1312 Book(s) Related to this time i ll be sweeter

"You good-for-nothing should get out and save your food rations. I'll use your truckload of supplies for you!"

The man-eating scarlet spores swept through the town. My good brother locked the security door tightly and locked me in the corridor filled with blood mist.

He stared intently at me through the peephole, waiting to see the horrific sight of my internal organs being drained by the fungus.

But a second before I was devoured by the spores, I hid in my personal space and with a single thought drained the last drop of water and every grain of rice from the room.

Three days later, in this impregnable "vacuum tomb".

When he was so thirsty that he swallowed blood, and knelt on the ground desperately pounding on the door.

I kicked the door open, tied him up with nylon rope, and hung him upside down in the blood-red storm outside the window.

I thought I'd signed up for an immersive dating show.

Turns out it was a 99.9% death rate, globally livestreamed horror game.

And me? Half-blind without my contacts, desperate to go viral, I somehow talk my way through a death game like it's a romance.

I mistook blood for ketchup, human eyeballs for sashimi, a murderous child ghost for a kid who just needed some love.

Worst part? I fell for the guy running the place, the one who could kill you without blinking, and tried to get his number within the hour.

My teammate hissed at me, shaking. "You wanna die, fine, just don't take us with you!"

I just waved him off. It's a dating show. Relax.

A fire broke out at the fraternity party. I desperately pushed Mia, my brother's girlfriend, out of harm's way, only to get pinned down by a falling beam myself. My brother Liam chose to save Mia first, kicking away my oxygen mask as he left. Mia then locked the door, leaving me to burn alive.

Yet they thought I was throwing a tantrum and playing hide-and-seek. They called me "toxic" and "attention-seeking" on social media, even freezing my credit cards.

Betrayed and killed by the wolf king in my past life, I came back from hell. On the wedding day, I turned down his proposal without hesitation. I made a blood pact with his greatest enemy—the vampire king. Together, we avenged my child and family, and built a new future in the dark.

I was three months pregnant when I found out my husband had been cheating with the cousin I had kindly taken in.

My son said he wanted her to be his mom, then shoved me down the stairs and caused me to miscarry.

The day I lost the baby, my husband sat beside my bed. His voice was gentle, soft enough to lull someone to sleep.

“Relax,” he said. “You’ll forget all this pain.”

I closed my eyes and let him plant layer after layer of hypnotic commands in my ear.

“When you wake up, you’ll be an obedient wife.”

Now I watch them living happily ever after as a family of three.

They think I’m nothing but an empty shell.

They have no idea that I’ve already posted this plea for help online:

[HELP] My cousin is wearing my sexy nightgown to seduce my husband, I caught them cheating, and my son calls her “Mom.” But I just feel numb. What am I supposed to do?

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

I overheard my husband tell his business partner, “I let Aria get pregnant for fun, not like I ever planned on letting them live, the babies make perfect specimens for Vivian’s research.”
The same day I discovered I was pregnant for the fifth time.
I used to believe he was my protector.
This time, I gathered proof of everything he’d done and made sure the truth destroyed him before I started my new life.

My daughter begged me, tears in her eyes, to take her to gymnastics camp—just the two of us.

I thought it was her way of proving she loved me.

I was wrong.

In that hotel room in Toronto, I overheard my husband's voice—with another woman.

“Don't worry, Sophia will find a way to stay a few more days. I promised her that blue limited-edition leotard.”

“Her body now… after giving birth, it's ruined.”

In that moment, my world collapsed.

I thought I'd only been betrayed by my husband.
But the daughter I raised with everything I had—she was his accomplice.

The child I nurtured with my own hands kept clearing the path: so that woman could sleep in my bed, wear the lingerie I could no longer fit into, sneer in front of the mirror at every single mark my body earned from bringing life into this world.

I once believed that giving up my career would be enough to hold my family together.

But they joined hands to tell me: my sacrifice was never honored. It was a joke.

When a woman who has given everything to her family finally wakes up—

Her revenge will make every single one of them remember exactly what they did.

