BLOOD AND PETALS
She sells flowers. He spills blood. And he will stop at nothing to make her his. Elena Rossi has always lived quietly among roses and lilies, dreaming of love as gentle as the petals she arranges. She thought she found it in Daniel, the man she planned to marry. Until her wedding day when a dangerous stranger walked into the church and shattered everything. Adrian Volkov is a king in the underworld, a man feared for his ruthlessness and power. But to him, Elena is not just a prize. She is an obsession. A storm he cannot live without. And he will burn the world and anyone in it, to claim her. Torn from the life she knew, Elena resists him, manipulates him, and even runs from him. But Adrian is relentless. His love is dark, his touch both punishing and tender, and his obsession inescapable. When betrayal and bloodshed close in, Elena must face the truth: She doesn't just fear him. She doesn't just hate him. She loves him. Petals and Blood is a haunting, passionate tale of obsession, betrayal, and the dangerous kind of love that blooms in shadows.
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Chapter 1
The bell above the shop door chimed softly, its delicate ring blending with the fragrance of roses, lilies, and freshly cut lavender.
Elena knelt behind the counter, arranging a bouquet of ivory tulips with the steady hands of someone who had turned flowers into an art form. Her little shop on the corner was her pride a place where beauty lived untouched by the chaos of the world.
Outside, Lagos buzzed with impatient horns and hurried footsteps, but inside Bloom & Grace, time slowed. The world here was soft, fragrant, and safe.
She hummed as she tied a ribbon, her mind wandering to her wedding dress, tucked away in her closet at home. In just two weeks, she would marry Daniel. The thought made her lips curve into a quiet smile. He was steady, charming, and successful. Everything she thought she wanted.
The bell chimed again.
She glanced up, expecting another familiar customer. Instead, the air itself seemed to still.
A tall man stepped in, dressed in an immaculately tailored black suit that clung to him like armor. His presence was... wrong for her shop. Too sharp, too commanding, like a blade laid across velvet. His eyes, dark and unyielding, swept the room before landing on her.
Elena's hands froze around the bouquet.
"Good morning," she managed her voice steady though her heartbeat stumbled. "Can I help you find something?"
He didn't answer right away. He simply studied her, as if he had walked in not for flowers, but for her. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, smooth, with an edge that made her skin prickle.
"Roses."
She cleared her throat. "What color?"
His lips curved, but it wasn't quite a smile. "Red. Always red."
As she turned to gather them, she couldn't shake the feeling of being watched not as a customer studies a florist, but as a predator studies prey. The silence pressed heavy, broken only by the soft snip of her scissors.
When she finally handed him the bouquet, his fingers brushed hers. A chill rushed through her.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Elena," she said cautiously.
He repeated it slowly, tasting it, like he wanted to remember the way it felt on his tongue. Then he laid down more money than the bouquet was worth far more and turned toward the door.
Just before stepping out, he looked back at her with those unreadable eyes.
"I'll be back."
The bell chimed again as the door shut, but Elena didn't move. She stood frozen in the middle of her flower shop, surrounded by blooms yet for the first time, the air smelled faintly of danger.
The morning light spilled through the windows of Bloom & Grace, turning the petals in the display vase into fragments of stained glass. Elena let out a breath, tucking a stray curl behind her ear as she arranged fresh lilies near the counter. The delicate scent of jasmine clung to her fingers.
The bell above the door rang, and her heart leapt instinctively-until she turned and saw him.
Not him.
Daniel.
Daniel.
But that illusion shattered as the bell chimed again.
Elena turned. Her fiancé stepped into the shop, his easy smile immediately easing her shoulders. He wore a navy suit, his tie loosened as if he had left an important meeting just to see her.
"There you are, my busy bride," he teased, leaning over the counter to brush a kiss against her cheek. "I thought I'd steal a moment before the world steals me again."
Elena smiled softly, warmth unfurling in her chest. "You're supposed to let me spoil you with flowers, not the other way around."
He chuckled, pulling a small velvet box from his pocket. "Who said I came empty-handed?"
Inside lay a slender chain of gold with a single pearl, smooth and luminous.
"Daniel..." Her voice faltered.
"For you," he said gently, reaching to clasp it around her neck. "A reminder of what's coming. Two weeks, Elena. Then you're mine forever."
Her heart fluttered at his words. She touched the pearl, its coolness resting just above her collarbone. For a fleeting moment, all was as it should be safe, sweet, certain.
And froze.
The man in black stepped inside, filling the shop with his presence the way shadows filled an empty room. His dark gaze slid from the flowers to her, lingering on the new pearl at her throat.
"Beautiful," he said, voice low, deliberate.
Daniel straightened, his polite smile faltering. "Can I help you?"
The stranger didn't look at him. His eyes stayed locked on Elena.
"I told you I'd be back."
Her fingers gripped the counter. "You"
"Roses," Adrian said smoothly, his lips curving. "Red, of course."
Daniel glanced between them, a flicker of something sharp crossing his face. He stepped
closer to Elena, placing a hand at the small of her back. "Elena, who is this?"
She opened her mouth, but Adrian spoke first.
"A customer," he murmured, though the way he said it felt like a lie dressed as truth. "One who knows quality when he sees it."
Elena's pulse raced. She wrapped the roses in silence, her hands steady though her chest wasn't. When she finally handed them over, Adrian's fingers brushed hers again-intentionally, unhurried.
This time, she didn't pull away fast enough.
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
Adrian laid down too much money, just as before, and with that faint, dangerous smile, he whispered, "Until next time, Elena."
The bell chimed as he left, but his presence lingered, heavier than perfume.
Daniel frowned at the door. "Strange man," he muttered, tightening his arm around her
waist. "Stay away from him."
