Reborn from heartbreak; Soraya's story.
"Say it, Soraya... who owns you?"
"You do, Zayne. You own every fucking piece of me."
✷✷✷✷
Soraya Vale had it all beauty, fame, and a husband the world envied-until betrayal sent her crashing down a marble staircase to her death.
But fate gave her a second chance. Reborn at twenty-one, she vowed to destroy the ones who destroyed her family and ruined her life.
Her revenge was flawless... until Zayne King-her ex-husband's dangerously powerful uncle-set her body on fire and her plans ablaze.
Now, between vengeance and desire, she must choose: burn the world... or let it burn her.
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Chapter 5
SORAYA
My legs were still a little unsteady when I stepped out of the bathroom.
Why?
ZAYNE HAPPENED.
His scent: dark, expensive, addictive. It still clung to my skin.
My lips tingled like he was still kissing me.
We almost had sex. He'd stopped.
And that said a lot, more than an actual make-out session ever could.
Men like him don't pull back unless they're thinking, calculating, wanting.
I pushed through the bar crowd, sucked in the cold night air and let it cool down the fog of heat he left behind.
I needed to focus.
Zayne was a distraction.
Though I feel he might be a good distraction for me in the nearest future.
A very attractive and dangerous one at that.Don't know how, but I'll figure that out later.
For now, I have enemies who were already ten steps ahead of me. I need to get my head back in the game.
My phone buzzed as I walked down the street toward the parking lot.
A message from Reid:
Where are you?
Marissa said you disappeared after the audition.
We need to talk.
I laughed out loud.
People turned, but I didn't care.
He needed to talk because he was scared.
Good.
I reached the car, leaned against it and scanned the street.
Cars pulled up; people were leaving already.
Then, Reid's familiar SUV rolled into the parking lot.
He hadn't seen me yet.
I stayed in the shadows.
Marissa was in the passenger seat, legs crossed, hair perfectly curled, smiling at Reid in a way that looked sweet to strangers... But I knew better.
That smile was a leash.
Reid said something.
Marissa's smile tightened, and then he flinched.
Hmmm... Still the same dynamic.
Marissa is pulling the strings.
Reid tripping over himself just to please her.
I must commend Merissa for being too good at this manipulating stuff.
Their car idled for a moment.
Marissa adjusted her mirror.
Her eyes flicked toward where I stood.
And for the first time ever, I didn't look away.
I held her gaze, calm and unblinking.
Her smile faltered by a millimetre, but I saw it.
"Good!" I whispered to myself and smirked.
She nudged Reid. He looked too. Then, his face tightened.
Even better.
That single look told me everything;
They might not know what I remembered.
But they know for sure that something changed in me.
I stepped out of the shadows and walked toward the bar entrance, passing their SUV.
Not close enough to speak to them but close enough to make them feel unsettled.
I walked slowly, in such a way that I could still see them with the side of my eye.
A paper slipped from my purse and floated to the ground, completely intentionally.
Reid noticed immediately.
He always noticed things that made him paranoid.
Then Marissa stepped out of the car and picked it up.
Her eyes scanned the single, scribbled line:
"We should recheck my dad's will. What do you think?"
Her fingers stiffened.
Reid reached for it.
She snatched the paper back again.
"Do you think she's suspecting things already?" he whispered.
"I-"
She cleared her throat.
"I don't know, but we need to be more careful now."
"But what if-"
"Reid," she hissed, "we just need to be careful. I doubt she suspects a thing."
No, sweetheart.
I know everything.
I didn't go back, didn't acknowledge them and didn't even glance back.
The best wounds are the ones made without touching.
---
"Interesting technique."
His voice slid into my ear like silk dipped in sin.
I didn't jump. I should have.
But Zayne already had that effect on me, showing up like shadows shifting into shape.
He stood near the wall, hands in his pockets, eyes following the SUV like he already knew exactly who they were and why I cared.
"You still haven't gone home," I said softly.
He tilted his head.
"Then I would have missed out on this drama."
His gaze dipped to my lips, slowly, deliberately.
Heat rushed through me.
I hated that he could do that with just a look. I mean, it hasn't been up to 24 hours since we met. How can he have such an effect on me??
"Forgot to ask, did you enjoy the audition?" he asked.
"Did you enjoy the bathroom?" I shot back.
His smirk sharpened, just a twitch.
"Very much," he said. "Which is why I'm curious what you're doing now."
I stepped closer, just enough.
"Making small moves," I whispered.
"And those two?" He jerked his chin slightly toward Reid and Marissa's SUV.
"Bigger moves," I said.
"So you have enemies."
It wasn't a question; it didn't sound like one. Sounded more like an observation.
I met his eyes fully.
"Don't you?"
For a moment, something dark flickered behind his gaze, not danger, but recognition.
Then he chuckled, low and soft.
"You're going to get yourself into trouble," he murmured.
I smiled.
"I already did."
-
After Zayne walked away, slipping into the night like a warning, I headed toward my car.
As I pulled the door open, a thin folder slid off the seat onto the ground.
Dr Chen's handwriting clipped across the top.
My breath caught. I picked it up and flipped it open.
Sedative dosages.
Dates.
Adjustments.
Side effects.
