1435 Book(s) Related to cold enough to burn

Life is something which doesn't happen according to our wish, but thrills us with it's unexpected twists and turns.

For most of the girls,life is an everyday challenge. From her birth,she faces problems in many forms- girl discrimination, love, lust, betrayal, s*xual harassment, acid attacks and many more. This book is a war against acid attacks on girls.

Everyday we read about acid attacks on girls, in newspaper. In this book, let's see how RUDRANI fights with fate, life, society and wins her life.

The real men never fall for outer beauty of a girl. He will try to read her heart and loves her as she is. Let's see whether ASHUTOSH is a real man to understand RUDRANI or a normal guy who hurts her as everyone do.

Love is a magical word which had power even to tranform a life of a person who doesn't have any hope on life. It can heal a heart or break a heart. Let's see whether ASHUTOSH heals RUDRANI or further breaks already broken her heart one more time.

Love is something which we love a lot. But in this book let's learn to love ourselves first to be loved by anyone else. Let's start being in a position where we share love to others than expecting love from others. Let's see love from a different side. Let's see a girl who is strong enough to decide her own fate. A Romantic journey which includes many emotions and dreams.

Join me in the beautiful and never experienced love journey of RUDRANI and ASHUTOSH.

I LOVE YOUR TEARS- He healed her Heart which was broken by him.

She was broken; he healed her.

She was betrayed; he taught her to fight back.

She was selfless, and it was taken as an advantage by everyone; he made her strong and smart.

She was immature; he changed her thought process.

She was a failure; he brought a successful and inspirational woman out of her.

She lost trust in love; he showed her what true love is.

She thought she was a broken bottle and useless; he encouraged and supported her to become an inspirational woman and source of life for many women who were broken and betrayed.

Jwala, the one who inspires every woman. Agni, who encouraged her. If life throws challenges at you and troubles you at every point, never give up. CHALLENGE THE CHALLENGES AND TROUBLE THE TROUBLES.

The concept in brief:
Patience, sacrifice, kindness, tears make a person strong, but not weak. Every success starts with failure. Any great story contains tears. Pain makes a person know their hidden capacity. Never ask God why me because God or fate gives problems only when you are capable of facing them. A stone which was depleted by a sculptor turns into a beautiful sculpture. A person who suffers most becomes most successful person on the Earth.

Girls are not vulnerable; they are strong. They inherit qualities like love, sacrifice, patience, and kindness which enhance the beauty of their heart but often misinterpreted as their weakness. They bear pain because of their kind heart, but they can create miracles if they are left freely without binding their legs. Read the book to find out how a naive girl Jwala, who faced worst circumstances, became an independent woman with encouragement from the love of her life, Agni.

He married her for revenge by blackmailing her father. She married him for her dad who loves her so much.

He is kind and loving to everyone except to her and her father. She couldn't forget her past love and move on. His anger made her scared of him every minute. He forced her to cut all connections with her family.

Why a carefree and loving Jay became an arrogant and rude husband? What is his past? Will he torture her to hurt her father forever? Or gives her love? Is it possible for her to move on forgetting her past love and forgiving Jay for marrying her without her acceptance?

The story revolves around Jay’s revenge against Vidya’s father. Vidya becomes a toy in the game of his revenge as her father loves her a lot. What's the reason behind his revenge will be revealed later. A girl who is loved by her family a lot faces hatred from Jay who makes her life the worst. Is it possible for her to forget her past love and love the one who hurts her every second? How would fall for one another? Let’s see how she makes her life filled with her husband’s love by valuing the sacred bonding of marriage.

Let's see the journey of Jay and Vidya whose bonding started with hate but finally made them to fall for one another completely. See how he became her confidence and how she became a support to him in his lonely fight over his enemies.

Diya is a great, bold, and adventurous journalist. She is known for bringing out the darkest secrets of the high profile people. But, none knows about the darkest secret of her life.
Shourya is a sincere, emotionless, brave, and honest cop. He is a terror in the hearts of the criminals. His duty is everything to him, and love, relationships, and family are trash to him.
Unexpectedly, Diya and Shourya were trapped in a marriage by the Central Home Minister, an enemy to both of them. Shourya doesn't know about the darkest secret of Diya's life. After a long time, Diya's trials to win Shourya's love became successful. But before they get closer, her darkest secret comes out, ruining Shourya and his family's reputation. And her secret is also connected with his past, which none of them knows it.
What is Diya's past, and how is it related to Shourya? Is he going to forgive her for hiding such a big secret from him? Does he accept her after knowing her secret? Inspite of politics and many conspiracies, is it possible for Diya and Shourya to chase the happiness and love they craved?

