8231 Book(s) Related to what is the order of david baldacci books

For five years, my crime boss husband made me take off my wedding ring nine times—all for his precious damsel in distress.

When we first married, he promised me: "From now on, you're my queen, the queen of New Orleans."

But whenever Brianna came crying for help, he'd change his tune: "Mr. Parker saved my life, Claire. I owe his family everything."

And like a fool, I believed him eight times.

Eight times I watched from the shadows as he took another woman to our favorite restaurants.

Eight times I explained to the crew that our "separation" was just giving each other space.

Eight times I watched her move into my bedroom, use my dishes, sleep in my bed.

All for a man who kept making me slip off my ring, then slide it back on, over and over again.

Until the ninth time, when he said he needed to provide sperm for her fertility treatment, and I offered to leave.

He still thinks this is just another temporary break, expecting me to come crawling back in a month like always.

He'll never know I've already booked my ticket out of here.

Betrayed and killed by the wolf king in my past life, I came back from hell. On the wedding day, I turned down his proposal without hesitation. I made a blood pact with his greatest enemy—the vampire king. Together, we avenged my child and family, and built a new future in the dark.

My daughter begged me, tears in her eyes, to take her to gymnastics camp—just the two of us.

I thought it was her way of proving she loved me.

I was wrong.

In that hotel room in Toronto, I overheard my husband's voice—with another woman.

“Don't worry, Sophia will find a way to stay a few more days. I promised her that blue limited-edition leotard.”

“Her body now… after giving birth, it's ruined.”

In that moment, my world collapsed.

I thought I'd only been betrayed by my husband.
But the daughter I raised with everything I had—she was his accomplice.

The child I nurtured with my own hands kept clearing the path: so that woman could sleep in my bed, wear the lingerie I could no longer fit into, sneer in front of the mirror at every single mark my body earned from bringing life into this world.

I once believed that giving up my career would be enough to hold my family together.

But they joined hands to tell me: my sacrifice was never honored. It was a joke.

When a woman who has given everything to her family finally wakes up—

Her revenge will make every single one of them remember exactly what they did.

"Sloane, where there's smoke, there's fire. If you're really clean, why is it only burning you?"
In my last life, when those fabricated hotel records went viral on the company Slack, I scrambled to explain. I cried. I begged.
What I got was a suspension, a blacklist, and a foster mother who died on a hospital bed because I could no longer pay for her meds.
The person who started it all? Walked right over my corpse into a partnership.
Then I opened my eyes—and I was back. Three days before the promotion list dropped.
I stared at the pixelated "explicit screenshot" on my screen, and I didn't cry. Didn't rage.
I just smiled and hit screen record.
This time, I'm not proving I'm clean.
I'm proving they're guilty.

I was the unluckiest kid in my family—always the one pulling the black-tipped stick from that pretty little "Fairness Jar."
In our house, red meant new dresses, Disneyland, and a goodnight kiss from Mom. Black meant endless chores, lockup in the attic, and the kind of hunger that ate you from the inside out.
Mom loved to stroke my hair in front of the neighbors. "God gives everyone a fair shake," she'd say. "Riley's just a little unlucky, is all."
I believed her for fourteen years.
Until I had an asthma attack and died on that dusty attic floor.
The moment my soul slipped free, I looked down at the overturned Jar, its sticks scattered across the floorboards—and I finally understood why I'd drawn black every single time.

A year ago, my ex abandoned me when I was broke and buried in debt, choosing the Russo family heiress instead.

On the day of his engagement party, he sent me a vicious text: "Wear a wedding dress to Plaza Hotel. Changed my mind. You're marrying me."

I showed up in white.

Luca and his crew waited at the entrance, ready to watch me humiliate myself.

He thought this was my degradation.

But what he didn't know was—I was getting married.

Just not to him.

To Dante Valentino—the most dangerous man in this godforsaken city.

