483 Book(s) Related to cameron hayes book

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?

I've been able to see clocks above people's heads since the day I was born. As long as the hands keep moving, the bond between us is still alive.

Once the hands spin backward and stop at zero, that bond is finished.

When I was seven, the clock over my best friend's head just stopped one day. She drowned in the reservoir the next morning.

When I was fifteen, my grandfather's clock started ticking backward, slower and slower, until it stopped completely. He died peacefully in his sleep that same night.

When I was eighteen, my father, a drunk who lied about everything, slammed the door on his way out. I watched his clock vanish completely and knew right then he was never coming back.

Ever since, clocks scare me. I'm always afraid of watching someone I love get taken away from me.

So I keep my head down, holding on tight to the quiet, stable life I've fought so hard for.

Then tonight, I watch the clock above Marcus Hargrove's head start spinning backward.

What scares me even more is Willow's clock doing the same thing.

While I'm still trying to figure out why, the storm hits that night. He walks out on his daughter while she's burning up with fever and having convulsions, and runs straight to another woman.

His clock jumps back another notch.

My boyfriend looks at me like I'm trash. Too fat. Too plain. My clothes are ugly. He never misses a chance to tear me down.

I thought he was just mean. Then his "good friend" Sophie spilled coffee all over our ten-thousand-dollar control board.

That board was three months of work. Three months of all-nighters, twice I passed out from low blood sugar. It was our entry for the National Robotics Competition. The deadline's tomorrow. Now it's gone.

I confronted Sophie, and he stormed in, pulled her into his arms, and pointed his finger in my face. "It's just a stupid competition. Did you really need to come at Sophie like that?"

Turns out he's not just mean. He genuinely can't stand me.

When Trevor Sullivan had nothing, I gave up billions to follow him to Silicon Valley. Everyone said I was crazy in love with him, until his first love came back to the States right after he made it big.

Seven years of playing the perfect wife and mother, and then I hear him coaching our five-year-old daughter: "Ruby, you can't tell Mommy about my fake wedding with Amber. Not a word, okay?"

"But Daddy, Mommy's gonna be sad..."

"If you tell Mommy, Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

I stand outside the door, my heart turning to ash.

For the woman he never got over, he doesn't just betray our marriage. He makes our five-year-old lie for him.

Everyone expects me to cry, to beg, to fall apart.

Instead, I dial the number I blocked seven years ago: "Dad, can the family jet still come get me?"

Trevor Sullivan has no idea. I was never some gold digger who needed him to survive. I was the one with everything who made myself small for his sake.

As a regular student, I never expected to fit into the world of trust fund kids. But this real estate heiress reached out to me, said she'd show me how the other half lives, even promised to introduce me to New England's most powerful heir.

I thought she'd be my friend. Thought she actually cared. I even fell for him.

Until she framed me for stealing confidential school files. Until he said, "Just a scholarship kid. No one's gonna miss her." That's when I understood. I was never more than their toy.

They tore up my textbooks, stuffed dead rats in my locker, spent six months tormenting me online and off. My mother couldn't take the vicious comments. Her heart gave out. And me? After I completely broke down, they drove me to the coastal cliffs.

Ice-cold water flooded my nose and mouth. Suffocation dragged me down into despair. I hate myself for being weak. Hate them for their arrogance. Hate this rotten system that treats people like me as disposable.

But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the night she pushed me toward him.

This time, I won't be fooled.

I'm the youngest lead surgeon in our hospital's cardiothoracic department. My fiancé, Adrian Wexford, runs the whole department.

His first love, Bella Hartley, is a mediocre surgeon, but she wants to take over the surgery that should be mine before her promotion review.

In my last life, I fought for it. I told them she didn't have the skill to handle it alone, that it was gambling with a patient's life. I threatened to quit and saved the patient.

But Bella couldn't handle the gossip going around the department. She got depressed and jumped off the hospital roof.

Adrian never said a word about it. He kept treating me the same, picked out wedding rings with me, smiled and told me we'd go on our honeymoon right after the wedding.

I thought he'd let it go.

Then on our wedding day, one glass of wine in, I woke up in a freezing basement, strapped down to an operating table.

He held a scalpel and cut into me, inch by inch, his eyes bloodshot.

