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I got pregnant the year we could barely afford to eat.

My boyfriend, Mason Caldwell, took out an online loan to pay for the abortion. At least, that was what he told me.

While I was recovering, the best thing I ate was a $2 chicken leg from the discount grocery store.

It broke my heart to watch him work construction all day and deliver food all night. So after three days in bed, I took a serving shift at the private club where my friend worked.

“People fight over these shifts,” she told me. “Good money, big tips. I only squeezed you in because I know things are rough.”

Then she added, “You just serve drinks. Nobody gets to ask you for anything else.”

That night, I found Mason in a VIP room, seated in the middle of a crowd that hung on his every word.

He ordered seven or eight bottles of red wine at $25,000 apiece. Someone said the watch he gave a bottle-service waitress was worth $220,000.

After midnight, he wiped the lipstick off his cheek and reached for the bike helmet beside him.

“Mason, you're still playing house with that woman? Still playing the delivery guy and the factory worker?”

“Your dad's on your ass about getting married. End it already. If she finds out who you are, you'll never get rid of her.”

Mason laughed. “She's not smart enough to figure it out.”

I stood in the dark beside the door, holding my empty tray, my head down.

The clinic had charged $600. The food he'd bought me over those three days came to $30.

$630.

Exactly the price of the fruit platter on their table.

That was all I had cost him.

Kael ruined my life, drained my divine blood, and framed me for murder in my past life. Given a second chance, I reject his fake tenderness and tear down every lie he built. The almighty Dark Duke who once played with my life now craves only my mercy. He abandons his army, destroys his status, and begs for my punishment. I end his tyranny, chain him with my golden blood, and turn my worst tormentor into my most obedient hound.

I'm Jennifer, a stay-at-home mom. I gave up my art career eight years ago to take care of my family. My husband Julian and my son Garry, they're my whole world.

But lately, I've noticed them getting closer to Mia, Julian's secretary. Little things. Garry asking where "Miss Mia" is. Julian mentioning her at dinner. I told myself it was nothing. I kept quiet. I put up with it.

Until last week, when Garry broke his arm playing hockey. The school called Mia, not me. She was listed as his emergency contact.

That's when I knew I was done.

That night, I was dragged into a parking lot and beaten until my hands could never hold a scalpel again.

I thought it was random. Until I heard my own brother and fiancé talking—

"Those thugs went too far, but the result works out, doesn't it? This time, the award will go to Charlotte."

Charlotte. The "poor orphan" my family adopted.

For twelve years, she stole my papers, my opportunities, my glory. And the two men I trusted most handed her everything on a silver platter.

They called me spoiled. Selfish. Difficult.

They even believed I started the fire that killed our parents twelve years ago.

But here's the truth: Charlotte started that fire. I was the one who dragged them out.

They thanked the wrong sister. For twelve years.

Now they want me dead.

Fine. Let Penelope Ashworth die.

On my wedding anniversary, I died a brutal death, drained of every drop of blood by my husband’s socalled “sacred snow ferret”. That creature was Sylvia, his longdead true love striving for rebirth. For three long years, I was nothing more than a disposable blood vessel. Even my own son betrayed me for hollow, false affection.
Given a second chance at life, I cast aside all foolish mercy. I watched coldly as my hypocritical mage husband and traitorous son doted on the ferret, and documented every one of their heinous crimes.
I turned his longawaited reunion into a boneandflesh feast.
When the Templar tribunal finally arrived to pass judgment, I broke free from the cage of my old life and stepped out toward my own boundless freedom.

I make a living solving cold cases, earning just enough to get by.
Until I saw my long-time crush on the latest corpse.
He used to be an unreachable light, but now he's the deepest darkness before my eyes.
At this moment, he stands across from me, eyes full of innocence, asking for my help, saying he loves me.
Should I arrest him, or trust him?

or fifteen years, I loved Nolan Mercer from a distance. He was golden, decent, and way out of my league. I was the tycoon’s unwanted fifth kid who learned early to take what she wanted.