My name is Nora Monroe. Thirty-two weeks pregnant, ready to pop anytime.
This morning, my husband Everett left town, leaving me and my cat, Piper, alone at home.
Deep into the night, a strange woman called. Her voice was gentle, apologetic—she said my cat Piper had somehow wandered downstairs. She was severely allergic to cat dander and couldn't bring her up to me. I grabbed my coat, ready to head down, when the baby suddenly gave me a vicious kick. The pain sent me collapsing back onto the sofa, unable to move.
The woman on the phone urged me over and over. I looked up, my eyes falling on the corner of the living room.
Piper was sitting right there, staring unblinkingly at me...

To fulfill a dying comrade's final request, I spent twelve years living in the shadows to protect his daughter. I took bullets for her, laundered her black-market assets, and eventually handed over my entire stake in the security empire. In her eyes, I am her father’s murderer; in mine, she is a mission—the only flicker of light left in my life. Until that fateful banquet, when she personally shoved me into the sights of mercenaries. Watching my blood bloom across her dress, she hooked her arm around my nemesis and ordered coldly, "Clean it up." In that moment, twelve years of devotion collapsed, and a heart that beat only for her finally learned to freeze. This time, I’ve decided to personally destroy the monster I raised.

Jonathan’s way of loving was always paying in silence. After we broke up, he cleared my shopping cart, stocked up enough makeup remover to last me three years, trying his best to make up for it. But during those three years when I willingly waited for him to propose, he never said a word. Until one day, he found a small note I’d written in pencil three years ago in that wedding planning book: “It’s okay, I can wait.” He cried all night staring at that line, and the next day, he bought 17 copies of the same book. On the title page of each one, he wrote neatly: “Wait for me.” It turns out, the stupidest person takes three years just to learn to say “I love you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I died from campus rumors and elite prejudice in my last life.
Reborn, I no longer choose to explain. I collect every timestamp, fingerprint and hidden deal.
I expose my traitorous boyfriend, fake weak rival, and the school’s biased protection of the privileged.
With ironclad proof, I overturned all injustice and let every hypocrite pay the price.

To help his life-saving benefactor, he personally pressed a pregnant me on the operating table to draw bone marrow.
I cried and begged him, "James, I'm pregnant. It's your child. Don't do this to me..."
But he had a look of disgust in his eyes. "Elizabeth, you'd lie about something like that just to get out of helping Mandy?"
Until there was a river of blood in the operating room and that unformed child turned into a pool of bloody water, he finally panicked.
Later, when he knew that the person who saved him in the fire ten years ago was actually me, he held my ashes and knelt outside the operating room for a full three days.

For the third time, Kael fled before the wedding—this time to deliver medicine to the neighbor girl he grew up with.
As compensation, the pack elders offered me two chests of rare ore and the deed to an island.
Someone, still hopeful, called Kael on speakerphone.
His careless voice echoed through the hall:
“Why bother with compensation? Ella loves me so much; she’ll come around as soon as I go back and sweet-talk her a little.”
“Sophia’s health is what matters now. Once she recovers, I’ll just hold another ceremony for Ella.”
The elders tried to explain, but the surrounding werewolves were all waiting to see the show—waiting to see how much humiliation I would swallow.
Just like the first two times.
But I’d had enough. And I’d lost all interest in Kael.
I kicked over the chest of ore and let my gaze fall on Kael’s uncle.
Then, I smiled.
“I heard the old Alpha left a will: whoever can claim me… becomes the next Alpha.”

My brother Miles blames me for our parents' deaths.
So he chose to adopt the deaf Vivian instead of keeping me.
Later, I met Sullivan.
He gave me a grand confession. He chose me, resolutely.
He also said I hired someone to assault Vivian—that I didn't deserve sympathy.
Five years after being cast out of my family, a dismembered female body was found inside a carnival mascot costume.
Miles, now a police officer, led the investigation. Sullivan, now a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy.
They saw the bloodstained hearing aid and immediately called Vivian.
"I'm fine. I just saw the news—some big case. Should we tell Sis to be careful too? What if something happens to her?"
They refused, almost in unison.
"The moment she killed our parents, she stopped being my sister."
"She was jealous of you. She did too many terrible things. If she's dead, she had it coming."
My soul hovered in the air, watching them. I laughed until I cried.
But when they found out the victim was me—
Why did they both go mad?

