Alpha of the Dead
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The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.
Chapter 1 No.1
Sage POV:
"Let me kiss you."
The request was a low, hurried murmur—warm, quiet, and laced with the faintest edge of mortification.
Stunned, I snapped my head up toward the sound.
Julian Andrews filled my vision. He easily towered a head over me, his lean, athletic frame silhouetted against the bright morning glare, casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. Briar University's star forward. Team captain. The athletic department's untouchable golden boy.
Campus rumor had it that Julian was notoriously indifferent, never sparing anyone a second glance.
Behind him, a solid wall of navy-and-gold varsity jackets blocked the brick path. His teammates were whistling, shoving each other, and effectively cutting off my only exit.
The sudden commotion immediately bottlenecked the morning foot traffic. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and within seconds, a dozen students reached into their pockets out of sheer muscle memory, black camera lenses catching the light as they aimed squarely at us.
Julian's sharp eyes tracked the movement, his jaw tightening into a hard, irritated line.
Before I could take a single defensive step back, he closed the distance between us. Leaning down into my space, his broad shoulders shifted in a subtle, fluid maneuver—throwing up an impenetrable physical wall that completely shielded my face from the intrusive glare of the cameras.
His sharp, striking face hovered breathtakingly close. His deep baritone brushed against my ear, lost to the autumn wind, meant for me alone:
"Sorry to drop this on you," he whispered, his pale blue eyes disarmingly earnest, holding a quiet heat that sent a tremor straight down my spine. "The guys backed me into a locker-room dare... but I'm not here to use you as a joke. We can fake it. Angle it so it looks real—whatever you're comfortable with. Just help me get them off my back, and I owe you one."
It was only then that my brain finally rebooted.
What on earth? He's actually trying to kiss me?
A sharp flare of pure absurdity hit me, and my gaze dropped to my reflection in the dark glass door of the adjacent building: an oversized, faded gray hoodie that swallowed my frame whole, soft, thin jeans worn at the knees, bare-faced dark circles carved beneath my eyes from forty-eight hours of non-stop coding, my dark hair hastily twisted into a cheap plastic claw clip, and a pair of oversized, thick black-rimmed glasses sitting heavy on the bridge of my nose, completely hiding my face.
I looked like a refugee from an all-night disaster. How had Briar's golden prince ended up in front of me?
When I looked back up, my breath trapped in my throat anyway. He was too close, his clean scent of winter mint and cedar wrapping around my senses. Having those pale blue eyes staring straight down at me made my chest tighten in a way I really didn't want to acknowledge.
"Clock's ticking, Cap!" Landon howled from the sidelines, hands cupped around his mouth as the rest of the players lost their minds laughing. "Plant one on her, or enjoy the five-AM bag skate!"
A raucous chorus of barks and chest-thumping went up from the team.
A few yards away, two girls heading toward the dining hall froze in their tracks, pointing their phones.
"Wait, who the hell is that?" one of them laughed loudly, zooming her camera in on my face. "She looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster. There's no way Julian's actually kissing her. Post it on Sidechat right now—this is going straight to number one."
The cruel words hit like a splash of ice water, snapping me out of my daze and instantly killing the stupid flutter in my chest.
I hated the attention.
Four years ago, after my family and my former training partner framed me and destroyed my competitive skating career, I swore I would never be public entertainment again. I buried my name, switched majors, and hid behind oversized fleece and thick glasses just to live an invisible life. If I ended up on the campus forums with Julian Andrews, the internet vultures would dox me before noon—and drag up the toxic scandal I had bled to walk away from.
My research was already on the verge of falling apart. I didn't have time for this circus.
I locked my grip around my heavy binders, my knuckles straining white.
"Find someone else for your dare, Andrews," I said coldly, taking a step back to put distance between us, my voice tight with adrenaline. "I'm not interested in being part of your game. Move."
I kept my head down, attempting to brush past him.
"You're Sage Kelley, right?"
The sound of my name brought my boots to an immediate halt.
I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard.
"Professor Beaumont's senior research student," Julian straightened up slightly, his cadence measured and even, carrying an intellectual sharpness that seemed impossible beneath a varsity jacket. "I saw your Havenwood Creek senior capstone proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."
My heart gave a hard, hollow thud. Professor Beaumont was my academic advisor—and the guardian of the final research endowment my late father had left behind.
Julian leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper against the whistle of the wind. "I spent an hour going over your codebase."
My lips parted. "You... read my proposal?"
"Your simulation keeps crashing because your core fluid algorithm strategy is flawed," Julian murmured, his pale blue eyes deadly sharp. "And Uncle Des mentioned that if you don't deliver a working version by this Friday, the department is pulling your grant—which means you don't clear your senior thesis, and you don't graduate in May."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Friday was the deadline. If the funding was pulled, the project died, my senior capstone failed, and I would be forced to stay another semester without my degree. Worse, my father's final ecological legacy would be reduced to scrap paper.