Then a glowing romance system popped up and told me I was his destined love interest. So I stopped being nice.

I trapped him into marriage. I dragged him into bed every chance I got. He told me he hated me every day, and I didn’t care. Fate said he was mine.

Six shameless months later, the system came back screaming: [ERROR! You’re not the heroine. You’re a side character. Leave the male lead immediately.]

Fine. I handed my cold, miserable husband the divorce papers and wished him luck with his real love.

There was just one problem.

The man who swore he’d do anything to get rid of me suddenly won’t sign. He’s “forgetting” cuff links under my pillow, drinking himself stupid at galas, and cornering me in stairwells to beg me not to leave.

Turns out the system got a lot more wrong than just me.

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.

Being born a Moretti daughter means one thing: the family owns you.

In my past life, Vivian thought she had what it took. She promised Dad she could handle it, swore up and down she'd make him proud. Six months later, she'd burned through three generations of work and left us with nothing but an empty shell. Our enemies found her eventually. Broke both her legs.

And me? I married Marco Rossi.

Everyone envied me for marrying into one of the most powerful families in the city. What they didn't know was that I was his prisoner. He used me, turned my family's connections into stepping stones for himself, spent my money on his mistresses, used my body as a bargaining chip at his deals.

In the end, Vivian killed me. Jealous of my "perfect life," she dragged herself over on those broken legs and put a bullet in me.

When I open my eyes again, I'm sitting in Dad's study.

The door slams open. Vivian bursts in, cutting me off before I can speak. "Dad! I'm marrying Marco Rossi! Give the family to Sienna!"

I look at her and smile.

This time, I'm going to survive. And I'm going to do a hell of a lot better than just survive.

I was born able to see threads tying certain people to one another. A thin red thread stretched right above Mom and Dad’s heads.
I hurried over to Mom at once. “Mom, why is there a red thread connecting you and Dad?”
Mom laughed when she heard me, booping my nose fondly.
“That’s proof that Daddy loves me.”
Later, at our family gathering, Aunt Celia brought me a present just like she always did.
“Luna? Come see what Auntie brought you.”
I trotted over and found a cloth doll.
Just then, Dad walked up, knelt down beside me, and stroked my head.
“Luna, what do you say?”
I glanced up at Dad, then turned to look at Aunt Celia.
Little me was filled with huge confusion.
“It’s weird. Why is there such a thick red thread connecting Dad and Celia?”

I married into a wealthy family in place of my runaway sister, but my husband, Damian, refuses to touch me.

He refuses to dance with me in public, rejects my kiss, and even has my luggage dumped in the hotel lobby.

Believing he despises me, I pull off my wedding ring and prepare to leave.

But the moment my blood touches the blue diamond, I hear his thoughts:

“Leave. I want her too much. If she comes any closer, I really will hurt her.”

Three years ago, on a night when it wouldn't stop raining, I carried Victor Caster out of a pile of bodies.

He'd taken two bullets. He grabbed my ankle and said: when I get back, I'll give you the world.

But when he came back, it was my sister Sabrina on his arm.

After that she was the woman who ran the Caster house, and I was the crazy one they locked away upstate.

Three years later, at the engagement party, Sabrina opened up her own wrist and screamed that I did it.

I tried to explain.

But the man I'd given half my life to save wouldn't even look at me. He just flicked his hand.

"Her hands don't know their place. Take them. And I don't want that face in front of me."

He never once looked up.

So why is it that the next time he sees me, the moment he really looks at my face, he goes down on his knees?

Did you slaughter your roommates?" the detective sneered. "No!" I screamed. The polygraph technician stared at the flawless readouts confirming I told the absolute truth. I was innocent. But if a human didn't tear those girls apart in our locked dorm... then what exactly is hunting me now?

