107 Book(s) Related to brene brown pdf

I suffered from a severe congenital heart defect.

And my mother, Jamie, had terminal bone cancer.

My family was not a happy one. It marked the third year since my father, Nelson, had openly and unapologetically betrayed their marriage.

That morning, my mother swallowed a handful of painkillers and forced herself to stand up from her wheelchair.

She asked her best friend, Zoey, who was also my attending physician, to forge a medical report.

Zoey trembled with anger, her tears dropping heavily onto the paper.

"Jamie, are you crazy? Your bones are being eaten away by cancer cells every single day. You're in so much pain you bang your head against the wall all night. Why would you fake a clean bill of health?"

"Do you think that bastard Nelson will change his mind and come back to you just because you pretend to be healthy?"

I thought I was the perfect wife and mother, until I heard my husband outside his office, laughing, calling me a "prison warden" and planning to use our daughter as cover while he ran off to Tuscany with his grad student.

Everything fell apart. Then my daughter, in front of everyone: "That's just our annoying nanny."

I tried to hold on to what was left of our family, but my daughter shoved me down the stairs. I lost the baby, and my husband just checked his watch while I bled out on the floor.

They locked me in and left for Italy.

Alone in the hospital, they told me I'd lost the baby and had "memory damage."

Now they're back, expecting the same obedient wife.

She's gone.

And I'm done loving them.

I used to be the nation's top lock-picking expert. I saved countless lives.

But I couldn't save my own daughter.

At the dock, two children were strapped to bombs.

The girl had less time—I should've saved her first.

But my husband Damien held a knife to his throat, forcing me to save the other one first.

His illegitimate son.

I compromised.

The moment I opened the lock, the kidnapper ripped off the girl's hood.

I never expected her to be Rosie.

My five-year-old daughter.

She looked at me.

Her lips moved, forming the word "Mommy."

Then the explosion tore through everything...

I thought that after twenty years with the Sterlings—even as an adopted child—I'd at least count as family. But the day they found their biological daughter Victoria, they announced they were throwing me out and planned to humiliate me at the family gathering. Based on what right?

Even more disgusting was how my almost-fiancé Blake immediately started fooling around with Victoria, eager to watch me get kicked to the curb!

When everyone was lining up to step on me, it was Alexander—the one I'm supposed to call "stepbrother"—who protected me. In his apartment, when he stood behind me gripping my hand as I chopped vegetables, his breath grazing my ear before he finally bent down to kiss me... my heartbeat went completely erratic.

My biggest regret? Trusting my husband with my mother's life.

The day the mudslide hit, I was on my knees. Begging him to send a helicopter.

He told me to wait. Twenty minutes. But when the helicopter came, it went for his adoptive sister Vivian instead.

I held my mother in the ruins. Her body was shutting down. I waited. Waited until she went cold in my arms.

When he finally showed up at the hospital, the first thing he said? Accused me of faking it. Said I just wanted attention.

In that moment, my heart died too.

Later, I found out Vivian wasn't even sick.

She said "I don't feel well"—that's all it took. And he left my mother and me to die.

Called me a lunatic. In front of everyone. All for her.

I was ready to leave. For good. Then someone shattered my mother's ashes.

On the day I got engaged to the heir of an elite old-money family, my own birth mother spread vicious lies about me in front of the entire crowd. She claimed I’d lived a wildly promiscuous life while studying abroad, and had even secretly given birth to a stillborn child with no known father.
Afterwards, she took my hand and sobbed out an apology, saying she’d only wanted to test whether my fiancé truly loved me enough to stand by me. I was foolish enough to believe her, and drank the calming tea she’d personally handed me.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, everything was destroyed. I lay in my bedroom, disheveled and half-dressed, and the man beside me was none other than my younger sister’s boyfriend.
In the end, my fiancé married my sister. And I was mercilessly disowned and cast out by my own family.
But twenty years later, every single one of them would come to regret what they’d done.

It had only been seventeen minutes since my wife passed away. My daughter was sobbing on the phone.

"Dad, they're trying to drive me out."

I stared at the medical report in the doctor's hand.

The first natural antibody carrier.Toxin levels in the blood: zero.

The same poison that killed my wife, that killed my six-year-old son…had left me completely unharmed.

