3206 Book(s) Related to of mice and men online

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?

Fourteen years I gave him.
Every storm I shielded him from.
Every mess I cleaned up for him.
I made him a king of Manhattan.
On my forty-second birthday, he brought my enemy's daughter to my party.
He forged my medical records.
He tried to strip me of my trust.
He thought I was done.
He forgot one thing: I made him.
And I have a son he never knew existed.

My husband's first love, Celine, lured me to a remote cabin under the guise of an "apology."
 
She then poured gasoline all over the porch and locked the door from the outside.
 
In my past life, the moment the fire began to spread, I desperately called my husband, Julian—a fire captain—for rescue.
 
He smashed the door open and saved me.
 
Ironically, Celine's scheme backfired, and she died of smoke inhalation outside.
 
Yet, Julian pinned her blood debt entirely on me.
 
He kept me at the hospital with his hypocritical comfort, only to tear off his disguise the day I was discharged. He tied me to a pillar in an abandoned warehouse and poured gasoline at my feet.
 
As the flames ignited, my ten-week-old unborn child and I were swallowed by the raging fire.
 
Julian's eyes were bloodshot. Facing my agonizing screams, his gaze held nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred:
 
"If you hadn't gone mad with jealousy and locked the door from the inside, Celine would never have died! Stop playing the victim!"
 
"The pain she suffered before she died... I'm going to make you pay for it ten times, a hundred times over!"
 
In the blazing light, he watched coldly as I was burned alive, turning into a charred corpse.
 
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment the fire started to spread.

Our ceremony was ambushed underground. One exit. Corvin was the only one who could move fast enough to carry someone out.
In my last life, he chose me — and left Niamh behind. She didn't make it. He spent five years after that making sure I understood what that meant. Every day I woke up was a day she couldn't. When I finally ran out of ways to leave quietly, I chose a window that faced east and walked into it.
Now I'm back. Same corridor, same chaos, same choice.
This time, I said: "Take Niamh."
The way his shoulders came down — like something he'd been holding for years, finally put down — told me everything five years together never did.
He promised to come back. He was already moving when he said it.
I knew I had to get out myself. But the ferals who'd killed Niamh last time found my corridor before I made it to the stairs.

My stepsister and I tumbled down the stairs together. As someone with a blood clotting disorder, my spleen ruptured—I was bleeding internally, desperate for surgery to stop it.
But my mother—the renowned chief of surgery—pulled every specialist from the ER. To consult on my stepsister's condition.
All she had was a sprained ankle. Not even a scratch. Yet mom insisted on running every test in the book. And me? Left alone on that cold floor, bleeding out, half my body already soaked in blood.
I clutched at her pants, begging her to save me. But she kicked my hand away and looked at me with pure disgust.
"Lily, are you really so desperate for a man's attention that you'd pull a cheap stunt like this? Your sister's foot is swollen—and you have the nerve to fake your death here?"
In the end, I died alone in a corner of that ignored ER.
But when they wheeled my cold body out of the morgue—and they finally learned about my clotting disorder—
That mother who claimed to hate me completely lost her mind.

It was my second year back in this house.
My name was Evelyn, the biological daughter who got lost in Central Park at seven.
During the ten years I stayed missing, I fed pigs on a remote farm in Eastern Europe. In weather that dropped to dozens below zero, I got beaten for working too slowly.
I did not get brought back until I was seventeen, covered in scars, returned to this so-called “home,” luxurious to the point of being blinding.
To be honest, every time I watched them sit on silk sofas and sip afternoon tea, then thought about the decade I spent crawling through hell, hatred made my teeth ache.
That hatred stood between us and made the house feel like an icebox. We lived under the same roof, yet we were not even as close as strangers.

I was just on the phone with my husband. He was stuck in traffic, apologizing for being late to our anniversary dinner. Forty minutes later, detectives are at my door, claiming he died in a crash three days ago. If Silas is dead, who just sent me a text?

After I took in my first love, she promised she'd always be good to me.
But after my mother died in a car accident, I found her in our home—with another man.
She told everyone Colin was her true love, that I was just a little brother she never wanted, and that I was the one who couldn't let go.
Everyone turned against me. My father had a stroke from the rage. Colin even had someone run me over—cost me an eye.
Seven years later.
I stood outside a convenience store holding flowers when I saw them.
Audrey's daughter looked at me with pity. "Mom, that man only has one eye... Is he selling flowers? Should we buy some?"

