652 Book(s) Related to how do you shift

The night Julian went public with the new cheer captain, everyone expected me to crash the party and completely lose my mind.

But the confession ended, and I never showed up.

What Julian didn't know was that at that exact moment, I was wearing his cousin's oversized shirt, sitting on the edge of his mattress, asking with perfect innocence:

"I just got your sheets wet. Where are we supposed to sleep tonight?"

"We're done, Arthur."

That was how I ended a ten-year relationship with my childhood sweetheart.

He didn't take it seriously. He just smirked and asked, "How many days is this tantrum going to last? Three? A week?"

Then, his phone lit up. It was her—the helpless scholarship student he had been protecting.

"I'm on my way," he promised her softly, turning his back on me without a second thought.

He walked away, assuming I would always be his safety net.

What he didn't realize was that my answer was forever.

Ten years of being his fool, and I was finally cutting the cord.

A siren's tears turn to gemstones.

Mine were funding my boyfriend's entire career—but ordinary stones weren't enough anymore.

Deep-sea sapphires. That's what he was after.

So he brought a whip.

"Almost there, babe. Cry for me and it's over."

"Once I'm in, I'll marry you."

My vision blurred with tears—then something else flooded in.

Bright, scrolling, impossible words:

[LOL, by the time he gets his Council seat, he'll have wrung her dry and married the Arcane Princess instead.]

[Sandra, check out the vampire prince next door—he heard you screaming and thinks you two are having sex. He's crying under his blankets right now.]

[When you're literally dying in the finale, the prince is the one who carries you to the Eastern Sea. That's the only reason you survive.]

[Oh, and the prince is a purebred incubus hybrid. Eight-pack abs. Naturally compatible with desire-driven sirens. Stop suffering for this loser and go live your best life!]

My eyes lit up. I kicked the man in front of me straight into the wall.

Hopped next door, pushed open the door: "Kaelen, I hear you've got a nice body—prove it?"

My son was killed in a horrific car bomb assassination.

At his rain-drenched funeral, my husband, Enzo—a Mafia Don—held an umbrella over my head, only to suddenly state with icy indifference:

"Gianna is pregnant. It's my blood."

Gianna. The illegitimate daughter of the Lucchese family boss.

I stiffened, looking up in sheer disbelief.

"What the hell does that mean?"

He cast a careless glance at me, completely unbothered.

"To end the war between the Corsican and Lucchese families, I've been with her in secret for a while now. Now that she carries the Corsican bloodline, I must give her a proper title. She will be moving into the estate tonight. You will not only accept this, but you will also give her the respect she deserves as the mother of my child."

The adoptive brother I'd been secretly in love with for a decade took my virginity on the night of my twentieth birthday, fueled by alcohol.

I thought I had finally found love.

Until I stood outside his half-open apartment door and heard his teammates mocking me.

"Damn, Dax, you actually slept with Elara? That boring good girl?"

My hand froze mid-air above the doorknob.

Dax's tone was dripping with contempt. "Look closely at her face. It's exactly like Cassandra's, isn't it?"

"It's no big deal. She revolves around me every single day. All it took was crooking a finger."

"With Cassandra gone, she's the perfect stand-in to kill time."

The room instantly erupted into a fit of unbridled, mocking laughter.

I dug my nails fiercely into my palms, opened my phone, and found the email I had deliberately ignored for a month.

[Florence Academy of Fine Arts — Exchange Program Confirmation]

In this world, there exists a place called the Life Pawnshop.

As long as you possess enough Love Value—the genuine affection held for you by your family or spouse—you can trade it there for any miracle.

My biological brother, Noah, died in a car crash. My parents, my husband—everyone was forcing me to go to the pawnshop and use my Love Value to bring him back.

The pawnshop's laws were absolute and unforgiving: a sacrifice of a life for a life required the pawner to be of the exact same generation as the deceased, bound by deep ties of blood or fate.

That meant in this entire family, only I and the adopted daughter, Chloe, were eligible to make the trade.

But what my family didn't know was that I had already exhausted every last drop of my Love Value for this very family.

