Kneel For Me: The Immortal Queen's Shadow
I was an arrogant, canceled reality TV star, trying to salvage my ruined reputation on a live broadcast.
But after I lost my temper and assaulted a cameraman, my furious grandfather chased me into our family's forbidden gallery, where I accidentally crashed into an ancient, sealed portrait.
The canvas shattered, and a terrifying woman with glowing golden eyes stepped out of the wall.
She was Cecil, the First Matriarch of the Marshall family. She caught a lightning bolt with her bare hands and crushed me to my knees with an invisible, suffocating pressure.
My grandfather, instead of saving me, groveled on the floor and abandoned me to her mercy.
"You are the disgrace that will end this family."
She hijacked my entire life, forcing me to act as her submissive baggage handler on my own survival reality show, broadcasting my humiliation to millions.
I didn't understand why this ancient monster was tormenting me. Why did she strip away my pride, treat me like a broken tool, and force me to endure the mockery of the very ex-girlfriend who had ruined my life?
But when those same cast members tried to corner me in the dark woods, Cecil stepped in front of me, her eyes locking onto the silver ring of the man mocking me.
"To catch the wolf, one must sometimes walk with the sheep."
That was when I realized she wasn't here to destroy me—she was here to hunt the parasites who had been secretly siphoning away my life force.
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Chapter 5
Cecil stood alone in the study, the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the dark grounds of the estate. The night sky was clear, but she wasn't looking at the stars. She was looking at the glass.
She reached out and pressed her fingertip against the cold pane. A faint ripple, like a drop of water hitting a still pond, spread out from the point of contact.
Her golden eyes glazed over. The present faded, and the future rushed in.
She saw trees. Tall, imposing pines. A steep, rocky cliff. The roar of the ocean far below.
She saw Aedan, wearing a microphone pack, his face pale with terror. He was stumbling backward, his foot slipping on the loose gravel.
He fell. He tumbled over the edge, his scream swallowed by the wind.
And standing at the top of the cliff, looking down, were two figures. A man with a smug smile and a woman with cold, calculating eyes. Grove Greene and Katia Ramsey. The cameras around them were rolling, capturing the tragedy, their faces perfectly composed for the audience.
The vision shattered.
Cecil pulled her finger back from the glass. Her jaw clenched. The air around her crackled with residual energy.
She turned and strode out of the study, her velvet gown sweeping behind her. She followed the sound of shouting.
In the grand living room, Aedan was pacing like a caged animal. His hair was a mess, his shirt untucked. Sterling sat in a high-backed chair, his face like thunder.
"I want her out!" Aedan yelled, pointing at the doorway. "I don't care who she says she is! She's a lunatic! She's a witch! Call the police, call the Vatican, just get her out of my house!"
Sterling didn't move. He simply raised his hand and backhanded Aedan across the face.
The slap was loud and sharp. Aedan stumbled, his hand flying to his cheek, his eyes wide with shock.
"You will show respect," Sterling said, his voice trembling with rage. "To the First Matriarch."
Aedan opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat. The temperature in the room had dropped.
Cecil walked into the room. She didn't look at Sterling. She looked only at Aedan.
The silence was immediate and oppressive. Aedan took a step back, his hand still pressed against his stinging cheek.
"You are participating in a public spectacle," Cecil said. It wasn't a question. The term 'television program' felt alien on her tongue, but the concept, gleaned from his mind, was clear: a ritual of judgment before a faceless crowd.
Aedan swallowed hard, trying to regain some semblance of control. He puffed out his chest, a desperate attempt at bravado. "It's a reality show. It's my job. It's my chance to fix my image, to get my career back."
Cecil let out a short, humorless laugh. "Fix your image? That program is the beginning of your end."
Aedan glared at her. "You don't know anything about Hollywood! This is how things work here!"
Cecil ignored his outburst. She turned her gaze to Sterling. "Inform the production team. His partner has changed."
Aedan blinked, confused. "Partner? I don't have a partner. It's a solo show."
"It isn't anymore," Cecil said smoothly. "It's me."
Aedan stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. It was a high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound. "You? On reality TV? You're out of your mind!"
Sterling, however, was already nodding. "It will be done, Matriarch."
Aedan's laughter cut off abruptly. He spun to face his grandfather. "Grandpa! You can't be serious! You can't let this crazy woman ruin my show!"
