6090 Book(s) Related to the challenger chapter 26

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.

The chieftainess returned from the poisonous fog with a swollen belly.
She announced that she carried the child of a god—a child who would bring hope to the entire base.
Only I knew that what she bore was no divine offspring, but a demon that would devour every soul in the base.
Because in my previous life, I was the one it had gnawed to death, alive...

The day he proposed, Atticus knelt before me, holding the Hale family's heirloom necklace.
I thought I had finally survived the ordeal.
After eight years of unrequited love, being humiliated by his sister, nitpicked by his mother, and mocked by the city's socialites for being unworthy of the Hales... Until this very moment, when he personally fastened the heirloom around my neck. Everyone saw it. I, Clara, was finally accepted by the Hale family.
Tears in my eyes, I said yes, thinking it was the happiest moment of my life.
But just days after putting on that necklace, bizarre red rashes crawled up my neck. My pale skin rotted away piece by piece, and my internal organs went into irreversible failure.
The most absurd part? The exact same day I started rotting, his dying mother miraculously cured her terminal illness, and his sister's half-destroyed face was restored to flawless perfection.
Disfigured and barely looking human, I threw myself off the Harbour Bridge—
I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day of the proposal.

A horrific car crash left me paralyzed.
The doctors said I'd never walk again. With no family left, my Aunt Martha and Uncle Thomas took me to their isolated farmhouse.
They cared for me, promising their treatments would help me walk again. After everything I'd been through, I thought I'd finally found safety.
Until today, when the feeling in my legs suddenly came back—but something told me not to tell them.

BLURB

My breath hitched, my chest heaving as Salvatore's finger thrust into my pussy. I clenched my teeth, my fingers squeezing the bedsheets as I shamelessly parted my legs even wider.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was a low growl.

“No,” I breathed. “Faster…please,” I moaned loudly.

I knew Salvatore's and my attraction to each other was forbidden; he was the heir to a wealthy family, and I was just a maid in his house. But I have had an attraction to him since I met him and couldn't control it.

We both couldn't.


Lyra Whitman is from a poor home and has faced constant bullying in school. She and her mother finally moved away to a new city, where they her mother works as a maid for the Sinclair's, one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the county.

Lyra cannot help but fall for their son, and she is surprised to see that he feels the same. Knowing the dangers of being together due to their different backgrounds, they are forced to navigate their relationship in secret.

She used to be a housewife "imprisoned" by her family.

An accident turned her world upside down.

On her daughter's birthday, what unspeakable secret was hidden behind the strange noises coming from the house?

When she was filled with despair, she turned around and stepped onto the stage. Against all odds, she became a big star.

But just when she was at the height of her glory, her home was blocked by a group of unexpected visitors. What on earth were their intentions? Before she could catch her breath, an overwhelming wave of scandals suddenly hit.

Overnight, she fell from the peak to the bottom.

With her career in ruins and her reputation in tatters, how could she save herself? And just then, her daughter disappeared mysteriously, and the only clue pointed in a mysterious direction.

What earth-shattering conspiracy was hidden in that dark corner? "Do you still want to see your daughter?"

My heart sank suddenly, as if it was tightly gripped by an invisible big hand. My breathing became rapid. "Yes, of course I do! What have you done to my daughter?" I shouted hoarsely.

"If you want to see her, do as I say right away!" He roared viciously. "Otherwise, just wait to collect her body!" My legs went weak, and I almost collapsed to the ground. "Please, this is your only daughter!" I pleaded desperately, my voice full of despair and helplessness. "Hahahahaha!"

A crazy and perverted laugh came from the receiver. "Finally, there comes a day when you have to beg me! "You bitch are just asking for it! Cut the crap and do as I say! Otherwise..."

That cold and sinister tone made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and sent a chill down my spine.

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.

In my previous life, I chose the werewolf and gave birth to the Arbiter, only to be burned alive by the younger sister I loved most.
When I was reborn, I knelt before the Oath Stone, handed my marriage pact to her, and watched her gloat in triumph before choosing Sylas, the elf everyone else avoided.
Everyone was waiting to see me make a fool of myself—until the day of the wedding, when he came carrying a gown blessed by the Sacred Tree, lowered his eyes to me, and said, "In this life, I will never fail you."