For five years, my husband told me I was lucky. A human with no magic, no name, no worth — and he, the Dark Elf King, had taken me in anyway.
I believed him. I swallowed every insult in his court. I let his nobles call my son a halfbreed bastard.
Then he promised our boy he'd come to his fifth birthday, and instead he knocked him across the garden for biting the woman he'd been sneaking off to every night.
That was the day I stopped waiting.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I took my son and I erased us — our scent, our warmth, every hair, every speck of dust. As far as the world is concerned, we were never in it at all.
Three months later, he's on his knees outside the Celestial Sanctum, offering half his soul to any god who will find his missing wife.
He should be careful what he asks for.

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.

Everyone in town said I dumped my blind boyfriend because I couldn't stand being poor.
Five years later, I'd become a blind drifter myself, relying on handouts just to eat.
And he'd become one of Silicon Valley's hottest rising tech moguls.
He recognized me, but pretended he didn't.
He wanted me on my knees. Wanted me begging. Wanted me to pay for "abandoning" him.
Until he found out the person who gave up everything for him back then was no one else...
But me.

I stood by him through the grief of losing his first love, serving as his substitute wife for five years, giving birth to two pups, and giving him my all. Yet none of that mattered the moment his white moonlight said, “I’m back.”

For his first love, he forced me to kneel and beg for mercy to confess to a crime I never committed—only then did he tell me it was just a dummy of my brother!
But his first love was the one who told me she’d secretly swapped my real brother for the dummy long before.

My husband favored her, my own pups turned against me. They saw me as an enemy while worshiping his white moonlight like a treasure.

My heart died. I divorced him and fled far away. Only then did they wake up to the truth: his white moonlight was a venomous witch, and I was the one who’d been wronged and loved him truly.

let a stranger destroy me in a hotel room.

Two days later, I walked into my internship and found him sitting behind the CEO's desk.

Now I fetch coffee for the man who made me moan, and he acts like I’m the one who crossed a line.


It started with a dare. It ended with the one man she should never want.

June Alexander didn’t plan to sleep with a stranger. But on the night she celebrates landing her dream internship, a wild dare leads her into the arms of a mysterious man. He’s intense, quiet, and unforgettable.

She thought she’d never see him again.
Until she walks into her first day at work—
And finds out he’s her new boss.
The CEO.

Now June has to work under the man she shared one reckless night with. Hermes Grande is powerful, cold, and completely off-limits. But the tension between them won’t go away.

The closer they get, the harder it becomes to keep her heart and their secrets safe.

When Sakura once again meets the gorgeous brothers, Sebastian and Darcy Princeton, forbidden feelings are awakened, and an old flame ignites.
As an orphan, Sakura is accustomed to being bullied and unloved. When she is taken in by the wealthy Princetons, she works hard to earn the family’s trust and love. Her endeavor, however, ultimately leads to a series of unfortunate incidents.
Now, years later, the twenty-three-year-old beauty dreads the moment she once again has to meet the seven gorgeous Princeton brothers, due to arrive for their cousin’s wedding. Dodging their very presence is next to impossible since the brothers are attracted to her like moths to a flame and thwart her escapes at every turn.
When she finds them vying for her, she is torn between Sebastian, the brother who loves her and watches over her from a distance, and Darcy, the brother who was once her best friend and now secretly yearns for her forgiveness and her love once again.
Will Sakura choose one over the other, or accept them both as her heart’s desire?

"She's dying, can't you be more generous?" That's what my husband said.
So I was generous.
I gave her my husband's time when our daughter was in the ER for an allergic reaction she caused.
I gave her my once-in-a-lifetime concert ticket because "she deserved it more."
I even endured our daughter wishing I would die in her place.
But when he accused me of orchestrating a kidnapping to win his sympathy, I knew my generosity had run out. I threw the divorce papers in his face. He laughed, thinking I couldn't survive without him.
He's about to find out how wrong he is.