I died from campus rumors and elite prejudice in my last life.
Reborn, I no longer choose to explain. I collect every timestamp, fingerprint and hidden deal.
I expose my traitorous boyfriend, fake weak rival, and the school’s biased protection of the privileged.
With ironclad proof, I overturned all injustice and let every hypocrite pay the price.

Dorian, my boyfriend of three years, was a partner at a top-tier Boston law firm. He was gentle, refined, and absolutely flawless.
A week ago, he buried his face in my neck late at night, whispering that the city was suffocating him. He wanted to take me back to his hometown to meet Octavia, the grandmother who had single-handedly raised him.
I agreed without hesitation.
But on Crane Island, every night Dorian would slip out of our bed, using Octavia's gout as an excuse.
Until that night. I crept barefoot to Octavia’s door and pressed my ear against the wood.
What I heard wasn’t a sick old woman. It was Dorian’s heavy panting, mixed with the shameless, breathy moans of a young woman...

To help his life-saving benefactor, he personally pressed a pregnant me on the operating table to draw bone marrow.
I cried and begged him, "James, I'm pregnant. It's your child. Don't do this to me..."
But he had a look of disgust in his eyes. "Elizabeth, you'd lie about something like that just to get out of helping Mandy?"
Until there was a river of blood in the operating room and that unformed child turned into a pool of bloody water, he finally panicked.
Later, when he knew that the person who saved him in the fire ten years ago was actually me, he held my ashes and knelt outside the operating room for a full three days.

For the third time, Kael fled before the wedding—this time to deliver medicine to the neighbor girl he grew up with.
As compensation, the pack elders offered me two chests of rare ore and the deed to an island.
Someone, still hopeful, called Kael on speakerphone.
His careless voice echoed through the hall:
“Why bother with compensation? Ella loves me so much; she’ll come around as soon as I go back and sweet-talk her a little.”
“Sophia’s health is what matters now. Once she recovers, I’ll just hold another ceremony for Ella.”
The elders tried to explain, but the surrounding werewolves were all waiting to see the show—waiting to see how much humiliation I would swallow.
Just like the first two times.
But I’d had enough. And I’d lost all interest in Kael.
I kicked over the chest of ore and let my gaze fall on Kael’s uncle.
Then, I smiled.
“I heard the old Alpha left a will: whoever can claim me… becomes the next Alpha.”

"Help! Somebody help me! Julian is trying to kill my baby!" I scream at the top of my lungs, bursting into my gender reveal party.

Just minutes ago, Julian was my perfect, doting husband. Then he opens my unborn baby's genetic screening report. The unadulterated ferocity and revulsion simmering in his eyes makes my entire body shake. He grips my arm, demanding I terminate the pregnancy.

I already died once because of that piece of paper. In my past life, they dragged me to a freezing lab, pumped me full of drugs, and murdered my child before locking me in an asylum.

This time, I hide behind the guests. But my parents storm in. After seeing the report, instead of saving me, Dad kicks me squarely in the stomach.

"You shameless little whore," he spits.

They are about to drag me out the back door when two police officers step through the glass doors. The cop hands me the confiscated report.

I look down at the printed words... and finally understand.

For love, I gave up my identity as a wealthy heiress and eloped with my poor boyfriend. To help him raise startup capital for his business, I spent Christmas Eve dressed as Santa Claus handing out flyers.
And he, just to make his first love smile, kicked me into the pool with one swift kick...

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started ticking backward, slower and slower, until it stopped completely. He died peacefully in his sleep that same night.

When I was eighteen, my father, a drunk who lied about everything, slammed the door on his way out. I watched his clock vanish completely and knew right then he was never coming back.

Ever since, clocks scare me. I'm always afraid of watching someone I love get taken away from me.

So I keep my head down, holding on tight to the quiet, stable life I've fought so hard for.

Then tonight, I watch the clock above Marcus Hargrove's head start spinning backward.

What scares me even more is Willow's clock doing the same thing.

While I'm still trying to figure out why, the storm hits that night. He walks out on his daughter while she's burning up with fever and having convulsions, and runs straight to another woman.

