8050 Book(s) Related to that was then... this is now

Three years ago, I signed the Silver Vow for her, sealing away my supreme Alpha bloodline. I swallowed my pride in a greasy auto shop, living as a pathetic loser anyone could step on.
Three years later, arm-in-arm with a New York billionaire, she threw the divorce papers in my face and called me the only stain on her perfect life.
In a dark, rain-swept alley, three elite Lycans carried out their orders to shatter my limbs and dump me into the Hudson River.
As I lay dying, the Silver Vow finally shattered. The moment my eyes snapped open, every supernatural creature in Manhattan dropped to their knees—because the First Alpha, the king who united the European underworld a thousand years ago, had returned.

He was dragged onto a debate stage as a replacement.

He could barely order lunch without apologizing to the cashier.

Then he took one wrong sip from the bottle in his bag, stood up in front of six hundred people, and made the national champion forget how to answer.

I died betrayed on my wedding altar.
The silver blade in my sister's hand felt colder than our shared childhood. My "fated mate" Kaelen held me down as she carved out my heart—a sacrifice for his ambition.
In my final breath, I saw him: Fenrir, the half-blood guard I'd scorned, breaking through a wall of spears to reach me. Silver arrows pierced his chest mid-leap, but his dying eyes held no blame—only a loyalty that followed me into darkness.
The Moon Goddess heard my dying vow.
Now I'm back, standing where it all began—the mate choosing ceremony. Kaelen expects me to declare him again. My sister waits to play her victim.
But this time, I walk past the golden Alpha and kneel before the broken slave.
"Rise," I whisper, lifting his chin. "The real Luna has come home."
And when they laugh at my choice, they don't see what I do: the ancient power stirring beneath his skin, the king waiting to be awakened.
Let them call him monster. Let them call me mad.
We'll show them what happens when a betrayed Luna and a fallen king unite.
The altar awaits its true sacrifice—and it won't be me this time.

My wedding day was twenty-four hours away. Then, I hacked into my fiancé's messages.
"The father first. Then the bride."
With my life on the line, I made a deal with the devil they call the Ghost—the lethal outcast my own family betrayed.
"Marry me," I offered, "and the Corleone empire is yours."
I walked down the aisle in black. He stood waiting, a promise of vengeance in his eyes. When the bullets flew, he slid a ring onto my finger—still warm from the gun. "Our contract begins now, Isabella. Let's show them what happens when you cross us."
This marriage was supposed to be a lie. But as blood mixes with vows, I'm left wondering… did I just sign a deal for salvation, or a one-way ticket to hell?

I was born a princess of the Dragon Realm, destined for greatness.
In my past life, I married an amethyst dragon, Damien. Our union should have produced heirs worthy of legend. Instead, I bore him a Wingless One, the ultimate shame.
He didn't hesitate. One swing of his blade, and our child's cries were silenced forever. Then he dragged me, still bleeding from childbirth, to the Dragon's Maw. Threw me into the molten lava, my screams echoing as the flames consumed my flesh.
Meanwhile, my half-sister Isadora, a mere Bronze Dragon, married another Bronze, equally unremarkable. Yet somehow, she gave birth to an Amethyst Dragon.
She became our new Dragon Queen. I became carrion.
But death wasn't my end.
I opened my eyes on the day of the Choosing Ceremony. Damien stood before me. Then, with cold calculation in his eyes, he turned away. He chose Isadora.
He remembers too.
A smile curved my lips. Let him play his game. Because I know the truth now, a truth that will shatter everything.
How could a dragon who needs dark magic to maintain his wing color possibly father a dragon of true noble bloodline?

I spent five years living as a benevolent saint and healer, beloved and praised across the realm. But a sudden summons from the Rose Duke pulled me into the cruel, scheming world of the nobility. Plagued by my fake sister’s malice, ridiculed by arrogant nobles, and exploited by the royal family, my peaceful pretense finally shattered. The moment my mentor’s seal broke, my dormant, demonic curse powers awakened at last. Holiness is only my mask; curses are my deadliest secret. Standing side by side with the forbearing, hidden cursed prince, I tore apart the royal family’s hypocritical lies and taught every soul who dared to underestimate me: the gentlest saint can wield the darkest, most unforgiving power.