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy said he wants to give Seraphina a real family."
My mind just... blanked out.
I opened the message myself, and there it was—a whole year of secrets I never even knew existed.
So he wants to make things right with his old flame? Fine.
Then I get to take back everything I ever gave him.

On my wedding day, my mother walked in and took my gown off the rack. Then she handed it to Coralie — the sister my parents adopted, the one I've given half my magic to every month for five years.
The High Priest says my stars are cursed. So Coralie will marry Roland in my place. My fiancé. The man I nearly died healing.
My father tells me to think of the bigger picture. Roland won't even look at me. Not one of them looks back as they leave me alone in that room.
They think I'll stand here and take it, like I always have.
They don't know about the black whistle in my sleeve — the one a dying man pressed into my hand at the edge of the Abyss. Blow it, he said, and I'll come for you.
I've been good for too long.
I'm done.

“Why is Elara dying on my stream?”

Sienna Vale laughed in front of half a million viewers while my heroine glitched on-screen, wearing the ring I designed and speaking the line I wrote.

Caleb didn’t ask if I was okay. He shoved the emergency laptop toward me and said, “Fix it before the investors panic.”

So I opened the live build.

But instead of saving his launch, I patched one line into the game credits:

Created by Maya Reed.

Top designer Emma Carter catches her boyfriend cheating with her best friend.
In the fallout, she marries the legendary business tycoon Liam Hayes, a man rumoured to avoid women entirely.
As he loosens his tie and walks toward her, her pulse stutters.

Where is his vow of abstinence? *
All I see is a hungry beast that’s just been awakened. *

My name is Mira. I am the princess of the Nightwood Pack, yet I live like a slave.

Everyone believes I am the cause of my mother’s death. My father, the Alpha, hates me for it. While my twin sister is loved, cherished, and treated like a princess, I am punished, humiliated, and forced to suffer in my own father’s house.

On the night of our eighteenth birthday, Alphas from different packs arrived to celebrate the Blood Moon Festival. That was the night I found my mate, Ashur, the strongest Alpha ever known. I was finally happy. I believed my suffering was over.

That same night, I gave myself to him, and we shared a one-night bond.

But by morning, everything changed.

After my father filled Asher’s ears with lies, calling me a curse, Asher rejected me publicly before the entire pack. As if that pain wasn’t enough, he chose my twin sister as his Luna and left me shattered.

Weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant with Asher’s child.

Then an old wizard appeared with a terrifying prophecy:
The child growing inside me would one day kill my sister, and to stop the prophecy from coming true, I must be killed.

"Tell me I'm sexy," I whispered, grabbing Ryder Lancaster's shirt. "Tell me you want me... even if I'm your nephew's wife."
Ryder's jaw tightened. "Iris... if you keep looking at me like that, I won't stop."
On their third wedding anniversary, Iris catches her husband in bed with his male assistant. The man who claimed he couldn't touch her was never sick. He married her only to hide that he was gay, steal her late father's company, and abandon her after taking everything she owned.
Heartbroken, Iris ends up in the bed of the last man she should ever want... her husband's powerful uncle.
Ryder offers her a wager.
Three days.
If Iris calls him first, she belongs to him on his terms. If she doesn't, he'll walk away forever.
Iris is certain she'll win.
Ryder is certain she'll lose.
But every step Iris takes to reclaim her father's company and destroy the man who betrayed her pushes her closer to Ryder, bringing their forbidden affair dangerously close to the light.
When every secret is finally exposed, will Iris reclaim her father's empire... or lose her heart to the one man she was never supposed to love?

For three years, I was Julian Vance’s perfect shadow.

By day, I was the flawless executive secretary who kept his multi-billion-dollar empire running without a single hitch. By night, I was his secret, contract wife a convenient arrangement kept hidden behind the closed doors of his penthouse to satisfy a dying man's wish. I loved him in the quiet darkness, enduring his coldness, his family’s venom, and the cruel taunts of his elite childhood friend, Victoria.

