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

Three years ago, my brother left me with his most trusted friend, Kaden.

That "trustworthy" Alpha had me pinned beneath him on my third night in the Shadow Pack.

Since then, I played his obedient little "sister" by day and spread my legs for him by night. Three years of sneaking around—I was done.

My ultimatum: make it official or we're done.

Hours ago, with me pressed into the mattress, he swore between thrusts, "Tomorrow. I'll tell everyone tomorrow."

Then his first love Chloe came back.

He dropped everything and ran to her. I followed. Watched him gently wipe her tears—the same hands that had gripped my throat just hours before.

"Kaden, you promised—"

"Shut up." He turned on me, voice lethal. "Don't say another word in front of Chloe. There's nothing between us. I'm doing Seth a favor, looking after his bratty sister. Clear?"
My hands trembled. Three years. All of it—a fucking joke.

I pulled out my phone and texted my brother: "The Silver Moon marriage. I accept."

I nearly died in the freezing ocean at my adopted sister Jane's birthday party.

When the yacht started tilting and alarms shrieked through the corridors, Dad grabbed Jane and bolted for the deck without looking back. Mom clutched Jane's ragdoll cat in her arms, following close behind under the bodyguards' protection.

They saved the cat.

But left their biological daughter to drown.

Three days later, I staggered home covered in wounds. The living room was decorated with scented candles and a three-tier birthday cake. Light piano music mingled with laughter—they were throwing Jane a makeup birthday party, celebrating how "the whole family" survived the disaster.

I hid my identity and spent five years married to Caelen—a man who claimed to be nothing but a wandering knight.

The day I found out I was pregnant, he showed up with his Black Obsidian Dragon Riders.

Turns out he commanded the Empire's most elite aerial legion.

Oh, and he was getting married. Just not to me.

"I'm marrying Victoria Ashford. The Cabinet Chancellor's daughter. We're equals in power and status, and... we've already slept together."

He promised to set me up with an estate, swore the child and I would never want for anything.

"So I'm supposed to hide in the shadows forever?"

Caelen wouldn't meet my eyes. "She'll make the perfect Commander's wife. Stay out of her way, and I can give you everything—except my name."

My throat burned. Five years of love, and this was all I meant to him.

What he didn't know: I'm Princess Seraphina Aurelian, Crown Princess of the Empire.

And there's no way in hell I'm becoming his dirty little secret.

Three years of chasing Chase Blackwood, and all I got was a front-row seat to him tonguing my "sister."

The old me would've cried. Begged. Made a scene.

The old me also ended up dead.

Funny how a second chance at life gives you clarity.

So here's what's different this time: I'm done being the pathetic ex. I'm done playing nice.

I'm throwing champagne in his face and climbing into bed with Asher Hayes—his best friend, his rival, his worst nightmare.

And Chase? He can rot.

Julian and I played house for five years—minus the actual marriage certificate. Because he bailed on me at the registry office twelve times. All for Mia, some intern.

First time: Mia screwed up her pitch.

Sixth time: Mia had the flu.

Twelfth time: Mia's ex showed up at our architecture firm throwing punches. Julian had to play knight in shining armor. I got knocked into a desk, cracked my head open—he didn't spare me a glance before whisking her off to the ER.

Before, I would've lost it. Screamed. Sobbed. Begged him to tell me who the hell he was actually planning to marry. And every single time, Julian would sigh and say, "Chloe, really? She's just an intern. Practically a child."

This time, all I said was: "Go ahead."

Then I turned around and took that job overseas.

When his thirteenth text came through—yet another registry office reschedule—I was already at the gate for my London flight.

This time? I'm choosing me.

Seven years ago, I crawled on my knees to save Alex Benedetti's ass, and got marked as the bitch who betrayed him.

Seven years later, he came back as New York's deadliest mob boss. Lucy Ferraro, some spoiled mafia princess, was warming his bed while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing his floors.

He let his fiancée treat me like garbage. When I started coughing up blood, the son of a bitch laughed and said I had it coming.

He didn't know the brain cancer was eating me alive.

The day I died, Alex was putting a ring on another woman's finger. He never found out that the girl who took bullets for him—the one he destroyed—was already rotting six feet under while he was saying "I do."

A year ago, my ex abandoned me when I was broke and buried in debt, choosing the Russo family heiress instead.

On the day of his engagement party, he sent me a vicious text: "Wear a wedding dress to Plaza Hotel. Changed my mind. You're marrying me."

I showed up in white.

Luca and his crew waited at the entrance, ready to watch me humiliate myself.

He thought this was my degradation.

But what he didn't know was—I was getting married.

Just not to him.

To Dante Valentino—the most dangerous man in this godforsaken city.

I hid in shadows for six years while my vampire husband played duke with his mistress.