The aliens invaded. A toxic fog rolled in. New York turned into a living hell.
But I was forced into a tight spot. A strict Mother Teresa System bound itself to my soul.
I had to save everyone. Betrayers, killers, enemies—it didn't matter. If I didn't help them, the system would execute me on the spot.
Everyone mocked me.
They thought I was soft. The shelter captain stripped my weapons and threw me out into the dead zone.
They thought I was a dead man walking.
They were wrong.
They didn't know my system rewarded me with the ultimate Light ability.
So, get behind my blade.
I am going to save New York, whether it likes it or not.

I'm Riley. Orphan. Motorcycle mechanic. And the biggest fool in Texas.

For ten years, I thought oil tycoon Colt loved me. His adopted daughter by day, his woman by night. I actually believed his whispered promises in the dark.

Then I watched him announce his engagement to someone else.

"Your father saved my life. You're my responsibility," he said when I confronted him. Like I was some charity case. Like everything between us meant nothing.

I was never his girlfriend. I was his guilt.

But here's the thing—I never asked to be anyone's debt.

So I'm packing my tools, starting my bike, and getting the hell out of here.

I've signed five blood-bound annulment contracts with my mafia don husband, Killian.
Each and every time, he fed me the same line: "When this is over, we'll tie the knot again."
But every single one of those "things" was for the same woman: Seraphina Moretti.
We ended our marital bond for the first time, and I sobbed, begging him to tell me if his love for me had ever been real.
He clamped his hold on my jaw hard enough, enunciating every word coldly: "Elara, that doesn't matter."
When the second annulment rolled around, I was mocked openly at the family gala.
I locked myself away in the ensuite bathroom and sliced open my wrists; blood trickled along the tile grout.
My best mate tracked me down to find me trembling.
It wasn't the wound's ache making me shake, though—Killian was somewhere on the estate that very night, yet he never bothered to pop by and check on me once.
By the third split, I'd taught myself never to shed a tear in his presence.
On the fourth occasion, I even took it upon myself to ask him flat-out: "What sham do you need me to play along with now?"
He froze for the longest moment, said nothing at all in the end.
Now we're here for the fifth annulment.
He thought he only needs to click his fingers and I'll trot back to remarry him just as I've done all the previous times. What he did not know is this:
This time, I'm disappearing from his life for good.

Eight years ago, I was forced to marry Sicily's most dangerous man.

Louis De Santis, heir to the Santis crime family, decided he wanted me. Right in front of me, he brutally tortured and killed my fiancé Alessandro, then dumped the body in the ocean for the sharks. He used Alessandro's blood to write threats on the wall to my parents—I had no choice but to walk into that fortress he called home.

Louis was obsessed with me to the point of madness. He took bullets for me during family wars, got down on his knees and begged the family elders when they questioned his choice. Under that twisted kind of love, I gradually fell for him and gave him a son—Marco.

For five years, I thought I'd found happiness.

Until year eight, when the Corleone family sent their "peace offering"—Angelina Corleone. This innocent-looking woman effortlessly stole Louis's heart. He had the nerve to announce: "You two are going to get along."

I couldn't stand the betrayal, so I secretly reached out to other families to try getting rid of Angelina.

I got caught.

In his rage, Louis strung up 5-year-old Marco above the blast furnace at the steel mill.

"NO! Please! He's just a child!" I rushed toward Louis frantically, but his men held me back.

Molten steel roared inside the furnace at 2912°F. Scorching heat blasted upward as little Marco dangled just ten feet above the flames.

My heart nearly stopped.

"Mommy! Help me! It's so hot! So hot!" Marco screamed in terror.

"Put him down! Please!" I fell to my knees, begging desperately, "Kill me! Kill me instead! Don't hurt Marco!"

"Nod and let her stay, and I'll let him down." Louis coldly began counting down: "TEN!"

I watched Marco's little body writhing in agony from the heat.

"NINE!"

Sweat and tears blurred my vision.

"EIGHT!"

"I agree! I AGREE!" I broke down screaming, "She can stay! Please let Marco down!"

Louis smiled with satisfaction and stopped counting, about to signal his men.

Then—

"SNAP!"

The rope suddenly broke!

"NOOO—!"

Time seemed to freeze. I watched helplessly as Marco's tiny body plummeted.

"THUD!"