In my previous life, my wife was addicted to black market gambling on football, which caused us to lose everything.
To make matters worse, a zombie horde then broke out.
We had no shelter and were quickly torn apart by a horde of frenzied zombies.
After being reborn, she planned to run off with all the money, then dump me and elope with her lover.
What she didn't know was that I had awakened the ability to read minds and knew all her plans.

When the apocalypse came, I became one of the military's failed experiments—defective, useless, a waste of space who only knew how to fix machines.
My so-called brother Kane used the camp leader access I got for him to trade away the comms gear I nearly died to secure for a bottle of whiskey. He drained my bone marrow dry to keep me in the dark, then dumped me out in the wasteland to die.
After that, he pinned every bit of luxury and waste on me—
while my little sister didn't even have the medicine she needed to stay alive.
That night, dragging my crippled body behind me, I reached into the substation.
Kane, do you remember what kind of genes were in those five hundred milliliters of bone marrow?

I'm a folklorist. Folk traditions are my field.
At first, I thought it was just an ordinary rhyme, a scrap of oral history set to a tune.
"A rag doll in the mire, swinging high up to the sky..."
We all thought it was just a prank.
Until the first person drowned in the bog. Then the second fell from a tower crane. Then the third somehow drowned in a bathtub.
I stared at the black symbol surfacing on the back of my hand.
And then I saw the dean—the one who was supposed to be dead—standing outside my dorm window in a long black dress, smiling at me with impossible tenderness...

I made 17 calls for help. My sister answered every one—and hung up.

For 48 hours, I lay dying in Pine Ridge Forest, texting desperate pleas to my family. They thought I ran away. The truth? My sister deleted every message while I begged for my life.

Three months dead. Zero funeral. My family didn't even notice I was gone.

Now the police have recovered my phone. Every deleted text. Every ignored call. Every lie my sister told to cover up what she did.

"Please. I can't feel my legs. I'm sorry I exist. Just don't let me die here."

They wanted me invisible. I gave them what they wanted.

Now they'll spend the rest of their lives wishing they'd answered when I called.

My parents raised me for twenty-four years. Then they found out I wasn't their biological daughter.

Their real daughter came home. She'd only been back two years. That's all it took to erase twenty-four.

When kidnappers grabbed us, I used my body as a shield. They beat me until something inside me ruptured. I was dying from internal bleeding, but no one could tell.

My parents wouldn't even look at me. "This is your fault! None of this would've happened if it weren't for you!"

"Get downstairs and apologize to your sister. If you can't, pack your things and get out."

They threw her a party at a downtown hotel while I died alone in my room.

I thought they'd be relieved. Maybe even glad. I thought they'd just move on like I never existed.

But when they finally learned the truth, they fell apart.

Violet loses her parents as a young child and is brought up by an elderly aunt. As she approaches her 17th birthday her life is turned upside down when her Aunt tells her that the life she has built with her must end - she has to go and learn about the background of her father. Secrets have been kept and those secrets turn Violet's life on it's head!

Not only does she have to accept that her father wasn't who she thought he was, but she too, is something she didn't even realise existed! It seems a whole plan had been in place for if something happened to her parents, including learning of her heritage and all it means.
So, Violet is sent to Autumn Moon Pack, where an elderly relative of her father's still lives to give Violet chance to be surrounded by others like her. In truth, she plans to learn what she needs to learn what she needs to and leave to live alone like her father before her.
But will meeting the handsome Beta, who seems quite taken with her, change her mind? And could there be yet more secrets to be revealed?

“Go find one of those perfect little she-wolves lined up to mate you. Play your Alpha card on them. I’m sure they’ll beg to be marked..maybe they’ll even let you f—”

“Seliene!” he snapped, his voice a roar as he grabbed my wrist.

“Stop touching me!” I shoved at his chest, voice rising despite the sting in my throat. “Stop acting like you care when all you've ever done is hate me!”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “There are plenty of men who would take me to bed without second-guessing it. Maybe I should let them. Maybe I should—”

His hand tangled in my hair so fast I gasped, and the next thing I knew, my back was against the wall.

