1394 Book(s) Related to best novels by agatha christie

My fiancé has tried to kill me seventeen times.

Everyone says I'm cursed by the Moon Goddess. Five years, seventeen mating ceremonies—all ending in blood.

An eagle's talons through my spine. Poisoned wine that stopped my heart. Ritual flames that charred my skin. Each time, I survived. Each time, Kael Silverblade held my hand and swore it was fate's cruelty, not his.

I believed him.

Until the seventeenth time.

Blood moon. Three assassins. Nine bone blades cutting precise lines across my body—missing every vital organ, maximizing the pain. I writhed on the sacred stones, screaming until my voice broke.

Three days later, still wrapped in bandages, I heard him talking to his lieutenant outside the healing den.

"Lord Silverblade, she almost died this time. Maybe we should—"

"No." Kael's voice was ice. "Her brother saved my life. My grandfather swore a blood debt—a mating bond to repay it. But goddammit, I love Vira. I've always loved Vira. Not her."

Silence.

"Keep the accidents coming," he said. "As long as she won't let go, we keep going. She'll break eventually. She has to."

I pressed against the wall, tears streaming down my face.

Seventeen times. Not curses. Not fate.

Him.

The male I'd loved since I was sixteen.

But here's what Kael doesn't know—this time, he finally wins.

I won't survive the next full moon.

The night before our engagement party, my fiancé gifted me a million-dollar yacht—with another woman's name carved on the hull.

Not mine. "Serena"—his first love, the one who got away.

Five years of patience. Five years of sacrifice. And this is what I get?

"Stop overreacting," Austin said without a hint of shame. "She's severely depressed. I'm just trying to comfort her."

Comfort her? What about me?

When Serena tried on what should've been my wedding dress, when Austin demanded I "be the bigger person" yet again—I finally snapped.

I threw the engagement ring. It cracked against his face.

Austin's hand shot up in fury.

The door exploded open.

Julian Cross—New York's most dangerous billionaire—stepped inside, his presence filling the room like a storm.

"You dare lay a hand on my woman?"

At my seventh wedding, they replaced me.

The Oracle pointed at me and screamed one word: "CURSED."

Father's hand cracked across my face. Mother tore the wedding dress off my body and shoved my cousin Seraphine into it.

"She'll marry him instead," Father said. "You'll destroy us all."

What they didn't know? A thousand years ago, our family made a blood pact with the Shadow Lord himself: if the eldest Ashford daughter remained unmarried on her twenty-sixth birthday, she belonged to HIM.

Today was my twenty-sixth birthday.

I begged Julian to run. "Please. We have until sunset."

He laughed. "The Shadow Lord's a fairy tale, Anna. Seraphine's just going through the motions. You're being dramatic."

Then he told my parents everything.

They locked me in the tower.

But the Shadow High Priest's warning was clear—at sunset, the Shadow Lord would come. And when he did, I'd drink the Potion of Forgetting and lose everything.

My memories. My name. My soul.

The clock struck five.

He was coming.

"Sign the Brooklyn house over to Isla. I'll cover your tuition next semester."

Gabriel didn't look up. Just sat there in his leather chair like he was doing me a favor.

My mother grabbed my sleeve. "She has depression, Rachel. She just needs a studio. Why are you making this so hard?"

I looked at her, then at him. That house was the only thing my father left me when he died. The only thing. And my stepbrother was sitting in his leather chair, offering me a trade like it was nothing.

"That house is the only thing my father left me," I said. "You know that."

Gabriel finally looked up. "I know. Sign anyway."

My mother tightened her grip on my sleeve. I shook her off.

"Give me the pen."

I signed. Grabbed my suitcase — packed for three days — and walked out.

I had nowhere to go. I didn't care.

My fiancé was going to humiliate me at our own wedding.

I know because I heard him think it.

I'm Isabella Rossi — mafia heiress, future bride to Lorenzo Falcone, the golden boy of New York's underworld. Our marriage was supposed to unite two empires.

I also have a secret. I can read minds. But only when people want to use me, hurt me, or destroy me.

Lorenzo's thoughts had been silent for three years. I thought that meant he loved me.

The night before the wedding, I finally heard him. The mistress he'd planted in the crowd. The fake pregnancy reveal. The plan to humiliate me at the altar so he could play the victim — and steal my family's power in the chaos.

To marry Damian Thorne, I almost died thirteen times.

Over three years, I planned twelve weddings. Each one left me bleeding.

The first time: a runaway truck crashed into the bridal boutique, crushing my right leg.

The second time: the church ceiling collapsed during rehearsal, leaving me broken and bloodied.

The third time: poisoned champagne at the reception nearly killed me as I foamed at the mouth.

...

Manhattan's elite whispered that I was cursed.

But I still loved him desperately.

