1828 Book(s) Related to daisy darker: a novel book review

I thought I had the perfect life.

A mansion in Westport, a successful husband, a beautiful daughter. Sixteen years of marriage that seemed unbreakable.

Until I found another woman's watch band in my husband's car.

Until I discovered that woman was my daughter's soccer coach.

Until I realized my nine-year-old daughter was helping her father lie to me.

Some betrayals strike like lightning. Others seep in like slow poison, until you discover your entire world is a lie.

When I stood on the platform at our annual community barbecue, armed with evidence and burning with rage, I understood a truth that would have destroyed the woman I used to be:

Sometimes the only way to save your family is to destroy it first.

My Mafia boss husband brought his late brother's widow and child back to our estate and demanded I move into the nanny's quarters..

This time, I didn't pull a gun and fight with him like I did in my past life. Instead, I brought out my suitcase to pack and make room.

Later, for our daughter's birthday, Julian gifted her a foal.

Beatrice's son cried and threw a tantrum, demanding it.

My five-year-old daughter calmly handed over the lead rope. "Daddy said Leo doesn't have a papa anymore, so from now on, my papa is his papa."

"I should learn to be generous."

At first, Julian was extremely gratified by our tolerance and maturity. But gradually, he panicked as he realized—

There was no more love in my eyes, and our daughter no longer opened her arms to ask for his hugs.

Little did he know, in our previous life, in order to protect that mother and son, he banished us to the subterranean water dungeon.

While my daughter and I contracted the plague, dying in despair amidst the stench and the gnawing of rats, he was holding that woman's hand in a brightly lit banquet hall, announcing to the entire Family that she would be under his lifelong protection.

Reborn into this life, my daughter and I no longer fought, no longer made a fuss.

But we also never needed Julian again.

Everyone in the Night Realm knew that my husband, the Vampire Lord Valerius, suffered from a blood curse that fiercely repelled the opposite sex.

Any skin-to-skin contact with a woman would cause his flesh to fester and trigger a soul-shattering backlash.

That included me.

In our century together, we never shared a single embrace.

On the day we forged our Blood Pact, I tried to touch him, only to be violently thrown back, coughing up blood upon impact.

That was until vampire hunters set our ancestral castle ablaze. Pinned beneath broken timber, I reached out to him for help on pure instinct.

Valerius dodged my hand. Instead, he turned and gathered that terrified little human girl, Genevieve, into his arms, comforting her with unwonted tenderness:

"Don't be afraid. I'll get you out of here."

His body showed not a single sign of rejection.

It turns out that a so-called deadly blood curse automatically breaks in the presence of true love.

Since my century of pathetic groveling had only ever moved myself, I decided I no longer wanted this Blood Pact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was the most revered pureblood Light heir.

In my past life, I married the Supreme Holy Knight, Arthur, only to give birth to an Ash-blood cub—the lowest of all.

In a rage, he incinerated my baby alive. He then dragged my bleeding, postpartum body into a saltwater dungeon to drain my magic, leaving me to be devoured by venomous insects.

Meanwhile, my lowly Ash-blood sister miraculously birthed a Light-blood cub. Stepping on my corpse, she became the realm's new ruler.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at our Mate-Selection Ceremony. Arthur publicly rejected me and chose my sister.

Seeing his smug, calculating smirk, I knew immediately: he had been reborn, too.

But how could a parasitic knight, who survived entirely by draining his wife's magic to fake a holy bloodline, ever father a supreme dragon?

I was here because of missed periods and abnormal bleeding—a suspected threatened miscarriage.

When asked about our relationship, my boyfriend didn't even look at me.

"We're just classmates," he told the nurse.

He thought he was cutting ties with a worthless nobody so he could chase after a billionaire's daughter.

What he didn't know was... I was the heiress he was desperately looking for.

When the car crashed, I took the brunt of the deadly, mangled steel for my brother, Damon, letting half of my face be sheared off and my spine destroyed.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, he mercilessly tossed an Engagement Termination Agreement onto my hospital bed.

"You're disfigured now, practically a paralyzed cripple. Give Julian up to Lily."

