8239 Book(s) Related to the summer i got pretty book

Seven years ago I gave up my inheritance and went door to door with Nolan—a broke director shooting street documentaries—my belly out to here, begging investors to take a chance on him.

Everyone said I'd thrown my life away on him.

Seven years later he's a name everyone knows. And Emily, the first love who walked out when he had nothing, is back in Chicago with her daughter.

That afternoon I came home early and heard him pull five-year-old Ivy into his arms: "You can't ever tell Mom that Daddy and Emily are having a fake wedding."

"But Daddy, Mom will be so sad..."

"Say one word and Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

Her little shoulders shook as she nodded, and nodded.

Out in the hallway, I couldn't even be bothered to cry.

I dialed the number I'd kept blocked for seven years. "Dad—can the family plane still come get me and Ivy?"

Nolan, what you lost wasn't a housewife you could push around. You threw away the only person who ever made you her whole world.

The world thought I was a broken man after rotting in the Abyss for five years. Even Moretti, the wealthiest mogul in Cold Harbor, dared to point a finger at my nose and demand I kneel.
He razed my estate, seized my daughter, and humiliated my past on a city-wide livestream.
What he didn’t know was that the moment his infrared scanners locked onto me, I had already initiated the sequence for a dormant orbital satellite that had been sleeping above us for five years.
When the skyscraper turns to ash, the man kneeling before me won’t be that arrogant tycoon—only a trembling corpse.
After all, in this city, I don’t believe in reason. I only believe in retribution.

She never saw it coming. After five years of marriage, it took a DNA test to blow everything up.

The son she raised from birth? Her husband's kid with his ex. And somehow, both of them knew the whole time and said nothing.

It gets worse. She overheard her husband's actual plan: wait for the ex to come back, then push her out of the company "nicely" and hand her five million as a goodbye gift.

Five million? She single-handedly kept that company alive, pouring in her own money and connections to clean up his messes. And that's all she's worth?

She was done. She wanted everything back that was hers.

The ungrateful kid? She's over it. The husband chasing his first love? Good riddance.

But the moment she walked away for real, both of them came running back.

"Baby, please. Just give me one more chance."

She didn't even look up.

I was frozen for 100 years due to illness.
One hundred years later, the whole world was ravaged by strange phenomena, and humanity was huddled together in a few small places to survive.
I was awakened from my slumber by the investigation team. I thought I would be killed by the monster as soon as I woke up, but I found that the monster here was my good brother from college.
Besides him, the eerie owner of the barbecue restaurant, the matchmaking ghost who likes to harm people through blind dates, the S-class monstrous ghost in the cemetery... they are all my old friends...
The world a hundred years from now feels strangely familiar...

To save my cousin from a car accident, my mother, a medical luminary, used me as a "human guinea pig" for twelve years.
When I was twelve, she made me inject myself with three injections of unproven new drugs every week;
when I was fourteen, she directly shoved toxic compounds into my mouth.
When my organs were irreversibly failing and I was vomiting blood in the ICU, she coldly tossed me a payment order:
"Stop pretending to be dead. Immediately kowtow and apologize to your brother, or no hospital will admit you."
As she wished, I was forced to leave the hospital and died at her glamorous new drug launch.
Later, that high-and-mighty mother, obsessed with fame and fortune, knelt for an entire night in a snow-covered fir forest, holding my crudely made urn.
Sadly, I will never forgive her.

In her past life, Serena stopped her brother's kidney donation and bore the blame for every family heartbreak that followed.
Reborn, she watches him willingly throw away his promising basketball career to save his lover—and she walks away.
When fate abandons her brother and her family tears itself apart, Serena carves out a brilliant, unapologetic life for herself.

Three years ago, I exhausted everything I had in the Abyss Game to save my critically ill wife.
Three years later, my wife and her lover became an inseparable pair in the Abyss Game. To save their own lives, they used my only sister as a substitute, sending her to a dangerous situation where she was devoured by ghouls.
They thought I had lost everything and could be humiliated at will.
But when I chose to accept becoming the master of the Abyss Game, why did they suddenly kneel down and beg for mercy?

