1212 Book(s) Related to wolf like me synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sloane, where there's smoke, there's fire. If you're really clean, why is it only burning you?"
In my last life, when those fabricated hotel records went viral on the company Slack, I scrambled to explain. I cried. I begged.
What I got was a suspension, a blacklist, and a foster mother who died on a hospital bed because I could no longer pay for her meds.
The person who started it all? Walked right over my corpse into a partnership.
Then I opened my eyes—and I was back. Three days before the promotion list dropped.
I stared at the pixelated "explicit screenshot" on my screen, and I didn't cry. Didn't rage.
I just smiled and hit screen record.
This time, I'm not proving I'm clean.
I'm proving they're guilty.

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.

In bed, he gripped my hips, whispering, "Principessa." In public, he was Cosimo—the ruthless mafia don who dismissed me with an icy, "Piccola."
For three years after he bought me, he never touched me. But a year ago, when Caterina returned, everything changed. He became a man possessed, tearing my dresses to shreds in the dead of night, claiming me with wild fury. He even promised to marry me in seven days.
On a storm-drenched afternoon, clutching my positive pregnancy test, I rushed to his private club to surprise him.
But as my hand touched the doorknob, Cosimo’s cold warning drifted through the door.
"Marcellino, know your place as a double. My things—especially Serenella—are strictly off-limits."
My blood ran cold. I peeked through the gap.
Cosimo sat on the sofa, completely indifferent. And by the pool table stood a man with a face identical to his.

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.

My brother was jealous after I won a $50 million lottery jackpot, so he tricked me into believing an extreme ice-age apocalypse was coming.
Because I trusted him, I spent every last dollar my parents and I had—fortifying the house and stockpiling supplies.
Two weeks later, he told me that there was no coming apocalypse. It had all been a lie.
Just when I was drowning in despair, hail started falling in the middle of summer.
The deep freeze apocalypse had really begun.

"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.

When her marriage comes to an abrupt end, Sparkle tries to channel her pain into saving a dog that has been condemned to die after being involved in a terrible accident, but after a few weeks, she makes the horrible discovery that the dog she saved is, in fact, no dog at all. She saved a badly injured wolf she has mistaken for a husky. He's a powerful alpha who is very ruthless to humans, and Sparkle is no exception, or is she? Find out what becomes of Sparkle when Dalton finally regains his strength and reclaims his pack.


I saved a dying husky from being euthanized, not knowing I was bringing a billionaire Alpha werewolf into my bed. My husband divorced me because he thought I was infertile, kicking me out for a dog he was allergic to. I had nothing left but the injured animal in my backseat. I nursed him, bandaged him, and poured my broken heart out to him. But one morning, the dog was gone. In his place stood Dalton Roux, the most powerful Alpha in the city. He didn't just thank me. He kidnapped me to his mansion, claiming it was for my "protection." "You saved my life," he whispered, his voice dropping an octave as his hands roamed my curves. He pinned me against the wall, his massive erection pressing against my thigh, growling possessively.

At the Jones family’s political marriage gala, the New York mafia’s most public “celebration”, I, Isabella Rossi, who was a bargaining chip, had been Donovan Jones’s wife for five years.
He was the world’s top perfumer, the kind of man who could coax a scent from his fingertips that made people go mad-and yet, to him, I was a flower with no fragrance at all.
Five years of this marriage, and he had never touched me. The villa’s master bedroom was always his alone, while I was nothing but the “Mrs. Jones” in name-a decorative prop trapped in a luxury cage, so insignificant that even the servants dared to look down on me in secret.
When both sets of parents pressured us for a baby, he wrapped an arm around a famous model and sneered,
“A woman raised off a template like you is only good for taking care of a kid, not for sleeping with.”
He left me behind in the bridal suite-with his younger brother.
Then he took his new fling out street-racing.
That same night, a video of him and the model hooking up in a car shot straight to the top of the entertainment headlines.
And I became New York media’s favorite punchline: the “DISCARDED TROPHY WIFE.”
Just when everyone thought I’d spend the night alone, guarding an empty bed,
I crooked a finger at that eight-pack, absurdly good-looking brother-in-law of mine.
Donovan, you’re right-I am pretty suited to “taking care of a kid.”
Just not a baby. A 6'2", baby-faced college boy.

