759 Book(s) Related to Wife On Paper

When I woke up, there was a stranger beside me. He said his name was Kieran, took care of me gently, answered every question with patience. My wolf was dormant, but my heart raced every time I saw him.

"Are you my mate?" I asked.

He was silent for a long time. Finally: "Just rest for now."

The days that followed felt like a dream. He made breakfast, walked with me, kissed me under moonlight. We marked each other. I thought I'd found where I belonged.

Until I saw a black wolf emblem.

Memory struck like lightning—

Kieran Valens. My mortal enemy. Son of the man who killed my parents twenty years ago.

And I'd just spent three weeks in his bed.

Worse—when I pretended the amnesia continued and secretly fed intel to my pack...I found I couldn't betray him.

When he took a silver bullet on the battlefield, I ran to him faster than logic could stop me.

"Why save me?" he asked, eyes full of pain.

Because I love you. Because you're my fated wolf.

Because even though you're the one person I should hate most, my body moves toward you on instinct.

But this love was built on lies...

The Vane family has carried the vampire's curse for generations. Of every pair of twin sisters born into our bloodline, one will not live to see twenty-five.

Everyone assumed it was my sister — the one always coughing up blood.

Nobody knew that for twenty years, every full moon, the one gritting her teeth through the pain, never making a sound, was me.

The Divine took pity on me and gave me three chances. Win the genuine love of my parents, my brother, or my husband — any one of them — and the curse would lift.

Three chances. Three failures.

The only hope I had left was the baby inside me, seven months along. Bring him into this world, and I'd live.

Then my husband kicked open my hospital room door. My own brother pulled on a surgical gown and picked up a knife. My parents signed the forms outside.

They were going to cut me open, take the last thing keeping me alive, and use it to save my "cursed" sister.

After my life slipped away entirely, the truth came out.

So why is it that the people who sent me to my death are the ones who lost their minds?

The best deal I ever made in my life was selling my blood to a vampire.

I was a broke, permanently starving werewolf who needed ten times the food a normal person did just to feel full.

Evan was a vampire heir with a blood allergy, the kind where the smell alone made him sick and dizzy. Somehow his life was worse than mine.

Except my blood didn't trigger it. He never reacted to me.

So he pulled out his card. "I'll keep you fed. You let me feed off you."

This wasn't a vampire. This was a walking meal ticket.

For the next three years, he was the perfect meal buddy. Five meals a day, and he never once complained. Once I finished and let out a satisfied burp, it was his turn, just a small sip, nothing more.

Then, the year we graduated, he got a call from his family. He had to fly back to Europe that same night.

Before he left, I figured I'd thank him for three years of generosity. I pulled my collar aside.

"Go ahead, take more this time. Consider it a going-away present."

He hesitated, then leaned in.

But this time, once his teeth were in, he couldn't stop.

By the time he pulled back, horrified at himself, I already had a hand pressed to my neck, and everything went dark.

I died in the tenth year of our marriage. Not from illness, but from thirty-six hundred days of silent cruelty and penance.

Ten years ago, during that avalanche, he grabbed my hand at the last second. The girl he loved got buried under all that snow.

After that, even breathing felt like a crime.

He drank himself into oblivion, stayed out all night, and on the anniversary of her death, he'd wrap his hands around my throat and ask, "Why wasn't it you?"

I loved him for fifteen years, from childhood sweethearts to bitter strangers. I gave everything for even a hint of warmth from him. What I got instead was him shoving me down the stairs for her little sister.

When I open my eyes again, wind cuts through me and snow fills the air. I'm ten years in the past, back to that afternoon in the Alps.

This time, I'll give you what you want.

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 burn through eighty years of my life raising three dogs that turn around and tear into me.

My vampire husband, Damian, used to be an outcast covered in festering sores, cursed to fear the sun. I cut my wrist and gave up thirty years of my life so he could become the most powerful man among the bloodlines, in control of half the world's wealth. Cold and ruthless to everyone else, he only ever bares his fangs for me.

Knox, the werewolf boy I grew up with, was born with a genetic flaw that kept him from ever shifting. I gave up another twenty years so he could have the strongest bloodline of all. Wild and reckless, he used to swear he'd carry me on his back for the rest of his life.

Julian, my human brother, got burned beyond recognition saving me from a fire. I spent my last thirty years giving him back a face people would pay a fortune for. He used to send crates of his paintings to my room, the kind of work people would kill to own.

Then a woman named Daphne shows up, and all three of them lose their minds over her.

And somehow I become the jealous, vicious wife everyone wants gone.

She cries that I pushed her, so they drive blades of blood straight through my bones.

She says I'm cruel to the staff, so they break my legs in front of a crowd.

And when I'm dying, they drain my blood to keep her alive.

If you're all going to treat the life I gave you like trash, then I'm taking it back. The strength, the face, the life. All of it.

[God, I take it back. I want everything I gave them returned to me.]

