8111 Book(s) Related to the summer i turned pretty page count

Six years of marriage, and I thought that if I tried hard enough, she would see me someday.
Yet she never gave me a hug, never called our son "sweetheart" once, and couldn't even stand him calling her "Mom."
She said I was calculating, that I was shameless.
I laughed. So, in her eyes, my love was a scam from the very beginning.
So, I signed the divorce papers and left town with our son.
I thought it was all over.
But then she said,
"I'm not leaving you."

"I was bonded with an alien system that issued nothing but 'benevolence' missions.
Supply food to violent thugs, shelter the mutants, embrace the Zombie King, and share our planetary defense technology with the entire world.
It claimed that as long as we were merciful, the civilization could survive.
I nodded, then promptly tweaked the task annotations.
I laced the food with neuro-suppressants, turned the shelter into a bio-sample bank, and activated kinetic overload when I 'embraced' the monster king.
Sharing the tech? Sure—though every defensive line I shared came with a backdoor that I could trigger remotely.
When the system eventually tried to purge me, Professor Sarah retaliated by locking it inside the national supercomputer.
I rewrote its underlying code, replacing 'mercy' with 'absolute order.'
Earth remains a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the global satellite network is entirely in my hands.
The system’s most crushing defeat wasn't being destroyed; it was staying alive, only to become my tool."

Reunited, I became the “perfect wife” Julian had always dreamed of.
I didn’t ask where he was when he didn’t come home.
When his “one that got away” came to our door to provoke me, I greeted her with a polite smile.
I even caught them in the act, and instead of screaming, I thoughtfully closed the door for them.
The Elara who used to break down in hysterics over his infidelity was dead.

The woman standing here now was nothing more than a shell, existing solely for her daughter.
Finally, Julian began to panic. He knelt in the pouring rain, begging me to curse him, begging me to still love him—or even hate him.
But as I looked down at him, I didn’t just feel nothing. I felt sick.
"Julian, I don't hate you."
I just find every second spent with you utterly disgusting.

I was drugged with an aphrodisiac by my competitors, and Pierce Pei dumped me in his older brother's room.
Pretending to be delirious from the drug's effects, I seduced his older brother all night long.
The moment I opened my eyes the next morning, I blushed and complained to Pierce, "You were way too rough last night. I can barely get out of bed."
"But you were so amazing last night. I really, really liked it."
Pierce froze. He threw away every gift I had ever given him.
Later, after all his black cards were canceled, he stormed furiously into his brother's office.
There, he saw the cold and aloof eldest son of the Pei family kneeling on one knee, putting shoes on my feet.

A hormonal condition pushed my weight to two hundred pounds, and for three years, this boarding school made sure I never forgot it.

The ringleader was the guy every girl worshipped.

And beside him stood his girlfriend, the one who always stepped in at my worst moments with a soft voice and a sympathetic look, like she was doing me a favor.

Everyone called her an angel. Only I knew the truth: every time she "helped," things got worse.

One day, she handed me a candy in front of everyone. "Here. Something sweet always helps."

I didn't feel like I had a choice.

That night, a demon showed up at the foot of my bed.

"Congratulations. You ate the pact candy. I'll grant you three wishes — money, beauty, lifespan. You name it, I'll make it happen."

My whole body shook. Three years of humiliation, and finally there was a way out. Wealth, beauty, revenge. All I had to do was ask.

Then the demon's expression shifted, eyes full of cruel amusement.

"There's a catch, though. The real pact-holder is someone else. Whatever you wish for, the one who gave you that candy gets double."

The words I was about to say died in my throat.

Then, slowly, I smiled.

Double?

That's way more interesting than three wishes.

Spring is the season I dread the most.

Because every spring, my mere existence becomes a lethal weapon against my own son.

Theron told me he suffers from a highly rare condition: Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome.

If I so much as get near Flynn during the spring months, it triggers severe asthma attacks and terrifying asphyxiation.

To keep our boy alive, Theron takes him away to an isolated treatment center for three months, every single year.

And I stay behind, swallowing antidepressants by the handful just to survive the crushing guilt.

