209 Book(s) Related to c.j. primer

In the dark underworld, Matthias Sterling is a feared mob boss and the only family I had left after my parents died. I used to be the girl he cherished, until I turned eighteen and confessed my feelings to him.

From that day on, the tenderness in his eyes turned to disgust. He brought home Rose Hartley and threw me away like trash.

In my past life, someone drugged him with a powerful aphrodisiac. I gave myself to him as the cure, only for him to call me a shameless whore. But when I got pregnant, he married me anyway.

On our wedding day, Rose ran to rival territory heartbroken and ended up dead. When he heard the news, he said nothing. Just finished the ceremony.

When I went into labor, he locked me in the house and said coldly, "If it weren't for you, I would've married her. She wouldn't have run to enemy territory and died."

He blamed everything on me. In the end, I died in childbirth. He wouldn't even let anyone call a doctor.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night that changed everything.

I just get back from three months of hell on the northern border, dust still on my jacket, when Grandpa's calls start blowing up my phone.

"Seraphina! You need to swing by Black Ridge City and meet your fiancé!"

The old betrothal, arranged before I was even born. The guy is Derek, son of the Black Ridge Pack's Alpha.

I couldn't care less about the engagement, but I owe the elders that much respect.

So I send my unit back to base and head into the city alone, figuring I'll grab a gift and get this over with.

I find a necklace I like at Tears of the Stars, the fanciest jewelry store in town. The sales clerk looks at me like I'm trash. "That necklace runs eight million dollars. You break it, you'll be washing dishes for the rest of your life and still not pay it off."

I'm reaching for my black card when a wall of perfume hits me.

A woman dripping in jewelry storms in with a pack of bodyguards, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "What kind of gutter wolf is this? Keep talking and I'll have someone skin you and turn you into a rug. That necklace is mine. I'm Derek's girl."

I actually laugh, I'm that pissed off. Call up my dear fiancé right there on the spot.

"Derek. Your girl just told me she's going to skin me and make me into a rug."

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.

Elliot Knox and I were in court fighting over custody of our daughter.

In my first life, when the judge asked who she wanted to live with, I heard her thoughts.

Mom looks so sad. Cordelia wants to stay with Mom...

My eyes welled up right there. I signed away half of everything we owned and walked away with nothing else, just to keep her with me.

Three months after I got custody, my sweet, obedient daughter handed the FBI a forged tax fraud document herself.

I spent years in prison with everyone in there gunning for me, and I died coughing up blood on a snowy winter night.

In my second life, I wasn't about to risk it again. I gave custody to Elliot instead.

A few years later, he ended up in the hospital, gravely ill. By the time I got there, he was barely hanging on. He told me:

"It was Cordelia... she's been poisoning my medication..."

I opened my eyes again and found myself back in that courtroom.

That same childish voice went off in my head right on cue, word for word identical to the last two times.

But this time, I looked up and saw Elliot across from me, clearly reborn too, his face full of the same shock and confusion.

So which one of us does she actually want?

Connor Mitchell and I are the golden couple of our industry. Everyone sees him as the devoted husband, always bringing me soup when I work late into the night.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, he gave me an expensive diamond necklace and posted something sweet on Instagram. The comments were all variations of the same thing: jealousy.

I used to believe it too.

Until I cut my trip to Europe short and got into that SUV. The passenger seat was set at the wrong angle, too far forward for my height. A contact lens case fell out of the sun visor, and neither of us wears contacts.

When I had my cousin pull the dashcam footage and saw him with his arm around some petite girl getting into the car, the truth hit me. My attentive husband, the one who called me every night I was away, had been using my connections and resources to play successful mentor to a twenty-two-year-old intern.

The irony is, he thinks he's gotten away with it. He has no idea I can see right through every move he makes.

Once rot sets into a perfect marriage, no amount of perfume can hide the stench.

I was the Sinclair family's lost daughter, missing for fifteen years. The day they found me, I thought I'd finally found the home I'd always dreamed of.

I didn't know they only brought me back to keep their other daughter alive. The one with the rare blood disease.

For three years, they drained my blood over and over. Took my bone marrow once.

My birth parents told me, "Eloise is fragile. You're the older sister. Take care of her."

My fiancé said, "You have such a good heart. You wouldn't want to see her suffer, would you?"

Today, I just gave six hundred milliliters of blood. I'm lying here weak in this hospital bed, and I hear them talking outside my door.

"Eloise is getting worse. We should take Aria's kidney now. Give it to her. We can't wait any longer."

That's when I finally understood. I was never their found daughter.

I was inventory. A blood bag. Spare parts waiting to be harvested.

If that's what their love is, I don't want it.

The Enforcement Corps hauled me out of my apartment in the middle of the night and dumped me at the Southside Precinct.

The subordinate I'd trained myself had scratch marks all over her neck and collarbone, and she was shaking so hard she could barely stay on her feet.

The second she saw me, she pointed and started screaming that my mate had raped her.

"Director Cordelia, I've always looked up to you. You can't sic your mate on me just because I disagreed with you in a meeting!"

My brain just went blank. Because I don't have a mate.

Three months after my miscarriage, at the celebration dinner he hosts for my "recovery," he tells his partners in French, "She's just a trophy wife. Doesn't understand basic business."

"What about that new assistant? The twenty-two-year-old?"