In the moonlit mating gathering, Prince Lucien Kassel publicly rejects his fated mate Elara Ashwyn, declaring,
“I, Prince Lucien Kassel, take Seraphine Elvyr as my chosen mate,”
while Elara stands broken before the entire Wolf Kingdom.

Years later, after Elara has built a new life and secretly raised their daughter Mira, Lucien corners her:
“I never stopped loving you, Elara Ashwyn. I rejected you to save you from the white witches who wanted you dead.”

Elara’s furious reply cuts deep:
“You watched them brand me like livestock and call me a dark witch, Lucien Kassel. I wish I had never met you.”

$$$$

In a world where wolf shifters prize strength above all, powerless orphan Elara Ashwyn survives brutal pack abuse and public rejection by Crown Prince Lucien Kassel only to discover she carries forbidden dark witch blood and secretly bears his child, Mira. Forced apart for seven years, Elara rises as a fierce corporate lawyer while Lucien becomes king, haunted by his sacrificial choice to protect her. When their paths collide again, old wounds reopen amid royal conspiracies, white-witch covens, and a daughter with explosive powers.

This unique blend of rejected-mates angst, secret-baby redemption, and witch-shifter politics delivers raw emotion, steamy second-chance passion, and a heroine who claims her crown on her own terms.

Will Elara Ashwyn forgive the man who shattered her, or will their cursed bond destroy them both?

Jenna, an exemplary daughter, lives alone with her father who raised her with a lot of love, discipline and responsibility. Mark Black, a very upright man who was widowed very young, but did not make another commitment to his daughter, to live happily. But life is like that, both contacted a blind date company, where they did not speak, wore masks that did not let recognize anything of each other's identity, without knowing it, they do something that would cause pain, regret, tears. Even so, there is an unrevealed truth that in the end will cause their lives to change in their totality.

What will that revelation be? What truth will that be? Find out when you read this controversial novel.

Where they discover that sex takes place with who can be something for you, but neither knows anything about the other, since everything is done in silence and with masks, but there are also sayings such as.

"NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS".

Love will overcome very hard obstacles and its protagonists must have strength to cross them, because sometimes friendship and fidelity is something temporary, sometimes who you should take care of is the person you appreciate the most, not always friends are what they seem and say they love you.

Because sometimes friendship is camouflaged in your worst enemy.

Karen had invested her last penny in the business she had recently established and was eagerly awaiting the promised funds from her benefactor to take it to the next level.
"Maybe he forgot. I should remind him," she thought, and promptly sent a text message: ‘I hate to sound desperate, but my finances are tight.’
After sending the message, she realized she had used the wrong number. She quickly started typing, ‘Please ignore the...’ when an alert popped up on her phone: ‘Five billion dollars transferred to you by Roger Dawson.’
Roger? The first name sent a chill down her spine, but the last name left her puzzled. "Roger? Could it be Tonia's bodyguard?" That was his number, but when did his name change?
Her phone rang immediately, and the name she had feared for months echoed in her ears, his voice filled with emotion yet calm like a winter breeze. "Karen, stay put, I'm on my way to you."
The call ended before she could process it. He was the reason she had fled, refusing to sign the divorce papers.
Her love for him was unrequited, his heart belonging to her adopted sister, but what hurt more was the feeling of being traded between friends like a commodity.
She would rather die than return.

When Teresa Bradley, a young journalist with a passion for photography, meets Sebastian in a park, she becomes captivated by his beauty. Trying to capture his emotions, she falls into a river, risking her life. A powerful bond forms between them after Sebastian rescues her.
As Teresa tries to make sense of her terrifying experience, Lettice, Sebastian’s great-great grandmother, kidnaps her, revealing secrets about her own existence. Bash is determined to save his human Luna, so he's gathering an army with his cousin Liam and their pack.
Despite the chaos and danger, a beautiful love story blossoms, with challenges to face. Teresa accepts her destiny and the bond she shares with Bash, but the threat is far from over. Rejected by her family, Lettice turns into a vengeful hellhound consumed by hatred and seeking revenge.
Will Lettice's revenge be the downfall of the Kielder Pack, or can Sebastian and Teresa keep their family and lives safe?

Ice Meets Fire.

