551 Book(s) Related to taylor swift long story short lyrics

The scholarship understudy in our ballet company was a notorious "clumsy sweetheart."

Right before the Principal Audition, she secretly laced the pain-relief cream she gave me with a high concentration of banned substances.

It led to me being reported for doping. I was expelled from the company on the spot, my reputation was ruined, and my ballet career was completely destroyed.

When I confronted her, she hid in my fiancé's arms, crying so hard she almost passed out.

"Eve, I really just wanted to help you perform perfectly... I'm so stupid, I can't even tell the difference between muscle rub and banned drugs."

My fiancé held her, comforting her, and then yelled at me instead:

"She was just trying to be nice! Why do you have to be so cruel to a young girl?!"

Later, as I spiraled into severe depression, they tricked me into going to the river under the guise of "getting some fresh air."

While my fiancé went to park the car, she took the opportunity to shove me hard off the icy steps, leaving me to drown alive in the freezing river.

When questioned by the police, my fiancé didn't hesitate to commit perjury to clear her name, insisting I had jumped because I couldn't handle the scandal.

I opened my eyes again. I was back to the day before the Principal Audition.

When the armored car had room for only one passenger, Damian Russo chose me.

I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.

For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.

In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.

In my third year of marriage to Cassius, I saw his childhood sweetheart Serena post a photo on a luxury yacht with the caption: "My man always knows what I want."

That yacht was supposed to be my birthday gift.

I called the dealer. "Mr. Vitale transferred it to Miss Monte."

Cassius called immediately. "Stop checking up on me. I owed her this. Why are you so insecure?"

That night, he kicked my medication across the floor. "Stop reminding everyone I owe you my life."

Three years ago, I gave him my gas mask during a shootout. The toxins destroyed my lungs.

When he burned my face with an iron, he drove me to the hospital—until Serena called crying about a burst pipe.

He shoved me out into the pouring rain. "You're not going to die. She needs me more."

For the first time in three years, I realized I should stop saving a man who'd already chosen someone else.

Three years ago, I devoted my family's entire fortune to rescue my husband from the mire of impending bankruptcy. I once believed this was a mutual journey of love, until that day revealed the chilling truth — I had merely been nurturing a self-consuming wolf.
The metallic scent of blood still hung in the air of the delivery room when he signed the document relinquishing life support, trading our newly born child for a flicker of hope for his beloved.
As I lay in a pool of blood, dialing his number, I could hear the heavy breaths of him and his mistress on the other end.
The explosion of the yacht cast flames upon the sea, and in that life-or-death moment, he unhesitatingly let go of my hand.
They all believed I had perished beneath the waves.
Very well.
Now, my wedding invitation lies within his reach.

My twin sister was revered as the sun of our pack. I was the dark moon, condemned as an omen of disaster.

At my mate-binding ceremony, our parents stormed the altar. Claiming her wolf spirit was dying, they forced me to surrender my fated mate to her.

They seemed to have forgotten that today was my coming-of-age. An un-mated Daughter of the Dark Moon would be offered as a sacrifice to the ruthless Alpha of the Winter Pack.

With red, tear-filled eyes, I begged my mate, Kayden, not to abandon me. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hand.

"Maeve, she's your blood sister. I have to bond with her to save her life."

"As for being sacrificed to the Winter Tyrant, that's just a myth the elders made up to scare you."

My father stood by, reprimanding me with sheer impatience:

"What sacrifice? It's nothing but folklore! Can't you suffer a little grievance for your sister's life?"

To prevent me from ruining the ceremony, they dragged me into the damp, dark dungeon.

Up on the altar, my family joyfully continued the celebration.

But they didn't know the Grand Elder had come to me three days ago.

The moment my binding failed today, the emissaries of Winter would come to collect their due.

From today on, I would plunge into the frigid deadlands of the far North, bound to remain by that bloodthirsty tyrant's side until the day I die.

My pre-wedding party was in full swing.

 

Yet, the center of attention wasn't me, but Julian's childhood sweetheart, Blair. She had just announced she was auctioning off her "first kiss."

 

My fiancé, Julian, bought that kiss without a second thought.

 

Amidst the roaring cheers of the crowd, they locked lips. They looked like the perfect match, made in heaven.

 

In that moment, I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene.

 

I casually pulled out my phone and replied to the email from the Paris headquarters: "I accept. I am ready to start immediately."

Fresh off the operating table after barely surviving a miscarriage, I received a $50,000 bill—every cent spent on a waterbed and aphrodisiac aromatherapy on a yacht.
 
I called my husband, the only other person who knew about that account.

Over the phone, he sounded gentle yet aggrieved: "Honey, how could I afford a luxury yacht? It must be a banking error. You just lost our baby; please rest well. My flight to New York is taking off soon, and I'll be right by your side the moment I get back!"
 
