138 Book(s) Related to melissa william

I clicked the anonymous link, and my world shattered. There was my perfect fiancé, in a live stream, entangled with the woman who was supposed to be my maid of honor—my best friend.
He was the hero who donated his bone marrow to save my life. Now, he was defiling our future marriage bed in the most vile betrayal. I thought this was their twisted idea of a game, until I dug deeper and uncovered the truth: our "fateful" connection three years ago was nothing but a calculated lie.
My savior, my soulmate, the father of my child... it was all a facade. Now, I've vanished into the night, carrying a secret they know nothing about—his child. Their little show was just the beginning.
My revenge? It's just getting started.

Two years ago, at the Mating Ceremony, my fated mate, Alpha Jason, rejected me in front of the entire pack. He chose my stepsister, Maggie, simply because she had pure blood, and I was just a "Wolfless" waste.
Two years later, I returned to the Blackwater Territory with my new mate.
I met Jason at the forest entrance bordering the territory. For the sake of his pack’s "interests," he dared to order me to warm my stepfather’s bed and serve his new mate as a maid.
He had no idea that the "Wolfless" waste he was sneering at was now the most revered woman in North America—the Luna Queen.

At the Falcone estate's riding ring, I watched my eight-year-old son Leo mount Starlight, preparing for the most important performance of his young life.
Before the third obstacle, the horse spooked. The instant Leo was thrown, I rushed forward to shield him—the cost was three shattered ribs and a kicked left lung.
When I woke from unconsciousness, I found myself in Dante's private clinic downstairs. From the adjacent room came the doctor's angry voice: "We agreed this was just a marrow extraction. Why did you set up what happened with the horse?"
My husband Dante Falcone's response made my blood run cold: "Leo was Mia's donor. Now that the procedure is complete, there's no point in continuing treatment. Mia is the real heir."
Eight years of marriage. I'd always believed that beneath Dante's cold exterior, Leo was still a son he treasured.
Only now did I understand—from the moment of his birth, Leo had been nothing more than a living donor prepared for his stepsister Mia.
The cruelest irony? Mia, the girl Dante loved so deeply, wasn't even his biological daughter.

I thought drowning while trying to save a little girl was the end of my story. Turns out, it was just the beginning of my empire in the Land of the Dead.
Now, I'm the infamous owner of the afterlife's most intimate boutique. My clients? A community of skeletons so conservative, they excuse themselves before holding hands and have been sleeping in separate beds for thirty years of marriage.
To make sure my boyfriend Carlos doesn't forget me, I convinced him to become my interdimensional supplier. But my thriving business comes at a deadly cost: every product he sends drains his life force. And just as I make this horrifying discovery, I learn the little girl I died saving is in deadly danger once again, as her stepmother plots against her again.
With the love of my life fading away and an innocent child's life on the line, what price am I willing to pay for a second chance at life?

I was the most envied mafia wife in Chicago, until his Tibetan Mastiff tore apart what remained of our child.
Everyone called it an accident. I knew it wasn’t.
While I was bleeding out on the operating table, my husband was in the VIP ward, personally attending to his “traumatized” adopted sister. The whole family coddled her delicate state. Only I saw the smirk she couldn’t hide behind every calculated “panic attack.”
Then the Feds gave me a choice: keep playing the perfect, miserable wife, or vanish into a classified program so secret, I’d be dead to everyone I ever knew.
I signed. I uploaded the audio proof of their affair. I watched my old life disappear.
You swore you’d protect the family above all else, darling?
How fitting. My new mission is to protect this country from all threats.
Starting with you.

I thought the orchestrated assault was the most profound betrayal of my life. Then, from the shadows of the wine cellar, I heard my husband and his brothers toasting to their success.
"The slow-motion capture of her climax, paired with those broken whimpers... it was cinematic perfection."
"She played her part beautifully. After all, she’s just a Valenti."
I learned the devastating truth: my agony was their scripted entertainment. My husband. The director.
He married me to claim his inheritance.
He branded me to mark his property.
He caused my miscarriage in that dungeon, coldly calling it "tidying up loose ends."
But they overlooked one ancient law—the Moretti blood oath: should the Don betray his vows, everything becomes his wife's.
Now, I stand in the penthouse of his casino.
My fingers trace the scar on my shoulder—now transformed into a dagger.
"Darling, you celebrated the anniversary of your production. My gift to you is a lifetime behind bars."
Now, the final cut is mine.

Three years ago, Marco Ferraro stepped over the corpses of the Vancetti family to claim his throne, delivering my sentence with cold indifference: "Don't take it personally, Noelle. It's just business."
Three years later, he is the untouchable new Godfather of New York, while I am nothing but a ghost in a threadbare coat.
His classless fiancée didn’t just buy my mother’s legacy—she took that rare pink diamond and dropped it, right in front of everyone, into a glass of whiskey thick with spit.
"Thirsty, fallen princess?"
She kicked the backs of my knees hard, forcing me onto the glass-strewn floor. Her sharp stiletto heel ground into my knuckles. "Drink it, or die."
Marco stood to the side, lighting a cigar, his eyes filled with nothing but boredom.
I tightened my grip on the shard of glass hidden in my palm, ready to drag us all down to hell.
But before I could strike, the deafening roar of rotor blades tore through the dome of the auction house. A pitch-black military helicopter hovered just outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the violent rotor wash instantly shattering every champagne tower in the room.
A voice that made the entire underworld tremble boomed through the speakers:
"Which one of you suicidal bastards touched my woman?"
A dozen crimson laser dots instantly painted a target on Marco’s forehead.
Rafael, "The Phantom," had arrived.
Tonight, no one makes it out of here alive—except me.