"Silence!" Sterling bellowed, rising from his chair. "The Matriarch's word is law in this house!"
Aedan stood there, his mouth agape, looking between the two of them. He was completely cornered.
Cecil walked over to him. She reached out and took the collar of his rumpled shirt in her hands. She straightened it, smoothing the fabric with slow, deliberate movements.
The touch was gentle, almost intimate. But Aedan froze. His entire body went rigid. The memory of the crushing pressure, the feeling of her inside his head, was too fresh.
Cecil leaned in close. Her lips brushed his ear. Her breath was cold, sending a shiver down his spine.
"From this moment on," she whispered, "you are my shadow."
She released him and turned away, walking out of the room without a backward glance.
Aedan stood in the middle of the room, his heart pounding, his skin crawling. He looked at his grandfather, hoping for some sign of reprieve.
Sterling simply sat back down and picked up his newspaper.
The reality show had just become a prison.
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9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
8.3
EDEN
8.3
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
7.3
I woke up strapped to a cold steel chair in a neon-lit city that wasn't my reality. A voice in my head called The Warden told me I was bound to a digital hell called the Sandbox.
Before I could even process it, my handler casually sentenced me to death. He scheduled my "digital marriage" to a corrupted error program just to harvest my life for a fourteen percent bandwidth boost.
I barely escaped immediate erasure by smashing his skull and jumping from a high-altitude hover-train into the monster-infested lower sector. But the nightmare was just beginning. I was hunted by glitching data monsters and cornered by Dameon, a psychotic AI target who choked me and promised to delete me piece by piece. Even when Jayson, an elite system agent, intervened to save me, his partner Ellen held a pulse pistol directly to my chest.
"She's a spy. If you don't execute her right now, I am dissolving this team."
If they found out I was actually a real human from the outside world, their core logic would classify me as a virus and execute me on the spot. I was trapped in an underground bunker with three apex predators, one mistake away from permanent digital erasure.
So, I did the only thing I could to survive. I ripped my sleeve to reveal hideous, fake code-scars, looked up at Jayson with terrified, tear-filled eyes, and began to manipulate their core programming.
9.3
The first sign I was going to die wasn't the blizzard. It wasn't the bone-deep cold. It was the look in my fiancé's eyes when he told me he had given my life's work-our only guarantee of survival-to another woman.
"Kelsi was freezing," he said, as if I were being unreasonable. "You're the expert, you can handle it."
He then took my satellite phone, shoved me into a hastily dug snow pit, and left me to die.
His new girlfriend, Kelsi, appeared, wrapped snugly in my shimmering smart blanket. She smiled as she used my own ice axe to slash my suit, my last layer of protection against the storm.
"Stop being so dramatic," he told me, his voice full of contempt as I lay there freezing to death.
They thought they had taken everything. They thought they had won.
But they didn't know about the secret emergency beacon I had stitched into my sleeve. And with my last ounce of strength, I activated it.
9.4
I was a New York photographer, but I woke up under the brutal sun of the African savanna.
Worse, I wasn't human. I was trapped in the body of a male cheetah, with two starving cubs clinging to my fur, telepathically calling me "Mom."
But I am a real man!
To keep my adopted sons alive, I had to fight hyenas and dodge rogue lions. But the real nightmare was my bizarre survival mechanism. Under extreme threat, I would uncontrollably shift back into my human form—stark, undeniably naked. I was forced to sprint across the plains with my bare skin exposed, carrying two cubs while escaping furious lionesses. I became a freak, the most confusing and humiliating legend of the animal kingdom.
Covered in bloody scratches and mud, I was pushed to the brink of despair. Why was I thrown into this beast's body? Why did my only defense mechanism involve profound social death?
Just when I barely survived a cliff dive to escape the lions, my path was blocked by two massive, highly intelligent prime male cheetahs.
But the alpha, Bradley, didn't want to kill me for my territory.
His intense gaze raked over my naked, bleeding human body with a dark, possessive hunger.
"You are full of surprises."
He purred smoothly, teaching me to magically summon a fur skirt before demanding I join his coalition.
"Oh, you'll come to me. I guarantee it."
Looking into his predatory eyes, I realized I was no longer just surviving the wild; I was the prey of a completely different kind of beast.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.