When Sarah is forced to accept a marriage proposal in place of her half sister, Veronica, she never imagined the man would be Edward Huxley.
Edward Huxley, the formidable owner of Huxley Airline and Shipping Company and the most eligible billionaire bachelor in the country, is shocked and enraged when he discovers that the woman in his bed is not Veronica, as he expected, but the unknown and seemingly bland illegitimate Maxwell daughter. Their encounter ends in an unplanned one night stand.
When Veronica learns of Edward's true identity, she decides she wants him for herself. Together with her mother, she accuses and humiliates Sarah.
Heartbroken and shattered, Sarah leaves the country. Four years later, she returns as a different woman with a successful career and her adorable twins, who share the unmistakable features of the country's billionaire heartthrob, Edward Huxley.
Edward is stunned by her transformation and finds himself falling for her all over again. Determined to win her heart, he sets out to rebuild their family. But will he succeed, or is he already too late with the enigmatic Benicio always by Sarah's side, his eyes filled with love and devotion?

“You’ll move in with me and your sister will be taken care of. You'll tell your sister that I'm your new boss.” He spelled out.

“You'll wait for me every night on my bed so I can fuck you mercilessly for making me set my eyes on you after seven years. I hate you. You have no fucking idea.”

I wanted to sob. It was fucking over. I am giving the next three years of my life to this man, just so I could save my sister and clear my debts.
…….

My life has been a rollercoaster of suffering with no end. It became worse the very minute I was at my lowest, and I locked eyes with my high school bully.

I had no idea how he found me but now that we were all grown, I knew he would never leave me alone.

After seven years, he still didn't change. He was still a thorn in my flesh, and he always managed to make me wet and weak in the knees.

I ran. I ran. I ran, but he always found me.

Everyone thinks Nadia Hart is pure innocence—sweet, soft-spoken, and untouchable. She is the girl no one ever suspects of harboring dark, dangerous desires. Her best friend, Brielle, is the exact opposite: loud, reckless, and addicted to taking whatever—and whoever—she wants. Especially her own stepfather, Kane Vale.

Brielle treats Kane like a secret she owns. Nadia listens, pretending not to care. But behind her quiet smile lies a dirty secret: Kane isn't a stranger. Long before Brielle brought her home, Nadia shared an uninhibited night with him in the dark.

The moment Kane sees Nadia in his house, recognition burns through him. He knows exactly who she is, and he’s been waiting for her to break. What starts with a covert midnight rendezvous and a near-catch by a sleepwalking Brielle quickly spirals into a taboo dynamic. When Nadia catches Brielle and Kane in the act the next afternoon, Brielle doesn't back down—she pulls Nadia deeper into the fire, convincing her to join them in a boundary-pushing threesome......

I used to be an ordinary person — until one day, my younger brother killed someone.
Everyone got down on their knees, begging me to save him. So I took his place and went to prison.
On the day I was released, my fiancée Teresa publicly broke off the engagement: "A convict like you doesn't deserve me!"
My adoptive parents disowned me on the spot and kicked me out: "You're a murderer. We don't care if you live or die!"
I agreed to everything right then and there.
But when they found out who I really was, they regretted it.

"And.. you are?"
"Camila..."
Lawson frowned. "What..."
Camila’s gaze hardened. "I didn't walk back from the dead for a friendly chat or to rehash how thoroughly you all ruined what was left of my life..." She held her chin up as if trying to keep herself from breaking her fragile composure. "I came to settle the score."


Camila thought she had lost everything when she received the shock of her life. But when she was forced to fake her own death and assume a new identity, she realized she had been accidentally given a second chance.
This new life came with a new discovery that Camila, the once shameful and disgraceful wife of the wealthy and powerful Miller family, turned out to be a force to be reckoned with, a rival worthy of respect, and a woman not to be underestimated.
Not even her husband stood a chance.

Warning Matured Content [Rated +18]

Randall lifted the veil I was wearing and gently pressed his soft lips against mine. I closed my eyes.