Ronan’s eyes were glowing now—not just anger, but something else. Something deeper. His wolf was there, right under the surface, growling low and dangerous.

“Oh?” I taunted, my body betraying me with a subtle tremble of arousal. “What is this? You don’t want me, but no one else should touch me either?”

His growl deepened, vibrating between us, and then his mouth crashed down on mine.

I moaned before I could stop myself, and that only seemed to provoke him further. He pressed harder, his body pinning mine, every inch of him demanding, claiming.

He groaned into my mouth, his thigh sliding between mine and pressing upward. I gasped, my head hitting the wall as pleasure sparked through me.

“Don’t want to touch you?” he growled against my lips. “I want you with every damn breath.”


Seliene, a fierce half-breed hiding heartbreak behind a defiant tongue, and Ronan, the brooding Alpha who once rejected her, ignite in a moment of raw passion and buried longing. Bound by a mate bond they both try to resist, their chemistry is undeniable, dangerous, explosive, and edged with the pain of a love neither dares to admit.

I took the blame for my wife and went to jail, thinking I was protecting our family.

Five years later, when I was released from prison, my mansion was confiscated, my company fell into the hands of my younger brother, and the woman I loved with all my heart was nestled in my brother's arms, mocking my misfortune.

They had been having an affair for a long time, and even my imprisonment was a conspiracy meticulously planned by this despicable couple! What makes me even more furious is that my precious daughter was abandoned on the street like a stray dog, and subjected to beatings and bullying by their illegitimate son .

They thought that by draining my blood, they could forever condemn me to oblivion.

But they forgot that I was once an unparalleled genius in the business world.

I got dragged online by one of my lead devs.

He claimed my "Incubation Project" was a gilded cage—a trap to exploit the team and steal their personal IPs.

The truth?

I funded it out of my own pocket.

Selected candidates would get a $50,000 no-strings-attached seed fund, plus full Ivy League tuition reimbursement. It was 100% voluntary, with zero penalties for opting out.

Since the internet decided I was a toxic capitalist monopolizing their creativity, I gave him exactly what he wanted. I fired off a company-wide memo:

[To protect your creative freedom from capitalist exploitation, the $50,000 Incubation Fund is permanently abolished, effective immediately.]

[As an alternative, the monthly education allowance for all employees is now a $15 reimbursement for basic coding courses.]

The moment the memo dropped, the employees who were counting on that $50k to pay off student loans or change their lives completely lost it.

Now, they're swarming right outside my glass office door, eyes red, begging me to reinstate the program.

To protect my older sister's piano championship, my own brother crushed all ten of my fingers.
To win my sister's favor, my fiancé hired someone to kick the baby out of me.
After surviving a fire that nearly killed me, I finally woke up.
And when I returned, I blasted the hard proof of their affair and their schemes all over the internet. As I watched them lose their minds, lose everything, and drop to their knees begging for mercy, I let out a cold laugh, turned around, and claimed the top of the world!

On my birthday, I was dragged up to the attic and assaulted by several men.
I called my parents, brother, and boyfriend for help, but they all thought I was seeking attention and ruining my sister Sophie's celebration.
"Mia, stop it. We're busy preparing for Sophie's party. If you want attention, find another way."
This was the hundredth time they'd let me down.
But there won't be a hundred and first.
Because I'm already dead.

Jennifer unexpectedly awakens a mysterious ability—she can peek into people’s secrets and glimpse their futures. After transferring to a new class, she curiously explores her classmates’ hidden truths… only to see the tragic ends awaiting them.

But she doesn’t know that her classmates can hear her thoughts! And the moment they learn their fates, the wheels of destiny begin to turn…

Jennifer wants to help them, but she realizes something shocking before she can act—everyone’s fate has already changed. And somehow, all of it seems to be tied to her thoughts!

Who is controlling fate? Is her newfound power a gift from the heavens, or the start of something far more sinister?

