8539 Book(s) Related to the duke and i read online

On the eve of our Blood Pact ceremony, Caius suddenly postponed our binding ritual—all for his human sweetheart.

He unilaterally cut off the blood supply and froze all assets to the entire Vance family.

When my father went to confront him, Caius had him detained on the spot.

Desperate to save my father, I went to beg him. He gripped my jaw so hard it ached, his thumb roughly wiping away the tears forced out by the pain.

"Sera, delaying the ceremony is just a little lesson for you," he said, his tone gentle yet dripping with arrogance.

"As long as you agree to let Elara move into the manor after the wedding, and promise not to hurt her, everything stays the same."

"Otherwise, you can just go marry Alaric, that powerless tyrant of the Dark Realm. Be smart. Choose the path that keeps you alive."

I stared at him dead in the eye, not saying a word.

Thinking I had resigned myself to my fate, a satisfied smirk curled on his lips.

"Be a good girl. Wait for me to pick you up on the day of the Blood Pact."

What he didn't know was that on the day of the Blood Pact, I would step directly into the car Alaric sent, brushing right past his wedding convoy at the intersection.

Eventually, Caius would drop to his knees outside the gates of the night manor like a stray dog, begging for my forgiveness.

For six years, I wore Pack silver. I sold my blood. I scrubbed silver out of Pack den floors. I slept on a basement floor — all to pay off my mate's Pack debt and buy my brother's wolfsbane antidote.
Today, with the receipt finally signed, my brother looked at me and said:
"Seren, I was never poisoned. Our parents aren't dead either. The Rogue raid six years ago — I arranged it. The only wolf hurt that night was you."
My mate stepped up behind him: "I never lost my Pack rank either. I've been at the estate the whole time."
Then my parents — the ones I'd buried seven years ago — walked through the door.
The Pack physician had given me forty-eight hours left to live.
They were going to remember every single one.

Thirty thousand feet in the air, inside the sealed cabin of a commercial airliner, my five-year-old daughter vanished into thin air while I took a thirty-minute nap.
I tore through the lavatories, the galleys, and every overhead bin. The only thing I found was her stuffed bunny, the one she never let out of her sight.
What was even more terrifying was the crew and the passengers. As if perfectly rehearsed, they all insisted I had boarded the plane alone. They even gaslit me in front of everyone, claiming I was mentally unstable and had hallucinated a daughter.
They took turns pushing me, trying to force me into self-doubt and submission. Not a single person offered to help me look. The entire plane was covering up a sinister crime.
If this plane was going to hide my child and protect the guilty, then I would tear this hypocritical aircraft apart with my bare hands.

My daughter was murdered on her eleventh birthday during a brutal snuff livestream on the dark web.

The chat was flooded with the sick revelry and obscene tips of twisted buyers.

"Break her legs a little more."
"I want to hear her cry out."

Lying in a pool of blood, my daughter cried out in sheer despair: "Mom... save me... it hurts so much..."

Watching my daughter take her last breath amid violent convulsions, I clawed at my own fingers until they were torn and bloody.

The police told me it was her elegant ballet instructor, Serena, who had sent her to hell. And the one who helped Serena cover her tracks was my husband, David.

In my utter despair, I swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been thrown back to the very day I was supposed to take my daughter to her ballet class.

Sitting in the passenger seat, dressed in her ballet tutu, my daughter looked at me with eyes full of anticipation.

"Hurry up, Mom. Ms. Serena said we're rehearsing the solo for Swan Lake today."

The blood in my veins instantly ran cold.

For three years, I genuinely believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until I hit play on that video.

The moment the screen lit up, my perfect reality shattered into a million jagged pieces.

The woman writhing on the bed was Amanda—the sweet, innocent girl we had both grown up with.

And the hand tracing the curve of her bare skin? It wore the platinum wedding band I had personally slipped onto Louis’s finger.

"I missed you so much..."

"You drive me fucking crazy, baby..."

Hearing my own husband's signature sweet nothings whispered to my childhood best friend gutted me completely.

Our entire social circle constantly praised us as the golden couple. But beneath the glossy surface, who could have guessed this flawless marriage was built on a mountain of sick lies?