I didn't expose the deafening sounds of the wild party in his background. I simply hung up.
 
He thought his lie was flawless. He had no idea that as the hidden heiress of the Windsor Consortium, that priceless yacht, the Poseidon, was actually a coming-of-age gift from my grandmother.
 
I ripped the IV out of my arm and dialed a number I hadn't called in years since marrying beneath my station.
 
"Grandma, you were right. He doesn't deserve me. I'm going to the ship to catch him red-handed."

I was dragged to the stand of the MRI Memory Court by my own flesh and blood.

Their demand? To forcibly extract my kidney to keep their uremic adopted daughter alive.

A guilty verdict meant losing not just my bodily autonomy, but my freedom for the rest of my life.

Bathed in the global spotlight, my parents performed as tragic heroes, while their adopted saint cried a river of deceit.

They thought they had cornered the perfect victim, waiting for the world to send me to the slaughter.

But the moment the memory holograms ignited and reality bled through, the hunters instantly became the hunted.

Six days after Alexander lost all contact, I navigated my way alone to the Nightfall Gala to find him.

The guard's expression twisted into something peculiar when he heard my purpose.

"You're saying you are looking for your mate, Prince Alexander? And what is your name?"

"I am Cecilia."

The guard let out a harsh, mocking snort. "Stop causing a scene! A blind beggar trying to pull a scam? Don't think you can just impersonate her just because you know the name of the Prince's mate."

"Everyone knows the Prince just gifted Cecilia the millennia-old Abyssal Night Crystal to celebrate her pregnancy! What the hell are you?"

Just then, the giant LED screen cut to the Gala's live broadcast.

"Allow me to formally introduce my partner, Cecilia. Furthermore, she is expecting. Our family is about to welcome a new heir." It was Alexander's voice.

"Thank you all. This is the greatest gift Alexander and I could ever receive."

The moment that sweet, timid voice echoed through the hall, a string violently snapped in my brain. A sharp ringing pierced my eardrums.

—It was the voice of my twin sister, Elena.

In my boyfriend Arthur's world, everyone could be labeled with an ER triage tag: green for minor, yellow for observation, red for critical.   As the emotionally stable one, I was forever the green tag in his life.   But my best friend, who cried and threw tantrums, was the red tag he never left the side of.   Two years ago, with my mother on the verge of death from heart failure on one side, and my best friend threatening suicide while drunk over a bad breakup on the other—he chose the latter without hesitation.   Until tonight. Separated by a single door, I watched him pull my best friend into his arms, kissing her with a greedy, desperate loss of control.

Three weeks after my son's death, I found the blood-stained cloth doll meant to "ward off disaster" with his name stitched on it.

Right there, in the hands of my husband's mistress, who was giggling as she idly toyed with it.
 
"The psychic said my life force was too weak to keep the baby, and that I needed a substitute to take the curse."
 
"I only sewed Leo's name into the doll. I never imagined... he would actually get sick and die."
 
"Declan, do you think Leo traded his life for our baby's?"
 
Through the crack in the door, the same man who had sobbed until he passed out at the funeral was gently stroking his lover's belly. "He was just unlucky. As long as our baby is safe, that's all that matters."
 
I turned away, pulled up the invitation for Chief Medical Examiner from the International Criminal Court in The Hague that I had shelved for a month, and hit accept.

From a young age, I understood that my asthma was a shackle for my entire family. My parents took turns caring for me, their hearts gripped by the fear of any sign of respiratory distress. In their fervent concern for my health, they even compelled my sister, Sophie, freshly accepted into university, to postpone her studies and return home to assist in my care.
At Sophie's eighteenth birthday celebration, I lingered at the edge of the crowd, my chest constricted, and my throat felt as if it were ensnared by invisible hands. I gently tugged at my mother's sleeve, my voice barely a whisper: "Mom, I... can't breathe. I want to go back to my room..."
In an instant, my mother whirled around, her eyes ablaze with fury, as though she had awaited this moment of eruption. She seized my inhaler and hurled it into the farthest corner of the room.
"If it's this painful, then go die!" she shrieked, her words cutting like a knife. "Stop using your illness to hold us hostage!"
The inhaler tumbled to the floor, rolling away like a forgotten piece of trash. I stared at it blankly, a sudden laugh escaping my lips.
And then, I truly died. Yet, in the wake of my passing, those who once found me a burden descended into madness.

On our third wedding anniversary, a catastrophic car accident plunged me into a state of life-threatening hemorrhage. Yet, before the medical staff, my husband roared: "Draw my wife's blood first; save Serena."

Serena—his first love.

It became apparent that he had never married me out of love; I was but a living blood bank, intended solely to sustain his cherished first love. It was only when I discovered I was pregnant that I realized he would not even spare the life within me.

