The soil of the realms runs with magic. Witches, wolfmen, merfolk, and dragons. Pirates and prince's, peasants and rebels. Curses and spells, bonds and contracts. The world is filled with odds and ends, the strife of humanity and the struggles of those who are not quite so. And beneath it all lies Umber. The kingdom of umber where the magic is strong and the mortals are few and far between. Where flowers talk and and fish learn to walk. Umber the land of great divide. The queen of red and the king of tricks. Two rulers at war where only one is interested in fighting. Two sides, two castles, two thrones. One land. Rivers of gold and rivers of blood, living chess and dying death. Umber is a magical place just under, Found by sailing off the end of the earth, jumping through the looking glass, or following a very lucky rabbit. A dangerous land where one never knows where they stand. Where the ground shifts beneath your feet when the clock strikes the hour. Where even those without can have great power. All one has to do is fall under to the land of Umber.

When Vega Moore was 13 her mother was murdered by a crime lord with a grudge against her father. After the tragedy the two moved from the town of Parkville Florida to Detroit Michigan. Her father needed a break from work and she needed therapy, so he went back to being a street cop and she took up kickboxing and the help she knew she needed. Four years later and their back. Back to their town, her father back to his job, and Vega back to the high school she would have been in if it wasn't for the move. But what happens when the girl who the whole town knew..wasn't what they remembered? What happens when the girl who used to catch butterflies and pick flowers with her mother turns up as a dark haired danger with a sense of justice she can take just a bit too far? When she walks with gait befitting a predator more than a girl? When she takes being good to borderline deadly? And then what happens when she collides with the son of the man she credits for destroying her life? Trouble.

Alcline Academy. Boarding school to the elite, for parents who have too much money and not enough time for their children. One of the most prestigious schools in the world. Its the fast track to success in life at a high price. The children of diplomats, rulers, celebrities and more find themselves in the exclusive school known for its security and privacy. And now. So has Larkspur Jones. daughter of a deadbeat plumber and a painter. She's won a prize any teenager hoping for a better life would kill for. An all expense paid education at Alcline Academy. That. Or an invitation to hell.

Cain Luther is mad. Truly, voluntarily mad. He's obsessed with mutilation, creation, and absolute discovery. His goal is to create a chemical that the government will fear. To create something that the American people want more than anything else. A chemical to rid all of life's problems. He's willing to die for this experiment, and little do they know; he is. Cain is addicted to injecting himself with the deadly failures his studies produce. His body is quickly falling apart, as his bones have become so brittle you could break them with no effort at all. His eyesight is dimming each day, he'll soon be blind, and his muscles are so weak, he doesn't have the strength to carry himself most days. He is a walking test subject. His body struggled to hold life. Doctors warn he will die in no less than a year if he keeps this up. So can Ophelia Alvarado, a college student who just so happens to be his roommate, have what it takes to save Cain from voluntary suicide? Can she save him from his own man-made plague?

They are born of myth, legend, and lore. Beautiful women beneath the waves, tempting sailors with playful smiles and beckoning gazed as the break the surface. It is nearly every young sailors dream to encounter a mermaid, to see the beauties of the sea. Maybe, just maybe, to catch one too. That is...until their wish comes true. They find themselves face to face with the strange enchanting girl smiling just above the surface with skin like moonlight and lips like rose petals. Just one touch, is all it takes to seal a sailors fate. Beneath the waves is not ethereal beauty. But claws, and fangs, and blades of stone. Revealed in the sea is a mermaids true face and a sailors deadly fate. And Zariel is the deadliest of them all. Daughter of Poseidon and a deep sea mermaid she is dark, powerful, and beautiful by both mermaid standards and especially that of the humans. There is nothing she enjoys more than a hunt, collecting different skulls of different types of humans. Navy men, merchants, fishermen, pirates, and travelers alike. She has them all. Her collection is as admirable as her ferociousness. Only one type of mortal is missing. One skull she has yet to collect. A royal. Royal bones for a royal mermaid. Zariel, princess of the sea, doesn't want just any royal. No. She wants a prince. One who matches her in both ferocity and blood thirst. Zariel was going to get the skull of Rowan Delacroix if it was the last thing she did. Formerly first inline to the throne. A prince turned pirate. A hunter of mermaids. His ship was one she would take pride in wreaking.

Gizmo, owner of her own shop Curiosities and Oddities, was everything and anything one wold expect of a woman of her time. Independant. Smart. A soon to be spinster. Bitter. Inventor. Mad scientist. Harlot. or so the rumors go. ~~ "Miss Gizmo!" I peered up from the latest addition to my shop, the two headed swine was an interesting find but oddly hard to sell, "Hello Mr Earnheart how's the leg?" The older man grinned broadly at me, "don't tell my wife dear girl but you are an angel sent from the lord himself." That I doubted severely. "not a single problem thanks to you, you really must stop by for dinner as a thanks sometime." I sighed, "ah but your ninny wife would be terribly convinced we were committing sin with one another." He laughed, despite the fact I had just called his wife a ninny, waving me off. "bollocks, you deserve a good home cooked meal and some company now and again." Did I now? "I see." "Yes, and my nephew is here in London for the time being, I am sure he would be delighted to meet you." Another old man trying to marry me into the family? I shook my head, "I assure you I am fine without such attentions Mr. Earnheart." He shook his head, "your seventeen now, two more years and you will start earning the title of spinster. I married my wife when she was fourteen." Marriage again, why does everyone insist upon talking marriage, its such a dreadfully boring topic, "I'm afraid I'm married to my work, unfortunately a woman cannot have two loves and thus one would end in divorce. I can honestly say my shop will not be my divorcée." He looked disappointed but knew me well enough to drop the subject, "oh and miss Gizmo?" "hmmm?" "My wife say's there is a rumor of man poking around the back alleys of London, shady one at that. Be careful when walking home?" I pulled my pistol from its hidden place amongst my clothes, "I'm one you need to worry about, I assure you."