The doctor lowered his voice."Mr. Miller, you have to stay. They're sending people to pick you up."

I let out a cold laugh.

"My daughter is trapped in the basement storage room right now. Is anyone here going to help her?"

Silence fell over everyone.

I grabbed the glass water cup from the bedside table.

"Five years ago, they handed me a disciplinary penalty and fired me from the rescue team. Everyone said I was good for nothing."

The cup smashed against the floor.

I picked up the longest shard of broken glass.

"Today, I'll show you all how a useless man saves lives."

My family's company went bankrupt, and my father was critically ill.

I dropped out of school and worked multiple jobs every day.

Debt collectors beat me and broke my ribs, but I couldn't afford painkillers.

Every penny I earned went to expensive medicine, all to save my father.

Until I saw my father, who should have been bedridden on oxygen, holding a champagne glass at a hotel banquet hall.

His words pierced through, "Five years, the punishment she earned."

The bankruptcy was fiction. The illness, theater.

All orchestrated because his stepdaughter suffered from depression, and I was her entertainment.

When the doctor finally spoke to me, "Days. You have only days."

I laughed.

The dying one had never been my father.

It had always been me.

I once believed that love could transcend life and death.

Until the terminal stage of Moon Eclipse Disease, when my husband personally gave the life-saving opportunity to my younger sister—that orphan girl I had rescued.

He said the pack needed a gentle Luna like her.

My son clung to her, calling her 'Mom.' My parents crowned her with what should have been mine.

Fine, so you all want me dead?

Then I'll stake everything on one final gamble.

After I die, I want every single one of you to be tortured by the truth.

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

Three years ago, on their way to attend my graduation art exhibition, the cruise ship carrying my fiancé and my family caught fire.

Over the past three years, I downed sleeping pills countless times, desperately wanting to follow them into the afterlife. Every single time, my adopted sister, Serena, saved me, crying hysterically as she shoved her fingers down my throat to make me throw up.

"They are already gone! Harper, you can't keep living in the past. You have to live on for their sake!"

After fainting from yet another high fever and being rushed to the hospital, I was diagnosed with terminal leukemia.

The doctor said I had a month left, at most.

I refused their advice to find a bone marrow match. Clutching my family's belongings, I decided to go back to our old estate in the suburbs for one last look.

While I was walking in a daze, a little boy running wildly crashed hard into my legs.

A male voice that had haunted my dreams for years rang out from behind me. "Alistair, if you keep running off, what will you do if Mommy and Daddy don't want you anymore?"

In an instant, it felt like I had been plunged into freezing water. I froze in place.

A witch prophesied at my birth—I carried special blood, I could bear the strongest children.

Two Alphas I'd loved for ten years—the Wolf King's sons—swore they'd protect me forever.

Then she showed up. Maggie. My cousin. All wide-eyed innocence, claiming she had the same gift.

Suddenly, I was the jealous one. Every trap was mine, meant to hurt her. Every wound on me was fake. She cradled the silver fox I'd killed, tears falling right on cue.

They handed me the moonflower wine. Bryan said, "Don't ruin the mood."

When they accused me of treason, Ronald said, "Exile."

They dragged me past the borders themselves. Poison fire in my veins, bones breaking under moonlight.

I hit the ground. The last thing I saw was Maggie's smirk...

Everyone said I was just a shadow of Ethan, that I was nothing without him.
So during the tryouts, to comfort his "scared" sweetheart, he let go mid-jump, almost costing me my life.
He was betting I couldn't leave him, that I'd forgive him like I did the last eighteen times.
But he lost.
This time, I didn't cry or throw a fit.
I simply tossed the apartment key that symbolized our seven years together into the trash, then turned and walked toward my own world championship.

My husband's first love was in trouble.
When the news came, I was lying on the operating table.
Dr. Miller put down his scalpel and said to Dr. Johnson, "I'll leave my wife's surgery to you."

"If I don’t go now, I might regret it for the rest of my life."

With that, he turned and walked away.
Watching my husband's retreating figure, I couldn't hold back—tears fell.
The next second, the cold blade of a scalpel touched my skin.

Dr. Johnson spoke calmly, "Why the tears? With me here, you'll be fine."