But three months ago, the illusion shattered. When I was trapped in a hospital room losing our unborn child, Julian was on a red carpet with Victoria. His message to me through his assistant? “Do not interrupt important business meetings with minor domestic emergencies.”

That was the day Vivian Lane died.
The moment our three-year contract expires at midnight, I slide two papers across his mahogany desk: our signed divorce decree and my immediate resignation.

Julian scoffs, arrogant and completely convinced I’ll be crawling back to him within a month when my bank account dries up. He thinks I'm a penniless outcast with nowhere to turn.

He has no idea that while I was playing his submissive secretary, I was quietly building my own foundation. Now, his biggest corporate clients are jumping ship to my new boutique firm, and an international venture capital network has just hired a legendary, anonymous digital strategist known as "The Cipher" to engineer a hostile takeover of Vance Enterprises.

That strategist is me.
As his empire begins to bleed out brick by brick, the billionaire who once looked down on me finally drops to his knees. But I’m no longer his secretary, and I’m no longer his wife. If he wants me back, he’ll have to survive the ruin I’m about to bring to his doorstep.

In a world where love is a dangerous game, Leila Castor finds herself charmed by the devil himself. Ben Maloney, with his alluring facade and sweet promises, hides an evil truth that threatens Leila's life. When he betrays her, leaving her to choke on her blood, Leila's thirst for revenge knows no bounds.

And luckily fate grants her a second chance, And discovers she has been taken back in time two months before her death! Will she rewrite the wrongs done to her or set out on a path of retribution against those who wronged her?

For five years of marriage, Sibel devoted herself completely to her husband and son, even giving up her own career for their family.
Then she was rushed to the hospital with acute cholecystitis, writhing in pain. Her husband arrived with their son, only to walk right past her and rush to the woman he cherished most, his adopted sister.
"She’s terminally ill. You should take care of her," her husband said.
Her son added, "You’re only Mom because you cook and do housework."
In that moment, Sibel realized that her five years of sacrifice had been nothing but a joke.
She filed for divorce, walked away with nothing, and returned to the world of medical research. But just as she was ready to start over, she was framed, thrown into detention, and nearly left to die in a pool of blood.
Everyone thought Sibel was nothing without a man.
But when she returned as a world class medical expert, when the truth was finally exposed, and when the man who once treated her like she was worthless knelt before her with red eyes full of regret...
She looked down at him and said,
"You once said I wasn't good enough for you. Now you're not good enough for me."

TRIGGER WARNING!!!
This story contains themes of obsession, possessiveness, stalking, emotional manipulation, and psychological control. It is unapologetically intense and unsettling in all the right (and wrong) ways.
Be guided.


Eight years ago, Shannon watched her stepbrother get handcuffed and taken to jail for a crime she committed.

He took the fall for it without hesitation. Not because he was noble. God, no. But because obsession looks a lot like love when you're seventeen and scared.

After that night, she never went to visit him in prison, nor did she reply to any of his letters.

She buried him with the past and went on to live a peaceful life without him.

But the past never forgets.

Eight years later, when she was living a simple, peaceful life, had a decent job and a husband who loved her deeply, Shannon's past came knocking at her door.

Strange things start happening... Doors left open. Favorite things mysteriously replaced. Eyes she can't see but feels always watching her.

Everyone says she's paranoid. Everyone says He is still in jail.

No one believes her when she says she had a STALKER.

Her judgment is already upon her because, now, HE is out of prison. And the first place he goes is her doorstep, because he says she owes him her life. And he's come to collect what's his.

How far can Shannon run from a man who never stopped loving her in the most terrifying way?

A man who'd kill anyone, even her husband, just to make her his?

HIS NAME IS KENAI... The Stalker You Never Want To Have.


If you enjoy slow-burn stalker dynamics and morally gray characters, this one's for you.

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."

In my past life, my rival and I were both top-tier Wall Street tycoons. I gave up my entire fortune for my fiancée, only to be set up by her and her lowly bodyguard, dying a miserable death in a pool of blood.

Reborn on the night of our engagement bidding, she sat on her high horse, demanding I hand over my hundred-billion-dollar empire.