That incarceration, cloaked in the guise of love, had nearly claimed my life. When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer the Clara who could be so easily sacrificed. This time, I shall ensure he pays for his blood debt, with no chance of redemption.

In my past life, when I eagerly handed my ultrasound to my gentle doctor husband, I didn't get a warm embrace. I got a scalpel. Without anesthesia.

The man I loved dragged me into a pitch-black basement to butcher me alive. My once-doting mother called me a filthy whore, treating me like a sickening stain on the family. My fiercely protective brother pinned me to a metal workbench, offering me up as a living sacrifice.

I died in utter agony, left to rot and be eaten alive by rats in the dark. Up until my last breath, I couldn't understand:

Why did a single piece of paper—a sonogram of a perfectly healthy baby—instantly turn my entire family into bloodthirsty monsters?

For a century, Carlos and I were the most envied lovers of the Dawn Court—yet our story ended in a cage of mutual, agonizing torment.

He loathed me for shattering a forbidden spell to forcefully awaken his memories, a desperate act that drove his precious half-elf, Lilia, to plunge to her death from the Astral Tower.

And I resented him for completely erasing our sacred vows. The very man who had once taken a lethal dragon's breath to save my life had awakened only to draw his blade against my throat—and offer his heart to my closest friend.

For the dark centuries that followed, he chained me in a sunless dungeon, using every conceivable cruelty to break my spirit.

Right up until my mana withered and I drew my last, agonizing breath, the venom he had spat through gritted teeth still echoed in the darkness: "Cecilia, you disgust me. I would rather have never remembered you at all."

In the cold embrace of death, clarity finally pierced my obsession. I understood then that I never should have used the ashes of our past to chain a man whose heart had already moved on.

I opened my eyes and found myself thrust back to the exact day Carlos returned hand-in-hand with Lilia, his memories entirely wiped clean...

My husband's mistress sent me a video to rub it in, claiming she had just beaten my "pathetic, begging mother" bloody and kicked her down the stairs.
I froze, glancing up at my actual mother sitting right across from me, quietly sipping her coffee.
Bewildered, I zoomed in on the video.
When I made out the scar on the wrist of the woman lying in the pool of blood, a cold sweat broke out over my body. I frantically called my husband.
But he interrupted my plea with extreme impatience: "Shut up! Roxy was right to teach her a lesson. She was just taking out the trash for me!"
Since he insisted on indulging his precious mistress's death wish...
I wonder if he'll still be able to say she was right to teach her a lesson when he sees his own grandmother's corpse.

On our wedding day, my fiancé, Preston Vale, didn't come to walk me down the aisle. Instead, he brought Silas Rowan—the "unstable" son of his family's former driver.
"Walk through the ceremony with him," Preston demanded, wrapping his arm around his secretary, Lydia. "Consider it your apology for upsetting her."
Lydia smiled with practiced delicacy. "It's just a little joke, Maren. Don't be so dramatic. I'll be keeping Mr. Vale company today."
Preston looked down at me with arrogant certainty. "It's a prank. Why are you getting so hysterical?"
Seeing the smugness in his eyes, the love I had protected for five years finally shattered. I calmly turned to the quiet man standing in the borrowed suit.
"He came dressed as a groom to take his bride. How is this a game?" I stepped away from Preston and held my hand out to the supposed lunatic. "If we are going to do this, we make it real. Silas, will you marry me?"

Spring is the season I dread the most.

Because every spring, my mere existence becomes a lethal weapon against my own son.

Theron told me he suffers from a highly rare condition: Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome.

If I so much as get near Flynn during the spring months, it triggers severe asthma attacks and terrifying asphyxiation.

To keep our boy alive, Theron takes him away to an isolated treatment center for three months, every single year.

And I stay behind, swallowing antidepressants by the handful just to survive the crushing guilt.

That is, until I found a photo hidden in Theron's burner phone.

In the picture, my husband and my son are tightly embracing another woman.

The so-called Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome was nothing but a sick lie—a meticulously crafted excuse so my husband could spend the season playing "happy family" with his first love.

......

I begged my detective husband to save our kidnapped son.

Instead, he hung up on my desperate calls, too busy comforting his terrified first love.

The kidnappers wanted half a million dollars—the exact amount he had just drained from our joint account to spoil her.

When I sobbed that his own flesh and blood was hanging by a thread, he scoffed and dismissed me as a jealous liar.

In the end, the kidnappers sent back my seven-year-old's severed head.

Even in the bloody aftermath, my husband fought tooth and nail for his first love—the true mastermind behind our child's death.

It wasn't until I dragged him before that tiny, headless body and made him identify his son that his mind finally snapped.