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

My adopted sister, Cordelia, conspired with her biological mother to harvest my organs alive, yet she had the audacity to claim I paid thugs to rape her.
My biological parents didn't bother to ask for the truth. They cursed me, calling me a vicious bastard, and threatened to break my legs.
My fiancé, Caspian, coldly announced the cancellation of our engagement, declaring he would marry the very murderer who killed me.
I had been dead for exactly three days. No one cared. My body was rotting back in a moldy storage room.
Through it all, my soul was trapped in the manor, forced to witness this absurd farce.
But what they didn't expect was that when they finally learned of my death—
Everyone went completely insane.

I was their real daughter.

The lost princess they found, brought home, and promised to protect.

But every time she cried, I was the one punished.

Every time she bled, I was the one accused.

When she disappeared, they said it was my fault. They tore my memories apart to prove it.

Fine , only if they stand where I stood, feel what I felt, will they ever know my pain.

My younger sister, Freya, was preparing for her advanced training in New York the following week, so she dragged me to the dance studio to help her correct her movements. I put on my dance shoes as usual and stood in the center of the floor, ready to demonstrate a turn.

The moment my foot slipped, I didn't even have time to react.

My body hit the ground hard, and the sharp pain from the back of my head nearly made me lose consciousness. I lay on the cold floor, my throat tight, unable to even cry out for help.

When Mother rushed in, she didn't spare me a glance.

She immediately helped Freya up and took her to the hospital. I missed the critical window for treatment and died on the way to the hospital.

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé.
Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now—billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn’t mind. I’d crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one?
Wrong.
One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That’s when it hit me—he didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn’t even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup.
So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster—my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise.
Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol.
Enter him.
Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I’d met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes.
It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised.
But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life.
And, as it turned out, the best decision I’d ever made.
Because my one-night stand isn’t just some random guy. He’s richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with.
And now, he’s not letting me go.

"Oh, it's you. My useless wife."
"You should've seen it coming. Our marriage stopped working a long time ago."
"You're useless as a wife, Ivy. You've never supported my career. And after all this time—you're still not even pregnant."
Kim Evelyn—known to those closest to her as Ivy—never imagined her third wedding anniversary would turn into a nightmare. Her husband, Rico, didn't just betray her—he brought his mistress into their bed. The pain and humiliation scorched her heart, leaving her no choice but to walk away from the home that once symbolized their love.
But Ivy's escape led her into a night that would change everything. Beneath the glimmering lights of an upscale bar, she met Joshua Miller—a dangerously charming man with a captivating smile and an offer too tempting to resist.
"Help me get revenge on the man who betrayed me—my husband. Can you do that?"
"I'll help you get your revenge—but in return, you'll have to treat me the same way you did last night."
Revenge. Sweet, calculated revenge.
But there was a catch: Ivy had to surrender herself to a game far more seductive than anything she'd ever imagined. As vengeance ignited and passion flared, the line between game and reality began to blur. Dark secrets loomed. Hidden dangers stirred. And Ivy was forced to make an impossible choice—move forward and risk losing everything, or retreat into the scars of her past.
Can Ivy take control of this wicked game? Or will she end up the pawn—consumed by desire, ambition, and a betrayal more dangerous than the one she fled?

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.

I was driving my dad's luxury car to pick up a friend when his secretary stopped me on the spot.
She mistook me for the lover who had sex with my dad in his office.
So she used car theft as an excuse to drag me into the basement, beat me up, and took nude photos of me.
When my dad found out, he asked me to apologize to her.
That's when I realized that in his eyes, his reputation mattered more than his own daughter.
If that's the case, he doesn't need to be the figurehead CEO anymore.

In the sixth year of my life as a Scale-Stripper, I finally gathered the hundredth vial of Dragon Breath Essence.

I knelt before the altar, cradling the crystal bottle in both hands. The golden light swirling within it cast a warm glow across my scarred knuckles. Six years — six years of wandering the most dangerous battlefields of the Five Clans and the plague-ridden wastelands, using dragon breath to heal the wounded. For every person I saved, I had peeled away a living scale from my own flesh, baring the raw, bleeding meat beneath.

