For years, I existed alone. Fighting the urges, doing my best to stay good. Until Esclave 58 entered my life and I didn’t have to fight so hard. She makes me better, she makes me human, but then he arrives on my doorstep. He says he’s my half-brother.

Nila Weaver's family is indebted. Being the first born daughter, her life is forfeit to the first born son of the Hawks to pay for sins of ancestors' past. The dark ages might have come and gone, but debts never leave. She has no choice in the matter. She is no longer free. Jethro Hawk receives Nila as an inheritance present on his 29th birthday. Her life is his until she's paid off a debt that's centuries old. He can do what he likes with her - nothing is out of bounds - she has to obey.

I moved to Paris for my study abroad program and ended up staying, getting a French literature degree, studying the classics while sipping the best wine I'd ever had. My sister never makes the best decisions, always makes messes to clean up, and it's finally time for me to have my own life. But when she comes to Paris for a visit, she brings trouble with her. She gets herself into a bad situation, and, of course, I come to her rescue. Now we're in a labor camp in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow and mountains, processing drugs for a group of men who never show their faces.

I was fifteen when the Death King came for us. With a mighty black dragon and the ability to command the dead, he raised an army of our fallen soldiers to fight for him—and conquered us in the night. My father, King Laurier of Scorpion Valley, couldn’t stop him. I tried to flee but came face to face with the man in black armor, the man who looked more like a god than a human. Instead of killing me, he chose to show me mercy… but it didn’t feel like mercy. Not when the next ten years of my life are spent as a slave in the Arid Sands, digging for Black Diamonds from sunrise to sunset.

When he invited me to join him for a drink, I thought Alessandro was an ordinary guest at my family's hotel. I didn't know I belonged to him until he told me right there in the restaurant. I thought I had a say in the matter. But when I stood up to leave, it just earned me a sore bottom for the plane ride to New York, where our wedding was already planned for the next day. But I was soaking wet for him before he even walked me down the aisle.

The broken condom. The two pink lines. The baby growing in my belly. And the daddy? None other than Victor Morozov. Mafia boss. Ruthless kingpin. My baby daddy.

HER: Me and my money-maker are only going to be young once. I give them three months to use my body however they see fit. Then they’ll pay me more cash than I could see in ten lifetimes. Frankly it’s a lot better than ending up on a stripper pole with a coke habit and a broke boyfriend who keeps trying to pimp me out anyway. I’ll take a one-way ticket outta that country song, thank you very much.

She’s my mission. My prize. My obsession. Ivy Kingston is the most wanted woman in the world for reasons she is completely oblivious to, reasons I intend to capitalize on. She needs a husband to receive her inheritance, so I’m on the hunt for a wife. As long as it’s her. I’m not who she thinks I am. But she has no idea who she really is either. I’ll be her groom. Her keeper. Her lover. And quite possibly her demise.

The night of my birthday looked as boring as the rest of my life. Sitting on my own, trying to avoid my insanely gorgeous but horribly mean flatmate, all while waiting for him to leave so I could have a party for one…if you know what I mean. But that was before I almost crashed on the way home, when a big top rolled into town. Before I locked eyes with the hottest guy I’d ever seen swinging a sledgehammer in the rain. Before I read the flyer promoting the once-in-a-lifetime circus. A circus that wasn’t the usual garish carnival…oh, no…this one was most definitely not for children.

My dreams have all deserted me, and I'm alone in a new town when I meet him—the stranger at the bar. Anthony Bradstone is everything I ever wanted. A prince right from the start. A shining star, successful and loving. Committed, brilliant, generous. Mr Perfect. But the brightest stars have the darkest shadows, and Ant's love comes with… conditions. That's how one stranger in my bed turns into several, and those several turn into a whole lot more.

McKay: I wasn’t the one who broke her, but I helped. She came to us when she was 10. I raised her. I loved her. I taught her how to survive in a world of evil men. But it wasn’t enough. Adam: I wasn’t the one who saved her but I did my best. Bought and paid for on the auction block. But not for the reasons you think. She was my weapon. Donovan: I wasn’t the one who lied to her but I hid her truth. She was broken before I got there. Wild and angry. Defiant and bratty. But she trusted me most. She loved me best. So I set her free.

Nicole Fox presents Book 1 in the Groza Bratva series.

In therapy, they tell you to use your senses. List the things you know: Sermons recited with malice. A blood-soaked ritual. The sting of tears and gasping sobs of the dying. Rotting flesh. I grew up in a cage, tortured by the Lord Almighty's most twisted servant. Death and despair became my close companions as I watched years of slaughter at Pastor Michaels’ hand. Eighteen girls. Dead. Eighteen lives. Ended. Eighteen futures. Stolen.

You know the story where the hero comes in and saves the day, rescuing the heroine right in the nick of time? This isn't that story. Instead of a knight in shining armor, he's a sexy, tatted-up Bratva boss with a reputation for being brutal and fierce. Vasily finds me after I've already been brought to my lowest—broken by cruel men until I barely recognize myself. He doesn't offer me salvation. He offers me protection and revenge. And I gladly take it. Because I don't need a knight in shining armor. I need a villain who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty.

He could have been my hero. He saved my life that night, a beautiful dark angel slicing through my fear and the water, dragging me from its deadly clutches. He should have been my hero. I thought maybe he was.