Hazel. My name is Hazel. And thats... all I know. I woke up one day on a cold metal slab, not knowing anything else about myself. Then I was... adopted. Sort of. By vampires. Because thats what I was now they said. A vampire. A changeling they called me as they took me home. To their manor. Because I was also a noble now. Lower class noble. But a noble. What they failed to mention was that changelings? They were second class citizens to other vampires. noble or not. In everyone else's eyes, in their society. I was nothing. Barely above a human. Which was food. I was basically spoilt meat to them. Food no longer edible. I understood that quicker than anything else. So why my new parents seemed to be the only vampires on the planet ignorant to the elephant in the room was beyond me. But they were. To the point where they thought to send me to Romanov Academy. The most prestigious school in the world of Vampires. As a high school student, because apparently thats my age range. So. That me. The lowest on the totem pole in a school full of literal nobility and apparently a royal. A. Very. Scary. Royal. The schools named after his family. He's a pureblooded vampire. The crème de la crème of my new world. And a total fucking asshole. I know two things. My name is Hazel. And apparently I'm not very good this whole vampire, blood drinking, creature of the night thing.

On January ninth, 1996, a boy with an odd skeleton was unfortunately born into existence. With his homeless mother in need of cash, and too terrified to look at the child she gave birth too, she sold him to 'Mr. Father's Family of Freaks'; a popular circus show that obsesses over real-born monsters. This boy, born with no worth, sold into labor, and raised as a show, was taught that he was the mis-creation of man. He gives children nightmares, and make women scream, and never once was he told that it wasn't his fault. His name, is Cousin Ignominy. The clown with a deformed body. Bexley Valentino, an innocent seventeen year old, who doesn't believe in monsters, realizes just how important of a man Cousin Ignominy is. After seeing his show, and wallowing in her broken heart for the clown, she soon finds herself trying to break him out. She wants to show him how important it is to feel. How important it is to admire the world, but it doesn't take long for her to realize maybe he was locked up for a reason. ~~~ "You don't kill. You don't kill. You don't kill. If you learn that, you will remember where your morals stand. Hit them, bite them, burn them alive, but don't kill. Don't you ever go that low."

"How can you possibly love me?" He asked as he trailed a finger down my cheek. "I don't care if you are an Unfortunate I can't deny my feelings" I whispered. His silver eyes bore into me as he leaned closer to me. His cold lips grazed my ears as he whispered: "Even if I'm a Circus Freak?" As a young girl my mother always told me to stay away from the Unfortunates. In my society, we are split into two groups accepted and unfortunate. Many Unfortunates were apart of a huge circus called Cirque de Unfortunato. It was said that their conditions were horrible. I never really had an interest in the unfortunates. That was until I met a certain moody, silver-eyed Circus Freak. Disclaimer: I do not own any pictures or videos used in this book. All pictures or videos belong to their rightful owners.

Mature for adult content!! The world we live in is a beautiful, mysterious place. My home, my country, has been my world my entire life, living as the cursed princess of Iris is all I have ever know. Just as the only eyes I have known in the mirror were my own. And my hair was always white as snow. Iris has always been my home, its people my family. The kind smiles of villagers and the curious looks of children seeing me for the first time, the contrast of myself against the rest of my family in portraits. The whisper of the trees and the laughter of the flowers has always been what I lived by. "why are you so sad?" I rested my forehead on the cracked bark of the Soul Tree. My second home from the palace. The tallest tree in all the king's forest. Today it was deeply saddened, rumbling with a sort of bitter energy that leaks coldly into my bones. I wondered what it knew that I did not as I sat perched in its branches, it is not often that it's strong mass wavers. When it does it can only mean change is to come, nothing small. Something altering the kingdom itself. I sighed, my fingers brushing over its leathery leaves, it wouldn't be long until someone else noticed its unease, it will sicken the forest. By then it will be too late. ~~ Flora Duval, the cursed princess of Iris was always a quiet girl, working through her duties as princess and caring for the life in her country. Seeing beauty in the things most could not. Never has she expected an offer for marriage, not with her hair and her eyes the same pink of the Fenni flower. But then, she receives one. Less of a question for her hand and more of a demand, a demand caging her like a white rabbit in a deadly hunters trap. Trapped by the king of Taragon for her unusual features and the rumors of her life, Flora is stranded in a country she has never known, captured in cold castle walls without an ally in sight.