A Flame in the Shadow

For a thousand years, the city of Crescent Falls has survived beneath the shadow of an ancient savior. Each century, a man is chosen as an offering to Sariyah-the being said to have once driven demons from the world. When Bastion, the man Ember loves, is taken after daring to refuse her, Ember's grief turns into defiance, and she vows to bring him home no matter the cost. Her search forces her into an uneasy alliance with Orion St. James, a dangerously charming immortal with a violent past and secrets tied to Sariyah herself. Bound together by a magic neither of them wants nor understands, Ember and Orion are drawn into a hidden war beneath the city-one involving cultists, monsters, and an ancient order known as the Watchers. As Crescent Falls begins to fracture, Ember experiences unsettling visions that hint her bloodline is far more entangled with Sariyah than anyone ever suspected. Strange new powers awaken within her, blurring the line between protector and destroyer, while enemies gather and old loyalties are tested. With the city on the brink of collapse and unseen forces moving in the shadows, Ember must decide how far she is willing to go to save Bastion-and whether becoming something darker is the only way to stop an evil that has ruled unchallenged for centuries. Because some thrones are not inherited. They are taken.

Chapters

Chapter 5

They say you can't break a man who has something to hold onto. She knows that. She knows me. That's why she's trying to take Ember from my mind piece by piece.

The cell I have been placed in is made of obsidian and the silence is deafening. My wrists are bound with a soul wire that hums every time I think of fire, or resistance, or of her. Not Ember but her. Sariyah.

She enters like always – soundless, scentless, ominous. The room shifts with her prescence, growing colder and darker, as if even the stones know to fear her. She doesn't look at me right away. She trails her fingers along the chains on the wall, humming some forgotten lullaby. I stay slumped in the corner, bones fractured and hope thinning. Then she turns. Those dark souless eyes settle on me.

"I dreamed of you last night." She says, voice soft, almost mournful. "You were weeping."

"I don't cry."

She smiles. "Not yet."

I don't move, dont react. She hates that. She wants rage, defiance, emotion. She will get none of that from me.

At least that's what I think until she kneels beside me, brushing the blood off my cheek. her touch is far too gentle for the monster I know she is. I wonder what she is up to, when her rage will turn on me again. It always does when I do not give in to her.

"You're still waiting for her." She whispers. "Still clinging to that flicker of hope. That's what makes you so... breakable."

I grit my teeth, biting my tongue and the urge to spit in her face. Defiance has gotten me noweher so far. Nowhere good at least.

"She hasn't come for you, Bastion. She won't I have seen it. Shall I show you why she isn't coming?"

I don't answer but it doesn't matter. Her fingers press against my temple and the vision detonates behine my eyes.

Ember laughing with another man, curled against him beside a fire.

"You were right," She whispers. "Bastion never stood a chance."

The man smirks. "He thought you would choose him, poor little hero."

They laugh together. She looks at him like she never once looked at me. Devotion, hunger, and love written all over her.

His hand traces her collarbone and she leans in to kiss him.

Then the vision shifts.

Ember is dressed in fire-forged armor, standing over my chained body.

"You were always too soft, Bastion." She says. "Too foolish and self-centered to see what I really needed."

The same man stands behind her, arms folded, looking like a muscle-bound god. "You want me to kill him, Flame?"

She smiles "No. let him rot. He was never worth my time."

The vision faded and I screamed, not out loud, my dry throat couldn't handle it. But inside, where it counts. Where she wants it to hurt.

Sariyah is still there. Watching me. Watching to see what finally breaks me.

"There," She murmurs, brushing a tear from my cheek that I hadn't realized escaped. "Do you understand now?'

"She would never say those things." I rasp.

"She already has. She is bonded to him, Orion, that's his name. The bond has already began to changer her. He makes her stronger. You were just her first mistake."

My head dropped forward, shame boiling in my stomach. She leans in close, lips right at my ear, her warm breath a soft caress. "But I still care. I chose you when no one else did. I see your pain. I can heal it. I can make you more than what they left behind. More than they ever saw in you."

I want to scream at her, I want to punch her. My body is too heavy to move. Worse, what if she is right? What if Ember has forgotten me already? What if she is warm in another man's arms while I bleed in the dark? Is it possible I am holding onto a dream that never was meant to be?

"I don't believe you." I whisper.

Her smile turns cold and calculating. "Not Yet."

She leaves then, the shadows curling around her like a crown. I am alone again with my doubt and that is the worst kind of torture

Continue to next part

Betrayed by his own family, Carrick Aurum Gale was left for dead. But death was only the beginning. Reborn with a powerful system, Erebus, Carrick rises from the ashes to reclaim his rightful place as the most powerful Mafia Lord. With ruthless determination and cunning strategy, he builds a new empire, the Zenith Family, and sets his sights on vengeance against those who wronged him. The streets will run red, allegiances will be tested, and the very foundations of power will be shaken. The boy who was once discarded will become the master of his own destiny. Witness the unrelenting ascent of Aurum Zenith, the Mafia Lord who will stop at nothing to claim his throne.

