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 7
The black SUV rolled to a stop at the edge of the forest clearing. The cameras were already waiting, their lenses focused on the tinted windows.
Aedan pushed his door open. He stepped out, sliding his aviator sunglasses onto his face. He straightened his shoulders, trying to project an air of cool indifference. He was a star. This was his show.
He turned back to the car, expecting to see Cecil struggling with the modern door handle, looking out of place and foolish.
The rear door opened.
Cecil stepped out onto the gravel. She was wearing a pair of fitted black trousers and a crisp, white button-down shirt, topped with a long, tailored black trench coat. Her silver hair was pulled back in a sleek, low bun.
She looked modern. She looked powerful. She looked like she owned the place.
The live chat on the production monitors exploded.
Holy shit, it's her!
She looks amazing!
That coat costs more than my car.
Cecil stood still for a moment, her hands in her pockets. She looked around the campsite with an expression of mild distaste. The cheap tents, the portable toilets, the noisy generators-she found it all beneath her.
She turned her head and looked at Aedan over the top of her sunglasses.
It was a simple look. A glance. But it carried the weight of a command.
Aedan's swagger vanished. He swallowed hard, his shoulders slumping slightly. He reached up and took off his sunglasses, his fingers fumbling with the frames.
Cecil tilted her chin toward the back of the SUV.
Aedan hesitated. His pride screamed at him to refuse. But his body, conditioned by the previous day's torment, moved on its own. He walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk.
Inside were two large, heavy suitcases. They looked like they were filled with rocks.
He grabbed the handles and lifted. The weight nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. He let out a grunt, his face turning red.
Cecil didn't offer to help. She simply turned and began walking toward the cabins, her long strides eating up the distance.
Aedan struggled to keep up, the wheels of the suitcases catching on every rock and root. The cameras followed him, capturing every grimace, every stumble.
Is he carrying her bags?
Aedan Marshall is a baggage handler?
This is the best thing I've ever seen.
As they passed the communal fire pit, the other contestants were gathering. They stopped talking, their eyes wide.
Katia Ramsey was sitting on a log, her perfect blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. She gripped her sunglasses so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her eyes were narrowed, a flicker of jealousy and suspicion in them.
Grove Greene was standing nearby, holding a mug of coffee. He looked Cecil up and down, a slow, appreciative smile spreading across his face. He looked like a man who had just found a new toy.
Leo Vance gave a polite, if confused, nod.
Aedan was halfway across the campsite when the wheel of one suitcase caught on a large stone. The suitcase twisted, pulling him off balance.
"Damn it!" he yelled, kicking the stone. He dropped the bags, his chest heaving. "I'm not doing this anymore!"
Cecil didn't turn around. She didn't stop walking. She simply raised her hand and tapped her temple with one finger.
The memory of the crushing pressure, the feeling of his bones about to snap, flooded Aedan's mind. The threat was clear.
He let out a frustrated groan, bending down to grab the handles again. He yanked the suitcase free and continued walking, his head down, his ears burning with humiliation.
He's like a trained puppy!
Who is this woman and where can I get one?
Cecil stopped in front of the cabin assigned to them. She turned and looked at Aedan, who was sweating profusely, his hair plastered to his forehead.
"Inside," she said, her voice flat. "Unpack."
Aedan dropped the suitcases on the porch with a heavy thud. He glared at her for a second, then stomped into the cabin, slamming the door behind him.
Cecil stood on the porch, her back to the cameras. A faint, satisfied smile touched her lips. She looked up at the sky, watching a news helicopter circling in the distance. The technology was strange, but the concept of surveillance was familiar.
She turned and walked into the cabin, leaving the other contestants to their whispered speculation.
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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.