8942 Book(s) Related to the tale of two christmases

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 lost my memory.
When I woke up, my biological parents and aloof wife were fussing over the fake young master's bedside.
I, the real young master who had just awakened from a coma, only received my wife's cold command: "Sebastian needs a blood transfusion. Go donate."
Looking at the scars on my wrists from her suicide attempt, my amnesiac mind only felt absurdity.
I calmly donated blood, then turned and signed the divorce papers, leaving with nothing, and unilaterally published a notice severing all ties with my family.
Later, the fake young master's conspiracy was exposed. My arrogant female CEO wife destroyed her entire family, flew halfway around the world overnight, and knelt at the airport, tears streaming down her face, begging me to come home.
I, however, took the hand of a haired female professor and looked at her coldly: " Sorry, I already have a partner ."

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.

My husband, Victor Falcone, was a mafia godfather whose very name makes the entire underworld tremble.
A year ago, he barely survived an assassination attempt. The trauma gave him severe amnesia, completely wiping out the three months we spent keeping each other alive in the slums.
When he woke up, he was a different man—cold and ruthless. He treated my stepsister like his untouchable first love, spoiling her rotten.
And me, his legal wife? In his eyes, I was just a greedy, desperate woman who wouldn't take a hint.
"Drop the cheap pity act," he’d sneer. "You’re not worth a single hair on Lilia’s head."
Even so, I chose to stay by his side, desperate to spark his memory.
Until today. A rival cartel tied me and his precious "angel" to iron pillars on an abandoned pier.
Beneath our feet is a raging, pitch-black ocean. A thug has the ice-cold barrel of a gun pressed hard against my temple.
Which one of us will he choose?

I was a billionaire's canary. Never asked for it — but every time I slept with him, he paid another chunk of my mom's medical bills. Later he made me his secretary, and stupidly, I thought we'd built something real. Turns out I was wrong. He drained my entire savings to buy his mistress a $500K necklace. "What do you mean, your money?" he sneered. "Every penny came from me." I begged. He laughed. Then the hospital called: Mom didn't make it. That's when I stopped being anyone's canary — and started billing him back, in full.

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 stepsister killed someone while driving high and made me take the fall.
She knelt in front of me, crying, "I'm so scared."
My mom snatched the only piece of evidence and told the police it was me.
My fiancé, Darian, took my hand and said, "Trust me. I'll marry you in three years."
Three years. Not one person came to see me.
The day I was released, it poured rain.
I clutched that engagement ring and walked back to that house.
The door was unlocked. The moment I pushed it open, I found him kissing my stepsister.
She spun around, ducking into Darian's arms.
"Sis... you're... you're out already?!"

My boyfriend successfully proposed with a spectacular drone light show.
The whole city erupted in celebration: “Mr. and Mrs. Hansen—finally, a couple united!”
Yet, nestled in his arms was none other than his secretary.
The "Mrs. Hansen" everyone speaks of is now nothing more than a forgotten memory, buried beneath the earth.

Blood pooled beneath Eloise's head just moments after she discovered the truth about her husband. The man she built her world around wanted nothing more than to destroy her. He stole everything, her company, her pride, her future, and left her to die. But as the darkness closed in on her, fate offered a second chance.

**

Now she is back, with bloodstained memories and a thirst for revenge. Desperate and broken, she made a deal with the devil, a man powerful enough to hand her the weapons.

But his help comes at a price.

To be owned by him. For four months. A strict deal with no strings or feelings attached. But nothing about him is simple. He's infuriating, intoxicating, and every second with him chips away at her control.

What starts as business quickly spirals into a dangerous game of possession, secrets, and desire. And when hearts get involved, the real cost becomes something more than she bargained for.

He’s the last man she should trust… and the only one who makes her lose control.

The craziest thing I've ever done? Agreeing to Mason's idea—sex in the middle of nowhere.
But then his first love called, and he left me stranded out there. Alone. In the dead of night.