Action LitRPG Mafia Modern

9.2

He Chose Her Over Our Child

9.2

My world shattered twice. First, the ocean claimed my son. Then, the mountain road took another, a direct sacrifice to the man I loved and the woman he chose. In the hospital, beeps marked the emptiness where my second son used to be, echoing the first loss, both involving Holden and Giana. During the car crash, I was pinned, bleeding, and trapped. Holden, my partner, looked me in the eyes, then chose to save Giana, abandoning me and our unborn child. Soon, I overheard Holden praising Giana for turning our tragedy into a PR win. His hollow apologies and focus on Giana’s "miracle work" reignited the brutal memory of her push and his past denials. A decade of sacrificing my life and two children for a man who saw me as a liability left a bitter taste. His choice was clear; only profound abandonment remained. But this time, I was choosing me. From my profound loss, a dangerous spark ignited: I would not just survive; I would find freedom and make him pay.

Action Adventure Modern

8.6

Marrying His Rival: The Jilted Wife's Sweet Revenge

8.6

"Her blood type is a match. It’s the only option." I froze outside the conference room door, the quarterly reports digging into my ribs. I knew that voice. It was Ben, my husband’s best friend and doctor. But the next voice, cold and devoid of warmth, shattered my world. "Then we do it," my husband Ethan said. "Chloe cannot wait any longer. If Ava is the match, then Ava is the solution." For the past month, Ethan had been obsessed with my health, insisting on daily "vitamins" and endless checkups. He called it love. Standing in that hallway, I realized he was actually shopping for spare parts. "She is your wife, Ethan," Ben argued weakly. "You can't just harvest her like a crop." "She became my wife because she was useful," Ethan replied, his indifference cutting deeper than any scalpel. "Now, she can be useful for this." The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. The nausea I’d been feeling wasn't stress. I was pregnant. And those "vitamins" he fed me every morning? They weren't supplements. They were poisons designed to ensure I remained a viable donor. He was killing his own child to save his mistress. To him, I wasn't a partner. I was livestock. An asset to be liquidated for parts. I didn't burst into the room. I didn't scream. I walked away in silence, my hand hovering over my stomach. He wanted my kidney? He wanted to carve me up? I decided right then. I wouldn't just leave. I would terminate the pregnancy, fake my death, and burn his entire world to the ground.

Action Modern Romance

8.9

My Fiance's Betrayal, My Fiery Vengeance

8.9

My fiancé and my adopted sister framed me for burning down our Hamptons beach house. They had me declared insane and used a forged power of attorney to lock me away in a private facility for four years. While I was drugged, tortured, and systematically broken, they stole my company, my reputation, and my life. When I was finally released, they stood before me, dripping in the wealth they'd stolen. Kelly, my sister, even wore my mother's engagement ring, a glittering trophy on her finger. They saw a vacant, docile shell, not the woman who spent every waking moment meticulously planning their ruin. They thought they had extinguished the fire. At a party meant to celebrate their victory, Kelly held up a dog collar studded with cheap rhinestones. "Wear this," she cooed, "and you can have your mother's watch back." I dropped to my knees and barked. They thought it was my final, crushing humiliation; it was the beginning of their end.

Action Mystery Romance

7.3

My Stepbrother's Deadly Game of Love

7.3

I started a dangerous game to break my perfect, cold stepbrother, Hunter. Our forbidden affair became a secret inferno, and I thought I was the one in control, the one teaching him how to feel. Then an anonymous video arrived on my phone. It showed Hunter with a young intern, repeating our most intimate lines, my words, my lessons, verbatim. "Does this need to be taught, too?" he asked her, his voice a chilling echo of our past. He confessed it was all a calculated revenge plot against my mother. He left me to collapse in the street, sick and alone, and the car crash that followed shattered my legs, ending my ballet career forever. My love was a weapon he used to burn my world to the ground. My body was broken, my dreams turned to ash. I had lost everything to a man I thought I had broken, but who had instead destroyed me. But from the ashes, a new dream was born. I became a choreographer, my pain fueling my art. Now, years later, as I stand on the world stage, he watches from the shadows, a ghost consumed by a regret he can never atone for.

Action Mystery Romance

8.7

Signed Away: His New Wife

8.7

In my past life, I died alone in a sterile hospital bed while my fiancé, Dyllan, comforted his "foster sister" Heather through a fake panic attack. He missed the birth and death of our child because Heather was "too delicate" to be left alone. Even as I took my last breath, he was wiping away her crocodile tears, ignoring my desperate calls. I sacrificed my dreams, my money, and my life for him, only to be a forgotten footnote. But when I opened my eyes, I was back at the City Hall counter, the marriage license waiting. Dyllan tapped his foot impatiently, checking his phone. "Hurry up, Ivy. Heather called. She' s having an episode. She needs me." The old Ivy would have trembled and obeyed, desperate for his approval. But I just smiled, a cold, calculated expression he didn't recognize. "Go to her," I said, pushing him toward the door. "I'll handle the paperwork. Family comes first, right?" He rushed out without a backward glance, relieved to be the hero again. Left alone with the official document, I didn't write my own name on the bride's line. With a steady hand and a heart full of vengeance, I wrote Heather Rosales. Congratulations, Dyllan. You're legally married to the burden you love so much. And I am finally free.

Action Modern Romance

A Flame in the Shadow

Chapter 5

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