On the ice, dating or fucking a teammate is forbidden. At home, Tanakorn’s father has even crueler rules. Never date a man. Win every game. Show no weakness. Replace his dead brother, the perfect hockey star, or be disowned.
As the ice-cold captain of the Vanguard Tigers, Tanakorn follows every rule without fail. Until the arrogant new rookie Krittanai is assigned to him for personal training. What starts as pure hatred ignites into a dangerous all consuming desire neither can control.
Stolen locker room touches. Heated nights that break every rule. A reckless 14-day challenge that risks everything.
But others also want Tanakorn too, and jealousy is only the beginning. When violence erupts and Tanakorn’s traumatic past resurfaces, he finally lowers his walls for the one man who risked it all to protect him.
Until the devastating truth crashes down: the person he trusted most has been his enemy from the very first day.
Now, with his career, his team, his family, and his shattered heart on the line, Tanakorn must decide. Will this obsessive love break him for good, or destroy them both?
A dark MM enemies to lovers hockey romance packed with possessive passion, forbidden heat, and a love intense enough to burn everything down.

18+ (Mature content: explicit scenes, rough physicality, emotional manipulation, psychological tension, angst, sensitive topics including rape trauma by brother’s lover, survivor’s guilt, family neglect/abuse, death of a loved one, coming out trauma—reader discretion strongly advised

He was too busy to give attention to his female admirers who had a crush on him. Now, he begging to be loved.

Juggling her career and family, Thea fought to keep her marriage alive after her husband lost his job. She hired a nanny to help—never guessing she was welcoming her own replacement.
"The three of us look more like a family than with you, mommy."
That was the final nail.
She walked away. No custody battle. No tearful goodbyes. Just silence. And from that silence, she rose—stronger, sharper, and impossible to break.
Enter Ezra Harrington.
Billionaire. CEO. Her boss.
Cold-blooded in more ways than one.
He wants Thea—but not just in the boardroom. He's hungry for more.
Her blood sings to him.
Her strength tempts him.
Her fire threatens to consume him.
But Thea doesn't kneel.
Not for love. Not for monsters.
Not even for the devil in a custom Armani suit.
Now her past is clawing back—
A husband begging for a second chance. A child she ne er stopped loving. And a vampire boss who'd destroy the world to keep her.
T.W: Dub-con, vampirism/alpha dominance, workplace relationship, dark romance etc.

"Take your things and leave, Mira. I never want to see you again. The guard will bring the divorce papers. Sign them. I have already done my part. Now it is your turn."
Mira, a princess of the Silver Claw Pack, was labeled a weak omega and abandoned by her father when her wolf never appeared. Heartbroken and humiliated, she ran away and found love in the arms of Alpha Adrien of another pack. Their marriage fell apart when Mira could not conceive, and Adrien's betrayal cut deeper than any wound.
Framed, banished, and left to hit rock bottom, Mira's suffering awakened the powerful, long-dormant wolf within her. Now stronger, fiercer, and unrecognizable, she returns to her home pack not as a broken princess but as a force to be reckoned with.
At the homecoming celebration organized by her father, Adrien, the man who once discarded her, is stunned. The woman he betrayed now commands respect and fear as a dominant leader. He begs for her back, but Mira is no longer the woman he left behind. This time, she is taking everything he once stole from her and more.

Aubrey Carver, a young heiress of the wealthiest family in the country, left her fortune to marry her first love, Dario Fowler. To avoid overshadowing him with her wealth, she posed as a poor countryside girl. Dario, however, only married her to secure his inheritance, planning to divorce her once his true love returned.
Aubrey endured years of insults and hardships from the Fowler family, her love for Dario unwavering. But when Dario handed her divorce papers, she realized he never loved her. Heartbroken, she returned to her family, who welcomed her with open arms.
Months later, Aubrey dazzled everyone at a grand ball, hosted by her grandfather to announce her as the chairwoman of Carver's Corp. Her true identity revealed, the once poor girl was now a powerful heiress.
Dario, realizing his mistake, now faces a crumbling empire and must win Aubrey back to save his business. But will she forgive him and take him back? Or will she choose a new path? The decision is hers to make.

"I've always thought the human mind is its own heaven, and it's own hell. Until the day she came into my life. She is the precise point where my sanity fractures, and God help me, I never wanted to fall into the abyss more."

AN ISOLATED ISLAND. AN INCOMING WORLD WAR. AND TWO MONSTERS TIED TO THE SAME LEASH.