I saw a post on Reddit, "Urgent! How do I convince my wife to donate bone marrow to my mistress?"

I scoffed and typed back, "What a piece of shit."

Right after I hit send, my husband came home. He grasped my hand, his voice shaky: "You have leukemia... but it's okay, we found a donor."

His right eye twitched—he always did that when he lied.

Then I remembered the worst comment on that post, "Trick your wife into thinking she's the patient."

Life imitating the internet, apparently.

He wanted to harvest my bone marrow for someone else.

When I finally saw his mistress's face, my world fell apart.

I never thought his mistress would be her......

"Miss Smith, I think I can smell your scent... it's so womanly..."

I looked down at the boy hiding under the lectern, watching helplessly as he had his way with me right there in the classroom, while I had to pretend everything was normal...

My name is Catherine, the university math teacher. With my husband always away on business trips, at thirty years old, I was like a nun guarding that double bed, never satisfied. Slowly, I developed some strange habits... and became bolder...

The bell for the end of class had just rung, and teachers and students were flocking to the bathrooms in groups, chattering noisily outside.

In one of the bathroom stalls, I was panting, squatting... my black lace panties down around my ankles, my face flushed with ecstasy as I indulged...

"I want a divorce. "
The day before her third wedding anniversary, Fiona sees her husband walking to the obstetrics wing with his arm around his ex-girlfriend, Rowena. Rowena is pregnant.
Heartbroken, Fiona rejects Micah, her husband, her mate, the Lycan Prince of the Alastair Kingdom, and leaves the pack.

However, to Fiona’s surprise, after being rejected, Micah goes crazy looking for her all over the world.
Until one day, when he sees her walking down the street holding a little girl, he pins her against the wall.
“Is she my daughter?” Micah hisses.

On a stormy night, I, Freya Austen, the Alpha heiress, was secretly poisoned by my sister Tiffany. A towering figure loomed over me. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. His cock, hard as steel, thrust into my wet, aching pussy, each brutal slam hitting deep, shattering my willpower and driving me to collapse in endless waves of pleasure.
The last thing I remember was my father's hand across my face and his voice: "Get out of this pack."
Five years later, I'm back as Crystal, the jewelry designer every East Coast pack wants to hire. I have three kids now, and I want blood.
The moment I walk into Crown & Gem, I run straight into Alexander Reid—my ex-fiancé, the strongest Alpha.
"You're still just exiled trash," Tiffany says, hanging off Alexander's arm with that fake sweet smile. And Alexander's harder to read—ice cold one minute, almost uncertain the next.
Our world has simple rules: betrayers pay, and Alpha blood doesn't lie. I'm taking back everything they stole from me. Maybe even the Alpha who should have been mine—and the father who doesn't know his children exist.
To everyone who destroyed my life: I'm back. Ready to see what a she-wolf's revenge looks like?
（This book contains mature content. Not suitable for minors.）

Wale never expected the world he built to crumble. One drunken night with his staff, Maya, led to a scandal that forced him into a marriage he never wanted. Behind closed doors, he promised his true love, Kate, “I’ll get rid of her in a year.”
For a year, Maya tried to win Wale’s love, enduring his coldness and distance, but he remained emotionally locked away. Just as he was about to hand her divorce papers, she revealed a shocking secret—she was pregnant. Wale, torn but still set on leaving her, abandoned Maya on the day she went into labor to be with Kate. In a cruel twist, a devastating accident claimed their baby’s life.
Devastated and broken, Maya confronts Wale with a chilling finality, “Congratulations, Mr. Wale. My baby’s gone. I want a divorce. You’ve taken the last reason I had to stay.”
For the first time, Wale feels something he’s never experienced—fear. Fear of losing the woman he dismissed for so long. But now, as Maya walks away, he’s faced with the hardest question of all; is it too late to win back the woman he pushed away? And even if he tries, can Maya ever forgive him for the pain he’s caused?

"Joanna, you can't escape!" Sebastian roars, gripping my wrist and yanking me against his chest. His lips crush mine—raw and searing—stealing the air from my lungs. I fight him, but my body betrays me, trapped between shame and a hunger I can't explain. Through tears, I whisper, "Am I just Elodie's ghost to you? Or something you own?" His eyes darken, silencing me with a kiss that leaves me hating myself for wanting more.

