538 Book(s) Related to morning story marion iowa

Eden Quinn has always played it safe—quiet, polite, painfully untouched. At 25, she’s still a virgin, living in the shadow of her vibrant older sister and a past she never quite escaped. But when she returns to her coastal hometown for Harper’s wedding, everything changes—starting with one drunken confession at a backyard BBQ: she’s still a virgin… and she’s tired of it.

Kia Williams thought getting into her dream university would finally change her life.
Instead, she finds her father's body in the woods...and becomes the prime suspect in his murder.
The only clue he leaves behind is a mysterious library card that opens a portal to Eden Falls Academy, a supernatural school where vampires, witches, werewolves, and long-buried secrets thrive. Determined to uncover the truth, Kia enrolls at the academy only to discover that the House her father once belonged to was erased from history and branded a traitor centuries ago.
Her only ally is Rhys Wilde, the academy's feared vampire prodigy, who knows far more about her father's past than he's willing to admit.
As students disappear, ancient rivalries resurface, and every clue points closer to Rhys, Kia must decide who to trust before history repeats itself...and she becomes the next victim.

A forced marriage: Aurora, masquerading as her sister, married the city's most ruthless business tycoon—"From today, you are Bella Moretti."
On their wedding night, her husband Gael left her alone in the empty room, leaving her trapped behind the walls of their marriage.
The pressure from her family to have a child was relentless, and she was married to a man who didn't love her. Just as they were finally starting to grow closer, her sister Bella, who had been in a coma, suddenly woke up—right at the most intimate moment!
"Everything you thought was an accident was my plan!" Her sister's cold laughter shattered all illusions, revealing that Aurora had been a pawn all along. And could Aurora still believe Gael's words, "I never wanted Bella"?

When love smells like betrayal, the past never fades. Abigail thought she had buried her story with Leonardo, the man who made her feel alive… and destroyed her.

Three years later, her life seems perfect: success, luxury, independence, and a new love with Armando. But ghosts don’t die —they only learn to hide behind new promises—. Between threats, family deceit, and a love that refuses to die, Abigail will discover that the real enemy is not always the one who returns from the past…
but the one who sleeps beside her.

On our anniversary, I overheard my fiancé Eric Foster confess he couldn't let go of his first love. That's when I woke up. I stopped pretending—revealed my identity as Wilson Corporation heiress and entered a contract marriage with CEO William Lowe. He showed me a respect I'd never known. I thought it was just a transaction. But the closer I get, the more I realize: behind his cold, restrained exterior lies a madness that's been waiting for me all along.

At twelve, I lost my parents and was taken in by the Brooks—our families had a marriage pact. For a decade, everyone expected me to marry their son Conner, a future I'd accepted as duty.
Then Conner's tabloid scandal with another woman destroyed the engagement. Chaos hit our family businesses—until Dylan, Conner's uncle who barely spoke to me, offered: Marry me instead.
It was the only way to save everything. I said yes, no time to fear marrying a stranger.
What stunned me? The wild side of Uncle Dylan I never saw. It hit fast, hot—pulling me in until I was hopelessly falling.
And my best friend? She's about to find a chaotic, twisty romance of her own. Turns out, life's best gifts are the ones you never see coming—even if they start with a marriage of convenience.

Three years ago, I chose the fire.

I'm Celine. Human — or so everyone thinks. I can feel things I shouldn't: the pulse of supernatural energy in ordinary rooms, the hunger coiled beneath a stranger's smile. It's why the vampires destroyed us. It's why my father died. And when I severed the bond with Elias — the pureblood vampire I'd loved since I was old enough to fear him — my gift turned on me. Every day since has been paid in blood.

Then he walked into my office. My new boss. The man who broke me, three years and a hundred scars ago.

Elias never let go. Not when his family tore us apart. Not when he believed I'd rejected him for what he is — and I believed he'd betrayed me. Someone made sure we believed both. Now he's back, tailored and relentless, and he's made his intentions clear: he's not leaving. He thinks the truth will save us. He doesn't know what it will cost.

Neither do I. Somewhere between a mother's lies and a family's vengeance lies the real reason we were destroyed. And when it finally surfaces, it won't just save us.

It might destroy everything.

My eyes traced the curve of Cedar's porcelain skin, and something primal ignited deep in my chest. Before I could stop myself, I was moving toward the bed—drawn by an instinct I didn't recognize.

She pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide with fear.