Until the thirteenth time. That bloody rainy night, three thugs cornered me in an alley and stabbed me seven times—two to the chest, three to the abdomen, two to the back. I lay dying in my own blood, yet somehow survived.

After I healed, I accidentally overheard Damian talking to his assistant.

"Mr. Thorne, she almost really died this time... Maybe we should stop? If your grandfather finds out..."

"We can't stop," Damian said wearily. "Her father saved my life. Grandfather is hell-bent on me marrying her. But DAMN IT, I love Selena, not her."

"As long as she won't give up, these accidents have to continue until she gets the message and leaves on her own."

I trembled as I touched the bandages covering my wounds, tears falling silently.

All these years, the man I desperately loved had been meticulously planning my death.

But he didn't know that this time, he really wouldn't have to marry me anymore.

I was dying, but honestly? Death felt like mercy.

As a vampire, I should have been immortal. But at six years old, I'd made a deal with a demon, gambling my fate on "true love"—if three times I failed to win the heart of the one I loved, the demon would claim my soul.

Just when I thought death was certain, I got pregnant. Morag, the demon, showed rare mercy, promising to wait until I gave birth.

But at eight months, my husband sneered about removing the "bastard." My brother didn't even flinch as he sliced open my belly. My parents cursed that I deserved it—all to save my sister Lycia, who'd somehow "returned from the dead."

The day they cut my child out, not one tear. Not for me.

So why, after I died, were they all on their knees at my grave, sobbing?

The tour bus hung precariously over the cliff's edge, smoke billowing from its engine. Inside, two pregnant women were trapped.

"Captain Walker, both pregnant women are in critical condition. Who do we save first?"

I had been pierced by a steel rod through my abdomen, my water had broken, and I was screaming desperately at my husband:

"Ryan Walker! My water broke! The baby's dying!"

On the other side, his first love Stella clutched her chest, her face deathly pale:

"Ryan, I'm having a heart attack! Save me!"

The man in the firefighter uniform charged toward Stella's side without hesitation.

"Captain, your wife's position is easier to reach!" team member Mike shouted.

"SHUT UP! Follow orders!"

He rushed to Stella without looking back, leaving behind one sentence:

"She won't die. I'm her husband, I take full responsibility."

When my parents forced me to donate my organs to my sister, I didn't refuse or run away. I just quietly signed the surgical consent forms, willingly giving my kidney to Vivienne, their beloved daughter.

A few months ago, my sister was hospitalized with kidney failure. The doctor said she needed a transplant. My family's first thought was me—the backup daughter they'd kept around all these years.

When my husband Allen took my hand with tears in his eyes and said, "Only you can save her," I agreed without hesitation.

When the doctor explained the surgical risks and potential complications, I smiled and nodded my understanding.

My parents said I'd finally learned what sisterly love meant.

Even Allen, who'd always been cold to me, held my hand gently and said, "The surgery's safe. You're so healthy, nothing will go wrong. When you recover, I'll take you to Hawaii."

But they don't know that no matter how the surgery goes, I won't be around to celebrate.

Because I just got my own test results—I have terminal brain cancer. I'm going to die anyway.

"Just a poor warrior girl," they laughed. Until HE showed up.

Marcus dumped me six years ago for money and status. Now he's back with his snake princess girlfriend, ready to humiliate me again. They force me to kneel, break my legs, tear my clothes—all for a stupid wedding dress.

"Your boyfriend can't save you," Seraphina hisses. "Nobody cares about trash like you."

Then the wall EXPLODES.

A massive black wolf storms in, golden eyes blazing with fury. When he shifts back to human form, every face in the room goes white with terror.

Turns out my "nobody" boyfriend is the most feared Alpha on the continent. Oops.

Ten years ago, I sat in the witness stand and told the court my beloved Uncle Arthur was a monster.

My testimony sent him away for twenty years and made my father Robert a hero.

For a decade, I lived inside the perfect world my father built around me — safe and warm and suffocating. Then one afternoon, digging through boxes in the basement, I found Buster's old collar. My golden retriever. The dog I'd made myself forget.

The memory hit like a freight train.

The man in the dark had clamped his hand over my mouth, and I could smell him now — peppermint and cologne, thick and choking. I saw Buster lunge at him. Saw the man's boot connect with the dog's ribs.

But Uncle Arthur was deathly allergic to dogs. He couldn't get near Buster without his throat closing up.

If it wasn't Arthur that night — then who the hell was it?

I won the championship at the sailing regatta, only to watch my arch-rival smash my trophy into a thousand pieces.

"Sienna's nothing but a homewrecker! She doesn't deserve squat!"

Cindy—my defeated opponent—stood there in front of the entire school, accusing me of sleeping my way to the top. According to her, I'd seduced some sponsor to steal the win.

"Are you out of your damn mind? You lost. Deal with it!"

"Lost? Oh honey, that's rich coming from someone who cheated her way to the finish line!"