“I should have refused.” I shook my head, my eyes sweeping towards the silver eyed devil standing before me, with no ounce of guilt or remorse in his eyes. “I should have never married you.”
“That hurts my feeling.” That was a cruel joke, because we both know that he doesn’t even have feelings to begin with. “But there isn’t any man who could love you like I do; not even Thorne.”
I paused when his long, cold index finger trailed my face stopping at my lips, and his eyes met mine again.
They were dark… with lust.
“Fuck you.” I muttered with hate and anger dripping in my voice.
“I believe even right now, all you want is me.” He mused and he wasn’t wrong, because he never said I couldn’t leave. Yet, I found myself staying, and hoping he would change. “And all that completes me is you.”
I shut my eyes as he slammed his lips against mine.


Eden Montclair is your everyday surgeon who tries to get by every surgery without complications, she has created high hopes for herself that she would inherit her grandmother’s hospital.
She soon finds out that the hospital was dying and they might need to merger it with the biggest healthcare foundation in the country, only on the condition that her little sister, Evangeline marries the heir to the foundation.
Eden’s life soon falls into chaos when Evangeline ran away to avoid that fate, and now Eden is in the front line to marry the Heir of the Adler Foundation.
Theron Adler.
A cold-blooded and precise surgeon, who doesn’t have many interests in life, and a diagnosed psychopath.
That’s not all, he is also the elder brother of her ex-boyfriend and they both had history together.

"The sooner I leave, the sooner I will return to execute judgment on those who have hurt me and also to take back what is mine," I said to my uncle with a firm and determined tone.
She loved him with all her heart; she gave up everything for him; she left her uncle's company, which she was supposed to inherit after her studies; she became a housewife; all these things in order to please him; but what did she get in return?
A divorce paper was thrown right at her face the same day she gave birth, and as if that wasn't enough, he confiscated her child, sending her away with nothing.
Five years later, he regrets his actions and wants her back, but it's already too late. The lady he divorced five years ago is not the same again; she's now one of the richest billionaires in the country, and now all she wants is to make the man who hurt her pay, make him lose everything he had worked so hard for, and at last reclaim her son.
Will she succeed in her revenge mission, or will she end up falling for him again?

"Marry me," my billionaire CEO demanded, trapping me in his office, completely unaware that my father was the man who murdered his parents.

I stared at John Alexander Blackwood, a man who evaluated people like stock options. He was cold, calculated, and terrifying. "A contract marriage," he said with dead eyes. "Three years. In exchange, your family's financial ruin disappears." I should have screamed no and ran out of that top-floor office. But I signed the papers, binding myself to a man I barely knew.

Moving into his sterile, expensive penthouse felt like walking into a beautiful prison. We lived like ghosts, avoiding each other in the hallways. But the ice between us started to crack. Late-night encounters in the kitchen turned into shared whiskey, and his dark, calculating eyes began tracking my every move with a burning intensity. Behind his cold armor, I found a broken man still grieving the parents he lost in a tragic car crash twenty-six years ago. I was falling for him. Hard.

But then, the anonymous envelope arrived.

My hands shook as I tore open the seal, staring at the faded contract inside. Fifty thousand dollars. That’s what my father was paid to sabotage the brakes on the Blackwood family car. The crash wasn't an accident. It was a cold-blooded assassination ordered by John's own grandfather, and my father pulled the trigger.

I was sleeping under the same roof as the man whose life my family had destroyed. If John found out, he wouldn't just divorce me—he would obliterate me.

Was I my father's daughter enough to pack my bags and run, or was I reckless enough to stay and let the truth burn us both to ashes?

Marriage is meant to be a dream come true, but Isolde Conklin’s marriage is the complete opposite. Sold to a cruel Alpha by her parents, she endures three agonizing years of constant assault.

During one cold night, she’s had enough of the humiliation and constant harassment. So she does something insane—she kills her own husband.

Soaked in his blood, she runs as bullets fly over her head, but she’s eventually saved by Alpha Ryder of the Redblood pack.