All of New York was waiting for me to wag my tail like a good dog and sign the papers just to win her over.

But what she didn't know was...

The prestigious family she was so proud of was nothing but a rotting shell. The moment I cut off the secret cash flow keeping them afloat, her so-called "true love" wouldn't survive a single day in this vanity fair.

She thought she was choosing a pure, noble romance. In reality, she just bought a one-way ticket to hell.

My fiancée Chloe dumped me, a veteran, for Seth's multi-million dollar fortune. As she left, she threw $100,000 at me with contempt in her eyes.
Little did I know that while I was using the money to stockpile weapons and food and upgrade the steel fortress, she and Seth were squandering it all in their luxurious villa.
Seven days later, the zombie outbreak occurred. I was enjoying steak and red wine in the fortress, while that despicable couple was slapping each other over a mouthful of dirty water in the ruins.
Thanks to my ex-girlfriend's generous sponsorship, I lived like a king in the apocalypse.

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?

The day I achieved telepathic breakthrough, I heard my fiancée's inner voice telling me to "get lost."
In the restaurant, she abandoned me as I coughed up blood to embrace another man.
I signed the death contract for the meat grinder frontline, determined to die, but when bone spikes pierced through my chest, my telepathy revealed the truth—she pushed me away not because she didn't love me, but because she had been bitten by a zombie three years ago.

When my own father pinned me against the reef and ripped my scales off one by one, my sister buried herself in my fiancé's arms and cried. "Don't blame my sister. She was born worthless."
Right there in front of everyone, they decided to offer me to the Sea God as a sacrifice. They couldn't even be bothered to send anyone to see me off.
But when I was dragged, half-dead, into the black prison, what came for me wasn't death.
It was the Sea God himself.
He wiped the blood from my tail and said, "Good. Let them keep piling on their sins. I'll make them drop to their knees and beg for your forgiveness."

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement with an Alpha I'd never met face-to-face. Pushing open the jewelry store door, I found my fiancé Kane spoiling his childhood sweetheart Briar, who was trying to snatch my mother’s ring. "Security! Get this stray out of here!" Briar screamed, pointing at me. When I revealed my identity, Kane sneered coldly: "What bullshit pact? I would never marry a woman like you." Briar snatched the ring and threw water at my face: "Kneel down and beg me to give it back!" When I fought back, Kane exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!" Four warriors pinned me down as Briar laughed cruelly: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!" They stepped on my hand while Kane watched coldly, even urging her on: "Hurry up, let her learn her lesson." Just as she was about to chop off my finger with a knife, the door suddenly burst open—"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?"

Ethan and I grew up together. We were supposed to exchange rings at the altar, make our vows. But on our wedding day, he left me standing there to go save his so-called suicidal ex. Almost killed my parents from the shame.

Four years later, I'm back in Portland with my husband. The city isn't that big, and of course fate decides to throw him in my path again.

He has the nerve to ask me to be his mistress.

I hold up my left hand, the ring catching the light. "Are you blind?"

I was once the adopted son of Eric Miller, the Don of the Miller Family.
My future was supposed to be simple—loyal to the Don, respected by the Family, destined to inherit power.
But I carried a secret that turned me into a freak in his eyes.
A forbidden love.
When Eric found the diary where I had hidden my feelings for him, I cried and apologized again and again.
It didn’t matter. The disgust in his eyes never changed.
He sent me away—exiled to a remote country under the watch of his men.
From there, I heard the news of his wedding.
I saw the way he looked at Julia—soft, full of love. And in a moment of madness, I spent every last dollar I had and flew to Thailand for gender reassignment surgery.
Nights after the surgery were filled with pain from the silicone implants pressing against my skin.
But even after becoming a woman, I still couldn't win Eric’s love.
Just when I finally let him go, he suddenly bought me a ticket back to America.
He said he wanted me to attend his fifth wedding anniversary with Julia.
And when he saw Lily in my arms, he froze.
“Your daughter?”

I was dying. To buy myself just a few more days, I had no choice but to sell my body for medicine money.
I never expected the man who bought me was Michael. My ex-husband.
He threw the cash in my face, humiliated me, forced me through every degradation he could think of.
All because he hated me for leaving when he was critically ill.
What he never knew was that, the heart beating in his chest…
Was mine.

