[A WATTPAD FEATURED STORY] If you touch your skin with ink, the marks you make will appear on your soulmate's skin too. Those who have this power are known as the Inked. It can be beautiful or dangerous, and for twenty-year-old Archie, it's both, in a very short space of time. As an art student at a prestigious university in London, her hobbies include procrastination, doodling and daydreaming about whoever's writing the words that appear on her skin, and what she'll say when she finally meets him. If she ever does. Now that Inking is illegal, though, it's a risk even talking to him. She's not sure if she's willing to give up everything for a boy she's never met, but she knows that if she doesn't, she'll regret it for the rest of her life - however long that may be. *** ➳ Completed ➳ Best tag rank - #1 in New Love, Future, #2 in Short Story ➳ Best genre rank - #2 in Science Fiction ➳ Featured | 18.05.18 ➳ Featured on the Wattpad Teen Fiction profile ➳ 1st Place Winner in the Stellar Awards 2018 ➳ This book has a mild content warning. Stay safe! ➳ Thank you for reading! © roseways 2019

Now, I've been hungover before. Arguably more than most. I've experienced the entire spectrum of complicated euphoria that comes with drinking until you can't stand. I've witnessed things that upon reflection, no sober human being could even begin to comprehend through the kaleidoscopic of lens of Dutch courage. There has been very little I couldn't chalk up to the consequences of my own actions while recovering from a particularly heavy night of partying. But as the stranger in front of me demanded for me to stop, his entire appearance morphed into something monstrous. And I can honestly say, that was a first for me. The air grew thin as I began to shake uncontrollably, a rotten cold sweat breaking out across my skin as my tongue simultaneously turned to ash in my mouth. His pupils had blown to an unearthly size, the whites of his eyes rapidly growing blood shot before flooding with thick, burgundy splotches, removing any trace of humanity. Dark veins of blues and purples bulged along his neck, darkening to a perturbing black as they crawled along his jawline and burst forth from his orifices, joining a tangled web beneath his skin. His canines which had already been relatively prominent, extended even further, their sudden evolution an inescapable indicator of their deadliness. His head morphed and elongated just past the point of natural, jaw clenching and sickening cracks looming as I stood frozen in stock horror fear. Everything in my body screamed that what I was witnessing was just wrong. That if there was a God, this creature was the antithesis. I was in the presence of the ultimate predator and I was one swipe away from having my throat ripped out. The man I'd only a few minutes earlier considered attractive, had become one of the vilest creatures I'd ever seen. Definitely not a crackhead. "Holy f*cking crap!" -------------------------------------------------------------------- British ex-military meets the supernatural.

[ORIGINAL DRAFT SAMPLE] She is twenty-nine when the FBI comes for her, but Catherine Themis was only seventeen, grieving and naive and angry, the first time she wiped someone else's blood from her fingers and felt the snake rise in her chest. She was seventeen when she stepped into the dark and never looked back. ***** By day, Catherine Themis is an unassuming civilian administrator for the Dedwich Police Department, but by night, she is a notorious vigilante known as The Hangman. Struggling with her violent urges and the psychological cost of her actions, Catherine becomes the target of an obsessive serial killer and a relentless FBI agent, and as the hunt for the Hangman intensifies, Catherine must decide which life she wishes to live and what she values more: vengeance or her fading humanity? A psychological thriller in the vein of MINDHUNTER and HANNIBAL, SERPENT HEART is a deep-dive into the life and history of a conflicted vigilante forced to confront her inner demons and evade a national manhunt. Catherine questions the efficacy of her own convictions as the FBI closes in and a vindictive murderer puts her family, love, and identity in jeopardy. With everything on the line and time running out, who will Catherine Themis become? --- [[AVAILABLE ON AMAZON]] [[REMOVED 24 DEC 2021]] [[2019 Watty Winner - Mystery & Thriller]]