Three years ago, in that deadly barrier, I carved out half my progenitor heart and dragged Theron back from death's door. The wound on my back has never healed.
I thought it was a soul blood pact—bound in life and death. Then Samaela appeared, that fragile human with barely a century to live, and it all became a joke.
He believed her lies. Swallowed every word about how I'd murdered her parents in cold blood.
For that pathetic creature who couldn't even bear sunlight, my carefully groomed blood vassal sawed off my pureblooded wings, ripped out my progenitor fangs with his bare hands, and threw me into the Silver Cathedral.
Three years. Nailed to a cross with pure silver chains, I endured concentrated UV rays and holy water burning through me day and night.
Everyone waited for me to go mad, to beg, or turn to ash. I didn't.
Listening to their wedding bells toll outside, I simply watched—in the silence of my flesh charring and regenerating—as the silver light on my chains fractured inch by inch.
Then I tore out the silver spikes embedded in my rotting flesh, dragged my bleeding wreck of a body forward, and kicked open the doors to the Crimson Blood Moon Gala's hall.
Theron had forgotten one forbidden clause in the blood pact: The oathbreaker's life belongs not to the gods, but to me.

Six months after our bonding ceremony, I was ambushed by rogue wolves while searching for rare herbs in the Black Forest.
Their poisoned claws shredded my abdomen—and with it, any chance of ever carrying pups.
But my mate held my hand and wept. My mother swore she'd save me. My father said everything would be fine.
How pathetic—
Right before they wheeled me into surgery, I heard them through a cracked door, calmly discussing how to harvest my heart for the adopted sister who'd been waiting six months.
Turns out the "accident" was a gift from my loving family of four.
Turns out the last six months of "coming home" was just them fattening up my heart for harvest.
What they don't know? The voice memo on my phone caught everything.
What they really don't know? Six months from now, I'm coming back—
With a Dark Moon Alliance badge. And a heart much colder than the one they stole.
Shh. Listen.
That stolen heart? It's starting to reject.

The day the butler of Sterling family came to claim me, the folks back in my dusty hometown lined the streets with tears in their eyes, waving goodbye like I was headed somewhere better.
The moment I stepped into that mansion, armed guards pinned me down in the first-floor medical suite, demanding I donate bone marrow to their precious adopted daughter, Celeste.
I responded by ripping out Celeste's dialysis machine.
My biological parents, Richard and Eleanor, went ballistic. They locked me in the attic storage room to "reflect on my behavior."
That night, while the house slept, I crept down to the basement and twisted open the main gas line valve.
I was halfway through rigging a candle delay fuse when the thermal imaging system caught me. Armed security tackled me before I could finish the job.
They'd had enough. They blindfolded me, tossed me onto a private jet like garbage, and flew me overnight to the most notorious hellhole in America—Deadwater, Texas.
The car had barely stopped in front of the bullet-riddled town sign when Richard leaned in with a cold warning:
"Listen to me. These people don't show mercy. An ungrateful brat like you? Three days, tops, before they pick your bones clean."
Eleanor stood beside him, dripping with fake concern:
"Willa, just agree to donate your marrow to Celeste, and you'll still be a Sterling. Stay here in this godforsaken wasteland, and you're dead."
I spat blood at her shoes. Eleanor's mask shattered. She ripped off my hood and shoved me hard into the dust.
I pushed myself up slightly, staring coldly at the yellow sand beneath my hands, and shook my head.
I squinted up at the familiar landscape—the rusted water tower, the butcher shop with skinned hogs hanging in the window, the faint smell of gunpowder in the air.
Funny. Nobody ever told me that the place I'd spent twenty years calling home was what rich people called "Deadwater."
Well. Since I'm here anyway.
Nobody's leaving this town alive today.

We were ambushed by rogue wolves and chased all the way to the cliff's edge.
Caleb—my mate, Alpha of Ravenrock Pack—was covered in blood, barely strong enough to carry one person across the chasm.
Forced by the alliance marriage between our packs, he ultimately chose me.
Laura was left behind. The feral rogues tore her apart, piece by piece. They didn't even leave a body.
Three days later, Caleb acted as if nothing had happened and completed our mating ceremony on schedule.
After the wedding, he stripped me of every dignity of my position as Luna. He treated me like a prisoner, a punching bag for his rage, making me pay for Laura's brutal death.
When I learned that my entire pack had been slaughtered, I was locked in a freezing dungeon, wanting nothing more than release.
I used the last of my strength to rip apart our mate bond. But Caleb, driven completely mad, tore me to pieces with his own hands.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day of the rogue attack.
This time, I chose to step back and give the one he truly loved a chance to survive.

One month until the SAT.
Staring at my phone screen—at the pulsing number on "Oracle," the mandatory score prediction app that Elite Prep forced every student to install—I couldn't help but think it was all a joke.
In my previous life, every time I finished a practice test, this garbage system would automatically dock twenty points from my predicted score.
But skip class for a day? The number would mysteriously jump up twenty points.
Back then, I actually believed in this bullshit algorithm. I completely gave up for an entire month, watching that predicted score skyrocket all the way to 1550.
But when I finally logged into College Board to check my real results, I'd scored a pathetic 400.
And that brilliant 1550? It appeared on my stepsister Dahlia's score report instead.
Disgusted that I'd embarrassed the Wright family, my father Harold froze my credit card without a second thought and threw me out of the family estate, clearing the path for Dahlia to claim Grandpa's ten-million-dollar trust fund all for herself.
That night, homeless on the streets, I was cornered by some thugs in a filthy Brooklyn alley and beaten to death.
Lying in a pool of my own blood, fading fast, I heard Dahlia's voice.
"Your GPA's been crushing mine since we were kids. I thought you, the so-called 'Straight-A student,' were supposed to be so smart."
She stood over me, mocking. "Turns out you got played by a prediction app. Pathetic."
That's when it finally clicked. My Oracle prediction system had been completely rigged from the source code—by Dahlia.
I shot up in bed, gasping, my shirt soaked through with sweat. I'd actually gone back in time—one month before the test.
Right now, the Oracle widget glowed eerily on my phone's home screen, displaying a single number: 1350.