He fell into the furnace.

In an instant, he was gone.

I completely shattered, blood spurting from my mouth as I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes again, I'd gone back to the day Louis first brought Angelina home.

This time, I'm going to make him pay!

The kidnapper's boot sent the briefcase flying. Thirty million in cash scattered across the floor.
He pointed at me, then at the unconscious Camilla. "Not enough money. So you pick one to take home. The other stays."
Lorenzo stood among the bills, his face drained of color.
"I'm sorry. Camilla has a heart condition—she won't make it through the night here." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "You've always been the strong one. Once I get her to the hospital and pull together the rest of the ransom, I swear I'll come back for you."
The next second, Lorenzo gathered Camilla in his arms and walked out without a backward glance. The heavy iron door slammed shut with a boom that echoed through the space.
In the cavernous abandoned factory, it was just me and five thugs with brutal faces.
The leader dragged the flat of his blade across my cheek, his eyes dark with sick intent. "Well, well. Looks like your rich boyfriend just chose her over you. But hey, don't feel too bad, sweetheart—we're gonna keep you company."
Watching the twisted hunger in their eyes, I didn't scream or beg. I just glanced at the locked door. "Lorenzo's gone, right? Far enough away?"
"That p**y's probably halfway across the county by now." The leader grinned, reaching for my collar.
"Good." I let out a breath.
Snap.
The zip tie around my wrists gave way like thread. A massive shadow swallowed him whole.
In less than two seconds, a dragon nearly sixty feet long filled every inch of space.
I lowered my massive head, molten slitted eyes locked on the five frozen insects below.
Then I opened my fang-lined jaws and snapped them up one by one.

The apocalypse has arrived, but I am merely the villainous master in a doomsday novel.

The mission given to me by the system is to humiliate my kind-hearted fiancée, Avery.

Looking at the only dry rations left before us, I stomped them into pieces right in front of all the wasteland refugees, grinding them into the muddy ice and snow with the sole of my shoe, and commanded condescendingly:

"Bitch, lick it clean."

Instead of running away, she trembled and knelt before me submissively, lifting her head with a look of near-morbid attachment burning in her eyes.

Wait a minute, didn't the original script say she would become my mortal enemy?

Why is she kissing me?

"She’s boring now. Dead eyes. No spark. I’m just pretending my memory is stuck at nineteen so I can punish my wife without her leaving me."
Standing in the shadows, I listened to my mafia husband confess his sick game to the doctor. By day, he played the devoted boy who once took a bullet for me, crying over my scars.
By night, he trapped me in pitch-black elevators, letting his men rip my clothes and take photos—all to make his mistress laugh.
He thought my trauma made me weak. He thought heavy sedatives would make me forget.
He didn't know I spat the pills out the moment he turned his back.
Valentino, you played me again.
But this time, I will never give you another chance. Not in this lifetime. Not ever.

My name is Aria Vance, born with mismatched eyes.To the Silver Moon Pack, that made me a curse from the day I drew breath. Therefore, my parents threw me into the Mistwood the moment I was born.
That place exists for one reason—to hold everything the packs don't want.
Mutated wolves. Half-bloods. The maimed. Anything that didn't fit the mold got dumped there.
I was taken in by a black witch named Morwenna.
She taught me to heal, but I was fascinated by how to make a wolf's bloodline rot from the bone out, slow and quiet.
The day left, she clasped a blessed moonstone bracelet around it.
"Aria, your wolf was born bloodthirsty." She held my gaze. "Out there, don't ever let anyone see your real eyes."
For years after that, I went by "the Fir Healer," drifting from territory to territory. Heal, take payment, never linger.
I thought I'd spend the rest of my life like that.
Then the Vance family brought me back. It wasn't until the carriage that I understood—they wanted a scapegoat.
To marry me off in place of their fake heiress, Selena, to the crippled, half-mad Shadow Alpha—Cyrus.