But when my fingers closed around her delicate ankle, all rational thought abandoned me. Her skin was impossibly soft beneath my calloused hands, and the way she trembled sent heat coursing through my veins.

"Mr. Sterling... please... let me go..." Her whispered plea cut through the haze like a blade.

Christ. What was I doing?

I released her as if burned, my jaw clenching as reality crashed back. I'd crossed a line I never cross—touched her without permission, without reason. The moment her restraints were gone, she clutched the sheets to her chest, those doe eyes watching my every move.

The air between us crackled with something dangerous. Something I couldn't afford to explore.

But as I turned to leave, one thought echoed in my mind: I wanted to touch her again.


I'm Cedar Wright, raised by adoptive parents who seemed to value me more for what I could do for them than for who I am. As I struggle to break free from their toxic hold, a six-year-old boy suddenly enters my life, calling me "Mommy." It's surreal—I'm still a virgin! Yet his presence brings warmth and hope to my otherwise mundane existence.

Soon, two more children come into my life, each wanting me to be their "Mommy" too. They're like little Cupids, bringing an unexpected romance into my life—one that involves their domineering father. I find myself drawn to him, despite my better judgment, but our relationship is fraught with uncertainty.

Just when I've completely fallen for him, he starts pulling away. Is it because his first love has resurfaced, or is his true nature finally emerging?

"I'm losing you," Rhett growled, his fingers digging possessively into my flesh. "What's so fascinating in that head of yours?"

I looked up at him, taking in the moonlight that carved shadows across his sculpted chest.

"Just imagining," I replied with deliberate provocation.

His eyebrow arched. "Imagining what exactly?"

I ran my fingertips down his chest, enjoying the way his muscles tensed under my touch. "Imagining a man more devoted and skilled than you."

His face darkened, jaw clenching. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

I realized I'd pushed too far and fell silent, giving him a crooked smile before leaning up to kiss him. He responded hungrily, his anger transforming into something more primal.

He lowered his head, mouth replacing fingers as he parted my thighs wider. His tongue traced deliberate patterns, alternating between broad strokes and precise flicks that made my hips buck involuntarily.


When I married the notorious Rhett Hayes, I thought I'd found my forever. Instead, I discovered I was just another conquest in his collection. For two years, I watched him charm other women while keeping me as his wife in name only, my heart breaking with each betrayal.

The day I finally placed divorce papers in his hands, something changed. His eyes—always cold and calculating—suddenly burned with an intensity I'd never seen. "You're the only one I've ever loved," he whispered, his voice raw. "Everything else was a necessary deception. There are people who would hurt you to get to me."

I didn't believe him—until the attack came. As bullets shattered our windows and masked figures stormed our home, I glimpsed the truth behind his lies. Now, trapped between deadly enemies and the man I'm no longer sure I know, I'm discovering that Rhett's dangerous world is far more complex than I imagined, and the depth of his love more profound than I dared hope.

The day Arabella's stepsister, the one person she trusted the most, steals her fated mate and her cherished family, her entire world falls apart. Broken and humiliated, Arabella leaves the Stormfang Pack and swears to exact revenge on those who deceived her. However, destiny has other ideas. She becomes pregnant after a passionate one-night stand with the strong Alpha Ronan, and she must hide to protect the unborn child. She disappears for five years, raising her daughter covertly as she recovers and plans her comeback.

With a fierce child and an even fiercer resolve, Arabella has returned to the United Kingdom. She is committed to taking back her pride, her legacy, and her position within the pack hierarchy. The man she never forgot, Ronan, is waiting, though. He's never given up on finding her, and now that she's back, he won't allow her to leave again. "Hey, Mate! He snarls, holding her tightly in his arms and preparing to kill anyone who tries to harm her. "I will never let you run away again!"

Arabella has to deal with love, retaliation, and power struggles as secrets come to light and old adversaries reappear. Will her desire for vengeance destroy everything she has come to defend, or will she be able to forgive the past and welcome the future?

Forbidden Passion

Raquel Santodomingo lost everything in the blink of an eye: her husband, her reputation, and the control over her own life. At 45, with five children and a mountain of debt, she faces the judgment of a society that sees her only as the widow of a fraudster. But amid the chaos, a night of madness connects her with Eduar Hilton—a 25-year-old CEO who awakens a desire she thought long dead. What begins as an escape turns into a secret, dangerous, and deeply addictive affair.

