Gu Chen

When my private jet landed after a grueling three-day border inspection, I tried calling everyone. No one answered. I didn't think much of it. I was just exhausted. But on the drive back to my estate, I casually opened the Silver Moon Pack's private social network. A live stream from a popular Pack influencer caught my eye. When the camera panned across a familiar riverfront terrace, my breath hitched. It was my terrace. In the center of the screen, my fated mate, Caleb, was down on one knee, holding a velvet ring box. Standing opposite him was a female wearing the custom haute couture white gown I had just paid for last week. It was my younger sister, Vivian. I zoomed in on the screen. My parents were sitting in the corner, wiping away tears of joy, looking as if they were witnessing the greatest miracle in the world. My Gamma—my supposed best friend, Fiona—ran up and handed Vivian a bouquet of glowing white Moonflowers, the sacred blooms meant only for a Luna's mating ceremony. Comments flooded the live feed: "What a romantic couple!" "Finally, this day has come!" Fiona was standing close to the camera, so the audio picked up her voice perfectly. Then, I heard my mother laughing warmly. "Yes," my mother said to the camera, wiping a tear. "It's been three years of hiding. Despite some minor bumps, they are finally getting the happiness they deserve." Three years. The betrayal of a fated mate is supposed to shatter a female's soul. I felt my inner White Wolf roar in pure, agonizing pain, tearing at the mate bond we shared. The nausea and betrayal twisted in my chest like a rusty blade. I closed my eyes, forcing the boiling lava in my veins to cool into solid ice. "Driver," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Turn around. Head to the Pack's chief law firm." Since they loved broadcasting their stolen happiness so much, I would use tonight's anniversary dinner to host a live broadcast of my own, letting all fifty thousand wolves of the Pack witness me tear the traitors apart and take back my throne.

I was once the only heiress of Chicago's hockey empire, the daughter of the legendary Humphrey family that everyone looked up to. For a boy who had nothing, I gave up my family, my identity, and even the powerful marriage arrangement my father had chosen for me. I used everything my family had-resources, connections, and influence-to push a struggling young player from the bottom of the hockey world to the very top. But when I collapsed alone in a rundown apartment, too sick to even afford my own medicine, the call I made to him became the final heartbreak of my life. The man who once swore he loved me coldly told me: "Cassidy, did you really think I loved you? I only wanted Humphrey Group." And the woman standing beside him, enjoying everything I had given him while taking my place as his "perfect girlfriend," was the person I trusted the most. I gave them everything. And in return, they joined hands to take away everything from me. When my life was coming to an end, I received a call from a number I had not seen for years. It was from Case Hoover. The captain of the New York Rangers, the heir of the legendary Hoover hockey dynasty, and the man I once rejected with my own hands. When I was reborn, I was no longer the foolish girl who abandoned everything for love. This time, I will reclaim my father's hockey empire. I will make everyone who betrayed me pay the price. And the man I once pushed away stood by my side, looking at me with the same unwavering devotion. "Case, this time... please choose me."

The heavy prison gates clanged shut, ending three years. I scanned the empty lot for Julian, my fiancé. Deserted. Biting December wind my only welcome. Calls to Julian, father, mother: unanswered/disconnected. Shivering, Julian's tracker showed an unfamiliar Long Island estate. A freezing cab left me penniless; I walked through the blizzard. Through a mansion window, I saw Julian, my stepsister Clara, a small boy—a perfect family. Julian, who hated children, doted on him, and Clara wore *my* engagement ring. I overheard Julian's call: he, my father, conspired to frame me for Clara’s medical error, saving their company and future. My family hadn't just abandoned me; they plotted my destruction. A delayed text from Julian popped up, lying about a "cross-border meeting," promising to pick me up tomorrow. Despair vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying smile. Typing "Understood," I turned from their stolen life, walking into the blizzard, fueled by burning rage.

