From Prison To Power: Rise Of The War Goddess
Scarlett Hayes thought marrying James Whitmore would finally make her family see her as more than a burden.
Instead, it destroyed her life.
Framed for crimes she didn't commit, betrayed by the people she trusted most, and sentenced to prison while pregnant, Scarlett lost everything in a single night.
Then came the cruelest blow of all.
After giving birth in chains, she was told her baby had died.
The people responsible believed she would spend the rest of her life rotting behind bars.
They were wrong.
Five years later, Scarlett returns.
No longer the discarded daughter of the Hayes family. No longer the broken woman they left behind.
Now she is Commander Scarlett Hayes-a decorated war hero, the unseen force behind a global intelligence empire, and a woman powerful enough to make governments tremble.
She comes back for one reason only: revenge.
Her ex-husband, the stepsister who stole her life, and the family who buried her alive are about to learn exactly what happens when a woman with nothing left to lose takes back everything they stole.
But as Scarlett tears through the secrets of her past, one truth threatens to change everything-
the child she mourned for years may not be dead.
And the mysterious man connected to the night that changed her life has been watching from the shadows all along.
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Chapter 5
Inside the other car-
Theron watched Scarlett's vehicle disappear in the rearview mirror, then looked away.
"Find out who she is," he said. "I want a full profile."
Rhys nodded from the driver's seat. "I'll take care of it."
Still, the request didn't sit right.
Theron had never shown interest in women. Not once.
So why her?
It wasn't just her looks. That wasn't enough to catch his attention.
There had to be more to it.
Theron lowered his gaze to the boy in his arms.
Theo's skin burned with fever. His breathing came shallow and uneven, each breath weaker than the last.
This wasn't new.
Four years ago, Theron had found him in a trash bin-barely alive, poisoned, clinging to whatever strength he had left.
They saved him.
But not completely.
Since then, the fevers kept coming back. Ten days at a time. Sometimes longer. Each one worse than the last.
The doctors hadn't sugarcoated it.
If this kept up-
Theo didn't have much time.
"Any updates on Dr. Nyx?" Theron asked.
Rhys shook his head. "Nothing concrete. He's off the grid. And even if we find him... there's no guarantee he'll agree to help."
Theron's expression hardened.
"Find him."
A beat.
"Whatever it takes."
The temperature in the car seemed to drop.
Rhys tightened his grip on the wheel. "Understood."
In his arms, Theo shifted slightly.
A faint sound slipped from his lips.
"Mo... Mommy..."
Theron went still.
The word came again, weak and broken.
"Mommy..."
He knew who the boy meant.
Not the woman who gave birth to him.
Her.
Scarlett.
As for Theo's real mother-
The woman who had thrown him away like he was nothing-
Theron's gaze turned cold.
He would find her.
And when he did-
She wouldn't get away with it.
Meanwhile-
Scarlett had just stepped out of the car when a sudden unease hit her.
Her hand went to her chest.
A dull, twisting pain tightened around her ribs, sharp enough to make her pause.
"Are you okay?" Howard asked.
"I'm fine."
She lowered her hand, her gaze settling on the small house beneath the wide, shadowy branches of a banyan tree.
This was it.
After her mother remarried, Scarlett had been left behind in the countryside with her father-a gambler who barely cared whether she lived or died.
One day, he disappeared.
No warning. No explanation.
Just gone.
She would have starved-
If the Monroe family hadn't taken her in.
They raised her like their own.
Louie treated her like a real sister.
For a while, she had something that felt like a home.
Until five years ago, when her biological mother came back and took her away.
After that, the Monroes moved to the city and built a quiet life on the outskirts.
They had always been good to her.
Better than family.
And now, after five years-
She was finally back.
Her throat tightened.
Scarlett stepped forward and knocked on the door.
A moment later, it opened.
"Lettie!"
Amy stood there, her face lighting up-then faltering.
"I'm sorry... we couldn't come get you today-"
"It's okay," Scarlett said softly. "I'm not a kid anymore."
She stepped inside-
And stopped.
The yard was a mess.
Chairs overturned. Dirt disturbed. Something had happened here.
Her expression sharpened.
"What happened?"
Amy hesitated, her shoulders sinking slightly.
"Come in first," she said. "It's been a long time. Go see Louie."
Scarlett frowned.
If he was home, why hadn't he come out?
A second later, she got her answer.
A wheelchair rolled into view from the hallway.