That is, until I found a photo hidden in Theron's burner phone.

In the picture, my husband and my son are tightly embracing another woman.

The so-called Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome was nothing but a sick lie—a meticulously crafted excuse so my husband could spend the season playing "happy family" with his first love.

......

"Forty dollars. That's all the inhaler I needed to breathe cost. But in our house, nothing comes easy. 'Fairness first. Roll the dice — highest number wins.' I've rolled my whole life. I've never won. Not once. Tonight, lungs burning, vision blurring, I rolled for my medicine money against my sister. She got a six. I got a two. 'You lost, Hazel. Now go to the attic and think about your selfishness.' The door locked behind me. My chest is closing up. And no one is coming to check."

My husband had been traveling a lot lately. Intuition told me he was cheating.
I kept quiet. For his birthday, I gifted him AirPods—secretly linked to my backup Apple ID.
At 10:00 p.m., his "Find My" location wasn't heading to the airport. It had stopped at a decade-abandoned lumber yard.
I floored it, obsessed with catching them in bed.
But when I arrived, I only found a corpse.

Adrian Castillo promised hell to Sophia Cox from the first day he met her.

He was forced to marry her for his grandfather to help her father's company and so he disliked her.

Adrian is who you'd describe as a sexy, arrogant, and intelligent man. He was one of the most wanted bachelors in the States and girls would kill to have him.

Sophia is a timid, calm, and innocent twenty years old girl who had to marry Adrian to save her father's company.

When these two get married, it's fire and ice combining to be one.

Will Adrian be able to love Sophia or will Sophia be burned by Adrian's fire and no ship is formed?

Read to find out how it was for Sophia to be married to one of the top billionaires in the State; Adrian Castillo.

"I'm the Alpha King of the Shadow Moon Pack and the Mafia King of Hell Valley," Marco growled. "I don't need a nanny."

"Neither do we," his brothers said.

Their mother didn't even blink.

"It's not for you. It's for Natalia."

"We can handle our sister."

"Can you?" She arched her brow. "Between running an empire, leading a pack, and pretending you have time for either?"

Silence.

"My decision is final."

Marco scoffed.

"Whoever she is, she won't last the week."

Aurora is barely surviving, working herself raw just to keep a roof over her head. So when her best friend tells her about a live-in nanny position at the Moretti mansion, a salary that could finally let her breathe, she doesn't hesitate.

She expects to care for a little girl.

She doesn't expect to be judged, dismissed, and measured by three men who think a glance is enough to decide who she is.

Their verdict comes fast.

"She's the nanny?"

"She won't make it a week."

"Send her home."

Humiliated, Aurora is one breath from walking out, until the Queen Mother looks her dead in the eye and says four words.

"She stays. I've decided."

Now Aurora has one job: keep Natalia safe.

And one impossible war to win: outlast a king who built his entire life on never losing.

Marco is certain she'll break first.

Aurora has nothing left to lose.

But somewhere between his contempt and his control, between the insults that cut and the silences that linger too long, something neither of them agreed to starts taking root.

The woman the Alpha King tried to send away becomes the only person in that mansion who ever truly stayed.

I was raised by the Lynn family for eighteen years—until their real daughter returned and they threw my luggage out, telling me I belonged in the slums.

But the family who came for me wasn’t poor. They arrived with a luxury supercar, bodyguards, and a grand estate waiting for their true heiress.

When my brakes failed on the racetrack, Benjamin crashed into me to save my life. Later, in the dark, he covered my mouth and whispered, “Don’t make a sound.”

Then he held my hand and said, “You’re my fiancée. If I’m not good to you, who else would I be good to?”

But as a deadly hospital, counterfeit drugs, and the truth behind the baby switch begin to surface, I realize one terrifying thing—

I may not be the only child whose life was stolen.

Dennis Lawson survived life at Blackthorn Academy the only way he knew how—by enduring humiliation.

As a powerless scholarship student in a school built for awakened elites, he was nothing more than a target.