Seven scales left on my back.

Only seven.

But as long as it saved my brother Lucien, it was worth it.

Six years ago, during the Dragon Slaughter War, our parents had been assassinated by humans. An ancient curse had struck Lucien; his scales were crumbling away, day by day. He told me that only a hundred vials of Dragon Breath Essence could break the curse.

I held the crystal bottle out to him, my voice trembling with barely contained emotion. "Lucien, a hundred vials. We finally have enough."

Lucien took the bottle and glanced at it.

Then he tossed it off the altar without a second thought.

I went rigid.

Lucien stood at the top of the altar.

"I was never cursed," he said.

My hands were still cupped in the shape of holding the bottle, all ten fingers suspended in midair.

"Our parents never died, either."

"The Dragon Slaughter War six years ago, I planned it. The only one left crippled, with broken wings, was you."

Every night when my daughter comes home, she looks different.
On the first night, a little of her hair was gone.
On the second night, she was missing one hand.
On the third night, half of her body had vanished.
I jolted awake in a sudden start, thankful it had only been a nightmare.
Right then, my daughter came back home.
A patch of her hair was missing.

I am originally of royal vampire bloodline.
But because of one sentence from my adoptive father, I hid in the human world for decades.
The Church called me a "filthy heretic" because vampire blood flowed in my veins.
Yet they burned a blind girl to death, her crime being that she "couldn't see."
They burned an old blacksmith to death, his crime being that he wanted to learn medicine.
They burned a young mother to death, her crime being that she refused to be violated by the captain of the holy knights.
Bathed in holy light, I realized for the first time—
The demons... are in the light.

Four months pregnant, I walked into the OB-GYN clinic filled with joy—this was the child Archer and I had waited three years for.
But the moment the ultrasound report was handed to him, his gentle gray eyes twisted violently.
"Abort it. We absolutely cannot keep this child."
My stepfather watched coldly. The stepbrother who doted on me most slapped me hard across the face. My own mother wielded the scalpel and removed my uterus.
Half a month later, they picked me up from the hospital with roses, only to turn around and lock me away, feeding me psychiatric drugs until I died.
Reborn, I thought that as long as I hid the report, I could save my baby.
But they forced me onto the operating table once again.
It wasn't until I saw the report with my own eyes—
That I finally understood why my child had to die.

I've been married to billionaire Joseph Miller for three years. Pregnant three times. Aborted three times.

Every time, my husband stood outside the operating room, watching them wheel me in.

The first baby, my mother-in-law Victoria said had spinal deformities. The second, my father-in-law Richard showed a "report" claiming heart defects.

I believed them. I thought it was my fault, something wrong with my body.

Until the third pregnancy.

This time I secretly went to another hospital—DNA showed 99.9% match with Joseph, every prenatal indicator perfect.

I rushed home clutching the report, thinking I could finally save my child.

Victoria glanced at it and tossed it on the coffee table. "You are carrying a healthy baby. But the Miller family doesn't need it."

My in-laws forcibly dragged me to the clinic. I screamed to Joseph for help: "That's your child!"

His eyes were red, but he still let them kill my baby.

Desperate, I demanded a divorce. He coldly refused, tearing at my clothes: "Stop being dramatic. Time for the fourth."

I finally understood—I wasn't his wife. I was their breeding machine.

But why? Why force me to keep getting pregnant, only to kill every healthy baby?

Until that night, I pushed open the attic door that had been locked for three years—

And finally understood everything.

Alice, pregnant and vulnerable, is coerced onto a perilous ride by Frank, goaded by his malicious sister Amelia. "You love danger, don't you?" Frank sneers, ignoring her desperate cries that their child is at risk. After losing the baby, she's abandoned in the hospital. "Pull the plug on the ECMO," Frank coldly orders over the phone, amidst the clatter of mahjong tiles.

Amelia torments Alice further, screeching, "You're nothing but a charity case!" and framing her for corporate crimes. When Alice discovers Amelia caused her mother's suicide, she exposes their schemes.