This is a world where humans and fantasy races exist side by side. Werewolves move through city streets between glass towers, and every now and then, a pair of massive wings cuts through the clouds overhead. Twenty years ago, to secure the family's standing, the main house signed a contract with the Dragon Clan.

As the least favored daughter of a branch family, I was chosen to be the Dragon King's mate. The terms were spelled out plainly: if I couldn't get married within five years of coming of age, I'd have to go to Dragon territory and go through with the marriage.

For five years, every wedding I've planned has been blown up by my younger sister, Hannah.

This is year five. I'm finally in a wedding dress, about to marry Derek, the boy I grew up with.

What I didn't expect was that one hour before the ceremony, Hannah collapsed in the dressing room coughing up blood. She grabbed Derek's hand, crying, saying she wouldn't make it through the month.

And my parents are on either side of me, hands pressed down hard on my shoulders.

"Just let Hannah have the wedding. She's dying!"

What they don't know is that if I don't get married today, the Dragon envoys will come for me on the spot.

And I won't be coming back.

The day my sister and I came back to life, we made one call: swap fiancés.

Last time, Dad burned every favor he had to lock down two marriage deals for the family. One with a mafia family that runs the West Coast. The other with a corporate CEO.

My sister married the mafia leader. She was too gentle, too kind for a world that ran on blood and backstabbing. The man had a childhood friend who played soft and helpless but was vicious as hell underneath. That woman tormented my sister for decades before finally arranging an "accident" that killed her.

And me? I got the polished CEO.

Sounds good, right? Except we tortured each other from day one. He was all rules and manners, always talking like he was giving a speech. Me? I blow up fast and if I can throw a punch, I will. Every day was the same standoff. He'd pull back, I'd push forward, and nobody gave an inch.

We spent our whole lives being polite and miserable.

Then one day, my sister and I woke up on the afternoon they announced the engagements.

At twenty-nine, Dominic Brooks owns this city's underworld.

This year, I'm pregnant again. Finally.

But on our daughter's death anniversary, he doesn't show. Five hours. Nothing.

I find him at our casino with some girl draped all over him. The same girl I pulled out of a trafficking ring two years ago.

She's laughing loud enough for everyone to hear. "His wife won't stop crying about that dead kid. God, he's so over it."

He kisses her. Right in front of me.

Three days later, he tears up our daughter's grave. His mistress wants a swimming pool.

The shovel comes down. My unborn baby goes with it.

Years ago, Dominic taught me the rules of our world. How we handle traitors.

Time for a reminder.

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

My serpent mate has locked me in the castle, nine months pregnant. A dozen serpent guards watch me day and night. I can't even leave the room.

A month ago, his brother died in a hunting accident. He became the serpent clan leader. Then he brought back his brother's widow, the woman he grew up with. His first love.

He said he needed to take care of his brother's widow. He told me we'd all live together in the castle, nice and peaceful.

I said no.

I'm his mate. I'm a beastman. My pride won't let me accept that. And they grew up together, childhood sweethearts. How could I not think about it?

She came to him in tears, heavily pregnant. She said I poisoned her medicine, that I wanted to kill her and the baby.

He believed her.

He decided I was just some rogue beastman with no background, jealous and vicious, only after his title and money. So he locked me in this freezing castle while he camped outside her delivery room.

When labor hit, I screamed for a healer. I swore I never hurt her. I just couldn't live with her under the same roof. I only ever loved him.

He just laughed. "You're good at acting. I don't believe a word out of you. Once she delivers safely, I'll deal with you. Don't think you can trick me into coming back."

But when a trembling guard reported "Your mate and the child... they didn't make it," he lost it completely.

The day the Gryphon army marched home in victory, my sister's husband came back safe. My husband, Tobias, died on the ice.

Everyone pitied me, and I believed them. I mourned him for years, handed over every resource the Elven Realm had to offer to Crown Prince Nathaniel, and helped him lock down his claim to the throne.

It took me years to find out the man who came back wasn't Nathaniel at all. It was my "dead" husband, Tobias.

He killed his own brother, stole his face with forbidden magic, all so he could marry my sister Sabrina and make her his queen, official and out in the open.

"Sabrina and I are the real thing. Pretending to be my brother, that was for the good of the kingdom."

They framed me for treason and threw me into the Pit of Judgment. As I burned, I watched the two of them hold each other while the kingdom cheered.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the army came home.

My sister begged me to stop grieving, tears in her eyes. "Nathaniel" swore he'd give me a life of luxury. The old king stood in front of everyone and promised to grant me anything I wanted.

This time, I didn't cry. I chose to remarry without a second thought.

Tobias thought wearing his brother's face was all it took to sit on that throne. What he didn't know was that without me, he never stood a chance of getting there at all.

I've got a reputation on campus as a doormat with zero dignity. I bring Wyatt Langley food, do his homework, act as his emotional dumping ground. Been at it for a year.