I'm Ophelia, a design student about to graduate.
I've been pulling all-nighters at my aunt Millicent's adult store, frantically working on my graduation project.
Aunt Millicent's shop sells all sorts of bizarre stuff - from massage chairs to aromatherapy products, the works. The demo area is constantly busy with customers wanting to try out the newest items.
Seeing me looking like a complete zombie from exhaustion, my aunt handed me a bottle of sleep aromatherapy and a matching eye mask, swearing they'd have me out like a light till morning.
Well, that sleep did more than knock me out cold - it landed me in the biggest mess of my life! A mortifyingly embarrassing situation was about to hit me out of nowhere!

Aston Whitmore thought I loved him. Truth is, his mother bought a year of my life for a million dollars.
He thought those 3 AM study sessions were about redemption and romance across class lines. He didn't know I was never watching his pretty face—I was watching the countdown to my mother's kidney transplant payment.
I froze this trust fund prince's credit cards, cut his internet, and nailed him to that desk until his eyes went bloodshot cramming calculus.
When he turned into a guard dog in front of the whole cafeteria, publicly staking his claim on me, all I was calculating was the date that final payment would clear.
Today, he burst through the mansion door clutching his Yale acceptance letter, ready to give me some grand confession.
I was already thirty thousand feet up on a flight to Zurich, staring at that million-dollar deposit notification, face blank as I pulled out the SIM card, snapped it in half, and tossed it in the trash.
No note. No goodbye.
Just one notarized Service Completion Certificate sitting on that empty desk. Terms fulfilled. Transaction closed.

When I accepted the Global War Photography Award at the ceremony, a reality TV crew crashed through the velvet ropes, their cameras flashing like strobes at a crime scene.
"Ms. Evelyn Vance!"
The host shoved a microphone in my face. "After twenty years of silence, are you still holding a grudge against your father? Just because he saved the neighbor's orphaned child first and left you in that burning building?"
I looked up, past the blinding lights, toward the figure at the edge of the crowd. Robert Bennett.
He pushed through and stepped forward, his calloused hands trembling as they closed around my cold fingers.
"Nora, Kayla's parents didn't make it out. Under those circumstances, I had to get that newly orphaned child to safety first."
His eyes pleaded with me. "You're my daughter. You understand, don't you?"
I stared at those hands imprisoning mine, then pulled my lips into a cold smile and wrenched free.
"You've got the wrong person," my voice was ice. "There's no Nora here. My name is Evelyn Vance."

Lunar Depletion Syndrome. Seven days.
That was my death countdown. And my Alpha mate Kael was still threatening me, demanding I use the last of my life force to save my sister.
On our third anniversary, he had given me a surgical consent form and dissolution papers as gifts.
How laughable.
Three years ago he had said my eyes sparkled like stars. Three years later he wanted me to close them forever.
They all said I had finally matured, learned the spirit of sacrifice expected of an older sister. The joke was, I hadn't been moved by love.
I was just tired.
Why struggle when death was inevitable?
Rather than dying alone in the wilderness, it was better to die on the operating table and become the perfect sacrifice in their story.

My family was born from the abyss, with ancient siren blood in our veins. Our nature demands that every so often, we must feed on a human heart.
So when Caius, playing the perfect lover, slid that spiked martini across the table, I didn't refuse.
The wedding ring he'd slipped off ten minutes ago still sat warm in his suit pocket. As he leaned closer, expensive pregnancy oil—the kind his wife slathered on—mixed with the sour reek of betrayal.
I played along, letting myself collapse against the table as he eagerly pulled out his phone:
"Got her. Delivery to the island tonight. Line up someone hot for me—those stretch marks on my wife are turning my stomach."
He thought he'd made the perfect play, bagged a prize to trade for whatever he wanted.
What he didn't know: we creatures from the deep crave one thing above all—hearts steeped in filthy lies taste sweetest.

"Fuck a whale like that? Dude, I'd need a goddamn forklift to dig through the rolls and find the hole. You could pay me a thousand bucks and I still wouldn't touch it. This isn't a date—this is a fear factor challenge."
Three months ago, those words boomed through the speakers at the frat party, filling every corner of the house.
That night, I was the joke. The fattest pig in their twisted little hunting game.
Three months later, I'm at the podium running for student body president. My waist dropped from 38 inches to 24, and this custom suit fits like a weapon.
Down below, the same people who laughed are staring up at me now. And that asshole who needed the forklift? He's face-down in the dirt like a kicked dog, waiting for me to end him.
My name is Leona. This isn't some crying fat girl's diary anymore. This is how I crushed every bastard who ever stepped on me—and clawed my way to the crown with blood and sweat.

I had just pulled the teddy bear cookies from the oven when my daughter Dora ran into the kitchen.
"Dora, sweetheart! Mommy's special cookies are ready!"
But the moment she saw the cookies, her face went white as a sheet. She screamed "Get away! Get away!" and bolted from the room.
I was completely stunned. Just then, Herbert walked through the door.
"Try one and tell me what's wrong," I said, pointing at the cookies.
Herbert was about to comfort me, but when he learned I'd made these cookies for Dora, his expression turned absolutely bizarre. "You really made these? If you did, I want a divorce. Immediately!"
"What?"
My mother-in-law Athena heard the commotion and came to console me, but the moment she heard these were cookies I'd made for my daughter, she slapped the entire tray out of my hands. "What kind of mother are you?!"
Cookie crumbs scattered across the floor. I stood there in shock, completely bewildered by what was happening.