“I am so pleased to present the newlyweds, Randall Adams and Winter Harris Adams!”

I yearn after I open my eyes. It is just a dream. But that didn't happen because rising my eyes, only the click, the light of the camera, and the applause of the people popped into my depressed eyes.

Randall, the handsome billionaire, stands beside me, claiming that we have been a pair of lovers for so long.

But I don't recognize him.

Because I lost my memory.

The third girl knelt between his legs, planting slow, teasing kisses across his abs, their warm breath mixing with the haze of smoke in the room.

The dim, colored lights bathed their bodies in a sultry glow, and the pounding music created a rhythmic beat to their movements.

Damian’s head lolled back lazily as he took a drag from his cigarette, the smoke curling seductively around him. He exhaled slowly, his eyes half-lidded with pleasure and disinterest, as if none of this was new to him.

The door suddenly creaked open.

"Ugh, what the hell is this?!" a startled female voice pierced through the music.

I used to be the Rosewood family's most beloved youngest daughter, until they took in Sabrina as their adopted daughter and everything changed.
My family said Sabrina's father saved my life, that I owed her everything. They forced me to donate blood for Sabrina until I was drained dry, demanded I give her my heart, and I died a miserable death on Christmas Eve.
As I lay dying, I could still hear them discussing how to throw Sabrina 'a unique Christmas party' to celebrate her recovery.
When I opened my eyes again, I'd been reborn, sent back to the day they first forced me to donate blood years ago.
This time, I yanked out the needle myself and slammed the family severance papers at their shocked faces. "The papers are signed. From now on, I have nothing to do with the Rosewoods."
Later, I became Nicholas Harrington's bride, taking on the surname that commanded worldwide respect. My designs swept across the globe, my name shining on the international stage, while the Rosewood family went bankrupt. My brothers knelt outside the Harrington estate, sobbing and begging for my forgiveness.
I stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching coldly. Nicholas wrapped his arms around me from behind, his chin resting gently against my hair, and murmured adoringly, "My princess, I've acquired the Rosewood family. It's yours now."

Ava Duval gave up everything for love. She left a promising fashion career and poured five years of her life into building a multimillion-dollar empire from the bottom with her husband by her side.

She was a bubbly woman until she lost her children during delivery, and out of her husband's love, or so she thought, he adopted twins for her, and she raised them as her own.

She was blessed to have a supportive husband and did not hesitate to give him her kidney when she heard that he was terribly ill. She gave him pieces of herself until the truth surfaced.

Her pregnancy had been purposely sabotaged; the children were never adopted but are her husband's blood, borne by his mistress, and the kidney she had donated never went to her husband.

She realizes too late that she sacrificed everything for a man whose heart was with another woman. Now, she has to rebuild herself with the scars she has gotten from marriage.

Will she forgive him, claim her revenge for every cruel thing that has been done to her, or pick up the pieces and move on? Or will she do all three until her heart is finally satisfied?

Zoe Anthony had one mission: assassinate Alpha Jeremy Dylan, the ruthless monster whose family slaughtered her parents. But when her sniper bullet misses and plunges his little sister into a coma, Zoe becomes the most hated captive in the Lakewood Pack.

Bound and marked to be burned alive, she expects a brutal end. Instead, a single touch from the devastatingly handsome Alpha changes everything.

For twenty-nine years, Jeremy has been frozen by a dark curse—unable to feel desire for any woman. Until Zoe. Her touch is the only medicine that wakes his inner beast.

Spared from the fire but condemned to his torment, Zoe is made his slave. By day, she endures the pack's cruelty. By night, she belongs entirely to the Alpha who vows to break her. But the Moon Goddess plays the ultimate trick: they are fated mates.