Well, if Louis was such a brilliant actor, I figured it was time to give him a show of my own.

I was going to rip off his mask and show the entire world exactly what kind of monster my "perfect husband" truly was.

My best friend Tiffany was obsessed with those novels where a mafia don spoils his woman rotten.

She was convinced she was the type of girl who could make a ruthless boss go soft, so she went after Vincent, the heir of a crime family, and got him.

His bodyguards, his dirty money, even the way he told her not to ask questions and just sit tight. She read all of it as devotion. And of course she had to drag me into it too, always with the same excuse: it was for my own good.

Last time around, her mess got me killed. Vincent's enemies mistook me for one of his people, and I died in a shootout that had nothing to do with me.

The second the blade opened my throat, all I could think about was her holding up a bloody knife, grinning, showing it off to me like a trophy.

"Margot, look. He gave me this. It means we're official now."

I remember feeling disgusted. I never thought that same knife would end up slitting my throat.

Blood pooled across the street while she hid in Vincent's arms, screaming, hands over her eyes. Later I heard her crying to someone, saying it wasn't her fault, that I just had bad luck.

I died inside her little romance fantasy. A nobody side character, wiped off the page without a second thought.

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back. Back to the afternoon it all started.

Five years in hell, my beloved and best friend joined hands to push me into the abyss. The savior I trusted was actually a deadly fraud. Reborn from despair, Vito came through the light. I tore apart the scumbag and the evil woman, settled all debts, broke free from the shadow, stepped into the light, and lived the rest of my life only for myself.

The day my all-powerful wife personally handed me over to the mob's basement, she was shielding my identical twin brother, furiously accusing me of destroying his ability to carry on the family line.
To compensate for my brother's "trauma," my parents stood by and did nothing. Using her influence, my wife pressured me to take his place at a black-market clinic, testing a lethal drug.
They thought I was just going to suffer some physical hardship, that after enduring these two weeks, everything would be happily resolved.
But they didn't know I had already been poisoned by my brother. I was dying.
I died in agony on the cold operating table. As my body was being gnawed and rotted by rats, they were happily vacationing by the sea.
Only when the lies were exposed did my wife kick down the hidden door. Holding my maggot-infested, decaying flesh, she wept until she vomited blood, then went mad and swallowed a bullet. My parents watched their family shattered and wept on their knees.

One of my employees went online and dragged me, claiming I'm making them sacrifice their health for a paycheck and forcing everyone to work over Thanksgiving.

Here's what actually happened. My company gives nine days off for Thanksgiving. Volunteer to work overtime, get triple pay, with a $500 daily meal stipend and a $5,000 bonus. No one gets penalized for not working.

The whole internet's tearing into me for making employees sell their lives for cash. So I give her exactly what she wants and send out a company-wide notice:

To protect employee mental health, the building gets locked and the power gets cut over Thanksgiving. No one is allowed to work for any reason. Anyone who does gets fired.

The minute that email goes out, the employees who were counting on overtime to pay their mortgages lose it. Now they're all crowded outside the building, begging me to open the doors.

My brother Soren is a figure skating prodigy. Every dollar in our house, every hour, every scrap of attention — all his.
Me? I'm the kid who doesn't need to be seen.
The night before Nationals, I told my mom my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand. She said I was making trouble. Dad told me to take a painkiller and tough it out. Then they loaded up the car and drove two hundred miles to watch Soren skate.
They didn't come home until Sunday night. By then, I'd been dead for over a day.
I called her. Again and again. She had her phone on airplane mode.
Now I'm a ghost, drifting behind their car on the highway home. They're laughing, complaining I didn't even text Soren a congratulations.
I wonder what their faces will look like when they walk through that door.

My daughter died on her fifth birthday.
Her first real wish—the first one she was old enough to make herself—was to go to the beach with Daddy.
Gideon promised he would take her.
She waited for him all day. She was still asking for him when she took her last breath.
He never came.
I brought her ashes to the beach she'd always dreamed of. Let her finally see the ocean.
That's when I heard it—a woman's moan, low and breathy, coming from behind the rocks.
Then his voice. Then his name on her lips.
"Between me and Lily, who do you love more?"
"You. Obviously."
He was fucking his mistress on our daughter's dream beach—while I stood there holding her ashes.
When I finally confronted them, I didn't get an apology. I got a slap across the face.
And when his mistress caught my eye and smiled, I realized something.
She knew exactly when my daughter would die.

