Three Trials

I'm not so different from most people. Like everyone else, I have life goals. Goal #1: Become a real girl instead of this invisible ghost thing I currently am. Goal #2: Convince the four men I've been haunting for the past five years to pick me to be their new toy after goal one is complete. Goal #3: Figure out who/what I am and why I can't remember anything past the five years I've been haunting this quad. Goal #4: Eat popcorn. See? Perfectly normal. Sort of. Gotta start small, after all. It's not like anyone else is perfect either.  

Suddenly thrown into a world representing bloodlines I know nothing about, forcing a past I refuse to remember into the present, my world is turned upside down. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want to go to college; it doesn’t matter that I don’t want to be here. I’ll follow the rules or risk my life. The organization that runs the criminal underworld is no joke.

In a world of vicious beasts, if you are not a predator, you are prey. Aurelia Aquinas is a discarded girl. Forced to live a life of isolation, she is forbidden to speak of her powers and forbidden to find her soul-bound mates . She awaits the day she can escape to a human college and live a life free and away from her father and the beasts that might come But when she is called to heal an injured beast, locked away in a dungeon, he's not the only monster caged there and the course of her life changes forever.

I'm a shifter who can never bond with a pack. Not if I want to live. The day I watched my mom's pack destroy her, was the day I knew I had to run from the shifter cities. Mom and I share the same designation, which means we'll share the same fate. For ten years I hide from the cities and the alphas who control them. Until my luck runs out.

I'm not all that special, really. I'm sure there are a lot of girls with old gypsy blood who see the dead, have killer cults hunting their family, and turn into something that gets scary when they panic. Yep. I'm just an ordinary girl. I wish people would believe that. I've been labeled as one thing or another for most of my life: Death Girl. Crazy Gypsy Girl. Gothic Chick. Monster. It took my mother's death for me to finally start getting answers about what's really been going on. Unfortunately, most of the answers come from men...who aren't just men.

Ironside is more than a regular academy. It’s also the biggest reality TV show in the world … and a very elaborate, very luxurious prison. Their hallowed halls are ruled by the Betas, Omegas, and Deltas—but this year, the officials are stirring things up. Isobel Carter—the only rare Sigma to be accepted—is the first sign. But there are others. Many others. A sudden influx of powerful Alphas will turn academy life, and Isobel’s life, upside down.

Fated mates, supernaturals of all kinds, a heroine who has no idea what she is, and an evil who is out for them all. All I wanted was to keep my head above water. To survive long enough to hit my eighteenth birthday so I could escape the nightmare that my homelife had become. But all of that was turned upside down the moment they showed up. The best friend from my past. The surly brooder. The kind-hearted nerd. The king of campus. The dark one. They say they’re here to give me a fresh start in a place where I’m safe, warm, and cared for. And I can’t deny the pull I feel to all five of them.

Never stop running. And no matter what, never let the world know who you really are. I’ve spent my whole life hiding. Training. Preparing. Hoping that no one will discover my secrets. What I can do. Who I am. And I’ve gotten so good at it, sometimes even I forget. Until them. The wolf pack with a ruthless reputation and a penchant for revenge. The protective fighter. The charming Brit. The shy hacker. The silent mercenary. The cruel assassin. They see more than anyone ever has before. And even with demons of their own, they give me sanctuary.

You'd think that basically being in charge of love would be an epic job, right? Wrong. Sure, I can blow some Lust into people's faces and watch the show, but I can't actually participate. It gets old, trust me. Same goes for love. I can pass it out like sugar-free lollipops at a dentist's office, but I can't get any love for myself. It totally sucks. I used to consider myself a hopeless romantic, so why wouldn't I choose to become a cupid? Sounds like a good idea, right? Wrong again. They don't call us stupid cupids for nothing.

Meadowridge College was supposed to be a fresh start at the safest college in America. I'd be rubbing elbows with the elite of the world, while trying to complete my degree and find a path to a brighter future. My trauma had other ideas though. When the panic attacks send me into the arms of a gorgeous stranger in the library, it sets off a chaotic chain of events that end with me being kicked out of my dorms and forced to live and renovate a rundown old house on the edge of campus.

Our souls are bound together. Our powers will tear us apart. There were six of us. Caged, turned into monsters, and tormented with brutal tests of our dark powers. We had only each other to count on... until an escape attempt ended with one dead, the others recaptured, and me dragged away into a different nightmare. When I finally fight my way back, the men I set free are hardened, beastlier versions of the devoted boys I knew. They see me as a traitor and a murderer, but they refuse to let me go. Even with our former captors hunting us down, they want to make me pay.

What’s worse than finding your fiancé cheating on you with your best friend on your wedding day? Having to return to the scene of the crime. But when my mother begs me to come back to my small hometown for Christmas, I can’t say no. It’s been a few years since I left, and I miss my family… and the three triplets who are my brother’s best friends (and my secret childhood crushes).

I make a living out of screwing over the jerks who capture and torment supernatural beasties. But when I free a bunch of particularly powerful monsters from their cages, I'm not counting on them following me home like lost puppies. Stunningly hot lost puppies, but still. These manly monsters are determined to repay me for my help, and they won't get out of my apartment until they're satisfied we're even.

My life was perfect. I had an amazing fiancé, a business I love, parties and balls every week, everything was wonderful…until that night. The night where everything changed. My world is crashing down around me. Everything I knew is a lie and the men, the men in the masks, tell me that as they steal me away into the night. I wake chained, scared, and alone with four criminals. Criminals who tell me I'm theirs now, theirs to steal, theirs to kill. But there is something they don’t know about me, my past shrouded in darkness.

The stories were all wrong—Hook was never the villain. For two centuries, all of the Darling women have disappeared on their 18th birthday. Sometimes they’re gone for only a day, some a week or a month. But they always return broken. Now, on the afternoon of my 18th birthday, my mother is running around the house making sure all the windows are barred and the doors locked. But it’s pointless. Because when night falls, he comes for me. And this time, the Never King and the Lost Boys aren’t willing to let me go.