When a deadly conspiracy forces Jeremy to pull the trigger on her himself, he thinks he’s buried his problem. He doesn’t know Zoe survived. He doesn't know she's carrying his secret heir—the most powerful Alpha ever conceived. And he certainly doesn’t know that the mysterious, lethal foreign princess entering his pack months later is the very same slave girl returned to burn his kingdom to the ground...

One trigger. Two enemies. A bond written in blood.

My name is Leila Valente.
When I was 10, my mother died, and the comfort of life was gone forever. So now I can only go to St. Jude University on a scholarship.
The only thing I hate the most in my life is poverty.
I love rich men the most, because they can make me live a rich life quickly, but not all men are fools and willingly offer what they have with both hands.

Until one day, in a street accident, I acquired a superpower: as long as I actively touch someone's skin, images related to that person will appear in my mind, and later it will be revealed that it is the desire and trauma of that person at this stage.
A lot of people complimented me on my looks, and a lot of people were obsessed with my personality. Now I have this ability again.
I know exactly what I want, and I plan to use this ability to make these people fall in love with me, marry into that world, live a good life, know the truth about my mother's death, and take back everything that belongs to me. So far, no matter what I see with my ability, it hasn't caused me trouble. So why not use your superpowers well?
Can Lyra really get everything she wants with her superpowers? Is she ready to learn the truth about her mother's death?

She rejected him once. Now she must marry him—or watch her pack burn.
Kira Thorne never wanted a mate. As heir to the Crescent Vale Pack, she's spent her life proving she doesn't need one—especially not Damon Reed, the arrogant alpha whose bond she rejected six years ago. But when a territorial war threatens to destroy everything she's sworn to protect, her father makes an impossible choice: marry Damon to forge an alliance, or surrender their lands to their enemies.
Damon has spent years building his power, trying to forget the woman who shattered his pride. Now she's back in his life—not as his fated mate, but as a political pawn. The mate bond still burns between them, a constant reminder of what could have been. But this marriage isn't about love. It's about survival.
As negotiations turn into dangerous games of power and control, Kira and Damon must navigate a minefield of old wounds, pack politics, and an enemy who wants them both dead. The war they're trying to prevent may be inevitable—unless they can learn to trust the one person they swore to hate.

She was supposed to be powerless.

Everyone told her so: her family, her pack, and society itself.
Ravenna Vale was the mistake, the outcast, the shadow they were all ashamed to acknowledge.

But when her hidden power awakened, everything changed.

The Alpha wants her obedience.
The Council wants her compliance.
Her family wants her silence.

And Ravenna?
She wants none of it.

When a hidden Lycan discovers that she's not only powerful, but also unstoppable, she refuses to bow to anyone.
Not her family. Not the Pack. Not destiny.

She will rewrite the rules of their world.

This is the story of the woman who chose to become the feared Alpha, not the one they wanted her to be.

Welcome to HER reckoning.

Incubi were all the rage these days.
I couldn't afford one, so I picked one up off the street instead.
Unfortunately, mine seemed to be defective.
He had a terrible attitude, showed absolutely no interest in me, and would rather starve than feed on magical energy the way a proper incubus was supposed to.
Eventually, I gave up trying to figure him out myself.
I took a picture of the glowing sigil on his lower abdomen and sent it to an online seller who specialized in magical familiars.
The seller nearly lost her mind.
[MA'AM, PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE JOKING! THAT IS NOT AN INCUBUS!]
[THAT'S A DEMON. AND NOT JUST ANY DEMON. THAT'S ONE OF THE WORST KINDS!]

His military medals from three hundred years ago are the last mark of his human identity; now hidden in a junkyard, he is forced to tear off the disguise of the progenitor of the night due to a forced marriage. With powerful figures pressing in, vampires besieging him, and the Holy See approaching, he, in his mortal body, protects the orphan of his benefactor and faces the destined battle.