"So much smarter," he laughs. "And in bed? Way more exciting."

They think I don't understand. To everyone here, I'm just the stay-at-home wife who gave up her VP position at an investment bank to play house.

They don't know I minored in French. I spent a full year studying abroad at the Sorbonne.

As I lay in the operating room, bleeding out from the miscarriage, he was already seeing her.

Je comprends tout. I understand everything.

Over the champagne and candlelight, I smile at him.

He has no idea this is the last time he'll ever see it.

The night before the SAT, I brought homemade pastries from our bakery to share with the whole class.

The next day, over thirty students collapsed at the testing center. The exam was voided.

I became the target of everyone's rage. My family fell apart. I ended up in a detention cell.

The internet tore me apart. My classmate Lainey Prescott went on camera sobbing, saying all she wanted was for me to own up to what I did.

While I was in detention, I found out my mom had a mental breakdown and jumped off the overpass outside of town.

That same night, I went into the river too. The water was freezing.

When I open my eyes, Lainey is right there. She's holding that same sheet of paper with everyone's signatures, smiling like nothing's wrong, eyes just as calculating as I remember.

I'm back.

And this time, I'm not making anything for anyone.

The day college applications were due, Fern Whitmore wouldn't stop crying — and my two childhood best friends were completely wrapped around her finger.

They actually threatened to give up their Ivy League spots to follow her to community college.

I tried everything to talk them out of it. Nothing worked. So I went behind their backs and called both their parents.

Their parents showed up that same night and put a stop to it. Applications corrected, crisis averted, everyone back on track.

Or so I thought.

Fern lost her two personal ATMs, and one night she posted a goodbye message on social media and swallowed a bottle of pills.

Nash and Declan didn't blame her for it. They blamed me.

They lured me up to the roof. Both of them shoved their hands against my chest.

"Maren." Declan's voice was ice. "You ruined Fern's future. Go apologize to her in hell."

I fell twelve stories.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at the beginning.

This time, I'm not saving anyone.

"You are absolutely my fucking woman, Dani. Got me?"
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Dani," he pressed. "Do you get me?"
"No, Austin, I don't," I admitted as I pulled my robe closed again and sat up. "You confuse me."
He dragged his hands down his face. "Tell me what's on your mind."
I sighed. "You're everything my parents warned me against. You're secretive, but you're also honest. I feel wholly protected by you, but then you scare me more than anyone I've ever known. You're a bad boy, but when I dated a so-called good one, he turned out to be the devil, so, yeah, I don't get you because you're not what I expected. You drive me crazier than anyone I've ever met, but then you make me feel complete. I'm feeling things I don't quite know how to process and that makes me want to run. I don't want to give up something that might be really, really good, but I also don't want to be stupid and fall for a boy just because he's super pretty and makes me come."
Danielle Harris is the daughter of an overprotective police chief and has led a sheltered life. As a kindergarten teacher, she's as far removed from the world of Harleys and bikers as you could get, but when she's rescued by the sexy and dangerous Austin Carver, her life is changed forever.
Although Austin 'Booker' Carver is enamored by the innocent Dani, he tries to keep the police chief's daughter at arm's length. But when a threat is made from an unexpected source, he finds himself falling hard and fast for the only woman who can tame his wild heart.
Will Booker be able to find the source of the threat before it's too late?
Will Dani finally give her heart to a man who's everything she's been warned about?

“That’s a good girl.” He praises and I feel somewhat like a pet.
He didn’t want a wife; he wanted a pet.
Sick and twisted.
I just had to play along until I had a chance to get away from him, and I would get that chance, no matter how long it took.


Long ago when the world was new and all creatures were created, a great war broke out between the four most powerful factions, The Dragons, The Griffins, Vampires and The Pegasus tribe. Many died in those early years, though not a single soul can remember how it began, the hatred blossoming through generation after generation. The continent was in ruins, and many lived in fear of the next attack, on all sides. The Werewolves and humans fled, wanting no part in any of it, the same goes for The Witches. No one could see an end to the terror and devastation, not even those who ruled.
That was, until my great, great Grandfather decided that enough was enough, he wanted to end the war so that future generations could live in peace, therefore the firstborn treaty was created. The treaty dictated that the firstborn, be it a girl or boy, will go and live with one of the other factions, learning their ways and customs, becoming a part of their culture.
Like many before me, I ventured out into an unknown world...

Warning: Include BDSM content.

My skin heats with each thrust of his fingers, and each forceful lap of his tongue, and i cannot stop the moans of pleasure tearing through my slackened jaw. My hand is wrapped in his hair, giving the impression that I have control, but I don’t. I control nothing, and I like it.
Mihai’s hand slowly slides up my stomach, his fingers wrapping around my neck as he cuts of my ability to breathe, black spots clouding my vision, and yet, I am not afraid. I want more. I want everything that he can give to me.
He slowly inserts a third finger, the intense fullness that I feel teetering me over the edge of a cliff I cannot even see, and then he sucks and pulls at my clit. Sparks erupt throughout my body, the orgasm shaking my soul, and destroying what was left of my resistance.


She was the Daughter of a Hunter, he was one of the creatures that her family had sworn to destroy, what could possibly go wrong?
When their worlds collide, who will be left standing, will it be the hunter or the hunted, and which is which?

A slave, that’s what he called me, what they all called me, his property to do with whatever he wished, and by definition he was right. He owned me.