"She's beautiful, healthy, and she's always been in love with him. Having her take your place at the wedding is the best option right now."

The hospital room door wasn't fully closed. I could clearly hear him and our adopted sister, Lily, whispering out in the hallway.

"Damon, you deliberately caused that crash just so I could replace her in the marriage alliance. What if she finds out?"

Damon's tone was indifferent. "She grew up stealing the spotlight as the family heir. Giving Julian to you is the least she can do. Once she signs the papers, I'll put her in the best private nursing home. Consider it compensation."

I bit down hard on my cracked lips. Tears smashed against the deep, bone-exposing lacerations on my face, burning so intensely it made me want to carve the flesh right off.

Lily's sweet voice drifted in: "I'll make sure to compensate her in the future, too."

But Damon, even if I don't sign, you'll both get exactly what you want very soon.

Because the doctor just told me that my body has gone into multiple organ failure due to the severe trauma. I only have a few days left to live.

I died on my birthday.

While kidnappers shattered my limbs and violated me to death, my family was throwing a grand party for my sister Chloe—yes, we shared the same birthday, but only hers was worth celebrating.

I called my father for help. He sneered and hung up: "Stop using this pathetic kidnapping stunt to ruin Chloe's birthday."

I called my fiancé Mark. He said with disgust: "If you're going to die, do it somewhere far away."

In the final second before the flames consumed me, I finally understood—

I was never loved in this family.

And now that I'm truly dead, now that they've discovered Chloe hired those men to kill me, now that the truth has been exposed to the world...

Will they regret it?

Or will they, as always, continue to favor Chloe and blame everything on me—the dead one?

I was the reincarnation of the Ancient Star God and the fated mate of the Obsidian Dragon King, Ignis.

For seven years, I nearly bled my divine blood dry to break his curses. Everyone knew I loved him unconditionally.

Until his cold sneer shattered it all.

"Seraphina has laid my egg. After the Hunting Festival, I'll crown her as my queen. Keep Elara around to placate the Alliance. She's so madly in love with me, she'll gladly be a shield for them."

Something snapped deep within my chest. My empathy veins—the very magic that bound my emotions to him—shattered.

No heartbreak. No hysteria. That suffocating love was erased in an instant. Looking at Ignis now was like looking at a worthless stone.

I calmly returned to the temple and activated the marriage decree sent by the Elven High King, Aurelius.

The realm portal was charging. Departure: three days.

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.

My husband, the terrifying Mafia Don, dropped fifteen million dollars on a luxury yacht just to throw a lavish, high-profile birthday celebration for his precious first love.

And today marks exactly seven days since I died of an infection in a Detroit slum, simply because I couldn't scrape together a few cents for antibiotics.

At the banquet, an oblivious guest tactlessly brought up my name.

Alessandro dialed my number for the first time in five years.

"Genevieve, if you've suffered enough, crawl back here and beg Elena for forgiveness."

That is, until the estate doors were violently shoved open.

A scavenger walked in, leading a little boy whose face was an eighty-percent match to Alessandro's.

When the armored car had room for only one passenger, Damian Russo chose me.

I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.

For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.

In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.

For eight years of our hidden marriage, Caelen never publicly acknowledged my existence, nor our daughter Harper's.
On our daughter's eighth birthday, he threw a spectacular, city-wide welcome banquet for his childhood sweetheart, Seraphina, and her son, Leo.
Watching the glaringly perfect picture they painted as a "family of three," I suggested to my daughter that it was time to leave.
Harper, her eyes red, tugged at my shirt hem and pleaded, "Mommy, can we give Daddy three more days? Just three. If he still doesn't love me by then, we'll go."
Caelen had no idea that those three days were his final countdown as a father.

My twin sister was revered as the sun of our pack. I was the dark moon, condemned as an omen of disaster.

At my mate-binding ceremony, our parents stormed the altar. Claiming her wolf spirit was dying, they forced me to surrender my fated mate to her.

They seemed to have forgotten that today was my coming-of-age. An un-mated Daughter of the Dark Moon would be offered as a sacrifice to the ruthless Alpha of the Winter Pack.