Beta Malcolm and I were at the Civil Affairs Bureau, ready to register our marriage. We were just waiting to take the final photo when he got a phone call and left.
He abandoned me right there at the marriage registration office, leaving me stuck in an impossible situation.
I called him—no answer.
I messaged him—no reply.
In the end, I had no choice but to call his childhood sweetheart’s number. Beta Malcolm answered.
“Rowena, can you stop being so annoying? Queenie twisted her ankle—I need to take care of her today. Stop calling and waking her up. We’ll reschedule the registration.”
I bit my lip and murmured into the phone,
“This makes it the seventh time we’ve rescheduled.”
“So what? The Civil Affairs Bureau isn’t going anywhere—it’s not like it’s going to disappear!”
My face was blank, but it felt like my heart was being carved open.
A staff member looked at me with pity and asked,
“Alpha Rowena, are we still doing this?”
I gave a small nod.
“Yes. Let’s go through with it.”

Ugly. Good for nothing. Useless. Disgusting.
These are the words Zara hears every single day.


I was the Alpha's fated mate but my rejection was worse than one thousand needles pierced to my skin.
"I, Weston Bruce Furrow, Alpha of the Shadow Moon Pack reject you, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack. A pathetic runt weakling like you is no match for me."
I could feel my heart breaking, Tuna was howling inside me, and I could feel her pain.
"I, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack, accept your rejection..."


Being the Alpha's daughter doesn't shield Zara from the pack's cruelty. Especially when her own father is her worst tormentor.
Years later, the man she once hated most returns. The same man who rejected her, who humiliated her, and now, she doesn't understand why he's back. Worse still, she's being forced to negotiate with him.
Zara wants nothing more than to forget how he made her feel. But her pack needs protection, and he's the Alpha who can offer it.
Which means she has no choice but to put her pack above her pain.

Ophelia was born the weakest wolf in the pack, mocked, beaten, and treated like nothing. All she ever dreamed of was the day the Moon Goddess would give her a mate who would love her despite her flaws.

But when her fated mate was revealed, he didn’t claim her. He crushed her.

“I, Alpha Dominic, reject you as my mate. You will never be my Luna.”

The words tore her apart, and the pack’s laughter sealed her fate. Cast out, abandoned, and left to die, she thought her story had ended.

But the broken girl they discarded rose. The weak omega become stronger than them all. And the Alpha who rejected her bow at her feet.

Over the weekend, Alpha Kennard—my husband—and I were invited to attend a charity auction.
During the bidding, my husband's Beta, Joanna Morton, and I both set our sights on the same ruby necklace.
I was prepared to compete fairly, Until Alpha Kennard made the ceremonial bid for her.
"Queenie, you're nothing more than a dog I keep at home. What right do you have to compete with me?"
Just as everyone else withdrew from the bidding, I snapped my fingers at the auctioneer.
"Whatever Alpha Kennard offers—I'll outbid him by… one dollar."

My pack's golden girl—my adopted sister—vanished. On my eighteenth birthday—the day my wolf should have awakened—my parents dragged me to a witch.
"Show us what you did to her."
Fine. Let them look.
Let them see who drugged me the day I came home. Who stole credit while I bled. Who smiled while planning my destruction.
They chose their precious Rosalie over me for three years.
They wanted the truth?
They were about to choke on it.

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

Daphne Anderson has always longed for genuine love, whatever the form. She searched for it in her father and his horrid second wife even after her mother’s demise. Temporarily, she had found a sort of true love with her fiancé, until everything shattered when she caught him cheating.
Barely a week after the shocking discovery, she is presented with news of her father’s failing business – debts that ran into millions, failed investments and an impending bank foreclosure. The proposed solution was getting married to some Mysterious billionaire.
It was such a ridiculous offer - one that she would’ve tossed in the bin, if she were in her right senses. But being fresh out of a nasty breakup and her father’s sudden poor heart conditions, she flings caution to the wind and serves herself up as the ‘sacrificial bride’, especially if it’d stop everyone from breathing down her neck.
Daphne finds herself trapped in a web of family secrets, shocking revelations - and newfound desires… She has to make choices that will determine the pathway of her life. Will she find the strength to break free from the suffocating expectations and forge her own path? only hoping the sun doesn’t set on her fate yet? as time can be her greatest ally or foe.