The day I found out I was pregnant, I also learned my entire three-year relationship was a lie. The man I loved, the father of my child, was actually a master manipulator orchestrating a cruel revenge plot. He and his twin brother had shared my bed, my life, and my heart, all to destroy me. Erica, an ER nurse, was overjoyed with her pregnancy, believing she'd found true love and stability with corporate heir Anthony Holden. But this joy shattered when she overheard Anthony and his twin, Emmanuel, revealing their relationship was a "farce"—a three-year revenge plot against her for a forgotten college slight. The man in her bed was Emmanuel. Her grandmother then died due to Anthony's cruel refusal of medical aid. They locked Erica in a dark closet, attempted to poison her, and Anthony stomped on her wrist, stealing her EpiPen. This relentless abuse led to the ultimate loss of her unborn child. Lying in agony, Erica realized this was systematic annihilation. What monstrous secrets fueled such calculated savagery? From the ashes, a terrifying resolve ignited. The naive nurse died on that blood-soaked floor. Erica, now utterly devoid of emotion, would forge their gilded cage into a weapon and burn their entire empire to the ground.

The day my husband' s stepsister announced her pregnancy wasn' t the first time my world shattered. It had already been destroyed when his reckless driving killed our daughter, Lily. I was forced to play the perfect, grieving wife, trapped in a deal with his powerful grandfather: one year of silence for my freedom. But then they stole my daughter's name for their newborn son. They named him Lily. It was a sacred name, meant for the child I lost, and they twisted it into a monument of their betrayal. The final insult came when his mistress wore my late mother's blazer to their son's celebration, parading my last precious memory like a prize. They expected me to remain the silent, dignified victim they had created. They thought I was too broken to fight. They were wrong. I walked into that banquet ready to burn their world to the ground, and I started with the clothes on their backs.

The view from our twenty-million-dollar penthouse was stunning, but all I could see was the cracked screen of my phone. A single message from a contact named Sienna had just appeared: "Game On." For four years, I had worn the shapeless beige cardigans and played the quiet, submissive wife the elite Rutledge family demanded. "Dorothea is back in the city," my husband Hunter said, refusing to meet my eyes as he pushed the divorce papers toward me. He offered a "generous" settlement, patronizingly claiming that with my felony record and "creative resume," I’d be living on the streets without his charity. He had no idea that while he was rehearsing his breakup speech, I was already zipping up a duffel bag filled with cash and a passport in a name he didn't recognize. His sister Kamala didn't even wait for me to pack before she was in our bedroom, calling me a leech and trying to destroy the only photo I had of my mother. I didn't cry or beg; I simply dropped Hunter’s favorite three-million-dollar Ming vase, watched it shatter, and walked out the door with a cold smile. That night, I traded my sensible flats for a crimson silk dress and lethal heels, leaving Hunter’s jaw on the floor when he saw me at an exclusive club. He watched in horror as I smashed a vodka bottle over a harasser's head, still believing I was a broken woman who needed his protection. He didn't know the truth until his grandmother finally revealed that I was the anonymous investor who had rescued their company from bankruptcy. I had gone to prison to protect his father's reputation, wearing the shame for years so their family name wouldn't implode. Hunter fell to his knees in the driveway, begging for a second chance and promising to dump his mistress, but the anger in my heart had already turned to ice. The man I had sacrificed my life for was now just a stranger I used to know. "The opposite of love isn't hate, Hunter. It's indifference." I climbed into a purple supercar as my phone buzzed with a call from Mount Sinai Hospital. My medical license was reinstated, and a high-profile trauma case was waiting for my hands. Iris the housewife was dead, and Dr. Gutierrez was finally back in play.

I was guiding the blade through a slab of A5 Wagyu for our seven-year anniversary when a burner phone vibrated against my knee. It was a photo of a manicured hand resting on the tuxedo I had bought for Dante three weeks ago. On the finger sat a massive diamond ring. The caption read: Mrs. Isabella Gallo. Finally legal. For seven years, I wasn't just his lover. I was the architect of his legitimacy, the woman who wrote the code that cleaned his dirty money. Yet, while I was here cooking his favorite steak, he had married a mob princess to secure her father's territory. When Dante walked in smelling of expensive scotch and another woman's perfume, he didn't apologize. "It's just politics," he said, loosening his tie. "You keep your allowance, your position. You just stay in the shadows a little longer." He looked at me like I was a piece of high-end furniture. When I told him I was leaving, his face darkened. "You can't resign from the Mafia, Seraphina," he sneered, blocking the door. "If you leave, I will burn everything you have." He truly believed he was the King on the chessboard. He forgot that I was the one who built the board. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I simply walked out, opened my encrypted laptop, and dialed the number of the one man Dante feared most. "I'm cashing out," I said. "And I'm bringing the entire Gallo empire with me."