No one knew I was an addict.
Not to alcohol, not to drugs, but to the rawest, dirtiest kind of union.
To keep up the facade of this respectable job, to stop myself from turning into some desperate, heat-crazed stray begging for a man’s touch on the street, I had to swallow those little blue pills every day.
Until that damn blizzard trapped me with thirty hockey players reeking of sweat and testosterone, and my pills—gone.

"Stop—Daniel, the fk are you doing! I came here to learn to swim, not get fked!"
In the pool, because my kicks were all wrong, Daniel—my husband's cousin—told me to wrap my legs around his waist to "feel the rhythm."
Except I was wearing that scarlet bikini Vincent shoved me into—practically nothing. Even worse, Daniel's rk-hard ck in those thin trunks was jammed right up against my py.
Every time he kicked, that thing dragged right over my ct, like it was about to shove straight inside.

NOVEL ONLY FOR 18+ AGEIf you are not into Adult and Mature Romance/Hot Erotica then please don't open this book.
Carina is a proud rose who hides her thorns to marry Eric just so she can give her unrequited love a happy ending.
She works hard by Eric's side for two years, and after a night of craziness, she accidentally gets pregnant with Eric's child. When she thinks her beautiful dream will finally come true, Carina hears that Eric's first love, Karen, has returned home after living abroad.
It is not until Eric throws the divorce papers in front of her that Carina realizes that she has already lost the game before Karen shows up.
The most painful thing is not the return of Eric’s first love, but Eric's preference to other woman in front of Carina to maintain the beauty of his first love in his memory.
The scandal of her father's incest, two car accidents, jumping into the sea to survive...
How many ups and downs does Carina have to go through before she gets happiness?
Who is the girl in Eric's heart, and who can really be with him till the end?

"I didn’t drug your drink," I said, my voice shaking in the dark.

"Liar," he spat. "You're just like your precious Stewart family. Deception runs in your blood, doesn't it?"

"Believe what you want," I fired back, lifting my chin. "I'm done with all of this. Done with you. I’m not going back anymore!"

His eyes narrowed dangerously in an instant , and he stepped closer, backing me against the wall until I could feel his breath on my face.

"Go ahead and leave," he growled. "But I'll always find you Elena. You're mine."


Elena, married to Reginald through her parents' ruthless machinations, naively believed she could wait for true love, only to be met with his betrayal with his first love Vivian.

Reginald, the ruthless heir to the Vanderbilt empire, thought he could control everything. Until Elena decided on divorce and disappeared, his control twisted into something he couldn't believe.

Five years later, Elena returns with twins in tow, and a bombshell revelation stuns everyone - she is the mysterious CEO of the Phoenix Group, rising from nothing to Vanderbilt's top rival in just two years.

With Reginald claiming her as his and the twins revealed as his, Elena must decide: give in to him or keep fighting for her freedom.

"You're beautiful when you're dangerous," he murmured, ice-blue eyes burning into mine as shadows writhed around my feet.
"I don't need another Alpha who thinks he owns me," I snapped, yet stepped closer, drawn by his raw power.
His hand caught my wrist, thumb tracing the silver chain marks Magnus had left. "Who dared mark what's mine?"
Heat pooled low in my stomach at his possessive words. "I'm not yours."
"Your racing pulse says otherwise." His thumb found my heartbeat, and I couldn't suppress the soft gasp that escaped.
"Let go," I breathed, even as I leaned into his touch.
"Make me." His other hand slid to my waist, pulling me against his hard chest. "Tell me you don't want this."
The lie died on my lips as his scent made my head spin with need.


Nephele survived two years as Magnus's captive Luna, believing she was wolfless trash. While enduring his brutality, her blood was secretly harvested by Ophelia—the woman who raised her. When she finally escapes, she learns the truth: she's the last Shadow Wolf princess, stolen as a baby. Now both want their valuable weapon back.
Half-dead in the forest, she's saved by Kaedan—the boy who once gave her an apple, now the ruthless Frost King. She won't trade one prison for another, but his touch sets her on fire and his protection feels dangerously like home.
Can a broken girl trust the king who could destroy her completely?

Small town girl Giana works hard and doesn’t depend on anyone for help. She struggles with family problems and copes by Riding her horse to her family’s lake to enjoy the peace and quiet. While at work one day she meets a her new student Gloriana. After an eye opening day at work Giana goes back and forth with her emotions but while learning to heal she end up finds what could be her first real love.. But little does she know the man she falls in love with is hiding a huge secret from her.

“Good Evening Madam. I’m Carlos and this is Jose. Is this your home?” said the taller of the two young men.
“Yes, this is my family's home. Can I help you?” Giana spoke softly.
“We are here to deliver this invitation to the Ortega family” Carlos held out an envelope.

Giana wasn’t sure if she should take it but she was Giana Ortega so she carefully took the envelope and thanked them. She watched as both men turned and returned to their vehicle. Giana went back inside and opened the envelope. Her mouth fell open as she read the contents of the envelope.

Who sent the invitation and where’s it to? What is Gianas love interest hiding from her?

A soccer star and a kind-hearted artist find themselves on the same team, but love is a game they never planned on playing.Lucy Martin left her small hometown behind after her divorce. Now she's back, caring for her soccer-crazed nephew while his parents are deployed. She'd do anything to make him happy—including approaching her high school crush and current soccer superstar, Ryker James, for a favor.Nursing an injury, Ryker is laying low at his parents' house until he can rejoin his club and prove he has reformed his bad boy ways. When the sister of an old friend asks him to coach her nephew's soccer team, he should decline. But Lucy intrigues him, and he finds himself unable to disappoint her.Coaching forces them together and sparks fly—on and off the field. Lucy is wary of romance, and Ryker can’t afford a distraction. Before the final whistle blows, will they take a shot at love or forfeit the match?