My ribs are the hottest thing in town—there’s always a line out the door—but they’ve got no idea the secret that makes them so damn good is…

I used to be a national gold medalist in ballet.
Now I’m the 210-pound laughingstock the whole school gawks at.
I starve myself till I pass out, train so hard my knees bleed, and still the weight keeps piling on like it’s got a personal grudge.
Till the day I hear my best friend cackling in the equipment room, voice shaking with laughter:
“No matter how hard she tries, her weight will always be three-quarters of Bruce’s!”
Bruce is the 280-pound deadbeat loser who sleeps through half his classes. And me? I’m stuck to him, tied by some sick system I can’t break.
She stole my Juilliard audition direct pass. Paid guys to shove me, call me names, film me tripping over my own feet and post the clips all over TikTok.
She watches me flounder like a beached whale in the mud, barely holding back her snickers.
But she forgot one thing: mountains don’t run from streams.
They wait for the water to crash into them. And shatter into a million pieces.
Guess what? The bet’s on.

In that luxury cruise ship fire that shocked the world, my husband Gordon Mercer—the ship's captain—pried open my bloodied fingers and fastened the last intact life vest onto his first love.
In my past life, he locked me inside the blazing cabin. First, the flames devoured me. Then, as the ship broke apart, the icy ocean swallowed me whole. I drowned in the depths.
When I opened my eyes again, I'd returned to that life-or-death moment—the ship about to sink, alarms tearing through the night.
Watching Gordon clutch that trembling woman in his arms, I didn't break down sobbing like before. I didn't beg.
Instead, I laughed coldly and threw the life vest at their feet.
"Since you two are so desperate to die together, go right ahead."

Everyone knows Adrian loves me more than life itself. When that car crashed, he threw himself over me and took the hit. First thing he said when he woke up in the hospital: "Where is she? Is she okay?"

Everyone says I married the best man in the city.

What they don't know is this man has married me ten times. And divorced me ten times. All for the woman he's never gotten over.

The first time, I got on my knees and begged him not to leave. He just looked at me with those cold eyes and said, "Don't embarrass yourself."

The fourth time, we were fighting in the car. Then we crashed, and I lost our baby.

By the seventh time, I stopped crying. Just signed the papers, packed my things, waited for him to come back like he always did.

My tears, my compromises, all those times I bent until I nearly broke. What did I get? Him coming back like clockwork, just to do it all over again.

This time, when he slides that tenth divorce agreement across the desk, I finally get it. Some people's hearts never had room for you in the first place.

So this time, I'm throwing him out. Him and this whole Mrs. Hayes charade. Straight into the trash where they belong.

"I was born a silver-eyed oracle, yet I was exploited by my father as a blood-money machine for twelve years. On my eighteenth birthday, my family tore out my eyes and sacrificed me to the abyss in exchange for wealth and eternal life. Reborn on the day of my doom, I weave a deadly trap for my greedy father and jealous sister. And the boy next door, who hides divine power, becomes my salvation. Now, they have all met their end, and he will lead me to begin a new life."

My daughter was choked until her face turned purple by the mistress's son, then nearly died after my ex-husband forced her to give blood.
She was beaten, cursed at, and abandoned on a bench outside the hospital.
And I could do nothing to help her.
Because I had already died eight years ago.
It wasn't until my daughter collapsed crying at my grave—and the story made the news—that my ex-husband finally learned the truth.
He had destroyed both me and the child we shared in the cruelest way possible.
And by then, there was no fixing it.

The werewolf world has one brutal rule: whoever can first produce a powerful Alpha heir gets to claim the throne and become the new Alpha King.

My sister Bella and I are daughters of the Red Moon Pack Alpha, born with the rare ability to bear Alpha-level offspring. This made countless Packs fight tooth and nail to claim us.

In my past life, I was fooled by Rex's handsome appearance—the Steel Fang heir. I married him and successfully bore him an Alpha bloodline pup, helping him ascend to the throne.

But fate played a deadly joke on me. Bella, consumed by jealousy after her own marriage failed, pushed me off a cliff during my postpartum weakness and took everything that was mine.

Now I've opened my eyes again, back at the mate selection ceremony. What shocked me was that Bella had also been reborn, and she'd already seduced Rex before I could.

But that's fine. My naive sister has no idea what kind of devil she's chosen.