I almost laughed at her pathetic meltdown—until she whipped out a photo of me on a yacht.

"Take a good look, bitch! That's my father you were screwing!"

The woman in the picture? Definitely me.

The man beside me? She just called him "dad."

What. The. Fuck.

Since when do I have a goddamn half-sister?

The more I cry, the hornier my sister gets.

Not a metaphor. Stone cold reality. Me and pop superstar Melody share a sick "emotional link" — the worse I suffer, the more she glows on stage.

My husband Christian discovered this secret.

Then he chose to betray me and crawl into bed with Melody.

Now every time Melody has a big show, Christian locks me in the basement, force-feeds me depression pills, and blasts horror movies 24/7 until I'm totally broken.

My despair gets fed straight into Melody's energy, making her perform like she's possessed.

Tonight they're fucking to celebrate her win. Tomorrow's concert means draining me dry again.

Enough!

If my pain is your sex drug, I'm cutting off the supply completely.

I'm going to the medical center to freeze myself for one full year.

Let you two horny bastards screw each other to death!

I bought my five-year-old son a Captain America shield for his birthday.

But when I landed in New York, the hospital called.

"Your son died during the medical procedure your husband authorized."

Marcus had signed Axel up as a living donor. For his mistress's kid.

While our baby bled out on the operating table, Marcus was cutting birthday cake with his new family.

Even used Axel's favorite Superman pillow as decoration.

I stared at my child's mutilated corpse and made a promise.

You fed my baby to wolves for a whore's smile. Time to return the favor, Marcus.

"Give Lydia half your beast core blood—you owe our clan that much!"

Facing the man who wore my brother-in-law Arthur's face but carried my dead husband Carlisle's distinct scent, I didn't fight back. I let him drive the blade into my chest.

Three years married, and Carlisle died in the border beast surge. I'd tried to follow him in death so many times that grief had nearly bled me dry—only to catch him alive, faking his death so he could marry his precious sister-in-law under his brother's name.

To keep his cover, he stood by while his new woman degraded me, even forced me to sign a slave contract that stripped me of all dignity.

He thought I loved him too much to ever leave.

Until I drained every drop of blood that carried his mate bond and disappeared.

That's when this arrogant bastard finally lost it completely.

"Brielle, I need money... My bone cancer is worse. Without treatment, I won't make it past next month."

For Cole's words, I gave up everything—my billionaire father, my inheritance, my name. I became a crime scene cleaner, the most degrading job in New York.

Twenty hours a day, I scrubbed blood and rotting flesh off apartment floors. I even sold my own blood. All to save the man I loved.

One million dollars. Finally, I had it.

I rushed to the five-star hotel, clutching the warm check in my trembling hands. Pushed open the presidential suite door.

And froze.

Cole—healthy, glowing, dressed in an expensive suit—knelt before Delilah, New York's newest socialite. A diamond ring glittered between his fingers.

"Babe, that corpse-smelling idiot sent more money today," he laughed. "That bag you wanted? Let's go buy it right now."

The check fell from my hands.

Something inside me shattered.

And something darker took its place.

I've been with Nathaniel for five years. We were supposed to announce our wedding date next month.

Then he brought his "fragile" intern Lily to a Halloween escape room. When she drew the punishment straw — ten minutes in a freezing water tank — he swapped it with mine in the dark.

I have claustrophobia. I just had surgery. He knew. He didn't care.

I nearly drowned while he held her and wiped her tears through the glass.

When I woke up in the hospital, Nathaniel was gone. But Alexander Sterling was standing by my bed — the billionaire who'd been anonymously funding my gallery all along.

He offered me a contract marriage. I accepted.

Now Nathaniel's on his knees begging. But I'm already wearing another man's ring.

"Grace, your trashy mom ruined Jessica's dress. Bitch deserved to die!"

Blake stepped on the bloody corpse, shoving me down to grovel at Jessica's feet.

The bastard forgot already? My mom sold our Texas ranch to make him rich! But once he hit it big, he let his secretary Jessica beat her to death like she was some street bum.

I looked at the body wearing that emerald ring, trying to tell him the truth, but he backhanded me hard.

Then the asshole ordered her thrown in the septic tank just to kiss up to Jessica.

I wiped blood from my mouth and laughed.

Idiot had no clue—that wasn't even my mother.

My six-month business trip to Europe was finally over. I decided to surprise my husband Nathaniel by coming home early without telling him, bringing my six-year-old son Lucas straight to his newly opened upscale restaurant.

Lucas excitedly ran toward the children's play area while I scanned the restaurant for Nathaniel, eagerly anticipating our reunion.

Suddenly, a scream shattered the peaceful atmosphere.

I turned to see a woman in work uniform roughly shoving my son, snarling viciously:

"What the hell are you RUNNING around for, you little brat! Can't you watch where you're going?"