My name is Lucas Moretti.

I was a demon abandoned by my own parents from the moment I was born because of the horns growing from my head.

Fortunately, my grandfather loved me. I spent eighteen years living with him in the countryside, where he raised me as his own.

People often whispered behind my back, calling me a demon. But I never truly cared, because my grandfather always told me that I wasn’t one.

Until the day my grandfather mysteriously died in Harmony City.

The villagers claimed I was the source of evil—that I was the reason my grandfather died.

That was when I lost my temper.

The power of Pan hidden within my bloodline erupted in an instant. If it hadn’t been for Michael Jenkins holding me back, I might have slaughtered everyone in the village.

After I finally regained control, I set out for Harmony City to confront my parents and uncover the truth behind my grandfather’s death.

But on the very first day I returned home, I felt nothing but disgust.

I always knew my parents were cold-blooded.

But I never imagined they could be this cruel...

On Day 100 of the global heat collapse, surface temperature climbed to a hopeless 70°C.

To keep my girlfriend from being roasted alive, I drove my ice ability past the limit and became her personal human air conditioner.

But when my ability core was on the verge of shattering and I collapsed coughing blood, she stole the last two bottles of water from my pack and climbed into someone else’s temperature-controlled car without looking back.

Before she left, she tossed the life-saving lump of ice I’d condensed with half my life onto the blistering asphalt like garbage.

“Jack, I’m sick of your cooling cutting out any second. I’m not staying here to die with you.”

She didn’t know—

The moment that ice turned into white vapor, the broken ability core in my chest—the one ruined because of her—evolved in the abyss.

When Sadie Greer gets into an arranged marriage with a Crypto developer, an evil wrapped in a pretty thousand-dollar suit, she only agrees to escape the family trap with a hefty price tag.

With an ulterior motive, Cenric Wollf marries the daughter of his enemy until they fall deeper into their own trap.


Adley Kross does something beyond imaginable—proposing marriage to the stranger for her inheritance.

Mykel Creed’s only priority is making himself filthy rich with a bit of fun along the way.

It doesn’t take long enough for them to realize they married for the wrong reason.


Princess Carlott lost everything in a blink of an eye with one mistake.

She has built herself as Carly Storm and promised no more foolish mistakes until she stumbles with a grumpy but irresistible CEO, Rome Langston— her boss.

Rome is new in the business, but maybe a distraction is all he needs. What can go wrong with a bit of fun?


London Vanderford is never a rule-breaker until the god-like returns as her temporary bodyguard.

When her father threatens to shut down her clothing line, Striker volunteers to help— marrying her.

The more they spend time together, the more they realize they can’t live without each other.


Estelle Bladwyn bumps into a hot thirty-ish man on her not-so-romantic-getaway. Their growing attraction is overwhelming, but her life is already complicated. But who can deny someone like Linden?

Gabe Linden is getting old and still single and done with hookups and doing favors until it comes from someone he looks up to.

With one look at Estelle, he knows he’s already in deep trouble.

I begged my mom for ten dollars, but she smashed my head with a frying pan instead.

The next day, my mother posted on a forum asking:
"Hi everyone. My eldest son lied about the end of the world just to get ten dollars. I want to ask, how can I sell him on the underground black market to pay off his younger brother's $20,000 debt?"

The moment I saw that post, any remaining love I had for them died instantly. I snapped my phone's SIM card in half.

What she didn’t know was that a world-ending acid flood would descend upon New York tomorrow.

I had begged so bitterly for that ten dollars just to trigger the Ten-Million-Fold Return System to build a three-billion-dollar Doomsday Ark.

Since she didn’t want it, I gave the throne of the Ark Queen to the female classmate who casually tossed me some charity.

I took the blame for my wife and went to jail, thinking I was protecting our family.

Five years later, when I was released from prison, my mansion was confiscated, my company fell into the hands of my younger brother, and the woman I loved with all my heart was nestled in my brother's arms, mocking my misfortune.