Her heart was broken from her childhood. She has no way to find but she fought with every obstacle in her life and reached the goal of her life.

Her life is not a fairy tale. She is not a princess. She is a common girl who faced the wrath of society and was betrayed by the people whom she trusted like her life. But she didn't break though her heart was broken.

When she became the billionaire by achieving her dreams, there happened an incident where she was married without her consent.

She didn't love him. She hates family. She hates bonding. She hates children. She hates everything which is an obstacle to her dreams.

He is a man of his world who married unwantedly. He didn't want to know her heart. He didn't want to heal her. He doesn't care for her because he assumes that she is money minded girl who never know to love.

Will he ever know her heart? Will he ever heals her?
Will she ever loves her husband? Who will play the cupid in their tale? Why do they hate marriage?

The story of a girl Roopa who aspired to join the Indian Police Service and then the Intelligence Bureau, which is a part of the National Investigation Agency of India (NIA). Joining NIA is nothing, but being ready to give up life at any time for the safety of the nation. It is highly risky and confidential. Maintaining secrecy and being prepared to accomplish the mission assigned at any time is the primary duty of the team of NIA.

Roopa joined the NIA clearing the Civil Services, the seventh toughest exam in the world, which is unknown to her parents. As her parents opposed her goal to join the Police Department, Roopa achieved her goal, hiding it from her family. Her parents got her married to Preetam, who is handsome and wealthy. He married her with love, but his love turned into anger when he came to know the secret of her profession.

The entire nation except her parents, husband and in-laws appreciated Roopa for her courage, sincerity and never give up attitude. However, her family accused her saying she is reckless, selfish and cares least for the family.

Let us join in her journey where Roopa inspired every girl and changed the mindset of every parent, in-laws and husband.

Sakshi's POV:

"As of today, you are dead," said Randhir, increasing my fear.

"I am sorry, please," I said.

"I will never forgive you. You are the one who ruined my life. I married you to show you how painful it is to be cheated by someone you trust," Randhir said, coming toward me.

"I've realised my mistake. Please, trust me," I said, begging him.

"You deserve to be hated, punished, and thrown away, not to be trusted, loved, or forgiven, my beloved," came Randhir's immediate reply.

I moved back even though I knew well that I couldn't escape him. Randhir was my husband, and no one knew that he had married me for revenge.

"Stop right there. Don't you dare take even one more step without my permission."

My sister drugged me, dressed me as her, and sent me into the room of the Alpha she was supposed to marry.

Everyone believed Adrian Blackmoor was broken.

Silver restrained him. The Council watched him. Even my sister believed he was too dangerous to touch—and too ruined to recognize the woman beneath the veil.

She wanted to become Blackmoor’s future Luna.

She just did not want to pay the price that came with the title.

But Adrian knew I was not her the moment I stepped into his room.

He did not expose me.

Instead, my sister continued wearing the title of Blackmoor’s future Luna, while I became the one sent back whenever Adrian needed calming.

The Council wanted a Luna who could keep their most dangerous Alpha under control.

My sister wanted a substitute who would bear every risk in her place.

My family wanted a daughter who never questioned the life they had chosen for her.

Everyone expected me to obey.

Everyone except Adrian.

The man they called broken was the first person who ever treated my choice as something that mattered.

Little by little, he returned what my family had taken from me long ago—

the right to decide my own fate.

They placed me on the board believing I would always remain their sacrifice.

They never imagined that the piece they had thrown away would one day overturn the entire game…

…and write new rules for everybody.