I froze. How DARE this woman treat my child like this in my husband's restaurant?

When my fiancé left me to burn alive to save his "fragile" white lotus, I thought my story was over.

But death had other plans.

Reborn with memories intact, I watched him make the same fatal choice—abandoning me in the flames for her. This time, I smiled and said, "Go save her."

Because this time, the most powerful Alpha in North America was coming for me.

Derek thought he was discarding a burden. He had no idea he was throwing away his only lifeline.

Now, as I stand beside Lucas in his billion-dollar empire, watching my ex grovel in the gutter, I have just one message: karma is a bitch, and so am I.

I've been married to billionaire Joseph Miller for three years. Pregnant three times. Aborted three times.

Every time, my husband stood outside the operating room, watching them wheel me in.

The first baby, my mother-in-law Victoria said had spinal deformities. The second, my father-in-law Richard showed a "report" claiming heart defects.

I believed them. I thought it was my fault, something wrong with my body.

Until the third pregnancy.

This time I secretly went to another hospital—DNA showed 99.9% match with Joseph, every prenatal indicator perfect.

I rushed home clutching the report, thinking I could finally save my child.

Victoria glanced at it and tossed it on the coffee table. "You are carrying a healthy baby. But the Miller family doesn't need it."

My in-laws forcibly dragged me to the clinic. I screamed to Joseph for help: "That's your child!"

His eyes were red, but he still let them kill my baby.

Desperate, I demanded a divorce. He coldly refused, tearing at my clothes: "Stop being dramatic. Time for the fourth."

I finally understood—I wasn't his wife. I was their breeding machine.

But why? Why force me to keep getting pregnant, only to kill every healthy baby?

Until that night, I pushed open the attic door that had been locked for three years—

And finally understood everything.

Seven years married. Seven years reading minds. Still ended up the biggest joke in New York's underworld.

My husband Dante—Mafia boss—put that ring on my finger thinking, "This should be Elena's."

Seven years taking bullets for him. Seven years tortured for him. All I got was his cold contempt.

Then Elena came back with a kid. I became trash.

"Victoria, you disgust me." He crushed me under his boot, had me beaten bloody—all for her.

That's when my heart died.

I didn't explain. Just watched the clock.

Three hours until the boat leaves.

Dante, we're done. Forever.

It was supposed to be a bet to make her fall in love with him, break her, and humiliate her in public as revenge for his best friend, but that playboy, Henry, never knew that the hunter would be hunted and she would be the one who broke his heart into a million pieces.
But none of them will win this bet.

“So, you say you liked me from afar? But I have never met you even once before!” Elissa stood up, confused. He seemed more like a stalker, but he was handsome as hell, and seemed to be from a powerful and wealthy background; she just couldn’t end it simply.

He stepped closer, leaning to her ear and saying with his husky, hot manly voice, “You didn’t see me. But I have been watching every step of yours. I know your….”

He paused, then continued with a smirk, “I know every inch of your body.”

She jumped back, looking into his eyes, searching for the lies, but he didn’t seem a liar. She gulped nervously, “How and … what…” she stuttered.

But he pulled her close to his chest, “What do I want from you?” he moved his hand on her waist down to her hip, then said, “Of course I want to sleep with you!”

Even so, she was scared, but she, without hesitation, pushed him with all her strength and slapped his face, saying angrily, “Sleep my ass! In your dreams”

His eyes glowed with interest. No girl ever rejected him and slapped him boldly. He muttered before she could leave, “I will. We will. Very soon.”

Everyone at Harlow University knows Callum Voss. The starting point guard, the dean's favorite headache, the boy whose smile has cleared more disciplinary hearings than any lawyer on retainer. He is the kind of person the campus bends around without being asked.

Nobody knows Wren Aldae. That is entirely on purpose.

Wren has spent two years building a life at Harlow that no one can touch: one close friend, zero social media, a journalism scholarship that pays tuition, and a rule about never writing stories that could blow back on her personally.

Then Callum Voss appears at her desk with a proposition. Someone has started a bet pool about his love life and the resulting media circus is one week away from costing him his athletic standing. He needs it to stop. She needs a front-page story before the scholarship committee meets. A fake relationship with a visible timeline and a clean public ending would solve both problems.

Wren knows better than to say yes. She says yes anyway.

Neither of them accounts for the fact that proximity is its own kind of problem.

How often was it that two madly successful brothers wanted to sleep with a nobody like me? They worshipped my mom-bod when my own husband couldn't.
They fought with each other to make me theirs. And all of this unleashed passion that no couple nor even a pornstar could reach - over a Christmas getaway.
Sometimes, working as a tour guide comes with its own 'troubles', I guess!