But Ryder didn’t save her because he cares. He saved her because he wants to avenge his mother’s death. Now trapped in a pack full of secrets, enemies, and men who would do anything to claim her, Isolde must survive or risk losing everything…..including her life.

My wife never knew what I really did. She only knew I was gone most of the year and money hit our account every month.

The day she cheated, she rummaged through my drawer, found an eagle-shaped brooch, and gifted it to her lover like a flashy accessory. “It’s worthless,” she said. “Perfect with a suit.” I warned her again and again to bring it back. She called me annoying, powered off her phone, and blocked me everywhere.

She didn’t know I’m a cleaner—the kind who handles quiet jobs—and that brooch isn’t jewelry. It’s an organization badge, a mark that turns you into a target the moment it appears in public.

That night, the killers came. The ballroom was sealed. She trembled under a table while her lover shoved her out to take the bullets.

When a cold gun barrel pressed to her temple and someone asked, “Who does the brooch belong to?”

I was the last of the Holy Bloodline. To the Nocturne Clan, I wasn't a Princess—I was a walking incubator, a terrified blood slave bound by the lowest pact to breed their pureblood heirs.
"I promise you... the next child you bear, I will let you raise yourself," my husband,the Vampire Prince, whispered, holding our newborn son wrapped in his sister-in-law's blanket.
He used my body as a shield against silver blades to protect his sister-in-law.
For nine years, I endured the silver whips, the boiling sunlight, and the agony of watching my babies handed over to another woman.
But when I discovered my husband was the very monster who slaughtered my families, I shattered heart turns to ash.
So, I give him exactly what he deserves—a pile of scorched ashes in a dark prison cell.
By the time the Vampire Prince realizes he cannot live without his wife, I am already “dead”.

I woke up on the same morning I was about to send another payment for my daughter's education.
In my last life, I paid for everything. Every year, without missing a payment.
Tuition. AP tutoring. Summer program deposits. Medical bills. Birthday gifts. The education fund.
Not one payment late. Not one skipped.
I only found out the truth after I died. My daughter wore a blazer that hung off her like a hand-me-down. She glued her shoes back together instead of throwing them out. She got mocked in front of her whole class for owing a two-thousand-dollar activity fee she should never have had to worry about.
She hated me for it.
She said, "You say you love me. So why was there never any money for me?"
I understood the truth only when it was too late to matter. It was never that I hadn't given enough.
It was that my husband had been siphoning it out from under me the whole time, spending it on another woman's family.
This time, I didn't wait to find out.

On the way to the hospital to deliver my baby, rain was coming down in sheets.
Suddenly, my husband slammed on the brakes. He'd spotted his ex-girlfriend standing in the downpour with her child.
"She's struggling as a single mom. I'm just going to help her carry those groceries upstairs. Ten minutes, tops."
Clutching my belly through the contractions, I begged him, "But I'm about to give birth. I'm in so much pain."
He just locked the car doors with a click, his voice sharp with annoyance.
"Sarah, can you try to be a little more empathetic? She's soaking wet."
In those ten minutes, my water broke. Desperate to survive, blood on my hands, I crawled out through the back hatch.
While I was fighting for my life in the ER—
His ex posted a snapshot.
In the video, my husband was gently toweling off her hair. The caption read:
[So glad you're here.]

I'm sixty years old. My husband Marcus just whipped me with his belt — for burning an egg. My face is bruised, my hair is gray, and I gave up a full ride to Stanford for this man over forty years ago.
Then the phone rings.
The voice on the other end is mine — my eighteen-year-old self, calling on her birthday, gushing about how Marcus is out buying her a cake, how they're running away to Nashville together tomorrow.
She asks if I'm happy.
I tell her the truth: her boyfriend is in a cheap motel right now, in bed with her best friend. And those pretty promises about Nashville? He's planning to use her up and throw her away.
She doesn't believe me. Of course she doesn't.
But I know the motel. I know the room number. And I know what's behind that door.
If she walks away from him tonight, everything changes — for both of us.

