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 3
The days passed in a blur of wedding fittings, floral orders, and endless checklists. Elena tried to drown herself in preparations, convincing herself that doubt was only nerves. Daniel was steady, Daniel was safe. He had given her love, a future, and promises wrapped in pearls.
And yet... Adrian's words clung to her like shadows.
On a quiet afternoon, when the shop smelled of roses and lavender, the bell above the door chimed again.
Her heart dropped.
Adrian stood in the doorway, dark and composed, as if he belonged to the silence more than the world outside.
Elena's voice caught in her throat. "You can't keep coming here."
He ignored the protest, stepping closer, his gaze sweeping the bouquets before resting on her. "How's the fiancé?"
Her chest tightened. "Happy. Busy. Preparing for our wedding."
Adrian tilted his head, a faint smile ghosting his lips. "A wedding built on lies doesn't last long."
Her hands balled into fists. "Why do you keep saying that?"
"Because it's true." His voice was low, steady, unyielding. "I don't lie to you, Elena. He does."
The anger in her rose. "You don't even know him-"
"I know enough." His gaze sharpened, cutting through her defenses. "Do you think I walk into places blind? I don't buy flowers without knowing who ties the ribbon. And I don't watch a woman without knowing who else thinks she belongs to him."
Her breath faltered. "Belongs-"
Adrian's voice softened, dangerous in its calm. "Your Daniel already belongs to someone else."
Her throat went dry. She wanted to scream, to deny, to laugh at the absurdity of it-but her voice betrayed her. "You're trying to ruin us."
He stepped closer, and though his presence loomed, his words fell like a whisper. "I don't need to ruin what's already broken."
The air between them was thick, her pulse pounding too fast. She forced herself to look away, clutching the counter. "Leave."
For a moment, silence stretched, broken only by the ticking of the old shop clock.
Finally, Adrian set a single red rose on the counter, its petals darker than blood. "You'll see it soon enough," he said softly.
And then he was gone, leaving her trembling in the quiet.
Elena stared at the rose, her chest rising and falling too quickly.
For the first time, she felt afraid to close her eyes-because she didn't know if the lies belonged to Adrian's world... or her own.
It was past midnight when Elena locked up the shop. The street was quiet, the lamps spilling pale circles of light across the cobblestones. She pulled her coat tighter, the night air prickling against her skin.
A figure leaned against her car.
Her heart stuttered.
Adrian.
He looked perfectly at ease, as though he had been waiting for hours and time meant nothing to him. A cigarette glowed faintly between his fingers, smoke curling into the air.
"You shouldn't be out here alone," he said, voice low, carrying too easily in the quiet. "This city has wolves."
Her hands trembled as she clutched her keys. "And which one are you?"
He smiled faintly, exhaling smoke. "The one who doesn't bother to hide his teeth."
She swallowed hard. "You can't keep doing this-showing up everywhere I am."
He pushed off the car, closing the space between them in two measured steps. "I can. And I will." His gaze burned into her. "Because you don't belong to him."
"I'm engaged," she whispered, as though saying it could build a wall between them.
Adrian chuckled, the sound low and humorless. "Engagements break. Rings are just metal. Promises-cheap words." He reached for her hand suddenly, curling his fingers around hers. "But obsession? That doesn't snap so easily."
Her pulse hammered as she tried to pull away, but his grip was iron-firm, not painful, just inescapable.
"You terrify me," she breathed.
His lips curved in that dry, wicked smile. "Good. Fear keeps you sharp." He tilted his head, studying her like she was both a puzzle and a prize. "But don't mistake me for a monster, Elena. I don't want to hurt you." A pause, his voice lowering. "Unless you make me."
Her breath caught, his words chilling and yet... pulling at something deep inside her she dared not name.
Finally, he released her hand, stepping back. "Go home," he said softly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Dream of your Daniel. Pretend he's the man you think he is." His smile widened slightly, razor-thin humor flashing. "And when the dream breaks, I'll be waiting to catch you."
He dropped his cigarette, grinding it beneath his shoe, and walked away into the darkness.
Elena stood frozen by her car, her chest rising too fast, her hand still burning where his fingers had held her.
It wasn't just fear anymore.
It was the terrifying knowledge that a part of her wanted to be caught.
Elena woke to the faint scent of roses.
For a moment, she thought it was a dream. But when she sat up, heart pounding, she saw it-
A single crimson rose laid across her pillow. The petals glistened with dew that had no place inside her locked apartment.
Her breath caught. The door was still bolted. The windows shut. And yet the flower lay there like a whisper of trespass.
Pinned beneath it, a note written in sharp, deliberate strokes:
You look beautiful when you sleep.
Her hand trembled as she clutched the paper, fear and anger twisting in her chest. How had he been here? How close had he come?
Her phone buzzed suddenly. A message. No name-just a number she didn't recognize.
Did you dream of me?
Elena dropped the phone as though it had burned her.
Later that day, she tried to steady herself at the shop, but the shadows in every corner seemed thicker, waiting. The bell chimed, and though she braced herself, it wasn't a customer.
It was him.
Adrian stepped inside with the calm assurance of someone who had every right to be there. He wore black again, the kind of darkness that seemed to swallow the light around him.
"You broke into my home," Elena accused, voice sharp but shaky.
He tilted his head, lips curving in that dry, dangerous smile. "You make it sound so vulgar. I was simply visiting."
"Visiting?" Her voice cracked. "While I slept?"
His eyes softened, but not with guilt. With something far worse-possession. "You don't understand, Elena. I needed to see you when the world wasn't watching. You're different then... unguarded. Pure."
Her breath shivered in her throat. "That's insane."
Adrian's smile deepened. "Obsession usually is."
He reached for a vase of lilies on the counter, lifting one as though it were fragile glass. "Your fiancé doesn't see you. Not the way I do. He sees what you give him. I see everything." His gaze swept over her, deliberate, consuming. "And I want everything."
She stumbled back, pressing against the counter. "You can't have me."
For a moment, silence. Then his laugh-low, humorless, edged with steel. "Can't?" He stepped closer, the flower still in his hand. "You'll learn, Elena. In my world, what I want... I take."
He set the lily down, brushing his fingers across hers as he did. The touch lingered too long, too certain.
"I'm patient," he murmured. "But patience has limits." His eyes gleamed with something dark and final. "And I don't like to share."
With that, he left, the bell chiming softly in his wake.
Elena collapsed against the counter, clutching the note from that morning still hidden in her pocket.
The words repeated in her head like a curse, or a promise: You look beautiful when you sleep.
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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.