I’m Aurora. I died at the hands of my family.
“You were born a walking curse to this Pack. Taking Nora’s place and marrying Liam is what you owe us!” My mother, Patricia, bound my arms and legs with a rope dusted in silver powder. My sister Nora raised a silver-laced dagger and drove it straight into my heart. “Your name, your mate, everything belonged to you is mine!” Then she used a face-shaping spell to transform into my appearance, took over Black Moon manor, and waited for my Alpha mate, Liam, to come home.
I became a ghost and was pinned to her side by a soul-sealing array, forced to watch her clumsy imitation. “Liam, I made your favorite wild-berry oatmeal.” But a wolf’s nose never lies. Liam frowned and stepped away. “That artificial perfume on you… that isn’t her.” I watched him spend sleepless nights after his Wolf-Soul Stone shattered. I watched him uncover the truth that my old injury on my left foot was gone, and “I” was no longer allergic to silver-scale fish. Only then did I understand: the Alpha who looked cold had already carved me into his heart.
Not until he dug up what was left of my body, two undeveloped twin pups still hidden inside me, did Liam finally break. With eyes burning red, he roared, “What you owe me… what you owe Aurora… you’ll pay with your lives!” When dawn rose, my soul dissolved into the morning light. All I wished for, in the next life, was to meet him somewhere without betrayal, to be two ordinary wolves who could protect our children, together.

In my past life, when the apocalypse broke out, I braved the pressure and opened the fortress gates to take in my mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who had nowhere else to go.
They shoved my wife and me straight into a horde of zombies.
My wife and I were reborn seven days before the apocalypse. I turned my head and saw the same fear and coldness surging in her eyes as mine:
"This time, don't open the door."
"Never." I smiled coldly.
Not only would I keep the door shut—I would watch with my own eyes as those bloodsucking ingrates, who had drained me dry in my past life, were slowly devoured by hunger and despair right outside the gate.

Married for seven years, I lived my life like an absolute joke.
For the sake of my brother, my wife personally uprooted the roses I had so painstakingly cultivated. To please her uncle, my daughter pointed at my nose and called me a "bad daddy."
The entire family even held a vote to force me to donate my bone marrow. My wife, Elena, raised her hand without a second thought: "You'll just lose a little bone marrow. Liam will die without you."
In that moment, my heart died.
The surgery was a success.
As the anesthesia wore off, Elena was holding my hand tightly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her voice trembled with remorse: "Aaron, I was a jerk before. As long as you were willing to save Liam, I will love only you for the rest of my life."
She thought I would be as pathetically grateful as a dog, begging for her affection and humbly forgiving her.
But I merely frowned in disgust and pulled my hand back as if shaking off garbage.
In the dead silence, I looked at this tearful woman before me and asked, politely yet confused:
"Excuse me, ma'am... who are you?"

At fifteen, my parents died on their way of volunteer teaching in underprivileged areas. I was adopted by the Miller family’s Don, Vincent and was brought up by himself. For ten years, he hauled me out of the mud, gave me a home, gave me favor no one else got and taught me what a “family” was supposed to mean.
On my eighteenth birthday, I climbed onto his bed and kissed him.
He called me disgusting with a face like ice. Later, he brought Isabella home, forced me to be her bridesmaid, and made me go with her to pick out wedding dresses and jewelry.
One shove from her was all it took for him to lock me in a pitch-black confinement room and he even had the light removed.
That was when I finally understood: everything I had could be taken back from me at any moment.

In my previous life, my wife was addicted to black market gambling on football, which caused us to lose everything.
To make matters worse, a zombie horde then broke out.
We had no shelter and were quickly torn apart by a horde of frenzied zombies.
After being reborn, she planned to run off with all the money, then dump me and elope with her lover.
What she didn't know was that I had awakened the ability to read minds and knew all her plans.

I took my sister’s place to save my family. Now I am living a life that could destroy me. I never wanted anything to do with the mafia. But when my twin sister vanished without a word, I stepped into her world and became her… the wife of Rowan, a man people fear and never question.
Every day, I live a lie. His son, Dante, looks at me like I am his mother, and something inside me breaks every time he says in a low voice that l look like his mom. But not everyone is fooled.
Rowan’s family watches me too closely. They see what does not belong and they are waiting for me to slip so they can get rid of me for good.
I tell myself I can handle it. That I just need to survive long enough to protect the people I love.
But I am losing control. Because the man I was never meant to love is starting to look at me differently. And the worst part is… I think I am falling for him too.

I begged my mom for ten dollars, but she smashed my head with a frying pan instead.

The next day, my mother posted on a forum asking:
"Hi everyone. My eldest son lied about the end of the world just to get ten dollars. I want to ask, how can I sell him on the underground black market to pay off his younger brother's $20,000 debt?"

The moment I saw that post, any remaining love I had for them died instantly. I snapped my phone's SIM card in half.