It began with my ancestors something along the lines of my great great great grandfather owing the stupid warlock a favour and not having the means of paying the conventional way. So, he did what anyone would I suppose, he sold his daughter to him, signed a contract that would give my master full control over her and all her children, then her children’s children and so on. Until me.

When I decided to run away, I met another Alpha who claimed me as Mate.

“Who did that to you?!” He growled deeply, causing me to jump and step back. Alpha scowled menacingly, his eyes skimming over my body in anger, stopping at my neck and wrists.

Why was he so angry?

I looked down at my body, at the old scars and new bruises that lined my petite form, the welts still present on my wrists from the silver chains. This is what happens when Balthazar takes a liking to you, he hurts you, torments you.

“I’m a slave.”

“A slave?” Blue eyes gasped in horror, some of the wolves around us whining.

Vivienne Cross has it all—fame, beauty, and the kind of notoriety that keeps her face on magazine covers for all the wrong reasons. Hollywood loves her scandals almost as much as it hates them. For two years, she’s clung to Dylan Carter, the charming son of a powerful business tycoon, and when he finally proposes, it should be the happy ending she’s always wanted.

But Vivienne’s love comes with chains. Her jealousy, her need to control, her fear of losing him—these aren’t quirks Dylan can keep ignoring. Determined to hold the relationship together before it crumbles, he turns to Dr. Marianne Blake, a couples therapist whose reputation for saving broken partnerships borders on legendary.

What begins as an attempt to fix their love story slowly unravels into something else. Every session with Marianne pulls back another layer, revealing fault lines Vivienne can’t hide and truths Dylan doesn’t want to face. By the time the wedding approaches, the real question isn’t whether Dylan and Vivienne will make it down the aisle—it’s what Dylan will do the night before that changes everything.

When the Deus decided to take over the continent, they didn’t want their own race mixing with others, they saw themselves and their race as superior to all others, their blood was pure and had to be protected at all costs.
But not everyone agreed with this, and when Tuviel fell in love with an elven warrior it changed the course of not only her own life, but the lives of everyone on the continent.
Astria was born in secret, and that is how she had spent her life, hidden and invisible. The fera always kept them safe, until now. But when the war closes in on the border of Lacus all seems lost.
Astria and Tuviel must venture back into the world and fight to survive in places they never thought they would see.
The world is changing quickly, and so is the halfbreed, she grows stronger each day, curious and stubborn.
But what will happen when the deus come looking for the half blood?
And what price will they pay to have her destroyed?

I thought ten years of childhood sweethearts could weather any storm.

Until that night when Charles rushed out after her call, leaving me alone in bed with his child growing inside me, not knowing how to tell him.

Seraphina Blackwood, tech dynasty heiress, threatened Charles with her father's billion-dollar empire to marry her. And me? Just an orphan girl who seemed to mean nothing in Silicon Valley's power games.

When I watched him remove our wedding ring, when I saw their sweet photos at the hospital, when I lay bleeding on the floor and he chose her... I finally understood that maybe love really can't survive against money.

But what I didn't know was that while I started my new life in Switzerland, there was a man secretly protecting me with his kidney, his heart, his everything...

Until his assistant appeared at my little bakery, desperation in his eyes: "Ms. Thorne, please, you have to save him!"

At the board meeting, he voted to dilute my equity.

"This is business, Elena. Not personal."

Three years of hidden marriage. I thought we were partners. But in that moment, I finally understood—I was just his technical supplier on the road to success.

What Ryan didn't know: that Technology Contribution Agreement he signed three years ago contained one clause. 70% of NexTech's core algorithm IP belongs to me. Personally.

Product launch day. Two hundred investors watching. I took the microphone.

He thought I'd present the tech specs like always.

He was wrong.

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

My father died owing the Callahan family a blood debt. His payment? Me and my sister—married off to their sons.

I woke up reborn on the night they buried him.

Standing in that funeral chamber, watching the lawyer crack open the sealed will, I discovered I could suddenly hear thoughts. My sister Vivienne's voice ripped through my head: Not marrying that butcher. No way in hell.

She lunged forward and grabbed Adrian—the refined bastard son who looked like a lawyer instead of a mobster. The same "perfect gentleman" I married in my past life.

Which left me with Dominic Callahan. The scarred heir. The Executioner.

Last time around, Vivienne married Dominic and got beaten down for years. I married Adrian and lived like a queen.

I almost laughed out loud.

Because she has no idea—this time, she's the one who grabbed the monster.

For a whole year, my husband's childhood friend treated my high-end boutique like her personal closet.

Bags that ran a few thousand dollars, couture gowns worth tens of thousands. She took whatever she wanted and walked out, never once saying the word "money."

The store bled cash month after month. When I finally hit my limit and told her to pay up, she slapped me across the face in front of a room full of customers.

"You should be flattered I even shop here. And you've got the nerve to ask me for money?"

Garrett came rushing in with his coffee, and the first thing out of his mouth wasn't whether I was okay. He pulled her behind him and told me to apologize, then said if I didn't, he'd divorce me.

I didn't cry, didn't make a scene. I picked the bill up off the floor, turned around, walked out, and made one phone call.

Three days later, Bianca comes back with five of her socialite friends, bragging that they're going to clean out every expensive piece in the place.