Lucian kept our marriage secret, called our daughter "the half-blood bastard," and rushed to comfort Seraphina's twisted ankle while five-year-old Vanessa nearly died from silver poisoning.

His precious lover had "gifted" my child deadly perfume. While I held my convulsing daughter, he was cutting cake with his real family.

So I handed him divorce papers during his next dramatic rescue mission. Fool signed without reading—too busy playing hero to notice he just legally abandoned his wife and child.

Now the mighty vampire Duke burns under holy sunlight, chasing us to territories his undead flesh can't survive.

Begging on scorched pavement for a second chance he'll never get.

My sister Chiara and I had fought over Matteo for more than a decade.

In my first life, I got my wish and married him. Everyone said he adored me, trusting me to manage the entire Salvatore family's books and money laundering operations. I worked myself to death, literally dying from exhaustion. On my deathbed, he coldly told me the truth: "I never loved you. You're the one who begged to marry me."

In my second life, I let Chiara have her chance. She bore him four children in five years, trying desperately to earn his love, only to die in childbirth. I rushed to her bedside for her final moments, and she cried out to me: "Matteo doesn't love me either... there's another woman in his heart..."

When I opened my eyes again, it was my third life.

This time, we would NOT make the same mistakes.

Three years ago, my best friend Juliana Pierce was raped and jumped from a twelve-story building. I was there. I saw everything. I know exactly who did it.

Alexander Knight—Juliana's boyfriend, brilliant scientist, the man I've secretly loved for seven years—has spent every moment since hunting for answers. He believes I'm shielding a predator. He's dedicated his life to making mine hell.

Now I'm dying of ALS, and Alexander's dragged my broken body onto his "Memory Judgment Stage" for the world to see. His new technology can rip memories straight from my brain and broadcast them as holograms.

"Tell them who killed Juliana," he shouted.

I refuse. So he cranks up the machine, letting the neural probes tear through my dying brain. My hand shatters. My body convulses. But I won't break.

Until the memories start bleeding out anyway.

And when Alexander sees the rapist's face—Completely loses his mind.

My best friend murdered me.

Before the team tryouts, Mia handed me a pink energy drink. I didn't know it was laced with sleeping pills.

Thirty feet in the air. Top of the pyramid. My body went limp, collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.

I can still hear my bones shattering.

Mia threw herself into my fiancé Carter's arms, sobbing: "Oh God, I grabbed the wrong bottle! The vitamins and sleeping pills got mixed up! Vic will forgive me, right?"

Carter held her tight, not even glancing at me lying in a pool of blood. "Stop crying. It was just an accident."

An accident? My spine snapped in three places.

He lied to the police, saying I was under too much stress and took the pills myself. Packaged my death as the suicide of someone who couldn't handle the pressure.

When I died, the whole school treated me like a joke.

But now I'd opened my eyes. I was back on that day.

He hung up on me while the killer's knife plunged into my body.

Seventeen seconds. That was our final call after seven years of marriage.

He was at the hospital with my "depressed" stepsister, convinced I was just being dramatic again. He didn't even let me finish.

I died that rainy night, taking a secret with me he'll never know.

Three days later, my husband—the city's chief medical examiner—caught a brutal case: female victim, face destroyed by acid.

He worked the autopsy with his usual precision. Methodical. Clinical. Until the facial reconstruction software completed its rendering.

When he recognized my face on that screen, blood exploded from his mouth.

He hit the floor hard.

On my due date, my husband Matteo locked me in an underground freezer at minus ten degrees.

The Torrino family's unbreakable rule: the first-born male inherits the entire mafia empire. My sister-in-law Jennifer and I were both pregnant, our due dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother's child was born first, Matteo made this insane decision.

"My brother and Jennifer's baby has to come first—this is what you owe them!" He ignored my desperate pleas and violent contractions, coldly shoving me into the freezer.

But that wasn't enough. They forcibly injected me with labor-delaying drugs. I curled up in agony on the freezing concrete floor, feeling my baby slowly slipping away, tears of despair streaming down my face.

My baby, Mommy is so sorry...

I married Massimo Salvatore, the mafia don, thirty-two times. And divorced him thirty-two times.

Every single time for the same reason—his precious Claudia came back from her overseas treatment facility.

"She took a bullet to the head for me. Any stress could kill her." That was his only explanation.

The first divorce, I trashed the entire living room. He slapped me across the face: "Cut the DRAMA. We'll get back together once she's stable."

The third time, I followed them to the club and caught them kissing. I confronted him—got locked in the basement for seven days.

Sign the papers, take off the ring, pack my bags. Like a nightmare on repeat.

Until the thirty-third time.

A rival family grabbed both me and Claudia. With a gun to his head, he could only save one of us. I looked at him, voice breaking: "Massimo, just this once, pick me."