What she didn’t know was that a world-ending acid flood would descend upon New York tomorrow.

I had begged so bitterly for that ten dollars just to trigger the Ten-Million-Fold Return System to build a three-billion-dollar Doomsday Ark.

Since she didn’t want it, I gave the throne of the Ark Queen to the female classmate who casually tossed me some charity.

We’ve been married for five years. Then, she got pregnant with someone else's child.
In front of everyone, she said: "Ethan doesn't want this baby. You've always wanted one, right? Fine, take it and raise it."
In that moment, I finally understood: she wasn’t incapable of loving someone—she simply never saw me as a human being.
I took off my wedding ring, left it on the tray, and bought a one-way ticket to the North. My family said I wouldn't survive in the frozen North; she said that without her, I was nothing.
Three years later, she tracked me down using the GPS hidden inside that ring. She pushed open the door to my attic room, finding only a note I’d left: "Don't look for me. We're square."

"Daddy... so cold... and it hurts..." When my precious daughter Mia whispered these words in her weak voice, my heart felt like it was being torn apart.
The life-saving medicine was just ten meters away, but that damned anti-magic barrier had become an insurmountable chasm between life and death.
What made me even more furious was that the vampire guarding the gate not only extorted my life savings, but also demanded I kneel like a dog and lick his boots before he would open the door.
He didn't know that if the door stayed closed, it wouldn't just be my daughter who died—his son and mother would perish too!

Five years into my marriage, I took off my Donna necklace at the Rossi family’s New Year’s Eve banquet and Noah still thought I could never leave him.
He stood by the long table with his mistress, Amelia, and said in front of every capo, “Some people will never measure up to her. Not even close.”
I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a scene. I just turned and walked away. On my way out, my cousin Lucas, my fixer, handed me a cup of coffee.
Three days later, he brought me two pieces of news.
Amelia was four months pregnant. And Noah was trading family territory to get his bastard child recognized by the family.
“What are you going to do?” Lucas asked.
I stared out the window, thinking about the red lipstick stain on Noah’s shirt. Thinking about the smug look in his eyes when he told me, “I only helped her because I felt sorry for her.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wait until they think they’ve won.”
What Noah didn’t know was I was still holding one last trump card.

Betrayed to death by my own brother, I was reborn before the apocalypse descended.
He rushed to seize the god-tier [Copy] talent first, leaving the trash [Purification] talent for me.
He thought that with this talent, he'd have no worries and reign supreme in the apocalypse.
Meanwhile, I quietly closed the last door of my fortress.
He didn't know that his prized copying ability had a fatal flaw.

Loiza lost her pack. She lost her home. Now the Moon Goddess is giving her a mate—one she can’t run from, no matter how hard she tries.
Kayden has waited years for his mate. But Loiza isn’t here to fall in love. She’s here to survive. And the wolves? They’re already howling for her.
From the Caribbean sun to the cold of the Blood Moon Pack, a love forged by the moon. A bond tested by treason. A destiny no one can deny.


I am Loiza—Moon Goddess Priestess, last Queen of a fallen pack… and the woman fated to belong to the enemy.

When a blood-forged volcano wipes out my home, I lead my people straight into the territory of Alpha Kayden—my destined mate, and the one man I cannot afford to love.
Because love is weakness. And I have a kingdom to rebuild.

So I block the mate bond.
I silence the fire between us.
And I take his land as shelter… not as his Luna.

But secrets rot kingdoms from the inside.

Behind Kayden’s throne lies a nightmare—slave dungeons, corrupted Alphas, and a High Council willing to slaughter entire packs for power. When I uncover the truth, I don’t run.

I declare war.

Now I’m forging alliances with vampires and mermaids.
Raising twin Alpha heirs in the shadows.
And turning a broken island into the most powerful supernatural empire the world has ever seen.

Kayden wants redemption.
The Council wants my head.
And the bond I tried to destroy… is coming back stronger than ever.

This time, I won’t just survive.

I will rule.

"Why did you marry me?"

"Because I had no other choice."

The day my grandfather fell critically ill, I was abandoned by my boyfriend of seven years and lost my last pillar of support.

To fulfill my grandfather's dying wish, I married Charles William, a man I had never met.

Cold, arrogant, dangerous—that was my entire impression of this new husband.

It wasn't until after my grandfather's death that I discovered the William family harbored a shocking secret.