His rich friends mock my cheap clothes and say I'm reaching way out of my league. He never stops them. Sometimes he even laughs along.

Finally, he announces in front of everyone that he's breaking up with me. His first love is coming back from Europe, so I need to get lost.

Everyone's waiting to see me cry.

I glance at the five million dollars that hit my account half an hour ago and say, with complete sincerity, "Okay. Congrats."

What nobody knows is that I put up with him, tolerated his rotten temper, for one simple reason. His mom pays way too well.

Now the money's here. Time to end this arrangement.

So why, the second I walk away, does he start tearing the city apart trying to find me?

I died. At my sister's eighteenth birthday party, the moment the champagne tower came crashing down.

While she stood under the crystal chandelier in her gown, soaking up congratulations from three hundred guests, I was tied up in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. The wound in my stomach was still bleeding.

I called my family. Only my brother picked up, sounding pissed off and disgusted. "What's your problem now? This is her big day. You better not ruin it."

I tried to explain. He hung up.

That was the ninety-ninth time they'd hung up on me.

Also the last.

They thought I was throwing a tantrum, deliberately skipping my sister's special moment. Called me ungrateful, said they regretted bringing me back from that backwater town two years ago.

Well, now they're off the hook.

Problem solved.

My husband Spencer quit his job to manage a rising model's career. In six months, she dropped the weight, blew up online, and turned into a supermodel — magazine covers, major runways, deal after deal.

Meanwhile, I watch myself expand by the day. Bloated. Double chin forming. Skin getting worse.

The whole world calls me greedy, lazy, out of control. Even my parents call to tell me to watch what I eat. And there's nothing I can say to make anyone understand.

Then one night, I catch them on the balcony, voices low, thinking no one can hear: "Forget about that fat cow. Once she drops dead, the house and the insurance are all ours."

That's when it finally makes sense.

Camille has a system tied to her. And it's tied to me.

Every pound I gain, she loses one.

I'm the fuel. The stepping stone. The inheritance they're waiting to collect.

She gets thin while I get fat?

So as long as I keep eating, she keeps losing weight?

Good.

I go ahead and spend a hundred grand booking a reclusive private chef for a full month. No limits on ingredients, price doesn't matter. The more extravagant, the better.

I'm going to eat whatever I want and actually enjoy my life.

Let's see how long she stays thin while I'm out here actually living my life.

As the only mute player in this horror game, I thought I was screwed.

Turns out the boss knows sign language.

Thank God! Perfect!

Then he gets everything completely wrong.

I sign "help me," he reads it as "you're hot."

I sign "danger," he thinks I'm saying "I like you."

I sign "get lost," and he goes, "You want me to come closer? Okay."

The worst part? I curse him out in sign language, calling him a psycho pervert.

He just smiles and says, "Baby, you're so good at flirting. I can't even bring myself to kill you now."

Me: ...

My teammate whispers to me, "Please stop signing. Every time you do, he stares at you even more like a psycho."

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.

Three years ago, a private plane crash took my father, my mother, my brother Carter, and Grayson, the man I'd loved for seven years and was about to marry.

To hold onto everything they left behind, I cried until my eyes were raw, destroyed my stomach, and fought my way through boardrooms and Wall Street vultures.

On countless nights, I held their photographs and cried until I passed out.

What I never understood was why Willow, the foster sister we'd taken in, vanished without a trace after the crash.

Until today, three years later, when I drive back to the family estate with a diagnosis in my bag telling me I have three months to live.

I push open the heavy door and hear laughter. I see my family—the family that's supposed to be dead—gathered around Willow and her three-year-old son, singing happy birthday.

Turns out no one in this world ever loved me at all.

Why do they all get to live while I'm the only one who have to die?

Everyone says I married an iceberg.

Three years of contract marriage. He's never touched me once.

On our wedding night, I tried to move into his bedroom. He refused. I stood in front of him wearing lingerie. He just said, calm as ever, "You should get some rest."

I'm a healthy woman with a normal sex drive. Every day I'm burning up with my own desire.

I thought he didn't love me. So for both our sakes, I signed the divorce papers. Today, I'm telling him.

Then that afternoon, I suddenly heard his thoughts.

When I walked up to him in just a towel, he looked calm, staring at his laptop. But his mind was screaming: Holy shit. She's not wearing anything under that. Look at that skin. Her tits are huge. I can't take this anymore... no, I'll scare her. Fuck. I'm hard again.

Turns out under the ice, there's a volcano that's been buried for just as long.

I slip the divorce papers back into hiding and pour him a coffee.

New plan: make that volcano blow.

I don't realize how badly I've been wronged until they're strapping me to the gurney.

My name is Camille Brooks. I'm one of the best cardiothoracic surgeons in the city, and I have never lost a patient on my table.

My fiancé, Adrian Vance, is the golden boy of the entire hospital. We're supposed to get married next month.