Miles away from human civilisation lies Sector 9—The White Room. It isn't a facility; it's a subterranean graveyard for the most dangerous anomalies on the planet. The apex killers. The unhinged. The biological nightmares too lethal for regular prisons. Here, the world's worst aren't just contained, they are brocken, experimented on, and forged into soulless weapons for the impending World War III.

Cleo is a ghost of a girl drowning in her own trauma, fighting every single day just to keep her internal demons at bay. Then she's tethered at the neck of Kenji Sato—the Island's infuriating class clown who could walk off the Island anytime he pleases, but chooses to stay. While Cleo fights to quiet the madness in her head, Kenji wants to meet her demons. He doesn't want her body or trust—he wants to rule her mind, and he'll tear everything apart just to kneel for her in her dark space.

[Stand Alone Book: I Dare You sequel]
( DISCLAIMER‼️: Not your regular Romance!!! 🔞 proceed with caution <3
You do not need to read book one to read this book but I advice you start with book 1 in order to understand the narrative better.)

"Speak not a word to her. Let none of you lay your hands or eyes on her. She is mine to deal with. This is my only warning. Defy it, and the consequences will make you beg for death, yet death will not come."
MIRA
When Ken hurt me, I shattered.
But I never gave in. I refused to feel. I refused to love.
Then my father, who hates me, and my mother, too afraid to protect me, send me away.
I expected peace. What I got was the White Lion.
The mafia king of the continent. A legend soaked in blood.
He claims me with no mercy. Protects me with no kindness.
Says I belong to him. Proves it with every threat and every body he leaves behind.
I swore I would never surrender.
But how do you fight a devil who looks like salvation
and kisses like sin?
SCAR
After my mother died from my father’s recklessness, I made myself a promise.
No love. No women in the mafia. No weakness.
Then I saw Mira.
Too proud to beg. Too pure to touch.
I made her a game. A test. A punishment.
But now she is the obsession I never expected.

"Siblings don't do this," he murmured, his thumb tracing my jaw. "So tell me, Nyra... does he know you the way I do? Does he know what you're capable of?"
Three years ago, I escaped the empire that raised me.
I left behind my father's world of blood, violence, and impossible choices, determined to become someone else.
Someone ordinary.
For three years, I believed I had succeeded.
Until my father was murdered.
One phone call drags me back to the compound I swore I would never see again. But grief quickly gives way to betrayal.
The man I planned to marry isn't who he claimed to be.
Old enemies are hiding in plain sight.
And everyone wants something my father left behind.
Everyone has lied to me.
Everyone... except Raze.
He was my first mistake.
My greatest weakness.
The one man I could never truly forget.
Three years ago, I walked away from him.
He waited 1,095 days.
Now, he's done waiting.
As secrets buried for years begin to surface, I'm forced to face the woman I once was, the weapon my father spent years creating.
I came back wanting answers.
Instead, I found blood, betrayal, and a man who still knows exactly how to unravel me.
Now I have only two choices:
Become the weapon I was raised to be...Or die pretending I was ever meant for a peaceful life.

Rosemary Decker, a 27-year-old marketing executive fleeing corporate burnout in Seattle, inherits her great-aunt's mysterious bookshop in Thornwick Hollow just as her life crumbles. But the inheritance comes with a chilling countdown—twenty-eight days until a crimson eclipse that occurs once per generation. Holden Ashworth, a devastatingly compelling stranger with secrets older than the mountain town itself, seems to know intimate details about her family history that she's never heard before. As Rosemary discovers the horrifying truth about an ancient covenant that has claimed six generations of women from her bloodline, she realizes Holden isn't courting her—he's preparing her for a ritual that will grant him immortality while consuming her life essence. But some family legacies are worth fighting for, and in Thornwick Hollow, the hunted might just become the hunter when the crimson eclipse rises and old debts written in blood come due.

I’ve had the Sight for as long as I can remember.
Born into a matrilineal line of Salem witches, I can pierce the veil of the dead. I see the wandering souls and the lingering traces of magic left behind in the mortal world.
I always assumed this gift was nothing more than my own harmless little secret.
Until the night of our fifth wedding anniversary.
I lit the final taper candle on the long dining table. As the flame flickered, my Sight instinctively slipped open, my gaze drifting toward the deep shadows by the fireplace.
A spirit was huddled there in the dark.
It was my husband—Silas Blackwood.
Ice flooded my veins. What the hell is going on? Is Silas... dead?!
My hands shook as I fumbled for my phone, stumbling back in a frantic rush to dial his number.
But before my thumb could hit the call button—before my lips could even form the words of a banishing spell—
Click.
The front door opened.
Silas strode in, bringing the damp, fresh scent of the rain with him.
"Sorry I'm late, Evie."
My breath caught. If Silas was dead... then who the hell was standing right in front of me, wearing his skin?