If someone with zero Love Value forcibly stepped onto the altar, the pawnshop's punishment mechanism would crush the sacrificer alive, skin and bone.

My daughter has passed away, and my ex-husband abandoned us.

In my darkest hour, my first love, Lysander, reappeared; he covered the medical expenses, married me, and provided me with a home.

For five years, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until that fateful day, four months into my pregnancy, when I overheard his conversation with a friend—

“To save Celeste, I thought... who knew it would lead to the death of Seraphina’s daughter?”

“As for Seraphina, she is a good wife, but alas... I do not love her.”

It turned out that my daughter’s death was no accident.

It was revealed that these five years of marriage were merely his quest for atonement.

The one he had always truly loved was Celeste—my ex-husband’s current wife.

As I lay on the operating table, I made a decision—

Since he had taken my daughter’s kidney, I would seize everything from him.

Including what he believed he would never lose: me.

At my mother's funeral, I stopped outside the lounge.

Through the door, I heard Julian—my fiancé—delivering a cold warning to my father:

"You can stop obsessing over Harper, Richard. She's with me now. Don't bother her anymore."

My father immediately tried to use me to suppress him. "Don't forget you're marrying Sloane next week! If she finds out you're screwing the orphan her mother took in..."

Julian cut him off. "She'll never know. Just like she'll never know her mother didn't actually die of depression. She killed herself because she caught you two together."

Father's counterattack threw me straight into hell:

"What right do you have to judge me?! When Sloane was frantic, calling you for help, what were you doing? If you hadn't been rolling around in a hotel bed with Harper, if you hadn't lied to Sloane that you were 'on your way,' her mother would never have died!"

A violent ringing filled my ears.

I slammed the door open, stormed in, and slapped Julian across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.

The man I was supposed to marry in seven days merely turned his head. It took him exactly one second to suppress his shock.

"Since you heard everything, good. Better to accept reality now, so you don't break down later."

"For the sake of the Vance family heir you're carrying, the wedding next week proceeds as planned."

"But I have responsibilities to Harper, too. That tie won't be severed."

I thought I was marrying the New York Godfather out of love. I didn't know I was just a walking blood bank for his fake 'savior'—my illegitimate half-sister.

My father, my brother, my husband... they bled me dry, framed me, and even demanded my unborn baby's cord blood to keep a murderer alive.

When I finally learned the truth, I didn't cry. I didn't scream.
I simply locked the doors, scheduled the emails that would shatter their reality, and left them a charred corpse in a towering sea of fire.

They thought they watched me burn. I let them descent into absolute madness.

At the engagement party, Julian tore up our agreement on the spot, selling me for a single dollar to Callum, a man rumored to be a bloodthirsty, crippled psychopath.

Our mutual friend frowned.

"Are you out of your mind? Sylvia stayed by your side through your hardest three years, and you're really going to send her off to be tortured by a freak like Callum?"

Julian casually swirled the whiskey in his glass.

"It's just a little punishment. Rosie is carrying my child and needs a title, but Sylvia is too damn proud. Not only did she refuse to step down, but she also upset Rosie and affected her pregnancy."

"Callum is a twisted cripple. Give it three hours, and she'll break down completely. By then, she'll obediently accept Rosie's existence and even willingly stay as my hidden mistress."

The friend looked at my retreating back and couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you afraid you'll push her too far, that she'd rather stay with that psycho than come back to you?"

Julian let out a light scoff.

"Absolutely impossible. She loves me so much she'd give her life for me. Even if she takes a trip to hell, she'll only beg me to be her savior."

I picked up that one-dollar coin from the floor, without a single tear or tantrum.

Later, Julian broke into Callum's estate like a madman, begging me to go back with him.

But the disabled man from the rumors simply stood up, pulled me securely behind him, and sneered, "My wife. Is she someone you are even fit to touch?"