I walked into the Thorn estate with another man's diamond on my finger, naive enough to think it could shield me from Marcus. But the Don of the city’s underworld didn't even blink. He called my engagement ring a "cute trinket" and introduced me to his own fiancée, Chloe, right then and there. "Love is a fairy tale for children, Ellie," he sneered. "And you are far too old for fairy tales." I tried to leave with dignity, but the knife twisted deeper. I found my mother’s silver locket—the one he swore to protect with his life—buried in the mud like trash. He hadn't just rejected me; he had erased me. Broken, I fled to Florence to marry a man I didn't love, just to escape the suffocation of the estate. But I couldn't outrun the heartbreak. I collapsed in a foreign apartment, burning with fever, while my fiancé worried more about wedding seating charts than my life. I thought I was going to die alone. Until I woke up in a sterile clinic room. My fiancé was gone. Standing by my bed, looking like a vengeful god who had just burned down a city to get to me, was Marcus. He trapped me against the mattress, his eyes dark with a terrifying mix of rage and possession. "Did you really think you could run from me?" he growled. "I returned the locket," I whispered, trembling. "We are even." "Fuck the locket," he said. "You belong to me, Ellie. And I am not leaving without you."

My perfect marriage to Don Dante Moretti, the most powerful man in the New York mob, ended the moment my father died. I was twenty-four, pregnant with his heir, and I believed I was his queen. But for two days, while I planned a funeral alone, my husband was unreachable. Then a friend sent me a photo. Dante in London, his hand tangled in the hair of the woman beside him. It was my cousin, Valentina. He came home with lies about a dead phone and a difficult summit. That night, I found his private journal, and my world disintegrated. He had married me because I had "Valentina’s eyes." I was a substitute. Our unborn child wasn't a product of love. It was a project. A girl he planned to name Elena, after Valentina, calling her a "perfect, tiny piece of the woman I can never truly possess." I wasn't his wife. I was a stand-in. The love I felt for him didn't just die. It was murdered. The next morning, I slid a folder across the kitchen island. "Donation forms," I said. He didn't even look before scrawling his signature on what were actually our finalized divorce papers. His arrogance was my weapon. As he slept beside me that night, smelling of lies and my cousin, I made an appointment at a private clinic. He wanted a legacy? I would give him nothing.

My wife was dying, and I refused to save her. That's what everyone in the hospital believed, and what the headlines would scream. The hospital called; Sarah, my wife, was in critical condition after a severe car accident, needing a specialized, uninsured procedure costing half a million dollars. I said no. The word hung heavy in the air. This wasn't just Sarah's life; it was a choice between her, and the future of my company and hundreds of employees. My terrified in-laws pleaded, "You're comparing your company to your wife's life? To the mother of your child?" My six-year-old daughter, Lily, tugged at my pants, her innocent eyes filled with tears. "Daddy? Is Mommy going to die?" I told her I had to protect the company for our future, a necessary cruelty. My mother-in-law shrieked accusations, calling me a monster, flinging accusations of how Sarah sacrificed everything for me. The crowd gathered, their judgment a palpable weight. They whispered, "He won't pay to save his own wife. What a scumbag." A part of me smiled behind my mask of indifference. Let them judge. They were watching the wrong movie, completely unaware of the real plot. Then, my daughter held out her pink piggy bank, offering all she had. "Daddy, I have money. You can use my money to save Mommy." I knew this was the part I dreaded most, the collateral damage of a wicked plan. This entire tragic drama was meticulously orchestrated, but not by me. And I was about to expose every single one of them.