I loved Julian for ten years, carving every sweat-stained day into my love for him.
He once said I shined brighter than any gold medal.
Yet in five short minutes, he handed my dream, my glory, and my whole world to a scheming transfer girl.
Betrayed, discarded, and broken on the fencing strip, I lost my first love and everything I fought for.
Until the retired cold Olympic champion stepped out of the dark midnight shadows.
He offered me hellish training and a sharp blade of revenge.
I buried my soft heart, handed over my soul, and vowed to make every traitor pay.

Five years. Five years I gave everything to Paxton Sterling—my heart, my body, my wolf's soul. I built his empire as Chief Strategy Officer while wearing his mark like a badge of honor.

Then she came back.

Layla—my pure-blooded half-sister with her perfect smile and poison tongue. Within days of her return from Europe, Paxton was ready to throw me away like yesterday's news.

"I want to sever our bond, Freya. Lyra is my true mate."

Wrong move, Alpha.

He thinks I'm just another submissive mate who'll quietly disappear. He's forgotten I'm a mixed-blood Alpha who's been playing nice for far too long. While he's busy playing house with my backstabbing sister, Lucas Morgan—the most dangerous Alpha in the territory—is making me an offer I can't refuse.

Paxton wants to discard me? Fine.

But he's about to learn that some women don't just walk away—they burn everything down on their way out.

I'm done being the good girl. Done being the perfect mate. Done hiding what I really am.

In the terminal stage of cancer, my only life-saving chemotherapy opportunity was bought out by Patrick for Laura, who only had early-stage cancer.

I gave up the treatment plan that doctors said could save my life and swallowed strong pain-blocking medication. The consequence was organ failure and death within three days.

During these three days, I gave up everything.

When I gave all my hard-earned achievements to Laura, my parents smiled with relief.

When Patrick presented the divorce papers and I signed them readily, he sighed and said I was very sensible.

When I pushed Anna to call Laura "mom," she said excitedly that mommy was the best.

Even when I transferred all my properties and assets to Laura, they didn't notice anything wrong.

They just looked at me with relief and said: "Our sensible Flora has finally come back."

But I'm also curious - after I die, will they ever think of me?

On my wedding day, my identical twin sister refused to take off my couture gown.
 
"Liora, the bridal party is here," I pleaded.
 
But my father just smoothed her tulle train. "Let her wear it. You're twins, nobody will notice the difference."
 
My mother agreed, tossing a dusty-rose bridesmaid gown at my chest. "It's just a ceremony, Elowen. Just play along."
 
It was always like this. From the last slice of pie to my Ivy League spot... whatever Liora wanted, I had to forfeit. Now, it was my wedding.
 
I reached for my phone to call my fiancé, Kael, to stop this madness.
 
But Liora snatched it away with a wicked smirk. She unzipped the silk bodice of the dress, revealing her own initials—L.T.—meticulously embroidered right over the heart.
 
"Kael asked them to do it," she whispered.
 
My fiancé had spent a fortune just to fulfill his secret fantasy of marrying my sister. My dress was never meant for me.
 
So, I swallowed my tears, put on the bridesmaid gown, and quietly stepped aside. I needed to see just how deep their betrayal went.
 
Before heading to the altar, Kael brushed past me, slipping a thick envelope into my hand as his hot breath grazed my neck.
 
"Here's your tip for putting up with Elowen today," he whispered huskily. "Think you can manage calling me 'baby' tonight?"
 
He had no idea he was propositioning the wrong twin.

In my past life, the glorious "Son of the Sun" drained my divine blood until I died a broken shell.
Reborn, my twin sister eagerly steals my fiancé, shoving me toward the exiled, "crippled" King of the Shadow Crows.
As she flaunts her stolen glory, desperate to birth the sky's future ruler, I can only smile.
She doesn't know her golden prince is functionally sterile—and the "heir" she's destroying herself to conceive will be a nightmare.
And she certainly has no idea that my featherless, outcast husband is actually the ancient Abyssal Phoenix.
Let her drown in the hell she stole. This time, I’ll let the very abyss she cursed crown me as a True God.

My younger sister was tortured to the brink of death by the young heir of a newly minted mafia family.
 
His older sister stood on her high horse and threw a check at me.
 
"Take this half a million, grab your half-dead sister, and get the hell out of New York."
 
I tore the check into shreds and screamed at her, "In your dreams! I want him dead!"
 
She let out a contemptuous scoff.
 
"Around here, my family is the law! Half a million is enough for bottom-feeders like you to scrape by for three lifetimes. If it's not enough, consider it money for a nice cemetery plot. How about I throw in another two million?"
 
As she spoke, she raised her hand, flaunting it. "Otherwise... take a good look at this signet ring. Who exactly do you think you're talking to?"
 
My eyes locked onto the ring on her finger. The ancient crest engraved on the gold was all too familiar—it was the custom wedding gift I had commissioned for my mafia boss husband ten years ago.
 
Instantly, my glare turned absolutely lethal.
 
"I said, I want your brother's life."