In the Dragon Empire, bloodline determined everything. Only a female capable of hatching royal-grade golden dragons could wear the crown.
In my past life, I was nothing but a Red Drake—bottom of the food chain, not even blessed with wings. Yet after marrying into the royal family, I miraculously hatched a pureblooded Golden Hatchling.
But when my husband Valerius ascended to the Dragon Throne, his first act as king was to rip out my dragon crystal with his bare claws.
My own son Draken then ordered my body hacked to pieces and fed to the Abyssal Carrion Wolf-Lions in the depths below.
All of this because my half-sister had faked a bloodline awakening, transforming herself overnight into a so-called "Sacred Crystal Dragon."
My cruel husband had looked down at me with utter contempt: "Without my noble genes, how could something like you possibly birth such a gifted golden pureblood? Your filthy swamp bloodline has no right to the Queen's throne."
My son's disgust cut even deeper: "I don't want a flightless cripple for a mother. You make me sick. Only someone as noble and beautiful as Seraphina deserves to be my mother—she'd never force me to practice boring magic like you did."
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back at the Empire's quinquennial Bonding Ceremony.
My husband wasted no time choosing my sister as his mate. My son, Draken, eagerly dove his soul into her womb, ready to be reborn.
But this time, what crawled out of that egg was a Blind Mud Runt.

When my own family and fated mate forced me to leap into the abyss, I did not hesitate.
"You wicked woman, why don't you just die?" My brother Carl pointed at the cliff and roared. "Jump into the Abyss of Sin and atone before the Moon Goddess!"
My fated mate, Enzo, looked at me coldly. "You owe Lilith this."
They expected me to kneel and beg as I had so many times before, insisting that I had never harmed my adopted sister.
Instead, I simply nodded.
Under their horrified gazes, I threw myself over the edge. My body vanished into the silver flames below and turned to ash in an instant.
They did not know this was the seventh obedience contract I had made with the Moon Goddess.
Once I completed seven acts of absolute obedience, I could sever my old bonds and be reborn.
Goodbye, my family—the people I once would have died for.

The more I cry, the hornier my sister gets.

Not a metaphor. Stone cold reality. Me and pop superstar Melody share a sick "emotional link" — the worse I suffer, the more she glows on stage.

My husband Christian discovered this secret.

Then he chose to betray me and crawl into bed with Melody.

Now every time Melody has a big show, Christian locks me in the basement, force-feeds me depression pills, and blasts horror movies 24/7 until I'm totally broken.

My despair gets fed straight into Melody's energy, making her perform like she's possessed.

Tonight they're fucking to celebrate her win. Tomorrow's concert means draining me dry again.

Enough!

If my pain is your sex drug, I'm cutting off the supply completely.

I'm going to the medical center to freeze myself for one full year.

Let you two horny bastards screw each other to death!

Born between two kingdoms at war, Astrid Stone’s life has been marked by pain and misfortune, condemned to live as a slave within her own palace.
She is the princess no one wants, the shadow of a lineage that despises her.
When the new wolf king, Lysander Rowan, forces her to marry him to avenge his father, both are trapped in a union forged by hatred… and consumed by a desire neither can deny.
As their love grows and her true nature awakens, Astrid must choose between loyalty to her past or a forbidden love that threatens to destroy them both.
In a world where blood dictates destiny, can love defy the moon?

She knelt in the pouring rain, pounding on my glass door, covered in mud, her voice hoarse from shouting. I stood inside, holding Lily's hand. She called my name, over and over, like calling a dead person. I lowered my head and said to Lily, "Come on, Daddy will take you to dinner." Then I turned and closed the door. From beginning to end, I didn't look at her once. Not because I still hated her. It was because she meant nothing to me anymore. And that woman didn't know—three years ago, when she threw me away like trash, I had already learned not to cling to trash.

My wife and in-laws have been acting strange lately.

They've always hated the Texas farm, but now they suddenly care about me and the ranch.

My wife, who used to complain about me spending money on the "doomsday bunker" farmhouse project, is now actually encouraging me to complete it.

They even say I've been working too hard and bought me a plane ticket to Mexico.

Just as I'm about to take the ticket, a barrage comment appears before my eyes—

【Don't go! Your wife has been reborn from the apocalypse—she wants you to die out there!】

My name is Grace Lawson. In everyone’s eyes, I’m a young, beautiful, and widely renowned hypnotist.
I’m also the girlfriend and cooperative partner of Adrian Carter, a rising star in the business world.
Lovers and partners—we raked in money together, winning big and shining bright.
In just three years—one thousand days and nights—I stood by him from nothing to everything, through every storm.
And yet, even with love and profit working well together, he still wouldn’t bring up marriage.
Until I happened to hear him say:
“A woman like Grace Lawson isn’t suited to be a wife.”
“Who knows if the love I feel for her is just one of her schemes?”
Later, I broke my promise and hypnotized him.
That was when he finally got scared—when he understood my hypnosis could make him willingly do anything.
But I only said softly: “Adrian Carter, close your eyes… Forget me. Forget me completely.”