My first life ended abruptly, with the screech of tires and the brutal impact of a car driven by my younger sister, Stella. I had always been the compliant one, funding her endless "mistakes" and even giving her the man I loved, Matthew. As I lay dying, the last thing I heard wasn't an apology, but my parents' voices telling the police, "She was the older sister; she should have been more understanding." Their words, not the collision, were the ultimate betrayal. Then, darkness. But not oblivion. I woke up, seventeen again, surrounded by the familiar scent of pine and damp earth in our Appalachian home. The horrifying map of my future, burned into my memory, was now a chance for a different path. This time, I would never again seek their love. This time, I would live only for myself.

My life was perfect. I had a loving husband, Andrew, and our bright, energetic five-year-old son, Caleb. We lived happily in Chicago, a normal American family. Then, in a screech of tires and a thunderous crash, a low-slung, obscenely yellow Lamborghini, driven by rich kid Barney Hughes, stole them from me. One moment they were alive, the next, crumpled on the asphalt. But the nightmare didn' t end there. Barney' s father, a powerful real estate magnate, bought off the police, made surveillance footage vanish, and had my family' s bodies illegally cremated. Every lawyer I approached laughed me out of their office, warning of "professional suicide" against the Hughes empire. I lost my job, and then Barney sued me for harassment. My world crumbled. One night, Barney and his thugs broke into my home, beat me mercilessly, shattered every photo of my family, then committed the ultimate desecration: they opened the box of ashes, the stolen remains of my husband and son, and dumped them over my head. "Buy yourself a new kid or something. Get over it," he sneered, before urinating on the floor beside me. How could this happen in America? How could a family of heroes, dedicated to service, be murdered and then have their memory so brutally insulted by a corrupt system? Lying broken on the floor, covered in dust and urine, I suddenly remembered two Medal of Honor recipients and an old promise: "The United States Army does not forget its own." I packed the medals and made a silent vow. My fight had just begun.

My first life ended alone in a hospital room, not with a bang, but with the quiet hum of an IV. My husband, Ethan Lester, had spent months tearing me down, flaunting an affair, and relentlessly pursuing a divorce. It was only after death, in an empty void, that the shattering truth unfolded: Ethan had pancreatic cancer, a secret burden he bore alone. His cruelty was a desperate, twisted act of love, a brutal attempt to push me away so I wouldn't witness his agonizing decline. He even took his own life after my funeral, convinced I'd find happiness with my ex. Then I woke up, alive, the familiar scent of our apartment filling my lungs. Across from me sat Ethan, divorce papers clutched in his hand, his eyes a mask of indifference. "This is the 99th time, Jocelyn," he said, "Sign them. My girlfriend is pregnant." In my past life, those words broke me. But this time, seeing the subtle tremor in his hand, the deep circles under his eyes, I knew I was facing the same painful charade. Why would he go to such lengths to push me away? What kind of love forces such a cruel deception? I picked up the papers, slowly, deliberately, and tore them in half. I knew his secret. And this time, I wouldn't let him die.

The car horn blared, a familiar sound mirroring a day that once ended my world. My eyes snapped open to the rain-streaked window – SATs morning, a date etched in my memory, not for the test, but for the beginning of my ruin. Last time, it began with my 'friend' Jessica' s sweet smile, offering food after the exam. Then, the peanuts. My throat closed. My boyfriend, Liam, sided with her, dismissing it as 'an accident.' That 'accident' spiraled. Online posts branded me a monster, my tech CEO mother' s reputation shredded, her company attacked by Jessica' s followers. The worst? Dying, isolated and vilified, knowing Jessica orchestrated it all for revenge-her father fired for embezzlement-and for social media clout. The bitter betrayal still burned. How could I have been so easily destroyed by a calculated lie? I died a villain while she won. But this time, the script was about to flip. I wouldn't be a victim. An MIT early admission letter, a full scholarship, sat on my desk, secured weeks ago. The SATs, once my undoing, now meant nothing to me. But they meant everything to them. The past was a horrifying ghost, but its lessons were concrete. I was ready to make them pay.