"If you hadn't fought so hard for that surgery, Bella wouldn't have jumped. You owe her. Pay with your life."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the afternoon he first suggested giving Bella the surgery.

This time, I didn't argue. I just smiled. "Sure. Let Bella take the lead on this one."

They have no idea that next Tuesday, the Chief of Surgery is bringing the board and a visiting specialist to observe, unannounced.

We'll see how they explain this one.

Three years after my pilot husband "died" in a plane crash, I walk in on him cutting a birthday cake for his three-year-old son backstage at the company memorial gala.

Luke freezes in the lounge, his hand still on the knife, staring at me.

His parents rush over to shield him. The same couple who screamed at me in the funeral home, wishing I'd died instead of him.

"Nora, just calm down. There's an explanation..."

Claire covers her slightly rounded belly, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry, Nora. My baby needs his father. Please, I'm begging you. I couldn't help myself—I love him."

I thought I'd break down. Thought I'd scream.

But all that guilt, all that self-blame, three years of missing him burns away the second I see the truth.

Nothing's left.

Two weeks before my due date, my husband Ethan is racing out the door into a stormy night.

All because his childhood friend Scarlett's apartment lost power, and she says her claustrophobia is kicking in.

I'm clutching my belly, telling him my water broke, begging him to look at the blood on the floor.

"You pulling this again? Last week wasn't enough? Scarlett's actually in danger."

He shakes off my hand. The door slams shut.

I'm standing in a pool of blood, watching his taillights disappear into the rain.

My baby won't have a father anymore.

The STORY comprises of the most dangerous mafia, he is also a handsome young Man of about 24 years of age by name Harrison McCall He is known to be the leader of the Mafia group be the name, “Black Jaguars” these group are feared by many in the country and with this he doesn’t “NO” for an answer especially when it comes to his personal needs.
He is mostly feared by people except his family members who know nothing about his dangerous life style.
Harrison has always been a jerk, a cheater and a dangerous bi***h he hated the word Love because he never believed in it but he like to flirts around. Until, the day he met Elena.
A 20 year Old young lady by name Elena Morgan, She’s a very beautiful, Kind but timid at times, smart, and little bit shy young Lady and the only daughter of her parents.
The STORY got thrilled when both families got the two different individuals married.
Harrison and Elena got married but it was a love less marriage. They were living like enemies but as time goes on things began to change.
But, when the two couple decided to take their new found love life to another turn, Jason came in the picture.
Jason, Harrison’s cousin brother is the opposite of him.
Jason hates everything about Harrison. Firstly, he took away his love for his ex-girlfriend Sara and now the one true love he had which is Elena he took her away and got married to her too.
Jason is verge to take REVENGE on him and pay him back in double folds.
Jason planned on making Harrison’s new found happiness to be shattered and he is determined to KILL for it.

Will he succeed with his plans???

Victoria discovered that I hadn't submitted any supplemental medical expense claims for two weeks.
She assumed I had finally been disciplined and had given up what she called "the exploitative nature of the lower class."
Little did she know, my backpack held the signed divorce papers and my mother's death certificate.
As I turned to leave, I was still wearing the discounted trench coat she'd casually given me three years ago when we got married.
What she didn't know was that I, a deep-sea geology genius from MIT, willingly endured three years of her humiliation and ridiculous rules, just so my mother could stay in her conglomerate's private hospital to prolong her life.
Now, my mother has died because of unpaid bills , and even her ashes are carried by me in a cheap canvas bag.
Now that my loved one is dead, there's no need for me to continue being her obstructive dog on Wall Street. The lives she owed with those approval forms, I will settle with the collapse of her entire conglomerate empire.

On our wedding day, she vanished wearing the gown I had bought for her.
I didn’t chase her. Instead, I went back to the operating table.
For three years, I had paid off her debts and filled the holes she left behind—enough for her to live a second life. My heart couldn't take it anymore; I had a stent implanted, though she never knew.
Three days later, I died in the hospital corridor. My ECG flatlined.
She didn’t know. She was still at a cocktail party in another city, clinking glasses with someone else.
A month later, she came back, kneeling before my tombstone in tears.
But it was all too late.