Everyone knew my twin sister wouldn't live past eighteen. So they gave her all the love, leaving me to survive in the shadows.
When I suffered a asthma attack on our birthday, my mother locked me in the basement.
"Stop faking it. Don't ruin your sister's last birthday," my mother hissed.
She thought I was throwing a tantrum for attention.
She was wrong.
I died on the cold concrete floor while they sang Happy Birthday upstairs.
Now, I am just a ghost floating in our living room. I watch my parents complain about my selfishness. I watch them make empty promises to treat me better tomorrow.
They don't know there is no tomorrow for me...

I once believed becoming Empress would prove I was worthy.
Instead, the crown cost me my sister, my children, my freedom, and finally my life.
Reborn before my marriage was decided, I refused to repeat the same mistake. I stepped aside for my sister and accepted an engagement to Prince Rui—the empire’s charming, notoriously unambitious second prince.
He promised we could remain husband and wife in name only.
Then he fought my brother for hurting me, stayed beside me through a deadly fever, and offered to set me free when he thought I loved someone else.
For the first time, losing the crown felt like winning my life.

"First, unlimited funds. Second, you clean up every mess I make. Third, keep out of my private life."
Those were the arrogant demands my student laid out when I, the top art professor in New York, offered to make him my exclusive protégé.
The entire faculty gasped. No one dared speak to a Voss heiress like that.
Instead, looking at his face, I gave a slow, quiet nod.
"Agreed," I whispered. "Just make sure you never ruin that face."
He thought I was just another rich, desperate woman blinded by love. He spent my money, flaunted his little girlfriend in my face, and trampled all over my dignity, thinking I would never let him go.
He forgot one crucial detail about being a substitute.
The moment the original returns... the fake becomes worthless.

When my fiancé lets his new assistant put my name on the family purge list, he tells me it was only a joke. He expects me to apologize, come home, and keep standing beside him while everyone watches another woman take my place. So I let the order go through. I leave his family, his city, and the future he thought I would never dare abandon.

Rule #1 of cheating: Always turn off your personal hotspot!
Text from Jaxon (7:00 PM): “Coach is killing us tonight. Stuck at practice. Wish I was at the concert with you, future wifey. 🥺”
My iPhone (8:30 PM): Connected to Jaxon’s Personal Hotspot.
My heart flatlined.
As fate would have it, the stage spotlight hit my face. The singer handed me a mic.
Instead of playing the lucky fan, I turned the concert into a massive manhunt.
The jumbotron found him in Section 104.
He wasn't alone.
When the cameras exposed his panicked face and the blonde in his arms, I gave him the ultimate send-off in front of a live audience:
"I'm officially dropping you. You two deserve each other. Match made in hell. "

Eight years ago, I formed a mate bond with Alpha Lucian Blackwood, ruler of the Silver Fang Pack, and became his Luna.
I thought it was a blessing from the Moon Goddess.
Only when he brought home that sick she-wolf, Jasmine Moon, did I finally understand.
I was nothing but a substitute.
A tool meant to take care of him and his son.
And now, they wanted me to hand over even the last of my dignity.

The poor girl my family funded is known as a "clumsy sweetheart."
Before the CIF Volleyball Finals, she spiked my drink with banned stimulants.
I was reported for doping, stripped of my UCLA scholarship, permanently banned, and expelled in disgrace.
When I confronted her, she cried innocent tears:
"Scarlett, I just wanted you to have enough energy to win... I didn't know it was banned."
My boyfriend Jake wrapped his arms around her, glaring at me: "She was just trying to help! Why are you always so mean to her?"
Ruined and depressed, they came to "apologize" with bottles of hard liquor.
She fed me lethal meds when I was drunk, watching me bleed to death on the floor.
Her excuse? "I'm so silly, I mixed up the pill bottles..."
And my boyfriend testified to the police that I committed suicide out of shame.
Then, I open my eyes. I'm back to the day before the finals.

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?