They had been having an affair for a long time, and even my imprisonment was a conspiracy meticulously planned by this despicable couple! What makes me even more furious is that my precious daughter was abandoned on the street like a stray dog, and subjected to beatings and bullying by their illegitimate son .

They thought that by draining my blood, they could forever condemn me to oblivion.

But they forgot that I was once an unparalleled genius in the business world.

with one last look at the mansion, I turned around and walked away leaving everything behind. My life, my husband, my title as the Luna and everything i have ever worked for because my alpha husband decided to bring his ex girlfriend back into our lives and he threw me out. But what he didn't know was that, I was carrying his baby but that secret will follow me to the grave, he does not deserve to know anything about them but what is more interesting?
Nicholas, the richest and the most ruthless alpha comes crawling back when he finds out that his triplets were already being fathered by another ruthless alpha.

t the most expensive medical charity gala in Manhattan, Avery Hale came in through the service corridor because she hated cameras. She wore a black dress without a label, carried her own coat, and kept her name off every donor wall.

That was the point. For seven years, Avery had hidden the money she made from film scores and documentary royalties inside an anonymous foundation that paid for surgeries, trials, and second chances for children whose families had run out of all three. She had built Second Dawn quietly because quiet was the one thing her old family had never been able to take from her.

Then the Mercers saw her.

The parents who had adopted her and discarded her. The golden son they had asked her to fund, praise, and disappear for. The family that once called her selfish for wanting college now called her a fraud for standing in a room she had paid to build.

They thought Avery had slipped into the gala to beg. They thought the powerful man watching from the edge of the ballroom was only another rich stranger. They thought public shame would make her small again.

They were wrong about every part of her.

I was reborn on the exact day I was supposed to sign the marriage contract with the Alpha Kael.

I didn't hesitate. I crossed out my name and wrote my stepsister's instead. Let her have the bastard. I took my mother's estate back and headed straight to the underground shifter bar.

"Bring me the hottest wolf warriors you've got. All of them," I told the bartender, slapping a wad of cash down.

I was done being the obedient Luna.

"You useless thing."
My husband Cassian stared at me coldly. "I thought marrying a Costa daughter would get me something, but it turns out to be nothing. And your sister, on the contrary, has become the family heir."
With that, he wrenched off our wedding ring and smashed it violently onto the ground.
"I should have chosen her in the first place, not you." Those were his final words to me.
In my previous life, I was an unrecognized illegitimate daughter of a mafia family. I obediently accepted the arranged marriage, bared my heart to my hypocritical relatives, and believed wholeheartedly in my husband's promises.
But in the end, all I got was the iron chains of the dungeon, dying with eternal regret and the unresolved truth behind my mother's tragic death. My mother and I were nothing but stepping stones in their power struggle.
Yet when I opened my eyes again, I was back three weeks after my mother's passing — at the engagement scene that decided my entire fate.
This time, I'll make every single one of them understand: they made the wrong choice!

I was the best student, the most obedient, the most compliant—yet the only unloved child in our family.

When my brother got into fights, I took his punishment. When my sister snuck out with boys, I bore the consequences. Mom force-fed me pills and made me get my stomach pumped just to scare my brother away from smoking. Dad dressed ten-year-old me like a prostitute and threw me into a bar to warn my sister against going astray.

In the end, they sold me to a gambler for a few hundred dollars.

I died in a dark pond, and no one heard me calling for help.

But when my spirit drifted home, they were gathered around the dinner table, laughing and talking as if nothing was wrong.

It wasn't until the police knocked on their door that they realized—I had been missing for seven whole days.

Later, my brother clutched the chocolate he never got to give me, crying every day. My sister dreamed every night of ten-year-old me struggling and screaming in that bar. Dad knelt at my grave daily, consumed by guilt. And Mom, after killing that gambler, threw herself into the same pond where I had drowned.

Finally, they loved me.

But I was already dead.

They left me to die in a burning lab while saving my faker sister. Big mistake.

I hadn't slept in six months, perfecting the neural serum that would save Mom's life. One vial. One chance. Then my adopted sister Mia grabbed it and smashed it on the floor, sobbing about how cruel I was to a "disabled" person.

