1439 Book(s) Related to i feel pretty west side story lyrics

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you ever been treated like a stand-in for your dead sibling by your own mother? I have.

Have you ever been murdered by your own mother? I have.

My name is Aira, and today is my sister Lily's birthday. It's also the anniversary of my death—the day the washing machine became my coffin.

"Why couldn't it have been you who died?"

After four long years, my mom finally got her wish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I died on my birthday.

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

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

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

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

I was never loved in this family.

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

Will they regret it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

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

I have been the Donna of the Smith family for nine years-all in name. I took my deceased twin sister Lily's place, caring for her daughter Emma, and living with a husband, David, who doesn't love me.

Over these nine years, I treated Emma like my own daughter, but she always saw me as the murderer who killed her mother, not knowing that it was her mother who took my marriage and my husband.

She shoved me publicly, calling me a murderer, even using the gun I gave her to shoot my only solace—a little bird.

But David, the man I loved, also favors Lily and her child. Every time he looks at me, it's with coldness and distance.

“I will not listen to any more of your insolent behaviour boy. You brought this on yourself. You marked this young woman and now you must take her as yours.”

In that instant Ziza felt her heart shrivel, die and plummet deep into the bottom of her acidic stomach. Take her as his? Her hand in marriage? Surely the king wouldn’t be so cruel that he would give her hand in marriage to his beast of a son.

She just lost her job, lost her boyfriend, and was tortured by her half-siblings and their mother. And this was what she got—marrying a ruthless, cold prince who’d slapped her and insulted her?!

Would she have even a glimmer of hope in this arranged marriage?

The morning after the Haze, I open my eyes expecting to see the love of my life, my fated mate. Instead, I see... HIM! "This can't be happening!" *** Would you rather live in a world where the impossible is possible or the possible is impossible? Blanca faces an uncertain future when she finds she's mated to the one man she never thought could be her mate. If Kieran is her mate, then her entire life is a lie. Since she's been abused her whole life, that might be a good thing. But this is... wrong on so many levels. Will Blanca find out the truth about her real identity--or be banished from her pack forever? If you like love with a twist, give this one a chance--don't quit too soon, or you'll never find out Blanca's secret!

I was once a world-renowned designer, but I retired for love, dedicating six years to my husband and daughter. But on our anniversary, he spent millions on my final masterpiece, only to place it around another woman's neck on live TV. My own daughter then ran on stage, sweetly calling her 'mommy.' My six years of devotion became a joke. When I asked for a divorce, he sneered, thinking I was just a housewife who couldn't survive three days without him. He has no idea that the legendary designer 'Octavia' he's desperately trying to meet is the wife he cast aside. Now, I’m back. And I'm ready to take back everything that is mine.

I was drugged by my stepmother and betrayed by my boyfriend.
When I woke up in a stranger's bed, I realized I had been set up - used, humiliated, discarded.
The worst part? That cold, dangerous man... was my stepsister's fiancé.
I tried to run. I tried to disappear. But fate had other plans - I was pregnant. With his child.
Theodore Sterling - rich, ruthless, and utterly untouchable - offered me marriage.
"Congratulations," he sneered. "You finally got what you wanted - me."
So I became his wife. The scandal. The shame of the Reynolds family. The woman everyone hated.
He said he didn't want me.
But he never let me go.
I said I hated him.
But I couldn't stop falling.
This isn't just a forced marriage.
It's revenge, obsession, and a love I never saw coming.

Tags;#R18,#Romance,#Rebirth,#BL,#CEO,#Revenge,#Powerfulcouple,#Sweetlove,#Superpowers.

"Mu Zhen... Please forgive me... Please forgive me..." Ye Mei stretched her hands out but couldn't reach Mu Zhen's hand, tears streamed down her cheeks after realizing the kind of stupid mistakes she had committed in her entire life.

Mu Zhen crawled closer and leaned on the chunky tree as he caught and dragged Ye Mei's body closer hugging her tightly in his arms.

To him he was useless that he couldn't save her, he couldn't ensure her safety and above all, they couldn't escape.

"I will always forgive you... Ye Mei, could you be selfish next time and love me as much as I have loved you?