With red, tear-filled eyes, I begged my mate, Kayden, not to abandon me. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hand.

"Maeve, she's your blood sister. I have to bond with her to save her life."

"As for being sacrificed to the Winter Tyrant, that's just a myth the elders made up to scare you."

My father stood by, reprimanding me with sheer impatience:

"What sacrifice? It's nothing but folklore! Can't you suffer a little grievance for your sister's life?"

To prevent me from ruining the ceremony, they dragged me into the damp, dark dungeon.

Up on the altar, my family joyfully continued the celebration.

But they didn't know the Grand Elder had come to me three days ago.

The moment my binding failed today, the emissaries of Winter would come to collect their due.

From today on, I would plunge into the frigid deadlands of the far North, bound to remain by that bloodthirsty tyrant's side until the day I die.

After losing the baby, I finally gave Silas the one thing he had always craved: a trouble-free marriage.

No more interrogations when he stayed out all night. No more hysterical fits over the presence of his first love.

Even when I was discharged from the hospital, and the nurse asked for my husband's signature, I simply replied with chilling calm, "I don't have a husband."

My love for Silas died right alongside our unborn child.

By the time he finally realized the truth and begged me to come back, it would be far too late.

That day, I stood in the rain, donned in a rented wedding gown.

He texted, "I’m sorry, Elena, I won’t be coming."

Five years later, he gazed at me and said, "Come work as a maid at my home, in light of the service you once rendered me."

He believed I remained the wretched creature he had trampled upon.

Little did he know that my current husband, Dante Vancetti, is the man who instills fear across all of San Valero.

And I am his Donna—his queen, his entire universe.

Marco Ricci, welcome to hell.

After my twin sister and I were accepted into the same elite university, our parents fully sponsored the freshman welcome banquet.

They told the university president, "This way, even at school, they can feel that parents will always be their unconditional support."

On the night of the banquet, my mother pressed a piece of paper into my hand.

"Elara, go to the podium. Read the address, and while you're at it, introduce your sister's upcoming toast. She needs the spotlight tonight."

Forcing down the tremors of an impending panic attack, I nodded submissively. "Thank you, Mother and Father, for arranging all of this. I'll read it right now."

Just as I was about to turn and read the address, a voice called out, stopping me.

"Elara, read the gratitude statement first. Remember, there's no such thing as a free dinner."

My father's voice cut through from the main table, ringing with an undeniable tone of command.

I froze at the podium.

Even though it was a perfectly heated banquet hall...

I felt a bone-chilling frost.

Five years into our relationship, a floating panel appeared just above Julian’s head, visible only to me: the [Life Priority Meter].
For the longest time, my name securely held the number one spot. That is, until recently, when it plummeted to second place.
The person who knocked me down to claim first? Harper—my best friend of over a decade.
Staring at the stack of wedding invitations on the table, bearing both our names, I knew it was time to wake up from this five-year long dream.

My mate, Valerius, was struck by a soul-splitting curse from hunters, fracturing him into a dual personality.

The rabid persona is brutal and cold-blooded. His heart holds only his childhood sweetheart, and he casts me aside like worthless trash.

Yet, when lucid, he is my deeply devoted lover—the man who sees me as his absolute salvation.

But the man who deeply loves me is slipping away.

It culminated on the night of the hunter ambush.

I dragged my shattered leg, barely surviving a sea of fire. Yet, to comfort his startled childhood sweetheart, he turned his back and walked away.

In the moment he left, I finally let go.

Because the eyes that had just abandoned me for her... were the deep, dark gold of his lucid state.

Later, when I accepted a deal to erase all traces of my existence and give them their happy ending, he completely lost his mind...

In order to raise the surgical fees for my "blind" boyfriend, I dedicated three entire years to scrubbing toilets.

I believed I was his eyes, the sole beacon of light in his world of darkness.

Until his birthday arrived, I was confronted with the sight of that "incapable" man—who required my assistance even to drink water—coddling his ex-girlfriend while flirting.