The man I marry will become the future leader of the company.
In my previous life, without a second thought, I chose to marry the eldest son
whom I had always liked.
But shortly after our wedding, he came stepsister,
and even took out his frustration of not getting her on me,
going so far as to poison and kill me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way. me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way.

In her past life, Arabella Oberon was the lowest-ranking member of the Oberon family.

She genuinely took in Regina, the butler's daughter, only to be constantly manipulated by this cunning and manipulative woman.

Regina gradually stole the love from her three brothers.

Arabella was forced to give Regina blood transfusions time and again, her weight plummeting to a mere eighty-eight pounds.

Ultimately, under the relentless pressure from her brothers, she jumped out of a window in despair and died. Her last words were,

"What about Regina's blood transfusions?"

When she opened her eyes again, Arabella found herself reborn three years earlier—the very day Regina appeared at her doorstep crying, begging for help.

Looking at the pitiful, tearful girl before her, Arabella smiled.

No more soft-heartedness.

No more groveling.

Instead, she "kindly" arranged for Regina to move into the servants' quarters, to earn her own living through honest labor.

Faced with her brothers who sided with her, she no longer bothered to please them.

And towards her former fiancé, Theodore, whom she had once fawned over, she remained cold, distant, and indifferent.

Moreover, in this life, they would discover that her identity was far more than just the eldest daughter of the Oberon family.

“A dynamic story line that grips from the first chapter and doesn't let go.” --Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Once Gone) From #1 bestselling mystery author Blake Pierce comes a new masterpiece of psychological suspense: CAUSE TO HIDE (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 3).Bodies are being found in the outskirts of Boston, their corpses burned beyond recognition, as the police realize a new serial killer is roaming the streets. As the media converges and the pressure is upped, the Boston Police Department must turn to its most brilliant—and controversial—homicide detective: Avery Black.Avery, still trying to pick up the pieces of her own life—her budding relationship with Ramirez, her reconciliation with Rose—suddenly finds herself thrown into the most challenging case of her career. With scant evidence to follow, she must enter the mind of a psychotic killer, try to understand his obsession with fire, and what clues that offers into his personality. Her trail leads her deep into Boston’s worst neighborhoods, to confrontations with its worst psychopaths—and finally, to a twist she could never possibly imagine.In a game of psychological cat and mouse, a frantic race against time, Avery is led too deep into the maze of a killer’s mind, and to places darker than she’d ever wish to see.A psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, CAUSE TO HIDE is book #3 of a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #4 in the Avery Black series will be available soon. “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side, so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

“A dynamic story line that grips from the first chapter and doesn't let go.” --Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Once Gone) From #1 bestselling mystery author Blake Pierce comes a new masterpiece of psychological suspense. In CAUSE TO RUN (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 2), a new serial killer is stalking Boston, killing his victims in bizarre ways, taunting the police with mysterious puzzles that reference the stars. As the stakes are upped and the pressure is on, the Boston Police Department is forced to call in its most brilliant—and most controversial—homicide detective: Avery Black.Avery, still reeling from her last case, finds herself up against a rival precinct and a brilliant, cunning killer who is always one step ahead of her. She is forced to enter his dark, twisted mind as he lays clues for his next killing, and forced to look into places in her own mind she would rather not go. She finds herself compelled to seek the counsel of Howard Randall, the twisted serial killer she’d put behind bars years ago, all while her new burgeoning life with Rose and Ramirez is falling apart.And just as things cannot get any worse, she finds out something else: she herself may be the target.In a game of psychological cat and mouse, a frantic race against time leads Avery through a series of shocking and unexpected twists—culminating in climax that even Avery could not imagine. A dark psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, CAUSE TO RUN is book #2 of a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #3 in the Avery Black series will be available soon. “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side, so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