I'm Joanna Bennett, struggling to pay my mother's medical bills when Sebastian King stormed into my life because I resemble his dead girlfriend. He rules his empire with ruthless control, treating me like a pawn. At night, I hear him call her name, his voice breaking in ways it never does with me.

My brother Daniel watches with quiet rage, while Sebastian's enigmatic brother Zayne’s sudden interest feels far from innocent. Soon, I uncover shocking lies about my own past that threaten everything.

When Sebastian announces his engagement, I shatter—then he drags me to mansion, locking the door, reminding me what’ll happen to my mother’s care if I leave.

His fiancée Ava cuts me down with cruel jabs. Then Daniel’s journal reveals a forbidden love that broke him, destroying us both.

Until Sebastian finds me at our lakeside, dropping to his knees: “I was wrong.”

Can I forgive him—or myself if I do?

The only sure thing in revenge is the beginning, the ending is uncertain. The truth can surprise you in ways you could never have imagined.

A sequel to His Booty Call.

Korey Wilson is a ruthless alpha, an alpha with no emotions, no heart, damn arrogant, just so cold gets his Luna... Bentley Janice. Bentley Janice, a pretty young lady gets chosen by the moon Goddess to be Korey's Luna. Korey gets annoyed because he would be having a human as his mate and there is nothing he could do, his weakness is her weakness, he became super arrogant towards her, but that never stopped her from loving him.

"Ever since the night, I kissed you... I find it hard to concentrate at work I tried my best but all I could find myself doing was thinking of you, craving to hold you, to touch you, to feel your lips once more... But I don't know what's stopping me" he rushed taking his last statement calmly

"if anyone ever told me I'd fall in love with you... I'd disbelieve, but now I think I am" he said breathlessly

"what are you going to do about it? "Jan asked

"Jan please.. please...stop oppressing me!" he said as she walked closer to him, his eyes fixed on the floor avoiding her eyes.

"Korey... I Love you, and I'd keep loving you no matter what"

Cara is out to get revenge on her parents murder and their stolen legacy. She uses Quinn to get her vengeance in a booty call agreement. Will she be able to win him over? Will she succeed in her plan? Will her plan go accordingly?

In the Shadow Realm, beings of the Light and the Darkness alike walk the marble-paved streets of Echelon, a city hidden from human eyes and ears where Mystics of every class are free to unmask and live as they please.

The city's heart beats like a heavy metal drum line and debauchery flows through its veins like blood. Music, sex, and drugs overflow from the numerous clubs and into the streets at most hours.

Malfizan, the powerful son of a desire demon and a minor goddess, serves both the court and Echelon's shady underbelly as the not-so-secret head of the city's most famous crime syndicate. Malfizan commands a hoard of demons and demi-gods who assist him in terrorizing human kind in the name of punishing them for evil done unto the Mystics.

He finds his thrilling life halted, suddenly, when Alchimia Nethi moves into the Palace and begins training to take over the city when her mother's reign ends in a few short decades. As fledgling Mystics centuries before, the pair had been class rivals.

Now, faced with the burden of befriending his least favorite enchantress in order to gain her trust and earn permission to resume normal activities, Mal struggles to hide the call he feels deep within his soul to reveal to Chimi that the Gods have declared her to be his soul bond and are pressing him to push for a marriage.

Matured content.

"Why...are.. you looking at me that way?" Emily stuttered.

"I want to kiss you so bad."

"I.I...me..."

Have you ever been lied to?

Have you ever tried to change someone?

Have you ever thought you knew someone but found out things were not how it seemed?

Emily Riverstone finds out that her new boyfriend happens to be the owner of a multi billionaire company and had been hiding his indentity from the world and even from her.

Will she be able to overcome the consequences that comes with knowing the truth or will it be the death of her.

In my past life, my best friend Isla was the one sacrificed to Blackstone Island. She was sent to fulfill the ancient covenant between humans and Shifters—to marry that cold-blooded Black Dragon Guard Captain, Sebastian.

The result? A tragedy.

Isla was tormented by Valerie, Sebastian’s childhood friend, who used the most despicable schemes to break her. And Sebastian? He remained an oblivious, arrogant statue for thirty years, watching Isla wither away like a rose drained of life. She spent her entire existence wilting in the shadows of his palace.