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

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

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

"I am Cecilia."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The day I secured the finale at New York Fashion Week, my adopted sister was in a car crash that left her completely blind.
And so began a ruthless campaign to destroy my life.
Listening to me prepare for the runway, she touched her heavy gauze bandages and wept bitterly. "You're so brilliant, Valora. Not like me... I'm just a useless, blind burden."
To placate her, our brother burned my core design sketches to ashes.
On the day of the show, my finale haute couture gown was maliciously slashed to ribbons. My reputation was left in ruins, and every single sponsor pulled their funding.
Later, she live-streamed her suicide attempt from a rooftop, sobbing that a disabled girl like her didn't deserve to be loved.
My husband dropped to one knee in front of the entire world and slipped the custom diamond ring—my ring—onto her finger.
That very night, I was dead-bolted inside my roaring, fire-engulfed studio.
With toxic smoke searing my lungs, I dialed my husband's number for help, only to be met with his frustrated, impatient voice:
"Serafina is blind! The fire alarms have her terrified! Stop being so damn petty and jealous right now!"
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of her accident. The day she faked her blindness.

Seven years ago, my father, the Wolf King, listened to the slander of his new lover and personally brought a bowl of abortion poison to my mother.

My mother fought desperately to turn her head away in resistance, but he forced it down her throat anyway.

In her absolute despair, she let out a harrowing scream, vowing she would never see him again in this lifetime!

Since then, the soul bond between my parents was completely severed.

My father, however, brushed it off, dead certain that my mother was "blocking the bond" to throw a temper tantrum.

Until today, when the vampire army massed at our borders, specifically demanding a royal blood slave.

To protect his new lover's daughter, my father seized me to take her place.

He set fire to my mother's beloved sea of moonflowers, pointing at the soaring flames and roaring: "If you come out and beg me, I'll spare Aria's life!"

But even as the inferno reduced half the courtyard to ashes, the space behind that tightly shut door remained in a state of dead silence.

He didn't know—

The severed bond wasn't a tantrum.

Because of that bowl of poison seven years ago, my mother had drawn her last breath that very night.

In my past life, I exposed my cousin Isolde's deadly secret just to save Darius from absolute ruin, binding myself to him in a Soul Pact instead.

My reward?

At three months pregnant, Darius chained me to a water dungeon altar, carved my stomach open alive, and smashed our unborn child to pieces right in front of my eyes—all as a twisted sacrifice to my cousin who supposedly "died for love."

When I opened my eyes again, I was right back at the Pact Selection Ceremony.

Watching him pull her into his arms like some priceless treasure, I simply smiled and took a tactful step back.

In this life, I am going to sit back and watch the two of them burn in hell together.

On our wedding night, my husband confessed that he had been unfaithful with my sister.

In response, I revealed that I had murdered my stepfather.

He laughed and said, "My dear, your story is so convincingly crafted."

It was only when he discovered—

Every detail within the narrative was, indeed, a stark reality.

Including the poison that was now coursing through his veins.

My husband suffered a massive heart attack mid-thrust inside my best friend.

Now, the ER doctors are clutching his surgical consent forms, waiting for me—the legal wife—to sign.

Over the phone, my mother-in-law shrieked in absolute despair while my best friend sobbed in terror.

I turned a deaf ear to them, taking my time to admire my makeup in the mirror.

There was absolutely no rush. Waiting until I changed into this pitch-black mourning dress to slowly watch his countdown to death wouldn't be too late.

After all, when my parents and my son, Noah, were lying in the morgue, I survived a dead-silent night exactly like this one, shedding tears until my eyes literally bled dry.

Now, it is finally my husband's turn to go to hell and atone for my family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Victor, stop. I came here for therapy—not to ruin my marriage."

Arthur had assured me his college buddy Victor—a single personal rehab therapist built like a gladiator—would cure my chronic back pain. But then Victor straddled me on the therapy table, his thick, hard cock scorching through thin fabric as it ground against my soaked pussy. All the while, Arthur's voice echoed from the speakerphone:

"Do whatever it takes to fix her. I trust you."

Five years ago, I knelt on marble floors, cleaning wine with my own dress while they laughed.

Five years later, they knelt before me, begging for forgiveness while I walked away.

They thought three hundred thousand dollars could buy my soul. They thought I was just another disposable substitute, another broken girl desperate enough to sell her dignity for her dying mother's medical bills.