In the apocalypse, during my escape, I awakened a useless superpower: reset .
My girlfriend, despising me as a burden who only creates junk, conspired with the mercenary captain to kick me into a horde of zombies.
She had planned everything, except for one thing.
My superpower wasn't "creating junk," but a conceptual-level divine skill !
A zombie bites my heart? Reset my body's state, instantly revived!
A rabid mutant attacks? Reset its hunger nerve, making it instantly kneel like a dog!
I single-handedly fought my way through the zombie horde and knocked on the shelter's door.
Beside the captain's shattered neck, I held my desperately begging ex-girlfriend upside down, smiling as I suspended her directly above the zombie horde.
"You were right, useless people should be zombie food. Now, it's your turn to prove your worth."
Then, I released her.

“Be careful with that, Emma," my boss at the high-end courier service warned, handing me the velvet-lined case. "That bottle is worth more than your life. It’s for the penthouse gala at the Sterling Heights. If it breaks, don't bother coming back.”

I clutched the case to my chest like it was a newborn child.

The soles of my shoes were so thin I could feel every jagged pebble on the pavement. My feet ached, a dull, throbbing reminder of the sixteen-hour shifts I’d been pulling for the last three months.

But every time I felt like collapsing, I thought of Liam. He met with an accident five years ago and could not work.

So, I became the bread-earner in our family.

Today was our wedding anniversary. And this last expensive delivery could earn me a decent gift for him.

"The host is on the terrace," a waiter whispered as I reached the penthouse, eyeing my worn-out sneakers with disdain. "Hurry up. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

I walked toward the terrace, my heart hammering. I just wanted to drop this off, get my signature, and run to Liam. I pushed through the crowd, dodging silk gowns and tailored tuxedos.

Then, I stopped.

The man standing at the edge of the terrace looked familiar.

He was wearing a bespoke midnight-blue tuxedo that cost more than our three years of rent. His hair was slicked back, his posture commanding and regal. He was way too rich to cross paths with me in my entire life.

But, my heart skipped a beat as he turned back to look at his friends.

It was Liam. My Liam. With other woman, offering the world to her.

In my past life , I was delivering supplies in the scorching heat of the apocalypse , only to have my ex-wife 's lover smash my head with a stick.
daughter, whom I've spoiled for sixteen years, looked at me with disgust: "Pretending to be a good girl is disgusting. Kill him and take his supplies."
When she opened her eyes again, her daughter had been reborn.
She cried and clung to my legs, begging to be taken in, all to trick me into believing she was building a shelter.
I decided to play along, spending all my savings to build her a top-of-the-line temperature-controlled fortress, and then "meticulously" teaching her the secrets of switching on the electric grid.
As the apocalypse arrives, the ex-wife and her lover launch a night raid on the high wall.
my daughter pressed the switch, trying to let her father in and kick me out the door.
The next second, with a loud "boom," the multi-million-volt high-voltage power grid was instantly activated !
The daughter collapsed in the control room, trembling : "Why is the switch upside down?!"

Everyone says I’m crazy.
My husband, Adrien, is Ashmont College’s most esteemed professor—suave, composed, and highly logical. I, on the other hand, am an investigative journalist whose nerves are fried by looming deadlines and too much caffeine. Yet, I insist there’s a woman who shares my exact face, who crawls out of our bedroom mirror every night and slips into my husband’s bed.
Our security cameras always "happen" to glitch at the crucial moments. My son avoids me like I’m a monster, and my neighbors claim they cheerfully greeted "me" in the driveway a few days ago—even though I don't even own a vintage pink dress.
Adrien has started dropping phrases like "psych evaluation" and "sole custody." If I let this drag on any longer, he’s going to personally commit me to a psych ward.
So tonight, I lied about flying to Chicago. Instead, I’m hiding in my own study—waiting for that identical face to crawl out of the mirror one more time.