He walked toward her.

Four hours later, his men found me in some abandoned warehouse. Three broken ribs, blood everywhere. Our baby—gone.

Massimo camped out by Claudia's hospital bed, wouldn't leave her side. Didn't visit me once. Not even when I got discharged.

That's when I was done.

Everyone in the Blood Moon Pack knew that our Alpha, Ethan Black, was devoted to his Luna, Elena Mourn.

Until he met his fated mate, Celine.

He wanted to sever our bond to be with her, but I refused. We became the pack's toxic couple—he resented me for not letting go, and I despised him for his betrayal.

To get rid of me without looking like the villain, this asshole staged a pity party—claiming a dark witch cursed him in battle, trapping his memories at eighteen, and now his wolf only responded to Celine as his "true mate."

"Elena, I'm stuck at eighteen... I still love you, but our bond is gone." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry for hurting you all these years. Maybe we're both better off apart."

Watching his fake performance, I said yes.

He thought he'd won, never knowing I went along because three years ago, I took a hunter's wolfsbane bullet meant for him. The poison had been killing me ever since. One week—that's all I had left.

Before I died, I wanted one last look at his eighteen-year-old self, even knowing it was all fake.

In my past life, my childhood friend—the star quarterback—threw away his Ivy League scholarship for some hood rat, even getting mixed up in drug deals. When I tried to pull him out of the gutter, I got shanked by gang members on a cold, rainy night.

Yet there he was at the police station, holding that trashy girl tight, telling the cops: "Emma had it coming. Always butting in, trying to run my life."

Second time around, I'm back to the day he begged me to cover for him with coach so he could take that girl to get an abortion.

I looked into his desperate eyes and gave him my sweetest smile, taking the fake sick note: "Don't worry, I've got you covered."

I died for you last time. Your turn now.

On our wedding day, Declan sent me out to Long Island. We'd been together seven years.

He said he'd left his grandmother's lucky cufflinks at the family house.

But when my car died in the storm, I opened my bridesmaid's Instagram live.

Declan was sliding my custom diamond ring onto Phoebe's finger—my adopted sister, the one with the bad heart.

My own parents were crying in the front row. My bridesmaids were cheering.

They'd turned my wedding into a dying wish ceremony for Phoebe.

Hours later, alone in the ER, I called forty-seven times.

No one picked up.

Not until after I lost the baby and disappeared from Manhattan.

That's when Declan finally came apart.

Curfew night. Storm-black sky. My werewolf husband racing his red fox mistress through the no-fly zone like it's a goddamn game.

Ivy's wasted, craving adrenaline. She banks hard into my son's flight path.

Impact. Explosion. Metal rain.

Silas cradles his sobbing side piece while my boy's helicopter spirals into hell:

"Easy, sweetheart. You're breathing, that's what counts. Little punk got himself killed being stupid—not our problem."

Hours later, after they've hosed the wreckage off the runway:

"Roxanne? Your mother and son are ash. Come identify the remains."

I'm ready to burn the world down when my phone lights up:

Mom! Me and Grandma are at the underground fights. Holy shit, what exploded out there? Some poor bastard just got roasted!

They never flew.

So whose charred corpses are cooling in the morgue?

"We promised each other ten PM calls every single night, no matter what was happening in our lives."

That promise used to mean everything to Eric, until it became nothing but busy tones and angry hang-ups while some other woman's perfume lingered on his shirts. The signs were all there, but I kept dialing anyway.

On cancer diagnosis day, I called him nine times and watched each call go straight to voicemail. When he finally answered the tenth, Stella was giggling in the background and all he said was, "Wren, seriously, stop being such a pain in the ass."

I choked down my bloody pills, stared at my engagement ring, and felt the strangest thing—absolutely nothing. The pain had just vanished.

I dropped the ring next to the signed papers and disappeared from his world.

Ryan Aldridge had one rule: he showed up for whoever needed him most.

The problem was, it was never me.

Throat swelling shut in the ER? He was unclogging Sloane Harrington's drain. Anniversary dinner? He left between courses because Sloane was "spiraling."

I forgave it every time. I was the cool girl. The understanding fiancée.

Then my studio caught fire, and a beam came down on my chest.

I lay there—bleeding, pinned, choking on smoke—and watched Ryan vault over me to carry out a woman with a sprained ankle.

"Jocelyn, come on. You can handle this. Look at her—she's shaking."

Something in me went still. Not broken. Finished.

I twisted off the ring with blood-slick fingers and let it disappear into the ash.

Then I disappeared too.

"Arthur, I want a divorce."

My husband was busy draping his suit jacket over Chloe's shoulders, his precious childhood sweetheart. He didn't even turn around, just let out a cold laugh.