His clock jumps back another notch.

"I gave Julian Sterling everything: my love, my loyalty, and the child I carried in my womb. In return, he watched my best friend push me down a flight of stairs and did nothing as I lost my baby.

Now, my brother is behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, and my husband is demanding I sign a lie to protect the woman who shattered my life. He thinks I’m a broken bird with clipped wings. He thinks I have nowhere left to turn.
He’s wrong.

Julian forgot one thing about the woman he married.

I’ve called my father. I’ve set the clock. I have seven days to play the grieving wife before I strip Julian of his fortune, his name, and his freedom.

The countdown to his ruin starts now.

In bed, he gripped my hips, whispering, "Principessa." In public, he was Cosimo—the ruthless mafia don who dismissed me with an icy, "Piccola."
For three years after he bought me, he never touched me. But a year ago, when Caterina returned, everything changed. He became a man possessed, tearing my dresses to shreds in the dead of night, claiming me with wild fury. He even promised to marry me in seven days.
On a storm-drenched afternoon, clutching my positive pregnancy test, I rushed to his private club to surprise him.
But as my hand touched the doorknob, Cosimo’s cold warning drifted through the door.
"Marcellino, know your place as a double. My things—especially Serenella—are strictly off-limits."
My blood ran cold. I peeked through the gap.
Cosimo sat on the sofa, completely indifferent. And by the pool table stood a man with a face identical to his.

Dad was in critical condition and had just been wheeled into the operating room.
My husband—also Dad’s attending surgeon—was nowhere to be found.
I stood in the corridor in my pajamas until past midnight, hands shaking as I kept calling Jason.
When the call finally connected, a sweet, girlish voice spilled through the speaker:
"I’m watching the Eiffel Tower lights with Jason!"
A male voice followed, impatient and familiar—Jason’s:
"Is it her again? Ava, tell her to stop calling. The lights are about to go out. Can she stop making a scene?"
A chill sliced through me. Before I could speak, the line went dead.

After their graduation Edzel proposed to her girlfriend Stacey Moore but on the same day she rejected his proposal. Without giving him any valid reasons, she just left him there kneeling down on one knee.
He promised to himself that one day he would get Stacey pay back on what she had done to him. He would make the woman wish that they had never crossed their paths again.
After five long years, fate had been kind to him and he met Stacey again. This time, Stacey is one of his staff in the hotel he owned.
An emergency call led him to accompany Stacey to the hospital where he saw two kids calling the woman their Mommy.
As soon as he saw the twins and the struggling situation of Stacey, a brilliant idea flashed in his mind on how to take revenge on Stacey using the children in front of him, who are calling him Daddy.

After being abandoned by my husband one last time and rejected by my own son, I finally hit my breaking point.
Because I was dying.
At the very end, fate sent me back to the world I once knew.
And there, love and glory swept over me like a flood.

My family used me as bait to destroy my sister's happiness.

The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."

But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.

Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.

But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."

My pain was her wake-up call.

“I, Riccardo Saviano, future Alpha of the Grey Shadow Moon Pack, reject you, Artemisia Guerrieri, Daughter of Alpha Franco of the Blood Moon Pack, as my mate and future Luna.”

One single sentence.

One stupid single sentence was all it took to disintegrate my life.

And the day of my birthday, on which this sentence was audaciously uttered to me, I lost the love of my life, my future mate, and my wolf, all at once.

As I’m still assembling the pieces of my shattered heart years later, there they come.

Like lightning out of a crystal blue sky.

My Mates.

But wait…

If I am mated to triplets, how come I’m about to be mated to 5 gorgeous men?

*** TW: explicit and foul language; spicy content; explicit sex scenes ***

"I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you walk into that biology classroom six years ago."

Cedric froze. He thought he was just an anonymous server in a high-end mafia club, wearing a wire for the police to clear his $500,000 debt. But the man sitting in the VIP booth—Gianni Falcone, the most dangerous crime lord in New York—wasn't a stranger. He was Gus Franco, the quiet kid from high school who used to stare at the back of Cedric's neck.