In our third year of surviving the wasteland, my companions and I finally realized it was all a reality show.

The elites and billionaires on the outside had built a massive dome, tossing us into this irradiated hellhole to be tortured. They broadcasted it globally, watching us drink toxic wastewater and eat mutated meat, treating us like monkeys in a zoo.

The mole in our team knelt in the mud, sobbing, begging me to understand that it was all a script—that as long as I played along, I could live.

Without a second thought, I swung my blade. Right in front of ten million VIP viewers, I chopped off his leg.

"Crappy script," I sneered, kicking aside the severed limbs and blood on the floor. Gripping my machete, I walked toward the real world beyond the heavy gates.

To those who used our lives for entertainment: I'm coming for yours.

I have guarded the Abyss on the Ashen Plains for a thousand years.

My daily routine: chewing rock-hard rye bread, single-handedly crushing the skulls of trespassing demons, wiping their slime off on a ragged surcoat, and leaning against a bronze pillar to catch the wind.

Today, a dying girl stumbled into the wasteland. Her fingers were locked in a death grip around the bloodstained iron crest I had left behind a millennium ago. Up on the ridge, three hundred heavy cavalrymen of the Alliance drew their lances, forming a wall of steel as they closed in.

I stared at the blood on the ground. I didn't make a sound.

I just brushed the biscuit crumbs off my lap and stretched my stiff neck. Turning around, my fingers hooked onto the hilt of a rust-eaten battleaxe resting beneath the bronze pillar. I dragged it along with casual ease.

"Troublesome."

I muttered that single word, and walked alone toward the formation of steel.

My ex and I used to live inside a romance movie.

She was the heroine’s best friend. I was the hero’s loyal sidekick. When the leads got their happy ending, we—the two “extras”—ended up together like an afterthought.

Then the credits rolled, and real life didn’t. The heroine died in a car crash, the hero fell apart, and my girlfriend chose that moment to leave me.

She said she was done being a supporting role. She wanted the spotlight—she wanted the heroine’s place.

I didn’t beg. I left the city alone and started over from nothing.

Five years later, I returned with my own company group—and ran into her again at a charity gala.

She still looked flawless, moving through the room of power and money, keeping up the image of success. She assumed I was still the same guy trailing behind someone else, and she spoke to me with that familiar, pitying superiority—offering to “help” me back into the circle.

Until the lights dimmed, and the host read my name with respectful clarity, inviting me to the stage.

That was when she realized the gala’s biggest sponsor was me—and the “sidekick” she thought she’d left behind was now someone she could never reach again.

BLURB
"You're the only one who can wake me. Now you'll carry my curse, and my crown."
When Aria Silverthorn's fiancé and stepsister publicly accused her of being Omega-born fraud, stripping her rank and dignity, she lost everything. Cast into the Forsaken Lands to die, she survived three months of hell—and desperation drove her to the forbidden Moonfall Crypt, where Alpha King Kael Nightfang has been entombed for five years.
The Council claims he died heroically. The truth? They poisoned him with wolfsbane silver, trapping him in death-sleep when he discovered their corruption.
When Aria touches his tomb seeking shelter, the impossible happens. He wakes—but only she can anchor him to life. Only her touch keeps him from slipping back into the void. Their bond is immediate, undeniable, and dangerous.
Kael should be dead. The Council made sure of it. For five years, his consciousness has been trapped between life and death, aware of every agonizing moment.
Until Aria.
She's his anchor. His prison. His salvation. And he's not letting her go, not when she's the key to his revenge and reclaiming his throne.
But their bond goes deeper than magic. They're true mates,a connection so rare it hasn't occurred in centuries. A bond the Council will kill to prevent, because true mates can challenge their entire corrupt system.