My husband, Julian, tells me he's flying to Italy for a month, business trip.
I check the calendar and freeze. His birthday falls right in the middle of that month. Alone, in a country where he knows no one outside of work.
I tell Margaux, my mother-in-law. She doesn't hesitate.
"Then we go," she says. "We surprise him."
My brother Dante is the only family I have left. For years I've told the Whitfields he just runs some business in Italy. They don't know the rest, and they never will if I can help it.
The second we land, I call him, give him the hotel name.
"Got it," he says, distracted. "I've got things to handle first. I'll come see you after."
Margaux and I check out the hotel restaurant before Julian even knows we've landed. Dinner, and a look at how the family's investment is running.
Food's good. Service is fine. Then the bill comes.
I glance down at the bill.
Dinner for two: 180,000.
Market-price seafood surcharge: 45,000.
Imported wine corking fee: 20,000.
Private dining ambiance fee: 60,000.
A dozen more line items after that, none of them making any sense.
Numbers that don't make sense. Charges I don't recognize. Margaux and I trade a look.
"Get us the manager," I say. "Now."
A woman walks over, chin already tilted up.
"I am the manager," she says. "If you can't pay, what's the point of complaining?"
I almost laugh. What kind of place is my own family running here?
"I'll take this up with the owner myself," I say.
She smiles, slow and pleased. "My husband happens to own this restaurant."
My stomach drops.
This restaurant belongs to the Whitfields. Belongs to Julian.
Since when did my husband become someone else's?

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....

My husband, Alessandro Vidi, is the most powerful mob boss in Chicago.

He once swore to me that he would protect our son Leo and me with his life.

Until that soccer game. His enemies attacked the field. To shield Leo, I took a bullet through my abdomen. But Leo still got hit three times and fell in a pool of blood.

Alessandro arrived, took down the attackers on the spot, and rushed us to his private hospital.

In the hospital room, the searing pain jolted me awake briefly. I wanted to call out to him, but instead I heard his conversation with his men.

"Boss, I thought we were only taking one kidney. Why did Leo have to—"

"Elena's wound isn't fatal. Just the abdomen." Alessandro's voice was ice-cold. "I've been raising Leo for seven years just for this. Now that Luca has his kidney, keeping him around would only be a problem for Luca."

"After all... Luca is my real son."

That moment, I understood—the shooting at the soccer field was never an enemy's revenge. It was murder he orchestrated himself. He traded my son's life for his mistress's child's life.

But he will never know—

Luca isn't even his flesh and blood.

I died in New York on a cold November night, a piece of guardrail through my chest.

Choking on blood, I dialed my ex-fiancé Damien's number.

In the background, jazz played at the Waldorf Astoria. People cheered for Aria—the girl my parents raised in my place.

"Thea, are you SERIOUS right now?" Damien's voice dripped with disgust. "Faking your own death to ruin Aria's engagement? Jesus, Thea. Even for you, that's low."

My mother Diana grabbed the phone. Her voice was ice. "If you don't show up tonight, don't ever come back to the Sinclair house. Better yet—don't bother."

Then she hung up.

They didn't know this time I was really dying.

During a luxury cruise, Lydia is drugged, blacks out, and wakes in the hands of Ethan, a notorious arms dealer, the most feared name in the UK, and a whispered warning across Europe.

He catches her by the ribbon in her hair and turns her escape into a dead end, yet he never takes her life.

While everyone waits for the moment she breaks, Ethan clasps a bracelet around her wrist, a mark she never manages to remove.

"They say you'll redeem me," he murmurs, voice dangerously low as he tilts her chin up. "But I only want to lock you away forever."

He thinks he's playing a game of conquest. Instead, he's the one who surrenders. Until the day he kneels, blood on his hands, a ring held out like a confession.

"Good girl," he breathes. "Call me 'honey.' Stay with me, forever."

I'd sacrificed everything—my savings, my future—to rescue a memoryless man from the twisted wreckage of his car. Day by day, we developed feelings for each other. He slipped a simple silver ring onto my finger, calling me his sole comfort, the only light in his life.
However, the light was violently extinguished the day his true wife burst into the hospital. Her bodyguards slamming me against the wall was just the beginning. As the blows rained down, I learned his real identity: Ethan Vance, the heir of the richest family in the L City.
The most damning evidence was their marriage certificate, issued two years before we had met. The ultimate betrayal came as his wife deliberately snapped my fingers and stripped me of my last shred of dignity. He saw it all with icy detachment, then turned and pulled her close. "Lana doesn’t need to be reasonable. I’m the one backing her ".