Can she resist the forbidden… or will she let that fire consume her completely?

THE TEN RULES OF THE PERFECT WIFE

Valentina Arráez spent her entire life following the Ten Rules of the Perfect Wife.

Always smile.

Always obey.

Never complain.

And above all...

Never give your husband a reason to leave.

For five years, she did everything right.

She loved her husband, supported him, and sacrificed every piece of herself to become the perfect wife.

It still wasn't enough.

Because while Valentina was fighting to save her marriage, Rodrigo Montenegro was building a new life with another woman.

Then everything changes.

The day Rodrigo walks out of their home, Valentina discovers she's finally pregnant.

The child she prayed for.

The child she believed could save her marriage.

But before she can tell him the truth, she receives devastating news that forces her to make an impossible choice.

As her world begins to crumble, Valentina must decide whether to keep living by the rules that shaped her... or break every one of them to protect the life growing inside her.

Meanwhile, Rodrigo is convinced he's finally found happiness.

Until the wife he left behind starts disappearing from his life.

And he realizes that some mistakes don't come with second chances.

A heartbreaking story of betrayal, motherhood, sacrifice, redemption, and a love that may already be too late to save.

Some rules are meant to be broken.

Julieta Carrasco is twenty-one years old with the eyes of someone who's lived sixty.
Three months ago, she escaped a nightmare she can barely name — weeks of captivity, abuse, and violence at the hands of a man her mother brought into their lives. Now she's living in a women's shelter, working a dead-end job at a luxury clothing store, and trying to convince herself that breathing counts as surviving. Her mother is in prison. Her sister has been missing for years. And the scars she hides beneath long sleeves are the least of what she carries.
Vladimir Rossi is a thirty-five-year-old Italian CEO who built an empire, buried a wife, and hasn't smiled in five years. Trapped in a loveless contract marriage to Viviana Franco — a woman who spends his money, despises his five-year-old daughter Gabriela, and holds his family's inheritance hostage — Vladimir is a man running out of options and patience. When bruises keep appearing on his little girl's arms and every nanny he hires mysteriously quits, he knows Viviana is behind it. But he can't touch her. Not yet. Not for ten more months.
Their worlds collide when Vladimir's car strikes Julieta on a rainy night — hours after their eyes first met across a boutique where she watched his marriage fall apart in real time. At the hospital, doctors discover Julieta was twelve weeks pregnant. She didn't know. The baby — a remnant of her captivity — doesn't survive.

Sloane Mercer has made it her mission to test every limit Professor Dalton Avery sets. Sharp-tongued, fearless, and irresistibly defiant. She turns his lectures into a battlefield of wit and willpower.

Dalton prides himself on control. Of his classroom, of his reputation, and especially of his desires. But when Sloane pushes one time too many, the tension between them finally ignites.

What begins as a battle for dominance becomes something far more dangerous. An illicit affair burning with passion, power, and the threat of exposure. The closer Dalton gets to losing himself to her, the more he realizes he never had control at all.

Diane Ashford’s only crime was being overweight.

Because of this, she was bullied by her stepbrothers, her parents ignored her existence, and she became the object of ridicule at college.

Despite all this, the only person who seemed to love her was her boyfriend, Liam Quin. He was everything to her, and she clung to him because he took her as she was.

After getting married, Diane was thrown into despair. Liam no longer looked at her. He used her, betrayed her, and took a mistress, comparing her to how beautiful and slim she was.

On the night he files for divorce, Diane loses everything, including her life.
But with death came a twist of fate.

Diane wakes up years earlier, in a slimmer, younger version of herself, with a thirst for revenge. She was determined to take back everything that was stolen: her dignity, her power, and her future.

Her stepbrothers—notorious leaders of the Steel Serpent motorcycle club—were her first victims. And she planned to use them to get her revenge on the man who shattered her heart.

But what happens when Diane discovers that revenge comes at a price, and that the line between justice and desire can be dangerously thin.

Her brothers want her, yet the scars of the wounds they inflicted on her run deep.

As she navigates a world of dangerous motorcycle gangs, corrupt elites, and forbidden passions, will Diane rewrite her fate? Or will she get lost in the arms of the men she’s supposed to hate?

They chopped off my limbs while I screamed for help. One by one, my blood family hung up on me.

I was their lost true daughter—brought back only because the fake one needed my rare blood to survive.

For three years, every song I wrote went to her. Every role I bled for went to her. My parents and three brothers stood by and called me selfish.