“A dynamic story line that grips from the first chapter and doesn't let go.” --Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan (regarding Once Gone) From #1 bestselling author Blake Pierce comes a new masterpiece of psychological suspense: CAUSE TO SAVE (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 5)—the final installment in the Avery Black series.In the epic finale of the Avery Black series, serial killer Howard Randall has escaped, and the entire city of Boston is on edge. Women are turning up gruesomely murdered, and everyone suspects Howard is at it again. When Boston’s most brilliant and controversial homicide detective—Avery Black—is herself stalked—and when people close to her are brutally killed, one by one—it seems the city’s worst fears are confirmed.But Avery is not so sure. The murders remind her of something she once saw in her past. They remind her of something too close to her heart—something that had to do with a secret she thought she had buried long ago….The most riveting and shocking book of the series, a psychological thriller with heart-pounding suspense, CAUSE TO SAVE is the finale that will leave you turning pages late into the night. “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side, so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. The plot is very intelligent and will keep you entertained throughout the book. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.” --Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

His fingers traced down my side, slow and teasing, until he reached my thigh, he gripped it hard and lifted it higher around his waist, the change in angle had me gasping as I felt the hard nudge of his very hard and well sized shaft.
"You're sensitive, " he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.
I wanted to give a reply, show him I was still in control but damn it, he moved and he pushed that little monster inside me with deliberate, frustrating slowness and it was like the room tilted.
"Oh my……"

The day Emilia lost everything, she met a mysterious man who she ended up having a passionate night with, but it only left her longing for more.
Little did she know, her forced wedding was about to bring them together again.
But this time, as brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Torn between duty and desire, Emilia must decide: resist the attraction or give in to her heart's desire.

He's the golden boy of Kansas City hockey. He has the trophies, fortune, women, and a life where he always gets what he wants.

She's the Special Agent who has spent ten years hunting the monster that murdered her father, waiting for the day its signature appears again.

Zane Chandler's perfect life shatters when he comes home to find his younger sister brutally murdered, her eyes gouged out and a five-pointed star carved between them.

For Island Meyers, that star isn't just a killer's signature. It's the ghost that has haunted her for a decade.

Determined to solve the case that destroyed her, Island takes charge of the investigation, only to face the victim's furious brother.

Zane dismisses her as a rookie, demands she's removed from the case, and insists she isn't capable of finding his sister's killer.

What he doesn't know is that Island isn't a stranger. Their families are connected by a betrayal neither of them has forgotten, and a secret buried for ten years.

Island refuses to walk away. This investigation is her only chance to uncover the truth she's spent a decade chasing, and no grieving hockey superstar is going to stop her.

But when another body appears and the killer's twisted game grows deadlier, Zane and Island are forced into an uneasy partnership where every clue exposes another lie, every discovery brings them closer to the monster, and every argument makes their attraction harder to ignore.

Because Zane's sister wasn't chosen by chance…She was a message.

Now Zane and Island must trust the one person they swore they'd never need before the next victim wears the star.

Because whatever murdered the people they loved isn't finished.

And this time, it's watching them fall for each other.

My father said an honest man can't run a farm. My brother called me nothing but a burden. My ex-girlfriend dropped her engagement ring into a glass of champagne and handed it back to me. They all thought I was worthless. None of them knew I'd been reborn, and had stockpiled five years' worth of supplies in the cold storage. When the blizzard hit, the walkie-talkie crackled to life. I heard their cries and the unspoken thoughts swirling inside their heads. Really? You're still trying to scheme against me right now?

On our fifth Anniversary party, Harris got admitted to the City's Hospital.

Cancer. Stage IV.

I struggled to find words to whisper some comforting words to Harris .

Instead, he held my hands, and said,"It's alright, Darcy."

"Don't be afraid of anything that may happen. Even if I am about to die, I will always be with you."

Even when he was dying, he made sure to comfort me, which bled my heart.

I spent my days researching treatments, draining my savings for "miracle" consultations.

Then came the afternoon I went to his office early to surprise him with the appointment letter with Dr. Wilson, a world famous surgeon.

