A Guide to Raising Your Natural Enemy - Chapter 68

Being the pack defect is bad enough. Getting REJECTED? By your own fated mate?Yeah. THAT is a whole new level of low.Ava Grey is the pack defect, a wolfless shifter. She struggles through life with the vague dream of freedom. Her opportunity comes when she's suddenly informed that she will be attending the Lunar Gala, an annual ball for young adult shifters to find their fated mates.And she finds him. He's beautiful and intense, and his kisses send desire through her veins like a drug.Until he REJECTS her.Ava isn't about to go back to her dreary life. She escapes and forges a new identity far from her pack, and far from her alpha mate. She makes new friends and is even forcefully adopted by a hilarious husky.But just as she settles in and finds happiness, strange things begin to happen...Her husky has been holding secrets.She's hearing whispers that shifter packs all over are looking for her.And she can smell a familiar scent in her apartment, which makes no sense at all... because the man it belongs to rejected her.DECEMBER 2024 NOTE-- Author has a broken hand and updates are slower than normal. Deepest apologies. Trying to get updates more normalized again!!---------This is a wolf shifter romance with multiple triggers that like to waltz hand in hand with all the dark themes through a meadow of dead flowers. In this book you will find the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Laugh, cry, rage; you can do them all as you follow Ava in the rather perilous journey of being a wolf shifter in this generation of werewolf romance.There are R18 scenes sprinkled throughout this book like candy popping out of a pinata. Please read responsibly.-------

The year was 2026, and the world wasn't what it used to be. Ever since the Abyss Gates cracked open three years ago, spilling monsters and dungeons across the planet, life had turned into a chaotic mess. Cities were half-ruined, half-rebuilt, and people clung to whatever normalcy they could find. Hunters—those brave or crazy enough to fight the monsters—became the new heroes. Everyone else? Well, they just tried to survive.Fin wasn't a Hunter. He wasn't a hero either.He was just… Fin. A lanky 19-year-old with messy brown hair, a chipped front tooth from a dumb skateboard accident, and a power that everyone called useless. Absorption. Sounds cool, right? Like he could suck up energy or steal someone's strength. Nope. All it did was let him “feel” things he touched a little more than normal. He could tell you the exact texture of a brick wall or how warm a coffee mug was—big whoop. No fireballs, no super strength, no flashy moves. Just a glorified touchy-feely trick.“Fin, you gonna eat that sandwich or just stare at it like it's gonna confess its life story?” Meg's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.He blinked and looked across the rickety table at his best friend. Meg was short, loud, and had a wild mop of dyed purple hair that she swore made her look “intimidating.” It didn't.

I don’t know why I die, I don’t know why I live.

Divided hunters die of loyalty,

The witch who plays with emotions dies of love,

Cautious fortune-tellers die of trust.

The thief who steals everything has nothing,

The visionary who created everything never existed.

The traveler fell on his way home,

The twilight giants rest before dawn.

Lawyers sacrifice for order,

Judges forget the law.

The sleepless sleeps in the dark,

The corpse collector lay in the coffin.

We are guardians, and a bunch of poor creatures who are constantly fighting against danger and madness.

This journey is life and death.

While drowning was inevitable, they had struggled.

This is the worst of times, this is the best of times.

- Description from novelbuddy

And so Arascus, God of Pride, waited. He waited for his defeat as the forces of Heaven & Hell combined descended upon him. He waited as they tried to kill him. He waited as they locked him away. He waited for a thousand years in that dark prison.