"NEXT DOOR is full of completely unexpected twists—you will read it on the edge of your chair. It is Blake Pierce at his best! Another masterpiece of suspense and mystery. I highly recommend it to the permanent library of all readers that appreciate an excellent thriller, full of psychological suspense and with a completely unexpected ending. This is the first in what promises to be another excellent series. I can hardly wait to read the sequel."--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto MattosA NEIGHBOR’S LIE (A Chloe Fine Mystery) is book #2 in a new psychological suspense series by bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has over 1,000 five-star reviews. FBI Violent Crimes Division Special Agent Chloe Fine, 27, still reeling from the secrets of her past, finds herself thrown into her first case: the murder of a nanny in a seemingly perfect suburban town.Immersed in a world of secrets, of unfaithful couples, of pretense and artifice, Chloe soon realizes that anyone—and everyone—may be guilty. Yet at the same time, with her own father still in jail, she must battle her own demons and unravel her own secrets, which threaten to bring her down before her own career even begins.An emotionally wrought psychological suspense with layered characters, small-town ambiance and heart-pounding suspense, A NEIGHBOR’S LIE is book #2 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night. Book #3 in the CHLOE FINE series will be available soon.

LISA
I was supposed to hate Tobias Thomas. Everyone else did.
The arrogant quarterback with the perfect smile, the cruel mouth, and a talent for ruining lives—especially mine.
So I made a plan. My bully would fall in love with me.
He would finally understand what it felt like to be the one left bleeding.
I just never imagined I’d be the one who needed redemption too.
Somewhere along the way, I forgot revenge had an expiration date.
I fell for him too.
And for eight months, I loved the boy who wasn’t supposed to have a heart.
Until one accident erased me from his life.
Now he looks at me like we’ve never met.
Like he’s never kissed me.
Like he never begged me to stay.
Everyone says this is my chance to move on.
Maybe they’re right.
Because making Tobias Thomas fall in love with me once nearly broke me.
Making him do it again?
That might destroy me.
Especially if he ever remembers why I wanted revenge in the first place.

TOBIAS
Everyone keeps telling me I’ve forgotten pieces of my life.They’re right.
Because every time I look at Lisa…
It feels like my heart knows something my mind doesn’t.
She avoids me.
Lies to me.
Looks at me like I’m holding the weapon that ruined her life.
Yet I can’t stop chasing someone I don’t even remember.
Not when I keep dreaming about a girl whose face I can’t quite see.
Not when my hands know exactly how she fits against me…
Even if my mind insists we’ve never touched.
Something happened before my accident.
Something everyone is hiding.
And if I have to tear my own life apart to remember it…
Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

She thought it was nothing more than a one-night mistake — not knowing she had long since become an obsession he couldn't shake.

Emily was just an ordinary woman, yet she stumbled into Evan's world by chance. He was cold, domineering, and untouchable — and yet, time and again, he lost control in front of her. He said he needed to restrain himself, yet he appeared at her most vulnerable moments again and again. He said he felt nothing for her, yet in the instant she trembled and broke into tears, he gently pressed his forehead against hers — "I'll admit it. What I feel for you is different."

But who, exactly, was the "you" he spoke of?

Her name, her body, every sound she made — he said they were identical to someone else's.

Was she a substitute? Or the one he truly wanted, buried somewhere deep inside him?

As desire and secrets became entangled, as the closeness of flesh could no longer silence the questions in her heart, Emily began to realize — this man's reasons for drawing near to her may never have been impulse alone, not from the very beginning.

"Are you really Emily?"

He was born into extraordinary wealth, admired by all.
Until the woman he loved betrayed him. After years together, they parted ways.
Five years later, their paths crossed again. He sat at a bar with another woman in his arms, but the moment he saw her, rage flashed in his eyes.
"You betrayed me. What gives you the right to show your face here?"
She nodded and walked away.
He lost his mind searching for her.
Only then did he learn why she had really left.
He pulled her close, arms tight around her. "Marry me. Whatever burdens you carry, I'll carry them with you. Whatever tears fall, I'll wipe them away."

Accidental Pups×Contract Marriage × Multiple Identity × Drama × Vengeance & Betrayal × One-Night Stand × Billionaire/CEO × Brave Heroine × True & Fake Heiress

Warning: This is a slow-burn romance. The love story develops gradually through trust, healing, family, and shared secrets.

“He doesn’t trust anyone.”

“I know.”

“Then why does he trust you?”

I don’t have an answer.

I only know that when I found little Cassian bound and abandoned, I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t know then that he was the son of Alistair Voss—the cold, powerful billionaire who trusted no one.

But Cassian trusted me.

And that changed everything.

When Alistair asks me to stay for his son, I refuse. Until he makes an even more shocking offer: marriage.

What begins as an arranged marriage slowly becomes something neither of us expected. Beneath the same roof, Cassian becomes the family I never knew I needed, while Alistair begins to see the woman behind my guarded heart.

But I didn’t return to Verona simply for a new life.