I hold my coffee and smile, tell them to take their time.

What she doesn't know is that three days ago, this store already changed hands.

Everyone in this city knows that the king of the underworld, my husband Vincent, is crazy about me.

Three years ago, when that bullet tore through my abdomen, it took away my chance of ever being a mother. He held my blood-soaked body and swore to God he'd make the shooter's entire family pay. A month later, that family was wiped off the map in this city. No one dares speak their name anymore.

He sat by my hospital bed, holding my hand. "I don't need kids. I only need you."

I believed him.

Until six months ago, when his brother died in an accident, leaving behind his wife Serena. The family pressure came like a tidal wave. An heir. A bloodline. That's all they cared about. And that woman became everyone's golden ticket to keeping the Caruso name alive.

That's when my husband stopped coming home at night. Every night, I hear them through the wall. Sounds that used to be mine.

But today, the doctor told me my body is healing. The chances are slim, but there's hope.

I clutch the medical report and rush home, imagining Vincent's face when he sees the results. Maybe everything can go back to how it was. Maybe he'll realize he doesn't need her.

Until I stand outside our mansion and hear laughter pouring out.

"Serena's pregnant! Can you believe it? The family finally has an heir!"

"Finally. The family's saved."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One hundred years married to Everett, and I've learned one thing: whenever he wants to push me into a corner, he throws the mate bond dissolution agreement in my face. Whenever my parents want me to cave, they hold the family name over my head.

They've always wanted the same thing — for me to hand over everything I have to my twin sister Rosalie, who's been sick her whole life.

I've fought it. I've grieved over it.

But when the doctor slid the diagnosis across the desk — Blood Depletion Syndrome, late stage, less than two weeks left — something in me just went quiet.

What's the point of fighting when you're already dead?

Father calls me and Chloe into his study, and two documents already sit on the desk. On the left, the Whitfield family succession papers. On the right, the marriage agreement with the Sullivan family.

He lights a cigar, the smoke half hiding his face. "You two need to make a choice today. One of you takes over the Whitfield family. The other marries Derek Sullivan."

In my last life, Chloe took the succession papers.

She sat down in Father's office, put on an expensive suit, called in every department head, and announced she'd make the Whitfield family stronger. But she couldn't even read a warehouse ledger, didn't know which shipping route mattered most, couldn't tell flattery from threats in a family meeting.

Within three years, the south warehouse burned down, the north route slipped out of our hands, and cash kept bleeding out of the books like there was a hole in them.

Father died on a dark street, three bullets in his chest.

Chloe fled with whatever money was left, and I got married off to Derek instead.

After the wedding, he took my passport and locked me in the basement of the Sullivan estate. When I refused to sign the transfer documents, he had them cut off my water for three days straight. In family meetings, one wrong word out of me and he'd slap me in front of everyone. During an ambush, he shoved me right into the line of fire.

Later, Chloe found me. She pointed a gun at my chest, and there wasn't a trace of sisterly feeling left in her eyes. "This is all because you're useless. If you'd helped Derek keep the Sullivan family steady, Whitfield wouldn't have gone under."

I opened my eyes in a pool of blood and woke up back on this day.

The alliance between the Human Empire and the Wolf Empire has stood for centuries. The treaty requires the Human Empire to send a princess to the Wolf Empire every so often, to become the Wolf King's mate and strengthen the bond between our kingdoms. Now, it's time to honor that pact again.

Father is old now, ready to step down. My sister and I have to choose.

In my past life, Adelaide chose the throne. She thought power meant she could do whatever she wanted. Within three years, the Human Empire crumbled in her hands. At home, she bled the people dry, filling her own coffers while they starved. Abroad, her arrogance drove away our allies. The Dwarven Empire, the Serpent Empire, they all cut ties. In the end, the surrounding kingdoms banded together and attacked. The Human Empire fell in the war. Our parents died by enemy blades, and Adelaide had to flee.

And me? I went to the Wolf Empire, just like the treaty said.

On the surface, I was the Wolf Queen, worshipped by every wolf, living in the grand Wolf Court, attending state banquets. In reality, I was his prisoner. Forced to run as prey in the hunting ritual, slapped to the ground in front of the council, shoved forward as a hostage when conflicts arose.

At one banquet, Adelaide appeared in front of me, gripping a dagger, madness burning in her eyes. "This is your fault! If you hadn't been so useless in the Wolf Empire, we wouldn't have lost everything!"

The blade sank into my chest. I collapsed in a pool of blood.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the throne room with Father watching us.

Adelaide barely hesitates before speaking up. "I'll go to the Wolf Empire. Let Brynn take the throne."

I smile.

Foolish Adelaide. She has no idea that beneath the Queen's crown lies nothing but chains and blood.

One snide comment from my worst enemy, and I dropped eighty million gold coins on a custom golem built to look exactly like him.

My requirements were simple: same face, same body, and a personality that's submissive, obedient, and takes whatever I dish out without fighting back.

I've had that insufferable face fetching me coffee, rubbing my feet, massaging my shoulders, even wearing a maid outfit.

Watching him bow and scrape for me finally lets out most of the resentment I've been carrying.

Then tonight, the workshop sends a message out of nowhere:

[Due to a shortage of high-purity mithril, your custom golem needs another month to complete. Thank you for your patience.]

I look over at the man kneeling by the couch, rubbing my legs.