"That fool is still busy cleaning toilets," he chuckled with a patronizing grin, brandishing my late mother's memento to charm that woman. "After all, she outshone you at Parsons. Let her serve me like a dog for three years—that'll be her punishment."

It dawned on me that my sacrifices were but fodder for their idle amusement.

Drying my tears, I turned and dialed the number I had blocked for three years—the one belonging to the fiancé who controlled an entire business empire.

"Sebastian, about that arranged marriage... I accept."

I was dragged to the stand of the MRI Memory Court by my own flesh and blood.

Their demand? To forcibly extract my kidney to keep their uremic adopted daughter alive.

A guilty verdict meant losing not just my bodily autonomy, but my freedom for the rest of my life.

Bathed in the global spotlight, my parents performed as tragic heroes, while their adopted saint cried a river of deceit.

They thought they had cornered the perfect victim, waiting for the world to send me to the slaughter.

But the moment the memory holograms ignited and reality bled through, the hunters instantly became the hunted.

On the eve of our mating ceremony, Dante sold me to the blind, mad tomb keeper on the back mountain for a single coin.
The pack elder furrowed his brow. "Young Alpha, if you want to make that rogue Omega your Luna, you can simply break the engagement with Maeve. Maeve once risked her life to heal you. Throwing her to that cruel monster is going too far."
Dante replied dismissively.
"It's just a small lesson. Who told her to be so stubborn, refusing to step down and accept the title of concubine? Besides, it's her cold attitude that triggered Chloe's panic attacks."
"Lucian is an absolute lunatic. Give it three hours, and her mind will break. When that happens, she'll naturally be crying on her knees, begging me to take her back."
The elder sighed heavily. "Aren't you afraid she'd rather marry Lucian than bow her head to you?"
Dante scoffed.
"Impossible. She loves me to the bone. Even if she goes to hell, she'd save herself for me. Tomorrow, after the mating ceremony, I'll play her savior one more time. Once she's suffered enough, she'll be completely devoted to me."
I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply clutched that coin tightly and walked away without looking back.
The next day, when Dante frantically smashed open the cemetery gates, the rumored blind monster had me wrapped securely in his arms. And clearly branded on my neck was the fresh mating mark he had just bitten into my skin.
The high and mighty Young Alpha stood there, eyes bloodshot, his voice trembling as he demanded to know how I could be so heartless.

My father chose two vampires as marriage prospects for my sister and me.

One was an immensely powerful pureblood aristocrat.

The other was Cassian, crippled by a silver curse. Confined to a wheelchair, he was a laughingstock—wracked by phantom pains and constantly on the verge of madness.

In my past life, I chose Cassian.

I drained my own blood to ease his agonizing curse. I shielded him from the relentless mockery of the Vampire Court. I even gambled my life in werewolf territory to beg for his cure.

But he never seemed to get better.

I didn't care. I remember holding his hand and telling him, "It doesn't matter. No matter what happens to you, I will always stay by your side."

Until the accident. A pack of rogue werewolves ambushed us.

Cassian shoved me precisely into the path of their claws.

Just to shield my sister, Serena, from the fatal blow.

Silver claws completely shredded my throat.

Through my fading vision, I watched Cassian stand up from his wheelchair.

The terrifying aura of a Vampire Lord erupted from him, crushing the werewolves instantly. Countless night-thralls emerged from the shadows, dropping to their knees at his feet.

That was when I understood. He was never paralyzed, and he was never mad.

Because Serena hadn't chosen him, and because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, he faked the illness to disgust me for years.

Then, he used my life to save his true love.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you. But I couldn't just watch Serena die."

"Elara... whatever I owe you, I'll repay in the next life."

In the bone-piercing cold, I took my last breath.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the exact day my father forced us to make our choice.

On the day of the Bonding Pact, my sister and I stood in the grand hall to choose our husbands.

She snatched Malik of the Water Snakes, throwing Raven—the last heir of the Leviathans—to me.

In our past life, we married on the same day, but our grooms were reversed.

She married Raven and birthed a patricidal monster. I married Malik, using my healing magic to cleanse the madness from his blood, and gave birth to a divine heir worshiped by all.

In the end, driven mad by jealousy over her ruin, she murdered me.