Mom and Dad ate it up. My fiancé Ryan nodded along—probably because he was banging Mia every chance he got. When fire trapped me in the lab, they carried out "paralyzed" Mia and left me hammering on reinforced glass, choking on smoke.

Want to know the best part? That manipulative snake hopped out of her wheelchair and sprinted to safety the second she thought no one was looking.

Second chance at life? Hell yes.

I'm watching Mia lift that test tube again, ready to destroy everything. But instead of lunging forward like last time, I lean back in my chair.

"Smash away," I say with a shrug. "I'm not the one who'll suffer."

Let's see how this plays out when I'm not the naive fool.

Warning : 21+

"I want you two to make love right in front of my eyes!" He said. My heart neqarly jumped at the sound. Did I mishear or what?

"What do you mean I made love to her? Are you crazy?" Jacob demanded.

"That's my biggest fantasy, Jake! Watching my girlfriend have sex with my best friend or my brother. I wonder if I'll get jealous or join in on the wild game."


Henry William Haydn, a charismatic man of perfection. He became a company director at a young age, living a life of moral values and dignity. But who would have thought that behind the moral wall he always displayed throughout his life, there lurked wild, sometimes unreasonable fantasies.


Amy Evangelista, a simple woman who grew up on the beaches of Bali, realizes her dream of working for a prestigious company in Australia. But her dreams grow even higher when Henry, the company director, is attracted to her simplicity and beauty.


Jacob Andreas Haydn, Henry's cousin, who suffers from a "Brother Complex" and considers Henry the most important person in his life. Jacob, a cold, perfectionist, and sharp-tongued genius, has for months positioned himself as the "Hater" to Amy, whom he considers a stupid woman unworthy of being his beloved brother's girlfriend.

A complicated relationship and crazy love lead them to be trapped in a vortex of traps they call "Fetish"

After being brought home by my biological parents, I thought I'd finally get the love I'd been missing.

But no matter what I did, they only blamed me for bullying my adopted sister. My husband would just look at me with disgust.

They thought I was cruel and evil. When my adopted sister was diagnosed with leukemia, they forced me to donate bone marrow to her.

I was forced to eat and exercise, gaining twenty pounds in half a month.

My adopted sister suddenly looked at me and said, "Sis, to tell you the truth, I don't have leukemia at all. I'm just playing with you. When you die on the operating table, I'll be with your husband."

I felt so sick I wanted to die.

But I couldn't die.

I had to survive.

I had to crawl out of this hell alive!

"You're using the embryo that you and Serena made and letting Wendy think that the children she's carrying are hers! Damn, man.I can't believe that you could do something like that to your wife." Adrian's friend said, sounding shocked.
"She deserves it," Adrian replied, followed by his friend's laughter. "She's the reason why Serena broke up with me back then."
What would you do if your husband used your womb to have children with his ex?
Wendy sacrificed everything for her marriage. She endured endless hormone shots, cruel whispers, and quiet humiliation, all to give her husband the children he wanted. When the IVF finally succeeded, she believed she had saved her marriage.
Until the day she overheard the truth. The twins she had fought so hard to carry were never meant to be hers. Her husband never wanted a child with her. She was nothing more than a surrogate in her own marriage.
Determined to find answers, Wendy stormed into the hospital. Fate delivered a twist no one could have seen coming: her husband was severely infertile. The IVF had failed. The babies growing inside her belonged to another man.
Wendy walked away with no tears and no second chances.
But Adrian, the man who once betrayed her, came begging for reconciliation.
"Wendy, we can fix this. We can start over."
Too late.
Because somewhere in the same city, Julian Harrington, the untouchable, relentless, and enigmatic CEO who rules the city's business empire, is searching for the mother of his twins.

I was the female warrior of the Silver Claw Pack, destined to be Beta.
Until the eve of the selection trials.
That was when they hit me with wolfsbane, then trapped me inside a fire they set on purpose. The flames took my face. Almost took my wolf.
I thought it was an accident. Right up until I heard my Alpha mate say to my mother:
"She just lost her looks. But Celia lost her confidence. She owed her that."
Turns out, my mother was the one who locked the door. My mate was the one who pushed me into the fire. So Celia could become Beta without me in the way.
Later, they trapped me in a second fire. They stood there and watched me burn.
They thought I was dead.
What they don't know is that I crawled back out of those flames.
Three years later, when I take my place on the throne as the strongest Beta alive, I'll make sure every single one of them understands.
Fire never destroyed me. It just burned away their last way out.