So who exactly have I been treating like a dog for the past two months?

My beast companions are in the middle of my medicinal soak when a soft, dramatic little "ow" drifts in from outside.

Vex, my wolfkin companion, drops my leg. Brom, the bearkin, jerks his hand and a fortune's worth of elixir spills into the water.

They crash through the floor-to-ceiling window and bolt outside without a single glance back — all for some ordinary girl.

I'm still staring at the broken glass when a stream of glowing blue text pops up out of nowhere.

[The main character Ivy literally fake-tripped in the garden and these two idiots jumped out a window for her!]
[Honestly, the original side character Lillia had it so rough. Backstabbed by her own companions, dies a miserable death, and they end up in Ivy's entourage…]
[And she never even figures out what's happening. Just suffers through the whole thing without a clue.]

I read through all of it, and one thought slowly rises: seriously?

If my companions won't behave, just get new ones. Simple.

I go straight to my mom, and before I've even finished talking, she's already pulling me toward the door.

"Any beast that turns on its master isn't worth keeping. Come on, baby — let's go pick you out some new ones. Mom's paying, so make it the most expensive ones they've got."

Ryan loves me deeply—at least that's what everyone says. Seven years together, we look like the perfect couple to outsiders. But only I know he's betrayed me three times.

The first time was three years ago. His brother died saving him, leaving behind his widow Sophia—Ryan's unforgettable first love. He married her behind my back. When I found out, I completely fell apart. I have dignity. I refuse to be the other woman. I wanted to leave, but he begged on his knees. "This is just to take care of my sister-in-law. Once I find the truth about my brother's death, I'll divorce her. Then we can get married."

I believed him. I forgot that a man never lets go of a lost love he's gotten back.

The second time was at last year's company anniversary. In front of everyone, he introduced Sophia as his wife. I watched them on stage, a knife through my heart. That night he explained, "It's just for show. Once everything's over, we can be together."

I believed him again.

The third time was two weeks ago. Surveillance footage showed Ryan with Sophia entering a hotel room. I rushed to confront him, but heard her voice outside his office. "Ryan, I'm pregnant. It's your baby."

Through the crack in the door, I see him hesitate. In that instant I understand.

He's going to keep her.

He spots me and rushes out in a panic. "It was an accident! Let me explain! After she has the baby, I'll give her money and make her leave. She won't be in our lives anymore!"

In that moment, I finally wake up. There will be no future for us.

Foxes are born to bless their mates, unlocking their bloodline and putting them on the throne of the Beast King.

In my last life, the Golden Lion prince Rein picked me, and my sister Lilith got stuck marrying Austin, the black dragon everyone steered clear of.

Then Austin's bloodline woke up and he took the throne, and Lilith rode his coattails straight into a crown.

I threw everything I had into blessing Rein and it never worked. He blamed me for every failure, dug my core out with his own hands, and tossed me into a cell like trash, leaving me there to rot.

Now I'm back, and at the mating ceremony, Rein walks right past me and takes Lilith's hand instead.

That's when I know. He's been reborn too.

But he has no idea. It was never my fault the blessing failed. He was never going to hold power, no matter who blessed him. That throne was never his to take.

The mafia boss chose me as his decoy—a body double for the woman he loves.

Eight years. Three bullets, one car crash, one explosion. The doctor said ten more minutes and I would've died on that operating table when they took my kidney. I gave him a son. He let me play "the boss's wife" in public.

Until he cleared every obstacle for her and decided to marry her.

Her wedding photos replaced mine in the master bedroom. He has her initials tattooed on his arm. When I questioned him, he had his men slap me at a charity gala, forced me to admit "I'm just a stand-in." When I touched her, he took away my custody, declared she was "the true lady of this house."

The punishments got worse. When he threatened to cancel my mother's insurance, I finally learned to shut up.

He pulls me close, whispers in my ear: "She gave up everything for me. Not like you—you were born to take bullets for me."

"Deal with it. She's not replacing you. This is her house now."

Even my son took her side.

"Stop being dramatic! Natalie actually loves us! You're nothing!"

But their pure, innocent Natalie? She unplugged my mother's ventilator while I was locked in the basement. Let his enemies slip poison into my drink during the last job.

When Grayson found me, all he said was: "She's pregnant and emotional. Go rearrange the flowers at the wedding venue."

I wipe the black blood from my lips. Look at him quietly.

"I'm dying."

Everyone in our circle knows I'm Adrian's caged bird, and the "bad woman" his son Miles hates most.

For Miles, I gave up my fellowship in Zurich and spent seven years playing housewife.

What did I get in return? Adrian took Sophie to gallery openings on our anniversary. Miles smashed cake in my face in front of everyone, calling me a frumpy housewife.

Adrian was certain I couldn't leave him. Certain I couldn't leave our son.

He threw the divorce papers on the table with a cold smile. "Sign this, and you lose everything. Including Miles."

He expected me to beg on my knees.

I didn't.

I picked up the pen and signed without hesitation.

"Fine, Adrian. You keep Miles. And I get to keep myself."

For just a moment, I saw shock flash in his eyes.

I heard later that Adrian searched for me like a madman, and the son he doted on cried and screamed for his mommy.

Too bad. I'd already burned it all down myself.

I've been secretly married to him for five years, but he's never treated me as his wife. Our six-year-old daughter has never called him Dad in public.