Elena nodded, but her gaze drifted to the roses in Adrian's hand as he disappeared into the city.
For the first time, the petals in her shop didn't feel like protection.
They felt like warning.
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9.2
She loved him until she lost herself.
Now, behind locked doors and shattered glass, she must learn to breathe again.
When she first met Lloyd, he was magnetic and intoxicating. The kind of man who turned every head when he entered a room, who spoke in promises sweet enough to taste. With him, she felt chosen, cherished, and safe.
But safety was an illusion, and love became a weapon.
And slowly, piece by piece, he dismantled her until nothing of the woman she once was remained.
Now institutionalized after a breakdown, she begins to piece together the brutal truth of what really happened in the shadows of their love story. Memories sting like open wounds: the manipulation disguised as tenderness, the apologies that blurred into threats, the desperate hope that tomorrow he'd be the man she fell for again.
Yet beneath the grief and the shame, a quiet rebellion stirs, a vow to reclaim her voice, her freedom, and her life. Because this is not just a story of how she fell apart. It is a story of how she rises.
Haunting, raw, and achingly intimate, Boys like him peels back the glittering mask of a toxic love affair to reveal the kind of darkness that hides in plain sight, and the unbreakable strength it takes to escape it.
7.1
The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen.
My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive.
The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest.
I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman.
But Chelsea wouldn't stop.
She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property.
I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength.
As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run.
Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan.
"She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."
7.3
Clara came home from a fourteen-hour board meeting to the sound of a piercing scream in the playroom.
When she rushed in, she found her husband, Chadwick, kneeling on the floor in a panic.
But he wasn't looking at their five-year-old son, Leo, who had a massive bleeding welt on his forehead.
Instead, Chadwick was trembling as he held the nanny's daughter, Autumn, who barely had a microscopic scratch.
"She needs ice. And antibacterial ointment," Chadwick snapped, carrying the nanny's daughter away and leaving his bleeding son behind.
From that moment, the nightmare only escalated.
Chadwick ordered Clara to cook a three-hour meal for the nanny's kid, threw away Leo's favorite toys because Autumn sneezed, and even secretly took the nanny and her daughter on Leo's promised Disney trip.
The final humiliation came at the Met Gala.
Right before their sponsor speech, Chadwick received a frantic call from the nanny claiming Autumn was having a panic attack.
He abandoned Clara in front of hundreds of flashing cameras, sprinting out of the ballroom.
Clara stood completely alone, the humiliation eating through her veins like acid.
She couldn't understand how a father could call the nanny's kid his "little princess" while watching his own son cry.
Why was he treating his own flesh and blood like garbage just to play savior to another woman's child?
Suddenly, the blinding camera flashes were blocked by a massive shadow.
Erasmo Chase, the heir to New York's largest financial dynasty, stepped out of the darkness and shielded her.
"A man like that is unworthy of your grief, Ms. Best," he whispered, pressing a silk handkerchief into her trembling hand.
Looking at the sharp profile of the powerful man beside her, Clara's shock hardened into a lethal, cold fury.
She was going to dump her family's shares, crash the board, and make Chadwick lose absolutely everything.
7.2
SYNOPSIS:
"I spent ten years scrubbing your floors, Greene. Tonight, you'll scrub mine."
Elara Vance has always been the pride the Republic until she ran away from home, fell in love with Greene Jones, a man who treated her like dirt and discarded her like she was never the girl the entire Republic feared because of her strong dominating pheromones.
Now she's back after twelve years to serve revenge to Greene Jones like a hot dish in a way that he will pay for every act meted out on her for twelve years. But things wasn't going to go as planned as she meets Silas, the handsome bulky head of her father's security but a recessive omega of her past that she has totally forgotten but now wears a new stance as her bodyguard, recognized by the entire republic as an Alpha, and her perfect chosen mate, Calvin; ruining the comeback and revenge she planned out for herself and now she has to think about saving and claiming her mate, Silas while navigating and protecting the seat meant for her.
The real question becomes; will Calvin ever allow her take all it took him twelve years to build?
THEME: The true definition of power. Is it found in the biological dominance of an Alpha, or in the resilience of an Omega who survived in the lion's den?
9.6
My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend.
From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down."
That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny.
But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded.
I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said."
Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off."
My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers.
I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal.
Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing.
As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury.
In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho."
How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me?
Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault?
Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred?
I would not be his victim.
Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done.
I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties.
This was not an escape; this was my rebirth.
Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.
9.0
The biopsy report slid across the cold metal desk, stamped with a brutal death sentence: advanced gastric cancer. Aretha had exactly ninety days left to live.
It was her twenty-sixth birthday, but her phone only rang with a furious call from her husband, Anders.
"Do you have any idea how much of a joke you made this family look like today? Post a public apology to Kelli right now."
He had completely forgotten her birthday, only caring that she skipped her adopted sister's yacht party.
When Aretha dragged her failing body back to the family estate, her biological mother slapped her across the face just for looking pale and embarrassing them in front of guests.
Seeing Aretha wasn't submitting to the usual abuse, Kelli deliberately threw herself down the stairs, playing the innocent, depressed victim.
Anders rushed in and shoved Aretha brutally against the wall to protect Kelli, while her biological father delivered his ultimate threat.
"I am freezing your trust fund. Get on your knees and apologize to Kelli right now, or you won't see another dime."
A massive, suffocating sense of absurdity washed over Aretha. She had spent six years lowering her head and begging for their approval, only to be treated like a disposable placeholder. Why should she spend her final days enduring this agonizing torture for people who didn't even care if she breathed?
Aretha wiped the blood from her chin and laughed. She publicly severed all ties with her family, whipped the signed divorce papers directly at Anders's face, and walked out into the freezing storm—ready to fight for her own life.