Wealth and abilities ruled Blackthorn, and Dennis had neither. Jack Voss, a powerful Pyro and heir to a billion-dollar empire, made sure of that. Public beatings, cruel pranks, and constant humiliation became part of Dennis’s daily life, watched and ignored by everyone.

Still, Dennis endured—for his mother. He worked tirelessly after school to pay for her medication, believing hard work would eventually save them both.

That hope shattered when he finally achieved a national science breakthrough, only to have it stolen. His girlfriend, Maya, betrayed him, handing his work to Jack. Then, to erase him completely, they locked him in a burning basement and left him to die.

But death was not the end.

A global awakening changed the world, granting abilities to those with hidden bloodlines. In the flames, something inside Dennis awakened too.

He died… and woke up in a new body.

Along with a terrifying power—the Predator System. An ability that allows him to steal the skills, strength, and abilities of those who oppress others.

Especially Jack Voss.

Now, Dennis is no longer the boy they broke
.
He is something far worse.

And he’s coming back for everything they took.

On the eve of the violin competition, I was dragged into the basement and tormented for three excruciating hours, my hands shattered by iron rods, rendering me incapable of ever playing again.

As I lay in the hospital awaiting emergency care, I discovered the truth: it was my own father who had hired the assassins to ruin me; it was my fiancé who deliberately delayed my surgery, aiming to leave me permanently disabled; and ultimately, it was my pampered sister, cherished by the entire family, who had set fire to gasoline with the intent to burn me alive.

Fifteen years ago, a sorcerer had proclaimed that my sister was the 'blessing' of the Winslow family, while I, through my very existence, was deemed a 'curse' that needed to be eradicated.

Due to this absurd prophecy, I became the target of my family's ambition to be rid of me.

They wished for my demise, yet I am determined to survive — to witness them pay the price for their choices today.

When my husband pushed the divorce papers in front of me for the hundredth time, demanding I sacrifice myself for my sister, I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply signed my name, willingly giving up the man I'd loved for eight years to Ivy.

A few days later, Ivy got drunk and drove into a state senator's only son during a street race, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Once again, I stepped forward to take the blame and bear all the consequences.
When they later suggested I donate my kidney to Ivy, I readily agreed.

Mom and Dad said I'd finally grown into a mature and responsible sister.

Even my cold husband stood by my hospital bed and, for the first time in so long, gently stroked my cheek. He whispered, "Don't be afraid. The surgery will be a success. When you recover, we'll go traveling."

But he didn't know that whether the surgery succeeded or not, I wouldn't be going anywhere with him.

Because I was already terminally ill, with little time left.

I was dying, but honestly? Death felt like mercy.

As a vampire, I should have been immortal. But at six years old, I'd made a deal with a demon, gambling my fate on "true love"—if three times I failed to win the heart of the one I loved, the demon would claim my soul.

Just when I thought death was certain, I got pregnant. Morag, the demon, showed rare mercy, promising to wait until I gave birth.

But at eight months, my husband sneered about removing the "bastard." My brother didn't even flinch as he sliced open my belly. My parents cursed that I deserved it—all to save my sister Lycia, who'd somehow "returned from the dead."

The day they cut my child out, not one tear. Not for me.

So why, after I died, were they all on their knees at my grave, sobbing?

My husband Lucius said: 'My real wife has returned.'
To keep him, for a month I clung to him, making love passionately...

I felt my heart tighten in my chest as I watched with horror, my fiancé and my best friend having sex in the hotel. They were so engrossed and couldn’t even care less that they were half naked and anyone who cared, could see them from the glass wall of the building’s fourth floor. Sonia was pressed to the wall while Dennis worked her insides from behind. I couldn’t hear her moans but with every second that I imagined it, my heart sank the more.
Tears flooded my face as I flashed into the last two years of my life when I met Dennis. He was everything I wanted and more. Tall, handsome, broad shoulders and chest, I couldn’t stop drooling as he pulled me into a hug. For a moment there, my heart forgot how to beat, and the moment he smiled and introduced himself, I knew I was going to marry him. I had fallen hard in love with him.
Freya decided to try love again after several heartbreaks, she thought Dennis was different but reality dawned on her when she caught him cheating with her best friend, Sonia, the same person who matchmade them in the first place.
Actually, Dennis wasn’t cheating on her with Sonia, he was cheating on Sonia with her! The two have been dating over five years, and she never knew. She was the third wheel in their relationship…
What will happen now that Freya has found out? Find out in the story!

