Mostrando resultados por autor "James Eden" en Todas las categorías

Once upon a time, playing for the NHL was my dream. Then Radimir Novicov skated circles around me and made it clear I’d never be good enough. He was smart, talented, and worst of all–sexy. Every closeted guy knows that you don’t hit on your teammate, even if his gaze lingers longer than it should. All it took was one drunken close call before our friendship was in tatters, he was called up to the NHL, and I was sent for further conditioning. Playing in the NHL was off the table, so coaching became my new dream. And seventeen years later, I’m finally heading to the big time.

"Look out for Zach, and don't hit on him." My brother's request sounds easy enough. Keep an eye out for his best friend on campus and keep my hands to myself. Easy. Even if Zach is a quintessential nerd, who I've always thought was cute, I don't have the time to think with my...stick. There's only one stick I should be focused on this year, and that's my hockey stick. My goal once I graduate is to get an NHL contract. The last thing I need is a distraction. On or off the ice. Only, keeping to the rules is harder than I thought it would be.

Finding out those closest to me don’t see me as the great guy I think I am not only kicks me in the gut, it makes me question everything. Until that happened, I didn’t think I had many regrets in my life. Now, I have nothing but regrets. And when my NHL team is bought out, and the new owner makes his presence known, my existential crisis kicks up a notch. Because he might be my biggest regret of all. Parker Duchene. I made his life a living hell in high school, and now he’s inserting himself into my career to repay the favor.

For the last three years, I've lived and breathed hockey with one goal: team captain. There's only one thing standing in my way. TJ Beckett. Beck is irresponsible and immature, and I've hated him since the moment we met freshman year. Yet the coaches see something in him I obviously can't, and they refuse to choose between us. The captain spot is going to a team vote. And the team thinks that what we need are a bunch of challenges to prove our worth.

It turns out making out with my best friend in high school could be considered gay. Who knew? Apparently, everyone but me. Now that it's been pointed out, I can't help reliving it in my head. Repeatedly. Good-bye Denial Town, hello Confusionville. When my path leads me down the gay dating app route, I don't expect to meet anyone I like, but then I meet him. He can't be more opposite than me. He's smart, he hates hockey, and he identifies as demi - something I've never heard of. Yet I can't deny something's there.

The fall from NHL superstar to domestic disaster was swift and painful. When I became the legal guardian of my five younger siblings, I had no idea what I was doing. One year later, I'm still lost. Coaching CU's hockey team might be the only thing I'm excelling at. But when our star forward is failing math, I have to do what it takes to keep him on the team. Even if it's going head-to-head with Jasper Eckstein. One minute I'm confronting the notorious hockey-hating professor, and the next I'm agreeing to be his date to a twenty-year high school reunion. I don't know how that happened.

Hockey, studying, and school runs. That's my life now. After a tragic accident that took our parents' lives, it's up to me and my big brother to take care of our five younger siblings. In between burning their meals and keeping them from killing each other, I'm supposed to get a college degree. If I don't get my grades up, I'm in danger of losing the one thing that makes me happy: my spot on the hockey team.

Roark von Graf - former noble and hedge mage, current mid-level mob in a MMORPG - has his sights set on taking down the tyrannical dungeon lord. But the reigning troll despot is nearly as devious as Roark, and his followers are at a much higher level. With forever-death on the line, civil war breaks out in the Citadel, pitting Roark’s new regime against Azibek’s horde of loyalists. To survive, Roark will have to outfox the dungeon lord, forge new, dirtier weapons and shady alliances, and above all, evolve....

Two months ago, Clay Jaeger, his wife Alex, and his chainsaw-toting brother Joe came to the Infested Zone on a mission: kill a Dungeon Lord. What they found along the way was a land of opportunity. Gold-dropping monsters, magical weapons, and best of all, freedom—all there for the taking. If they can live long enough to grab it. Surviving in the wasteland has been a constant fight, but thriving in it, that’s going to take something more. Not just power, but the brains to use it in ways nobody’s seen before.

Clay Jaeger finally has the chance to become the spellslinger he always wanted to be—the one his family needs him to be to survive the dangers of the wasteland. A teacup pig claiming to be a cursed Great Blue Wyrm has offered them a quest to take out a Dungeon Lord with the exact power set Clay’s been looking for. There’s just one problem. The Dungeon Lord can steal the souls of his enemies and summon them to fight his battles for him. Clay is more than willing to lay down his life to protect his family, but is he willing to risk his eternal soul on a gamble that might not pay off?