As for me, I followed my family’s orders and married an accountant named Ryan. But the warrior's blood of a martial arts clan runs through my veins, while Ryan was a spineless coward who loathed my "wildness." I found him calculating; he found me untameable. We divorced within two years, and I died alone and forgotten.

But the heavens have given me a second chance. I’ve been reborn!

The covenant between our races only demands a daughter of my family—it never specified which one. This time, I'm not letting Isla go to that hellhole. If a dragon needs a bride, he's getting me.

In the sixth year of my life as a Scale-Stripper, I finally gathered the hundredth vial of Dragon Breath Essence.

I knelt before the altar, cradling the crystal bottle in both hands. The golden light swirling within it cast a warm glow across my scarred knuckles. Six years — six years of wandering the most dangerous battlefields of the Five Clans and the plague-ridden wastelands, using dragon breath to heal the wounded. For every person I saved, I had peeled away a living scale from my own flesh, baring the raw, bleeding meat beneath.

Seven scales left on my back.

Only seven.

But as long as it saved my brother Lucien, it was worth it.

Six years ago, during the Dragon Slaughter War, our parents had been assassinated by humans. An ancient curse had struck Lucien; his scales were crumbling away, day by day. He told me that only a hundred vials of Dragon Breath Essence could break the curse.

I held the crystal bottle out to him, my voice trembling with barely contained emotion. "Lucien, a hundred vials. We finally have enough."

Lucien took the bottle and glanced at it.

Then he tossed it off the altar without a second thought.

I went rigid.

Lucien stood at the top of the altar.

"I was never cursed," he said.

My hands were still cupped in the shape of holding the bottle, all ten fingers suspended in midair.

"Our parents never died, either."

"The Dragon Slaughter War six years ago, I planned it. The only one left crippled, with broken wings, was you."

I'm an OB-GYN. On Valentine's Day, I pulled a ring out of a woman's vagina.

It turned out to be my husband's wedding ring.

An hour before, he'd texted me. Said he loved me. Said he was too busy with work to come home.

I wanted a divorce. Needed one. But then I found out—our marriage was never registered.

In his manor, I was nothing. Just a fake wife.

He grabbed me by the throat—right in front of his mistress. Called me "damaged goods." Said I'd spent a year in another man's house.

But that year, I went as a hostage in his place.

I ran. Made it to the cliff's edge, covered in blood. And the man who saved me? The mafia godfather who'd held me captive that whole year.

He looked at me. "Marry me."

Yes, I jumped from that rooftop. Wind screaming in my ears as I fell, thinking it might finally earn me one fucking tear from them. Instead, all I got was "she's so dramatic."
Now I'm staring at fifteen-year-old skin in the mirror. Downstairs, their fake voices call my name—identical to that "welcome home" afternoon three years ago.
Yvette rushes to hug me, sugar-sweet venom dripping from her lips: "Remember who the princess is." I give her the same plastic smile right back.
I hear the voice in my head crystal clear: This time, I'm not fighting for their love—I'm taking back the life that was always mine.

I swear, I hate my husband.

At my birthday party, my husband whispered to his mistress in French that he missed her. His voice was low, but I heard it all—the black lingerie, the bit about how pregnancy makes you more sensitive. His French clients around us were laughing. He turned and put his arm around me, claiming he was just helping his clients come up with sweet nothings.

He doesn't know I understand every single word. Just like he doesn't know that inside my body, I'm carrying his other surprise. And his mistress—she's pregnant too. Two wombs, one secret.

Confrontation would be too cheap. Tears are worthless. I quietly started cataloging the hidden networks my father left behind, activating the Swiss accounts.

In seven days, Zoey Smith will cease to exist. And what will my husband's reaction be?

I clutched the diagnosis paper that read "Stage 4 Gastric Cancer," my knuckles turning white. For twenty-two years, no matter how bad things got, Ethan always said he could handle it. But this time, my call only reached his voicemail.

I still remember that snowy night when I was seventeen. Under that tree, he squeezed my hand and promised, "You don't have to be strong anymore. Just lean on me." He said he'd marry me once he became successful, vowed to protect me for a lifetime. I believed him—believed him so much that today I drove frantically to his recording studio, desperate to tell him about my diagnosis.