Harris had been trying to contact him for weeks now. But, everytime he declined him bluntly, only this time when I tried to contact him personally, his assistant reached out to me.

Finally, he had a chance to be saved. I cried tears of joy. I wanted to share this good news with Harris as soon as possible.

But, My hands, almost pushed open the door, , a Lively and joyous laughter echoed through my ears.
"Is the paperwork ready?"

I slightly opened it ajar and peered inside.
I froze on the spot.

Clara was sitting on Harris's lap, clutching to his shoulder like she owned him.

"Everything," Harris' voice sounded, confident and excited.

"By the time 'cancer' takes me, Harris Hudson will be dead, life insurance will be processed, and you and I will be halfway across the world with a clean slate."

Clara. Harris' first love. The one he told me was a 'closed chapter' years ago.

Something broke into my heart.
I froze at my place.

The cancer, the treatment, it was all a lie orchestrated by Harris to elope with Clara?

In my past life, they drained my blood, kicked me off the rooftop, and said, "Waste doesn't deserve to live."

Reborn into the apocalypse, I opened my palm, and seven beams of primal energy pierced the sky. The woman who cried out "the best in the world" to me just ten minutes ago couldn't even produce a spark now. The brother who wore the boots I sewed and called me trash was being chased and bitten by mutants like a stray dog, his leg broken.

They came to me with memories of their past lives, demanding, "Why did you steal our special abilities?"

In front of thousands of people, I unleashed a net of lightning, scorching those who came to block my way. They knelt in the mud, their heads bleeding from kowtowing; Elena covered her mouth, which had been slapped clean, and David trembled on his single leg, leaning on a rusty steel pipe—yet they couldn't even climb over the iron thorns surrounding my tower.

Later, they rotted into a pile of mud in the arena and among the hordes of corpses, and I didn't even look back.

Until a horde of millions of zombies besieged the city, I went out alone with my sword and shattered the zombie king with a single strike.

The entire ruins knelt down.

They thought I had stolen the light.
No. I was just a fire that burned away what should have been garbage.

“You Killed my father and brought down his empire, cheated on me with my best friend and humiliated me, now watch as I do the same to you!”

The infamous Mafia Mistress.

After a long time of trying to discover the identity of the mafia mistress everyone in Palermo had gossiped about, Giovanni Moretti, the mafia Don was shocked to find his ex wife standing before him.

And she was spilling threats!

Now Giovanni needed not only to reclaim the new version of Maya he had found but also the hidden heir he discovered he had.

His return is fueled by a single desire: to reclaim Maya and his son, Dante, as his own.

Maya had found solace in the hands of Carlo, a rival Mafia boss who vowed to give her the revenge she so badly wanted. And soon it's not just about revenge but about a struggle to love and to be loved.

Caught between her duty to Carlo and the ghost of her past, Maya must now confront a love triangle that could either solidify her power or tear her world apart. As spies infiltrate, and enemies close in, Maya must decide whether to seek revenge or redemption. Will her burning desire to destroy Giovanni cost her everything she’s fought for, or will it be the key to finally setting herself free?

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!"

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.

They told me the baby was gone, but they didn't tell me my heart was being carved out, too.

I woke up on the operating table, paralyzed. Through my blurred vision, I saw my beloved husband, Marco, trembling with excitement as he held my medical chart.

"Her blood is perfect," he whispered. "It is a perfect match for Isabella. We can proceed with the transplant now."

"Finally. It wasn't in vain that I brought her back." My revered father let out a sigh of relief. "If it weren't for this day, how would someone who wandered outside for so many years be qualified to step into this house again?"

When my husband said "I love you," he actually meant "Your heart is perfect for the woman I truly love."

I couldn't scream; I couldn't move.

I could only watch helplessly as the silver scalpel pierced toward my chest, while my sister, Isabella, lay on the operating table next to me, smiling in her sleep.

I was never a long-lost daughter, nor was I a beloved wife.