One drunken night, I got pregnant. He gave me a marriage contract that came with one condition: secrecy.

I thought time would change everything. I stood by him through the company's darkest days. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, he didn't come. When our daughter was born, he was in a meeting. Every moment that mattered, he wasn't there.

Then that clumsy intern showed up.

From that point on, he gave her all his attention and patience. He broke his own rules for her again and again. That's when I finally understood: when someone doesn't love you, they just don't.

So I took my daughter and disappeared from his world completely.

But why did that calm, controlled man lose his mind?

My brother's first day on the job, and the new intern, Ashley Pratt, accuses him of trying something with her in the break room.

In my last life, I panicked under all those judging stares and my father screaming at me over the phone. I grabbed my brother by the shoulder and forced him to bow and apologize to her, tried to pay her off to make it go away.

She turned around and leaked the wire transfer online instead, twisted it into a story about rich people paying to buy back their good name. The backlash spiraled out of control. My brother couldn't take the flood of hate anymore and jumped from the roof. He hit the ground and there was nothing left of him to recognize.

My father used my failure to handle it as an excuse to push me off the board. I ended up watching the woman responsible climb over my brother's grave and take the CEO seat at Merritt Industries.

Fate is giving me a second shot.

My brother reaches for me, eyes rimmed red. "Camille, I swear I didn't do anything."

I pull him behind me and look down at the woman crying on the floor.

"She's saying you assaulted her? Fine. Let's call the cops."

I helped him claw his way up from nothing—from the family's bastard to king of the underworld.

I saved him when he got jumped in the streets. Took bullets for him when his father beat him half dead. We fought our way up from nothing, survived assassination attempts, built an empire that made people fear our name.

I thought we'd always stand together.

Until the day I nearly died giving birth, and all I found in the bassinet was a stack of cash.

I asked him where our baby was. He couldn't look me in the eye. His stepmother walked out holding my son. Smiled and said she deserved this, a child of her own, since she couldn't have one herself. He'd given my baby to another woman.

Turns out he'd been sleeping with her the whole time.

I threw the money in his face. I spent the next six years trying to get my son back.

Last week, when some small-time gang grabbed him, I went in alone with a gun. Bullets flew past my ears, kicked up concrete dust. I fought my way to the back and pulled him out. At the hospital, he pushed me away, crying, "Why'd you have to come?! We could've been a real family by now! Just leave! Leave me alone!"

I stared at his small face for a long time.

Finally, I said, "Call me mom one last time. Then I'll let you go."

I'm the top account director at my firm, always on the road, running myself ragged on golf courses and client dinners. Some months I barely make it back to the office at all.

Right after I land a $300 million contract for the company, my boss decides to hand the whole thing over to a new intern.

My manager says I'm wasting company resources, that my attitude's a problem. My boss tells me to give the new hire a chance. The intern thinks she can just take over my job without breaking a sweat.

None of them get it. Without me, this project never gets off the ground.

I don't bother telling them that.

Once the handoff is done, I walk straight into our biggest rival.

And watch them beg me to come back.

A hundred years ago, old Duke Rowland saved me with a bowl of hot soup when I was dying. To repay him, I swore myself, as the Silver Wolf Goddess, to a hundred-year covenant protecting House Rowland.

I taught Garrett how to hold a sword. I turned Caleb into a prodigy at the Mages' Guild. I saved Preston's family from ruin.

But Lillian took a potion to fake being sick, and all it took was her claiming only my heart could save her to turn three men's knives on me.

In my last life, I begged them to listen, told them that cutting out my heart would tear down the foundation of House Rowland itself. They finally backed off.

Then Lillian, trying to keep the lie going, secretly upped her dose and poisoned herself to death in her own bed.

The three of them lost their minds and blamed me for her death.

"A beast doesn't get to call itself the guardian of House Rowland. Die."

They cut my heart out. I died on that altar.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day they took my heart.

This time, I didn't waste my breath. I handed it over myself and let them have what they wanted.

The goddess's heart fell. The covenant ended.

They just didn't know yet how badly House Rowland would fall apart without me.

First day back after the long weekend. I get a few artisan gift baskets shipped in from my family's farm: maple syrup, raw honey, smoked beef jerky, handmade jams. Top-shelf stuff, every single one. Shipping alone runs me a few hundred dollars.

After the morning meeting, I hand them out one by one. The team crowds around me, all smiles, falling over themselves saying things like "You're literally the best, Ms. Bennett" and "Oh my god, you're such an amazing boss."

They're barely out the door when I notice the conference room projector is still mirroring someone's phone. Up on the screen: a private group chat. Fifteen members.

Everyone on the team is in it.

Everyone except me.

A new message pops up: [Farm junk? Really? Preston Vance's team got $200 gift cards AND black truffle. Sloane's such a cheap ass lol]

Replies flood in. Someone photoshops a picture of me. Someone else hopes I drop dead at my desk.

To them, I'm just another boss squeezing her people dry.

Last quarter, I handed every single one of them a three-thousand-dollar cash bonus out of my own pocket. Plus a brand-new phone. Each.

Fine. If they think I'm not giving enough, I'll give them exactly what they're asking for.

Though later, when they come crawling back one by one, I find myself wondering what exactly they think begging is going to get them.