My body was on fire. The young blood, who claimed to be a singer of some sort, had his hand on the small of my back.
Sex with Raphael was anything but exciting. No foreplay, no kissing and no cuddling after boring sex.
But with this young, charming man named DYLAN, I felt excitement even before I guided him to my room. I quickly realized he was right next door - Dylan was my tour neighbor.
Dylan looked at someone and winked at them before closing the door. That was weird. But I was too dazed to realize it.
Dylan turned back to me, his piercing eyes gazing down at me. My body was tingling.
One look and I could see the man's toned body under his soft, spandex white tee. I bit my lip, accidentally directing the hormonal male's attention to my plump, pink lips.
"Are those rose petals...?" Dylan asked, biting his own lip. The sound that he made immediately after made my thighs clench. It sounded like the sexiest groan of a frustrated man!
What was that?

Harriet Walter once had everything wealth, power, and a future others envied.

Then she made a choice for love.

When forced to choose between an arranged marriage to a powerful CEO or losing her inheritance, Harriet chose the man she believed in Taylor. To prove her loyalty, she sacrificed everything: her family, her fortune, even the company that carried her name.

But love turned into ashes.

The man she gave the world for slowly lost everything, and Harriet blamed herself for his fall. She stayed beside him through humiliation, poverty, and regret… until the night he did the unthinkable.

With a single bet, her husband gave her away.

Now Harriet belongs to a man no one knows a silent figure whose face hides beneath the brim of a hat. A man who wins people the way others win money.

Running is impossible. She tried once.

She woke up in his bed… marked, watched, and surrounded by walls filled with her own photographs.

Someone has been studying her.
Someone has been waiting.

The question is not who took Harriet Walter.

The real question is… why has he wanted her for so long?

Chloe wasted ten years loving arrogant Zane. To win a Porsche bet, he publicly humiliated her, taking her devotion for granted. Finally awake, she cut him off and rebuilt herself as a brilliant top-university elite.
After losing her, Zane drowned in regret, begging desperately for her forgiveness. But it was too late. Chloe met the wealthy, gentle genius Liam, who healed all her wounds. Zane gambled with her heart—and lost her forever.

"Listen here, woman. Give me an heir, and I'll give you more gold than you can spend in ten lifetimes. Fail me, and I'll snap your neck myself."

The Lycan King had me pinned against the wall, blood-red eyes dead serious. I was trying very hard not to notice that his chest was about to burst through his shirt.

Here's the thing: I'm not supposed to be here. My half-blind, gambling-addicted father checked "Fertile" instead of "Fortunate" on the royal conscription form. An honest mistake — if you ignore the part where it shipped his virgin daughter straight to the most dangerous man on the continent.

I tried to explain. He didn't listen. He made me drink something black and foul called a "fertility elixir."

But what nobody in this godforsaken palace knows is that while I can't breed, I am stupidly, ridiculously, almost cosmically lucky.

Assassin slipped poison into my soup? The venom snake fell into the boiling pot first. They tried to burn me at the stake? Lightning struck the High Priest into a charcoal briquette before anyone could light a match.

And when I accidentally kicked a loose coin in the courtyard and uncovered the largest magic crystal vein in the empire — well.

Let's just say the king who once threatened to kill me is now on his knees, clutching my skirt like his life depends on it.

"Forget the heir, Elara. I just want you."

Funny how that works.

Three years ago, I married Rex Cavano—New York's most dangerous mafia don—for this face. Not for love. Because I looked like his stepsister Isabella, the woman his family tore from him and sent to Rome.

I thought time would make him forget her. Until three months ago, when she came home a widow, and I finally understood: a substitute is always just a substitute. When the original returns, the fake gets thrown away.

So I made a decision.

I tricked him into signing divorce papers and accepted a job in a war zone in Colombia.

I'm leaving. Taking our child with me—a secret he'll never know—disappearing from his world forever.

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

Chloe Ashford destroyed me once.

She pretended to be my best friend, eagerly setting me up with her stepbrother Vincent—when really, I was just a cover for their twisted relationship.

She fattened me up, used me, and when she got bored, tossed me aside. A broken nose during gym class, nearly drowning by the pool, framed and cyberbullied until the whole internet turned against me. I dropped out. Had a complete mental breakdown. And then I jumped.

But when I opened my eyes again, that line was playing on repeat—"Let me introduce you to my stepbrother."

Somehow, I was back. That same party night.

I'm Riley. Orphan. Motorcycle mechanic. And the biggest fool in Texas.

For ten years, I thought oil tycoon Colt loved me. His adopted daughter by day, his woman by night. I actually believed his whispered promises in the dark.

Then I watched him announce his engagement to someone else.

"Your father saved my life. You're my responsibility," he said when I confronted him. Like I was some charity case. Like everything between us meant nothing.

I was never his girlfriend. I was his guilt.

But here's the thing—I never asked to be anyone's debt.

So I'm packing my tools, starting my bike, and getting the hell out of here.

I gave my Alpha fiancé to my stepsister.