Caspian Ashford wanted a replacement for his precious Scarlett. The Hampton elite wanted a servant to humiliate. They all wanted me to disappear quietly when they were done with me.

They got their wish—I did disappear.

But the girl who drowned in that yacht "accident" five years ago? She was weak, desperate, powerless.

The woman who returned as Elena Whitman?

I'm their worst fucking nightmare.

My name is Maya Wilson. I'm seventeen, I have 100K TikTok followers, and I just watched my dad destroy our family for a twenty-five-year-old homewrecker named Ashley.

"Ashley makes me feel alive again," he said, dismissing seventeen years of marriage like a bad business deal.

"We'll be one happy family," she smiled, standing in our kitchen like she already owned it.

That's when I knew: Mom needed my protection.

What followed was a war fought with laptops and lies, fake pregnancies and real heartbreak. A battle between a broken housewife discovering her strength, a teenage girl wielding digital weapons, and a woman who thought she could manipulate her way to victory.

Six months later, Mom would be accepting awards. Ashley would be gone. And Dad?

Dad would be begging for forgiveness he'd never get.

The day my mother succumbed to complications during childbirth, her younger sister, Vanessa, wed my father.

Fifteen years later, I beheld my husband accompanying Vanessa as she tried on seductive lingerie.

In that moment, I understood—what she truly coveted was never my father, but rather all that my mother and I shared.

My mother perished during childbirth, a casualty of an illicit affair.

I vowed not to repeat that tragic cycle.

Then I returned home, removed my wedding ring, and left behind the divorce papers.

I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf. I incinerated all our memories, rendering them vapor in this world.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...

After being stood up for the ninety-ninth time while attempting to register for marriage, I sent my fiancé a breakup message. He had allowed me to be let down ninety-nine times, dismissing my asthma as mere pretentiousness and perceiving my sacrifices as acts of greed, all the while lavishing his patience upon another woman. It was only when he had his mistress select a cheap necklace for me and sketched explicit nudes of her that I realized these seven years were not a narrative of profound love, but rather an absurd farce playing out solely in my life. The moment I dispatched the breakup message, I never envisioned that this man, who viewed me as dispensable, would later pursue me with a frenzied obsession.

A car crash stole my memories, but gave me the perfect "boyfriend."

When I woke up, tattooed Knox held my hand and said: "I'm your boyfriend." I believed him. His tenderness, his daughter's affection, those photos of "us together"—what a beautiful lie.

Until a children's choir sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and shattered memories flooded back: I was a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of child abuse, my ex-boyfriend Zephyr abandoned me for his career, his new girlfriend Sterling orchestrated the entire trap that even led to my car crash and amnesia...

And Knox? He was a complete stranger!

The most twisted part—I actually fell in love with this man who lied to me.

When Zephyr returned with regret, when Sterling threatened with malicious intent, when Knox waited in fear for my judgment... I made the craziest choice:

"I choose this lie."

When I was reborn, and my Alpha husband's ward clamped a muzzle around my neck as a joke...
I didn't shift into my wolf and tear her arm off like in my past life.
I ripped off the bloody muzzle and gave Roman a smile.
"If you think this is a joke, keep indulging her."
And I walked away without looking back.
Because my death in my previous life was too miserable.
After our fallout, Roman used his Alpha authority to freeze my accounts overnight.
Exiled, I was diagnosed with terminal silver poisoning.
Dying in agony, I swallowed my pride and crawled back to the Pack gates.
But he let Chloe force me to my knees and refused to open the doors.
In the end, my wolf spirit shattered, and I froze to death.
I only understand after dying: love and dignity are worthless.
Survival and money are all that matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A madman attacked the concert hall. I threw myself over my son, taking every blow meant for him. My spine shattered in three places.

My husband Arthur subdued the attacker and rushed us to the hospital—the picture of a devoted, loving spouse.

It was only after hearing his conversation with the doctor that I finally saw his true colors.

My crippling injury was merely collateral damage. My son Ethan? Nothing but a living cornea donor for Mia—the cherished daughter he had with his first love.