"I watched you waste yourself on people who didn't deserve you," Falcone whispered, his hand cupping Cedric's jaw with terrifying gentleness. "I orchestrated everything. The debt, the job, the desperation. I burned down your world just to clear a path for you to walk into my arms."

Cedric realized too late: He wasn't here to catch a criminal. He was the prize waiting to be claimed.

In the terminal stage of cancer, my only life-saving chemotherapy opportunity was bought out by Patrick for Laura, who only had early-stage cancer.

I gave up the treatment plan that doctors said could save my life and swallowed strong pain-blocking medication. The consequence was organ failure and death within three days.

During these three days, I gave up everything.

When I gave all my hard-earned achievements to Laura, my parents smiled with relief.

When Patrick presented the divorce papers and I signed them readily, he sighed and said I was very sensible.

When I pushed Anna to call Laura "mom," she said excitedly that mommy was the best.

Even when I transferred all my properties and assets to Laura, they didn't notice anything wrong.

They just looked at me with relief and said: "Our sensible Flora has finally come back."

But I'm also curious - after I die, will they ever think of me?

She was his fated mate... until his first love came back.
On the eve of her wedding to Alpha Liam, Avery's world shatters when Riley returns - the adopted sister who stole her childhood, her parents' love, and now threatens to steal her future. The same Riley who left her for dead five years ago.
But history repeats itself.
As the pack chooses Riley's side again, Avery makes her decision: she won't beg for scraps of love anymore. Not from parents who replaced her. Not from a mate who hesitates. She'll walk away from Frostveil Pack and build a life where she comes first.
There's just one problem...
Now that she's leaving, everyone suddenly remembers she exists. Liam fights to claim his mate. Her parents beg for forgiveness. Even Riley plays the victim.
But a heart broken too many times doesn't heal easily.
Will Avery give them one last chance?
Or will their betrayal cost them the Luna they took for granted?

“You’re mine. Even if you scream, even if you run.”

Elara thought being banished would destroy her. Instead, it led her straight to Kael Draven, the Lycan king whose touch burns, whose hands take what he wants, whose darkness threatens to consume her.

But she’s more than ordinary; she’s his mate, his curse, his obsession. Bound by blood, trapped in a marriage neither of them wanted, and hunted by enemies, Elara must survive Kael’s world without losing herself.

And Kael Draven will stop at nothing to make her his… body, soul, and destiny.

She thought she was human—until she drowned.

She wakes in the body of a missing selkie princess in a hidden island kingdom… and quickly realizes she’ll be executed if anyone discovers the truth.

The only person who knows? Her guard—cold, loyal, and furious she’s taken the place of the woman he was sworn to protect.

When her unstable shifting magic reveals something impossible—both selkie and tideborn blood—he’s forced to keep her secret… because exposing her would destabilize the crown.

Now, bound by duty and necessity, they must secretly search for the real princess—before her magic exposes them both.

He died as humanity's greatest hero.

History remembers him as its greatest traitor.

One hundred years ago, Ethan Cole, known throughout the Shadow Realm as Ghost, climbed to the peak of power and became a Hundred-Star War God.

Just moments before becoming humanity's first true god, he was betrayed by the person he trusted most.

Ryan Carter.

His brother.

His best friend.

His killer.

Now Ethan awakens one hundred years in the future inside the body of a slum-born teenager who shares his name.

The world worships Ryan Carter as the Infinite Sword God.

The world despises Ghost as the greatest human traitor in history.

But Ethan knows the truth.

Armed with a century of forgotten knowledge, countless hidden secrets, and a newly awakened SSS-Rank ability called Infinite Fusion, Ethan enters the newly opened Zone 12.

This time, he will reclaim everything that was stolen.

His reputation.

His guild.

His destiny.

And when he reaches the top once again...

The false god who stole his life will finally face judgment.