Until she lured me onto a yacht, peeled the skin off my face with rusted pliers, and tossed my broken body into the sea.

My own family said I deserved it.

I was reborn—on the day they demanded my next song.

This time, I ripped the sheet music to shreds. I walked out without looking back. I signed with the most powerful studio in the industry. I'll climb to the top, strip away their masks, and make the whole world watch as I collect every debt they owe me.

I've walked through hell.

This life?

I hold the blade.

It was written a long time ago that there would be a great and powerful supernatural being, That his power would be unmatched by all supernatural creatures known to mankind. His sheer dominance would make creatures tremble in their boots, Every alpha known to man would bend to his will. He's the one true Alpha King. Malachi Mercy had no idea what he was or what he's destine for. All he knew was that his power was unmatched by anyone.
Hayden Trop is the next alpha to rule over The Blue Crescent Pack, but there's just one tiny flaw to this situation. Hayden is no leader and couldn't lead the pack into the next era.
Malachi and Hayden are polar-opposite, but like people always say, opposite attracts.

Book 1:- Alpha Hybrid Chronicles.
There's going to be a series of stories stemming from the first book (Alpha hybrid). I will likely be focusing on main characters to continue the Chronicles.

SIDENOTE: This is a GAY story that will contain sexually explicit material suitable for the legal age of 18,
(READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)

I loved Callum Crane for five years. He said I didn't fit. Then he proposed — to my sister.
The same night, his brother called me with the most insane idea I've ever heard: marry him instead. Same day. Same venue. Right across the hall from my ex and my sister's ceremony.
I said yes. Not because I loved Emrys Crane. Because I'd rather set the whole thing on fire than sit in a pew and watch.
Here's the thing about revenge marriages, though. They're supposed to be fake.
Nobody told Emrys.
The man had a wrench set in his truck that only fit my grandmother's machine — bought years before I ever spoke to him. He'd been sneaking looks through my workshop window so often the stone wore down. He fixed my motorcycle three times and never mentioned it. He remembered that I stared at a piece of almond brittle for ten seconds once, and bought it for me weeks later.
Seven years. He'd been in love with me for seven years. Said nothing. Did everything.
And Callum? The man who told me I didn't fit?
He showed up at my orchard with an apology and a folder full of evidence against my sister, begging for a second chance.
I looked him in the eye and said: "Too late. Wrong harvest."
He tried five more times. It only got worse for him.

He’s ruthless, calculating, and driven by vengeance. She’s warmth, light, and everything he never dared to want.

For years, his only focus has been revenge—love was never in the equation. But when he's tasked with protecting his best friend’s little sister, the walls he’s built begin to crumble.

She finds good in everyone, even the man who warns her to stay away. He’s cold, possessive, and dangerously addictive. Yet, despite every warning, she falls for the one person who could break her beyond repair.

Because when love and obsession collide, the fallout is anything but predictable.

This is a story of Demon King and a weak slave girl resides in the state of ‘Vim’. A Dark, black power was the legacy of the Prince of the Black World who had been asleep for a long time.
After ten years, Prince of the Black World awakens from his eternal sleep and begins his journey to reclaim his power, and then he meets a strange girl who had gained control over this power but this was unbearable for her existence.
He was captivated by her in a single glance. She was his soul mate; he had to kill her to gain power. First he tried to kill her but then he fell in love with her but he couldn’t protect her. She was on the verge of passing out when he attempted to touch her. He needs to lose his power in order to keep her alive.
Will he able to do that?
Or would he abandon her and let her pass away?
A strange and lovely love story about a demon king and his obsession.

The Hales found me twenty years too late and announced I was their real daughter.

Everyone expected me to tear apart the girl who'd lived my life.

Instead, I asked if she could cook. She could, so I claimed her as my big sister on the spot.

My biological brother didn't take it well. At dinner, he raised his hand to hit me.

Then the shy, shaking fake heiress stepped in front of me. "Don't hit her!"

I spent ten years following Ashton around like it was my job. He said jump, I jumped. He said he was hungry, I went and made him a sandwich. His homework, his fights, his messes — I handled all of it. I thought that's what being close to someone meant.
Then at the fall pep rally, in front of two thousand people, he strapped me to a platform, blasted me with paint, and let his girlfriend laugh at me through a megaphone.
I was the punchline. I threw up on camera. The video went viral before I even hit the ground.
So I did the one thing nobody expected — I vanished. New school, new city, new number. Every trace of him, gone.
I thought that was the end of it.
But Ashton doesn't let go of what he thinks is his. And what he's willing to do to drag me back? I wasn't even close to ready for that.