Nine months pregnant and about to give birth, my husband Zane locked me in the wine cellar.
All because his widowed business partner, Elena, was also giving birth today.
"You almost made Elena go into labor early. You need to think about what you've done."
Agonizing contractions wracked my body. I dropped to my knees, begging him, "Zane, please─the baby is coming now! He will die!"
He just shoved me down the cold stone steps, his eyes icy cold.
"Stop lying! Your due date isn't today. You'll do anything for attention, won't you?"
"Tonight, only Elena's safety matters. You'll stay here until you admit you were wrong!"
The heavy wooden door slammed shut, snuffing out the last bit of hope I had left.
Hours later, Zane was cradling Elena's newborn son, calling the maid.
"Elena had a boy. I couldn't be happier. Let my wife out—I'm willing to forgive her little tantrum today."
But on the other end of the phone, the maid was sobbing.
"Sir... your wife and the baby... they're already gone."

"You took my wedding dress for my stepsister?"
My voice was ice as I stared at the man I had loved for six years—the man I had saved with my own blood, drop by drop, through years of his illness.
Atlas Brooks couldn't meet my eyes.
"She's dying, Mandy. Susie's last wish is to marry me."
Six years of devotion. Endless blood donations. And this is what I get in return?
The man I saved wants to trade me for the sister who destroyed my family.
Let him. I'm done fighting for someone who never fought for me.
But when I tried to walk away, Atlas caught my wrist.
"After she's gone," he whispered, "we can still be together. Just... let her have this."
The dress. The wedding. The man. Let her have everything.
I'm not waiting around as anyone's second choice. Not anymore.
I'm ready to say goodbye to everything.
I thought I was leaving love behind forever.
I didn't know that at my stolen wedding, I was about to find it.

Jade was Lucian's secretary by day and his mistress by night.
It wasn't until she became his woman that Jade discovered just how ruthless and promiscuous Lucian could be. When she realized she might be pregnant, the man simply laughed and tossed the pregnancy test into the trash.
"Trying to trap me with a baby? Keep taking your pills."
On the eve of Lucian's engagement, Jade resigned from her job and ended their relationship.
But Lucian assumed she was merely throwing a tantrum. He waited for her to apologize and come crawling back to him, just as she always had before.
Days passed.
Instead of Jade, Lucian got the news that she had a new boyfriend.
His twin brother.
The man who shared his face and happened to be his sworn rival.
Overnight, Jade became his sister-in-law.
Lucian completely lost control. He searched desperately for Jade, determined to bring her back.
But Jade, who was pregnant, had vanished without a trace.

I thought telling Alpha Kane I was pregnant would be the hardest part of my day.

That was before I found my step-sister naked on his mahogany desk.
I remained committed to my role of Luna for three years while I suffered through his distant behavior because I viewed our mate bond as a holy connection. The moment he wiped her lipstick from his mouth, the bond that connected us to each other shattered in my heart because he had treated me as someone who lacked excitement.

He wanted me to weep while I accepted my lower-status position. I used my mother’s billion-dollar tech patents to lock him out, then I denied him on the pack intercom, before I entered the advanced security facilities of his most dangerous competitor.

Alpha Kaelen, the Lycan King, doesn't function as an uncontrollable animal. He possesses dangerous charisma which combines with his exceptional intelligence. I didn't request his protection; I established the terms for it. I presented him with the blueprints which would lead to our shared enemy's financial ruin. We are currently dismantling Kane's business empire together. Our formal agreement starts to dissolve into an irresistible attraction which develops during our nighttime strategy meetings and our executive boardroom business takeovers.

Kaelen discovers my hidden pregnancy secret, but he does not exile me from his presence. He displays a wicked grin while making his intention to take ownership of his opponent's offspring permanent. Kane will initiate a violent conflict to reclaim me as his possessions disappear and his remorse transforms into a primal fixation.

Will my charming, deadly protector permit me to handle my own conflicts or will we destroy everything my ex left behind?