When they crossed paths again after years apart, everyone thought it was fate—of course they'd get back together.
But Charisse Walton only offered a wry smile.
"Not happening. I dumped him, remember? He's probably just here to settle the score."
What she didn't know... was how many times Elliot Grant had silently protected her from the shadows.
Meanwhile, Elliot scoffed, hands buried in his pockets.
"Please. She never even liked me."
What he didn't realize... was that years ago, Charisse had risked everything—even her life—for him.
Two hearts.
Two stories full of silence, sacrifice, and everything left unsaid.
And now, after all this time, the truth is about to break through.

“Since you suck at stripping, why don’t we skip that part and go over to the main thing!.” Lucas suggested as he tries to suppress a laugh.

“S-sure!.” Kimberly stuttered and moved closer to him. She cursed herself for not knowing how to do something as simple as stripping.

With her heart beating very fast, Kimberly stood in front of Lucas confused on what to do next.

Lucas pulled her closer until she is plastered on his body and placed his right hand on her butt while his left hand moved inside her shirt and cease her bare skin.

Kimberly immediately panicked and pushed Lucas away from her.

“Sorry, I can’t do this. I am not a prostitute!.” Kimberly uttered and picked up her bag amd rushed out….


Kimberly needs to pay the fifty thousand dollars her mom owe to loan sharks in a week time or face the consequences.

Left with no choice, Kimberly decided to sell her body in order to get the money.

They called her the Omega.
Weak. Unworthy. A stain on the royal bloodline.

But they were wrong.

When Seraphine Vale’s family was branded as traitors by the man she had loved the most, she witnessed her father’s execution by beheading, her mother burned alive, and her siblings slaughtered under a fabricated decree. She was beaten, broken, dragged to the altar of Drakar: the mountain where maidens were offered to the ruthless dragon king; she was abandoned to die… or so they believed.

But Azrath, the dragon king who was feared by all, didn’t eat her. Instead, he pressed his mark into her skin, an old fire sigil that tied their destinies together. The same beast who had laid waste to kingdoms and haunted the living and the dead had, inexplicably, been captivated by her beauty. There was something in her anger, her stubborn strength and the wildness in her blood that drew him in and she couldn't explain why.

But Seraphine was not an ordinary omega like they perceived. She was the Lycan Queen, the last of her kind that remained even though she herself didn't know. Werewolves of her kind were feared, hunted, and underestimated until her power was unlocked by extreme rage.

Now she rises from the ashes, half-lycan queen, half-marked by dragon fire, with fire in her veins and vengeance in her heart. All the kingdoms that betrayed her, the man she once loved who slaughtered her family, and people who underestimated her will tremble before her wrath.

The moon rises red.
The dragon watches.
The Lycan Queen walks from ashes, fury, and fire. Ready to claim what was stolen, punish those who wronged her, and rewrite the fate of all kingdoms.

Anne-Marie’s world collapses after spending one night in the bed of a total stranger, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her broken life. But survival is a must. Two years later, she returns to college, focused solely on securing her degree and making something out of her life against all odds.

She has to pick up figure skating again and is shocked out of her mind when she discovers that the hockey captain with whom she’ll be sharing the ice rink is none other than the ‘Champion’ she spent an unforgettable steamy night with. Memphis McCarthy.

Memphis is elite, passionate, persistent, ruthless on ice, and dangerously hard to resist. Despite their entanglement with others and a complicated buried past that will tear them apart, he is determined to make her admit she never forgot him, just as he never forgot about her. Their love is impossible, but as they dance on ice together, he slowly melts down the frozen walls she’s built around her fragile heart. He wants her burdens, her mess, her pain. He wants her, even if it will cost him everything he’s spent his whole life building.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked finally.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” I replied, not turning around. “Leaving you.” My hand closed around the door handle.

“Not with my child.”


Married off to him to settle a debt that was never mine, I was nothing more than a contract… a means to an end.

An heir.

That was all Adrian Blackwood ever wanted from me.

Not my love. Not my heart. Not me. But still… I gave it to him anyway.