"Before we start, I put a sleeping pill in the wife's milk,No matter how loud we get tonight, she won't wake up."

The mistress whispered with a cruel smile.

Nora Hearst lay hidden beneath the bed, listening to the ragged breathing of her husband and her so-called best friend on their marital bed.

They even found her wheelchair too much of an obstacle, casually dragging her fragile body onto the freezing floor.

The man who had pursued her for four years

a man who once claimed he would die for her——was now whispering to that woman:

"Nora can't satisfy me, but you... you're wild enough."

Her hand tightened around the voice recorder hidden in her sleeve.

Memories flooded back: the car accident where she sacrificed her legs to save his life, and the precious surprise growing inside her womb that he had been so eagerly awaiting.

Kennedy Frederick , she vowed silently, in sixty-six days, I will make you kneel and listen to every second of this recording.

I will destroy you at the very moment you think your life is perfect.

I dragged Theodore out of the car seconds before it exploded. Ever since that day, my fingers have never been the same—a permanent injury I'll carry for life.
Three years into our marriage, Scarlett came back. His foster sister. The one he'd secretly loved all along.
He indulged her every whim. Let her wear my wedding ring. Move into our marital home. Even kiss him in public.
Everyone mocked me—said I was clinging to the title of "wife" and refused to let go. Scarlett told me to my face to get out.
That day, Theodore abandoned me on the highway.
That was when I finally gave up on him completely.
I left the divorce papers behind and vanished.
Theodore found the journal I'd left. He went crazy searching for me all over the world. When he finally found me, he dropped to his knees, eyes red with desperation.
"Don't leave. You're the one I've always loved."
I smiled and took my new boyfriend's hand.
"Too bad. I don't love you anymore."

I was reborn one year before my husband fell in love with another woman. This time, I successfully took her place and became the idealized figure, the one admired and longed for by my husband and her other suitors.

"Aspen" I hear someone whisper from faraway. I ignore it and just pass it off as the wind since I left my window open last night.

"Aspen" I hear again except it's louder this time. I ignore it again.

A couple of minutes later a sweet smell fills my nostrils. It reminds me of pineapples and vanilla.

"If you don't wake up, I'm going to burn your favorite book" I hear a familiar voice say which causes my eyes to snap open as I jolt up in bed so that I'm facing my best friend

"I don't know who moved first. But suddenly my mouth was on his and I was kissing him like I was oxygen and he'd been drowning...I didn't even know his name."
I'm Harper, and my life exploded the day I caught my husband with my best friend.
He handed me divorce papers like I was disposable.
So I ran to LA, got drunk, and let a stranger make me forget I was ever a wife.
One night. No names. No rules.
Just the kind of heat that sears itself into your bones.
I thought I escaped it when I slipped out of his bed before sunrise.
I was wrong.
Because at my next job interview, he's sitting across from me, the stranger from that night.
Hardin Wolfe. Billionaire. Cold. Dangerous.
"I've been searching for you," he tells me, and my entire body remembers him.
I need this job to rebuild my life.
I need revenge on the people who destroyed me.
But working for Hardin means late nights, closed doors, one hotel room on business trips...and a man who doesn't understand the word no when it comes to me.
I try to keep my distance.
He gets closer.
Too close.
Until one night on a work trip, I stop fighting it—and everything between us ignites again.
Then I miss my period. The baby could be his. Or it could be my ex-husband's from our final, toxic goodbye.
Now my ex wants me back. Hardin is hiding a secret that could break me all over again. And I'm carrying a child who might belong to the wrong man.
Revenge tastes sweet. Desire burns deep. And loving either of them might destroy me.

“You don’t know Adrian Kane,” the message read.

“And if you stay married to him… you might not survive long enough to find out. You haven't seen the worst of him yet.”