I am the top algorithm genius on Wall Street.
When my wife's first love got into serious trouble, she didn't hesitate to cut off my daughter's medical expenses and force me to go to jail for that scumbag.
But she didn't know that without me, her multi-billion dollar empire was just an empty shell that could explode at any moment.
She could never have known that the little girl she cursed as a "bastard" and who was driven to her death by her own hands was actually her own flesh and blood, whom she thought had died at birth.
When, a few days later, I, who should have been dying in prison, suddenly arrived with short-selling capital and a top-secret paternity test... I wonder if this high and mighty queen will still be able to laugh.

I died—not in the way you'd expect, but slowly, painfully, while he was entangled with her.

He called her his savior, the woman who sold everything to rescue his failing empire. Little did he know, it was my money, my life's work, that he squandered.

The betrayal burned hotter than any flame, and I vowed he'd pay.

Now, he's gone—a leap from the heights he once ruled, his fall as swift as his rise.

I was blown up by my business partner and fiancée working together, only to wake up in an apocalyptic game where only one person can survive. They drew S-rank abilities and mocked my "worthless" wealth card. But they forgot—in a world with physical rules, money can buy sky cities, EMP bombs, and orbital weapons. Now they're kneeling in ruins begging me to open the door, while I stand atop Avalon City at 30,000 meters, finger hovering over the detonation button.

On the eve of the apocalypse, I awakened a survival system: send me $5,000, and the sender can unlock a safehouse and awaken a life-saving ability.
The first person I told was Chloe, my girlfriend of three years. In return, she humiliated me in public and cheated on me without a shred of remorse.
That was the moment I finally gave up. The "nice guy" she had drained dry was dead for good.
One month later, the zombie horde arrived right on schedule. For old times' sake, I saved her one last time. And she repaid me by shoving me straight into the jaws of the mutated dead so she could save herself.
What she didn't know... was that I wasn't the only one who had awakened powers.

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.

Everyone says I'm the woman Jasper loves most.

But only I know that in his heart, I've always come second to Sadie.

Seven years ago, I shoved him out from under a collapsing rig and shattered my right ankle. I never skated competitively again.

He held me and swore that the day he won the Grand Slam, he'd marry me in front of the whole world.

I believed him. So I learned to be his support crew. I sharpened his blades, hand-sewed his costumes, dragged my bad leg around everywhere he went. I turned myself into the shadow that followed him.

Then Sadie came along. Young, healthy, able to do things I could never do again.

Tonight, Jasper wins the Grand Slam. The cameras circle him, the whole arena chanting for him to propose.

But he looks down at Sadie in his arms and smiles.

"Out of everyone, she's the one I want to thank most for this medal. I wouldn't have made it here without her."

That's the moment I stop wanting to stay.

I am the sole heir to the Hartwell fortune.
But this birthday dinner — the one meant to sign the family trust into my hands on my twenty-second year — was being ruined by the housekeeper's daughter.
Brianna had done it on purpose. She'd stolen the archival couture gown my late mother left behind, then thrown herself into the champagne tower and pinned it on me.
"Oh God, Audrey, why did you push me?" She was already crying, her voice pitched for the crowd. "I know you hate seeing me in this dress, but your father was the one who insisted I wear it. Please don't make me leave."
In my last life, I'd stood there sobbing, waving my hands, trying to explain.
For that, I'd been stripped of my inheritance on the spot, committed to a psychiatric ward, and in the end, every fingernail torn out one by one, I'd died in agony.
But I'd been reborn.
Now I looked down at Brianna crumpled among the shattered crystal, playing the victim, and I didn't waste a word.
I crossed the floor, stood over her, drew my arm back, and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.
"Shut your mouth."

We'd agreed to spend summer break in the Hamptons. Right before break started, my boyfriend suggested we hit the water park out in the suburbs first, just to blow off some steam.

I thought it was a date. Just the two of us. But when I get to the gate, my best friend Sienna is standing there in a string bikini.

I tell her that's not safe to swim in. Her face goes cold and she tells me to mind my own business.

Colton frowns too and dumps his phone, a towel, and Sienna's makeup bag into my arms. "Vivienne, do you have to kill the mood? Sienna's scared to go alone. What's the big deal if I keep her company?"