In this life, pointing at Malik's token, she declared she would marry Malik .

I lowered my head, hiding my eyes. "Then I wish you exactly what you desire, Sister."

"Enough, Serafina! The thing rigged to the parasail is just a mannequin. It's not your mother! Cut the damn act!"

I watched helplessly as my severely ill mother plummeted from hundreds of feet in the air, smashing into the bone-chilling ocean.

My husband was holding my stepsister, a doting smile playing on his lips.

My own biological son clapped his hands in glee—because he was the one who had blindly pushed the release button.

They all said I was faking it. They said I was vicious, toxic, and jealous.

It wasn't until I erased every last trace of my existence and vanished entirely from their lives that they dug through the wreckage of our past like madmen, desperate to find me.

Returned to my biological family, I didn’t find a home. I became a living blood bag for my adopted sister.

On the night of our shared eighteenth birthday gala, I weakly tugged at my mother's dress. "Mom, please... no needles just for tonight. I only want to stand in the corner and watch the cake being cut."

"Elena is suffocating in agony, and all you care about is a slice of cake?"

Disgusted, my mother ordered my brother to lock me in the attic with heavy silver chains.

When the fire broke out, completely paralyzed by the toxic silver and severe blood loss, I burned alive in the dark.

Now a phantom, I drifted down to the glittering ballroom, only to overhear my mother's cold laugh.

"Elena's condition was cured three years ago. We kept draining her just to break her spirit," she sneered. "Did that street rat really think blood ties meant she could steal Elena's place?"

My sister was never dying. My years of living hell, my agonizing death... it was all just a brutal, calculated punishment for daring to exist.

The boy I grew up with was this town's star quarterback.

Everyone saw him as the golden boy.

Yet, for a delinquent, he willingly threw away his athletic career and plunged headfirst into the local drug ring.

Desperate to pull him back from the edge, I tipped off the police about the drug den, hoping it would be his wake-up call.

Instead, he hated me to the bone for it.

To prove his loyalty to his "true love"—and to punish me—he gave our home security code to a crew of methed-up thugs.

They broke in and put a bullet through my parents' heads, wiping out my entire family.

It wasn't until I took a bullet to the chest and lay choking on my own blood, staring at a mocking text from him, that I finally woke up.

But fate, it turns out, decided to give me a second chance.

On our third wedding anniversary, a catastrophic car accident plunged me into a state of life-threatening hemorrhage. Yet, before the medical staff, my husband roared: "Draw my wife's blood first; save Serena."

Serena—his first love.

It became apparent that he had never married me out of love; I was but a living blood bank, intended solely to sustain his cherished first love. It was only when I discovered I was pregnant that I realized he would not even spare the life within me.

That incarceration, cloaked in the guise of love, had nearly claimed my life. When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer the Clara who could be so easily sacrificed. This time, I shall ensure he pays for his blood debt, with no chance of redemption.

They say the dead go where they belong.

But I didn't.

I drift through the cold winds, watching my husband—the detective who once swore to protect me with his life—diligently investigating a dismemberment case.

He doesn't know that the broken body lying in the morgue is his wife.

He doesn't know that the gentle, caring "psychologist" who brings him lunch every day is the one who killed me.

He doesn't know that when I called him in my final moments, begging for help, he hung up on me. I am dead. Yet, that is not the cruelest part— the most harrowing aspect is having to witness the truth gradually emerge, watching as that man collapses completely upon uncovering it all.

Spring is the season I dread the most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

......

I begged my detective husband to save our kidnapped son.

Instead, he hung up on my desperate calls, too busy comforting his terrified first love.

The kidnappers wanted half a million dollars—the exact amount he had just drained from our joint account to spoil her.

When I sobbed that his own flesh and blood was hanging by a thread, he scoffed and dismissed me as a jealous liar.

In the end, the kidnappers sent back my seven-year-old's severed head.

Even in the bloody aftermath, my husband fought tooth and nail for his first love—the true mastermind behind our child's death.

It wasn't until I dragged him before that tiny, headless body and made him identify his son that his mind finally snapped.