On my birthday, my husband hands me a snow-white hamster with a smile and says keeping it in the house will bring us good luck.

My seven-year-old son names it Snow.

But the second I see its red eyes, my blood runs cold.

Because in my last life, I got the exact same gift on this exact same day.

Back then I treated it like something precious. I fed it the best food, bought it the biggest cage, cleaned out the shavings every single day.

And every night it burrowed into my blankets, bit through the skin at my wrist and my throat, and drank my blood a little at a time until there was almost none left.

I begged my husband to get rid of it. All he said was that I was paranoid, that I was faking being sick to get attention.

My son planted himself in front of the cage and screamed that Snow was better behaved than me.

Then, on our wedding anniversary, I collapsed in the bathroom and never woke up.

My spirit drifted near the ceiling, and only then did I finally see it.

That hamster climbed down off my body and turned into a woman in a white dress, and threw herself into my husband's arms.

His eyes went red and he said now that she'd drained me dry, she could finally take her real shape again.

My son ran to her and sweetly called her "Hamster Mommy."

It turned out the thing was my husband's old love, the one who'd died young. He'd used black magic to hide her inside a pet's body.

And I was nothing but a container. A blood supply.

Now my eyes are open again, and the cut on my finger is still warm.

This time, I won't let a single one of them get away.

Our engagement has gone unfulfilled for ten years.

My parents saved his family in that yacht accident. With their dying breath, they asked his family to look after me. In return, we go to city hall every year, trying to fulfill this obligation.

Ten attempts. Ten failures.

Elevator malfunctions, food poisoning, home invasions, car crashes... Every single time, I get hurt at the worst possible moment while he walks away without a scratch.

This makes ten. A truck slams into the passenger side, my head smashes against the window, and he's already running across the street, pulling that woman into his arms.

On my way to find him after they stitch me up, I hear his assistant's voice in the hospital corridor:

"Mr. Ashford, the truck driver's been taken care of. Money'll hit his account like we agreed... but is this really fair to Miss Bennett? It's been ten years, every single year—"

William's voice comes out low and tired. "I don't have a choice. Her parents saved me, but I'm in love with Emma."

I look down at the diagnosis. ALS. Late stage.

Turns out I've been trying to marry a lie this whole time.

My name is Junie. I'm six years old, a half-werewolf. My mom Juliet is a human witch, the gentlest woman alive.

A month ago, Mom was eight months pregnant. We were walking by the river when Dad's childhood friend Melody shoved her straight into the rushing current. The cold water took my unborn brother. When they pulled Mom out, she was covered in blood, her magic all but gone.

Dad, Maxwell, is the youngest Alpha of the Silver Wolf pack and runs a family conglomerate. That day in the hospital hallway, his eyes went red and he swore through gritted teeth that whoever did this would pay for it, hard, in front of the Tribunal.

Mom believed him.

Then came the trial. The second Dad saw that the woman sitting in the defendant's seat was Melody, he went quiet.

Right there in front of the judge, he took it back. He said Melody never meant to push her, that Mom's magic had gone haywire from the pregnancy and she'd slipped into the river on her own.

Melody walked free. Mom got community service.

The day we left the courthouse, Melody buried her face in Dad's chest and sobbed, but the second no one else could see, she shot Mom a cold little smirk. Dad kissed her forehead like her tears were breaking his heart.

Mom just watched them, one hand over her empty belly. Those eyes that used to be so full of love were calm now.

She let out a slow breath. "Maxwell, let's break the mate bond."

My best friend Bella had a cluster of mushrooms growing on her back, every color you could imagine.

They throbbed like something alive, and the smell coming off them was like nothing I'd ever smelled.

She called it Moonlight Bloom, a gift straight from Viscount Lucas himself.

If she kept that thing on her body for forty days, not one more, not one less, until it bloomed its brightest spores, the viscount would marry her and take her into his estate.

So she refused to shower. Wouldn't let a drop of water touch her.

Everyone in the pack knew me as the one who always looked out for people, and I figured she'd been cursed with dark magic. So one night while she slept, I grabbed a bucket of soapy water and a stiff brush and scrubbed that thing clean off her back.

The next morning, she ran her hand over the raw patch of skin where it used to be, grabbed a silver dagger, and drove it straight through my heart.

"You jealous bitch! You just ruined my whole future!"

Bleeding out on the floor, that's when it hit me. She never cared how disgusting that thing was, or what it was doing to her body. All she cared about was marrying into money and status.

When I opened my eyes again, I'd gone back in time.

This time around, I decided I wasn't going to stick my nose where it didn't belong. I was going to sit back and watch that mushroom grow.

Landon Rhodes and I grew up together, both dreaming of becoming top chefs. But I knew he was the one with a palate kissed by God.

So when Rowan Stone, this street-rat punk, got her claws into him, I took the drinks, the smoke, the slaps for him. When he wanted to skip the National Young Chefs Competition to stay with her drunk ass, I dragged him back to the culinary lab.

He won the championship, got recruited by a three-star Michelin restaurant, graduated and made millions. I became the most invisible prep cook in his kitchen.

Until Rowan wrapped her car around a pole during one of her episodes, and he lured me into a basement.

"This is all your fault! If you'd minded your own damn business, she'd still be alive!"

His foot came down on my right hand. Bones cracking. My fingers ground to pulp.