He treated my child like spare parts, never knowing Mia isn't even his blood.

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

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

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

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

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

He was disguising attempted murder as a tragic accident, using custody of our daughter as leverage to force me to drop the charges.

I refused to sign. He slammed the door and left.

But the door didn't latch. Through the crack, I heard him soothing Sienna:

"Don't be afraid. Clara can't live without me. Once she's done throwing her tantrum, she'll sign it like a good girl."

In that moment, I swallowed every ounce of my agony, picked up the phone, and called my lawyer.

"Draft a divorce agreement for me."

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

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

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

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

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

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

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

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

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

In my past life, my Mafia Don husband left me and our unborn baby to burn just to save my half-sister.

Reborn, I watched him crush my fingers in a door to protect her once again.

"Hurt her, and we get a divorce," he sneered.

He thought the threat would break me. He didn't know his signature was already on the divorce papers hidden in my bag.

On the day of their lavish wedding, I took the hand of his deadliest rival, looked down from a helicopter, and pressed the detonator to his estate.

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.

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

To please his mistress, Callum ordered me—pregnant—to dance barefoot in the black salt ice cellar.

When I stumbled back to the doorway to warm myself, the mistress covered her mouth and retched.

"I'm pregnant. I can't stand this death-stench of winter."

Only because I was a princess of the Winter Realm, born carrying frost in my veins.

Callum flew into a rage and had me locked inside a frost-crystal cage, sunk to the bottom of the ice well. No one was allowed to release me without his command.

"A princess of winter, afraid of the cold? What a joke!"

No matter how I struggled or begged, he couldn't have cared less. He and his mistress treated it as entertainment. And just like that, I froze to death at the bottom of that well.

What he didn't know was that although we winter-born are forged in bitter cold, when we carry a child, every drop of magic goes to protecting the baby. We have no defense left for ourselves. The very ice that shaped us becomes the thing that kills us.

Two days later, he was finally satisfied and ordered them to pull me up.

But I could never come back up again.

When I confessed to Montgomery in my red evening gown at his engagement party, everyone thought I was just a spoiled little girl throwing a tantrum. I had no idea that this man who raised me was the one who indirectly killed my father.

And no one knew that later that night in his luxury car, we crossed every moral boundary.

Then Dorian appeared at the bar—a mysterious bartender who looked just like Montgomery. When I kissed him as Montgomery's substitute, when I discovered he was actually the heir to a hotel empire, when I realized he'd known the truth all along...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When twisted steel tore through my stomach in a horrific helicopter crash, I was pushed to the absolute brink of death.

In my darkest moment, Alaric, the Vampire High Lord, saved me.

He healed my shattered body, bound me as his fiercely protected mate, and spoiled me with what I thought was endless devotion.

Until tonight. My blood amulet unexpectedly resonated with our pact's magic, intercepting his encrypted call with his private physician.

"I orchestrated that crash. Maiming her was the only way to justify the continuous blood draws."

"But My Lord, drawing any more will cross the lethal threshold..."

"So what? She has a congenital immunity to pain. As long as she doesn't die, it's an honor for her to bleed to suppress Elena's werewolf venom."

The salvation I worshipped was nothing but a meticulously designed trap to harvest my veins.

If that's the case, I will tear this blood pact to shreds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On our three-year anniversary, my boyfriend took me on an island vacation to see the ocean, only for a tragic accident to plunge us both into the watery depths.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at our college graduation ceremony two years ago.

When he stood on stage and announced he wanted to thank the most important woman in his life, my eyes welled up.

I waited for him to propose, just like he had in our past life.

Instead, he slipped the diamond ring onto the finger of the wealthy heiress who had relentlessly chased him.

At that moment, it hit me—he had been reborn, too.

I thought he was just sick of the crushing poverty we had endured, desperate to take a shortcut by marrying into a tycoon's family.

Going our separate ways seemed like the best ending I could ask for.

That was, until I stumbled upon him in a hospital corridor, grabbing a doctor by the collar and roaring:

"I didn't turn back time at that island just to let Daphne die again!"