She needs a fiancé—for only one night.Cassandra Daniels’ parents want to meet her fiancé. They’ve driven hours to have dinner with the man who stole their daughter’s heart. The only problem—he doesn’t exist. She made him up because her mom and dad are concerned about her. Cassandra could tell the truth, but she’s tired of always disappointing her family. Now, she must find a handsome, respectable-looking guy to be her fake fiancé.Troy McKnight can’t believe a gorgeous blonde wants to pretend to be engaged for the night. Why him? She’s his total opposite—impulsive, adventurous, and a risk-taker. He should say no. He’s not the type to go along with crazy schemes and drama, yet he can’t deny her pull. Giving into his attraction, he agrees to be her fiancé. What’s the worst thing that can happen?Turns out Cassandra’s father is a powerful venture capitalist who could make or break Troy's career, so they continue the ruse. But as their fake engagement spirals, their attempts to stop the madness fail. Troy wants to spend more time with Cassandra, but she fears losing her heart…to him. The charade must end, even if she wishes her fiancé for the night could be her perfect husband for life.One Night to Forever series:Book 1: Fiancé for the NightBook 2: The Wedding LullabyBook 3: A Little Bit EngagedBook 4: Love on the Slopes

She’s been a proper princess—but she wants to rebel.After the death of her fiancé, Princess Madeleine knows a loveless, arranged marriage awaits her. She’s resigned to her fate until she meets her intended husband. Crown Prince Enrique is gorgeous, but he comes on way too strong, says the wrong things, and fumbles with apologies. He’s more court jester than Prince Charming. How can she marry him?Enrique might be self-centered and lack social skills, but he’s trying to do better—for himself, his country, and his future wife. Despite their royal union being a political necessity, he wants his marriage with the captivating Madeleine to be a love match. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to woo her. How hard can it be to win his princess bride’s heart?Nearly impossible, he discovers, because Madeleine seems unwilling—or unable—to give him her heart. On their wedding day, instead of exchanging vows, will the royal couple say goodbye?

He was my father's best friend and my legal guardian. I mistook his obsessive control for protection—until the night of my eighteenth birthday, when he shattered that illusion in his study. For eight long years, I lived a double life: his pure, adopted daughter by day, and his dirty little secret by night.
I thought it was love. Then today, a Wall Street alert announced his engagement to a media heiress. While the world celebrated, I finally understood: he was capable of love; he just couldn't marry me.
Now, I've deleted every trace of our eight years together. Standing at the window, I held up my newly ringed finger to the surveillance car he sent to watch me.
"The game is over," I texted him. "P.S. I got married today. And you… you're the last to know."

For eighteen months, I was Adam Sterling’s secret lover.
By day, I taught his seven-year-old daughter French. By night, I warmed his bed.
He gave me a luxury apartment, expensive jewelry—everything but a commitment.
I thought I was his woman… until his ex-wife came back. That’s when I understood—I was just a high-end toy.

Used in front of her, then thrown away like trash.

I fled to Paris, carrying his child.
Now he says he loves me, that it’s real this time.
But the girl who used to get wet from just one look from him?
She's gone.

I died betrayed on my wedding altar.
The silver blade in my sister's hand felt colder than our shared childhood. My "fated mate" Kaelen held me down as she carved out my heart—a sacrifice for his ambition.
In my final breath, I saw him: Fenrir, the half-blood guard I'd scorned, breaking through a wall of spears to reach me. Silver arrows pierced his chest mid-leap, but his dying eyes held no blame—only a loyalty that followed me into darkness.
The Moon Goddess heard my dying vow.
Now I'm back, standing where it all began—the mate choosing ceremony. Kaelen expects me to declare him again. My sister waits to play her victim.
But this time, I walk past the golden Alpha and kneel before the broken slave.
"Rise," I whisper, lifting his chin. "The real Luna has come home."
And when they laugh at my choice, they don't see what I do: the ancient power stirring beneath his skin, the king waiting to be awakened.
Let them call him monster. Let them call me mad.
We'll show them what happens when a betrayed Luna and a fallen king unite.
The altar awaits its true sacrifice—and it won't be me this time.

When Noah betrayed me for fresher meat, he thought the only cost was our eight-year relationship. He never imagined I'd take with me the very soul of his commercial empire—and a secret he would never uncover.
For three years, he hunted for me like a madman, from Los Angeles to Reykjavik, until he finally knelt at my doorstep in Lagos.
"Give me a chance," he begged, "for the sake of our past."
I looked down at the once-unyielding man, our daughter in my arms.
"You lost us," I whispered, my voice calm yet final. "And now your redemption stands right before you, forever out of your reach."

My wedding day was twenty-four hours away. Then, I hacked into my fiancé's messages.
"The father first. Then the bride."
With my life on the line, I made a deal with the devil they call the Ghost—the lethal outcast my own family betrayed.
"Marry me," I offered, "and the Corleone empire is yours."
I walked down the aisle in black. He stood waiting, a promise of vengeance in his eyes. When the bullets flew, he slid a ring onto my finger—still warm from the gun. "Our contract begins now, Isabella. Let's show them what happens when you cross us."
This marriage was supposed to be a lie. But as blood mixes with vows, I'm left wondering… did I just sign a deal for salvation, or a one-way ticket to hell?

The night Julian Wright orchestrated his "rose ceremony," everyone expected a full meltdown.
They were taking bets—would I show up sobbing, or would I skip straight to the roof? After all, everyone knew I was broke. Without Julian's money, I'd be out on my ass.
But when Julian handed that rose to campus queen Chloe Miller, the ballroom doors never opened. No crying. No scene. The whole party lost its main event.
What nobody knew was that while Julian was busy playing bachelor, I was sitting on his half-brother's leather couch in nothing but an oversized white dress shirt. Bare legs tucked under me.
I glanced up at Vincent, catching my lower lip between my teeth. "Your couch is soaked. Where exactly are you planning to sleep tonight?"
Vincent Wright's throat worked. Hard. He dragged his gaze away like it physically hurt. When he spoke, his voice came out wrecked: "Stay put. I'll grab a towel."
A beat. Then rougher: "Need to get you dry."

