Mëi Hughes
"He tells me to walk over to him slowly. "And no funny business." Like I'd try something with my mother's life on the line. As soon as I'm within his grasp, he grabs me and then slams the butt of his gun on the back of Irina's head. I muffle a grunt of rage as she collapses, he's pointing his gun at me now. "One wrong move and I'll end you." When he sees he's got me cowed, he drags me towards the box and binds my hands with ropes he finds in it. From that moment, I let my mind drift and my imagination take me to any place, to get me away."
Aurella Salucci
"For years, the anonymous council ran the government behind closed doors, using the president and his other cronies as figureheads. Any law or bill passed as law was determined and passed by us, and senate meetings were a ruse to make the people believe they had an opinion in the running of their country. But now we have a problem. Our little figurehead of a president is becoming too cocky, wanting to take matters into his own hands and actually run the country. What a joke."
***********
Meet Aurella;
The classy, refined billionaire designed to give men a run for their money. She's the woman the men want to see and the women want to be. Nobody knows the extent of her power, but her vast connections speak volumes across nations wherever her name is mentioned...and to have those kinds of connections, you'd have to run the world. Ironically, she does but no one knows, and she enjoys it. That is until her little toy starts to misbehave...
Meet Mëi;
Tortured and abused all her life, the only thing she's ever known is too fight for herself. Stumbling into the streets unexpectedly, she must redefine what fighting for herself means, how to go about it, and who exactly is worth fighting for on her way to the top of the food chain. For in this game, you must eat or be eaten in order to survive.
Join these powerful ladies as they corrupt and are corrupted in a world where fates collide.
Geoff and Naomi are dead, and they're depressed, but when Geoff's cat Bernie dies as well, they embark on a wild journey to find it in the underworld.
*****
When Geoff dies, alongside his girlfriend Naomi, they end up sharing an apartment in the Underworld as skeletons. But after a few years, Geoff starts suffering a mid-death crisis. What's the purpose of going through the motions as a skeleton if you can't really live? Then he gets word that his cat, Bernie, just died and he can collect him and bring him home! Geoff and Naomi hurry to get Bernie only to discover that, due to a clerical error, their cat has been lost. With the hunt for Bernie giving new purpose to Geoff's un-life, he and Naomi begin a quest to get back their cat. Battling skeleton pirates, climbing the sky ladder and facing off against the villain who took Bernie, Geoff is determined to find his purpose - or die a second time trying!
[[2018 Wattys Winner - The Originals]]
[[word count: 30,000-40,000 words]]