That December night, his first love and I were both rushed to the ER.
Two pregnant women. One operating room.
My doctor husband took three seconds to decide.
"She's an athlete. She can handle it," he told the nurse, then wheeled Sienna into surgery.
Leaving me—eight months pregnant with his baby—bleeding alone in the hallway.
When the nurse called begging him to come back, he said: "I'm at the pharmacy getting supplies for Sienna. Twenty minutes."
Twenty minutes later, I'm still alive.
He wishes I wasn't.

I've married sixteen dead men for a living. My seventeenth husband just opened his eyes.
I was born knowing one thing: the dead can speak one last time — but only to a spouse.
So I marry dead men. Rich families pay me to wed their fresh corpses, carry the last words sealed inside me, and read the testament out before the heirs. Then I burn the marriage certificate, and the marriage ends at the grave. Starting price: six hundred thousand dollars.
This morning, the Crane heir drowned in his own pool. Twenty-eight, obscenely rich, not one word left behind. The family offered five million and a private jet. By my count — my seventeenth husband. By a wide margin, the handsomest.
I said "I do" to a corpse for the seventeenth time. Then I called for his last words.
Silence. Sixteen weddings, sixteen voices. Husband number seventeen had nothing to say.
Because my seventeenth husband just opened his eyes.

I asked my husband to choose us three times.
The first time, three days after I gave birth to my daughter, I found out he had given away the postpartum suite my parents paid for.
He gave it to his little brother's girlfriend. She got my bed, my baby's blankets, even the soup my mom made for me.
"Please, Wade. That's our room."
"You're upset over nothing."
The second time, I found out he had emptied the college fund I'd been building for our daughter since her very first ultrasound. Every cent went to his brother's rent. I held up our four-day-old baby and begged him to put it back.
"She's a baby. She won't need college for eighteen years. My brother needs a roof now."
The third time, I came home and found his brother's girlfriend live-streaming from my baby's nursery. "Welcome to my dream nursery, besties!" My daughter's crib was out on the balcony, her little mattress soaked with rain.
I grabbed Wade's arm. "Get her out of our baby's room."
He pulled away. "Keep your voice down. She's live."
Every time, Wade chose his mother.
So I stopped asking. I picked up my daughter and walked out the door without looking back.
Now it's his turn to find out what it feels like when nobody chooses you.

Eight years ago I shoved Chase Whitaker away from a firework he lit on the beach, and it took my eyes.
Everybody in Harbor Point calls him a saint for staying with me. Our families put a ring on my finger when I was seventeen. He's been my eyes since we were ten. He tells me who just walked in and what's in every photo. He promised me in a hospital room that he would never lie to me.
Three weeks ago a surgeon in Boston gave my sight back. Nobody knows except my parents. I was saving it for my eighteenth birthday. Take the dark glasses off, look right at him.
I didn't get that far. At the table I read the message on his phone.
Honestly? Sometimes I wish that firework had just finished the job.
Then my friend since sixth grade leaned over to tell me he'd been staring at me all night, and he kissed another girl over my shoulder while he held my hand.
They think I still can't see. I'm going to let them.

The night Declan Ashford announces his chosen mate, everyone in the pack expects me to show up and fall apart.
I don't go.
What I do instead: I'm sitting on the floor of Cael Voss's dorm room in a training jacket that isn't mine, asking whether his mattress is filled with rocks. Cael is Declan's packmate at the academy. His equal in rank. His roommate. The last person I had any reason to call tonight.
I called him anyway.
Here's what he doesn't know: I'm not actually Beta. My real rank was sold before I was old enough to understand what that meant. I've been suppressing it for years.
Here's what I don't know: he's had something of mine under his pillow for two years. Something small. Something I spent three days looking for before I gave up.
Neither of us has said anything about it yet.

I was kidnapped at five. Found at sixteen. Dead at nineteen.
My father is the Alpha of Duskmere. My mother is the best healer in the pack. The night I was murdered, they were at my adopted sister's awakening ceremony—the miracle they'd prayed for. After a lifetime born wolfless, a wolf finally woke in her chest.
That wolf was mine. Torn out of me while I was still breathing.
For three years I lived under their roof with no pack bond and no one saying my name. They slapped me for things she did. They called me selfish for refusing to give her a kidney I'd already lost. And when I went missing, nobody looked. Dad said if I died out there, I had no one to blame but myself.
Then the enforcers found a body with no pack scent, and called in the Alpha and his Luna to examine it.
They stood right over me.
They still don't know.