All those 5 AM trips to the fish market for him. All those nights watching stock simmer for forty-eight hours straight. All the praise he soaked up at final practicals. My sacrifices, and all I got in return was his hatred.

"These worthless hands that can only cut vegetables deserve to rot in the ground with her."

The pain swallowed me whole.

When I wake up again, I'm back to that afternoon when he said he was going to the bar to find her.

This time, I won't stop him.

Three years ago, on a night when it wouldn't stop raining, I carried Victor Caster out of a pile of bodies.

He'd taken two bullets. He grabbed my ankle and said: when I get back, I'll give you the world.

But when he came back, it was my sister Sabrina on his arm.

After that she was the woman who ran the Caster house, and I was the crazy one they locked away upstate.

Three years later, at the engagement party, Sabrina opened up her own wrist and screamed that I did it.

I tried to explain.

But the man I'd given half my life to save wouldn't even look at me. He just flicked his hand.

"Her hands don't know their place. Take them. And I don't want that face in front of me."

He never once looked up.

So why is it that the next time he sees me, the moment he really looks at my face, he goes down on his knees?

I straighten up after three back-to-back all-nighters, my stomach aching so badly I can barely stand up straight. At one in the morning, I head to the twenty-four-hour diner below my studio for a bowl of soup, just to keep myself going.

Steam rises off the bowl, and when I look up, my blood goes cold.

Beckett Wexford, my husband, head of the Wexford Group and a man with a serious germ phobia, sits right there, completely out of place in this greasy late-night diner.

He patiently picks the onions out of her burger, one piece at a time, while the girl next to him laughs, bright and carefree, her profile eerily close to what mine looked like at twenty.

"Beckett, you're so bad at this. It's just an onion."

The man who's been ice cold to me for years has a look in his eyes I've never seen before, soft, doting, like she's something precious to him.

"Hold on, almost done."

Eight years of marriage, and I turned myself into some neurotic housekeeper. Turns out all that tenderness was just going somewhere else.

I pull out my phone and open the divorce agreement I drafted a while ago.

Eight years. It's time to get myself out of this.

The day before spring break, Cole Bennett asks me, red in the face, if he can borrow my empty place up in the hills for one night.

I figure he's planning a birthday party for me, so I don't think twice about handing over the code to the estate.

I've already decided that night is when I'll tell him who I really am.

Eight o'clock on my birthday, I push open the brass doors of the estate, worth millions by themselves.

Music blasts through the great room. The place is packed with people from school, all of them craning their necks, gushing about how gorgeous the house is.

I hold back a grin, ready to go find him and see what he's got planned.

Then I see her in the middle of the crowd, everyone crowding around her, glasses raised.

Sloane Bishop.

I promised Ethan Caldwell, the boy I grew up with, I'd give up the top schools to attend some mediocre college with him.

On the final day of application submission, I brought homemade soup to his studio.

Outside the door, I heard him bragging to his friends: "Claire Bennett's like a damn puppy. I tell her to come to NYU with me, and boom, she changes her whole application to NYU. Lily's grades are shit. If Claire doesn't go for that full scholarship, Lily's got it in the bag. And Claire's so whipped, even when she finds out, she'll just suck it up like always."

The thermos in my hands feels cold now.

My boyfriend Tyler, his childhood sweetheart Chelsea, and I went on a road trip through the Australian Outback in the Northern Territory.

A few scrawny, yellow-coated dogs lingered by the roadside. Chelsea insisted on getting out to feed them.

I warned her they were dingoes, vicious predators that ruled this desert.

Her eyes welled up and she called me heartless. Tyler jumped in too, saying I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, that I didn't get what it was like for regular people, that I couldn't even spare a couple of hot dogs.

She forced the door open and ran out. The pack lunged at her. Her screams tore through the air. Tyler cowered in the car, shaking.

I was the only one who got out to help her.

Chelsea scrambled back into the car, but Tyler slammed the door shut and locked it.

I never forgot his face pressed against the window, terrified and selfish. I never forgot the despair of feeling fangs rip through my throat.

After I died, the two of them flew back to the States and posted a sobbing video, claiming I was the one who'd insisted on getting out to take pictures and set the dogs off.

The online hate came for my family, all of it, all at once. My parents, both with weak hearts, collapsed under the stress. Neither one made it.

My whole family, destroyed because I couldn't stop caring for one second.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day the trip started.

As the only daughter of a mafia family, I learned early that trust doesn't come cheap. When my father got sick, he gave me an ultimatum: if I want to take over the family, I have to get married first.

Everyone assumed I'd pick my childhood friend, Vincent Moretti—son of my father's right-hand man. Hell, even I thought so. Until my last life, when he left me to burn.

Father died in an ambush. I was trapped in a metal cage at an abandoned dock warehouse while flames swallowed everything. I begged Vincent for help. He stood thirty feet away, the cage key right by his feet.

"Cat, as long as your father's alive, he'll never give me the family. This isn't personal. It's business."

Sophia was wrapped around him—my so-called best friend. She smiled at me and said she'd take good care of everything.

Before I lost consciousness, I saw a figure in black charging into the flames—Elijah, the bodyguard I'd called "trash" and "a dog."

Then I opened my eyes and woke up a month before my birthday party. This time, I'm giving that position to someone who actually deserves it.

But why is Vincent on his knees at my engagement party, crying and begging me to marry him?