The luxury cruise ship in the high seas had become a floating steel coffin for the beautiful CEO and me.
Just a door away, the corridor was teeming with slithering, tentacled Mimics. The wet, crunching sounds of them chewing on raw flesh were enough to make anyone’s scalp go numb.
Inside the pitch-black storage cabin—measuring barely three square meters—the usually aloof and untouchable Ice Queen of the corporate world was so terrified she had her flawless body pressed desperately against my chest.
In this extreme claustrophobia, her scalding body heat generated a fierce friction against me in the face of absolute despair.
"Keep me alive. Everything I have... is yours."

The year the gas swallowed the world, I helped design and build Dome City with my own hands, keeping the last survivors alive.

I thought I was protecting hope.

Then I stumbled onto the Council’s secret: the poison outside is fading—but they chose to hide it. Worse, they plan to manufacture and release more gas, locking everyone inside forever, under their rule.

Before I could expose the truth, the person I trusted most struck me from behind.

My girlfriend—Vera Walker.

She took my evidence, stripped my access, and traded me for a higher rank.

When I woke up, I was outside the Dome in toxic fog—my identity erased, my lungs burning, my vision slipping.

They dumped me like trash, certain I wouldn’t last the night.

They forgot one thing.

Dome City is my blueprint, my welds, my pipes—my work.

And I’m back.

Seven years ago, my wife and son committed perjury in court, conspiring to send me to a high-security prison, all so they could elope with that fraudster.
Seven years later, I was released.
My ex-wife, with her son, arrogantly tossed a business card onto my faded work clothes:
"Go kowtow to my new husband and apologize, and I'll give you a waiter's job."
Little did she know that just hours later, at a top-tier financial summit across America, her seemingly untouchable new husband was kneeling at my feet like a dog.
And her proud multi-billion dollar empire was nothing more than garbage I could crush with a flick of my finger.

Just before my wedding, my fate mate, my Alpha fiancé, Micheal, stripped me of my wedding dress—our wedding dress—and handed it to his mistress, Becky Porter.
Not only that, but he locked me in the dressing room like some rabid wolf he needed to contain.
"Becky has a terminal illness.She just wants to experience being a bride before she dies."
I lunged forward, my wolf howling inside me. Alpha's strength pressed against mine, his dominance forcing my muscles to lock. My claws twitched, itching to break free.
"You bastard!" I snarled, my breath ragged.
Micheal barely blinked. Instead, he let out an exasperated sigh, shaking his head .
"She’s dying, and you can’t even show a little compassion?" His tone dripped with disappointment, as if I were the villain here. "You’re only losing a wedding, but Becky… Becky is losing her dreams and her life."

I suddenly awakened the ability to read minds. But I heard my fiancé, Joey Jones, mocking me in his mind: He had already arranged for an assassin to “send me off” at our wedding in the church. What was even more disgusting was that he promised I would become the Donna of the Jones family, but in his heart, he was fixated on his stepmother, Rory—his father’s widow, who was only a few years older than him.
With only three days left until the wedding, I no longer cried or begged for love. Instead, I contacted my first love, Nate, who was a police officer: “How about being the male lead at my wedding?”

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.

Silver poisoning struck, and my mother's life hung by a thread.
I knelt and begged my partner Selene to use the 100,000 gold coins from our war spoils to purchase Moonlight Holy Water, but she coldly refused with a sneer: "An ordinary silver poison patient isn't worth wasting resources on." She then turned and spent 80,000 coins on a necklace for her male lover.
My mother died in my arms as I ground my teeth and swallowed my tears of blood.
But when the patrol came to collect the body, she finally discovered—the one sent to be buried deep in the mass grave wasn't my mother at all, but her own biological mother.
She had personally buried her own mom!

Fate chose her.
Power made him refuse.
Ruby was never the Luna Troy wanted.
The girl with silver eyes and no wolf the pack whispered about behind her back. The girl he rejected publicly on the day that was supposed to be their wedding and mating ceremony, choosing pride and power over the bond that tied them together.
Humiliated before the entire pack, Ruby walked away from the man destined to love her.
And when Troy realized too late that rejecting her had been the biggest mistake of his life, Ruby refused to come back.
So on the day Ruby was supposed to marry another and finally start over, he stole her from her own wedding and forced her back into his world—back into a marriage she never wanted.
Now trapped beside the man who broke her heart, Ruby is no longer the weak girl Troy remembers. The years apart changed her. Hardened her. And the power inside her has grown into something the entire werewolf world fears.
A power strong enough to stop wars.
Strong enough to make kings kneel.
Suddenly, everyone wants a piece of her.
The council sees her as a weapon. Rival Alphas see her as a prize. Enemies lurking in the shadows want her power for themselves. And Troy, the man who once shattered her, will burn down the world before he lets anyone take her again.
But forced proximity only reopens old wounds.
Because beneath Ruby’s anger still lingers the bond neither of them escaped. Beneath Troy’s cruelty hides obsession, regret, and a dangerous love that has only grown more possessive with time.
Now caught between revenge and desire, freedom and fate, Ruby must decide if Troy deserves a second chance…
—or if the Alpha who ruined her should finally lose everything.