For six years, I stood by Xavier Sterling through fifty-one failed proposals. Every single time, even with the ring in his hand, one phone call from his "fragile" foster sister was all it took for him to leave me standing alone.
On our six-year anniversary—the night of the fifty-second attempt—he abandoned me at the altar of our dinner table once again. His apology? A glass of strawberry champagne sent to my table. It was her favorite drink. For me, it was anaphylactic poison.
Staring at those pink bubbles, the love finally died.
I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in six years.
"Send the jet," I said. "I'm done playing peasant."
Weeks later, Xavier found himself on his knees, begging the legendary heiress of the Verlin dynasty to save his crumbling company. That's when the horror hit him:
The untouchable queen looking down at him was the same "obedient" girl he had left behind.
I tightened my grip on my new fiancé’s arm and offered Xavier a cold smile.
"Mr. Sterling, your love was always cheap. But your regret? That's a luxury you can no longer afford."

I gave birth to three children for my ruthless mafia husband. And every single time, he tore the newborns from my blood-soaked sheets and handed them straight to my barren sister.
For seven years, I endured electroshock therapy and brutal captivity, reduced to nothing but a breeding vessel to complete their "picture-perfect" family.
He thought he had broken my spirit long ago. That’s why, when the assassins struck, he didn't hesitate to shove me into the line of fire as a human shield.
To protect his true love, he threw my bleeding, wounded body into a freezing water cell as their perfect scapegoat.
He thought tossing me a few scraps of mercy would have me crawling back to him, begging like a dog.
But he was dead wrong.
When the bone-chilling water swallowed me, I didn't panic or thrash. I simply smiled, letting the black depths drag me under.
Domenico could never have imagined that the cold, lifeless corpse he personally sent to the morgue was my perfect escape, seven agonizing years in the making.
He stole my babies. He stripped away every last ounce of my dignity.
So now, I’m going to take away everything he holds dear, piece by agonizing piece: his empire, his power, and the love he arrogantly thought he could control forever.

"911, what's your emergency?"
What came through wasn't words—it was raw, desperate sobbing.
In Oak Creek, a well-respected couple called to report their daughter had died. But when officers stepped through the door, what they found made a veteran sheriff drop to his knees and retch—
Their 36-year-old daughter had become part of the couch.
Her body had fused with decomposing foam, waste, and writhing maggots. Skin adhered to cracked leather. Her stomach contained couch padding and her own feces. She weighed 65 pounds.
Through tears, her parents explained: "She had severe autism... wouldn't let anyone touch her..."
But neighbors told a different story: Nobody had laid eyes on this girl in twelve years.
Then investigators found something beneath the couch—freshly used cleaning wipes.
Someone had crouched beside her decomposing body and methodically cleaned her. For days.
Then who stays that composed in hell?
Grief—or guilt?

As the undisputed queen of the CS department, my world used to consist of nothing but the absolute rationality of zeros and ones.
Until Corbin Hawke, hockey captain with his star-athlete entitlement, bulldozed past my firewall with his Academy Award-worthy act and a "love algorithm" he supposedly pulled all-nighters to write.
I naively believed it was the upgrade I'd been waiting for.
Until this moment.
The shower ran in the bathroom, his carefree humming drifting out, while my iPad lit up beside me. Thirsty texts from some cheerleader flashed across the screen, followed by him running his mouth in the team group chat:
"Easy, fellas. Dumping this frigid nerd at the championship party tomorrow and collecting that five-hundred-dollar bet. That script I copied off Stack Overflow for 200 bucks? She ate that shit up."
Staring at those vile messages, whatever naive warmth I'd stupidly let myself feel got deleted from my system in one clean swipe, leaving nothing but cold, pure logic.
Pissing off a top-tier hacker would be the most catastrophic mistake he'd ever executed.

When Dorian Falco’s stepsister and secret lover was found brutally violated in a slum alleyway, the Mafia Don lost his fucking mind.
And he blamed me.
He dragged me into the manor's dungeon, throwing me to a dozen of his most depraved enforcers.
"Whatever Camilla suffered, you'll pay back a thousand times over."
I collapsed on the freezing floor, sobbing as I desperately clutched his pant leg. "I love you! I would never hurt her! Please, Dorian, believe me!"
Dorian only offered his cruelest sneer.
"Jealous that she gets the real thing? Fine. I'll make you filthier than she ever was."
He locked me in that blood-stained cell for seven days and nights.
His thugs, given carte blanche by the Don, whipped me with chains and violated me without restraint. I screamed Dorian's name in the darkness until my throat shredded.
Seven days later, Dorian returned with a recovering Camilla.
He stood outside the heavy iron door, his voice dripping with mock generosity.
"Crawl out here, Saoirse. Get on your knees, kiss Camilla's shoes, and maybe—just maybe—I'll let you live."
Silence. No answer.
Because three days ago, I had already died in that cell.