My mother's face lit up. "You're giving Damon to Maya? Don't come crying later, Kira. That man is the most powerful Alpha alive."

I won't. Never again.

Last life, I married him. Suffocated for three years.

He wanted a perfect Luna. I showed up to the full moon gala in a mini skirt. The elite ladies circled in—*"Shameless. Like a bitch in heat."* Damon walked over, draped his jacket over my shoulders.

I thought he was protecting me.

"Must you embarrass me like this?" His voice cut like ice. "Every damn time."

That's when I knew: he loved the perfect Luna. Not me.

Then came the conservative gowns, endless etiquette training, and every time I fought back—*"Pack law, Kira. Obey."*

Until the flames took me, I swore: If I ever got another chance, I would never marry that man.

I woke the night before our engagement and pushed the contract away. "Let Maya be his perfect Luna. I just want my freedom."

But I didn't expect—

When Damon discovered the switch, the cold Alpha completely lost it.

I used to think I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Married to my first love, Matteo Rossi—mafia boss—with an adorable son.

Until that afternoon. Luca was running a fever, whining for cake from that shop across town—a four-hour round trip.

I hesitated.

Matteo immediately chimed in: "Go ahead, babe. Don't worry, I got him."

I grabbed the car keys and turned. Before leaving, I glanced back—he was kneeling beside Luca's bed, his large hand gently stroking our son's burning forehead.

What a perfect fucking picture.

Until I heard that GODDAMN surveillance recording.

"Honey, please open the door! Please!"

Kate Sterling pounded desperately on the basement door, with only 15 minutes left before the interview that could change her life. Yet here she was, locked inside by the very man she loved most.

It all started with a single prophecy from their new neighbor, Anna Cross: "If Kate goes to that interview, your marriage is over."

Anna's predictions had never been wrong. Last month, she predicted old Johnson would have a heart attack. Three days later, an ambulance pulled into his driveway. She predicted Mrs. Miller would discover her husband's affair. Now the Millers were filing for divorce.

Every prediction came true like clockwork nightmares.

Now Anna had set her sights on them.

When the truth finally surfaces, will it be escape... or death?

I always thought Arthur's surgical hands were a gift from God.

When my sister Emily was crushed in a car crash, he spent ten grueling hours in the OR. He emerged exhausted, eyes red, and pulled me tight. "I'm sorry, Anna. I tried everything," he whispered. "But her heart... it can still save someone else."

I believed him. God help me, I even thanked him.

A year later, I cracked his locked safe and found a black flash drive.

The security footage showed my husband hovering over Emily's ICU bed. He didn't call for help. He didn't try to save her. He just watched her oxygen drop, then calmly reached out and yanked her breathing tube.

One room over, his first love was waiting for a heart transplant.

Just like that, my world vanished. My husband wasn't a savior in a white coat. He was an executioner.

"Unless you bring 100 gold coins and the Alpha's blood, the half-breed dies in the cellar."

Those words broke what little was left of my soul. Three years ago, I was the proud Luna of the Blackwood Pack—until my fated mate, Alpha Valen, branded me a traitor, burned our sacred mark from my neck, and locked me in the Ice Crypt.

Now, I am nothing but a despised outcast. But I don't care about my pride anymore. My four-year-old daughter, Nyra, is freezing to death in a damp cage, succumbing to a fatal disease. To save her, I need the ultimate cure: Valen's Alpha blood.

The tragic irony? He refuses to claim her. Tricked by the woman who framed me, Valen believes my tiny, innocent pup is the filthy product of betrayal. He would rather watch me crawl on my hands and knees over corrosive silver powder than offer a single drop of his blood.

With my daughter's breaths fading, the woman who framed me offers a dark, irreversible trade.

I will pay the price. I will give away the last piece of myself to save my pup.

But when Valen finally discovers whose bloodline he left to die... it will be entirely too late.

I was married to Daniel for eight years. I thought we were happy.

Then I found a receipt in his car — a private OB-GYN clinic, Upper East Side. The name on it was Lydia's. My best friend's.

I drove straight to my brother Joel's apartment. Joel, the boy I raised. The only family I had left. I needed someone to tell me I was wrong.

I heard them laughing before I knocked.

I looked through the gap in the door and saw all three of them — Daniel, Lydia, and Joel — standing in the living room with champagne glasses, toasting the baby that wasn't mine.

My husband. My best friend. My little brother.

Every person I had ever trusted. All in the same room. All in on the same secret.

And not one of them had thought to tell me.

Three years ago, the night before my wedding, I was kidnapped and nearly killed.

When I woke up, Julian was crying over me. "The kidnappers hurt you so badly, Elsie. The doctors—they had to remove your uterus to save you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

My world shattered.

I cried for a week straight. Cried until I had no voice left, until my eyes couldn't open from the swelling. I'd lost everything—my chance at motherhood, my chance at being whole.