Five years ago, I lost my memory. My identity was stolen. Someone betrayed me, and someone wanted me gone.

Now the past is catching up with us.

And when it finally does, I may discover that Cassian chose me for a reason no one ever expected.

Some loves take time. Some truths take even longer to uncover.

When Travis, Serena's mate, picked her sister over her, she couldn't help but think her fear had come true.

She was denied by her mate.

Choosing the easy way out of the heartbreak, she ran away with no intention of going back. But, it wasn't that easy when her older brother managed to track her down and demanded for her to come home.

And when she does, secrets will pop out and she will find herself in a situation that she never thought would end up in.

As a wolf princess, I gave up my beast core, my dignity, and three years of life for my mate’s throne. I walked willingly into the lion clan’s darkest kennel camp, enduring beastly torture and dog-like degradation. I survived on rot and poison, clinging to false hope. Until I returned and learned the bitter truth: my wolf mate destroyed me with his own hands. The war was fake, and my hell was his deliberate choice.

Three months after being reunited with the Harrington family, I won £5 million in the lottery.

Then, they kicked me out of the house.

My father, my mother, and that imposter brother—three swindlers—fabricated an apocalyptic lie and used a so-called "heirloom" to steal my lottery ticket.

They didn't know that the end times really were coming.

Unbeknownst to them, the true power of that wristband was—item duplication.

Little did they know, I was the one who had truly been reborn from the apocalypse.

In my past life, they used me as bait, letting me be torn to pieces by the infected.

In this life, 5 million pounds? Go ahead and squander it.

I want to watch them struggle in despair and die in fear.

And I will have unlimited resources at my disposal, on this wasteland—

The best deal I ever made in my life was selling my blood to a vampire.

I was a broke, permanently starving werewolf who needed ten times the food a normal person did just to feel full.

Evan was a vampire heir with a blood allergy, the kind where the smell alone made him sick and dizzy. Somehow his life was worse than mine.

Except my blood didn't trigger it. He never reacted to me.

So he pulled out his card. "I'll keep you fed. You let me feed off you."

This wasn't a vampire. This was a walking meal ticket.

For the next three years, he was the perfect meal buddy. Five meals a day, and he never once complained. Once I finished and let out a satisfied burp, it was his turn, just a small sip, nothing more.

Then, the year we graduated, he got a call from his family. He had to fly back to Europe that same night.

Before he left, I figured I'd thank him for three years of generosity. I pulled my collar aside.

"Go ahead, take more this time. Consider it a going-away present."

He hesitated, then leaned in.

But this time, once his teeth were in, he couldn't stop.

By the time he pulled back, horrified at himself, I already had a hand pressed to my neck, and everything went dark.

The car crash six months ago destroyed my body. I survive the agony only through the painkillers prescribed by my brother, Fletcher.
While shopping for my wedding dress, I simply swallowed a pill on schedule. My mother responded with a slap that made me spit blood. My father stormed in and kicked my ribs in without asking a single question.
I fled crying to my brother, only for him to grab me in disgust: "You are a disgrace to this family."
I called my fiancé. He rushed to the scene, took one look at the pill, and called the cops without hesitation: "The engagement is off. She makes me sick."
In just a few hours, I went from a bride-to-be to a death row inmate.
But as the gavel fell, I saw our family maid calmly swallow the exact same pill from the gallery…
I lunged at the railing, screaming at the judge. He leaned down, a chilling smile spreading across his face: "Linnea, this is all because…"

For six years, I sold my body to underground clinics as a human lab rat to cure my son's heart failure and pay off my husband's debts.

Today, my biological brother kicked away the medicine I bought with half my life.

"Lucas was never sick. We faked the medical records to teach you a lesson for upsetting Virginia."

My husband coldly chimed in:

"I never went bankrupt either."

Even the son I bled to birth stabbed my arm, screaming, "A bloody monster like you doesn't deserve to be my mom!"

I finally realized my entire life was a meticulously crafted scam.

With my organs rapidly failing and only ten days left to live, I stepped onto the edge of the balcony.

"You're right," I smiled at my husband and brother, watching the color completely drain from their faces. "Six years of my life isn't enough to apologize to her."

"So I'll pay you with my corpse."

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

As the tyrant ruling the underworld, Victor was ruthless and bloodthirsty, showing no mercy to anyone.

Women who tried to climb into his bed usually didn’t even get a whole corpse, yet I was the only one he kept by his side.

I’d taken a poisoned bullet for him, and nearly bled to death on the rotting floor of a safe house giving birth to his son.

He once kissed the bullet scar on my shoulder and promised me that when he sat on the godfather’s throne, I would be his only family matriarch.

