Love and retaliation conspire to foil a billionaire land developer's attempt to bulldoze a family business. Heather Clayburn owns Nuance, a thriving upscale restaurant in a nineteenth-century house in Vancouver's West End. Her family has lived above the restaurant for generations, but after her divorce, only she and her twelve-year-old daughter, Sage, remain. As Downtown spreads westward, massive office and condo towers threaten the last of the houses, and she is determined to preserve the family legacy. Strathaven Land Development owns the adjacent vacant lot, leasing it to the restaurant for client parking, and they recently bought the 1950s apartment building on the other side of the house. When Strathaven's owner tells Heather about an old verbal purchase agreement, she refutes its validity. He forces his son, Sinclair, to coerce her into selling. Sinclair becomes a regular diner at Nuance, catching Heather's eye, and while looking for ways to do his father's dirty deeds, he is increasingly attracted to her. Unaware of his motives, she moves him to the top of her dream hunk list.

❝ 𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙮, 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣｡ ❞ ✮₊⊹₊⋆ ☠︎︎ ⋆₊ ⊹✮ Savannah St. James knows how this story is supposed to go. The star quarterback falls for the quiet, bookish girl, leaving his blonde, cheerleading girlfriend behind. When she catches her boyfriend, Jason, cheating with Emily Hayes, she does the reasonable thing: dumps him on the spot. But the next day, Jason spreads a rumor that Savannah was the cheater, not him. While Savannah becomes a social pariah, Emily and Jason get to have their happily-ever-after. Except Savannah isn't interested in being anyone's cliché. So, in a moment of blind, drunken rage, she kills Jason. It wasn't exactly part of the plan, but now Jason is dead, homecoming is short one quarterback, and Savannah has a very big problem on her hands. Revenge is one thing. Getting away with murder? That's a whole new game. - - - - - - - - - - - Based on ONC 2025 Prompt #25

The werewolves of Marrowbone Village are all dying...slowly. Excruciatingly. And unfortunately for the rest of the pack, the only wolf immune to the terrible plague-their last hope to find a cure-lies with the runt, Amelie. With time running out, Amelie desperately scours the surrounding forests, clinging to a fading fairytale in search of the one thing she knows can save her pack...a unicorn's horn. But one night Amelie finds Nia, the unicorn who might be her salvation... And her pack's ruin. *** 12. While hiking through a forest, you stumble upon a unicorn's horn. 85. A sickness descends upon your pack, and you're the only one immune. As the Alpha succumbs to the illness, it's up to you to find a cure before it's too late. A werewolf/unicorn shifter gxg romance.

🏆ONC 2025 SHORTLISTER 🏆 Veyr Thalric was born beneath a blood moon, his fate inked in the past and bound to a future he cannot escape. The son of the slain Wolf, he has spent his life hidden in the shadows, waiting for the moment he can claim vengeance against the one who stole everything from him-Rowan Ashwood, the legendary hunter who wears his father's pelt like a crown. But vengeance is never so simple. The deeper Veyr treads into the hunt, the more the forest whispers warnings of paths that cannot be undone. A deck of fate waits to be drawn, its cards promising revelations he may not be ready to face. And when love enters the fray in the form of Amerie Rosarot, a woman with fire in her heart and tragedy in her veins, Veyr is forced to confront the question that haunts all doomed hunters: When you challenge the magic of the world, can you truly finish what you started-no matter the cost? In this tale of blood, betrayal, and destiny, the line between monster and man blurs. And in the end, the real question is not who will survive...but what will be left of them when the hunt is over.

Humanity is struggling to survive in a world that's no longer theirs. Liv, a scavenger leading missions to the edges of the city for food, medicine, and iron, knows things are getting worse. Every trip feels more desperate than the last. Humanity has an expiration date-the forest, and the creatures that dwell there, just have to wait them out. When a mission turns out to be a trap and Liv wakes up on the wrong side of the tree line-alone, disoriented, and for some reason not dead-she learns the forest doesn't just kill people or take their souls. It changes them. She doesn't know what she's becoming. Only that it's something way stronger than what she was. And that killing things never felt this good. Murderbot meets The Cruel Prince-with a whole lot of psychological horror My entry for onc2025, based on prompt 125: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - Frank Herbert

Giles is a 15th-century holy man. Raised by a religious order since the age of two, he was very surprised to be twenty-six, dead, and in the sixth level of Hell. No training could have prepared him for that. After centuries of torture- and therapy! -Giles is granted twenty days of freedom on the mortal plane. He has seen this happen before to others, and thinks it's all just a cruel game being played by the demons and their masters. Giles decided to use this time to find a way out of Hell-because there's always a way out, right? ------- "I find it amusing that you thought you knew everything about my realm." Lucifer chuckled at his statement. He paused and focused on Giles as the soul tried and failed to move into a sitting position. "What's the matter, holy man? Does it hurt?" ------ ONC prompt 110: 20 days of freedom. Cover by: @lostlovefairy Content Warning: Paranormal dark drama/thriller/horror Triggers include hell, torture, religious beliefs, abuse, gore. (I may add to this.) Please read safely.

Some roads aren't meant to be traveled alone... because they can kill. | On her way home after a long day of work, the most talented basket weaver in Sitio Sanstorya clashes with her childhood bullies. Luckily for Mila, an eligible bachelor from the same village comes to her rescue. Unfortunately, Lucca also happens to be the neighborhood's most notorious flirt and sweet-talking cadger. Before she could shoo him away, the road she travels almost every day of her life transforms into a dark and terrifying place. Now Mila has no choice but to rely on her equally frightened yet surprisingly protective companion. She will have to resist Lucca's rapt stares and constant flattery until they find their way home. And until they escape the monsters hunting them down.

When college student Celine Marlowe finds a piece of a shattered unicorn horn in the forest, she doesn't expect it to contain ancient magic connecting her to its owner Soren, the exiled prince of the Velkeros. With Soren's magic trapped inside her and the remaining pieces of his horn still scattered around the world, Celine is pulled into a centuries-old conflict between a corrupt scientific empire called the Argent Accord, and the once mythical beings they exploit. The Accord wants Velkeros blood for immortality, Soren wants to reclaim what they stole from him, and Celine just wants to make it out alive. Magic was never supposed to end up in Celine's hands, but the more she learns, the more she realizes that her and Soren's connection might be the key to saving everything. This story is my entry in the 2025 Open Novella Contest! Follow @OpenNovellaContest to be notified about the next one! The prompt I chose: #12. While hiking through a forest, you stumble upon a unicorn's horn.