It's a stormy night when he calls, telling me to get to the hospital right now. There's a patient bleeding out, and only I can save them.

I race through the rain, but I get stuck in traffic halfway there. By the time I push through the OR doors, the patient has no pulse.

The family points at me. They say I botched the procedure and killed him. And Adrian Vance, my own fiancé, takes the stand and shows up with "ironclad evidence" against me.

I have nothing to fight back with. I go to prison. My parents can't handle it. It destroys them both. They take their own lives.

It's only after I die that I learn who really held the scalpel that night: Daisy Whitman, the woman Adrian never got over.

I was just the fall guy.

Then I open my eyes.

I'm back. One hour before everything falls apart, riding through the rain toward the hospital.

This time, I'm going to survive.

And I'm going to watch both of you burn.

My husband's foster sister, Delilah, gets poisoned and ends up paralyzed. My husband, Grayson, the Don of this whole crime family, doesn't even bother checking the security cameras. He just throws me, two months pregnant, into the cistern where they punish traitors.

"Tessa, hand over the antidote, or die."

I kneel in the freezing swamp water and beg him. I didn't poison her.

He answers with a kick to the stomach.

For three straight days, I suffer down there. Leeches tear into my skin. My baby turns into a pool of black blood and dissolves into the filthy water. By the end, my vocal cords tear to shreds, my body goes cold, and I stop breathing.

His men get on their knees and beg him to spare me. He just sneers.

"That woman's always been good at playing the victim. No food, no medicine. Let her keep soaking."

Three days later, he finally walks into the cistern, and it's only to give me an ultimatum.

"Crawl out and apologize to Delilah on your knees. Otherwise I'll strip you of your title and sell you off to a trafficking ring. You'll wish you were dead."

No one answers him.

He has no idea. I already am.

I gave Arthur a thousand years. A thousand years to secure his throne as God-King.

And on the day of our engagement ceremony, he announced he was marrying someone else.

In my past life, I bled myself dry for him.

He told me Lilith needed Seraphim blood to live. I believed him. He bound me to the Divine Punishment Pillar and carved open my chest, one cut at a time.

He massacred my entire clan, calling it "treason."

I only learned the truth as I was dying. That pitiful "saint" was a demon from the Abyss all along.

Now that I'm reborn, watching him sit on that throne makes my skin crawl.

I destroy our engagement in front of everyone and take the entire Seraphim clan with me.

This time, I'm only here to watch him destroy himself.

I loved Damien for ten years. Ten years, right up until the moment he took the heart that was supposed to save our daughter and gave it to someone else's child.

Lily was only seven. She was terrified of the dark, terrified of pain. She never got that heart. She just faded, right there in that hospital bed.

And Damien was down the hall, celebrating someone else's miracle.

He had no idea what I was holding when he finally came home. He had no idea my stomach cancer had already hit the final stage.

There was nothing left in this world worth staying for.

So this time, I didn't yell. I didn't cry.

I just slid the divorce papers across the table.

He thought I was bluffing.

But this time, I had nothing left to lose.

In the dark underworld, Matthias Sterling is a feared mob boss and the only family I had left after my parents died. I used to be the girl he cherished, until I turned eighteen and confessed my feelings to him.

From that day on, the tenderness in his eyes turned to disgust. He brought home Rose Hartley and threw me away like trash.

In my past life, someone drugged him with a powerful aphrodisiac. I gave myself to him as the cure, only for him to call me a shameless whore. But when I got pregnant, he married me anyway.

On our wedding day, Rose ran to rival territory heartbroken and ended up dead. When he heard the news, he said nothing. Just finished the ceremony.

When I went into labor, he locked me in the house and said coldly, "If it weren't for you, I would've married her. She wouldn't have run to enemy territory and died."

He blamed everything on me. In the end, I died in childbirth. He wouldn't even let anyone call a doctor.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night that changed everything.

One of my employees went online and dragged me, claiming I'm making them sacrifice their health for a paycheck and forcing everyone to work over Thanksgiving.

Here's what actually happened. My company gives nine days off for Thanksgiving. Volunteer to work overtime, get triple pay, with a $500 daily meal stipend and a $5,000 bonus. No one gets penalized for not working.

The whole internet's tearing into me for making employees sell their lives for cash. So I give her exactly what she wants and send out a company-wide notice:

To protect employee mental health, the building gets locked and the power gets cut over Thanksgiving. No one is allowed to work for any reason. Anyone who does gets fired.

The minute that email goes out, the employees who were counting on overtime to pay their mortgages lose it. Now they're all crowded outside the building, begging me to open the doors.

Connor Mitchell and I are the golden couple of our industry. Everyone sees him as the devoted husband, always bringing me soup when I work late into the night.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, he gave me an expensive diamond necklace and posted something sweet on Instagram. The comments were all variations of the same thing: jealousy.

I used to believe it too.