I spent two years alongside the Mafia don, serving as his most obedient secretary and most transparent wife, watching as he bestowed all his tenderness upon his shining muse. With great effort, I deceived him into signing the divorce papers and, turning away, fled to war-torn Syria, carrying his child within me. I believed I would never cross paths with him again, until one day, drenched in blood, he knelt amidst the rubble, desperately clawing at the stones, screaming my name. It was only after I left that he truly understood the meaning of loss...

The first time I pulled a pearl earring from Kaelen's pocket, my father stepped up to vouch for him: "That's a token left behind by the female Elder."

 

Later, when I found a lace choker stuffed in the cracks of the car seat, his deputy rushed to take the blame: "I bought that for my mate and left it with the Alpha for safekeeping."

 

Ever since then, whenever I caught a slip-up, someone close to me would jump out to cover for him.

 

For the tenth time, I confronted him about the distinct scent of an Omega's heat pheromones on his jacket.

 

"How do you explain this scent?"

 

Kaelen stiffened for a fraction of a second, then seamlessly dialed my best friend's number.

 

"Maya, when we were doing the accounts last night, did you spill perfume on my coat?"

 

Maya answered without missing a beat: "Yeah! Half my new bottle leaked. Is Elara being paranoid again? If she keeps throwing these tantrums, you might as well cancel the mating ceremony."

 

Hanging up, Kaelen put on the pained look of a wrongly accused man:

"Clear now? If you're going to keep up these ridiculous interrogations, maybe this ceremony..."

 

"Agreed. Let's just cancel it," I cut him off coldly.

 

What Kaelen didn't know was that the scent on him wasn't a flaw left by his mistress.

It was a black-market pheromone perfume I'd secretly sprayed on his jacket as bait.

I did it to see just how flawlessly my closest kin—from my father to my best friend—could cover up his betrayal.

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement with an Alpha I'd never met face-to-face. Pushing open the jewelry store door, I found my fiancé Kane spoiling his childhood sweetheart Briar, who was trying to snatch my mother’s ring. "Security! Get this stray out of here!" Briar screamed, pointing at me. When I revealed my identity, Kane sneered coldly: "What bullshit pact? I would never marry a woman like you." Briar snatched the ring and threw water at my face: "Kneel down and beg me to give it back!" When I fought back, Kane exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!" Four warriors pinned me down as Briar laughed cruelly: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!" They stepped on my hand while Kane watched coldly, even urging her on: "Hurry up, let her learn her lesson." Just as she was about to chop off my finger with a knife, the door suddenly burst open—"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?"

Five years into our marriage, we were finally about to have our delayed tenth wedding ceremony.
 
Just moments before exchanging our vows, my husband, Declan, received a text from his childhood best friend—she had just called off her wedding.
 
Without a second of hesitation, Declan declared, "Let's do the wedding another day. Sloane is having an emotional breakdown. I can't let her face it alone."
 
This was the tenth time he had canceled our wedding for the exact same woman.
 
And when our five-year-old son, Leo, suddenly spiked a high fever and threw up stomach acid on the floor, Declan simply dropped the line, "Leo, you're a big boy. Be strong," and walked away without a single backward glance.
 
He was entirely convinced that I would do what I had done the previous nine times: gracefully placate the guests on his behalf, take our sick child home, and wait for him.
 
But he forgot one crucial detail: no one stands in the exact same spot waiting forever.

Ten years ago, I took a knife from a crazed patient to save Gideon, losing my ability to ever become a mother.

Ten years later, he is America's most celebrated "Charity Doctor." Over the years, he brought home three pitiful orphans and asked me to treat them as my own.

I poured my heart and soul into raising them, until the eldest smashed a vase into my face.

Lying in my hospital bed, I overheard the whispers of my husband and his lover.

"Gideon, making her raise our three illegitimate kids as charity orphans... aren't you afraid your philanthropic reputation will be ruined if she finds out the truth?" The woman's coquettish voice carried a probing edge and a hint of schadenfreude.

My breath instantly hitched.

Gideon scoffed coldly. "So what if she does? She should be thanking me for letting her play mother."

"But she did take that knife for you back then..."

"Don't mention the knife!" Gideon interrupted, his tone suddenly dripping with venom. "She was already diagnosed with infertility before the stabbing!"

"Since she loves scheming so much, I'll let her be a free nanny to our flesh and blood for the rest of her life. It's exactly what she deserves!"

I married Adrian Bennett to pay off my family's debt. The contract was simple enough to fit on one page and insane enough to ruin my life: give him a daughter, and every dollar I owed vanished. Give him a son, and the balance doubled.
 
I gave him a boy. Then another boy. The debt quadrupled.
 
When our third child finally arrived and the doctor announced she was a girl, Adrian-the coldest CEO in Lakebridge-cried over her bassinet. He zeroed out my accounts before my anesthesia even wore off.
 