Frank, ruined, exacts a brutal revenge on Amelia, screaming, "This is for our child!" before taking his own life. In the end, Alice, stronger than ever, finds love and peace running a seaside motel, Frank's final letter laying bare Amelia's treachery.

"You were meant to be my death. Instead, you've become my damnation."
Aria Thornwell has spent three years as a healer in her town, attempting to forget the night her former fiancé publically humiliated her by selecting her affluent stepsister instead—taking Aria's family fortune with him. Now, she lives quietly, utilizing her skill to aid the underprivileged while her stepfamily flaunts their stolen fortune.

But on the winter solstice, everything changes. She's chosen as the ceremonial bride for the vampires' holy Winter Feast—a "honor" that guarantees death at daybreak following the Christmas Eve rite. Dragged to the Crimson Vale with five other human tributes, Aria is prepared to meet her fate with dignity.

Until she meets him.

Lord Sebastian Thorne, the ancient vampire who has presided over the Winter Feast for eight centuries, is meant to drain her at dawn following the binding ritual. It's tradition. It's law. It's survival—the ceremonial blood maintains the vampire realm for another year.

But as Sebastian's lips brush her throat in the ceremonial hall, something unbelievable happens. Her blood doesn't simply sustain him—it wakes something in him that's been dead for generations. And in a move that shocks the whole vampire court, he refuses to complete the rite.
"This one is mine," he proclaims, his old strength sweeping the hall. "Anyone who touches her answers to me."

Trapped in the Obsidian Palace as Sebastian's "protected bride," Aria discovers three frightening truths: Sebastian isn't protecting her out of mercy—he's dying from an ancient curse, and her blood is the only thing keeping him alive past Christmas; the vampire court will do anything to kill her and reinstate the ritual; and her "ordinary" healer's gift is actually a rare and dangerous power that vampire nobility has been hunting for generations.

Three years ago, I was the sole surviving legendary mage of Ash Valley. To fulfill my comrade's dying wish, I married into the Robert family, becoming a despised and bullied son-in-law . For three years, I endured torment and humiliation; my entire family treated me like trash . My wife handed me divorce papers , then accepted the marriage proposal of a nobleman. On my wedding day, I walked into the hall in old clothes, and everyone laughed, thinking I was crazy. Until I shattered all magic with a wave of my hand, my legendary presence overwhelming everyone present, the woman who had once despised me finally cried and asked me: Why did you lie to me?

They gave him 24 hours to hand over the girl.
He gave them 30 seconds to regret it.

Jack Cole was supposed to be nobody—just another quiet college student.
No records. No past. No trace he ever existed.

But when a powerful family tries to take his cousin as part of a dirty deal…
and a billionaire heiress becomes the target of a professional kill team…

Something buried comes back.

The campus?
Just his cover.

The truth?
He’s a weapon trained for war—
the kind governments deny, and enemies never see coming.

Now the richest family in the city wants him dead.
A private army is moving in.
And a global biotech empire is pulling strings from the shadows.

They think they’re hunting him.

They’re wrong.

Jack isn’t running.
He’s choosing who dies first.

On a stormy night, a horrific crash unfolded on the overpass. The victim was brought to the city forensic center.
My husband, Ethan, slipped on his gloves and expertly examined my shattered body, his voice detached. "Record this: Female, approximately twenty-five years old, suffered severe trauma before death."
His assistant sighed. "That's rough. Not a single family member showed up."
Just then, the assistant slid a misshapen silver band off my mud-streaked finger.
"Sir, this ring... isn't it identical to the one you keep in your desk drawer?"
With a sharp clatter, the scalpel slipped from Ethan's hand and hit the floor.

My name is Jack Morris, a bottom-rung janitor on the docks.
Every day, people walk all over me, and I live on moldy bread.
Until one day, an old man I saved handed me a photograph. "This is my granddaughter. She's being held at the Black Swan Casino."
That used to be my place. Ten years ago.
Her father was a brother who died in my place.
I was once the king of the underground.
And now, at the banquet celebrating the tenth anniversary of my death, they're treating that old man's granddaughter like a toy.
If my disappearance only made those animals more brazen...
Then they can finish that drink and celebrate their own deaths next.