The smell hit me first, thick, choking smoke, then Lila' s terrified scream ripped through the festival noise. Jax, my fiancé, was a blur beside me, his face tight with a desperate need to save her. He started towards The Swamp Shack, towards the hungry flames devouring the old wooden walls. My body wanted to lunge, to grab his arm, to scream, "No, Jax, don't!" But this time, I didn't. Because I remembered. I remembered the searing pain as burning wood crashed down, crushing my left hand, destroying my music, obliterating my future, in another life. I remembered Jax' s face, twisted not with concern for me, but with fury, after Lila was dead and my hand a useless, mangled thing. "It's your fault, Scarlett! You should have saved her, not me!" his words, a brand on my soul. His family' s money, a weapon that bled me dry, blackballing me from every gig, every chance I had. I remembered the suffocating silence of his plantation, the cold dismissal in his eyes every day of our sham marriage. Oh God, and the smokehouse. Locked in, the Louisiana summer sun beating down, the air so thick I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, utterly alone. I gasped, the memory so real I could taste the ash and the terror. Now, in this life, Jax was yelling Lila' s name again, ready to play the hero, just like before. But this time the script was mine. This time, I stepped aside. I just watched him charge into the inferno, pure indifference a cold comfort. My hand, my precious hand, was safe. My music was still mine.

Claire, a pharmacy clerk, was framed for making a mistake, which brought her into Henry’s world. She even ended up having to marry him to compensate for his loss. Regardless of how hard she tried to explain herself, he just took her words as more trickery, or a part of her evil plan to marry into a rich family. However, before he knew it, he had already occupied her heart. Finally, as the misunderstandings are cleared up, and all the hurt became sorrowful echoes of love, where should her love turn?

"No wolf. No family. Harmless. Useful. The second I am done with her, the Luna title is yours." Eira Crawford heard those words through her husband's office door. For four years, she had been Sebastian Vale's hidden mate. She managed his household, entertained his relatives, cleaned up his messes, and lived on the three thousand dollars he gave her each month like charity. Even buying a new coat required an explanation. But for his first love, he casually prepared three hundred thousand dollars in research funding. To Sebastian, Eira was nothing more than a wolfless Omega from an orphanage. A quiet, obedient wife with no pack, no power, and no value beyond being useful. He had never introduced her publicly as his Luna. His family treated her like a servant. His sweetheart mocked her as a woman who could only survive by clinging to an Alpha. So Eira stopped crying. She recorded the affair, filed for mate dissolution, and placed the divorce papers in front of Sebastian. Even then, he thought she was throwing a tantrum. He signed without hesitation, certain she would come crawling back once she realized no one else would want a discarded, wolfless Omega. He was wrong. The woman he left at home washing dishes was a Stanford-trained electrical engineer. The "useless" wife he ignored was the hidden chief engineer behind a national self-developed chip project. Her movements were classified. Her disappearance could alert the federal authorities. Her name, once revealed, was enough to shake the entire scientific community. And Sebastian knew nothing. After walking out of his house with nothing but her freedom, Eira crossed paths with Killian Sterling, the coldest and most powerful Alpha in the north. He did not know her name yet, but his wolf recognized something in her that everyone else had missed. Meanwhile, Sebastian finally realized that Eira was not bluffing. He searched the entire city like a madman. For the first time in four years, he publicly called her his wife. He demanded she return. He begged for another chance. But by then, Eira was no longer waiting in his house. She was seated at the Sterling Pack's dinner table, dressed with quiet confidence, while the most feared Alpha in North America stood beside her. In front of everyone, Killian Sterling placed his hand at her back and said coldly, "Eira is not anyone's discarded Omega." "She is my Luna."