But the moment he slipped on that black onyx ring symbolizing power, he carried another woman into the master bedroom of the manor.

I burst for the door, and he ordered his bodyguards to pin me outside, forcing me to listen to their sounds of passion all night long.

I banged on the door like a madwoman, so he slammed my paintbrush-wielding right hand in the heavy oak doorframe and crushed it mercilessly.

I finally caved when he threatened to cut off my mother’s hospital treatment.

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."

Everyone says I married an iceberg.

Three years of contract marriage. He's never touched me once.

On our wedding night, I tried to move into his bedroom. He refused. I stood in front of him wearing lingerie. He just said, calm as ever, "You should get some rest."

I'm a healthy woman with a normal sex drive. Every day I'm burning up with my own desire.

I thought he didn't love me. So for both our sakes, I signed the divorce papers. Today, I'm telling him.

Then that afternoon, I suddenly heard his thoughts.

When I walked up to him in just a towel, he looked calm, staring at his laptop. But his mind was screaming: Holy shit. She's not wearing anything under that. Look at that skin. Her tits are huge. I can't take this anymore... no, I'll scare her. Fuck. I'm hard again.

Turns out under the ice, there's a volcano that's been buried for just as long.

I slip the divorce papers back into hiding and pour him a coffee.

New plan: make that volcano blow.

My fiancée's father called me a stray dog, worse than trash.
My rival forced me to crawl between his legs and trampled me into the mud.
They all thought I was just a piece of trash to be trampled on at will.
But they didn't know that I endured humiliation and hardship for a shocking secret order.

When he found out I’d injured my leg and couldn't scrub in to deliver the billionaire's baby tomorrow, my boyfriend’s first reaction wasn't concern. He gritted his teeth and snapped, "Hannah, you did this on purpose, didn't you? Why today of all days? Are you really throwing away your entire career just to spite me?!"
I didn't argue. I just stared at the medical chart labeled Eleanor Whitlock, my fingers trembling.
In my past life, I took this assignment. I was drugged and locked in a supply closet. A few hours later, the mother and baby were dead—and the security footage showed a nurse with my face poisoning them. I died in a damp prison cell, branded a murderer.
Reborn into this life, I just wanted to escape this fatal trap.
But somehow, the security cameras had once again captured "me" walking into that delivery room.

My mate, Rhys, brought his dead brother's pregnant widow into our house.
He swore up and down I'd never have to lift a finger for her.
The next morning he stood by the door with a packed bag and a grin.
"Babe. Big news. The pack called me up. Border post out east, two years. I ship out tonight."
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to promise I'd take good care of his brother's widow.
So I pulled my own bag out of the closet, right there in front of him and the woman in the back room.
"Funny. The alliance called me up too. Medic rotation. Two years."
"We can leave together. Lock up on the way out. Colette can rest easy with the whole house to herself."

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

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

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?

I thought I was a powerless human in a school full of witches, heirs, and monsters.
Until a black magician tried to kill me.
Until my blood awakened.
Until the boy with phoenix fire knelt bleeding in my arms—and I brought him back from death.
Now everyone wants my secret.
And someone wants me dead.

He swore to kill his mate.
She was convinced she’d never have one.
For twenty-one years, Ximena Blackthorn has lived as the disgrace of her pack.
Born to an Alpha and Luna without a wolf, she's treated as lower than a servant—beaten, ignored, and reminded every day that she should never have been born. Without a wolf, she believes she is beyond the reach of the mate bond.
Then the impossible happens. The moment the Supreme Alpha touches her, the mate bond awakens.
There is only one problem.
Damon has spent centuries believing that a mate is nothing more than a weakness. He made a promise long before Ximena was born: if fate ever gave him a mate, he would kill her with his own hands.
So instead of claiming her...
He hunts her.
But the more Damon tries to destroy the bond, the more his own wolf rebels against him. And when ancient powers begin awakening inside Ximena—powers that should have remained buried forever—everyone begins hunting the woman the Supreme Alpha swore to kill.
Because Ximena isn't just the Supreme Alpha's mate.
She is the one person who was never meant to return. And when the power sleeping inside her finally awakens...
Damon may discover that fate has given him something far more dangerous than a mate. It has brought back an ancient curse. And some curses don't end with death…
They begin with it.

When the zombie apocalypse hit, my elder brother shoved me into a horde of the undead. Now, I've been reborn exactly five days before the end of the world, and he's trying to scam me out of my winning lottery ticket with a beat-up old ring. What he doesn't know is that this ring is a genuine pocket dimension artifact. He thinks he's pulling the ultimate con, completely unaware that I'm going to use this very relic to forge my own post-apocalyptic empire. This time, I'm going to make them pay back every last thing they owe me.

