penance for toying

Jamie Westbrook had been waiting all her life to have her Shifter Ceremony and finally experience what it's like to run free. However, in a single moment, everything goes wrong leaving her life irrevocably changed. Now, forced to leave her pack for a new one, she's not exactly happy to be there. Even worse, she can't allow herself to be when there's suddenly danger at every corner. The dark truth she's discovered needs to come to light, but how is she going to make that happen when her new pack isn't just going to take her word for it? Well, Jamie's always been stubborn, and she refuses to let these people get away with it. Toying Alpha is created by Mari Hockett, an eGlobal Creative Publishing Signed Author.

Ashley Zimmer is the third-generation owner of A to Z Music, a brick and mortar store severely impacted by the dot-com boom. Refusing to call it quits, she see salvation in Pepper Alverez, the lonely woman who plays beautiful, haunting music every weekend without fail at a public piano in a neighborhood park. Everything would be alright if she could only get the crowds that gather at the park, into her store.<br><br>But the agreement to play in Ashley’s store during the winter months does not come without baggage. Pepper’s sad, minor key blues riffs and improvisations come from a long list of what she sees as her past sins. Playing the piano is the only way she knows to express those feelings and begin her atonement. It is her penance.<br><br>As Ashley begins to understand Pepper, she’s faced with a choice. Does she view their friendship as a temporary business agreement, giving Pepper a place to play while getting the store back on its feet, or is it something more. And when Pepper makes things less than easy, how far is Ashley willing to go? Will she take the risk, turning a tenuous friendship into something more?

Penance is a prison of eternal damnation for those who go against the will of the gods. Growing up in the slums of District Nine, Nacht was like every other individual his age, struggling to survive with what little he had and blaming the capital for it. But unlike everyone else, he had been lucky. He still had a mother who cared for him deeply and did everything she could to help him succeed. However, that all changed when his mother was offered up as a sacrifice to the capital to help bolster the number of Enlightened in their arsenal. The Enlightened were elite warriors who wielded supernatural powers and served their respected clan at the cost of sacrificing an individual for the opportunity to enter Penance and be bestowed or awakening a rune, the source of their profound power. Having been exposed to the worst of humanity due to the horrific execution of his mother, Nacht developed a relentless ambition to change the world—even if it was in his own unconventional way. After performing a disgraceful ritual, Nacht is sent into Penance, where he becomes one of the Enlightened and is bestowed a mysterious power along with an insidious punishment.

The year is 2052 and the world has changed. Heroes have risen from the ashes of an Earth ravaged by war and now, humanity is thriving due to the presence of dungeons and magical abilities. The Guild controls every aspect of superhuman lives. The strong are revered and the weak are shunned. Among the many hopefuls is a woman doomed to die despite being a once-in a-millennium genius! "Why were you ever born into this world? Why can't you just die in a ditch somewhere?" "You should know your place. Live while keeping your head down and I might just let you survive." Read PENANCE: The Prologue here -> https://bit.ly/PENANCEPrologue

Dark times call for dark choices. My Choices. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, mine wasn't. However, Alex never made it to hell. Follow the story of a broken man as he pays the price for his sins in a new world. I do not own this cover.

Justice was finally served. Or so everyone believes. A decade after the coup, the Tower rules as a god. And humanity remains oblivious to their true place in the new world order. To maintain this fragile balance, each year, a handful of the "lucky" are chosen from the Pits to ascend the Tower. They were told it was a chance for penance, for ascension, to become Judges. But the Tower is not the paradise they painted it to be. Everything they taught Karim and his brothers in the Pits was a lie. Humans are not guilty. They are pawns in a larger game. The Tower is nothing but a gilded cage, and the prisoners are lambs led to slaughter, playthings for the Executioners to amuse themselves with in their cruel games. This year, Karim was among the chosen, to everyone’s shock. For a forgotten soldier buried alive in Pit Zero on a charge of treason he never committed, this was a golden ticket to revenge... or so he was told. To make matters worse, Karim has drawn the attention of the most dangerous players in this game, the Four Floor-Lords: The Bone Warden, the Scribe of Eyes, the Shackled Witness, and the Lord of Squad Zero. Each one more dangerous, more twisted, and more powerful than the last. Yet even among them, the Lords are divided, each with his own deadly ambition. Still, all of them have their eyes on him. They expect Karim to play their game, to line up like the others who bow at their feet, to break under their games. But Karim is not like the others. He refuses to bow. He will defy them all. Not because he is a hero. But because he killed the Reaper on the Second Floor — the entity the Tower forged from a former prisoner after they ripped out his mercy. The price: 18% of Karim’s mind. The reward: Fear is dead. And he climbs because his daughter is a hostage on the Fourth Floor, and the Minister who betrayed him waits there. Some sins are not forgiven. They are judged. And he is the next Judge.

Everyone said Kane adored me. That for me, he'd tame the wild rage of an Alpha, soften every growl, and sheath every claw. Ten years. Ten damn years of chasing, spoiling, protecting. I was convinced I’d be his Luna—his mate, his forever. But betrayal doesn’t come with a warning. It cuts sharp and deep. And it never just comes once. The first lie, I forgave. The second, I bled. The third? It broke something in me I’m not sure I’ll ever get back. And then came the words that snapped the last thread holding me together. "Julia, can't you just stop being so difficult? Stop acting like the world revolves around you." That was when I knew. The man who once walked through fire for me…Had turned into the very beast I needed saving from. The love I thought I had—it wasn’t love. It was a gilded cage, pretty from the outside, but still a prison. And if I was ever going to be free, I'd have to be the one to smash it open. Even if it meant setting the wolf on fire with it.

I had just secured my admission to Apex University through a recommendation when the fake heiress feigned a slip of the tongue in front of reporters: "My sister is very close with the headmaster, which is why she could get the recommendation so easily…" Behind my back, she even used AI to create a scandalous video of me, which went viral online. Because of this, Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes found me disgusting, and my brother, all for the sake of the fake heiress, even pushed me into the middle of the road. Before I died, I saw the fake heiress hiding in my brother's arms: "Sister, you only died, but you got to take my place as the tycoon's daughter for a few days…" When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the moment I was first brought home by Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes. The fake heiress hid behind a pillar, timidly calling out, "Sister." I smiled. This life, I'm going to play her to death.

Her life flashed before her eyes to the happiest years of her life. They had a horrible childhood that would have broken even the strongest people but they survived. They grew up in a world plagued by war, famine, and greed and they chose two destines that pit them against each other. Both decisions came at the cost of the most precious thing to them both but they knew each other so well that both knew that neither would stop until they had succeeded. The woman caressed the man's face with her bloodied hand. "Was this really the right choice?"

Accidentally bound to a quick transmigration system, Ning Yue is resistant on the surface, but inwardly, she's screaming wildly: "As long as I keep completing missions, it's equivalent to gaining eternal life, I'm going to keep transmigrating forever!" In "True and Fake Rich Daughter," she is the fake rich daughter who was abandoned. She declares, "The wealthy family abandoned me, so I will create a wealthy family of my own!" In "Era's Blessed Child," she leads her entire family to build a fortune, turning the fake blessed child into a real blessed child. In "Flourishing Age of Shengshi," having transmigrated into the Empress who was turned into cannon fodder, she simply turns the ungrateful mother and son into cannon fodder instead.