They weren't ordinary people at all.

And Charles was actually the future leader of the werewolf clan.

Facing my father's greed for the inheritance, my shattered family, and one crisis after another, I could only fight back step by step on my own.

Yet that man who had despised me from the start always appeared by my side whenever danger struck.

I thought this marriage was merely a transaction.

Until one late night, when Charles trapped me in his arms, his golden beast eyes locked tightly onto me.

"Daisy, you're already my wife."

"Isn't it too late to think about running now?"

“You think you can use me and walk away?”
His voice was ice, his hand around her throat.
“You signed the contract, sweetheart. That makes you mine.”

Camila agreed to marry billionaire Asher Reyes to save her dying mother — one year, no strings attached.
But behind his perfect smile lies the truth about her father’s death.
Now she’s trapped in a marriage built on secrets and vengeance, where every kiss feels like a lie.
When love starts to blur the line between victim and enemy…who will destroy whom first?

"Will you come with me?"

I stood before Mother's grave, extending my hand to that silent, withdrawn boy.

At that moment, I didn't yet know this decision would change my entire life.

—

After Mother died, I lost my home.

My stepmother and stepsisters saw me as a thorn in their side, while Father watched my suffering with cold indifference, as if I had never been his daughter.

Everyone hurt me.

Everyone except Alden.

He was withdrawn, mysterious, never one for words, always standing apart from the crowd. Everyone called him a freak, yet whenever I was bullied, humiliated, pushed to the brink, the person standing beside me was always him.

He would light torches for me in the darkness.

Would silently repair Mother's vandalized tombstone.

Would hold me when I broke down, whispering, "Mia, I'm here."

Later I discovered that Alden harbored secrets that didn't belong to this world.

And I, too, possessed powers I couldn't understand.

As the door to the magical world slowly opened, truth after truth began to surface. Yet more than those unknown dangers, what concerned me most was—that boy who had always protected me.

Why could he always find me first?

Why did his gaze toward me always carry emotions I couldn't read?

And why was I becoming more and more dependent on him?

Until one day, I discovered Alden's deepest hidden secret.

Only then did I finally understand.

That from a very long time ago, he had been running toward me all along.

What I didn't know was, when the day of destiny arrived—

Would I lose him,

Or fall in love with him.

“I was never supposed to fall for him.”

I was only the invisible boy at the ice arena—the one nobody noticed, the one who hid behind a camera and wrote anonymous stories about the hockey captain I could never reach.

Curtis Glass was everything I wasn’t. Powerful. Admired. Untouchable.

When he discovered my secret, I thought he would destroy me. Instead, he stepped closer, protected me, and made me believe I finally mattered.

But I didn’t know the truth.

Before I became the person he cared about, I was only a bet he made with his teammates.

A challenge.

A game.

And I was foolish enough to fall in love with the man who planned to break my heart.

Now Curtis says he never meant to hurt me.

But how can I trust the person who made me feel special… when I was only his secret from the beginning?

In their eyes, my wife Emma—an Ivy League tenured professor in biological sciences—is ruthless, rational, and obsessively clean.
For seven years, even when she washed her hands, she would only ever touch the right-side sink—hers.
Until that night at 3 a.m., when I pulled a strand of sandy-golden short curl—hair that belonged to neither of us—out of my men’s shower loofah.
And around the neck of a pre-med student named Lucas, I saw the antique silver cross my dying father left in my hands.
When I confronted her, my always-icy wife protected the little homewrecker, slapped me across the face, and called me a jealous, controlling chauvinist.
She thought I’d swallow it like a coward.
But she forgot: as a top cardiothoracic chief, the thing I do best is cutting out tumors.

"I didn't kill your father."

The man sat behind the desk, the dagger I'd personally driven into his chest still lodged there, blood staining his shirt, yet he didn't even furrow his brow.

"If I were the killer, you'd already be dead."

—

My name is Serena Belmont.

A week ago, I was the family heir. A week later, my father died mysteriously, my stepmother took control of everything, and my fiancé abandoned me without hesitation.

All evidence pointed to Carlo Morandi—the most dangerous man on Valdoro Island, the feared Mafia godfather.

For revenge, I broke into his estate.

But what he gave me was evidence my father had left behind.

Missing eight million euros, a mysterious university professor, secrets my stepmother had hidden for years... As the investigation deepened, I realized I'd never truly understood the truth behind my father's death.