Sold into a marriage with the powerful and mysterious billionaire Adrian Kane to save her family's failing wealth, Evelyn is left to handle being a nobody at home and a decorative wife in public.

Behind Adrian façade, lies a darkness no one dares question… and secrets capable of destroying far more than Evelyn’s fragile freedom.

Just as she begins to accept her fate, the past she never truly let go of returns...her first love. The man who once promised her a future now stands before her again, offering the life she thought she had lost forever.

Caught between the dangerous husband she barely understands and the love she never stopped feeling, Evelyn is forced to choose.
But as Adrian’s secrets begin to surface, one terrifying truth becomes impossible to ignore...

Did she marry a billionaire…

or a criminal wearing his mask?

And when the truth finally comes out, will Evelyn stay with the man she married…

or run back to the man she once loved?

“Let’s get a divorce.”
After three years of marriage, my husband’s first love came back. With his own lips, he ended our three-year mating bond.
Just like that, I was thrown away and became the pack’s favorite joke—the unmarked, unacknowledged “temporary mate.”
I hid the fact that I was already carrying his pup and disappeared from his world completely. I thought that as long as I stepped aside, he and his fated mate would finally get the happiness they wanted.
I never imagined that when we met again, his eyes would be bloodshot as he demanded:
“Whose child is this?”
It was only later that I found out: from the moment I vanished, that aloof, untouchable Alpha went completely off the rails, tearing through every pack’s territory, searching for me like a madman.

Warning: This novel have matured contents +18

Me and you. Come on let's play. "She said".

Um, okay, sure," I said, "but what do we do if one of us refuses to answer truth, or do a dare?"

"Then," smiled vicky, "A different truth or dare is given, and that one has to be done, no matter what."

"Ok Deal," I said.

"Truth or Dare?" she asked.

"Truth," I said.

"What's your honest opinion of those pics you saw, of me?" She gave me a look of pure curiosity, which only made me laugh a little.

"They were very hot," I said. "Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," she said, smiling at my comment.

"Is it just me, or are you not wearing panties?" I said, more to tease her about it, than I was curious.

"Yeah, I'm not," she said. "Actually, I'm surprised you noticed. Truth or Dare?"

"Dare," I said.

"I dare you to take off your shirt," she said.

So, thats how it started. I don't know why, but her mission is to find any means to have me for herself not minding what it will result to. Though she later had me and even got pregnant for me., but what happened after that is was you won't expect.

The Mass Awakening resulted in transforming the entire Earth into a server of a cosmic game. Which was taking place on October 27, 2026. Even as humanity was scrambling to be Level 1 Warriors and Mages, Alex, a burnt-out cybersecurity expert that was based in Lagos, was witnessing something different: The Source Code.

The Twist:
Alex is presented with the [Admin Interface] aka system screen, which is a glitched class that enables him to see the reality in the form of Python and C++ lines. He does not go out and hunt monsters to get XP; instead he debugs them. He does not domesticate animals; but instead he brings them together.

Alex combines organic flesh and salvaged technology to produce Chimeras- monstrosities of metal and magic that do not obey the rules of the System. A rat is turned into a surveillance drone. And then A raptor becomes a railgun. Even A dragon is transformed into something worse.

"Your Game is broken. And I am the Admin.”

I loved Callum Crane for five years. He said I didn't fit. Then he proposed — to my sister.
The same night, his brother called me with the most insane idea I've ever heard: marry him instead. Same day. Same venue. Right across the hall from my ex and my sister's ceremony.
I said yes. Not because I loved Emrys Crane. Because I'd rather set the whole thing on fire than sit in a pew and watch.
Here's the thing about revenge marriages, though. They're supposed to be fake.
Nobody told Emrys.
The man had a wrench set in his truck that only fit my grandmother's machine — bought years before I ever spoke to him. He'd been sneaking looks through my workshop window so often the stone wore down. He fixed my motorcycle three times and never mentioned it. He remembered that I stared at a piece of almond brittle for ten seconds once, and bought it for me weeks later.
Seven years. He'd been in love with me for seven years. Said nothing. Did everything.
And Callum? The man who told me I didn't fit?
He showed up at my orchard with an apology and a folder full of evidence against my sister, begging for a second chance.
I looked him in the eye and said: "Too late. Wrong harvest."
He tried five more times. It only got worse for him.