Until I cut my trip to Europe short and got into that SUV. The passenger seat was set at the wrong angle, too far forward for my height. A contact lens case fell out of the sun visor, and neither of us wears contacts.

When I had my cousin pull the dashcam footage and saw him with his arm around some petite girl getting into the car, the truth hit me. My attentive husband, the one who called me every night I was away, had been using my connections and resources to play successful mentor to a twenty-two-year-old intern.

The irony is, he thinks he's gotten away with it. He has no idea I can see right through every move he makes.

Once rot sets into a perfect marriage, no amount of perfume can hide the stench.

I was the Sinclair family's lost daughter, missing for fifteen years. The day they found me, I thought I'd finally found the home I'd always dreamed of.

I didn't know they only brought me back to keep their other daughter alive. The one with the rare blood disease.

For three years, they drained my blood over and over. Took my bone marrow once.

My birth parents told me, "Eloise is fragile. You're the older sister. Take care of her."

My fiancé said, "You have such a good heart. You wouldn't want to see her suffer, would you?"

Today, I just gave six hundred milliliters of blood. I'm lying here weak in this hospital bed, and I hear them talking outside my door.

"Eloise is getting worse. We should take Aria's kidney now. Give it to her. We can't wait any longer."

That's when I finally understood. I was never their found daughter.

I was inventory. A blood bag. Spare parts waiting to be harvested.

If that's what their love is, I don't want it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

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

The night before the SAT, I brought homemade pastries from our bakery to share with the whole class.

The next day, over thirty students collapsed at the testing center. The exam was voided.

I became the target of everyone's rage. My family fell apart. I ended up in a detention cell.

The internet tore me apart. My classmate Lainey Prescott went on camera sobbing, saying all she wanted was for me to own up to what I did.

While I was in detention, I found out my mom had a mental breakdown and jumped off the overpass outside of town.

That same night, I went into the river too. The water was freezing.

When I open my eyes, Lainey is right there. She's holding that same sheet of paper with everyone's signatures, smiling like nothing's wrong, eyes just as calculating as I remember.

I'm back.

And this time, I'm not making anything for anyone.

I just get back from three months of hell on the northern border, dust still on my jacket, when Grandpa's calls start blowing up my phone.

"Seraphina! You need to swing by Black Ridge City and meet your fiancé!"

The old betrothal, arranged before I was even born. The guy is Derek, son of the Black Ridge Pack's Alpha.

I couldn't care less about the engagement, but I owe the elders that much respect.

So I send my unit back to base and head into the city alone, figuring I'll grab a gift and get this over with.

I find a necklace I like at Tears of the Stars, the fanciest jewelry store in town. The sales clerk looks at me like I'm trash. "That necklace runs eight million dollars. You break it, you'll be washing dishes for the rest of your life and still not pay it off."

I'm reaching for my black card when a wall of perfume hits me.

A woman dripping in jewelry storms in with a pack of bodyguards, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "What kind of gutter wolf is this? Keep talking and I'll have someone skin you and turn you into a rug. That necklace is mine. I'm Derek's girl."

I actually laugh, I'm that pissed off. Call up my dear fiancé right there on the spot.

"Derek. Your girl just told me she's going to skin me and make me into a rug."

The day college applications were due, Fern Whitmore wouldn't stop crying — and my two childhood best friends were completely wrapped around her finger.

They actually threatened to give up their Ivy League spots to follow her to community college.

I tried everything to talk them out of it. Nothing worked. So I went behind their backs and called both their parents.

Their parents showed up that same night and put a stop to it. Applications corrected, crisis averted, everyone back on track.

Or so I thought.

Fern lost her two personal ATMs, and one night she posted a goodbye message on social media and swallowed a bottle of pills.

Nash and Declan didn't blame her for it. They blamed me.

They lured me up to the roof. Both of them shoved their hands against my chest.

"Maren." Declan's voice was ice. "You ruined Fern's future. Go apologize to her in hell."

I fell twelve stories.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at the beginning.

This time, I'm not saving anyone.

"You are absolutely my fucking woman, Dani. Got me?"
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Dani," he pressed. "Do you get me?"
"No, Austin, I don't," I admitted as I pulled my robe closed again and sat up. "You confuse me."
He dragged his hands down his face. "Tell me what's on your mind."
I sighed. "You're everything my parents warned me against. You're secretive, but you're also honest. I feel wholly protected by you, but then you scare me more than anyone I've ever known. You're a bad boy, but when I dated a so-called good one, he turned out to be the devil, so, yeah, I don't get you because you're not what I expected. You drive me crazier than anyone I've ever met, but then you make me feel complete. I'm feeling things I don't quite know how to process and that makes me want to run. I don't want to give up something that might be really, really good, but I also don't want to be stupid and fall for a boy just because he's super pretty and makes me come."
Danielle Harris is the daughter of an overprotective police chief and has led a sheltered life. As a kindergarten teacher, she's as far removed from the world of Harleys and bikers as you could get, but when she's rescued by the sexy and dangerous Austin Carver, her life is changed forever.
Although Austin 'Booker' Carver is enamored by the innocent Dani, he tries to keep the police chief's daughter at arm's length. But when a threat is made from an unexpected source, he finds himself falling hard and fast for the only woman who can tame his wild heart.
Will Booker be able to find the source of the threat before it's too late?
Will Dani finally give her heart to a man who's everything she's been warned about?