Could you please never repeat the same mistakes? If I go back in time I would still love you, I would still do everything for you Ye Mei " He gently caressed her face which was bruised and had several glaring marks left from knife cuts.

*********************************

Ye Mei suffered in her last life when her twin sister and the man she thought she loved killed her babies...

She betrayed the man who loved her for the man she loved but didn't love her.

She ended up miserable and crippled in the wheelchair and unknowingly she had been used to poison the only man that loved her and finally died with her.

She returns to when she was in high school and she is no longer a forty-year-old crippled woman, all ugly and blind.

What path does she take to fulfill the man who loved her for his dying wish? What would become of her with her revenge and hatred?

I don't own the cover and the credit goes to the owner, if you want me to pull it down please do reach out to me..

**Weekly Targets..

*1000 power stones= 2 bonus chapter.
*1200 power stones= 3 bonus chapters
*1500 power stones= 4 bonus chapters.
*10Golden Tickets= 2 bonus chapters.
100 Golden Tickets= 5 bonus chapters.

*Monthly Targets...
500 Golden Tickets= 5 bonus chapters.

1000 Golden Tickets= 10 bonus chapters.

The dress she wore looked innocent at first glance. Soft cream silk, thin straps, short enough to reveal the smooth length of her legs. But as she moved, the slits at the sides shifted apart, exposing flashes of skin along the curve of her thighs and hips. My jaw tightened with an overwhelming desire. She noticed exactly where my eyes had gone. Her gaze lifted slowly to mine, and for a brief second I caught something dangerous there. Annoyance. And desire too. It flickered across her face before she turned away from me. Why did she have to pretend that she didn't want me as much as I wanted her too?

“I don't like butterflies, ” I said quietly.

Her brows furrowed slightly. “Why?”

“A butterfly flies away eventually.” My grip around her waist tightened. "Is that your plan?"

Her eyes returned to mine. “And if it is?”

“Wrong answer. You can't fly away.”

I lowered my second hand from her neck to her waist slowly. The silk bunched beneath my fingers. Gods. She felt soft everywhere, making my control thin dangerously.

“We don’t need a ceremony,” I murmured against her skin.

“Silas…” that was her cry for help, for reasoning. But it was too late. All I heard was her begging me to mark her.

My wolf surged immediately. I kissed the side of her neck again, slower this time, letting my mouth linger against her pulse. I could feel how fast her heart was beating now. The need to claim her was already unbearable. I tightened my arms around her as the mark settled beneath her skin. My breathing turned rough instantly from the force of it. The feeling was almost overwhelming. Her knees nearly buckled beneath her afterward. I caught her immediately. Her fingers clutched my shirt tightly while she tried to steady herself. Then slowly, she lifted trembling fingers toward her neck.

“What...?” she whispered.

I felt no regret for claiming her. She would be mine. Forever.
Fate may have chosen Silas for Alexa but somewhere in the shadows, someone is watching. Someone who believes Alexa stole the life that should have been hers. And she'll do whatever it takes to take it back. Even if it means destroying Alexa in the process.
And when buried secrets begin to surface, Alexa will be forced to answer one impossible question: What is more dangerous than being claimed by an Alpha?

At the press conference, my husband Thaddeus Getty publicly declared his love for his first love in front of all the media.
In an instant, the whole world knew I was a wife who wasn't cherished by her husband.
Heartbroken but not defeated, despite my deep love, I chose to leave.
Months later, Thaddeus looked at my belly and snarled through gritted teeth: "Tell me, whose bastard child is this?"

She was betrayed by those she trusted most. Now she's back for revenge.

Nevada thought she'd found her fated mate, only to discover it was all part of her sister Bernadette's cruel scheme. Rejected, humiliated, and cast out while pregnant, Nevada disappeared.

Five years later, she returns to New York as CEO of the Lewiston empire, ready to destroy those who betrayed her. But when Grey discovers their five-year-old daughter, everything changes.

Ava married him to save him from his vicious girlfriend, but at the altar, he whispered: "Just as you ruin me, I promise to ruin you beyond repair."
What followed was hell—his girlfriend in their bed, hot soup on her face, and a name she never thought she'd call herself: bitch.
When she couldn't endure anymore, she did what he always wanted. She threw her ring into the rain and signed the divorce papers.
Four years later, she's back. A Zillionaire. With three gorgeous sons who have his eyes.
Her husband knelt before her at the airport, flowers in hand. "Please forgive me, wifey."
She adjusted her sunglasses. "Ex," she remarked. "Get ready. Things will get messier from now on."