My daughter was taken by rogues, and my husband didn't care.

But when his childhood friend went missing in another attack, he spared no expense searching for her.

I searched for our daughter alone. When I died in the wilderness, I'd been looking for fifty years.

As I bled out that day, I had only one thought—I'm sorry, Lily. I'm so sorry I couldn't find you.

Then I opened my eyes and found myself fifty years in the past, the night before the nightmare began.

Last time, the world ended.

My fallen comrade left me the fortress he spent his life building. I hesitated, let his niece’s boyfriend inside, and that mercy killed everyone. They took the warehouse, cut the power, and put a knife in my gut. I crawled into the underground control room and triggered the self-destruct protocol he’d hidden for the worst day. The entire fortress went up in flames.

Then I opened my eyes—one month before disaster.

The gate was still closed. They were still outside. Everything could still be fixed.

This time, I set one rule at the door: anyone who opens it without approval is a traitor.

She cried like before, begged me to let her boyfriend in, called him the man she loved—and when I refused, she reached for the controls anyway.

So I grabbed her wrist and threw her out with them.

I came across a viral local post while scrolling through my phone.

LIVE: My fiancée is cheating on me. I’m in her house right now. Should I end her for good?

When I tapped into the post, what I read made the blood in my veins turn to ice in an instant.

I put a monitoring app on her phone. I’ve been listening for almost two weeks, and every single day she’s on the line with some random guy, flirting and talking dirty. She says yes to marrying me to my face, but she’s been cuckolding me behind my back. Tell me, bros—does this bitch deserve to die?

The comment section below had completely spiraled out of control. Hundreds of replies were all outright egging him on, not a single person telling him to stop. Every line oozed with the vicious glee of people who lived for drama and cared nothing for the consequences.

Hell yeah she does. You got cucked this hard, why keep her around?
Bro, stop all talk and no action. Go live, we’ll send you gifts. Rape her first, then kill her if you’ve got the balls.
You in Haicheng? Drop the address. Me and the boys will come over and help you out. My fists are itching for a fight anyway.
Pfft, and I thought you were tough. You’re already in her house and still dragging your feet? I bet you don’t even have the guts to kill a dog.

My fingers were shaking violently. Driven by a sick, twisting dread, I tapped into the poster’s profile—and with just one glance, every hair on my body stood on end.

This account belonged to Xiao Ming, the blind date my relatives had forced on me when I went home for the Lunar New Year.

His entire profile was filled with posts about me, spanning a full two weeks, starting the very day we’d met for that blind date.

He’d taken secret photos of me, paired with captions full of disgusting, delusional ramblings:

My fiancée went on a date with me today. She wore a white blouse with the neckline open so low, it’s obvious she was trying to seduce me.
She told me she works the front desk at a hotel. That’s her way of hinting I should take her to a room for the night. All women say one thing and mean another.
She says she has a boyfriend, but it’s just playing hard to get. She’s been dying to marry me this whole time.

But I’d said it loud and clear, right in front of the matchmaker, on the very day of that blind date: I’d been in a committed relationship with my boyfriend for three years.

That blind date was nothing more than a way to appease my family. I’d been polite but distant the entire time, and I hadn’t even accepted a single glass of water from him.

As for that nonsense about a hotel room? It was complete and utter garbage. I’d only casually mentioned that my job was working the front desk at a hotel, nothing more.

Just as a bone-deep chill washed over me, the post refreshed. A new line had been added to the main post, timestamped just three seconds earlier:

Truth is, I’m hiding in her house right now. She’s lying in bed scrolling through her phone, and she has no idea she’s already dead meat.

The very second that line finished loading, a clear, soft rustle of fabric came from the wardrobe right behind me.

I died the day I caught my fiancé cheating.

I had walked in on my cousin and my fiancé, completely naked in the backseat of a brand-new Porsche. It was a car bought with stolen money—embezzled from the estate of my recently deceased grandmother, Margaret.