I thought ten years of childhood sweethearts could weather any storm.

Until that night when Charles rushed out after her call, leaving me alone in bed with his child growing inside me, not knowing how to tell him.

Seraphina Blackwood, tech dynasty heiress, threatened Charles with her father's billion-dollar empire to marry her. And me? Just an orphan girl who seemed to mean nothing in Silicon Valley's power games.

When I watched him remove our wedding ring, when I saw their sweet photos at the hospital, when I lay bleeding on the floor and he chose her... I finally understood that maybe love really can't survive against money.

But what I didn't know was that while I started my new life in Switzerland, there was a man secretly protecting me with his kidney, his heart, his everything...

Until his assistant appeared at my little bakery, desperation in his eyes: "Ms. Thorne, please, you have to save him!"

At the board meeting, he voted to dilute my equity.

"This is business, Elena. Not personal."

Three years of hidden marriage. I thought we were partners. But in that moment, I finally understood—I was just his technical supplier on the road to success.

What Ryan didn't know: that Technology Contribution Agreement he signed three years ago contained one clause. 70% of NexTech's core algorithm IP belongs to me. Personally.

Product launch day. Two hundred investors watching. I took the microphone.

He thought I'd present the tech specs like always.

He was wrong.

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

My father died owing the Callahan family a blood debt. His payment? Me and my sister—married off to their sons.

I woke up reborn on the night they buried him.

Standing in that funeral chamber, watching the lawyer crack open the sealed will, I discovered I could suddenly hear thoughts. My sister Vivienne's voice ripped through my head: Not marrying that butcher. No way in hell.

She lunged forward and grabbed Adrian—the refined bastard son who looked like a lawyer instead of a mobster. The same "perfect gentleman" I married in my past life.

Which left me with Dominic Callahan. The scarred heir. The Executioner.

Last time around, Vivienne married Dominic and got beaten down for years. I married Adrian and lived like a queen.

I almost laughed out loud.

Because she has no idea—this time, she's the one who grabbed the monster.

Everyone in this city knows that the king of the underworld, my husband Vincent, is crazy about me.

Three years ago, when that bullet tore through my abdomen, it took away my chance of ever being a mother. He held my blood-soaked body and swore to God he'd make the shooter's entire family pay. A month later, that family was wiped off the map in this city. No one dares speak their name anymore.

He sat by my hospital bed, holding my hand. "I don't need kids. I only need you."

I believed him.

Until six months ago, when his brother died in an accident, leaving behind his wife Serena. The family pressure came like a tidal wave. An heir. A bloodline. That's all they cared about. And that woman became everyone's golden ticket to keeping the Caruso name alive.

That's when my husband stopped coming home at night. Every night, I hear them through the wall. Sounds that used to be mine.

But today, the doctor told me my body is healing. The chances are slim, but there's hope.

I clutch the medical report and rush home, imagining Vincent's face when he sees the results. Maybe everything can go back to how it was. Maybe he'll realize he doesn't need her.

Until I stand outside our mansion and hear laughter pouring out.

"Serena's pregnant! Can you believe it? The family finally has an heir!"

"Finally. The family's saved."

I thought I'd signed up for an immersive dating show.

Turns out it was a 99.9% death rate, globally livestreamed horror game.

And me? Half-blind without my contacts, desperate to go viral, I somehow talk my way through a death game like it's a romance.

I mistook blood for ketchup, human eyeballs for sashimi, a murderous child ghost for a kid who just needed some love.

Worst part? I fell for the guy running the place, the one who could kill you without blinking, and tried to get his number within the hour.

My teammate hissed at me, shaking. "You wanna die, fine, just don't take us with you!"

I just waved him off. It's a dating show. Relax.

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

One hundred years married to Everett, and I've learned one thing: whenever he wants to push me into a corner, he throws the mate bond dissolution agreement in my face. Whenever my parents want me to cave, they hold the family name over my head.

They've always wanted the same thing — for me to hand over everything I have to my twin sister Rosalie, who's been sick her whole life.

I've fought it. I've grieved over it.

But when the doctor slid the diagnosis across the desk — Blood Depletion Syndrome, late stage, less than two weeks left — something in me just went quiet.

What's the point of fighting when you're already dead?

The alliance between the Human Empire and the Wolf Empire has stood for centuries. The treaty requires the Human Empire to send a princess to the Wolf Empire every so often, to become the Wolf King's mate and strengthen the bond between our kingdoms. Now, it's time to honor that pact again.