In high school, my ex only dated me because she needed a dependable errand boy.

I believed it. I tutored her, fixed her grades, rewrote her papers, and cleaned up every mess she made.

Then I overheard her telling her friend, “He’s good at studying. That’s it. Dating him is already me being generous.”

At graduation, she dumped me without hesitation.

Years later, I became the CEO of a public company.

Her company was collapsing—cooked numbers, broken cash flow, investors pulling out—and she needed one deal to survive.

She didn’t know who I was.

She scraped my car in the garage, then warned me not to cling to her, saying the CEO she came to meet was way out of my league.

Then the boardroom door opened. She looked up and saw me in the seat at the head of the table.

She thought I’d use this to get revenge.

I didn’t. I just opened her file and said, “You may begin.”

Six hundred years into our marriage, I found out my husband had a son.

I had ended my border patrol three days early, wanting to surprise Valerius.

Not far away, Valerius was channeling his exclusive magic, teaching a boy how to weave the darkness.

"Dad! I did it!" The boy looked up. His bright eyes were a near-perfect reflection of Valerius's.

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

She draped a small cloak over the boy's shoulders, her hand brushing against Valerius's chest with practiced familiarity. "Valeri, the wind is picking up. He'll catch a cold now that he's sweating."

Valerius naturally wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My fault."

The image of them huddled together like a picture-perfect family was an ice-tipped needle driven straight into my eyes.

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

The man who had sworn before the Senate to love me for all eternity—the man bound to me by a Soul Blood Pact—had already betrayed me!

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

When the Sunfire Curse nearly reduced Valerius to ashes, I had offered my high-born pure blood and my womb as a sacrifice to forcibly block the hex for him.

The price was permanent infertility, along with an excruciating backlash of pain I had to endure every single month.

Back then, Valerius had held me, his eyes red and tear-filled. "I don't want any children! I would rather lose my seat in the Senate than ever betray you!"

Yet the scene before me crushed those words into fine dust.

I stumbled backward, my chest feeling as though it had been ripped open by bare hands.

I was terrified I'd lose control and rush over to scream at him.

Worse yet, in the face of this cozy, happy family of three, I was afraid I'd look like a pathetic, unwanted outsider.

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

My adopted sister, Cordelia, conspired with her biological mother to harvest my organs alive, yet she had the audacity to claim I paid thugs to rape her.
My biological parents didn't bother to ask for the truth. They cursed me, calling me a vicious bastard, and threatened to break my legs.
My fiancé, Caspian, coldly announced the cancellation of our engagement, declaring he would marry the very murderer who killed me.
I had been dead for exactly three days. No one cared. My body was rotting back in a moldy storage room.
Through it all, my soul was trapped in the manor, forced to witness this absurd farce.
But what they didn't expect was that when they finally learned of my death—
Everyone went completely insane.

Fresh off the operating table after barely surviving a miscarriage, I received a $50,000 bill—every cent spent on a waterbed and aphrodisiac aromatherapy on a yacht.
 
I called my husband, the only other person who knew about that account.

Over the phone, he sounded gentle yet aggrieved: "Honey, how could I afford a luxury yacht? It must be a banking error. You just lost our baby; please rest well. My flight to New York is taking off soon, and I'll be right by your side the moment I get back!"
 
I didn't expose the deafening sounds of the wild party in his background. I simply hung up.
 
He thought his lie was flawless. He had no idea that as the hidden heiress of the Windsor Consortium, that priceless yacht, the Poseidon, was actually a coming-of-age gift from my grandmother.
 
I ripped the IV out of my arm and dialed a number I hadn't called in years since marrying beneath my station.
 
"Grandma, you were right. He doesn't deserve me. I'm going to the ship to catch him red-handed."

I spent seven years being Preston Maddox's personal errand girl.

Did his homework, took his father's belt for him, cut off every friend I had because he said he didn't like me talking to other guys.

I told myself that if I was good enough, patient enough, he'd eventually see me.

Then came the school's centennial gala. In front of everyone, he locked me, a girl with severe aquaphobia, inside a water tank filled to the brim with ice-cold water, so Vanessa Sinclair could have a pretty backdrop for her ballet number.

The audience roared. He watched Vanessa take her bow with this soft, adoring smile on his face. The only time he glanced at me was when he noticed I'd made a mess, and all he did was wrinkle his nose.

The water rose over my head, and something in me finally understood.

To Preston Maddox, I wasn't even worth as much as a dog.

If a dog was drowning, its owner would at least care.

Me? I just disgusted him.