Bad Decisions ⚔️ Good Stories 🎭

When the thieves are hot and the demons hotter.

Author

Parneet Gosal
October 13, 2025

Hi loves,

Do you feel it too? This time of year always feels enchanted to me—like the whole world’s being naughty and up to no good.

Anyway, I’ve pulled together a few stories that fit this mood perfectly: full of bad decisions, dangerous magic, and one highwaywoman who knows how to make an exit.

🎭 Love Zorro? Try a masked Regency romance where the highwayman’s a woman.

🐙 If you like your myth retellings with equal parts laughs and lust, Richard Bacula’s Octopunishment will grab you by all eight arms.

💎 Nicola Nichols is back with a scorching story about a thief who breaks in, cleans up, and gets thoroughly rewarded for her trouble.

😈 Mira Hartley does it again with a wickedly sexy F/F romp where summoning a Lust Demon turns out to be the best bad idea Abby’s ever had.

We also have a Halloween TBR and this week’s list of free stories if you’re into that.

Grab your blanket—and maybe a safe word.

With love,
Parneet 🤍
Founder, Theo Reads

P.S. 📲 If you have a minute, show our authors some love — we’re spotlighting one every day this month on IG.

By Quinn Blueheart (🌶️🌶️🌶️ Dark Romance, Erotic Horror)

Everyone warned Whitney that Sigma Epsilon Xi’s initiation was brutal—but she never imagined it would take her to the edge of the woods, half-naked and trembling.

And when the stranger steps from the dark—beautiful, terrible, hungry—Whitney learns that the most dangerous thing isn’t the monsters outside, but the one waking inside her.

A fever-hot gothic fantasy of lust, fear, and the thrill of being found. 💀

“The writing’s beautiful and the characters feel real, like you actually care what happens to them. loved the twist too.”

By Tori Lennox (🌶️🌶️ Regency Romance, Enemies to Lovers)

When scandal drives Nicholas Hawke, the dashing yet “disgraced” Earl of Lanarth, from London, Cornwall expects a peacock and a rake. What it gets instead is a spy in silk — a man whose charm hides a razor mind and a secret mission to expose a smuggling ring threatening England’s shores.

But on the moonlit roads of Bodmin Moor, his hunt collides—quite literally—with the notorious Black Gull, a masked highwayman who robs the rich and vanishes like mist.

Their first meeting ends at pistol-point. Their next ends in laughter. But soon, their duel of wits becomes a battle of hearts as treachery deepens—and love proves the most dangerous secret of all.

By Nicola Nichols (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Alpha, Strangers, Non Con)

Being a thief, breaking into people's homes for a living, you never know exactly how the job will go, what you'll find. Even if you are careful and thorough there can be surprises. When she's caught by home invaders who think she's the homeowner's girlfriend, when they decide to use her as entertainment, all she can do is play along. Fortunately she likes her entertainment rough.

By Mira Hartley (🌶️🌶️🌶️ Forbidden Love, Erotic Romance, LGBTQ+ Lesbian)

Abby never expected her Halloween ritual to work. But when her spell summons Lily—a Lust Demon with charm, danger, and a smile that could melt holy water—curiosity becomes temptation. Now she’s spellbound by Lily, a beautiful creature of lust and shadow who offers everything Abby’s been afraid to want. But when desire opens a door to darker forces, love becomes the most dangerous magic of all. A Halloween Tail — a sensual, spellbinding F/F romance for anyone who’s ever wanted to touch the forbidden.

By Richard Bacula (🌶️🌶️🌶️ Erotic Fantasy, Aliens & Monsters)

After insulting a man who turns out to be the Greek god Zeus in disguise, Bridget Walsh is condemned to an afterlife of eternal torment at the hands of Kýrios Chtapódi, the Octopus Lord, an octopus the size of a mountain with endless branching tentacles, and insatiable hungers. After countless years of torment in this afterlife, Bridget finally thinks that she has a chance to escape, but dare she take it? And will she make it?

By Dark Kumiko (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Romantasy, Dark Romance, Forbidden Love)

Genevra just wants to live peacefully in her manor, but everything changed for the worse after the civil war. She lost her parents and must marry the duke. But her husband wants her to consummate their wedding night with his knight instead. Broken-hearted, Genevra wants revenge. She sought Zanad's help, a Drakhenari who had the magical curse to steal people's face.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for more stories!