shadow Children must prepare for war. There is only one way to break the Circle, but are Grace and Sam strong enough to make the sacrifice?

Mystery. Love. Lies. It's been a year since Grace's world was ripped asunder. The Shadow Children are fighting a losing battle to rescue the halfborn from the Silent Homes, but when a routine mission takes a sinister turn, Grace and her friends are faced with an impossible decision - battle on alone and risk losing everything, or place their trust in the people who have hunted them for centuries. With allies by her side and enemies at her heels, Grace must negotiate her way through the secrets and lies that pave the roads of the Shadow City. The dark is closing in....

A narcissistic professional photographer lived a dangerous double life as a serial killer. He'd focus his rage on prostitutes, mostly. It wasn't uncommon for him to bring them home then try to explain why they were there to his wife. Sexual urges met, either via rape or after paying for kinky sex, the killer would strangle his victims and dump their bodies in places he knew the police would eventually find them. The evil murderer needed the world to know that he was smarter than the police and women meant nothing to him but a necessary sexual inconvenience.

It is December 1657. John Grey, at his cramped desk in Lincoln's Inn, is attempting to resume his legal career. A mysterious message from a "Mr SK" tempts him out into the snowy streets of London and to what he believes will be a harmless diversion from his studies. Mr SK's letter proves to have been intended for somebody else entirely, and Grey finds himself unwittingly in the middle of a plot to assassinate the Lord Protector - a plot about which he now knows more than it is safe to know.

Rutger and Taryn are scraping by in the infamous Port of Deceit, a place where two skilled mercenaries should have no trouble finding work. But an ominous shadow has fallen across the city of Five Fingers, and an ancient evil has come to gorge itself on the agony and suffering that have long been the city’s stock and trade. Rutger and Taryn are dragged into a tangled plot of danger and intrigue as they face a terrifying Cryxian invasion and a vengeful specter from their past.

Classic Christmas Stories features seven timeless classics, including Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, A Christmas Dream and How it Came True by Louisa May Alcott, A Christmas Inspiration by Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, and The Three Kings by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.