My son died on his fifth birthday, waiting for a father who never showed up.
I found out why at the lake—Cole had his mistress pinned against the boathouse wall while our five-year-old took his last breath alone in a clinic bed.
Selene was pregnant. Selene was Grayridge. And Selene knew exactly what she'd done to my son before I ever said a word about a curse.
Cole hit me for defending myself. Then he threatened to strip my title if I touched her again.
Fine. He wants to protect his mistress? He can do it broke.
Every dollar that rebuilt this town came from my family—and I'm taking it all back, starting with the ranch he thinks is his.
But the bone shard I found in my son's jacket says this isn't over.
It says someone wanted him dead before he turned five.

My roommate put a Blood Binding Curse on me — my own bloodline power, along with every resource I receive, gets automatically rerouted straight to her.
My ex helped her set it up. For six months she lived off my bloodline playing noble princess, him always on her arm, while I walked around hollow. The harder I fought to prove myself, the more I fed her.
Then I died. Came back knowing everything.
Here's what I figured out: the curse reroutes everything I receive.
Including debt.
I went to a guild and borrowed a batch of elixirs. Opened the contract.
The debtor on the line wasn't me.

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

My pack's golden girl—my adopted sister—vanished. On my eighteenth birthday—the day my wolf should have awakened—my parents dragged me to a witch.
"Show us what you did to her."
Fine. Let them look.
Let them see who drugged me the day I came home. Who stole credit while I bled. Who smiled while planning my destruction.
They chose their precious Rosalie over me for three years.
They wanted the truth?
They were about to choke on it.

I spent five years loving Beckett Calloway.
When his ex-girlfriend died saving his life, I held him through every nightmare. When he said he "wasn't ready" for marriage, I waited. When he whispered "soon," I believed him.
Then her sister showed up. Crying about some terminal illness. Begging him to take care of her.
He let her move onto our private island—the one he promised would only ever belong to us.
He introduced her at the gala where he was supposed to announce our engagement.
He got her pregnant.
And when I told him she was lying about everything, he looked at me like I was the monster.
Then came our wedding rehearsal. She walked down the aisle in my dress. He slid his ring onto her finger. The chapel caught fire. I collapsed, bleeding.
He scooped her up and ran. Didn't even glance back.
So I burned my vows, deleted every trace of myself, and vanished.
This time, I wasn't coming back.

I waited five years for a heart transplant.
My mother—the Luna of our Pack, the healer everyone worships—gave it to someone else.
An orphan girl she took in. A girl who now calls her "Mom."
Ivy got my heart. She got a wolf. She got a mate and a wedding so grand the whole Pack attended.
Me? I watched from the corner, still dying, while my mother smiled for the cameras and accepted praise for her "selfless sacrifice."
When I finally snapped at the ceremony, she slapped me. Told me to apologize. Said I was embarrassing the family.
I'm her actual daughter. I'm the one who can't shift, can't feel a mate bond, can't survive another six months.
But sure. I'm the problem.
They wanted me to stay quiet and die gracefully.
I chose to make sure everyone sees who their perfect Luna really is.

On a full moon, every wolf has to be inside a registered shelter before moonrise. That's pack law.
So when my husband's leave finally lined up with a moon, I spent six months and eighty thousand dollars booking his whole family into a top-tier sanctuary on Silverspine Ridge. Then his first love decided she wanted to come.
Instead of telling her no, he gave her my registered bed — and sent me a queue number for the state shelter, a thirty-six-hour line for a bunk in an open ward full of rogues. I looked at his parents, his sister, waiting for one of them to object. Every single one of them took his side.
So fine. I drove the other way, and spent the next three full moons enjoying myself — alone. That's when the whole family started to panic...

This year, out of nowhere, my mate Dominic told me to take two months off and go to Ashvale with our son, Finn. Eight years, and he'd never once given me a single day off.
I thought he'd finally noticed how tired I was.
Then Maren found a letter in his study. It was from his Beta, laying out the whole plan. Move his old flame Camille and her daughter into the main house. Hold a mating ceremony the moment I was gone.
I don't know how long I stood there holding that letter before I could think straight again.
If my mate wanted to bring her home and pick up where they left off, that was his business.
I packed our son's things for Ashvale.
I just wasn't planning on coming back.