Scarlett froze.
"...Louie?"
Her voice broke.
Her eyes dropped instantly to his legs.
She crossed the room in two quick steps, reaching for the blanket covering them.
"Don't," he said, catching her wrist. "You don't need to see it."
Her jaw tightened.
"Let go."
"Lettie-"
"Let go."
Her voice was low. Steady. Not a request.
Louie held her gaze for a second-
Then slowly released her.
He looked away.
Scarlett pulled the blanket back-
And everything inside her went cold.
His legs were ruined.
Twisted at unnatural angles, the damage severe enough that it was obvious-this hadn't been treated properly. Maybe it couldn't be.
Either way, it was permanent.
Hard to even look at.
"Who did this?" she asked.
Her voice was quiet. Too quiet.
Louie pulled the blanket back over his legs. "Drop it. We can't take them on."
Scarlett let out a slow breath.
"There's no one I can't deal with," she said.
"Just tell me who it was."
"I'll handle it."
"Not this time," Louie said, meeting her eyes. "You just got back. Let it go. We'll keep things simple. That's enough."
He meant it.
So did Amy.
They were afraid she'd do something reckless.
Scarlett saw it clearly.
So she let it go.
For now.
Her gaze fell back to his legs.
"...Can it be fixed?"
Louie gave a short, humorless laugh. "Every specialist I saw said the same thing. I'm not walking again."
He tried to sound fine with it.
He wasn't.
Scarlett didn't react.
"I know someone," she said. "If anyone can fix this, he can."
Louie shook his head. "Don't get your hopes up."
"He's not like the others."
She turned to Howard. "Get Dr. Nyx here."
Howard nodded. "I'll reach out-"
"Wait."
Scarlett held out her hand.
"I'll call him."
She dialed.
The line picked up after a few rings.
"Well, this is a surprise," an older man said. "Didn't think you remembered me."
"Where are you?" Scarlett asked. "I need you here."
A pause.
"What happened? You're hurt?"
"It's not me. It's my brother, Louie. His legs are badly damaged. I need you in the capital. Tonight."
"Tonight?" he scoffed. "I'm in the U.S. Even if I leave now-"
Scarlett glanced at Howard.
"Call in a military jet," she said. "Have it ready."
Silence.
Then-
"Don't you dare," the man snapped. "I'm not making a scene like that."
A beat.
"...I'll book a flight. Earliest one I can get. Just don't send anyone after me."
The call ended.
Not long after, his assistant stepped into the room.
"Someone from Cross Corp reached out," he said. "They're offering a huge fee for a private consult."
"No time," the man replied, already grabbing his coat. "I've got somewhere to be."
"Should I decline it?"
"Yeah."
He didn't even hesitate.
"Book me the next flight out."
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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.
7.5
For five years, I was locked away in the freezing royal dungeon, starved and used as a bloody plaything by the kingdom's sadistic Cabinet Minister, Brandt Fischer.
He tortured me daily for one twisted reason: I simply looked like someone else.
When he visited my cell to casually announce my father's execution and drag a silver dagger across my neck, he expected me to beg.
Instead, I laughed, sank my teeth directly into his carotid artery, and was violently thrown against a jagged stone wall to my death.
As my skull cracked and my blood stained the moss, I thought about my so-called family. The moment Brandt had demanded me, my father, the Duke, handed me over without a single hesitation to save his own political career.
I was nothing but a disposable pawn, left to rot in the dark while the monsters who ruined my life thrived.
I died suffocating on my own blood and absolute, destructive vengeance.
Then, I opened my eyes.
I was lying in my silk-sheeted bed, reborn as my fifteen-year-old self.
Today was the exact day Lord Daryl Langley, the God of War, would be ambushed and crippled—the event that allowed Brandt to seize ultimate power.
I immediately stole a horse, rode to the palace gates, and threw myself directly in front of Daryl's moving carriage.
"I just didn't want to see a hero die like a slaughtered pig."
I didn't care if I had to shatter my own ankle to hijack his convoy. This time, I was going to save the general, and he would become the blade I use to slaughter them all.
8.4
On the night before her wedding, Navia Harrison discovers her fiancé in bed with her step-sister-and worse, the two of them are already planning how to get rid of her after the marriage.
Humiliated and consumed by hatred, Navia exposes their affair during the wedding ceremony itself, destroying both families' reputations in a single move.