Year after year, I loved a man who never once looked at me the way I looked at him. And when my time was up, when the contract ended and no child tied me to him, I walked away.

Until fate played its cruel joke.

Because just when I finally left him behind, I found out I was carrying his child.

Now the man who never wanted me… refuses to let me go.

Three years of marriage, and she was nothing but his invisible "secretary" — or worse, the woman he accused of drugging him to get a ring on her finger.
It wasn't until Grace watched Alfred stroll out of the VIP terminal with his ex on his arm that she finally understood. This marriage had only ever been real to one of them.
She signed the divorce papers without a scene. Quietly resigned. And moved on.
That's when he lost control.
"Grace, who gave you the right to just leave?"
"Is this about another man? You're divorcing me for him?"
Then came the night he stood in the rain, eyes red, blocking her path.
"I was wrong. Can we go home?"
She looked at him and said simply, "Mr. White, we're already divorced."

To honor a promise to her best friend, Ashley, Jade agrees to stalk the school’s golden boy, Arthur Fletcher. But while spying on the wrong brother, she falls hopelessly for the right one: the cold, lethal hybrid, Lancelot Fletcher. The mission was a success — until Ashley returns from heart surgery with a life-shattering revelation. The boy she actually saw at the tailor shop and fell for wasn't Arthur. It was Lancelot.

Now, Jade is trapped in a cruel game of fate. To keep her best friend with a fragile heart, she must sacrifice her own soulmate.

The masked stranger slammed into him with one devastating thrust, stretching Carter so perfectly he sobbed against the desk. “Fuck—yes, just like that!” he begged, hips slamming back as the masked alpha set a brutal rhythm, fisting his hair and stroking his cock in time.

“Finally mine, after all this time,” the man growled, then sank razor-sharp teeth into his neck and pleasure exploded through him like lightning.

Until the mask slipped and Dallas Cross, his childhood bully and bane of his existence, stared back with a vicious, satisfied smirk.

On the day Carter was supposed to propose to the love of his life, Carter walked in to find her in bed with his mortal enemy, Dallas Cross, wealthy heir of the Cross Group global empire.

One week later, a drunken club hookup leaves him marked, mated, and impossibly, pregnant with Dallas’s heir. The ruthless werewolf storms back into his life, demanding Carter pack his bags and move into the luxurious pack mansion to accept their unbreakable bond and carry his son… or watch his bankrupt family lose everything.

Trapped between red-hot hate, an unexpected pregnancy, and the tiny life already growing inside him, Carter faces an impossible choice.

His strict parents are pressuring him to forgive the cheating fiancée and save them from ruin. Meanwhile, Dallas’s possessive alpha instincts won’t let him go, blocking every escape, and whispering dark promises of protection, pleasure, and forever.

With every heated glare turning into uncontrollable lust and every denial crumbling under the mate bond, Carter must decide: run from the enemy who destroyed him… or surrender completely to the powerful alpha who now owns his body, his heart, and his fate.

Duke Damon Nigrescent and his younger sister Daria Nigrescent of the Nigrescent famil, the only aristocratic family that had more powers than all the Monarchs. Not much was known about them and I didn’t want to dig any further either but , there was something pulling me towards this castle. The moment I stepped foot inside I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to get out of there anymore. The Nigrescent family was known for having blue eye and white hair , a physical appearance like that of a creature out of a fantasy book . Duke Damon was incredibly handsome . All my classmates’ eyes were fixated on him, while mine were on Lion, my secret crush without actually realising that the Duke’s attention was on me. He was an annoying stalker that scared the crap out of me when we first met . When it was time to leave , I couldn’t go. Lion was about to confess to me. The moment I had been waiting so much for had finally arrived but before I could make it there , I accidentally ended in the middle of a ritual and unbenounce to everyone, I became Duke Damon’s bride. From that day everything changed completely as all the secrets that had been buried came to life. My ordinary happy life was part of the past , now , I was faced with all kind of dangers , duties , love , heartbreak and….vampires. At first I loathed the idea of being his bride but with each passing day I find myself longing for him, attracted to his muscled strong body and handsome face that made my heart flutter making me confused about my real feelings. We were united because of his curse, but can I let go of this passion in exchange for the freedom I so desperately desire ?