Instructions.
And then, one line circled twice:
"Monitor closely. Cardiac response expected."
My father's medication.
My medication.
My throat tightened, anger rising like heat behind my eyes.
I am not grieving anymore, nor am I depressed.
I've been given an opportunity to rewrite all wrongs from my past.
Time to make a plan.
A quiet erasure.
I closed the folder with trembling fingers and whispered:
"Not this time."
I put it in the passenger seat, started the engine, and stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror.
I looked younger.
But the woman in my eyes?
She isn't just a younger Soraya.
She is a reborn one.
Sharper, smarter and more dangerous than they ever expected.
Then I smiled, slowly, cold, promising.
"Let the games begin."
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8.2
After years of marriage, Adrian Foster still only spoke to me in bed.
The moment he got out of it, the warmth vanished, replaced by cold indifference.
I, Nora Bennett, had endured it all in silence, hoping that if I stayed obedient, he might show our daughter, Nina Foster, a little more care.
Yet in his eyes, Sophia Graham was his one and only-the woman he put on a pedestal, shielding and indulging her at every turn.
For her child, he had even taken my daughter's bone marrow.
In that moment, I finally understood. I was nothing more than a pawn in his battle with the woman he truly loved.
So I stopped holding on. I took my daughter and left without hesitation.
9.6
Ezran Williamson never asked for a new family, especially not one that comes with a stepbrother he can't stand.
At twenty-one, Ezran is sharp-tongued, rebellious, and determined to graduate and build a future in programming on his own terms.
But when his mother remarries a powerful businessman, his carefully controlled life collides with Lucian Banks, his cold, dominant, and dangerously untouchable stepbrother. Successful, older, and infuriatingly composed, Lucian is everything Ezran hates.
Slowly, hatred turns into tension, tension becomes chemistry, and chemistry ignites something neither of them is prepared to face.
What begins as resistance slowly unravels into a forbidden obsession, one that defies family, morality, and control. As secrets surface and pressure mounts, Ezran and Lucian are forced to choose between duty and desire, legacy and love, because some feelings don't fade and some obsessions are worth every consequence.
7.9
Viewer Discretion Advised: This sultry collection plunges into raw, unbridled passion, shadowy romance, and the intoxicating grip of dominance, obsession, and carnal temptation. Crafted for mature audiences, it teases the edges of taboo entanglements, feverish ecstasy, and the razor-thin boundary between restraint and total, shuddering surrender.
In Dangerous Desires, immerse yourself in a realm where lust overrides reason and pulses thunder on the brink of ecstasy and devastation. Each tale strips bare a new facet of craving-where adversaries melt into entangled lovers, hidden truths threaten to shatter kingdoms of control, and erotic hunger flares in the most forbidden corners.
From dominant CEOs and eager assistants locked in charged, sweat-slicked power plays, to tycoons and subordinates blurring the lines of authority with breathless, illicit touches, every clash throbs with electric tension. Foes prowl like flame to tinder, sparking an unstoppable blaze of chemistry that demands skin-on-skin surrender.
Venturing deeper into the forbidden, twilight beckons with supernatural seduction-enigmatic lovers, eternal seducers, and ethereal entities lure mortals into bonds that tangle terror with throbbing arousal. In these realms, desire doesn't merely stir-it devours, leaving bodies quivering and souls utterly claimed.
Each story in this anthology throbs with peril, allure, and the exquisite rush of yielding to the forbidden ache-one that shouldn't ignite, but consumes without mercy.
9.2
Druscilla Hayes thought heartbreak had a limit.
She was wrong.
On the night of her bachelorette party, she survives a shootout - and is rescued by a dangerously irresistible stranger with mismatched eyes and a criminal smile.
Ivanov Rodriguez is everything she shouldn't want.
Everything her perfect fiance is not.
But when Druscilla discovers her fiancé's betrayal, she runs straight into Ivanov's arms - only to learn too late that she was never more than a pawn in his revenge.
Years later, she's rebuilt her life, her heart, and her future.
Until fate drags her back into the orbit of the man who once ruined her.
This time, she has nothing left to lose.
Except the truth that could destroy them both
⚠️ WARNING:
This book contains immorality, forbidden desire, dangerous attraction, and morally questionable characters.
If you believe love should always be pure and choices should always be right...
This story is not for you.
Proceed only if you enjoy chaos, passion, and bad decisions.
7.4
I sacrificed the wolf core to save my beloved.
To avoid being overwhelmed by guilt, I chose to leave and silently wait for death in a corner of the human world.
But even after he became the alpha of the wolf pack, he still went to great lengths to marry me. After we got married, he flaunted his mistress in front of me every day, trying to provoke me and get revenge.
But he didn't know that I was about to die.
Darling, I'm dying.
8.4
When everything she built was reduced to ashes, she had only two choices surrender or rise.
Left with nothing but scars and unanswered questions, a young woman must face a world that no longer waits for the broken. Betrayal, loss, and hardship try to bury her, but from the ruins, something stronger begins to form.
This is not a story about luck.
It is a story about resilience.
About standing again when the fall should have ended everything.
Rise From The Ashes is an inspiring journey of survival, growth, and quiet strength where every step forward is a victory earned.