I was waiting at the Registry Hall to formalize my mate bond with Gabe, my childhood sweetheart and the Alpha of our pack. He was thirty-two minutes late. When I finally found him in a private VIP lounge, his hands were buried in my cousin's hair, their lips locked together. Hailee was supposed to be my maid of honor. Instead of apologizing, Gabe looked me dead in the eye and used his Alpha authority to publicly reject me. The severing of our ten-year bond tore my soul apart, but the nightmare didn't stop there. My grandfather immediately called, demanding I clean up a mess Hailee had made. When I refused, he disowned me on the spot, froze every single one of my bank accounts, and stripped me of my family name. Within hours, my entire pack erased my existence, gleefully announcing Hailee as their new Luna. I had given my entire life to a family and a man who discarded me like worthless trash the second I became inconvenient. I was left broken, humiliated, and utterly penniless in the blink of an eye. But as I stumbled out of that sterile hall, a terrifyingly beautiful stranger stepped out of the shadows, radiating a primal power that made my knees weak. He was Caden Sinclair, the ruthless Lycan King, and he was dodging a forced political union of his own. "You need a shield. I need a wife. Marry me." Without hesitation, I signed the Eternal Vow.

"This is Virella, my wife." Three years. And that was all Alpha Kaelen gave me. No welcome. No touch. No recognition. Just another woman at his side, carrying his child. While I ruled in his absence, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A Luna he never chose. So I gave up. And I left. One rejection was all it took to break the bond. When I returned, I wasn't the Luna he abandoned. I was untouchable, respected, and feared. And no longer his to claim. Now he watches me like a man drowning... Because the woman he discarded came back as something far beyond his reach. And this time, I didn't come alone. The Alpha of Ebonmoon stands beside me, his presence crushing, and his hand firm on my waist... "Careful, Kaelen," his voice drops, dark with warning. "Rowena isn't yours anymore." His lips brush my temple, possessively. "She's mine. If you try to take her, I'll end you."

I was the wolfless disgrace of the pack, traded like cattle to a dying monster. When a royal decree stripped away my engagement, my own father gave my fiancé to my cruel sister, Charly. My punishment for being born without a wolf? A forced marriage to Demetri Contreras—the crippled, disgraced Alpha left to rot from silver poison. They threw me into a frozen, forgotten estate, waiting for my new husband to die so I could be buried as a silent widow. Charly laughed as she stole my life, my mate, and my future. My family discarded me, just like they murdered my mother years ago. They thought this exile would break me. They thought I was a helpless pawn. They didn't know that inside this fragile body lived the soul of the top interstellar miracle surgeon. Looking at the ruined, festering Alpha bleeding on my wedding bed, I didn't see a corpse. I saw the deadliest weapon in the realm. The fallen Alpha needs a miracle to survive. Lucky for him, I am the miracle. I will drag this monster back from the gates of hell—and together, we will burn my enemies to ash.

I was the wolfless twin. The rejected bride. The daughter marked for death. They didn't realize they weren't killing a girl-they were breaking a seal. ​On my wedding day, my fated mate didn't say "I do." He said, "I reject you." ​Luke Blackwood didn't want a Luna without a wolf, so he chose my twin sister instead. Humiliated and hunted by my own father, I was forced to flee into the territory of the one man my pack feared most: Aiden Stormrider, the ruthless Alpha King and billionaire CEO of Crescent ​Aiden thinks I'm a pawn to be used against my father. He thinks I'm a weak Omega seeking refuge. ​He's wrong. ​Deep inside me, something ancient is waking up. It's not just one wolf-it's five. Five fractured personalities, each with their own deadly powers, born from a prophecy that says I will end the age of Alphas. ​As the Dragon Wolf rises, I will reclaim my throne. My sister wants my legacy? She can have the ashes. My mate wants my forgiveness? He can beg while I burn his world down. ​Aiden Stormrider wants my heart... but he'll have to survive the five monsters living inside it first. ​They wanted a sacrifice. They got a Queen.

I was born a wolfless cripple in the Richmond Pack, but by royal decree, I was engaged to the kingdom's Champion Knight, Emory. During the winter banquet, my half-sister Dessie suddenly tilted backward into the royal ice pond, screaming that I pushed her. In my previous life, I reached out in panic to save her, only to be dragged down and framed for attempted murder. When Emory dove into the freezing water, he swam right past my sinking body to rescue her instead. Once ashore, my own father and my betrothed ignored my desperate pleas. They branded me a vicious, jealous traitor. Emory publicly broke our engagement to marry Dessie, while my father threw me to the executioner to wash away the family's shame with my blood. Until my head was on the chopping block, I didn't understand. Why did my own family want me dead just because I had no inner wolf? Why did the knight who swore to protect me conspire with my illegitimate sister to destroy my life? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the snow-dusted terrace, right as Dessie was setting up the exact same trap. "A wolfless cripple like you should crawl back to the gutter," she whispered, falling backward. This time, I didn't flinch or beg for help. Instead, my fingers shot out like iron clamps, grabbing her wrist, and I dragged her into the freezing depths with me.