I severed our Mate Bond with my own hands.

In that moment, I lay unconscious, bleeding under the silvery moonlight, while he knelt some distance away, clutching his chest as if he had been hollowed out.

Once, he shielded me from nine silver stakes, only to crown another woman; he placed my protective pendant around her neck, then cast me into a water prison. He professed, “I love only you,” yet stood outside my hospital room, nursing her child as if it were his own.

I loathed him, resolved to leave.

I believed this was the end.

Little did I know, as I thought I had finally gained my freedom, he would chase after the debts of blood and regret, intruding upon the new life I was rebuilding—

To redeem a love that no longer sought redemption.

In my past life, we were camping in the wilderness area of a state park when my best friend handed out "lucky charms" to the whole group. Charms she'd secretly packed full of wildlife attractant.

A wild boar knocked me to the ground outside the cabin door. Its tusks tore into my stomach. I pounded on the wood with both fists, screaming. "Help! Open the door!"

Inside were my boyfriend of two years and the best friend I'd been quietly supporting for just as long. Autumn Warren.

"I'm so sorry, Brynn." Autumn's voice broke into sobs, but her weight stayed pressed hard against the door. "There are boars everywhere. We open that door, we're all dead."

"Just hold on! I'm calling 911!" Wyatt Fletcher's voice rang out with the kind of conviction that cost him absolutely nothing.

I paid for that trip. I'd fallen behind because I'd stopped to pull Autumn along.

And they stood on the other side of that door, my blood soaking into the dirt, and locked me out.

I open my eyes. I'm back. It's the day we left.

My mother was dying, and I—the fallen heiress of the Sterling family—had no choice but to ask my husband for the $200,000 stipulated in our prenuptial agreement, less than a week after our wedding.

He transferred the money without a word.

But that night, the way he looked at me changed.

"So the Sterling family is drowning in fraud scandals. I guess greed really does run in the blood."

From that day on, Theodore never looked me in the eye again.

He started openly parading other women at social events, letting everyone mock me as a gold-digger who only married him for money.

Today is my birthday. I'm sitting in the emergency room with unbearable stomach pain.

Meanwhile, Theodore is throwing a party for his new girlfriend.

Clutching the $185 emergency room bill, I call him.

"Theodore, let's get a divorce."

"Here we go again. How much are you trying to extort from me this time?"

My husband and I couldn’t get pregnant after we got married, and we really wanted a baby of our own,

We tried IVF, and after three failed rounds I finally got pregnant,

But then my husband and my parents suddenly started pressuring me to get an abortion...

That admissions season, Lily — a poor student who couldn't even clear the state university cutoff — insisted on dragging my two childhood friends off to the worst community college in the state, just so she wouldn't have to go alone.

Ethan held an offer from Yale. Ryan had been accepted to Stanford. Yet the two of them, as if under a spell, were ready to throw away those schools just to follow her.

I wore myself out trying to talk them down. All I got back was: You look down on Lily. You're just jealous.

Behind their backs, I contacted counselors, admissions offices, and their parents, and clawed their spots back one by one just before the deadline.

Lily went to that community college alone. Six months later, she jumped from the roof of her dorm.

Ethan and Ryan handled her funeral, then came back and tied me to the roof of a thirty-six-story building.

"If you hadn't stopped us from going with Lily, she never would have been bullied there."

"You're so capable, aren't you? Then go down and keep her company."

They pushed me over the edge without a flicker of hesitation.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at the start of college application season.

This time, I won't save them.

In my previous life, my assistant—whom I treated like a little sister—personally handed me a cup of poisoned honey lemon water that destroyed my career.

The man I loved with all my heart ran off with every penny I had.

I died like a stray dog on the streets, with no one to claim my body.

Meanwhile, those two backstabbers took my money, sang my songs, and basked in the spotlight while thousands of fans cheered them on.

I died with so much resentment in my heart.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at that exact moment—when my assistant was handing me that poisoned honey lemon water.

This time, I was determined to make them pay the price!