Rowan is seven years younger than Max; the first warning to stay away. But staying away isn’t an option. Forced to live under the same roof as his mulish stepbrother, Rowan discovers the one person he should fear most is the one he can’t stop thinking about.

Max thrives on chaos, and Rowan quickly becomes his favorite target. But Rowan has a secret: he’s falling for the boy who bullies and seems determined to destroy him. Max makes it clear he hates Rowan, and even clearer that he doesn’t like boys.

In a house built on resentment, the line between hate and need starts to blur. And once Max starts watching, Rowan might never be able to hide, and Max might never be able to look away.

Sable Hale ran from the one man fate chose for her.

In the Black Pine Pack, there is no bond stronger than the mate bond and no greater betrayal than rejecting your Alpha. But when Sable discovers the truth about the man destined to rule beside her, she chooses freedom over a crown she never wanted.

Five years later, she has built a life far from the pack and the Alpha who once set her soul on fire.

Until the past finds her again.

Kier Blane never stopped searching for the woman who ran from him. As Alpha of Black Pine, he has power, loyalty, and an entire pack at his command but none of it matters without the mate who shattered his heart.

When Sable is dragged back into pack territory to face trial for abandoning her people, the fragile peace between them explodes. Old wounds reopen. Dangerous secrets surface. And the bond they tried to destroy refuses to stay buried.

But someone in the pack has their own plans for the throne and for Kier.

With betrayal lurking in the shadows and the council threatening to tear them apart, Sable must decide what matters more: the freedom she fought for… or the Alpha she never truly stopped loving.

Because running from fate is one thing.

Surviving it is another.

Alexander's lips crash against hers, urgent and consuming, his hard dick pressing against her throbbing pussy, igniting a primal ache. His hands seize her breasts, fingers teasing, before his teeth graze her nipple, biting softly, sending shivers as her body arches, slick with need.
Olivia Harper wakes with no memories. Everyone tells her she's madly in love with her fiancé, but her dreams suggest otherwise. Until the ruthless CEO Alexander Blake confines her, his voice a husky purr. "Forgotten? Perfect."
Memories surged: he had pinned her in a car, her sobs were raw. Why did his possessive eyes burn with grievance?

Claudia's parents die because of false accusations and Claudia became a slave to the pack. She only hoped that she could leave the pack when she became an adult. So when she found out that her mate was the son of the Alpha of the pack, she chose to reject her Alpha mate.
As the future Alpha of the pack, Isaac had been loved by everyone since he was born, with his handsome looks and good qualities of kindness and enthusiasm. When he found out that his mate was a slave of the pack, he was disappointed, but he couldn't help but pay attention to Claudia.
Until he was rejected by Claudia, he went completely crazy.
Claudia, who rejected her mate, discovered the secret of her birth, and as the daughter of a witch, she had powerful mind-reading ability and became the famous negotiator.
Two years later, the Moon Goddess gave her a second chance, but Claudia found that her mate was still Isaacc.
What else will happen between them? In the face of Isaac's strong personality change, will Claudia choose to redeem him or reject him again?

Kate Brady doesn’t exist. She’s a name on a passport, a voice Jackson Ruspoli has started to trust, a lie built carefully enough to survive inside the walls of Ruspoli Industries. Underneath her is Natalie Cromwell, a woman who died the same year her father did, when his ruined name became the only inheritance she had left.

Getting close to Jackson was supposed to be simple: find the buried proof that clears her father, and disappear before anyone learns her real name. But Jackson isn’t the careless mark she expected.
He’s sharp enough to know something about her doesn’t add up, and dangerous enough that being caught could cost her more than the job.

Then someone else starts using her real name.
Someone who remembers exactly what happened ten years ago, and wants the kind of ending that doesn’t leave room for the truth to matter, only for everything to burn. Now Natalie isn’t just racing to expose what Jackson’s family did. She’s racing to stop a stranger from destroying her only chance to do it right, before she becomes the one person left to blame.