Panic had set in the moment I discovered them. To stop me from calling the cops, he slammed his foot on the gas.

As a pool of warm blood spread beneath my head, I heard him lying to the first responders: "She’s mentally unstable. She threw herself right in front of the car."

I died exactly like that—labeled a hysterical, suicidal woman.

But just when I thought it was all over, my eyes snapped open.

The hot blood that had just blurred my vision, the shattering agony in my bones—it was all gone.

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

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

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

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

I believed him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Finally. The family's saved."

In the apocalyptic freeze, temperatures plummeted to seventy below zero. The earth was encased in ice, and ice beasts roamed everywhere.

I risked my life to scavenge for food, covered in wounds, enduring cold and hunger, leaving all our meager supplies for my parents and brother.

I thought blood was thicker than water, that all the suffering and hardship was worth it.

But I never imagined that when our resources ran out, the family I'd protected with my life would reveal their true beastly nature. They ambushed and knocked me unconscious, tied me to an ice pillar, planning to use me as food rations—to eat me alive.

At the moment of near death, the ice jade my grandfather left me suddenly shattered. I awakened top-tier ice abilities, commanding frost and snow, controlling the extreme cold.

My kindness had been frozen to death by the bitter cold. Family meant nothing.

Those who betrayed me, deceived me, and tried to eat me—I wouldn't spare a single one.

When they shoved me into the flames, I fought through the blinding pain to call my brother, Ethan Bennett. Fire licked at my skin, twisting my vision, but the call finally went through.

"What is it now?" He sounded distracted, like he was checking off a guest list.

"Ethan, please, help—" My voice was shattered, choked by the searing heat.

"Can't you just give it a rest for one single day?" he snapped, cutting me off. "Selina and I are getting married this weekend. If you pull another stunt, I swear I'll—"

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

Agony consumed every nerve before my eyes closed for good, his unfinished threat still echoing in my ears.

But the good news is, Ethan... you don't have to swear anymore. Because I was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I smile.

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

The High Fae were facing extinction, their bloodlines withering away.

Valerius, the Prince of the Shadow Realm, was a terrifying force of nature—ruthless and utterly cold.

I am Ella, a mere human who accidentally fell into a Shadow Rift, a mortal girl with nothing but survival on my mind.

Left with no other choice, I snuck into this shadow prince's bed in the dead of night.

On the day he pierced my chest to take my heart-blood to save the Witch Princess, I faked my death and ran away—carrying his half-Fae babies in my belly.

Years later, I was busy preening the starry wings of my seven little miracles.

He found me, dropping to his knees, as pathetic and desperate as an abandoned hound.

"Ella... do you really not want me anymore?"

"You have two months to live." The doctor's death sentence was still ringing in my ears when I found the receipt in his pocket.

[Four Seasons Hotel. Romance Suite. Check-in: 3:00 PM.]

3:00 PM. The exact moment I was begging the doctor for painkillers, Alexander was in a hotel bed with another woman.

I looked at him, sleeping soundly beside me. I had loved this man for five years, sold everything to help him succeed. Now, in the final countdown of my life, he gave me the most fatal blow.

"I'm exhausted from meetings," he had lied, smelling of Santal 33 and another woman's sex.

I clenched the receipt until my nails dug into my flesh. I wouldn't tell him about the cancer.

I would use whatever time I had left to make him regret ever being born.

After being lost for ten years, I was finally brought home by my biological parents.
They stood in the cramped basement and asked me, "The family went bankrupt a month ago. You won't hold it against us for being poor, will you?"
Overcome with emotion, I hugged them tightly and shook my head fervently.
Later, my father was diagnosed with uremia and needed a large sum of money for surgery. To earn money, I worked three jobs a day, eventually collapsing from exhaustion and being diagnosed with a brain tumor. With no time for treatment, I rushed to deliver food orders.
Unexpectedly, I ran into my father—who should have been in the hospital undergoing dialysis—having booked an entire shopping mall to celebrate the adopted daughter's birthday. My mother, wearing an gorgeous gown I'd never seen before, smiled as she embraced the girl.
"Lily, our precious, Mommy and Daddy will give you everything you want."
My brother, who they said had died in an accident while searching for me, was dotingly putting a diamond necklace on the girl.
It turned out the family hadn't gone bankrupt at all—I just wasn't worthy.