I thought I had finally survived the game.
 
Then his childhood friend came to visit. She took one look at the sea of pink dresses taking over our house and scoffed, claiming a daughter could never inherit the Bennett empire.
 
Adrian was on the floor, detangling our daughter's hair.
 
Without breaking his focus, he said, "My daughter will own the empire. And if she wants three husbands to serve her, I’ll buy them houses."
 
That was when I realized two things.
 
First, nobody in Lakebridge understood how dangerous it was to insult Adrian Bennett's daughter.
 
Second, I still had absolutely no idea if he wanted her mother.

Cancer was supposed to be my death sentence. Instead, it became my liberation.

I thought I had it all—wealth, status, a picture-perfect life in Greenwich's elite circles. Then came the diagnosis that would change everything: six months to live. But facing my final chapter, I uncovered a truth more devastating than any terminal illness—the man sleeping beside me was slowly killing my soul.

When you have nothing left to lose, you discover exactly how powerful you can become.

"Priest, I'm requesting to transfer my registry to the Forbidden Lands. And I need the materials to forge a Moonshadow Puppet. In three days, it will stand in my place at the mating altar."

I spoke into the communication rune in my palm.

From the other end, the Moon Priest's voice spiked with warning. "Aria, do you have any idea what you're saying? The Forbidden Lands is an abyss of no return! It's ruled by the Lycans. You don't even have a wolf spirit—walking in there is a death sentence!"

"My decision is final."

After a long beat, his heavy, suppressed sigh echoed through. "Using a puppet substitute is an act of absolute blasphemy against the Moon Goddess... You've waited for Kaelen for so many years. Why walk away now?"

"Because a puppet will never betray a sacred vow."

Three years ago, to save my Clan Lord husband from a hunter's death trap, I forced him to stop at the border.

Instead, his First Embrace, Seraphina, crossed in his place and was burned to ashes.

Shattered by her death, he suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with Crimson Frenzy.

For three years, I let him wildly drain my source blood, cheating death in underground clinics countless times.

This time, his violent feeding caused a miscarriage and permanently destroyed my ability to conceive.

Yet, while still in agony and desperate to find him a cure, I overheard his secret conversation with the butler.

"My Lord, Seraphina is still alive. Why keep faking this illness? If the Madame finds out and severs the Blood Pact..."

"Sever it? What right does she have? If she hadn't blocked me back then, Seraphina would never have run off with another vampire. She deserves every bit of this suffering!"

This was the thirty-third time I caught Vance and my stepsister stark naked in a hotel room.
 
He smashed a liquor bottle and drove the jagged glass toward his own groin.
 
Flying shards of glass sliced across my cheek.
 
He stared at me like I was a totally unreasonable lunatic. "Could you just let me go?"
 
Watching the blood instantly soak the bedsheets red, I felt a sudden, disorienting wave of blankness.
 
After all, during our most vicious standoff, I had floored the gas pedal and driven toward a cliff with my stepsister in the passenger seat just to force him to come home. His response? He dragged my mother in front of the car, standing right beside her, and sneered, asking if I still wanted him home.
 
Vance and I were like two beasts trapped in a colosseum, proving our existence by tearing each other apart. Neither of us would back down. Neither of us would let go.
 
But now, shielding my stepsister behind him, his eyes held nothing but profound exhaustion. "Don't hurt Lorna. I'm tired. Just let me go."
 
He was conceding. For my stepsister.
 
This tragic, belated surrender reduced my last five years of paranoia and obsession into an absolute joke.
 
My hand had been hidden inside my coat pocket the whole time. Now, my fingertips slowly relaxed their death grip on the crumpled ultrasound slip.
 
Staring at the blood-soaked bed and the way he protectively shielded her, an overwhelming exhaustion washed over me.
 
I truly didn't have the strength to play this game with him anymore. It was time to end it.

The floodwaters rushed into the basement, trapping my sister Isabella and me in the surging currents.

My brother, a former Navy SEAL, smashed through the window. Without a second of hesitation, he secured the rescue rope around Isabella.

"You're a good swimmer, figure your own way up! Isabella can't take the cold, I have to get her out first!"

He abandoned me and turned to hoist the rope, accidentally kicking away the only wooden crate keeping me afloat.

Once Isabella was pulled up, she reached down and slid the outer latch, deadlocking the only vent grate.

The floodwaters instantly swallowed me whole. Mud and debris violently surged into my mouth and nose. I was drowned alive.

I was seven months pregnant when the car crash left me hemorrhaging and clinging to life.

My husband, an attending physician, burst into the ER—only to turn around and divert the last bags of blood meant to save me and our child.

He gave them to the woman who had hit me: his first love, Sienna, who had just returned from overseas.

When I woke up from surgery, I learned that I hadn't just lost our baby; I had permanently lost my uterus.