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

That yacht was supposed to be my birthday gift.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In my past life, I loved the wrong man, chose the wrong path, and died trapped in an underground prison.

Reborn and given a second chance, facing the choice between the Blackwood brothers, everyone expected me to fall into Kellan's arms again—that once "perfect lover," that demon who tortured me to death.

But this time, I chose his older brother, Kai.

I chose the eldest son rumored to be cold and ruthless, the dangerous man who handled "gray business" overseas, the only person who bled for me in my previous life.

When I took Kai's hand in front of everyone, Kellan lost his mind, and so did my twin sister Aria.

"You love me!" Kellan screamed hysterically. "How could you choose that cold-blooded bastard?"

I smiled calmly: "Because this time, I'm choosing someone who truly loves me."

The pain of my past life won't repeat itself. The revenge of this life has only just begun.

At the annual charity gala, I stood in the spotlight as the student representative.

My roommate, Harper, suddenly stormed the stage, publicly accusing me of being a sugar baby who seduced her father.

"That diamond necklace around her neck was bought with my dad's money!"

I instantly became public enemy number one. The crowd erupted into a frenzy of boos, and the administration, caving to the pressure, prepared to expel me on the spot.

Facing the out-of-control screaming and the countless live-stream cameras shoved in my face, I pulled out my phone and dialed the so-called "sugar daddy" right there in front of everyone.

"Dad," I said coldly. "Since when did I get a new 'sister'?"

I awaited my seven-year-old son's birthday, yearning for my husband’s return, only to stumble upon him celebrating at a bar, tenderly kissing his childhood sweetheart.
I initially believed this to be yet another instance of his favoritism, until I overheard a devastating conversation and realized the truth: the precious son I had nurtured for seven years was not mine, but a product of his union with his childhood friend.
The marriage I had fought so hard to preserve was, from the very beginning, a deceitful scheme orchestrated against me.

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

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement I'd never met face-to-face.

Pushing open the private room door, I found my fiancé Tristan celebrating his secretary Clara's birthday.

"Security! Get this beggar out of here!" Clara screamed, pointing at me.

When I revealed my identity, Tristan sneered coldly: "What bullshit engagement? I would never marry a woman like you."

Clara poured red wine over my head: "Kneel down and lick it clean!"

When I fought back, Tristan exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!"

Four bodyguards pinned me down as Clara started a live stream: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!"

They tore at my clothes while Tristan watched coldly, even urging them on: "Hurry up, let everyone see her true face."

Just as I was about to be completely humiliated, the door suddenly burst open—

"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?

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

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

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

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

I thought I was just an ordinary potter who fell for the wrong man—a billionaire heir who could never truly be mine.

I thought the worst pain would be watching him choose someone else.

Until that DNA report shattered every illusion I'd ever held.

Phoenix Blackwood and I... we're siblings.

For twenty-three years, I lived inside my mother's carefully woven lie. She wasn't just some nameless maid—she was the woman the Blackwood family destroyed and discarded.

When I watched that man drop to his knees, screaming "What does blood matter? I love you!" I finally understood....

On the day I lost our child, I discovered my husband entwined in an affair with his secretary.

He hurried to my hospital bed, tears brimming in his eyes, vowing that we would have another baby—while his mistress was already sixteen weeks pregnant.

Thus, I granted him his wishes: a lamenting wife's performance, a fabricated death, and a clean escape.

Three months later, he crashed through the door, eyes frenzied, proclaiming he would set the world ablaze to earn my forgiveness.

My childhood friend was a tech prodigy.

To comfort his influencer girlfriend who was suffering from period cramps, he wanted to forfeit the National Hackathon we had spent the entire year preparing for.

I tipped off his father.

Consequently, he was dragged to the competition, won first place, and secured a straight path to Stanford.

Years later, his startup succeeded, making him a billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

While I was nothing but his employee.

In the dimly lit basement server room, peering down at me like a god, he plunged a knife into my only seeing eye.

"Chloe, you are a vicious bitch. This is your retribution."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the moment before everything fell apart.

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