I was just a mobile blood bank waiting to be slaughtered.

In my previous life, on the very day of our marking ceremony, my Alpha fiancé met his fated mate at the banquet.
He didn’t break off our engagement. Instead, he chose silence and completed the ceremony with me. He chose to trap me with a twenty-year mate bond.
For twenty years, I fought wars for the Pack, bore him an heir, and ruled the main hall alone as Luna.
Meanwhile, in another Pack’s territory, he spent his entire life with that woman.
Before I died, he told me he was sorry.
But he also blamed me—saying that if I hadn’t insisted on taking the Luna seat, he could have left more completely.
Only then did I realize something cruel. Not only was I never the one he loved, I was also the obstacle to his freedom.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the marking ceremony.
This time, the mate bond had not yet formed, and the mate mark had not yet been sealed.
Whether he would abandon me for his fated mate no longer mattered.
Because this time—
I would never step aside for any Alpha again.

With only three days left until the apocalyptic fungal outbreak, my ordinarily strict father unexpectedly took out a million-dollar loan from a loan shark, transferred it to my account, and issued an absolute order: "Buy supplies, build a fortress, and even if you die, do not open that door!"

Staring at the seven-figure balance, I grabbed a liquor bottle, shattered the nose of the school bully who used to torment me, and instantly kicked off a frantic hoarding spree. I bought out a penthouse on the 50th floor, welded on a bank-vault-grade blast door, and stockpiled an endless supply of Tomahawk steaks and a massive arsenal of weapons.

When the disaster finally struck, the once-arrogant rich kids downstairs were reduced to bloody fodder for the monsters. The starving school bully knelt outside my door, tearing into his own companions just for a leftover bone. Meanwhile, separated by bulletproof glass, I sipped an ice-cold cola and coldly enjoyed the show.

Just as a massive horde of the infected surrounded the building, my parents unexpectedly arrived in a Unimog heavy armored vehicle armed to the teeth, crushing through the sea of corpses in a dominant rescue. With our family reunited and packing heavy firepower, we violently tore open our own path of rampage across this scorched wasteland!

I once loved Ryan deeply and helped him become the Alpha, only to be rewarded with chains in a dungeon and the mocking laughter of him and his mistress.

Fate gave me a second chance—I woke up reborn on the morning of the mate selection ceremony. There he was, still ordering me around in front of everyone, expecting me to play the obedient servant.

Everyone tried to convince me that Ryan, the man who killed me, is the "right choice."

Yet I chose Connor—the man feared by the entire clan, the one who will bring ruin to the clan for the sake of his one true love.

This time, I refuse to be the stepping stone on Ryan's climb to power.

I'm going to make everyone see who truly holds the reins.

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

At the engagement party, Julian tore up our agreement on the spot, selling me for a single dollar to Callum, a man rumored to be a bloodthirsty, crippled psychopath.

Our mutual friend frowned.

"Are you out of your mind? Sylvia stayed by your side through your hardest three years, and you're really going to send her off to be tortured by a freak like Callum?"

Julian casually swirled the whiskey in his glass.

"It's just a little punishment. Rosie is carrying my child and needs a title, but Sylvia is too damn proud. Not only did she refuse to step down, but she also upset Rosie and affected her pregnancy."

"Callum is a twisted cripple. Give it three hours, and she'll break down completely. By then, she'll obediently accept Rosie's existence and even willingly stay as my hidden mistress."

The friend looked at my retreating back and couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you afraid you'll push her too far, that she'd rather stay with that psycho than come back to you?"

Julian let out a light scoff.

"Absolutely impossible. She loves me so much she'd give her life for me. Even if she takes a trip to hell, she'll only beg me to be her savior."

I picked up that one-dollar coin from the floor, without a single tear or tantrum.

Later, Julian broke into Callum's estate like a madman, begging me to go back with him.

But the disabled man from the rumors simply stood up, pulled me securely behind him, and sneered, "My wife. Is she someone you are even fit to touch?"