The day he proposed, Atticus knelt before me, holding the Hale family's heirloom necklace.
I thought I had finally survived the ordeal.
After eight years of unrequited love, being humiliated by his sister, nitpicked by his mother, and mocked by the city's socialites for being unworthy of the Hales... Until this very moment, when he personally fastened the heirloom around my neck. Everyone saw it. I, Clara, was finally accepted by the Hale family.
Tears in my eyes, I said yes, thinking it was the happiest moment of my life.
But just days after putting on that necklace, bizarre red rashes crawled up my neck. My pale skin rotted away piece by piece, and my internal organs went into irreversible failure.
The most absurd part? The exact same day I started rotting, his dying mother miraculously cured her terminal illness, and his sister's half-destroyed face was restored to flawless perfection.
Disfigured and barely looking human, I threw myself off the Harbour Bridge—
I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day of the proposal.

In a sleek design world split between polished appearances and buried cruelty, Mara Ellison has spent years trapped behind a voice no one wanted to hear. While her family rewrites her illness and her fiancé speaks over her in the name of love, stolen records, public humiliation, and old betrayals force her to reclaim her life. Quiet but cutting, this is a story of emotional abuse, identity theft, and hard-won selfhood—framed by rain-soaked streets, hospital corridors, cold glass conference rooms, and a woman finally stepping into the light with her own voice.

The day college decisions came out, my parents bought my twin sister a Porsche.
It was my eighteenth birthday too. Nobody brought it up. I stood in the doorway in my diner uniform while the whole room sang her name.
That night the four of them went out to dinner to celebrate her. The car only sat four, so my father handed me a hundred dollars and told me to order myself something at home.
Four days later, six thousand four hundred dollars vanished from my account. Two years of washing dishes, gone to her sorority dues. My mother's name was on the account, so it wasn't even illegal.
I didn't scream and I didn't beg. I went upstairs and clicked Accept on the full ride to MIT that had been sitting in my inbox for three days.
Nobody in that house ever wanted me. So I booked a one-way ticket, cut myself out of the family photo, and left my key on the shoe rack.
I wasn't coming back. Not for graduation. Not for any of them.

Five years into living with my stepbrother Gideon, the scholarship girl he sponsored moved into our house.
To repay his "generosity," she made a habit of slipping into his bed at night. By day, she took it upon herself to "fix" my antisocial, withdrawn personality.
Three days before St. George Prep's graduation ceremony, she brought me a glass of juice wearing that nauseating sugar-sweet smile.
"You know, Charlotte, your peanut allergy is probably psychosomatic. You just need some exposure therapy. Let me help you get over it."
That night, my throat closed completely. She'd deliberately laced my drink with concentrated peanut extract.
I convulsed on the cold hardwood floor, vision tunneling as oxygen fled my lungs.
In the last second before darkness swallowed me whole, I clawed desperately toward the half-open door.
Standing in the hallway were my boyfriend Dylan and my stepbrother Gideon.
They simply watched me suffocate. Then Gideon calmly reached out and shut the door.
I died from anaphylactic shock.
Three months later, as a ghost tethered to this world, I watched her stride onto Stanford's campus. Wearing my clothes. Carrying my acceptance letter. Burning through my trust fund.
Through the crowd, I saw Gideon—my ice-cold, unreachable stepbrother—gently cradle her face and press his lips to hers.
Then I gasped awake.
I was back. Three days before graduation.

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

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

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

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

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

Six months ago, my parents started fostering a girl named Lila Mercer.
Six months ago, Mom repainted the guest room and strung fairy lights over the bed. My room still has the same furniture I've had since I was twelve.
Six months ago, Dad started coming home for Sunday dinner. Not for me. I'd been eating alone at the counter for years by then.
Six months ago, Mom posted a photo of the two of them at the farmers market. Caption: our family is growing. I saw it during third period and locked my phone hard enough to crack the case.
So when I picked up the family iPad tonight and a notification popped up from an app I didn't recognize, I wasn't shocked. Just tired of being right.
The app was called Beacon.

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

One was an immensely powerful pureblood aristocrat.

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

In my past life, I chose Cassian.

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

But he never seemed to get better.

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

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

Cassian shoved me precisely into the path of their claws.