Father is old now, ready to step down. My sister and I have to choose.

In my past life, Adelaide chose the throne. She thought power meant she could do whatever she wanted. Within three years, the Human Empire crumbled in her hands. At home, she bled the people dry, filling her own coffers while they starved. Abroad, her arrogance drove away our allies. The Dwarven Empire, the Serpent Empire, they all cut ties. In the end, the surrounding kingdoms banded together and attacked. The Human Empire fell in the war. Our parents died by enemy blades, and Adelaide had to flee.

And me? I went to the Wolf Empire, just like the treaty said.

On the surface, I was the Wolf Queen, worshipped by every wolf, living in the grand Wolf Court, attending state banquets. In reality, I was his prisoner. Forced to run as prey in the hunting ritual, slapped to the ground in front of the council, shoved forward as a hostage when conflicts arose.

At one banquet, Adelaide appeared in front of me, gripping a dagger, madness burning in her eyes. "This is your fault! If you hadn't been so useless in the Wolf Empire, we wouldn't have lost everything!"

The blade sank into my chest. I collapsed in a pool of blood.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the throne room with Father watching us.

Adelaide barely hesitates before speaking up. "I'll go to the Wolf Empire. Let Brynn take the throne."

I smile.

Foolish Adelaide. She has no idea that beneath the Queen's crown lies nothing but chains and blood.

One snide comment from my worst enemy, and I dropped eighty million gold coins on a custom golem built to look exactly like him.

My requirements were simple: same face, same body, and a personality that's submissive, obedient, and takes whatever I dish out without fighting back.

I've had that insufferable face fetching me coffee, rubbing my feet, massaging my shoulders, even wearing a maid outfit.

Watching him bow and scrape for me finally lets out most of the resentment I've been carrying.

Then tonight, the workshop sends a message out of nowhere:

[Due to a shortage of high-purity mithril, your custom golem needs another month to complete. Thank you for your patience.]

I look over at the man kneeling by the couch, rubbing my legs.

So who exactly have I been treating like a dog for the past two months?

My beast companions are in the middle of my medicinal soak when a soft, dramatic little "ow" drifts in from outside.

Vex, my wolfkin companion, drops my leg. Brom, the bearkin, jerks his hand and a fortune's worth of elixir spills into the water.

They crash through the floor-to-ceiling window and bolt outside without a single glance back — all for some ordinary girl.

I'm still staring at the broken glass when a stream of glowing blue text pops up out of nowhere.

[The main character Ivy literally fake-tripped in the garden and these two idiots jumped out a window for her!]
[Honestly, the original side character Lillia had it so rough. Backstabbed by her own companions, dies a miserable death, and they end up in Ivy's entourage…]
[And she never even figures out what's happening. Just suffers through the whole thing without a clue.]

I read through all of it, and one thought slowly rises: seriously?

If my companions won't behave, just get new ones. Simple.

I go straight to my mom, and before I've even finished talking, she's already pulling me toward the door.

"Any beast that turns on its master isn't worth keeping. Come on, baby — let's go pick you out some new ones. Mom's paying, so make it the most expensive ones they've got."

Ryan loves me deeply—at least that's what everyone says. Seven years together, we look like the perfect couple to outsiders. But only I know he's betrayed me three times.

The first time was three years ago. His brother died saving him, leaving behind his widow Sophia—Ryan's unforgettable first love. He married her behind my back. When I found out, I completely fell apart. I have dignity. I refuse to be the other woman. I wanted to leave, but he begged on his knees. "This is just to take care of my sister-in-law. Once I find the truth about my brother's death, I'll divorce her. Then we can get married."

I believed him. I forgot that a man never lets go of a lost love he's gotten back.

The second time was at last year's company anniversary. In front of everyone, he introduced Sophia as his wife. I watched them on stage, a knife through my heart. That night he explained, "It's just for show. Once everything's over, we can be together."

I believed him again.

The third time was two weeks ago. Surveillance footage showed Ryan with Sophia entering a hotel room. I rushed to confront him, but heard her voice outside his office. "Ryan, I'm pregnant. It's your baby."

Through the crack in the door, I see him hesitate. In that instant I understand.

He's going to keep her.

He spots me and rushes out in a panic. "It was an accident! Let me explain! After she has the baby, I'll give her money and make her leave. She won't be in our lives anymore!"

In that moment, I finally wake up. There will be no future for us.

Foxes are born to bless their mates, unlocking their bloodline and putting them on the throne of the Beast King.

In my last life, the Golden Lion prince Rein picked me, and my sister Lilith got stuck marrying Austin, the black dragon everyone steered clear of.

Then Austin's bloodline woke up and he took the throne, and Lilith rode his coattails straight into a crown.

I threw everything I had into blessing Rein and it never worked. He blamed me for every failure, dug my core out with his own hands, and tossed me into a cell like trash, leaving me there to rot.

Now I'm back, and at the mating ceremony, Rein walks right past me and takes Lilith's hand instead.