My foster brother Caelan swore he'd only ever marry me. Even though I'm the only human in a pack of wolves, for eighteen years he and his brother Ronan made me feel like I belonged.
Then Mira showed up—and suddenly she was his "fated mate."
I watched him bond with her while I choked on poisoned incense and collapsed. No one caught me. They were too busy wiping her tears.
Within a week, she had my room. My job. Eighteen years of memories—trashed.
They said I could never leave them.
They forgot about the vampire prince who's been waiting at the border for three months.
He never forgot me.

"The Draganovs are moving on Celeste tonight. I'm taking her to the safe house. We'll do the claiming after this, Orla. I promise."
That's what my husband said the seventh time he chose Celeste over me.
Celeste. The girl he'd loved since before he had a wife to ignore.
The first time, she heard footsteps outside her window at two in the morning. Rafael sent his whole detail to sit on her house and left me at a meeting with two men who wanted our shipping routes and didn't like being told no. I came home with a bullet crease across my ribs. He apologized for a week.
The third time, someone tipped the cops on one of our warehouses and she got scared. He drove her upstate himself. I took a knife at the door because there was no one left standing in front of me.
By the sixth time, he didn't explain. He just texted the doctor to be ready for me and left.
He's a Don. When the guns come out, he walks away clean. I'm the one wearing his name where everyone can see it. The one they aim at first. Six scars say so.
Every time, he held my face after and promised. Founders' Day. In front of every family in the city. Once Celeste was safe. I believed him six times.
So when the seventh time came and he chose her again, my bags were already packed.
There won't be an eighth time he sends me out to die for her. Next time, there won't be a wife left for him to send.

A hundred years ago, that curse was meant for him. I'm the one who threw myself in front of it.
It cost me my elven heart, shattered on the spot—and a name I could never wash off. Traitor.
I never argued. Because the moment I speak the truth, the curse goes straight back to him.
So I stayed. I became his blood servant and let him drain me, one bottle at a time, to feed the woman he'd waited a century for. I told myself that if I endured long enough, someday he'd see my heart for what it was.
Then the healer told me my heart had thirty days left.
And he walked in, knife in hand, to say his beloved needed more of my blood.
This time, I'm not enduring anything.
I'm going to give him back this heart—at the exact moment he's most sure he's won.

Our ceremony was ambushed underground. One exit. Corvin was the only one who could move fast enough to carry someone out.
In my last life, he chose me — and left Niamh behind. She didn't make it. He spent five years after that making sure I understood what that meant. Every day I woke up was a day she couldn't. When I finally ran out of ways to leave quietly, I chose a window that faced east and walked into it.
Now I'm back. Same corridor, same chaos, same choice.
This time, I said: "Take Niamh."
The way his shoulders came down — like something he'd been holding for years, finally put down — told me everything five years together never did.
He promised to come back. He was already moving when he said it.
I knew I had to get out myself. But the ferals who'd killed Niamh last time found my corridor before I made it to the stairs.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

My brother Soren is a figure skating prodigy. Every dollar in our house, every hour, every scrap of attention — all his.
Me? I'm the kid who doesn't need to be seen.
The night before Nationals, I told my mom my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand. She said I was making trouble. Dad told me to take a painkiller and tough it out. Then they loaded up the car and drove two hundred miles to watch Soren skate.
They didn't come home until Sunday night. By then, I'd been dead for over a day.
I called her. Again and again. She had her phone on airplane mode.
Now I'm a ghost, drifting behind their car on the highway home. They're laughing, complaining I didn't even text Soren a congratulations.
I wonder what their faces will look like when they walk through that door.

I took a bullet for my husband five years ago. He married me in the ICU before the anesthesia wore off.
Raffaele Santoro—heir to the most powerful mafia family in Italy—told me I was his everything. He bought a castle and named it after me. He reserved a grave beside his parents so we'd lie together for eternity.
While I was pumping my body full of hormones for our fourth round of IVF, he was across town watching his childhood sweetheart give birth to twin boys.
He named one of them Dante—the name I'd chosen for our future son.
The night I found out, I was seven weeks pregnant with his child.
I didn't tell him.
I called my best friend and said: I need everyone to think I'm dead.