In my past life, my twin Phaedra and I were both married off to the Dragon Clan on the same day.
I was given to the eldest son Magnus, while she went to the second son Drakon.
A year later, Phaedra gave birth to a small white dragon with scales like fresh snow. Meanwhile, I delivered nine children—all of them deformed monsters, bearing not a trace of dragon lineage.
Dragon King Typhon, a tyrant obsessed with bloodline purity and beauty, immediately stripped his eldest son of the inheritance rights and decided to pass the throne to his second son, Drakon.
Consumed by rage and humiliation, my husband Magnus descended into madness.
He ordered my nine children dragged into the Shadow Abyss and thrown into boiling blood pools as sacrificial offerings. Then he bound me tightly to the frozen altar pillar.
As the crimson winds howled from the blood pool, he mercilessly cut open my chest and carved out my nine-tailed heart while I was still breathing. I drew my last breath drowning in endless despair and blood.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in the Dragon Clan's towering hall—at the mate selection ceremony that had sealed our fates.
In my daze, Magnus walked straight past me. His eyes brimmed with disgust as he unhesitatingly reached for Phaedra's hand instead. The same woman who had birthed that perfect white dragon in my past life.
But the fool had no idea my children's deformities had nothing to do with me—they came from his own cursed, rotting bloodline.

In my previous life, on the night of our wedding anniversary, my husband Bryan brought his pregnant mistress, Victoria, into our home. Driven to the edge, I slashed my wrists to force him to kick her out.
No one could have predicted her blood sugar would suddenly crash in the freezing storm outside. She collapsed into a flooded ditch and froze to death before anyone found her.
Everyone ruled it a tragic accident, but Bryan decided her blood was on my hands.
Months later, when I went into labor, he abused his position as my doctor to deliberately delay my care. He left me to writhe through dozens of hours of agonizing contractions and severe hemorrhaging until I bled out.
When, with hands slick with my own blood, I begged him to save our baby, he calmly peeled off his soiled surgical gloves. The look in his eyes was merciless.
"Heartbroken?" he sneered. "Good. Take the brat down to hell with you to keep Victoria company."
An icy, suffocating darkness swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the exact night of our anniversary—the very moment Bryan, bringing the freezing rain in with him, protectively guided Victoria through my front door.

I took a submachine gun bullet for Mafia Don Vincenzo Lombardi. I drank poisoned wine for him and bore his heir. To the the entire syndicate, I was his loyal cleaner and lucky talisman.
But the moment he seized ultimate power, he brought her home—my "pure and fragile" adopted sister, Vanessa.
For her, Vincenzo shattered my knees, handed over my title as Donna, and turned my own son against me. He dismissed my broken heart, claiming I was being petty and that she was merely "joining the family."
Yet, the innocent Vanessa was a monster in disguise. She ruthlessly slit her own mother’s throat—the woman who raised me—and locked me in a sub-zero freezer.
When Vincenzo finally pried the heavy iron door open, there was no pity in his eyes. He only offered a cold command: crawl and beg his pregnant new Donna for forgiveness.
Wiping the bloody ice crystals from my lips, I looked at the man I had loved with my life, and rasped my final words: "Vincenzo... I'm dying."

Left at the altar, I married his uncle instead—an icy, untouchable Wall Street titan.
For a full year, he stonewalled my every advance.
Even when I cornered him in sheer lace, his jaw merely tightened. With chilling indifference, he pulled out a sterile latex finger cot:
"If you simply need a release, I can accommodate you."
Humiliated, I drew up divorce papers to end the sham.
But right before I left, I stumbled into a hidden vault beneath his study.
There, laid out on black velvet, was all my "missing" lingerie.
Beside it, pinned under a psychiatric diagnosis for Severe Obsessive Fixation, was a diary filled with frantic scrawl:
[I finally manipulated everything to steal her.]
[But the obsession is eating me alive. I don't dare touch her without gloves. If our bare skin meets, I'll lose my goddamn mind. I'll tear her apart like a rabid dog and lock her in this windowless room where no one else can ever look at her!]

The day I gave birth, I wasn't handed my crying baby, but a tight swaddle of blood-stained cash.
To secure his seat as the new Don, my husband had traded our newborn to Agatha—my own flesh-and-blood aunt, and the young wife of his paralyzed father.
Reduced to nothing more than a convenient incubator, I spent the next four years as a prisoner in my own home.
Ronald issued a ruthless order to his men: if I ever took a single step toward Agatha’s heavily guarded wing to see my son, I was to be shot on sight.
But a mother's desperation knows no bounds.
When my boy's fever spiked dangerously high, I blasted through armed guards and walked through a blazing inferno just to save his life.
Yet, the most fatal wound didn't come from the flames or the shattered glass.
It happened in the ER, when the four-year-old boy I nearly died to save woke up, shoved away my severely burned hands, and screamed for Agatha. He begged me to leave, crying that he just wanted to be a "real family" with his dad and the woman who stole my life.
Staring at the twisted family my husband and aunt had built upon my stolen motherhood, a sudden, icy numbness quieted my shattered world.
"Call me Mom one last time," I whispered through the ash and tears, "and I promise I'll never bother you again."

Three torturous years hauling bodies on the mortuary night shift, and I'd finally scraped together the cash for my brother Charles's heart transplant.
He just waved it off.
"My heart is fine. Mom and Dad didn't die in that gang war, either. I orchestrated the hit. You were the only casualty."
Nearby, my husband, Gerald, casually lit a cigar to deliver his own confession. "I never went bankrupt. 'Laying low' was just my excuse to avoid squeezing into that dingy funeral home dorm with you. I've been at the Long Island estate."
"I was going to punish you for another three years," Charles added, "but the stench of formaldehyde on you is nauseating. We couldn't take it anymore."
I froze, still clutching the credit card. Charles plucked the plastic from my numb fingers and shoved his phone screen in my face. A banking app stared back at me.
Balance: exactly zero.
"My name is still on the joint account," he sneered, tossing the card into the trash. "I drained it this morning. That blood money you made bagging stiffs is being handed out to street junkies as we speak. We'd never touch that filth."
Before the sheer absurdity of it could suffocate me, my parents walked in. Flanked by bodyguards, they kept their distance, eyeing me like a plague rat.
"You thought being the biological daughter gave you the right to ruthlessly bully Violet. We simply wanted to put you in your place."
"Swear you'll never cross Violet again, and you can remain a Falcone," my mother added coolly. "Otherwise, you're dead to us."
In the stifling silence that followed, my phone buzzed. A text from my oncologist.
[Mrs. Castello, the results are back. It's terminal. Do you consent to initiating the hospice and DNR protocols we discussed?]