When 23-year-old Halo Quincy is adopted into the glamorous, icy world of the Wolfe family, he never expected to come face-to-face with Lucian Wolfe—the elusive billionaire widower and the man from a one-night stand he never forgot.
Lucian doesn’t remember him.
Lucian doesn’t want him.
Lucian certainly doesn’t love him.
But none of that stops Halo from breaking the one rule that should have kept him safe: Don’t fall for the billionaire.
What starts as an obsession turns into a messy mix of power, desire, and hidden truths. Then, Lucian’s younger brother,Joan, the famous model, comes into the picture with his own secret plan—he also wants Halo for himself. And everything Halo thought he wanted begins to fall apart.
Because love can be everything you dream of.
Or it can be the perfect trap.

In a zombie apocalypse, survivors build a fortress-like base. My girlfriend and I are its lead researchers, racing to create the serum that could end the world’s collapse.

On a sampling run outside the walls, she chooses to save the “genius” colleague she just brought back—and leaves me behind to be swallowed by a horde.

With no way out, I inject myself with an unfinished prototype. I survive… but I come back as a zombie.

The difference is: I don’t lose my mind. I keep my human intelligence—and I can command other zombies. They bow instinctively, as if they’ve sensed a king.

Inside the base, that so-called genius is working with raiders beyond the walls, pushing a fake serum to control the troops and selling the defenses piece by piece to the enemy.

As the base collapses, the drugged soldiers turn on each other atop the ramparts. The chain of command snaps. Everyone is waiting to die.

Then—at the moment the walls give way and screams drown out gunfire—I stand on the ruins outside, raise my hand, and sweep it forward.

The horde behind me doesn’t attack the survivors. Like a disciplined army, it bypasses them and surgically crushes every invader.

Only then does the woman who abandoned me realize what she destroyed.

But I don’t need her regret anymore.

In my previous life, an endless polar night and frost-laden corpse tide swept through the entire city.
My wife and I took in her mother and younger brother out of familial obligation,
But when monsters attacked, they locked us outside the shelter and we were torn apart alive.
Opening my eyes again, there are only seven days until doomsday arrives.
My wife and I have reached a consensus—to hell with blood being thicker than water!
This time, we will build an icy tomb for them with our own hands at the highest point of this city.

In this damned wasteland, nobody wants to travel with a burden.
But there were four filthy little ones who stubbornly insisted on following me, refusing to fight back or retaliate.
I looked at them, then at the approaching horde of zombies in the distance, and tossed a loaded pistol in front of them.
"Want to follow me? Fine."
I coldly placed a knife to the neck of the outermost zombie. "Here, if you want me, the lone wolf, to take you along, you'll have to prove you're not trash!"
"Take it and shoot it in the head! That's the only ticket to joining my team!"
The sixteen-year-old girl, tears streaming down her face, gritted her teeth and pulled the trigger.
I knew I could never shake them off again.

In my last life, I risked everything to protect my fiancée, only for her to shove me into a horde of zombies with nothing but, "You owed David this."
When I got a second chance, I found myself back right before the rescue chopper took off at the start of the apocalypse.
As I watched her cling to the cabin door, refusing to leave because she was waiting for her ex, I stepped back without hesitation: respect, best wishes, stay together forever. This time, I'm done being the pathetic simp who gets played for a fool.
I snatched the top-tier crystal core first, awakened an apocalyptic-level power, and watched with a cold smile as the cheating couple turned on each other in the middle of a pile of corpses, stabbing and screaming in despair. When the end of the world comes, you deal with the bleeding hearts first—then you rise to godhood.