Ninety-nine pearl necklaces correspond to ninety-nine fractures in my heart.

He was accustomed to using extravagant pearls to atone for his transgressions, yet on the day of my mother’s funeral, he chose to vacation with his mistress while plotting to take from me the ancestral home my mother left behind.

When the hundredth pearl arrived, I presented him with the divorce papers. The pain of my miscarriage still lingered, as he offered me a rare black pearl to "atone"; moments later, he was liking his mistress's posts.

He believed pearls could purchase my love, unaware that each bead counted down the moments of our marriage.

In the end, what does it matter if he risked everything to protect me?

I shall never turn back.

I loved Julian for ten years, carving every sweat-stained day into my love for him.
He once said I shined brighter than any gold medal.
Yet in five short minutes, he handed my dream, my glory, and my whole world to a scheming transfer girl.
Betrayed, discarded, and broken on the fencing strip, I lost my first love and everything I fought for.
Until the retired cold Olympic champion stepped out of the dark midnight shadows.
He offered me hellish training and a sharp blade of revenge.
I buried my soft heart, handed over my soul, and vowed to make every traitor pay.

On the night before my sister's bone marrow transplant, my parents confiscated my EpiPen and locked me in the attic.

Their "genetic consultant" warned them that the medication would contaminate the stem cells meant for my sister.

I had eaten the meal they provided—one secretly laced with lethal traces of nuts.

The resulting anaphylactic swelling was suffocating me completely.

I frantically bashed my head against the door. "My pen... Mom, I can't breathe..."

"Stop putting on a show!" Mom snapped through the wood. "That meal was entirely nut-free! Are you faking an allergic reaction just because you can't stand the thought of your sister finally getting well?"

Her footsteps retreated.

Agonizing pain and oxygen deprivation overtook me as I clawed at the floor until every one of my nails snapped off.

Until my breathing stopped completely.

Eleven years ago, I was framed for killing my precious younger sister whom everyone loved, and they thought I should have been the one to die instead of her.

Being the daughter of the Beta, I was stripped of my title and demoted to an omega and became a servant in the pack's house.

I was despised by everyone, especially the quadruplets, the Alpha's sons— the ruthless and most feared, respectable Alphas who never took a break from tormenting me and making my life worthless.

Ten years later, my younger sister who was thought to be dead, reappeared at the pack's doorstep, looking alive and well, and even more beautiful and elegant. She was welcomed happily by all the pack members and was desired by the quadruplet.

I thought everything would go back to how it was but I was neglected and remained the omega no one wanted until my life took a shocking turn when I clocked eighteen.

Fate had me mated to the Alpha's sons, not just one but all four of them but what's even more shocking was when they agreed to make me their mistress.

I'd rather eat dirt! Cause, I won't be bending so easily.

"Mommy, can Uncle Carl stay with us tonight for dinner?" Velma asked, giving me those cute puppy eyes of hers, I could hardly say no to.

"And why is that?" I questioned sweetly.

"Because I want to make him my daddy," she giggled.


Alma got herself tangled in a one-night scandal orchestrated by her step-sister and had to secretly marry the Heir of the Harris multi-billionaire company, Carl Harrison, to cover up for her stepsister's crime.

Three years later, Carl and Alma's step-sister reunited, and what did Alma get in return? A divorce file was thrown at her face.

Not knowing Alma was pregnant with his child after humiliating and firing her from his workplace, rendering her completely helpless and almost losing her baby... Alma left the country for good.

Four years later, Alma is back, to take over her family's business after being one of the powerful successors in the business industry.

Alma and Carl crossed paths again, not only did Carl regret his past actions of years back of how he had treated his ex-wife, he started falling for her, and he soon realized she had a four-year-old daughter who looked just like him.

WARNING: TRIGGING SCENES AHEAD!

Five years ago, I knelt on marble floors, cleaning wine with my own dress while they laughed.

Five years later, they knelt before me, begging for forgiveness while I walked away.

They thought three hundred thousand dollars could buy my soul. They thought I was just another disposable substitute, another broken girl desperate enough to sell her dignity for her dying mother's medical bills.