The agony of flesh being torn apart still burned in my memory.
But I had been reborn.
I tremblingly touched the face in the mirror. Whole, unmarked. Was this real?
Just moments ago I had been struggling on death's edge, and now I stood in an 18-year-old body. Everything felt too surreal.
The entire pack still thought I was that naive Elena, forever living in the shadow of my pureblood sister Sarah. They didn't know I had seen the darkest truth.
The door suddenly burst open, and Sarah walked in carrying a cup of hot tea.
"Elena, don't stress yourself." Her voice carried an air of superiority. "Given your... situation, the Moon Goddess would be more forgiving."
Looking at her flawless smile, I was nearly sick to my stomach. This face, this expression—I had witnessed it countless times in my past life.
"About fated mates and all..." Sarah gently stroked my shoulder. "It's not something you absolutely have to follow. If you find Alpha Lucas too domineering, choosing a gentler Alpha would be a good option too. I'll stand by you either way."
Stand by me? I nearly laughed out loud.
In my past life, I had been blinded by these very words. I had given up other opportunities and chosen my fated mate Alpha Lucas, only to become a tool to mask his true feelings.
The truth hadn't surfaced until Sarah's birthday celebration. When the rogue wolves' claws had targeted her, that man who had claimed to love me for years hadn't hesitated to push me toward the pack.
As I collapsed in a pool of my own blood, the wolf claws having torn deep gashes across my flesh, I watched Lucas cradling Sarah protectively while she clutched her belly in panic.
"Save Sarah! Quickly, save her! The child in her belly..." Lucas had immediately rushed her to the medical room.
No one had paid attention to me lying in a pool of blood. In everyone's eyes, only Sarah had mattered.
"It's all my fault," Sarah had said weakly. "If I hadn't gotten pregnant, Elena wouldn't have been lashing out in jealousy..."
What? She had actually claimed I was lashing out in jealousy?
"Elena, I'm sorry... I'll make it up to you in the next life." Lucas had given me one last look, his eyes full of guilt.
Next life?
You got me killed, and you still wanted me to give you a chance in the next life? Dream on!

On the eve of my mating ceremony, my twin sister and I were abducted by rogues.
My Alpha fiancé and my parents drained our territory's wealth, but only bought back my sister Elara's life.
Upon her safe return, Elara seamlessly took my place, claiming my marking ceremony to become his Luna.
Meanwhile, left to rot in the rogue camp, a wolfsbane-laced blade violently carved out my wolf's essence.
Tossed into the wilderness like rotting meat, stripped of my ability to shift and bear pups, I became the Crescent Pack's ultimate disgrace.
Forsaken by my pack, Silas—Alpha of the Obsidian Pack and my childhood friend—defied the Council’s fury. Under the Moon Goddess, he publicly marked me, sheltering me like an absolute treasure.
But now, in the third year of our bond, I accidentally knocked over a half-sealed Memory crystal in his study.
It projected a hidden dark magic ritual into mid-air, tearing the lie of that kidnapping to shreds in an instant.
In the projection, Silas held my sister's hand, his eyes brimming with a sickening devotion.
"Don't be afraid, Elara. Aria's twin essence is a perfect match. With this, you'll safely carry pups with the strongest Alpha bloodline."
A heartbeat later, Silas approached my blindfolded, bound body.
With zero mercy or numbing agents, he carved out my essence with his own hands, drowning out my agonizing howls.

When I took my last breath, my boyfriend of five years was busy pulling strings to get his new model fling a runway spot.
Nobody knew he used to be a desperate stray I bought out of a dark alley. It started as a three-year contract. I burned millions to pave his way into the fashion elite, handing him top-tier campaigns until he became a global supermodel.
I stayed his dirty little secret so nothing would ruin his shot at "Model of the Year." He swore going public would kill his career, yet he had no problem parading around with young starlets—and letting them humiliate me behind closed doors.
His newest fling even smugly played a recording of him mocking me: "She’s just an ATM for brand deals. How could an uptight, older control freak ever compete with you?"
That was when I finally accepted it: love bought with money is just a transaction.
So, holding my terminal diagnosis, I signed over the last of my assets and quietly bowed out of his glamorous life forever.
I just don't understand one thing: if he was so sick of me, why did he completely lose his mind when he saw my death certificate? Why did he throw away everything he'd built, tearing the world apart to find me like a feral, abandoned dog?

Two months after Derek Prescott blindsided me with a breakup, I ran into him at the Alpha Xi annual formal at St. Jude University.
I'd been about to leave when Blair Covington—his new girlfriend and daughter of a Winthrop Holdings executive—waved me over with a smile that promised trouble.
The table was mid-round of Truth or Dare, everyone half-drunk and looking for blood.
Derek raised his champagne flute with theatrical flair, his arm draped around Blair—apparently his golden ticket to finally belonging.
"The smartest thing I ever did in my last relationship? Cutting loose the dead weight—some townie girl who was only dragging me down. Now I'm with someone who actually understands what it means to have standards."
Snickers rippled around the table. Every set of eyes swiveled toward me—the nobody ex-girlfriend with no family name to drop.
I didn't flinch. Just rattled the ice in my glass and gestured lazily for the game to continue.
When it was finally my turn, someone threw out a loaded question, voice dripping with fake sweetness: "So Cordelia, did you ever hide anything from your ex?"
"Actually, yes." I met Derek's eyes without blinking.
"Oh? What was it?"
"I hid where I really come from." My voice was flat, bored. "My family's old money. Serious old money."

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."