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.

In a sleek design world split between polished appearances and buried cruelty, Mara Ellison has spent years trapped behind a voice no one wanted to hear. While her family rewrites her illness and her fiancé speaks over her in the name of love, stolen records, public humiliation, and old betrayals force her to reclaim her life. Quiet but cutting, this is a story of emotional abuse, identity theft, and hard-won selfhood—framed by rain-soaked streets, hospital corridors, cold glass conference rooms, and a woman finally stepping into the light with her own voice.

The day college decisions came out, my parents bought my twin sister a Porsche.
It was my eighteenth birthday too. Nobody brought it up. I stood in the doorway in my diner uniform while the whole room sang her name.
That night the four of them went out to dinner to celebrate her. The car only sat four, so my father handed me a hundred dollars and told me to order myself something at home.
Four days later, six thousand four hundred dollars vanished from my account. Two years of washing dishes, gone to her sorority dues. My mother's name was on the account, so it wasn't even illegal.
I didn't scream and I didn't beg. I went upstairs and clicked Accept on the full ride to MIT that had been sitting in my inbox for three days.
Nobody in that house ever wanted me. So I booked a one-way ticket, cut myself out of the family photo, and left my key on the shoe rack.
I wasn't coming back. Not for graduation. Not for any of them.

Five years into living with my stepbrother Gideon, the scholarship girl he sponsored moved into our house.
To repay his "generosity," she made a habit of slipping into his bed at night. By day, she took it upon herself to "fix" my antisocial, withdrawn personality.
Three days before St. George Prep's graduation ceremony, she brought me a glass of juice wearing that nauseating sugar-sweet smile.
"You know, Charlotte, your peanut allergy is probably psychosomatic. You just need some exposure therapy. Let me help you get over it."
That night, my throat closed completely. She'd deliberately laced my drink with concentrated peanut extract.
I convulsed on the cold hardwood floor, vision tunneling as oxygen fled my lungs.
In the last second before darkness swallowed me whole, I clawed desperately toward the half-open door.
Standing in the hallway were my boyfriend Dylan and my stepbrother Gideon.
They simply watched me suffocate. Then Gideon calmly reached out and shut the door.
I died from anaphylactic shock.
Three months later, as a ghost tethered to this world, I watched her stride onto Stanford's campus. Wearing my clothes. Carrying my acceptance letter. Burning through my trust fund.
Through the crowd, I saw Gideon—my ice-cold, unreachable stepbrother—gently cradle her face and press his lips to hers.
Then I gasped awake.
I was back. Three days before graduation.

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

I am a hero. The saint's husband.
A country boy chosen by the temple.
I fight, I fight, I fight.
All for the saint, for the temple.
But it wasn't until I was drained of blood and dying on the altar that I finally heard clearly what the saint and her childhood sweetheart were saying:
"If you become a hero and marry the saint, you'll have to surrender your soul to the temple. I don't want you to lose your soul."
"Then let's just find some country boy to be the hero. It won't matter if he dies."
Oh, so that's how it is.
You should have said so earlier.
I can defeat the Demon Lord just fine without the saint.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the wedding ceremony.
This time, someone else should be on the altar.

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...

1

At 17, I saved William from the black market.
At 22, he crossed half the globe to marry me with two million dollars.
I built his empire for him, turning him into the biggest arms dealer in the Americas.
Then Karen appeared, and our seven years turned to ashes.
I finally saw the truth:
The roses he gave me were the ones Karen had rejected.
His so-called love was nothing but a hypocritical act for money.
To him, I was just a prop for show, a tool for his business, and a machine for sex.

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

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

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

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

I vowed not to repeat that tragic cycle.

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

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

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