Caspian Ashford wanted a replacement for his precious Scarlett. The Hampton elite wanted a servant to humiliate. They all wanted me to disappear quietly when they were done with me.

They got their wish—I did disappear.

But the girl who drowned in that yacht "accident" five years ago? She was weak, desperate, powerless.

The woman who returned as Elena Whitman?

I'm their worst fucking nightmare.

My name is Maya Wilson. I'm seventeen, I have 100K TikTok followers, and I just watched my dad destroy our family for a twenty-five-year-old homewrecker named Ashley.

"Ashley makes me feel alive again," he said, dismissing seventeen years of marriage like a bad business deal.

"We'll be one happy family," she smiled, standing in our kitchen like she already owned it.

That's when I knew: Mom needed my protection.

What followed was a war fought with laptops and lies, fake pregnancies and real heartbreak. A battle between a broken housewife discovering her strength, a teenage girl wielding digital weapons, and a woman who thought she could manipulate her way to victory.

Six months later, Mom would be accepting awards. Ashley would be gone. And Dad?

Dad would be begging for forgiveness he'd never get.

The day my mother succumbed to complications during childbirth, her younger sister, Vanessa, wed my father.

Fifteen years later, I beheld my husband accompanying Vanessa as she tried on seductive lingerie.

In that moment, I understood—what she truly coveted was never my father, but rather all that my mother and I shared.

My mother perished during childbirth, a casualty of an illicit affair.

I vowed not to repeat that tragic cycle.

Then I returned home, removed my wedding ring, and left behind the divorce papers.

I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf. I incinerated all our memories, rendering them vapor in this world.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...I am the jubilant champion's girlfriend, the blissful woman who will reveal to him tonight, "We are to become parents." Yet, I overheard the brutal truth: "The very thought of her mother once climbing into my father's bed fills me with revulsion for every second of this five-year charade."

It turns out that five years of affection was nothing more than a meticulously orchestrated deceit.

In that moment of heartbreak and excruciating pain, our child slipped away as if making the final decision on my behalf.

When that once indomitable champion finally realized his misplaced animosity, and in a desperate bid to find me, fractured his spine amidst the ruins while signing a pact with fate...

After being stood up for the ninety-ninth time while attempting to register for marriage, I sent my fiancé a breakup message. He had allowed me to be let down ninety-nine times, dismissing my asthma as mere pretentiousness and perceiving my sacrifices as acts of greed, all the while lavishing his patience upon another woman. It was only when he had his mistress select a cheap necklace for me and sketched explicit nudes of her that I realized these seven years were not a narrative of profound love, but rather an absurd farce playing out solely in my life. The moment I dispatched the breakup message, I never envisioned that this man, who viewed me as dispensable, would later pursue me with a frenzied obsession.

A car crash stole my memories, but gave me the perfect "boyfriend."

When I woke up, tattooed Knox held my hand and said: "I'm your boyfriend." I believed him. His tenderness, his daughter's affection, those photos of "us together"—what a beautiful lie.

Until a children's choir sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and shattered memories flooded back: I was a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of child abuse, my ex-boyfriend Zephyr abandoned me for his career, his new girlfriend Sterling orchestrated the entire trap that even led to my car crash and amnesia...

And Knox? He was a complete stranger!

The most twisted part—I actually fell in love with this man who lied to me.

When Zephyr returned with regret, when Sterling threatened with malicious intent, when Knox waited in fear for my judgment... I made the craziest choice:

"I choose this lie."

When I was reborn, and my Alpha husband's ward clamped a muzzle around my neck as a joke...
I didn't shift into my wolf and tear her arm off like in my past life.
I ripped off the bloody muzzle and gave Roman a smile.
"If you think this is a joke, keep indulging her."
And I walked away without looking back.
Because my death in my previous life was too miserable.
After our fallout, Roman used his Alpha authority to freeze my accounts overnight.
Exiled, I was diagnosed with terminal silver poisoning.
Dying in agony, I swallowed my pride and crawled back to the Pack gates.
But he let Chloe force me to my knees and refused to open the doors.
In the end, my wolf spirit shattered, and I froze to death.
I only understand after dying: love and dignity are worthless.
Survival and money are all that matter.