Four years. Ninety-nine times on the altar, and the Alpha I was going to mate held the door for every one of them.
I heal from anything. That is the only reason they picked me.
The Moon Goddess promised that the hundredth offering would buy back the night somebody stole from me. The night Cassian knows it was me who dug him out of that mine, and looks at me the way he used to.
Not this one. In this one I am what his priestess practises on.
So I never refused. Not once, not through any of the fevers.
Tonight is the hundredth. The drug hasn't taken, and the two of them are talking on the other side of the door.
"It'll hold. We built that voice out of her own memories."
"The heart tonight, not an eye. When she wakes, don't let anything slip."
There is no Moon Goddess. There never was.
And he doesn't know my healing was never mine. Something else lives in my chest, and it stays there because my heart does.
Take it out and I don't wake up.

My teammates viewed me as a mobile food supply and planned to butcher me before they ran out of rations.
They thought that as long as I died, they would win this "survival game."
However, they would never know that what I brought back from the depths of the ruins wasn't fear, but the highest-level administrative privileges of the entire logistics system. While they killed each other for a bag of expired biscuits, I had already locked the exit to this hell. Sorry, but in this settling of accounts, you aren't even qualified to be treated as bargaining chips.

I used to think I had the perfect family.
My husband Nico started coming home less and less, always saying he had a meeting. But the truth was, he had another woman, Alessia. And it had been going on for a while.
The affair I could've handled. What really killed me was that my son Leo and my daughter Mia had known all along. They'd even started calling his mistress "Mom."
They thought I was clueless. But I'd known for months, his assistant had told me everything.
I tried so hard to win them back. I did more for them, cared more, tried harder. But they kept choosing Alessia.
That day, I stopped trying.
They could all have each other—Nico, Alessia, Leo, Mia.
I hoped they'd be happy together.

I died on the barren wasteland in a raging blizzard.
Before my death, many from the pack came to say goodbye.
Even Seraphina, my lifelong rival, came.
Only Kael, my Alpha mate of five years, was absent.
He was with that rogue Jennifer, watching the moon's reflection in Silver Moon Falls.
In my final moments, I received his mind-link.
"When the Moon Goddess guided me to find you as my fated mate, you were just a Beta. To inherit the Alpha position, I had no choice but to choose you. All these years I've been giving you suppressants, forbidding you from getting pregnant, and you agreed to it all. You've been a competent Luna."
"If there's a next life, I'll still choose you. In this life, rest in peace. I'll personally arrange your funeral."
Sensing this mind-link, my rival Seraphina sneered mockingly: "Karolyn, you really weren't cut out to be a Luna."
"In the next life, don't compete with me anymore."
Her words proved prophetic. When I opened my eyes again, we had both returned to the day of the Darkwood family's mate selection ceremony.
Kael said coldly: "Karolyn, the Moon Goddess has chosen you as my fated mate. You will be Darkwood's Luna."
Without hesitation, I stepped back and pointed to Seraphina.
"I think the Luna position is better suited for Seraphina."

When my younger brother got into a top university, the whole family celebrated for him.
I, suffering from a terminal illness, clutched my chest and desperately cried for help, only to be met with a disgusted slap from my mother and the words, "You just can't stand to see your brother doing well!"
She thought I was a spoilsport, so she roughly dragged me back to the room and locked the door from the outside.
She didn't know that those were the last words I ever heard in my life.
The next morning, she opened the door with breakfast in hand, only to find my corpse.

I ranked first and snagged the most prestigious job offer in the city. Yet, not a single person congratulated me.
Because for the past twenty years, every top student who received this offer from the medical school "committed suicide" that very night.
Reporters blocked the school gates, grinning as they asked if I planned to jump off a building or swallow a bullet. My roommate grabbed my collar, screaming curses, wishing me dead.
Too bad they all completely miscalculated. I come from a filthy rich family, I’m perfectly sane, and top psychologists have signed off that I have zero suicidal tendencies. I have no reason to die.
So, I looked straight into the live cameras and declared: "If my body is found tomorrow morning, it’s not suicide. It’s murder!"
After all, for that final exam, I turned in a blank paper.