Cannon Fire Arc - Chapter 952 - 9: Friends from Afar

Melanie Collins was the perfect wife—caring, strong, and dependable. For the last few years, she had managed her husband’s messy family, and business alone while waiting for her husband to return from studying abroad. But when he finally came back, Melanie’s world fell apart—he wasn’t alone. Along with him was his 'best' friend.Broken and confused about the change in her husband, Melanie didn’t know where to turn. And then she stumbled into another cold reality. Everything she had believed was a lie.Seething with anger and humiliation, as she tried to come to terms with the betrayal, an unexpected person steps into the picture, intent on seducing her and conquering her.The only problem? The man was her ex brother in law...And against her better judgment, she is attracted to this bad boy...But as Melanie tried to make sense of the changes, she discovered there was more going on than she ever imagined. Had both brothers loved really fallen in love with her? Or was she just a pawn in a bigger game?excerptSince he had already been leaning against the table, he simply slid onto it, and with one swift motion, he hooked his boot around the leg of her chair and pulled it—pulled her—closer.The sudden movement made her jolt slightly, and when she looked up or rather when she looked ahead, she found herself staring directly at the zipper of his jeans... She looked up then and met his gaze.He caught her chin,“ Would you like to check if I am only pretending, sweet melon?”Melanie stiffened. And then pushed back her chair suddenly, so that Adam almost lost his balance, as she stood up.Before he could balance himself, she placed her hand on his shoulder, her fingers brushing against his neck. Adam stiffened, his eyes glittering as he waited to see what she would do next. And she, of course surprised him as her other hand, slowly settled on the inside of his thigh. And then, the hand on his shoulder started to move. Her fingers tracing the side of his neck before lifting as she shot a glance to the corner of his mouth. The little piece of metal glinting there. She flicked at it lightly, barely a touch, but Adam could feel the heat all over his body, as she leaned in close, her lips barely a few centimetres away...so that they could both feel each other's breaths…She smiled slowly then. “Careful, Adam,” she murmured, her voice playful, but carrying the unmistakable edge of a challenge. “Keep pushing, and I just might call your bluff.”

A conversation with a handsome stranger leaves Ariane chained in a cellar with a strange affliction. She soon discovers that the darkness of the nineteenth century’s Deep South hides many dangers. Mages, wolf shifters and the humans who hunt them play a risky game where to stumble is to die, all under the amused gaze of the apex predators of the supernatural world: vampires.

It is never healthy to attract the gaze of the aristocracy of the night. It takes much to survive in this merciless world, but Ariane will not let that deter her. The southern belle has a bite, and she is willing to learn and to grow in this hostile new world. She will use whatever means necessary to reclaim her freedom, be it guile, charm, or those intriguing new instincts that make blood so delectable.

This is a story of vampires as I believe they should be, with their strengths and weaknesses, with their remnants of humanity and the beast inside. Updates every Friday. Mind the tags.

Cover by Antti Hakosaari: https://www.artstation.com/haco

Special thanks to Svensonsen for getting me started, as well as Omi Nya, Hesketh, Rhaegar, Yaksher, Selkie and Raven for proofreading my stuff. Thanks to my patrons and you dear readers, for the support. I could not do it without you.

Journey is on Amazon, both in ebooks and audio. here is a link to the first one:

https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08DK6G8Y8

The story probably exists in your local marketplace as well of I can tempt you.

The little security guard, Qin Yu, was chosen by a glamorous and wealthy CEO to become her personal bodyguard. Little did he know, this glamorous and wealthy CEO had a double identity, and was actually his wife from a flash marriage a year ago, registered and all. Neither of them recognized the other, but as they lived together day and night, one awkward situation followed another. They had become the most familiar pair of stranger spouses!

In 2025, the mysterious “Virus Z” appeared in the Russian city of Sevastopol, transforming citizens into ravenous zombies. What was first thought to be a simple epidemic quickly revealed itself to be the most threatening pandemic in human history.Confident at first that they could stop this new pandemic, the world's governments failed to grasp the scale of the threat. As a result, China and Korea were among the first to fall. Then India, then Russia, until the whole Asian continent had collapsed. With no army able to stop the zombie tide, all of Afro-Eurasia succumbed and became a massive uninhabitable zone. In the end, only nature's impassable borders—the oceans—halted the spread of Virus Z.Ten years later, the world is divided into two zones: the forbidden Black Zone, where the infection is still present, and the White Zone, home to the world's survivors and refugees. The White Zone survives only due to Dr. Goldberg's “Genesis Project”—the creation of living biological weapons immune to Virus Z. These people, whose DNA has been modified to make them super-powerful, are known to the world as “Hunters.”Follow the story of Alexandre, a young American of modest origins and appearance, who becomes a novice Hunter and joins the most brutal and mysterious training ground imaginable—Hunter Academy!-------------------------------------------Tag : Action, Adventure, System, Cultivation,SuperPower, School, Gore, WeakToStrong, Apocalypse.