But Julian squeezed my hand. "I love you, Elsie. You're all I need."

He married me anyway. Against his family's wishes, he married this broken woman.

For three years, he was perfect. Gentle. Loving. I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until today.

Today, I learned the truth—

There was no kidnapping. No random attack.

It was all planned. Orchestrated by Julian himself.

For one reason only—to give my uterus to Chloe, my sister who was born unable to have children.

"We can only take one more person! Any heavier and we ALL go down!"

In the middle of a raging forest fire, my fiancé Carter Hayes was piloting a fuel-leaking helicopter, forced to choose between me and my cousin Lily Sterling.

He chose me.

Lily was left behind in the inferno. She burned.

I thought surviving made me lucky — until my parents slapped me across the face at my wedding. "Why wasn't it YOU who died?"

Turns out, I was never the one they wanted to save.

Carter married me, then spent five years making me wish I'd died in that fire instead. He and my parents worked together, systematically stripping away my dignity, my career, and every reason I had to keep living.

Three years into my depression, I jumped from the top floor of the Hayes estate.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself back before the fire — before the helicopter took off, before Carter made his choice.

This time, I spoke first. "Take Lily."

If they all wanted me dead, then I'd give them exactly what they wanted.

The night I almost drank myself to death at a client dinner, my husband Alexander bought his first love a luxury yacht.

Maya posted it on Instagram that same night: "Best birthday gift EVER! You know who you are 💕🛥️~"

In the photo, she was in a bikini, champagne in hand, glowing with joy.

Then came the credit card alert—our joint account had been maxed out.

Before I could even confront him, Alexander called.

"Are you serious right now? Why'd you lock the card? Maya's been struggling with her depression—she needs to go sailing to clear her head! Why can't you show some compassion?"

I wanted to tell him that last night, I'd nearly killed myself closing a deal for his company.

But he'd already hung up.

Later that evening, Maya posted again—an extravagant jewelry set. The caption: "When someone truly GETS you 💎✨"

In the photo, she wore a diamond ring I never got, not even on my wedding day.

But by then, I was done caring.

Because I'd made my decision—to disappear completely.

Twenty-one times.

I've signed the mate bond with Kael Nightshade, Lord of the Black Panther Clan, twenty-one times.

And dissolved it twenty-one times.

Not because we didn't love each other.

But because every few months, she comes back.

Seraphine. His first love. The angel who shattered her wings saving him, leaving her mind fractured and fragile.

"Seeing the mate mark sends her into psychotic breaks," he'd say, burning the bond from my skin. "I owe her my life."

So I'd erase the mark. Burn the contract. Pretend we were never bound.

The first time, I cried and begged. He backhanded me: "Cut the bullshit. We'll rebond once she's back in the sanatorium."

The thirteenth time, I followed them to a tavern and watched him tenderly kiss the scarred stumps where her wings used to be. When I confronted them, he knocked me down and locked me in enchanted restraints for seven days straight.

Sign. Burn. Erase. An endless cycle I couldn't escape.

Until the twenty-first time.

Fire engulfed the manor. Seraphine and I were trapped in different wings. Kael could only save one of us.

"Kael!" I collapsed at the window, smoke choking my lungs. "I'm pregnant—please—"

He shifted into his panther form and bolted toward her room.

The guards dragged me out thirty minutes later. Third-degree burns across my back, lungs filled with ash, blood pooling beneath me.

No heartbeat.

Kael stood in the safe zone, holding an unscathed Seraphine in his arms. From the moment the flames erupted until they pulled me from the rubble, he never looked back.

Not once.

The twenty-first dissolution was my choice.

There won't be a twenty-second.

A year ago, Sophia was recalled from overseas medical school. Her father announced she must marry Ethan Sullivan, head of the Sullivan crime family, to save their bankruptcy.

Ethan Sullivan—uncrowned king of New York's underworld, cold-blooded killer. Complete opposite of her life-saving profession.

She fought desperately—humiliated him at their engagement, sabotaged business meetings, even escaped at midnight. Ethan never got angry, just quietly cleaned up, growing more gentle and devoted.

Until rival families shot at them. He shielded her with his body, blood soaking his white shirt, still comforting her: "It's okay. I'm here."

Sophia fell completely.

"I'll marry you," she told him in his hospital bed, "but tell me—do you really love me?"

Ethan nodded without hesitation: "I love you. You're the first and only one."

After marriage, Sophia enjoyed sweet life as a mafia wife. Until she learned Ethan's "sister" Isabella had leukemia. When her bone marrow matched, she donated without hesitation, thinking this proved their love.

Until tonight's party. A drunk lieutenant asked: "Boss, what's your biggest regret in life?"

Ethan was silent for a long moment: "Giving up the woman I loved."

