Solflare: The Painter's Secret - Chapter 95: A 17% Survival Rate

{MATURE — The female lead, Elara, is a plus-size lady. This isn't a book about her losing weight or going on a weight-loss journey. This is a book where she embraces her size and loves herself after everything.}BILLIONAIRE/WEREWOLFI was born a maid in the pack, unwanted, unloved, and unseen. They said I was the daughter of a servant and that I should be grateful to even breathe the same air as elites. But what no one knew was that I wasn’t who they thought I was. I was stolen from my destiny, stripped of my name, and buried in a life that was never mine.When I finished school, I was given a job at Blueberries Pack Company. It was already falling apart, but I worked day and night to keep it alive. Still, nothing I did mattered. The Alpha’s precious daughter stole my ideas, my recognition, and even the man I thought I loved. I was used to silence, to being unseen, until he appeared.Darlon. The Alpha King. A name spoken with fear and awe. They said he was old, heartless, and cruel. I didn’t know him, and I never imagined our paths would cross. But when the Alpha and his Luna grew desperate to save their company, they forced me to marry him in their daughter’s place.I walked down that aisle expecting the worst…But what awaited me on the other side was nothing I could have ever imagined.I didn’t know it then, but the man I had married wasn’t a stranger at all… He was my fated mateAnd through him, I began to uncover the truth about my past, my bloodline, and the power that had been sleeping inside me all along.

Far in the eastern corner of the world lies a city covered in chaos, Aetherpolis. A city that is far more different than any other, a ruin where law and order are mere fantasies. This place isn’t governed by the government nor military powers. This city….. belongs to the gangs.And at the top of the food chain stand those with terrifying strength. The Awakened Users.These are individuals who have unlocked their Drive Core, a latent force within every human that responds not just to strength or talent, but to pain, trauma, and intense emotions. Only by facing these can the Drive Core bloom.Into this brutal world steps Ren Asakura, a quiet teenage swordsman with his Tempest Drive. On a quest to find his lost brother, he joins the well known gang ZEAL, determined to dismantle the corrupt and violent gangs that rule Aetherpolis.But every turf war brings him closer to a chilling realization, the true enemy has yet to reveal themselves, and the battle for the soul of the city is only just beginning.In a world where power is earned through suffering and only the ruthless survive…You either DRIVE forward or you BREAK.

When Jasmine’s fated mate Elliot rejects her for the Lycan Chairman’s daughter, she is left broken, humiliated and alone. To make matters worse, her father gets arrested for embezzlement, and Jasmine needs to raise ten million to release him.Desperate to save her father from a wrongful conviction, Jasmine takes the only job she can find—tutoring the bratty daughter of a rich werewolf family.But she never expected her employer to be the Lycan chairman himself: Gareth Laken. He is ruthless, dominant… and her ex-mate’s future father-in-law.Gareth thinks she’s a threat. A bitter ex-girlfriend out for revenge, waiting to harm his own daughter. But the more he watches her, the more he sees a woman refusing to be shattered by the world that betrayed her. A woman he can’t stop wanting, despite the huge age difference.Now, Jasmine is caught between two powerful men—one who destroyed her, and one who might destroy everything she has left to protect.Excerpt“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Gareth said, voice low, his towering frame just inches from mine.“I didn’t come here to play,” I shot back, even as my heart pounded. “But you should be asking Elliot why he keeps showing up at my door. I’m not the one chasing ghosts.”His eyes darkened, his gaze dropping to my lips. “He’s not the only one haunted by you.”I froze.I should have walked away.Instead, I whispered, “Then why do you look at me like you want to hate me and kiss me at the same time?”He didn’t answer.But his silence spoke louder than any lie.

The nuclear holocaust which caused the collapse of the Old Times on Earth should have wiped out all human life on the planet. Yes, the gods set up their beautiful Elysiums to provide sanctuaries for their chosen, but by all rights everyone outside the elysian lands should’ve perished long ago. Yet somehow, human life still managed to persist, even in the deadly, mutant-infested wastelands.

Cloudhawk was a young scavenger who dreamed of being as free as the hawks in the skies, yet seemed destined to live out his life scrounging for scraps in the wasteland ruins. Fate, however, is ever-fickle. A chance meeting with a ragtag group of mercenaries changed the trajectory of his life, bringing him into a world with mutants and metahumans, demonhunters and godslayers, and even gods and demons. Cloudhawk would find his own place in a world that was far greater than he had imagined, find his own path between the zealous light of Sumeru and the whispering darkness of the Abyss… and one day, he would find that even gods may fall.