Forged in the fires of the lawless wasteland, Clay, Alex, and Joe have finally earned the unimaginable power of Incants. All they want now is to settle down, drink a few beers, and carve out a new life west of the containment wall. Not everyone in the IZ has such noble goals at heart, however. When the Jaeger Squad learns that another group of magic-slinging Incants are enslaving homesteaders to farm gold and harvest enchanted items to sell on the black market, they can’t just turn a blind eye. Especially since Clay and the others are the only ones with the power to make things right.

Roark von Graf built a nation on the bodies of griefed players and disgruntled mobs who wanted him dead. He grinded his way up to the level cap of the Troll Evolutionary Path and made powerful underhanded alliances along the way, but even all of that isn’t enough to defeat the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Lowen, and the Divine armies of the most powerful dungeon in the game. When Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield go on the attack, Roark’s only hope of survival lies in the stolen World Stone Pendant and its mysterious transmutation magic.

Roark von Graf fought his way up from the bottom to become not only the Dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel, but the leader of the Troll Nation, making underhanded alliances with other dungeons and players along the way. To stop Lowen and his Divine armies once and for all, Roark will have to drag the magics of the game into the real world, harness deadly new technologies, and build dungeons in places no Dungeon Lord has ever gone before. The fate of Earth hangs in the balance. The duel between Dungeon Lords has begun. And one of them isn’t leaving Hearthworld alive.

Build. Evolve. Conquer. The dawn of the Troll Nation has begun.... Roark von Graf - former noble and hedge-mage, current mid-level mob in a MMORPG - has taken down the dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel, but the battle has only started. Lowen, right hand to the Tyrant King, has come to Hearthworld, and he is building an army of his own. Worse, Lowen and company have taken over one of the most powerful dungeons in the game, The Vault of the Radiant Shield. Even as a Jotnar and a newly minted Dungeon Lord, Roark is supremely outclassed and he bloody well knows it.

Clay Jaeger and his family have faced down hordes of mobs, evil forces, and deadly Dungeon Lords since they came to the IZ, but this is the first time all of Civilization has been turned against them. Framed for heinous crimes they didn’t commit, Clay, Alex, and Joe will have to fight back with every resource the wasteland has at its disposal. If that includes taking over a dungeon and turning it against their enemies, so be it. This time, it’s not just the Jaegers’ lives on the line. This is bigger than them. The freedom of every wastelander and mob in the IZ is at stake.

Twenty years ago, the Merge brought armies of monsters flooding into the West Coast. Dungeons popped up in shopping malls, airports, and Starbucks. Walls were built to contain the spread, but the promise of priceless loot dropped by the creatures inspired a new type of gold rush. Clay Jaeger has nothing left outside the walls. Civilization took everything he worked for, chewed it up, and spat it out. Now Clay, his wife Alex, and his beer-loving, chainsaw-toting brother, Joe, are going west to try their hand at monster killing.

Roark von Graf has been fighting for one thing since the night his family was slaughtered: to kill the Tyrant King. Even when he was transported to a strange new world called a VRMMORPG, Roark recruited an army of Trolls, built a nation of high-level Dungeons, and crushed his opposition through trickery, seedy alliances, and sheer overwhelming force, all in service of revenge.

You know what’s the worst feeling in the world? Being in love with someone since you were twelve years old, knowing they only see you as a little brother type. Not even becoming an NHL star has made him realize I’m all grown up now. All of that changes when I ask my brother’s best friend to ref a charity match and we spend an entire week in each other’s pocket. Being close to him is torture, but for the first time since my adolescent crush started, I begin to feel hope.

The idea of moving away from Seattle was a joke at first. I have too many failed relationships here. Too much baggage. So when I find myself signing with Nashville and leaving everything behind, I’m hopeful a new start will cure me of my attachment problems. I fall fast and hard, and I’m quickly realizing it’s not so easy to escape my emotional damage. That follows no matter where I go.

The worst part of being in love with my straight best friend is the fact he’s too oblivious to see it. Years of pining have left me exhausted, and I need a break from Dex. I need space to get over my feelings. But when his relationship falls apart and he turns to me for comfort, I cave immediately. If there’s one thing I hate more than being hurt, it’s seeing Dex struggle. I can’t leave him in a time of need, even if my friends say it’s my biggest downfall. They say Dexter Mitchale is my weakness, but if that’s true, I don’t want to be strong.