CAST OUT
/1/129726/coverbig.jpg?v=d952b45e9b05aae9f5803a8b2c8d4fc6)
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?"
/0/23588/coverbig.jpg?v=c2287c7c5ab26cc287b29ae968587d05)
CAST OUT
Overpowered by the strong hands who grabbed her by the hair and pulled her along, dragging her into a dark room that recks of urine and cigarettes. Hurled her inside. His hands still gripping her hair and not doubt if he let go, some strands of hair would fall of. Undeniably, the pains were suffoca
/1/101397/coverbig.jpg?v=c0ff43baa825fc1a4e02c734e5ca8624)
Pregnant and Cast Out: The Alpha's Betrayal
I stood outside the hospital door, heavy with our unborn pup, only to hear my Fated Mate destroying our future. Theo was promising his ex-girlfriend, a woman carrying a Rogue’s child, that he would claim her baby as the Alpha heir. As for our own legitimate son? He planned to hide him away as a sh
/0/86401/coverbig.jpg?v=a51a646282e1e89e63d5ead90f8a01bc)
The Wife He Cast Out
The freezing rain lashed at my face as David locked me out for the third time this week. My voice trembled as I begged, "David, please. It' s cold. Let me in." His only answer was the TV volume growing louder, a clear sign he didn' t care. Just five years ago, I was Sarah Miller, Wall Street' s
/0/86776/coverbig.jpg?v=78d6cdd31005682cce304d16075a2801)
Cast Out, Then Called Back
The day my world fell apart was my 21st birthday, meant for joy and family warmth. Instead, it brought the stinging heat of a slap across my cheek. My older brothers, Ethan and Liam, surprised our family by bringing home Lily, a seven-year-old orphan, daughter of a student who died alongside our re
/1/105998/coverbig.jpg?v=1fc8808d1d8bd0bb4341c0e3cbc0c4e9)
Rejected and Cast Out: The Alpha's Greatest Regret
After a painful rejection and betrayal by her mate and pack, Mellisa is banished but finds solace in the Octavuis pack with her child. Just when she thought she was getting a hold of life again her mate reappears wanting her back, but something sinister is brewing in their world, Meldova. Will she a
/1/127400/coverbig.jpg?v=cecf02ef2dc20345fd3b09a1f5c0c070)
Cast Out, Then Claimed By My Rival Billionaire
Once spoiled and wealthy, Eliana lost everything after her grandmother died and learned her boyfriend only wanted her shares. After catching him with her sister, she drank away her heartbreak and woke beside Connor, her longtime rival. He offered her a deal. "Marry me. Stop my father from forc
/0/1848/coverbig.jpg?v=7fb27885d8c15602a0774768707e885f)
Cast Adrift
IN this romance of real life, in which the truth is stranger than the fiction, I have lifted only in part the veil that hides the victims of intemperance and other terrible vices - after they have fallen to the lower deeps of degradation to be found in our large cities, where the vile and degraded h
/0/86235/coverbig.jpg?v=23f42515b0223a058b48a294023ace10)
The Wife They Cast Aside
For ten years, I lived a life that wasn' t mine, sacrificing my scientific dreams to become the perfect wife and mother. My carefully built world shattered when I overheard my husband, Mark, tell our ten-year-old daughter Mia, that her real mother, my sister Sophia, was finally coming back. He the
/0/45772/coverbig.jpg?v=e50161f374557e43e8a81f8ba982b72d)
Check Out
Kania, who had borrowed money from the bank solely to fund her wedding, was deceived by her boyfriend, Tom. Not only was she deceived, but Kania was also humiliated in front of everyone because on the very day of Kania and Tom's engagement, he chose to cheat on her and did not attend their engagemen
/0/3221/coverbig.jpg?v=5361399a4cc0e0bfe4d939596547ad8a)
Combed Out
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so th
/0/275/coverbig.jpg?v=20171121195310)
Cast Upon The Breakers
The boarding school of which Rodney was, as his friend expressed himself, a star pupil, was situated about fifty miles from the city of New York. It was under the charge of Dr. Sampson, a tall, thin man of fair scholarship, keenly alive to his own interest, who showed partiality f
/0/1202/coverbig.jpg?v=ece0187862bb482f7d22bb4b6fb094a7)
Cast Upon the Breakers
A short story, set in the USA. A young man in a private school learns that his guardian has lost his inheritance in some poor business dealing; as a result, there is no money left and he must leave the school to make his own way in the world. The story follows his adventures as he escapes being chea
/0/86589/coverbig.jpg?v=af1097309a2d054901566df39856dd01)
The Wife He Cast Aside
The two pink lines on the pregnancy test glowed back at me, a beacon of hope after two years of trying. My first thought was David, my husband, away at a tech conference. This was everything we wanted for our future. But when I video-called him, eager to share the joyous news, it wasn't his face th
/0/82256/coverbig.jpg?v=cf57862b4f7ce56b3812e5fff77352fe)
The Genius They Cast Aside
Ethan Miller' s brilliant mind offered him one dream: an elite NSA program at Stanford, a world away from his suffocating family life. But when he returned home, his mother, stepfather, and even his long-time girlfriend Sarah shockingly demanded he surrender his coveted college spot and every resour
/0/14600/coverbig.jpg?v=8032100c7fc0ba236fcb0678591240ea)
/0/14651/coverbig.jpg?v=7aaae29278a2ae034cad417667a44966)
/0/71218/coverbig.jpg?v=94ccca00baeff7a85ad398892a3bba1a)
Out Of The Blue.
Valeria Monroe has spent her life chasing perfection- top grades, a flawless reputation, and a future meticulously planned by her parents. Nothing has ever distracted her from success. Until now. A chance discovery threatens to shatter the pristine world she's built and suddenly, the truth feels
/0/7852/coverbig.jpg?v=e2051d1517692c903e5ec078dcf0c4f8)
/0/86812/coverbig.jpg?v=1de3d052f08e6e72afb1fda918bdbeb3)
The Wife He Cast Away
Olivia Morgan stood at the deserted runway, her one-way ticket to Milan clutched in her hand, leaving behind a cold penthouse and a husband who should have known why. Her best friend Emily' s call confirmed her escape, urging her not to look back. But back at the penthouse, her husband, Ethan Carte
/0/1347/coverbig.jpg?v=f02633af2fc4cae4cf58bb8c73a8f814)
Out of Time's Abyss
Out of Time's Abyss is a direct sequel to The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, continuing the lost world saga begun in the earlier stories. It connects the previous two instalments, bringing in characters introduced in each. Burroughs completes the revelation of his lost world'