"Margaret has face blindness—she won't even recognize the groom. Tomorrow's ceremony? Just stick any random guy up there with her. Isabelle, I'll marry YOU in the rose garden. Our real wedding."

I stood outside my bedroom door the night before my wedding, listening to my fiancé Theodore plot with my adopted sister, my own parents nodding along.

They thought I was broken. A defective bride too blind to know she was being played.

They wanted a stand-in groom? Fine. I'd give them one.

So I gave them their fake wedding. With one little change.

The "random stand-in" they're expecting? He's Theodore's worst enemy. He's Sebastian Kingsley.

Oh, and according to the marriage certificate we signed three hours ago—he's also my husband.

I was reborn on the day we had to choose our mates.

I could clearly hear my sister Sera's thoughts: "This time I won't choose wrong. Let Lyra suffer with that cold Alpha."

Then she couldn't wait to choose my past life's husband—the gentle Beta Damon.

While I had to marry the cold Alpha Kane.

Her inner celebration was deafening: "Perfect! Now my sister can suffer with that heartless guy while I finally get to live the pampered Luna life!"

I couldn't help but want to laugh. If only she knew the true face of my "gentle husband" from my past life.

Seven years ago, Ronan Blackwood—Alpha of the Beastman Clan—endured 999 lashes and defied the Council's exile to bond with me, a human.

He swore before the gods I'd be his only mate, forever.

But when his childhood sweetheart Camilla was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he dissolved our soul-bond at the Underground Court.

Then he handed me a glowing vial—the Seven-Day Oblivion.

"Sia, I need seven days to give Camilla a proper bonding ceremony before she dies. This potion will make you forget me temporarily. No pain, no memories. After the ceremony, you'll take the antidote and love me again. Then we'll re-bond."

He promised this separation was temporary. That I'd still be his only true mate.

What he didn't know: the potion was forbidden. There was no antidote.

I stared into those amber eyes that once bled for me—and swallowed it anyway.

In seven days, I'll forget him completely.

To marry me, my fiancé Sebastian Knight said he wanted his childhood friend Isabella to be our surrogate.

I agreed. Because I couldn't have children, and the Knight family desperately needed an heir.

After Isabella "successfully" got pregnant, Sebastian became a completely different person. He started making her nutritious meals, accompanying her to prenatal appointments, even memorizing every food she disliked.

Yet he couldn't even remember my birthday.

Two weeks before our wedding, I received an anonymous email.

The video on the screen made me understand everything in an instant—Sebastian and Isabella were in bed together.

So this was his "surrogacy plan."

I, his fiancée, was just the last fool to find out.

I canceled all the wedding arrangements, tore up the wedding dress, and threw away the ring.

On our original wedding day, Isabella gave birth to his son in the delivery room, while I was already sitting in first class on a flight abroad.

Sebastian, this time I'M the one leaving YOU.

Due to an arranged marriage between our families, I married Damien Blackwood, heir to a business empire.

During five years of marriage, I tried hard to play the perfect wife, bore him a daughter Lily, thinking I had finally won his love.

Until his first love Serena returned from abroad, I watched him rekindle his passion for another woman, watched them rekindle their old flame.

A car accident changed everything.

I was taken to court, sentenced to three years in prison, becoming a "murderer" despised by everyone.

And he personally sent me to prison.

The werewolf world has one brutal rule: whoever can first produce a powerful Alpha heir gets to claim the throne and become the new Alpha King.

My sister Bella and I are daughters of the Red Moon Pack Alpha, born with the rare ability to bear Alpha-level offspring. This made countless Packs fight tooth and nail to claim us.

In my past life, I was fooled by Rex's handsome appearance—the Steel Fang heir. I married him and successfully bore him an Alpha bloodline pup, helping him ascend to the throne.

But fate played a deadly joke on me. Bella, consumed by jealousy after her own marriage failed, pushed me off a cliff during my postpartum weakness and took everything that was mine.

Now I've opened my eyes again, back at the mate selection ceremony. What shocked me was that Bella had also been reborn, and she'd already seduced Rex before I could.

But that's fine. My naive sister has no idea what kind of devil she's chosen.

The day I went into labor, my husband threw me into Dragon's Pyre.

Draven was the Dragon King. I was carrying his child. Should've been the happiest day of our lives. Instead, it became hell.

Why? His dead brother Kael's widow, Seraphina, was about to pop too. And Ashwing law was crystal clear: first male heir takes the throne.

Our due dates? One day apart.

So he picked her over me. Because apparently, I OWED them.

Dragon's Pyre—where they roast criminals alive with dragonflame. Hot enough to turn flesh to ash in seconds. But that wasn't enough for them. They shoved some potion down my throat that would keep my body from going into labor, even though my baby was clawing to get OUT.

I was curled up on that scorching stone slab, feeling my child die inside me.

All because I'd been stupid enough to fall in love with him.