Six weeks after his girlfriend had twins, my husband got himself fixed. He billed it to my insurance.
Then he spent nine years driving me to fertility clinics. Two surgeries. Four rounds of shots. He held my hand every time and told me next time.
The whole town said it was my fault. His mother asked me every Sunday if there was any news.
I died at forty-four. Three days before the end I couldn't open my eyes, but I could hear them over my bed. The girl I bought a purple bicycle for called him Dad.
Then I opened my eyes and I was thirty-four again, on a gurney, waiting for them to open me up one more time.
Last time I lay back down and let them do it. I did it three more times after that.
This time he's paying me back for all nine years, one line at a time.
The nurse asked me to confirm my date of birth. I did. Then I told her I wasn't doing it.

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 daughter died on her fifth birthday.
Her first real wish—the first one she was old enough to make herself—was to go to the beach with Daddy.
Gideon promised he would take her.
She waited for him all day. She was still asking for him when she took her last breath.
He never came.
I brought her ashes to the beach she'd always dreamed of. Let her finally see the ocean.
That's when I heard it—a woman's moan, low and breathy, coming from behind the rocks.
Then his voice. Then his name on her lips.
"Between me and Lily, who do you love more?"
"You. Obviously."
He was fucking his mistress on our daughter's dream beach—while I stood there holding her ashes.
When I finally confronted them, I didn't get an apology. I got a slap across the face.
And when his mistress caught my eye and smiled, I realized something.
She knew exactly when my daughter would die.

I spent three hundred years winning Varen Ashworth's war. Bled for him. Handed him my army, my secrets, the healing blood from my own chest. He'd be nothing without me.
On his coronation day, he announced his queen—and it wasn't me. It was Elara. Some trembling, doe-eyed girl he'd pulled out of a Demon camp. He told me I could stay on as her handmaid.
I laughed, voided the contract, and walked out.
Because I've lived this life before. Last time, I exposed Elara. Saved his throne. He thanked me—then slaughtered my entire bloodline.
This time, I'm not saving anyone.
This time, I'll watch him figure out exactly what kind of woman he picked over me. And when his whole world comes apart—he'll be on his knees, begging the one person who could've stopped it.
I won't be listening.

In my last life, I fell for every word out of Ryan's mouth.
To save his shot at attending physician, I volunteered to take the fall for his medical malpractice case.
My license was revoked. I went from being a surgeon to being a housewife trapped in his family's home, wasting ten years of my life chained to a kitchen stove.
I thought my sacrifice would earn me his gratitude for the rest of our lives.
Turns out, he'd been sleeping with that doe-eyed little nurse, Lily, for God knows how long.
When years of exhaustion finally caught up with me and my heart gave out, I collapsed on the freezing basement floor.
My husband Ryan was upstairs, arms wrapped around Lily, sleeping in the master bedroom we'd bought with my dowry.
"That bitch is finally kicking the bucket. Once she croaks, this house is ours."

My mate died in a border skirmish with an enemy pack.
The woman he loved, Wren, died with him. She came from the pack we'd hated for a hundred years.
They left me two sons who weren't mine by blood.
Eighteen years passed.
I raised those boys like they were my own. I even got them into the Alpha King's Guard — the kind only a handful of pups make in a whole generation.
But the day they were chosen, my mate, dead all these years, walked back through the door with his forbidden lover.
She smiled at me like we were old friends.
"Thank you for turning our sons into the pride of the Guard."
"We couldn't have stayed hidden all these years without you."
Then my mate said he wanted the bond broken. He wanted her as his mate instead. He wanted his sons back.
I didn't cry. I didn't argue.
I just smiled.
"Okay."

In my last life, my brother broke my legs and my adopted sister pushed me into the ocean. My father just stood there watching, mad about the blood on his shoes.
They gave her everything that was mine. My territory, my mother's necklace, even my bedroom. I was the real daughter, the real bloodline, and I still wasn't worth half of the stray my father dragged home.
I took it all. Every insult, every slap, every scrap of love that went to her instead of me. Because I thought maybe one day they'd see me.
They never did. They killed me instead.
Now I'm back. Same night, same banquet, same girl sitting across from me with fake tears, begging for my port.
This time I didn't hand it over. I smashed a wine bottle, slapped her face open, and told my father we're done.
He called his guards. My brother pulled a gun.
What they forgot is that my grandfather is the real power in this family. And I already sent him a message.