That's when I know. He's been reborn too.

But he has no idea. It was never my fault the blessing failed. He was never going to hold power, no matter who blessed him. That throne was never his to take.

The mafia boss chose me as his decoy—a body double for the woman he loves.

Eight years. Three bullets, one car crash, one explosion. The doctor said ten more minutes and I would've died on that operating table when they took my kidney. I gave him a son. He let me play "the boss's wife" in public.

Until he cleared every obstacle for her and decided to marry her.

Her wedding photos replaced mine in the master bedroom. He has her initials tattooed on his arm. When I questioned him, he had his men slap me at a charity gala, forced me to admit "I'm just a stand-in." When I touched her, he took away my custody, declared she was "the true lady of this house."

The punishments got worse. When he threatened to cancel my mother's insurance, I finally learned to shut up.

He pulls me close, whispers in my ear: "She gave up everything for me. Not like you—you were born to take bullets for me."

"Deal with it. She's not replacing you. This is her house now."

Even my son took her side.

"Stop being dramatic! Natalie actually loves us! You're nothing!"

But their pure, innocent Natalie? She unplugged my mother's ventilator while I was locked in the basement. Let his enemies slip poison into my drink during the last job.

When Grayson found me, all he said was: "She's pregnant and emotional. Go rearrange the flowers at the wedding venue."

I wipe the black blood from my lips. Look at him quietly.

"I'm dying."

Everyone in our circle knows I'm Adrian's caged bird, and the "bad woman" his son Miles hates most.

For Miles, I gave up my fellowship in Zurich and spent seven years playing housewife.

What did I get in return? Adrian took Sophie to gallery openings on our anniversary. Miles smashed cake in my face in front of everyone, calling me a frumpy housewife.

Adrian was certain I couldn't leave him. Certain I couldn't leave our son.

He threw the divorce papers on the table with a cold smile. "Sign this, and you lose everything. Including Miles."

He expected me to beg on my knees.

I didn't.

I picked up the pen and signed without hesitation.

"Fine, Adrian. You keep Miles. And I get to keep myself."

For just a moment, I saw shock flash in his eyes.

I heard later that Adrian searched for me like a madman, and the son he doted on cried and screamed for his mommy.

Too bad. I'd already burned it all down myself.

I helped him claw his way up from nothing—from the family's bastard to king of the underworld.

I saved him when he got jumped in the streets. Took bullets for him when his father beat him half dead. We fought our way up from nothing, survived assassination attempts, built an empire that made people fear our name.

I thought we'd always stand together.

Until the day I nearly died giving birth, and all I found in the bassinet was a stack of cash.

I asked him where our baby was. He couldn't look me in the eye. His stepmother walked out holding my son. Smiled and said she deserved this, a child of her own, since she couldn't have one herself. He'd given my baby to another woman.

Turns out he'd been sleeping with her the whole time.

I threw the money in his face. I spent the next six years trying to get my son back.

Last week, when some small-time gang grabbed him, I went in alone with a gun. Bullets flew past my ears, kicked up concrete dust. I fought my way to the back and pulled him out. At the hospital, he pushed me away, crying, "Why'd you have to come?! We could've been a real family by now! Just leave! Leave me alone!"

I stared at his small face for a long time.

Finally, I said, "Call me mom one last time. Then I'll let you go."

I'm the top account director at my firm, always on the road, running myself ragged on golf courses and client dinners. Some months I barely make it back to the office at all.

Right after I land a $300 million contract for the company, my boss decides to hand the whole thing over to a new intern.

My manager says I'm wasting company resources, that my attitude's a problem. My boss tells me to give the new hire a chance. The intern thinks she can just take over my job without breaking a sweat.

None of them get it. Without me, this project never gets off the ground.

I don't bother telling them that.

Once the handoff is done, I walk straight into our biggest rival.

And watch them beg me to come back.

A hundred years ago, old Duke Rowland saved me with a bowl of hot soup when I was dying. To repay him, I swore myself, as the Silver Wolf Goddess, to a hundred-year covenant protecting House Rowland.

I taught Garrett how to hold a sword. I turned Caleb into a prodigy at the Mages' Guild. I saved Preston's family from ruin.

But Lillian took a potion to fake being sick, and all it took was her claiming only my heart could save her to turn three men's knives on me.

In my last life, I begged them to listen, told them that cutting out my heart would tear down the foundation of House Rowland itself. They finally backed off.

Then Lillian, trying to keep the lie going, secretly upped her dose and poisoned herself to death in her own bed.

The three of them lost their minds and blamed me for her death.

"A beast doesn't get to call itself the guardian of House Rowland. Die."

They cut my heart out. I died on that altar.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day they took my heart.

This time, I didn't waste my breath. I handed it over myself and let them have what they wanted.

The goddess's heart fell. The covenant ended.

They just didn't know yet how badly House Rowland would fall apart without me.