"Oh, Evelyn. Playing the sick father card again? That trick's getting old." His voice was dismissive. "I moved your dad out of that private room to teach you a lesson. Maybe now you'll learn some manners around Chloe."

He was so certain I'd come crawling back like I had for three years, begging him to pay for Dad's treatment. So sure I'd be sobbing apologies by tomorrow morning.

What Arthur didn't know was that three hours ago, they'd wheeled my father's body into the cold hospital morgue.

And the divorce papers in my purse were already signed. I didn't need his money anymore.

Five years ago, my ex-boyfriend Jason said coldly when he abandoned me: "Charlotte, you're not worthy of my dreams."

Five years later, when I saw him again, he had become Floreton's tech mogul while I remained a simple sculptor. His new fiancée—a wealthy heiress—sneered at my modest attire: "Someone like you can actually afford to book a top-tier wedding venue?"

She stole my venue, crushed my fingers, and forced me to kneel and apologize: "Say you don't belong here!"

Jason stood by watching coldly, just as indifferent as he was on that rainy night five years ago.

I desperately thought this was my fate, until that familiar, furious voice echoed throughout the entire venue:

"What bastard touched my woman!"

My Bradley had arrived.

This time, I would be the one laughing last.

My husband stole credit for my work, gave it to his girlfriend, and waited for me to say thank you.

He assumed I'd never leave, so he missed me selling our apartment, cutting off his money, and meeting with divorce lawyers.

When he graciously offered me a second chance, I just smiled: "Thanks, but we're already divorced."

They left me to freeze to death in our basement freezer.

The night before prom, my foster sister Leila came crying that I'd burned her Ivy League recommendation letter. My birth parents didn't even listen to one word of explanation—they threw me into that frozen hell in forty-five below.

I beat on that door until my fingers were shredded, screamed until my throat tore apart, but all I could hear from upstairs was their laughter celebrating Leila. Even Justin—the boy I'd loved since we were kids—texted calling me a fucking psycho.

As I drew my last breath, I heard Leila's soft voice outside the door: "Rest in peace, sister."

Now I'm a ghost, watching them lose their minds when the truth comes out.

They left me to die in a burning lab while saving my faker sister. Big mistake.

I hadn't slept in six months, perfecting the neural serum that would save Mom's life. One vial. One chance. Then my adopted sister Mia grabbed it and smashed it on the floor, sobbing about how cruel I was to a "disabled" person.

Mom and Dad ate it up. My fiancé Ryan nodded along—probably because he was banging Mia every chance he got. When fire trapped me in the lab, they carried out "paralyzed" Mia and left me hammering on reinforced glass, choking on smoke.

Want to know the best part? That manipulative snake hopped out of her wheelchair and sprinted to safety the second she thought no one was looking.

Second chance at life? Hell yes.

I'm watching Mia lift that test tube again, ready to destroy everything. But instead of lunging forward like last time, I lean back in my chair.

"Smash away," I say with a shrug. "I'm not the one who'll suffer."

Let's see how this plays out when I'm not the naive fool.

Five years ago, my family burned to death in an "accident."

My loving husband Clifford signed the papers himself—shipped me off to a mental institution without a second thought.

Inside, Becky carved up my face with shattered glass. The same orphan I'd put through school. Then she rebuilt herself to match my features and stole my life—my husband, my son, everything.

Now she marched into the clinic where I scrub floors, dragging my biological child behind her, demanding I apologize to him like some servant.

She has no idea what kind of monster she created.

Ninety-nine times.

I was sent to the punishment chamber ninety-nine times by my mafia don fiancé.

Each time, he watched through bulletproof glass with cold, detached eyes—watching me being deprived of sleep, injected with drugs, tortured until I was barely clinging to life.

"Elara, you're paying for what you did to the Mancuso family."

For the sake of sweet, innocent Yvette—his precious savior—he personally destroyed everything I had.

After the ninety-ninth time, the doctor handed me a critical condition notice. I stopped begging, signed the confession, and vanished completely with my broken body.

The result? When the truth finally came to light, the ruthless don went completely insane.

My parents and twin sister faked their own deaths so she could steal my college acceptance.

I believed it. Sobbed until I couldn't breathe when the cops showed me photos of the burnt yacht. Thought my words—"I hope you all die"—had somehow made it happen.

Two weeks later, I found my sister's backup Instagram: "Finally ditched the boring sister! Bahamas is paradise 🏖"

Something inside me snapped.

Wanna play dead? Stay dead.

I took their death certificates. Canceled their social security numbers. Drained every joint account—every last cent. Sold the house to John, the kind of guy even cops don't mess with.

One month later, they came home tanned and loaded with designer bags, expecting to find me broken on the streets.

What greeted them instead were cold gun barrels pointed at their heads.

"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.