I had been panicking over that exact deadline for two days straight, and Julian had just laid it out like it was nothing.
Worse, I couldn't even brush him off. I had heard the rumors about Beaumont's nephew—the CS prodigy everyone in the department talked about. I just had never realized it was him.
"I know how to fix your algorithm," Julian stated plainly, laying his cards on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with an unshakeable, quiet certainty. "Help me get through this bet. In return, I'll rewrite your boundary calculations tonight. Deal?"
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The Alpha King's Hated Slave
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The Revenge Of The Dead Luna
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The Return Of The Billionaire's Dead Wife
Chelsea Knights once thought to be dead, returns to the city she once called home, her heart still bearing the scars of betrayal. With her mischievous son in tow, she seeks revenge against Liam and those who caused her untold suffering. However, she discovers a harrowing secret. On the other hand, L
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ALPHA KING OF FIRE
“PYRO. That’s my name.” Fira was about to die at the hands of hunters when there was a man came to save her. This man had a cold emotion with his unusual strength, good at dodging, and a fighter who can prevent every strike of the opponent without looking at it. She was curious about the identity o
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The Dead Alive
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally impor
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The Undeniable Dead
For three years, I’d been a silent, unseen presence, a ghost tethered to the man who ruined my life: Rick Thompson. Today, his opulent Manhattan penthouse boomed with a lavish birthday party for his new fiancée, a celebration that should have been my own. Amidst the champagne and laughter, Rick c
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The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead
The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead by James George Frazer
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Ashes of the Alpha
The First Binding was meant to keep the world safe. But with the return of the Hollow Moon, everything is shifting. Araya Vale is an orphan, haunted by vivid dreams of wolves, fire, and an ancient curse she doesn't understand. When the bloodline of her forgotten ancestors awakens, Araya finds hers
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The property of Alpha
He stripped me naked on my first day on the job, thinking I was an undercover spy. Then, after my cousin's boyfriend tried to rape me, Jimmy, aka my alpha boss, took me into his world and promised me he would never let anything happen to me. I was afraid of the honesty in his eyes, because I knew
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LETTER FROM THE DEAD
Blurb: Letters are messages sent from people to reach out or communicate their ideas, intentions, or even feelings to others. Life took a sharp turn for Moses when he got in contact with Kyle a wandering spirit from the dead, trapped in a space of eternity a journey she was too young to take, but wa
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The Dead Remember
Six months ago, the world died. The dead simply refused to stay dead. Nyra Kane has survived by following one rule: never trust the infected, never get attached, and never stop moving. In the ruined city of Greyhaven, hesitation means death. Then she finds a message that changes everything. BLACK
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BANE OF THE ALPHA
In the mystical Silver Forest, Rowena is an omega burdened by tragedy and cruelty. Labeled a witch after her family's deaths, she is cast aside by her pack and sold as a slave to Alpha Lucien Blackthorn, a ruthless leader feared by all. Forced into servitude, Rowena's fragile spirit hides an embe
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The Alpha of Dragons
The Dorack men are brutes who come from a long line of shapeshifters. They can no longer shift and have all but lost the instincts to mate. The men are presented with human wives in hopes of breeding. But DaThoren, the brute prince of Dorack, discovers the scent of not his new human bride but the sl
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Beware of the Alpha
In a world where humans and lycans co-exist, both societies must adapt to new norms and circumstances. Lycans became prominent city leaders due to their superior strength and intelligence. As the idea of a destined mate faded into myth, lycans began to choose their mates from among human participa
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Property Of The Alpha
Alexandra: I watched my pack get overthrown and my parents die painfully right before my eyes as a child. The same man who saved me, also turned out to be the same man who was planning on keeping me to himself as nothing more but his personal sex slave when I turned eighteen. So, I ran away and went
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Beyond the Dead Bedroom
My third wedding anniversary. Three years of a dead bedroom, feeling like the king-sized bed was an ocean between us. I tried, again. "Tori, honey?" Her eyes, usually cool blue, turned to ice. "What do you want, Ethan? If you're that desperate, there are apps for that." Her words cut deep. Pathetic.
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The Curse Of Alpha
Legend says that a human girl will be a sacrifice to the king of the wolves, and he is a ruthless king. They say that her body will have great energy. Some say that she will be a victim of him getting twice his strength. Some say it will be his weak point. Some say she is a witch, but she thinks she
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The Curse of the Alpha
"So you're a virgin, then." He says it so blatantly it rattles me to the core. "No! I mean, would it matter if I were?" "I suppose not," he muses, his gaze shifting back to me. "But when I look at you, I want to violently fuck you until you cannot move for days." ---- On a hiking trip with a fri