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

Silver claws completely shredded my throat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I waited five years for a heart transplant.
My mother—the Luna of our Pack, the healer everyone worships—gave it to someone else.
An orphan girl she took in. A girl who now calls her "Mom."
Ivy got my heart. She got a wolf. She got a mate and a wedding so grand the whole Pack attended.
Me? I watched from the corner, still dying, while my mother smiled for the cameras and accepted praise for her "selfless sacrifice."
When I finally snapped at the ceremony, she slapped me. Told me to apologize. Said I was embarrassing the family.
I'm her actual daughter. I'm the one who can't shift, can't feel a mate bond, can't survive another six months.
But sure. I'm the problem.
They wanted me to stay quiet and die gracefully.
I chose to make sure everyone sees who their perfect Luna really is.

My husband used my cottage to cheat on me. Fine. I found out, I drove three hours, and I walked into my own house to find his mistress wearing my dead grandmother's sweater.
She told me to leave.
He showed up, kissed her in front of me, then grabbed my arm and shoved me into the door frame.
That's when I had the asthma attack. He's known about my asthma for five years.
My inhaler rolled across the porch floor. His mistress picked it up, held it out, and told me to sign a statement saying I'd caused all of this. Then she'd give it back.
He looked at me on the ground and said: She's performing.
I'm sitting on the floor of my own grandmother's house, gasping, and my husband is telling the neighbors I'm acting.
Nobody thought to ask whose family manages every property on this coastline.

My childhood sweetheart, Henry, gave me a glass of milk the night before my Harvard interview.
I thought he cared.
Until I woke up with my waist-length hair hacked off and my brain drowning in sedatives.
Later, I found him at a cafe, laughing with the prettiest girl, Madison, in our class.
"You actually cut her hair? You're insane, Henry!" she giggled.
"Truth or dare, babe," I heard him. "She's fat anyway. But you need that Harvard spot, Madison."
The boy who promised to marry me traded my dream to impress someone else.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry.
Let him have his joke. I'm taking my life back.

On the night of my 28th birthday, my husband was stuck in the OR.
The man sitting across from me at dinner was his best friend, Ronan.
I got drunk. Half-asleep, I pulled a man who smelled exactly like Nate into my bed.
When morning broke, the truth did too—the man pinning me down was Ronan. He’d used my husband’s cologne.
"From the first time I saw you, I wanted to steal you from him."
Crying, I confessed everything to Nate over the phone. Dead silence for three seconds, then he hung up.
By the time I rushed home, Ronan was dragging two suspiciously heavy black suitcases out the door. And my husband... vanished off the face of the earth.

I was four months pregnant when the truck hit my car.
I woke up on a gurney outside the OR, bleeding, half-conscious, thinking my husband was saving my life. Then I heard him through the door.
"The baby's gone. Her right hand is finished—her career's over either way. Just take her kidney now and put it in Mia."
My mother agreed. My father told him to switch my architectural draft to Mia's name before Friday.
Mia. The sister they'd raised for twenty years while I was missing. The sister whose body was failing. The sister my husband had apparently been in love with the whole time I was married to him.
I was supposed to die on that table. I wasn't supposed to hear anything.
But my phone was in my coat pocket, and the voice memo app had never stopped recording.
And now I had a choice to make.

"I agree." I signed away my life to save the girl who framed me. My mate didn't even look up from her tears to notice I was dying. "Stop pretending. This much blood loss won't kill you," he said, storming out with her in his arms. What he didn't know? That contract wasn't a healing pact—it was an execution order. And I'd just started my 72-hour countdown to burn his entire kingdom down with me.

“Dad… please… help me…” I pleaded, my shattered ribs piercing my lungs, blood soaking the stretcher.
But Richard, the hospital's top surgeon and my biological father, didn't even glance at me. Instead, he rushed to the next bed.
“Don't be afraid, Chloe. I'm here,” he cooed to his stepdaughter, who merely had a tiny scratch on her arm. “Get the best equipment over here now!” he roared.
As the heart monitor flatlined and my soul left my broken body, I realized the chilling truth: in the choice between life and death, my father gladly let me die.

In order to rush to comfort his assistant whose apartment was leaking, Richard signed his name hastily without even glancing at the documents on the table.
I put away the divorce agreement with a wry smile.
When he and my son completely disappeared, he finally panicked.
Three months later .
He knelt down on the streets of Chicago in despair, begging me to remarry him.
My six-year-old son looked coldly at his biological father and said, "Get lost, you bad uncle! You don't deserve to be my dad!"