But the scene through the cracked door shattered every hope I had. The sight of him entangled with Victoria hurt worse than any diagnosis. Later, when he handed me divorce papers, I coughed blood into my tissue, and he didn't even glance my way.

How did the man who promised to protect me forever become the one pushing me into the abyss? I'm dying, and even my last shred of hope is being crushed. Is this really how it ends?

I'm crouched on this fucking balcony clutching a pregnancy test, hands shaking like a leaf—two blazing red lines staring me in the face. I was such a goddamn fool thinking I'd tell Remy about our baby tonight. What a sick joke!
The banquet hall's roaring below and there's that bastard on stage, arm wrapped around Olivia, shouting "This winery has NO future without her!" Each word slams into me like a sledgehammer. TEN FUCKING YEARS! When he was drowning in debt, I sold every piece of Mom's jewelry to save his ass!
Then the son of a bitch hurls a box of abortion pills at me like I'm garbage: "Kill it, or Olivia's daddy pulls his money."
I'm glaring at that box and it hits me—ten years of my life pissed away on this piece of shit, and now even the innocent baby growing inside me is worth less than his blood money! I gave him everything and he's ready to murder our child for a fucking check!

I’ve had the Sight for as long as I can remember.
Born into a matrilineal line of Salem witches, I can pierce the veil of the dead. I see the wandering souls and the lingering traces of magic left behind in the mortal world.
I always assumed this gift was nothing more than my own harmless little secret.
Until the night of our fifth wedding anniversary.
I lit the final taper candle on the long dining table. As the flame flickered, my Sight instinctively slipped open, my gaze drifting toward the deep shadows by the fireplace.
A spirit was huddled there in the dark.
It was my husband—Silas Blackwood.
Ice flooded my veins. What the hell is going on? Is Silas... dead?!
My hands shook as I fumbled for my phone, stumbling back in a frantic rush to dial his number.
But before my thumb could hit the call button—before my lips could even form the words of a banishing spell—
Click.
The front door opened.
Silas strode in, bringing the damp, fresh scent of the rain with him.
"Sorry I'm late, Evie."
My breath caught. If Silas was dead... then who the hell was standing right in front of me, wearing his skin?

When I woke up in that hospital bed, legs wrapped in casts and burning like hell, everything came flooding back. This time, I wasn't the naive fool I'd been before.
Tyler, my brother Ryan, and that bitch Savannah—they destroyed me. Turned a gymnastics prodigy into a cripple.
Tyler had the nerve to grab my hand, begging me to forgive Savannah for ruining my legs. My brother chose outsiders over me, screaming about "family reputation."
Fuck their love. Fuck family.
This time around, I've got evidence of the $1.2 million they owe me. I know all their dirty secrets. Round two has started, and I'm done being their victim.
Those three bastards are going to pay back every damn cent they stole from me.

I was six years old when Mom took my brother and me by the hand, leading us into a mansion that looked like a palace. She told us this was our new beginning, after all the hardships we'd been through. But no one warned me that this so-called better life would mean giving up everything I had.

My scholarships, my prom dress, even my Stanford acceptance letter—they all turned into bargaining chips just to keep my stepfather and his daughter Sienna happy. Then, the night before my wedding, they even asked my fiancé to "temporarily" give himself to her as well.

I've always been the one giving everything, pouring myself out until there's nothing left, yet I've never heard the words, "You're enough." If love means endless sacrifice, why am I never the one on the receiving end?

Maybe only when I vanish completely will they remember my name—for the first and last time.

The day our parents remarried, my entire life descended into unrelenting hell.
Jace, my stepbrother, hated me on sight the second he walked through the front door.
Like a relentless ghost that haunted my every waking moment, he stole every girl I ever cared about, one by one.
I hated him for seven long years, convinced he only got off on grinding me into the dirt. Until that drugged night at the hotel...

Bryan and I had been together for a year.

He was gentle, thoughtful. I had no reason not to trust him.

Until the night the typhoon hit.

He called. He said he, his mother, and his brother's family were outside my door, soaking wet. They just needed somewhere to stay for the night.

I walked to the door.

My hand reached for the doorknob.