Victoria discovered that I hadn't submitted any supplemental medical expense claims for two weeks.
She assumed I had finally been disciplined and had given up what she called "the exploitative nature of the lower class."
Little did she know, my backpack held the signed divorce papers and my mother's death certificate.
As I turned to leave, I was still wearing the discounted trench coat she'd casually given me three years ago when we got married.
What she didn't know was that I, a deep-sea geology genius from MIT, willingly endured three years of her humiliation and ridiculous rules, just so my mother could stay in her conglomerate's private hospital to prolong her life.
Now, my mother has died because of unpaid bills , and even her ashes are carried by me in a cheap canvas bag.
Now that my loved one is dead, there's no need for me to continue being her obstructive dog on Wall Street. The lives she owed with those approval forms, I will settle with the collapse of her entire conglomerate empire.

“A powerful opener to a series [that] will produce a combination of feisty protagonists and challenging circumstances to thoroughly involve not just young adults, but adult fantasy fans who seek epic stories fueled by powerful friendships and adversaries.”--Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan) (re A Throne for Sisters)“Morgan Rice's imagination is limitless!”--Books and Movie Reviews (re A Throne for Sisters)From #1 Bestselling fantasy author Morgan Rice comes a new series for middle grade readers—and adults, too! Fans of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson—look no further!In THE ORB OF KANDRA: OLIVER BLUE AND THE SCHOOL FOR SEERS (BOOK TWO), 11 year old Oliver Blue is back in the present day, racing to save Armando before his destined moment to die.But when Oliver learns that the sacred Orb of Kandra has been stolen, he knows it is up to him—and him alone—to save the school. And the only way is to travel back in time, to the England of 1690s, and to save one very important person: Sir Isaac Newton.The Obsidian School, meanwhile, has powerful seers of its own, and all are bent on Oliver’s destruction. And when they enlist and transform Oliver’s bully brother, Chris, it may just mean a fight to the death.An uplifting fantasy, THE ORB OF KANDRA is book #2 in a riveting new series filled with magic, love, humor, heartbreak, tragedy, destiny, and a series of shocking twists. It will make you fall in love with Oliver Blue, and keep you turning pages late into the night.Book #3 in the series (THE OBSIDIANS) is now also available!“The beginnings of something remarkable are there.” --San Francisco Book Review (re A Quest of Heroes)

At the parents' meeting, the daughter's diary was read aloud: "My father is the Grand Duke of the Night."
The room erupted in laughter.
The mentor, disregarding her daughter's dignity, tore up her diary, while the nouveau riche woman advised me , a liar, to "get out of this neighborhood."
I didn't say anything, I just stood up. Then, their knees were all shattered.

The apocalypse is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one.

When the T-virus swept through London like a curse, and when my former love and brothers tore off their disguises at the last moment, I realized that the most terrifying thing in this world has never been zombies, but the human heart.

They thought they had tricked me, that abandoning me would get them a ticket to the safe house.

They don't know that I was reborn.

In my past life, my kindness became a weapon in the hands of demons; in this life, I will make the betrayers send themselves to hell.

My stepsister and I tumbled down the stairs together. As someone with a blood clotting disorder, my spleen ruptured—I was bleeding internally, desperate for surgery to stop it.
But my mother—the renowned chief of surgery—pulled every specialist from the ER. To consult on my stepsister's condition.
All she had was a sprained ankle. Not even a scratch. Yet mom insisted on running every test in the book. And me? Left alone on that cold floor, bleeding out, half my body already soaked in blood.
I clutched at her pants, begging her to save me. But she kicked my hand away and looked at me with pure disgust.
"Lily, are you really so desperate for a man's attention that you'd pull a cheap stunt like this? Your sister's foot is swollen—and you have the nerve to fake your death here?"
In the end, I died alone in a corner of that ignored ER.
But when they wheeled my cold body out of the morgue—and they finally learned about my clotting disorder—
That mother who claimed to hate me completely lost her mind.

It was my second year back in this house.
My name was Evelyn, the biological daughter who got lost in Central Park at seven.
During the ten years I stayed missing, I fed pigs on a remote farm in Eastern Europe. In weather that dropped to dozens below zero, I got beaten for working too slowly.
I did not get brought back until I was seventeen, covered in scars, returned to this so-called “home,” luxurious to the point of being blinding.
To be honest, every time I watched them sit on silk sofas and sip afternoon tea, then thought about the decade I spent crawling through hell, hatred made my teeth ache.
That hatred stood between us and made the house feel like an icebox. We lived under the same roof, yet we were not even as close as strangers.