During the party for her second wedding anniversary, Kylie stood quietly to one side and watched her Alpha kiss his childhood sweetheart. Her life felt like a trap. She had relinquished her Alpha blood for him, and that was what she got. Yet fate wasn't finished with her. An encounter with Alpha Logan gave her a way out she hadn't expected. As the Alpha of a powerful pack, he could help her get even with her cheating mate. There was just one catch. Kylie would have to spend a year as his Luna. Accepting his offer would be a dangerous gamble, but Kylie struggled to resist her attraction to the Alpha she couldn't quite figure out. Could she bring herself to agree to his terms? What would she do if her feelings for him grew too strong to push aside?

On the day I swallowed the lethal poison, my blind Alpha husband was accompanying his adopted sister to her prenatal checkup. For three years, I ruined my face and crippled my wolf to act as his secret blood bag, absorbing his deadly silver toxicity. Yet, upon hearing of her pregnancy, he brutally forced himself on me to vent his manic rut. And the moment she whined for him, he abandoned me without hesitation, leaving me bleeding and shattered on the cold floor. "Take the money and keep out of her sight." He sneered, throwing a black card at my battered face to buy my dignity. He didn't know I was dying. I didn't cry or argue. I calmly signed the mate rejection papers and swallowed a forbidden neurotoxin that induces absolute physiological death. A month later, his sight was finally restored. But instead of the devoted Luna he loved to torture, he found only a withered, stiff corpse on the bed. The ever-arrogant, ruthless Alpha completely shattered. In the dead silence, he fell to his knees and crushed my lifeless body into his arms. He pressed his quivering lips to mine, desperately sinking his fangs into my freezing scent gland as he sobbed in absolute agony: "Stop sleeping, Gianna, I can finally see you... I'll pay you back with my life, just don't throw me away."

Talia Ashford has spent fifteen years hiding behind a glamour charm that makes her look plain, weak, and forgettable. Her stepmother, Vivienne Cress, reduced her to a servant after her mother disappeared in a mysterious fire. The pack believes Talia is worthless. On the day the Alpha of Shadowfang arrives, Celeste hits Talia and blames her for bad luck. But when Talia is called to the bonding ceremony, the bonding stone reveals a shocking truth. Talia is already bonded to Kaelen Frost, the cold and powerful Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack. Now Talia must survive her stepmother's schemes, hide her true powers, and uncover the truth about her mother – all while convincing the most dangerous wolf in the territory that she is not the weakling everyone believes her to be.

I stood outside the Pack Registration Hall, waiting to bind my future with Mark, the man I had loved for five years. But instead of taking my hand, he stopped a foot away and publicly rejected me in front of the crowd. "I can't take on your family's endless medical bills. I need a real she-wolf for a mate, not some wolfless mutt." The onlookers snickered, their whispers feeling like physical blows. My heart shattered into pieces. My grandfather was in the hospital, relying on me to settle down so he could face his risky surgery with peace of mind. Now, I was left with nothing but humiliation and a mountain of debt I could never pay off. I stared at the man I had devoted my entire youth to, his face now completely foreign. Why was my lack of a wolf a sin? Why did my family's suffering make me a burden to be thrown away like trash? Just as I was about to break, I saw a tall, intimidating stranger across the plaza, swarmed by reporters after his own high-society fiancée publicly dumped him. Driven by sheer desperation for my grandfather's life, I wiped my tears, walked straight up to this terrifying man, and blocked his path. "You need a mate to save face, and I need a million dollars for medical bills. Marry me." I expected him to laugh and push me aside. Instead, a calculating smile touched his lips, and he handed me a black card.