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 4
Elena lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling, the crimson rose still sitting in a vase on her nightstand. She should have thrown it away. Burned it. But every time she tried, her hand refused to let it go.
Her mind replayed every moment with Adrian. The way his voice sank into her skin. The way his eyes lingered, unblinking, as if he could strip away every secret she held. The way his touch had burned her even as she recoiled.
She hated him.
And yet...
Her body betrayed her with every shiver at the memory of his words. You look beautiful when you sleep.
No one had ever said something so terrifying. No one had ever made her feel so alive.
The next day at the shop, she tried to drown herself in routine-arranging bouquets, trimming stems, breathing in the scent of lilies and roses. But the air felt heavier, as though Adrian's presence clung to the walls even when he wasn't there.
When the door opened and it was Daniel, relief washed over her. He kissed her cheek, smiling with that familiar charm. Safe. Predictable.
And yet, as his arms wrapped around her, she realized something horrifying.
Her body didn't react.
Not the way it had when Adrian had touched her hand. Not the way her pulse had raced, betraying her.
Guilt swelled in her chest. She pushed it down, forcing herself to smile at Daniel, to hold onto the man she had promised forever to. But inside, her world was cracking.
That evening, as she locked up the shop, she felt it-the prickling awareness of being watched.
She turned, and there he was.
Adrian stood across the street, in the shadows, his hands in his pockets, his posture lazy and confident, as though he had all the time in the world.
Their eyes met, and something electric passed between them.
He didn't move toward her. Didn't speak. He only smiled-that dry, knowing curve of his lips that told her he had already won a battle she didn't remember surrendering.
Her breath hitched.
She should have run. She should have screamed. Instead, she found herself frozen, heat curling through her veins like poison and fire.
When she finally turned away, locking the door with trembling hands, she knew the truth she couldn't admit out loud:
It wasn't just fear that kept her awake at night anymore.
It was want.
The morning sun streamed through the shop windows, bathing the lilies in gold. Elena tried to focus on arranging a bridal bouquet, but her hands trembled with every stem she tied. Adrian's smile haunted her. His words replayed like a curse: He belongs to someone else.
When the bell chimed, she braced herself. Relief softened her shoulders when it was Daniel, holding a coffee for her.
"You've been working too hard," he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "You need to slow down before the wedding."
She smiled weakly. "You always say that."
But when his phone buzzed again, that smile faltered. He excused himself quickly, stepping outside to take the call. Through the glass, she saw the shift in his expression-the easy charm replaced by a hard, secretive edge.
She couldn't hear his words, but she watched his lips form a name.
Sophia.
Her chest tightened. Adrian's warning echoed louder.
That night, as Elena walked home, her thoughts tangled in knots of suspicion, she felt it again-the weight of eyes on her.
"Why do you always walk like prey?" Adrian's voice slipped from the shadows.
She startled, her breath catching. He stepped out from the alley, his presence swallowing the streetlight.
"Don't do that," she whispered.
His dry smile curved. "You wouldn't have noticed me otherwise."
"You're everywhere," she said, voice trembling.
"And yet you're still alive," he countered smoothly. "That should tell you something."
Her fear flared. "That you're obsessed."
His gaze darkened, the amusement fading. "Yes." He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, until her back pressed against the shop door. "And I don't apologize for it."
Her pulse raced wildly, her breath shallow. "You have no right-"
"I have every right," Adrian cut in, his voice low, his humor edged with danger. "Because he doesn't deserve you." His eyes bore into hers. "You know it. You felt it today. He's hiding something."
Her lips parted, denial crumbling in her throat. "You don't know what you're talking about."
He leaned closer, his breath brushing her ear. "Then ask him again. Ask about Sophia. Watch him lie."
Elena froze, her blood turning to ice.
Adrian pulled back just enough to look at her, his smile returning-sharp, merciless, intimate. "And when the truth burns you..." His fingers brushed a stray strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear with devastating tenderness. "...you'll remember who warned you."
And just like that, he was gone, melting into the night, leaving her breathless and trembling against the door.
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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.