My parents and twin sister faked their own deaths so she could steal my college acceptance.

I believed it. Sobbed until I couldn't breathe when the cops showed me photos of the burnt yacht. Thought my words—"I hope you all die"—had somehow made it happen.

Two weeks later, I found my sister's backup Instagram: "Finally ditched the boring sister! Bahamas is paradise 🏖"

Something inside me snapped.

Wanna play dead? Stay dead.

I took their death certificates. Canceled their social security numbers. Drained every joint account—every last cent. Sold the house to John, the kind of guy even cops don't mess with.

One month later, they came home tanned and loaded with designer bags, expecting to find me broken on the streets.

What greeted them instead were cold gun barrels pointed at their heads.

I once believed that if I was obedient enough, my birth family would finally love me. Instead, they gave everything to Anna, the fake heiress—my competition spot, my reputation, even my kidney.
Then I opened my eyes and returned to the year it all began.
This time, I won’t beg. I won’t yield. My achievements, my dignity, and my life belong to me.
When everyone called me vicious, Damian Sterling draped his jacket over my shoulders and asked in a low voice, “Am I an outsider?”
I leaned into him and smiled. “Of course not.”
But soon I discovered he was being slowly poisoned—and the culprit might be someone closest to him. Worse, the truth behind my death in my previous life may be darker than I ever imagined…

1

Three torturous years hauling bodies on the mortuary night shift, and I'd finally scraped together the cash for my brother Charles's heart transplant.
He just waved it off.
"My heart is fine. Mom and Dad didn't die in that gang war, either. I orchestrated the hit. You were the only casualty."
Nearby, my husband, Gerald, casually lit a cigar to deliver his own confession. "I never went bankrupt. 'Laying low' was just my excuse to avoid squeezing into that dingy funeral home dorm with you. I've been at the Long Island estate."
"I was going to punish you for another three years," Charles added, "but the stench of formaldehyde on you is nauseating. We couldn't take it anymore."
I froze, still clutching the credit card. Charles plucked the plastic from my numb fingers and shoved his phone screen in my face. A banking app stared back at me.
Balance: exactly zero.
"My name is still on the joint account," he sneered, tossing the card into the trash. "I drained it this morning. That blood money you made bagging stiffs is being handed out to street junkies as we speak. We'd never touch that filth."
Before the sheer absurdity of it could suffocate me, my parents walked in. Flanked by bodyguards, they kept their distance, eyeing me like a plague rat.
"You thought being the biological daughter gave you the right to ruthlessly bully Violet. We simply wanted to put you in your place."
"Swear you'll never cross Violet again, and you can remain a Falcone," my mother added coolly. "Otherwise, you're dead to us."
In the stifling silence that followed, my phone buzzed. A text from my oncologist.
[Mrs. Castello, the results are back. It's terminal. Do you consent to initiating the hospice and DNR protocols we discussed?]

I used to be the most envied female on the continent. Three mates: werewolf Alpha Kael, vampire lord Dorian, elven ranger Seth. All of them mine.
Then a half-elf drifter named Ayla showed up, and everything I had started belonging to her instead, one piece at a time.
Kael once pulled a fang from his own mouth to make me a necklace. The day it broke, he was too busy licking another female's cut finger to notice.
Dorian spent two weeks brewing me blood wine. Then he handed the cup straight to her, because apparently I "looked healthy enough to go without."
Seth carved me a charm from sacred elven wood. I watched her face take shape under his knife instead of mine.
They kept telling me I needed to grow up. So when a beast's poison was spreading through my body, and I blew the whistle they swore would bring them running no matter what—
No one came.
Three years later, I walked back into their world on a Siren prince's arm.
This time, they're the ones begging for my forgiveness.

I was dead, and the whole world was celebrating for my sister.

For twenty-two years, I had been the hardest-working but most invisible daughter in the Sterling family, forever living in the shadow of my gymnastics prodigy sister.

Running a high fever, I begged my family to take me to the hospital, only to hear: "Don't you DARE ruin Bella's award ceremony!"