And Carlo always stood behind me, clearing obstacles for me, blocking danger for me, yet never explaining why he did this.

Until later, when I discovered an old photograph taken secretly for six full years.

The person in the photo was me.

In that moment I finally understood—some people approach you to use you, some to destroy you, and some have kept you in their hearts since before you even knew.

But when the truth surfaces, I don't know whether I should fear the conspiracy behind my father's death...

Or the real reason Carlo protects me.

"Why do you need money this badly?"

Lorenzo gripped my chin, his gaze arrogant and dangerous.

"For money, are you really willing to do anything?"

I bit my lip and didn't answer.

Because if my two daughters couldn't survive, self-respect was worthless.

——

My name is Scarlett O'Brien.

To pay for my twin daughters' heart surgery, I signed a humiliating contract and sold myself to the most dangerous man in New York.

Lorenzo Vittori.

Young, handsome, arrogant, and the most feared heir to a mafia family.

He was cruel and sharp-tongued, humiliating me until I had nothing left, yet time and again he reached out his hand when I had nowhere else to turn.

And I told myself there was only a transaction between us.

As soon as I saved enough for the surgery, I would take my daughters and leave his world completely.

But I gradually discovered that this cold-blooded and vicious man seemed to hide even more scars than I did.

When the contract was about to end, true feelings began to spiral out of control.

I didn't know whether what awaited me would be redemption...

or a mafia storm destructive enough to destroy everything.

“I have waited five years to find you. Do you really think I will let you disappear again?”

Five years ago, I saved a dying stranger in the darkness.

I never knew that one act of kindness would change my destiny forever.

Now my company is falling apart, my fiancé betrays me, and I am forced into a contract with Andrew Skin—the most powerful billionaire in the city.

He is arrogant. Controlling. Impossible to understand.

Yet somehow, he knows things about me no one else could know.

Why does he look at me like he has lost me before?

Why does my heart react to him like we have known each other forever?

When his secret finally comes to light, I discover Andrew is not just a billionaire.

He is an Alpha wolf.

And according to his world…

I am his destined mate.

But loving a wolf means entering a war I was never prepared to fight.

"Tasha..."
She turned. He was right behind her and they stood so close that she could smell him. It was intoxicating. She hadn't realized how much she had loved the smell of him until having gone without it for so long.
"We can't be here for long, people will start to wonder-"
"You have no idea how much I missed you." He stepped even closer to her. "I thought about you every day. You're even more beautiful than I remember." He reached up and ran his hand through the hair that framed her face, her eyes closing involuntarily at his touch.
"Calder, you know we can't."
"I spent five years with nothing to keep me going through the hardest trials of my life but the thought of seeing you again," his hand touched her cheek. "holding you in my arms, kissing you." His thumb trailed across her lips and every fiber of her being felt like it would burst into flame. His eyes, like the ocean, looked into her soul, his body standing over her, so close she could feel the heat of him, and it made her yearn for more.
"Please, it's forbidden." Her voice was barely a whisper.
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching over her lips that were slightly open, her eyes that danced with flames of desire. "I don't care."


The young sorceress Astasha only wanted a simple life. Now, however, she finds herself in the service of the King as his Royal Fire Witch, and in love with the one true heir to the throne, his son, Calder. But their love is forbidden and when a demon threatens to destroy everything she holds dear, she must use the fire within to save the man she loves and his kingdom.

Owning a frail wolf, being rejected by my mate, and being humiliated by my brother ......
With all of these, two years ago, I chose to leave.
Two years later, I'm a powerful, attractive she-wolf.
It was at this time, my Alpha mate reappeared. He tried to get me to come back to him, but he didn't even recognize it was me!
I rejected him, but he didn't give up.
And slowly, I realized that he was different from what I remembered.
Just like me, he had the same many secrets in that buried past......
Should I reject him again?

"What if I want to escape?"

I looked at the man before me.

He was Alexei Cardis, vampire prince, and the one who would sacrifice me with his own hands at the Eclipse Ritual.

"Then escape," he said, lowering his gaze to meet mine, his tone calm. "Just don't get caught."

—

At seven years old, I was brought into this vampire castle.

From that day on, I had the best teachers, and the most dangerous guardian.

Alexei taught me to read, taught me to calculate, taught me how to survive amid lies and conspiracies.