Yet my husband didn't bring me comfort. He brought a Waiver of Prosecution.

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts.

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the son I bled to birth stabbed my arm, screaming, "A bloody monster like you doesn't deserve to be my mom!"

I finally realized my entire life was a meticulously crafted scam.

With my organs rapidly failing and only ten days left to live, I stepped onto the edge of the balcony.

"You're right," I smiled at my husband and brother, watching the color completely drain from their faces. "Six years of my life isn't enough to apologize to her."

"So I'll pay you with my corpse."

Rumored to be a bloodthirsty monster, the Dark Moon Alpha terrified my twin sister into fleeing their arranged marriage to elope with a rogue.

In my past life, my parents forced me to take her place.

Instead of dying, I ended up in the Alpha's castle, showered in the pack's unimaginable wealth.

Starving on the run, my jealous sister conspired with our parents.

They drained my wolf bloodline and burned me alive in a pure silver mine, just so she could steal my face and the Alpha's favor.

Opening my eyes, I found myself back on the night of her escape.

Instead of begging, I willingly grabbed the wedding dress.

"Elope in peace, sister. I'll marry the monster for you."

She thought she was handing me a death sentence.

But she had no idea... the obsessive love of a top-tier Alpha, and the supreme throne of the Luna...

This time, they will all be mine!

At the Ultimate Construct Tournament, my roommate beat me to the stage, unveiling the very runic matrix I had just designed in my mind.

When I confronted her about the blatant plagiarism, she burst into tears on the spot.

"You say I stole from you, but do you have even a single sketch to prove it?"

My boyfriend, Richard, sitting right there on the judges' panel, publicly condemned me.

He called me a sore loser and sneered that my vicious slander was absolutely disgusting.

Because the construct existed entirely within my mental sea, I had no physical proof.

I was crucified as a jealous bully, and ultimately, the violent magical backlash tore through me.

Right up until my last breath, I couldn't figure it out: how did she perfectly steal a top-secret construct I had only ever simulated in my mind, without leaving a single trace behind?

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn—right back at the start of that very tournament.

Watching my roommate step forward, ready to rush the holographic projector, I clamped a hand around her wrist.

"This time, I'm going first."

Everyone in the Night Realm knew that my husband, the Vampire Lord Valerius, suffered from a blood curse that fiercely repelled the opposite sex.

Any skin-to-skin contact with a woman would cause his flesh to fester and trigger a soul-shattering backlash.

That included me.

In our century together, we never shared a single embrace.

On the day we forged our Blood Pact, I tried to touch him, only to be violently thrown back, coughing up blood upon impact.

That was until vampire hunters set our ancestral castle ablaze. Pinned beneath broken timber, I reached out to him for help on pure instinct.

Valerius dodged my hand. Instead, he turned and gathered that terrified little human girl, Genevieve, into his arms, comforting her with unwonted tenderness:

"Don't be afraid. I'll get you out of here."

His body showed not a single sign of rejection.

It turns out that a so-called deadly blood curse automatically breaks in the presence of true love.

Since my century of pathetic groveling had only ever moved myself, I decided I no longer wanted this Blood Pact.

My husband's first love, Celine, lured me to a remote cabin under the guise of an "apology."
 
She then poured gasoline all over the porch and locked the door from the outside.
 
In my past life, the moment the fire began to spread, I desperately called my husband, Julian—a fire captain—for rescue.
 
He smashed the door open and saved me.
 
Ironically, Celine's scheme backfired, and she died of smoke inhalation outside.
 
Yet, Julian pinned her blood debt entirely on me.
 
He kept me at the hospital with his hypocritical comfort, only to tear off his disguise the day I was discharged. He tied me to a pillar in an abandoned warehouse and poured gasoline at my feet.
 
As the flames ignited, my ten-week-old unborn child and I were swallowed by the raging fire.
 
Julian's eyes were bloodshot. Facing my agonizing screams, his gaze held nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred:
 
"If you hadn't gone mad with jealousy and locked the door from the inside, Celine would never have died! Stop playing the victim!"
 
"The pain she suffered before she died... I'm going to make you pay for it ten times, a hundred times over!"
 
In the blazing light, he watched coldly as I was burned alive, turning into a charred corpse.
 
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment the fire started to spread.

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.

My coworker, Sloane, had a knack for turning brutal physical contact into her way of greeting.

She branded this as "American warmth" and an "outgoing personality."

At first, for the sake of office harmony, I assumed she was just clumsy and gritted my teeth to endure it.

That was until the incident in the breakroom. I had finally mustered the courage to discuss a design proposal with Liam, an engineer I had been secretly crushing on.

Out of nowhere, Sloane threw me into a chokehold masked as a bear hug, simultaneously driving her knee hard into the back of my legs.

Caught completely off guard, I lost my balance and lunged forward directly into Liam, practically ripping the buttons right off his dress shirt as I fell.