When I was tricked into the abandoned equipment room and used my last breath to call my boyfriend while lying in a pool of blood, all I heard was: "Grace, quit the drama! Bella's accepting her award on stage!"

On stage, thunderous applause erupted as Bella lifted the "Young Gymnast of the Year" trophy.

And I drew my final breath.

When they returned home triumphant, thinking I had run away in a tantrum, they had no idea I was already dead right under their noses.

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

They left me to freeze to death in our basement freezer.

The night before prom, my foster sister Leila came crying that I'd burned her Ivy League recommendation letter. My birth parents didn't even listen to one word of explanation—they threw me into that frozen hell in forty-five below.

I beat on that door until my fingers were shredded, screamed until my throat tore apart, but all I could hear from upstairs was their laughter celebrating Leila. Even Justin—the boy I'd loved since we were kids—texted calling me a fucking psycho.

As I drew my last breath, I heard Leila's soft voice outside the door: "Rest in peace, sister."

Now I'm a ghost, watching them lose their minds when the truth comes out.

When I was rushed to the ER with food poisoning, I heard the doctor shout, "We need to pump her stomach, now!"
But my mother, Catherine, calmly stopped the doctor's hand.
"No hurry," she said coldly. "Give her a sedative first."
My brother Austin panicked. "Mom! If you don't detox her, she could die!"
But my mother's voice was ruthless, low and sharp:
"If she dies, she dies. As long as her uterus is still warm, that's all that matters."
"Did you forget our plan? Sarah's transplant surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. If Elena wakes up now, what if she runs away?"
"Our priority is keeping her uterus safe for Sarah—not saving her life."
In that moment, the burn in my stomach was nothing compared to the chill in my heart.
I forced my eyes open and saw my brother—the one who'd always protected me—hesitate for a moment, then slowly let go of my hand.
"...Okay. You're right, Mom. Saving Sarah comes first."
The moment I closed my eyes, I made a decision: If I survived, this life would never belong to this family again.

“A powerful opener to a series [that] will produce a combination of feisty protagonists and challenging circumstances to thoroughly involve not just young adults, but adult fantasy fans who seek epic stories fueled by powerful friendships and adversaries.”--Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan) (re A Throne for Sisters)“Morgan Rice's imagination is limitless!”--Books and Movie Reviews (re A Throne for Sisters)From #1 Bestselling author Morgan Rice comes a new series for fantasy and middle grade readers (and adults, too)! Fans of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson—look no further!In THE SCEPTER OF FIRE: OLIVER BLUE AND THE SCHOOL FOR SEERS (BOOK FOUR), 12 year old Oliver Blue is dispatched on an urgent mission to save The School for Seers. He must travel back in time, to Florence, 1592, to find the only artifact that can save them all.Yet the secret is guarded by none other than Galileo himself.As Oliver searches for one of the great scientists and inventors of all time, the man who invented the telescope and who discovered planets, Oliver must wonder: is a he a seer, too? And what other secrets is he holding?His brother Chris, more powerful than ever, remains determined to kill Oliver for all time. Oliver soon realizes it is a race against time, as the fate of the school—and of the world—is at stake.An uplifting fantasy, THE SCEPTER OF FIRE is book #4 in a riveting new series filled with magic, love, humor, heartbreak, tragedy, destiny, and a string of shocking surprises. It will make you fall in love with OLIVER BLUE, and keep you turning pages late into the night.Book #5 in the series will be available soon! “The beginnings of something remarkable are there.”--San Francisco Book Review (re A Quest of Heroes)

My wife is upstairs with another man—her first love.
But I don't want to fight about it.
I'm not staying here because of her.
Her father once saved my father's life. I'm here to repay that debt.
So they pushed even further.
She wants me to give way to her first love.
Give up my seat at dinner, my trust fund eligibility, my position as family consigliere, even our couple's travel tickets.
Fine. Have it your way.
I'm leaving to go back to being the Don I was meant to be.
Hope your family can survive the mafia wars without me.

Reborn seven days before the zombie siege, Shen Lie returns to the day he was tricked into a deadly dark web live stream. Betrayed by his wife and trapped as prey for global wealthy viewers, he uses his stunt skills to layout a counter-kill plan, turning every hunter into the hunted and exposing the bloody evil behind the apocalypse game.