***2024 Watty Awards Shortlisted*** https://www.wattpad.com/list/1642504418 **Action/Adventure Second place winner of The Fabulous Writer Awards ** War. For as long as memory serves, it has consumed the lands of Druzatria, stripping away freedom and peace from the kindred who dwell there, claiming countless innocent lives as casualties. For Onyx, life has been blood and sand. She is a gladiator, made for battle, bound by chains. She was forged in the Queen's arenas, raised not as a daughter but as a weapon, honed by violence and bloodshed. Abandoned by her father and gripping to the fading memory of her mother; she's learned to bury any weakness deep, to survive at all costs. Though her power rivals that of the strongest, she is bound-imprisoned by the Queen's merciless hold, wielded only as a tool of destruction. The arena has sculpted her into an unbreakable warrior, yet she is locked in a relentless struggle with herself. Haunted by the urge for something more. Until an Orcish Halfbreed enters the pit, the clash of their blades ignites a fate neither could foresee-a fight that will alter the course of her fate forever. Setting both on a path neither expected. Will she fall further under the Queen's iron grip, or rise and claim the one thing she has fought for her entire life? Will she lose everything she has fought to keep? And is she willing to pay in blood?

No, no, no. no! This can't be true what in the devil's name? Why am I seeing Jaro Briggs? After 20 fucking years. Did I lose my mind? "What are you doing here?" I asked scared, tense, humiliated and feeling every fucking feeling. "I might ask you the same." He said with a smirk. Damn him how in the world is he still managing to look that hot. He hasn't changed much except aged a bit yet looking lesser than his age. "This is my house for goddamn sake," I yelled. "I thought this was Mr Holder pipes house." "I am his wife. Which makes this house also mine!" "So you are a married woman with kids ? How riveting yet dumbfounding". He said. Is he complimenting me or commenting on me? "What did think I would be? A pole dancer?" I sighed. "More or less. Yet you have remained that beast always devouring anything that gets in its way." He accused. How dare he talk to me in this way, in my very own house. "It's been almost 20 years, Jaro don't act like you still know me!" I called out. "Is it so? Then why do I see you staring at my pants ?" He said with that damn smirk again. Why in the hell he showed out of nowhere and tormenting me? What he and I had is in past. Water under the bridge. "Don't tell me you still expect me to do all the things we did as teenagers." He said calmly. ************************ Michelle is an ordinary vet doctor, with a lovable husband, charismatic daughter and stupendous son. However, her routine life takes a turn with an abrupt encounter with her long-lost past boyfriend. Things get more hideous when they should share the neighbourhood. Even more complicated when her daughter Lana is strangely attracted to him. Does fate have its twisted way of unravelling her past with her family? However, her past isn't exactly water under the bridge. *Cover photo, not mine. Credit to the owners* *mature content*