In the wave pool, he holds her against his chest and the two of them roll around in the spray, laughing.

When they come out, Sienna takes the ice water I haven't even opened and takes a big swig, then hands it to Colton, and he drinks half the bottle right from where her lips were.

I stand there feeling like the hired help.

Two years of killing myself to be the understanding, easygoing girlfriend, and all it got me was a boyfriend who walks all over me without thinking twice.

If he's that close with my best friend, he can't blame me for calling up his best friend since they were kids.

"Julian, can you come get me?"

Every time my husband’s adopted sister, Avey, had a tennis match, he would force a dark green concoction down my throat. As soon as it kicked in, my entire body would turn weak and aching.
He claimed it was a folk remedy, and I believed him.
In half a year, I lost twenty pounds, half my hair fell out, and I lost our four-month-old baby.
Until the night I overheard them whispering behind a cracked door—they had sought out a witch and cast a dark curse.
My forced standstill was the price for her endless stamina. All her fatigue and sports injuries were being directly transferred to me.
Late that night, listening to them plot to drain the life out of me, I made a choice. On the very night Avey won her championship, I climbed into a deep hibernation pod. I traded thirty days of absolute physical stasis to ensure she could never stop.

My daughter helped my husband cheat.

My ten-year-old begged me to take her to a summer camp in Italy. My husband looked at her like she hung the moon. Booked the tickets right there.

I thought I was the luckiest mom alive.

Then I checked the pet camera from overseas.

There he was, fucking my daughter's riding instructor on our couch.

But what really killed me? What he said, "Don't worry. Nina wants that horse bad enough, she'll keep her mom in Europe as long as we need."

Back home, my husband dropped a receipt. Two identical limited edition watches.

He froze. My sweet daughter didn't miss a beat, "Dad used the other one to bribe someone so I could get my horse!"

They lied in perfect sync. That's when something in me broke.

They thought I was still that stupid, trusting wife.

What they didn't know?

I'd already signed a contract. Going back to my art career in New York.

Nineteen times. That's how many times Lucas promised to marry me, only to leave me standing alone because of her.
Today was supposed to be our day. But as I stood in the biting cold outside the restaurant, watching him carefully help Selena into his Maybach, the marriage application still tucked in my purse, I finally understood—that "someday" would never come.
"Let's reschedule the registration, okay?" he'd said without even looking at me.
I walked straight to HR and submitted my resignation. Then I accepted the offer from the Morinetti family—his sworn enemies.
As I boarded my flight to the West Coast, my phone exploded with messages.
"We agreed to go to City Hall today. Where are you?"
I glanced at the screen one last time, then powered it off.
"We're done."

The man I marry will become the future leader of the company.
In my previous life, without a second thought, I chose to marry the eldest son
whom I had always liked.
But shortly after our wedding, he came stepsister,
and even took out his frustration of not getting her on me,
going so far as to poison and kill me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way. me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way.

My husband's childhood sweetheart lost her entry for the competition,
so he gave mine to her.
It was I who saved him all those years ago,
and that's why he married me.
But he turned his back on me right after our wedding.
I've been childhood sweetheart all these years.
But this time,
I suddenly feel like this marriage has lost all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away. all its meaning.
After handing in the transfer request I had prepared long ago to the factory director,
I rejected his offer to stay.
I can't bear to stay in this place for another day.
I want to go to New York,
start a new chapter in my life,
and let everything that happened before just drift away.

Seventeen-year-old Nora thought her biggest problem was surviving senior year—until she fell for Leo, her brother’s best friend and the one boy she was never supposed to want.

Leo is everything she shouldn’t touch: older, dangerous, and hiding something behind those icy blue eyes. When Nora discovers his secret—that he’s a vampire—her world shatters. But instead of running, she lets him in… and one bite binds their souls together forever.

As Nora struggles to balance love, loyalty, and the darkness that now lives inside her, a new person emerges: Killian, a powerful mafia king who sees her not as prey, but as an equal. His offer could change her fate—or end it.

Caught between two worlds and two loves, Nora must decide who she really is…
and what she’s willing to become.

Because the way they look at her—
might be the thing that saves her… or destroys her.