Then, she meets him.
Leonel Crawford - the cold and dangerously powerful head of the Crawford family. Untouchable. Ruthless. A man no woman has ever been able to keep close.
He's also her ex-fiancé's uncle.
One impulsive proposal changes everything.
"If you need a wife... marry me instead."
"Honestly... we'd make a pretty good match."
8.7
I was dying in a cold hospital bed, listening to the monitor count down my final seconds.
As a ghost, I watched my own funeral. My popular friends and wealthy family soon moved on, but one person stayed.
Cas Riley. The invisible outcast from the back of my history class.
He brought a white rose to my grave every single day, withering away until he collapsed on the frozen ground, dying of a broken heart for a girl who barely knew his name.
Opening my eyes again, the hospital smell was gone. I was reborn back in my high school classroom.
I immediately tracked him down, only to witness the brutal hell he was trapped in.
He was humiliated by a cruel foreman for pennies, violently slapped by his uncle over his sick mother's medical money, and forced into bloody street fights.
He was starving, covered in bruises, and completely alone.
When I tried to buy him medicine and step into his life to protect him, he violently pushed me away in the pouring rain.
"Stay out of my life! To protect you, I have to fight, and when I fight, I lose everything!"
He wasn't rejecting me out of hate. He was terrified that his dark, violent reality would drag me down with him.
Standing soaked in the rain, my resolve hardened like steel.
Gentle kindness wasn't going to save him from this hell.
To protect the boy who died for me, I had to become ruthless enough to tear down his entire rotten world and build him a new one.
8.6
Book Two of the Betrayed Luna to Alpha Queen Series
Can be read as a standalone or after Book One
-----
"They were supposed to hate me. All four of them. But the Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, she just has a twisted sense of humor."
-----
"Let me die free rather than live as his possession."
Those were Lyralei Ravenwood's last words before she jumped off Widow's Cliff, choosing death over marriage to a monster hiding behind a charming smile.
She should have died.
Instead, she wakes in the camp of the Four Great Alphas..the most powerful, dangerous men in the ancient werewolf world. Men who look at her with resentment. Men who make it clear she's not welcome.
The Moon Goddess sent her to unite them against a rising darkness.
But they don't want unity. They don't want her.
Lyra didn't ask to be sent anywhere. She just wanted to escape a cage.
Now she's trapped with four hostile Alphas who see her as an obligation rather than a person. Who resent every breath she takes. Who make it clear that prophecy or not, she will never command their loyalty.
But something is awakening between them. Something ancient and undeniable.
The Primordial Mate Bond-a force that links one soul to multiple Alphas, pulling them together whether they want it or not.
As shadow wolves attack and an ancient evil rises, Lyra must navigate not just war, but the far more dangerous battlefield of four hearts that were determined to hate her.
Because feelings without trust are torture.
CONTENT WARNING: This book contains mature themes including explicit sexual content, violence, death of major characters, psychological trauma, and morally complex situations. Recommended for readers 18+
8.3
The dragons and royals are at war. Dragons have power and the royals want it to cement their rule in their kingdoms. Rather than creating a bond between the two, the royals have been stealing dragon eggs, hoping they will bond with the dragon once it hatches, allowing the royal to become a dragon rider. However, there is a thief among them, someone who is stealing the dragon eggs and returning them to the dragons. Someone who, when found, will be put to death.
Princess Skylar is the daughter of King Augustus. Her father has been hunting dragon eggs for years. Unbeknownst to him, Skylar is the thief that he is searching for. She does not agree with stealing dragon eggs from the mothers who make their nests away from the other dragons, making themselves vulnerable to attack. Her betrothed, Prince Kenneth, also supports stealing dragon eggs in the hope of bonding with a dragon and making his kingdom stronger.
Ryuki is a dragon rider. He bonded with his dragon, Bynjym, a year ago when he stumbled across him in the wild. The bond between dragon and rider is sacred. Ryuki and other dragon riders believe that it should never be forced. The riders fight against the royals who steal dragon eggs, working to keep them from being able to access the eggs, or fighting to get the eggs back to their dragon mothers.
What will happen when Ryuki realizes that Skylar is a royal like no other? Can Skylar keep her secret from her father, continuing to work inside the palace to take the stolen eggs back to their mothers? What will happen when Skylar realizes that her feelings for Ryuki are much stronger than her feelings for Prince Kenneth? Find out in The Dragon Thief.