That's when I saw her in the hallway mirror.

My future self.

Covered in blood. Clothes shredded.

She was screaming at me. "Don't open the door! They'll kill you!"

I am Seraphine Marchwood. For five years, I gave every piece of myself to Alpha Veyron, convinced our mate bond was fated—until the night I accidentally overheard the truth.
He never wanted me as his mate. The entire proposed bond was nothing but a cover, a farce to hide his scandalous affair with Ophelia, the woman he actually loved. She was carrying his pup, and I was just the disposable, respectable shield to keep his reputation untarnished.
I ran that night, blind with grief and rage, until I crashed through the rotting beams of an old, rain-soaked ruin. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was the taste of blood in my mouth, and the sound of his voice calling my name, too late.
When I woke up, I didn’t recognize him.
And for the first time since I’d known him, he looked terrified. The cold, unshakable Alpha who’d cast me aside without a second thought was panicking, desperate, scrambling to bring back the version of me that had loved him more than anything—even as a new, unforeseen path began to unfurl before me.

I once believed fleeing my engagement would set me free, only to fall headlong into a web of betrayal spun by my closest friend and faithless lover.

Now, granted a second life just a week before that fateful wedding, I stand before the man I betrayed—Alexander Stone, the unyielding soul who ended his life in my previous existence, all because of me.

This time, I've sworn to mend what I shattered. But as I reach out to him, his voice cuts like ice: "You don't need to know me. This marriage is purely transactional."

Yet if he's as indifferent as he claims, why did he linger by my hospital bed for two sleepless nights? Why do his eyes flicker with a devastation that could unravel worlds, and why does he shudder at my touch, whispering, "Are you afraid of me?"

As the shadows of old betrayals creep back, will I pierce his frozen mask to safeguard this fragile love reborn? And that haunting whisper in my mind—"Alexander Stone died because of you"—does it seal a destiny I can't escape?

I once believed that every click of Ryan's Leica shutter was proof of his love—a luxury villa, his exclusive muse—I was foolish enough to believe in this fairy tale. Until our engagement night, when Isabella appeared wearing an identical ring, and the media exposed his betrayal, I finally realized I was nothing but a carefully selected stand-in.

Have you ever spent three years of your youth living as someone else's shadow? When he held her and called me "just a cheap copy," I didn't break down. After all, isn't it more satisfying to turn the tables using the camera sounds he was so obsessed with, making him pay for his sins in his own madness? In this game of deception disguised as love, who really played whom?

The five of us were dragged into a twisted nightmare.
The game rules were absolute: Kill the Boss. All members survive. Total escape.
Luckily, we each spawned into the game with a supernatural perk.
Relying on our powers and our bond, we spent six grueling hours tearing the massive, horrific beast apart.
All we had to do was step into the extraction portal to wake up in Oregon.
My friends were screaming in victory, already planning our celebration at Voodoo Doughnuts.
Instead, I was frozen. My heart wasn't racing with adrenaline anymore; it was cold. Absolute zero.
Because my real perk tracked the Boss status.
Floating in the center of my vision, cutting through the shadows, were two lines of text that only I could see:BOSS STATUS: ALIVE.DISGUISED. The monster wasn't dead. It was standing right here, wearing the face of one of my best friends!

I put up with my husband's cheating because I needed money for my brother's medical bills.

Until I found the heart donor report he'd been hiding in his study for three months. 98% match. He'd signed it "postpone."

That night, fireworks filled the London sky, his mistress laughing in the background. Standing over my brother's body, I finally got it—he'd been killing my brother all along.

I ripped up his check, sold every piece of jewelry he'd ever given me, and threw the divorce papers in his face.

"Murderer"—that's all I said.

Three years later, I'm getting a standing ovation at the Golden Hall. He shows up in the snow, eyes red, begging for forgiveness.

I just smiled. "Charles, you died three years ago."

My daughter died on her seventh birthday.
I held her in the cold ward as her body slowly lost all warmth.
Meanwhile, her father—my husband Vincent—was on a mountain top with his mistress, making love to her all night long.
He said, "She’s just a child. There’ll be better ones sooner or later."
He said, "Camila, you’re the only one I love."
He has no idea that he’s killed the only soul in this world that loved him unconditionally.
After the divorce, I am no longer the meek Mrs. Lucchese who begged for his affection.
Funeral, scandal, a worthless bastard...
Everything I lost, I will make him pay for—with his entire family.