I gave him seventeen chances to marry me, yet he eagerly toasts with his new flame, showers her with gifts, and retreats to hotels with her.
He has forgotten that I do not have pierced ears, presenting me annually with earrings I can never wear; he has overlooked our seven-year anniversary but vividly remembers the one-year anniversary of his new lover's employment.
Seventeen promises of marriage, each one an empty promise; seven years of devoted affection, ultimately reduced to a mere laughingstock.
So I flew straight to his worst nightmare—Mexico.
And let him burn in the regret he never earned.

I died on my birthday.

While kidnappers shattered my limbs and violated me to death, my family was throwing a grand party for my sister Chloe—yes, we shared the same birthday, but only hers was worth celebrating.

I called my father for help. He sneered and hung up: "Stop using this pathetic kidnapping stunt to ruin Chloe's birthday."

I called my fiancé Mark. He said with disgust: "If you're going to die, do it somewhere far away."

In the final second before the flames consumed me, I finally understood—

I was never loved in this family.

And now that I'm truly dead, now that they've discovered Chloe hired those men to kill me, now that the truth has been exposed to the world...

Will they regret it?

Or will they, as always, continue to favor Chloe and blame everything on me—the dead one?

Six months after our breakup, I ran into my ex-boyfriend, Arlo, at the Beach Club's VIP party.
His new girlfriend, Calliope, tapped her champagne flute to demand everyone's attention.
"Let’s propose a toast to Arlo, who finally crawled out of his pathetic past."
Arlo wrapped his arm around Calliope and threw a mocking glance at my dress.
"The smartest thing I ever did was letting that charity case pay off my fifty-grand car loan."
"Once I got my Varsity jacket, I dumped her for my actual queen."
A collective gasp ripped through the room.
Everyone thought I would storm out in tears, but I just smiled and signaled for the show to go on.
"What exactly are you raising a glass to, Juno?"
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her calmly.
"I’m just celebrating that you guys are having fun on my turf."
"YOUR turf?"

You know you're getting cheated on when your strictly private husband accidentally goes live on Instagram at midnight.

The camera showed Chloe—the newest streamer signed to his company—wearing cute fluffy ears, blushing under the neon lights of a late-night gastro-pub. Ethan's voice boomed in the background, laughing softly: "Look at this cute little foodie."

In five years of marriage, I had never once been featured on his phone screen. But here she was.

By the time someone commented, "Dude, wrong account!", the stream violently cut out.

Next thing I knew, my screen flared up with Ethan's contact name.

In the past, I would've lost my mind and confronted him right then and there.

Tonight, I just watched the missed call counter hit zero and laid down to sleep.

The winter I was eight, I found my own face in a trash can.
It was on a missing-child flyer. The girl on it had been gone five years. She had a birthmark on the back of her neck.
So did I.
There was a reward. A number with a long row of zeros. I didn't want it.
I was cold. I hadn't eaten since yesterday.
I just wanted a mom.
So that night, with a stranger's coins, I called the number at the bottom.
A woman answered on the first ring and screamed a name at me like it was mine.
She got to say it three times.
Then a hand came out of the dark behind me and hung up the phone for me.

My husband is sleeping with my own sister. Cliché, right? I drove to Black Pine Lake to catch them, but stumbled into a brilliantly twisted murder trap instead. Now, the cops think I am a jealous, psychotic killer. Declan believes he dug the perfect grave for me. But did he?

Three months after my miscarriage, at the celebration dinner he hosts for my "recovery," he tells his partners in French, "She's just a trophy wife. Doesn't understand basic business."

"What about that new assistant? The twenty-two-year-old?"

"So much smarter," he laughs. "And in bed? Way more exciting."

They think I don't understand. To everyone here, I'm just the stay-at-home wife who gave up her VP position at an investment bank to play house.

They don't know I minored in French. I spent a full year studying abroad at the Sorbonne.

As I lay in the operating room, bleeding out from the miscarriage, he was already seeing her.

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

He has no idea this is the last time he'll ever see it.