The closer she gets to the truth, the closer she gets to Jackson. And the more she has to lose the moment he finds out who she really is.

She came here to be the hunter. She’s starting to realize she might already be the prey.

Amelia is starting high school with her best friend Lola — confident, magnetic, fearless Lola — the girl who makes the world feel manageable. While Amelia juggles grief, an absent father, and the heavy responsibility of raising her younger brothers, Lola is her escape. Her courage. Her voice. The version of herself she wishes she could be.
But when a body lies at Amelia’s feet, and her hands are covered in blood that isn’t hers, one question echoes louder than the rest:
How did it come to this?
As the school year unfolds, cracks begin to show — in friendships, in family, and in Amelia’s own mind. The lines between loyalty and control blur. Between truth and perception. Between who she is… and who she thinks she needs to be.
Because some friendships don’t just shape you.
They consume you.
And when the illusion shatters, there’s always something left behind.

"You are mine alone and no one else would have you" Jayden the school's well known bully and an unrepentant playboy shrieked at her and she frowned anger seething through her.

"Point of correction, I would never be yours so get that into your thick stupid skull".

"Get away from me for I have a have a boyfriend who awaits me" Rhoda yelled at him pushing him off and walking away from his sight.



Jayden was the school's head bully. Once you refused to sleep with him, he would bully you till you succumbed.

In Rhoda's case, she was strong headed and refused to be affected by his bullies.

She ignored him and bare whatever thing he does to her as long as he never saw her panties.

She was finally happy she when they entered their final class as would soon be freed from his bully but it looked like the moon goddess hated her and would never let her be happy "so she thought".

Rhoda's world crumbled the day she finally turned 18 and discovered that her boyfriend Luca who had been with her ever since she was 8 wasn't his mate, rather it was Jayden whom she dreaded.

Jayden was grateful as the strong headed girl would finally melt in his hands.

But was Luca who rejected his mate a year ago for his girlfriend ever going to allow Jayden have what was his?

Would Rhoda ever accept Jayden as her mate?

Would Jayden be letting her go just because they might refuse?

Read on to find out in this fantastic novel.

I died painfully after being sacrificed by my foster family.
Reborn, I walk away from their fake affection.
My true billionaire kin treat me as their priceless princess.
All those who once hurt me get what they deserve. A powerful, quiet tycoon stands firmly on my side, shielding me from all schemes and malice.

Gideon Henry. Billionaire. Powerful. Drop-dead gorgeous.
He's one of the most prominent business tycoons in the country. But for me, he's nothing but a devil.
He's done terrible things to me. He forced me to marry him. He made my life a living hell. He's the reason I lost the two most important people in my life—the man I love and our baby.
But when Gideon got into an accident and lost all of his memories, I didn't expect that he would turn into a different person. He's become kind, caring… and a loving husband to me.
And I woke up one day… realizing that I'm already falling in love with him…

I thought I was the perfect wife and mother, until I heard my husband outside his office, laughing, calling me a "prison warden" and planning to use our daughter as cover while he ran off to Tuscany with his grad student.

Everything fell apart. Then my daughter, in front of everyone: "That's just our annoying nanny."

I tried to hold on to what was left of our family, but my daughter shoved me down the stairs. I lost the baby, and my husband just checked his watch while I bled out on the floor.

They locked me in and left for Italy.

Alone in the hospital, they told me I'd lost the baby and had "memory damage."

Now they're back, expecting the same obedient wife.

She's gone.

And I'm done loving them.

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

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

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

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

That's when I knew I was done.

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

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

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

Charlotte. The "poor orphan" my family adopted.

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

They called me spoiled. Selfish. Difficult.

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

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

They thanked the wrong sister. For twelve years.

Now they want me dead.

Fine. Let Penelope Ashworth die.

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

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

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

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

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

"Tell them who killed Juliana," he shouted.

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

Until the memories start bleeding out anyway.

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

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

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

And me? I married Marco Rossi.

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

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

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

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

I look at her and smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I tried to explain.

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

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

He never once looked up.

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

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

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

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

The problem was, it was never me.

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

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

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

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

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

Something in me went still. Not broken. Finished.

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

Then I disappeared too.

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

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

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

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

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