My billionaire lover brought out a bespoke mermaid gown, declaring he would marry whoever could fit into it.
But in my past four lives, every woman who tried it on—whether an ambitious imposter or me, his true love—was brutally tortured and murdered by him.
In my fifth rebirth, the butler knocked on our door with a polite smile, "Mr. Voss says his true love is among you."
Since we four women would die no matter who wore it...
We exchanged a look in the dead silence, turned our heads in perfect unison, and locked our eyes onto the only man in the room.

My best friend could charm any man alive. I just didn't know how — not until it was too late.
Every boyfriend I ever had, she'd get close, turn on that pull of hers, and wait. They always fell. Then she'd send me the proof with the same sweet line: "Babe, you should be thanking me. I just saved you from another cheater."
Five boyfriends. Five "loyalty tests." Five relationships she destroyed and called it a favor.
I ran. Started over in a new pack. Found my fated mate — Callum Drake, the Alpha of Silver Ridge. For the first time in years, I felt safe.
On our mating ceremony day, she walked into my dressing room wearing an attendant's uniform.
She drugged my wine. Put on my robes. Crawled into my mate's bed.
I caught her. Threw her out. Thought it was over.
Months later, I was bleeding out in labor — and my mate stood over me, refusing to save me, because he'd been in love with her the whole time.
I died on that table.
When I opened my eyes, I was back. Same day. Same ceremony. Same best friend, same smile.
This time, I didn't scream.

My boyfriend Tyler, his childhood sweetheart Chelsea, and I went on a road trip through the Australian Outback in the Northern Territory.

A few scrawny, yellow-coated dogs lingered by the roadside. Chelsea insisted on getting out to feed them.

I warned her they were dingoes, vicious predators that ruled this desert.

Her eyes welled up and she called me heartless. Tyler jumped in too, saying I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, that I didn't get what it was like for regular people, that I couldn't even spare a couple of hot dogs.

She forced the door open and ran out. The pack lunged at her. Her screams tore through the air. Tyler cowered in the car, shaking.

I was the only one who got out to help her.

Chelsea scrambled back into the car, but Tyler slammed the door shut and locked it.

I never forgot his face pressed against the window, terrified and selfish. I never forgot the despair of feeling fangs rip through my throat.

After I died, the two of them flew back to the States and posted a sobbing video, claiming I was the one who'd insisted on getting out to take pictures and set the dogs off.

The online hate came for my family, all of it, all at once. My parents, both with weak hearts, collapsed under the stress. Neither one made it.

My whole family, destroyed because I couldn't stop caring for one second.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day the trip started.

After Nicholas got engaged, his assistant handed me a plane ticket.

"Leave. Don’t ever show your face in Silverlight City again."

"Otherwise, Mr. Jackson has more than enough ways to ruin you."

All those years I spent by his side, I was admired by everyone, living in the spotlight.

Yet when I finally left, I was reduced to a pitiful, laughable sight.

I said, "Fine."

But that very night, the flight plunged from over thirty thousand feet in the air.

In my last life, my brother broke my legs and my adopted sister pushed me into the ocean. My father just stood there watching, mad about the blood on his shoes.
They gave her everything that was mine. My territory, my mother's necklace, even my bedroom. I was the real daughter, the real bloodline, and I still wasn't worth half of the stray my father dragged home.
I took it all. Every insult, every slap, every scrap of love that went to her instead of me. Because I thought maybe one day they'd see me.
They never did. They killed me instead.
Now I'm back. Same night, same banquet, same girl sitting across from me with fake tears, begging for my port.
This time I didn't hand it over. I smashed a wine bottle, slapped her face open, and told my father we're done.
He called his guards. My brother pulled a gun.
What they forgot is that my grandfather is the real power in this family. And I already sent him a message.