I once thought marriage was redemption.

I hid that I was a billionaire heiress, threw on an apron and played the perfect housewife. For three years, I pawned my jewelry to bail him out, stayed up all night fixing his business proposals, only for him to parade his mistress around our house.

She wore my limited-edition cashmere sweater, smashed my expensive china, his mother called me worthless for not popping out kids, and he called me cheap trash he couldn't stand anymore.

Fifty thousand dollars—that's what he thought three years of my life was worth.

When I got pregnant, I thought things would change, only to get shoved down the stairs and lose everything.

While I was still bleeding in that hospital bed, he forced me to sign divorce papers, threatening to destroy me completely.

In the La Perla private room, he made me crawl like a dog, trying to pimp me out to some random guy.

He had no idea I wasn't just hiding my identity—I was hiding my claws.

My fiancé and I held twenty-one weddings. I put on my wedding dress twenty-one times, only to crawl out of pools of blood each time.

Car accidents. Shootings. Explosions. Fires.

Everyone said I was cursed, that I was bad luck for my husband.

I was the only fool who believed they were accidents.

Until the twenty-second time.

That day, covered in blood, I escaped from an ambush back to headquarters and heard him say coldly over the walkie-talkie, "She won't die. Save Valerie first."

It turned out all the accidents were personally arranged by him.

He didn't love me—he just owed my parents a debt he could never repay.

So he staged disaster after disaster to get out of marrying me.

At the twenty-second wedding, I didn't wait for him to cancel.

This time, I was the one who called it off.

My name is Ivy, and I’m 18. My best friend’s father, Sebastian Blackwood, a Harvard law professor, is mature, cold, and authoritative. He’s been the centerpiece of every fantasy I’ve had since puberty.

Those nights, I toss and turn under the covers, imagining his fingers slipping into my wet, hot va*na, imagining his cok thrusting into me hard, driving me to the edge of climax.

I know it’s wrong. He’s off-limits.

But every time he looks at me, those deep, piercing eyes seem to strip away my clothes, staring straight at my most secret places. My heart races out of control, my body burns with heat.

I don’t want to just be his “good girl.”

I want to be claimed by him, completely, destructively.

During this 30-day seaside vacation, I’ll make him see that I’m no longer a little girl.

My body is wet for him, my soul burns for him.

Sebastian, will you resist, or will you pin me down and fu*k me hard?

On my due date, my mate Kael locked me in the Frost Vault.
House Veyron's Hatching Law was absolute: the first dragon egg to break shell inherits the entire Emberscale empire. My sister-in-law Celine and I were both due to deliver—our egg dates only one day apart. To ensure his brother Roman's posthumous egg hatched first, Kael made his choice.
"Roman and Celine's egg must break shell first. You owe them that!" He ignored my ruptured water, ignored the agony of the egg already pressing into my birth canal, and shoved me into that dungeon built from ancient ice-dragon bones.
Then they injected me with Frostbind Serum—an ice-magic drug that freezes the life-bond between a mother dragon and her egg. I curled up on the frozen floor carved with suppression runes, feeling my child's pulse fade beat by beat, and wept.
My baby, I'm so sorry... I can't even protect you...

"Clyde, no—stop this right now. I only came to your class because Aaron recommended you to help me learn motorcycle riding for my job, not to get into something like this." On the open training field, as I struggled to balance the bike and keep it steady, my husband's old college roommate Clyde climbed on behind me to "correct" my form, his hands boldly cupping my large, soft breasts through my fitted top. The real problem hit when I felt his massive bulge pressing insistently against my backside, hard and unyielding, as he leaned in too close under the guise of instruction.

My husband and I've been married for three years, and he's been messing around with her the entire time.

Hugging and kissing her on set, whispering flirty lines in interviews.

Everyone online calls me a pathetic stand-in.

I never get mad. I just smile and help him smooth over every rumor.

That is, until I accidentally got pregnant and secretly had an abortion.

He was furious, his heart shattered, demanding to know why.

I cupped his face and said calmly: "Because I don't love you."

The one I truly love is his dead brother.