But he never told me—that the meaning of my existence was to become the offering on the altar.

As the Eclipse Ritual drew closer, I began searching for a way to survive.

Forging evidence, sowing discord among nobles, stealing weapons, planning my escape.

Everyone wanted to use me.

Everyone wanted me dead.

Only Alexei was different.

He stopped others from getting close to me again and again, yet pushed me toward my destined fate with his own hands.

I could no longer understand him.

Until later, when I discovered a secret hidden in a wooden box.

It turned out that behind all these years of what I thought was captivity and exploitation, there was another, more dangerous emotion.

But if he truly cared about me—

Why would he raise me only to personally send me to the altar?

And when the night of sacrifice arrives,

Will I kill him and escape to freedom,

Or will he, for the sake of the entire vampire race, kill me with his own hands?

"Why won't you ask me for help?"

Vincent pinned me against the wall, his green eyes cold and dangerous.

"Because I want to destroy them myself."

I smiled anyway.

—

My name is Irene Perot.

Ever since my mother married into wealth, I've been the outsider no one wanted. My stepsister Johanna treated me like a stain on her perfect life. My fiancé betrayed me. Rumors spread through school like wildfire, and everyone waited for me to break.

But I've never been the helpless girl they imagined.

When they tried to ruin my reputation, I exposed every lie. When they tried to bury me, I climbed higher.

Then there was Vincent Green.

The most powerful man in the Green family. My ex-fiancé's uncle. Dangerous. Untouchable. A man who always appeared when my world was falling apart.

He wanted me to rely on him.

I refused.

Yet the deeper I dug into the secrets surrounding my family, the closer I was drawn to him—and to a truth neither of us could escape.

Because what began as a battle of wills soon became something far more dangerous.

And when Vincent finally offered me his protection, I had to decide:

Would I become the woman standing beside his throne...

Or the one who burns his empire to the ground?

At the Morello family’s Christmas dinner, I stood beside Vincent, waiting for him to announce our engagement.
Instead, in the very next second, he walked in holding a little boy and claimed him as his son.
And the woman he said he was going to marry? Scarlett Morello. The one he had always introduced as his “sister.”
The whole room erupted in applause. I stood there frozen, like a nail hammered into the floor.
Later, in his study, he took my hand and said, “Scarlett is dying. Late-stage breast cancer. She only has six months left. After she’s gone, I’ll marry you.”
But there was no guilt in his eyes. No love, either.
Then he told me to go to his villa that afternoon, to take care of the woman who was supposedly “dying.”
I opened the photo he sent me. Scarlett was lying in a hospital bed, pale-faced, an IV in the back of her hand.
A professional tennis player who had been playing in an exhibition match three weeks ago, and who had dropped three grand at Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue just five days ago.
But sure. She was “dying.”
At three in the morning, I was curled up by the front door of my apartment, crying so long I lost track of time.
Then my phone lit up. A text from an unknown number:
[Elena, I’m downstairs. When we were kids, you told me that once I controlled the docks on the East Coast, you’d marry me. The docks are mine now. Does that promise still stand?]
I pulled back the curtain and there he was. Ethan Vitale, my first love, leaning against the door of a black Cadillac, lifting a hand in a lazy wave.
Three years ago, when he left New York, he was only a Capo.
Now, he was the Don of the Vitale family.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t pressure me to come downstairs.
He came for one reason only, to let me know he was back.
I wiped away my tears and texted back:
[It still stands.]
Because I wanted to see for myself just how long that woman could keep up her act.

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.

When the apocalypse struck, my brother Leo didn't hesitate to choose the offshore sanctuary.
In our past life, faced with a choice between a powerful inland warlord commanding a massive army and a leader clinging to a solitary island, Leo snatched up the first option.
But when a zombie horde overran the mainland and defenses collapsed, he fled to my island for refuge.
Jealous of how well I was surviving the end of the world, he and our parents knocked me unconscious in the dead of night and threw me into the ocean to drown.
Now that I've been reborn, Leo immediately took our parents to the maritime base, leaving the "dangerous" mainland to me.
He thinks the ocean is a natural barrier that guarantees his safety, that he can sit back and relax while the world burns.
But there's one thing he doesn't know.
Zombies aren't just static, mindless walking dead—they evolve.
And when they do, that offshore sanctuary will become a floating hell with no way out.