Instead of helping me up, Sloane gasped:

"Oh my god, Maeve! Look, I know you told me yesterday you dreamt of ripping Liam's shirt open, but you don't have to be so desperate in the office!"

Liam looked mortified.

Burning with humiliation, I scrambled to my feet, "Could you please keep your hands to yourself?!"

She jumped back, shouting even louder than I had. "Oh, come on! I was just trying to help you break the ice! Don't take it out on me just because you ruined it."

Heads turned across the entire bullpen. She doubled down, playing the victim with absolute righteous indignation:

"We are all adults here. If you can't even take a joke, who's ever going to want to work with you?"

Dante once took three bullets for me, laying the entire New York underworld at my feet just to marry me.
I used to think Dante was the god who had pulled me from the abyss of the orphanage, until I discovered he was secretly planning a grand baptism for his illegitimate son with the princess of a rival family.
It turned out that the absolute devotion he gave me could be effortlessly replicated for another woman.
In that moment, I decided to die.
Of course, the one dying would be the Sera who had loved him.
The one surviving would stand in the shadows, watching him spiral step by step into madness and ruin within the wreckage of this so-called love.

For seven years, I dreamed of carrying my Alpha mate's child. But when the day finally came, Caleb didn't celebrate. Instead, he gave our pup's birthright away.

To save his childhood friend Brenna from being executed for carrying a rogue's pup, Caleb publicly swore a blood oath claiming her unborn child as his heir.

He swore to me it was just a temporary lie. He promised I was still his only mate.

But promises can't keep me alive. Carrying his powerful Alpha bloodline is tearing my fragile Omega body apart, and Caleb is too busy protecting Brenna to give me the mate's scent I need to survive.

The High Fae were facing extinction, their bloodlines withering away.

Valerius, the Prince of the Shadow Realm, was a terrifying force of nature—ruthless and utterly cold.

I am Ella, a mere human who accidentally fell into a Shadow Rift, a mortal girl with nothing but survival on my mind.

Left with no other choice, I snuck into this shadow prince's bed in the dead of night.

On the day he pierced my chest to take my heart-blood to save the Witch Princess, I faked my death and ran away—carrying his half-Fae babies in my belly.

Years later, I was busy preening the starry wings of my seven little miracles.

He found me, dropping to his knees, as pathetic and desperate as an abandoned hound.

"Ella... do you really not want me anymore?"

When the car crashed, I took the brunt of the deadly, mangled steel for my brother, Damon, letting half of my face be sheared off and my spine destroyed.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, he mercilessly tossed an Engagement Termination Agreement onto my hospital bed.

"You're disfigured now, practically a paralyzed cripple. Give Julian up to Lily."

"She's beautiful, healthy, and she's always been in love with him. Having her take your place at the wedding is the best option right now."

The hospital room door wasn't fully closed. I could clearly hear him and our adopted sister, Lily, whispering out in the hallway.

"Damon, you deliberately caused that crash just so I could replace her in the marriage alliance. What if she finds out?"

Damon's tone was indifferent. "She grew up stealing the spotlight as the family heir. Giving Julian to you is the least she can do. Once she signs the papers, I'll put her in the best private nursing home. Consider it compensation."

I bit down hard on my cracked lips. Tears smashed against the deep, bone-exposing lacerations on my face, burning so intensely it made me want to carve the flesh right off.

Lily's sweet voice drifted in: "I'll make sure to compensate her in the future, too."

But Damon, even if I don't sign, you'll both get exactly what you want very soon.

Because the doctor just told me that my body has gone into multiple organ failure due to the severe trauma. I only have a few days left to live.

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?

On the eve of our Blood Pact ceremony, Caius suddenly postponed our binding ritual—all for his human sweetheart.

He unilaterally cut off the blood supply and froze all assets to the entire Vance family.

When my father went to confront him, Caius had him detained on the spot.

Desperate to save my father, I went to beg him. He gripped my jaw so hard it ached, his thumb roughly wiping away the tears forced out by the pain.

"Sera, delaying the ceremony is just a little lesson for you," he said, his tone gentle yet dripping with arrogance.

"As long as you agree to let Elara move into the manor after the wedding, and promise not to hurt her, everything stays the same."

"Otherwise, you can just go marry Alaric, that powerless tyrant of the Dark Realm. Be smart. Choose the path that keeps you alive."

I stared at him dead in the eye, not saying a word.

Thinking I had resigned myself to my fate, a satisfied smirk curled on his lips.

"Be a good girl. Wait for me to pick you up on the day of the Blood Pact."

What he didn't know was that on the day of the Blood Pact, I would step directly into the car Alaric sent, brushing right past his wedding convoy at the intersection.

Eventually, Caius would drop to his knees outside the gates of the night manor like a stray dog, begging for my forgiveness.