Three years ago, to save my Clan Lord husband from a hunter's death trap, I forced him to stop at the border.

Instead, his First Embrace, Seraphina, crossed in his place and was burned to ashes.

Shattered by her death, he suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with Crimson Frenzy.

For three years, I let him wildly drain my source blood, cheating death in underground clinics countless times.

This time, his violent feeding caused a miscarriage and permanently destroyed my ability to conceive.

Yet, while still in agony and desperate to find him a cure, I overheard his secret conversation with the butler.

"My Lord, Seraphina is still alive. Why keep faking this illness? If the Madame finds out and severs the Blood Pact..."

"Sever it? What right does she have? If she hadn't blocked me back then, Seraphina would never have run off with another vampire. She deserves every bit of this suffering!"

A madman attacked the concert hall. I threw myself over my son, taking every blow meant for him. My spine shattered in three places.

My husband Arthur subdued the attacker and rushed us to the hospital—the picture of a devoted, loving spouse.

It was only after hearing his conversation with the doctor that I finally saw his true colors.

My crippling injury was merely collateral damage. My son Ethan? Nothing but a living cornea donor for Mia—the cherished daughter he had with his first love.

He treated my child like spare parts, never knowing Mia isn't even his blood.

I was seven months pregnant when the car crash left me hemorrhaging and clinging to life.

My husband, an attending physician, burst into the ER—only to turn around and divert the last bags of blood meant to save me and our child.

He gave them to the woman who had hit me: his first love, Sienna, who had just returned from overseas.

When I woke up from surgery, I learned that I hadn't just lost our baby; I had permanently lost my uterus.

Yet my husband didn't bring me comfort. He brought a Waiver of Prosecution.

He was disguising attempted murder as a tragic accident, using custody of our daughter as leverage to force me to drop the charges.

I refused to sign. He slammed the door and left.

But the door didn't latch. Through the crack, I heard him soothing Sienna:

"Don't be afraid. Clara can't live without me. Once she's done throwing her tantrum, she'll sign it like a good girl."

In that moment, I swallowed every ounce of my agony, picked up the phone, and called my lawyer.

"Draft a divorce agreement for me."

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."

In my past life, my Mafia Don husband left me and our unborn baby to burn just to save my half-sister.

Reborn, I watched him crush my fingers in a door to protect her once again.

"Hurt her, and we get a divorce," he sneered.

He thought the threat would break me. He didn't know his signature was already on the divorce papers hidden in my bag.

On the day of their lavish wedding, I took the hand of his deadliest rival, looked down from a helicopter, and pressed the detonator to his estate.

At the Ultimate Construct Tournament, my roommate beat me to the stage, unveiling the very runic matrix I had just designed in my mind.

When I confronted her about the blatant plagiarism, she burst into tears on the spot.

"You say I stole from you, but do you have even a single sketch to prove it?"

My boyfriend, Richard, sitting right there on the judges' panel, publicly condemned me.

He called me a sore loser and sneered that my vicious slander was absolutely disgusting.

Because the construct existed entirely within my mental sea, I had no physical proof.

I was crucified as a jealous bully, and ultimately, the violent magical backlash tore through me.

Right up until my last breath, I couldn't figure it out: how did she perfectly steal a top-secret construct I had only ever simulated in my mind, without leaving a single trace behind?

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn—right back at the start of that very tournament.

Watching my roommate step forward, ready to rush the holographic projector, I clamped a hand around her wrist.

"This time, I'm going first."

I gave him seventeen chances to marry me, yet he eagerly toasts with his new flame, showers her with gifts, and retreats to hotels with her.
He has forgotten that I do not have pierced ears, presenting me annually with earrings I can never wear; he has overlooked our seven-year anniversary but vividly remembers the one-year anniversary of his new lover's employment.
Seventeen promises of marriage, each one an empty promise; seven years of devoted affection, ultimately reduced to a mere laughingstock.
So I flew straight to his worst nightmare—Mexico.
And let him burn in the regret he never earned.