In this apocalyptic world of extreme heat, I fight for water in the underground black market, and I risk my life to hoard supplies.
My internet-famous roommate enjoyed my efforts while hiding in the air-conditioned room, panting softly in front of three fill lights: "We need to slow down and reconcile with nature."
Later, she stole my supplies and sold them to drug lords, causing me to be roasted alive on the riverbed.
After being reborn, I turned and left.
"Don't you like a slow-paced life? Stay here and enjoy it."
The end times have only just begun.

Betrayed by my wife on the eve of the apocalypse, they stole the shelter keys and locked me in the heart of the zombie outbreak to die.
I felt no anger.
Three minutes to blast open the blast door, ten minutes to drain the billions from that despicable couple's overseas accounts,
and then I'd buy machine guns and artillery from the black market! The couple speeding down the highway had no idea that the "top-secret key" they were protecting was actually a bomb designed to detonate the defense system.
The real wasteland survival game had only just begun.

For three whole years, as the "partner" of the bourgeois empress Victoria, I remained the most docile shadow of her business empire. Everyone thought I was a beautifully kept ornament, but only I knew that beneath this glittering facade, every shadow was a chaotic situation I had quelled with my own blood and flesh. It wasn't
until she used her daughter's final resting place as leverage to appease her lover that I realized that marriage was nothing more than a deceptive hunt.
Now, I'm going to recoup the costs.

For half a box of rations, my former comrade put a bullet in my back. As I gasped my last, the world reset—three days before the apocalypse. I didn't go after him for revenge. I floored the accelerator, racing toward the Texas borderlands where my grandfather—a Vietnam veteran—had spent forty years hoarding "junk" that everyone mocked. When the heat turned the earth into a furnace and Drake’s war-party smashed into the fence, they were met with a wall of diesel fire. My grandfather had spent three years digging a secret tunnel that bypassed the perimeter, and half a ton of fertilizer sent their entire encampment into the sky. They laughed at his junk pile. I laughed at their graves.

They kept me shackled before the Gates of the Abyss, force-feeding me toxic sludge and draining my final drop of blood, all to maintain their hypocritical "order." They called me the "Ultimate Anchor," unaware that the moment a watchdog decides it’s done playing the dog, the beast in the cage finally wakes up. From the very second I seized the laws of physics, this entire headquarters of the Defense Bureau became my private mausoleum. Your high-and-mighty Director? He’s currently kneeling in my cycle, begging for the sweet release of death. As for that Void Rift that makes the world tremble? Sorry, I just ate it for dinner.

The day manager Gregg shoved me into the freight elevator shaft, the nuclear winter outside had only just begun. As he slammed the gate shut, he said, "No one will find you dead down there; the insurance payout is enough to cover the shortfall." I died in the darkness at thirty degrees below zero. Then, I woke up. I was back on the afternoon he threw the contract in my face. This time, I didn't sign. I shoved the contract into the paper shredder, snatched the brass key ring from Supervisor Miller, locked every exit of the warehouse, and re-routed the entire building's heating system into my own command bunker. As Gregg licked ice off the frozen floor on the security monitor, I was sitting in the guard room, heating up a can of pork. Outside, the first snowflake fell. And this time, the ones who would be freezing to death were them.

"I was bonded with an alien system that issued nothing but 'benevolence' missions.
Supply food to violent thugs, shelter the mutants, embrace the Zombie King, and share our planetary defense technology with the entire world.
It claimed that as long as we were merciful, the civilization could survive.
I nodded, then promptly tweaked the task annotations.
I laced the food with neuro-suppressants, turned the shelter into a bio-sample bank, and activated kinetic overload when I 'embraced' the monster king.
Sharing the tech? Sure—though every defensive line I shared came with a backdoor that I could trigger remotely.
When the system eventually tried to purge me, Professor Sarah retaliated by locking it inside the national supercomputer.
I rewrote its underlying code, replacing 'mercy' with 'absolute order.'
Earth remains a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the global satellite network is entirely in my hands.
The system’s most crushing defeat wasn't being destroyed; it was staying alive, only to become my tool."

The world thought I was a broken man after rotting in the Abyss for five years. Even Moretti, the wealthiest mogul in Cold Harbor, dared to point a finger at my nose and demand I kneel.
He razed my estate, seized my daughter, and humiliated my past on a city-wide livestream.
What he didn’t know was that the moment his infrared scanners locked onto me, I had already initiated the sequence for a dormant orbital satellite that had been sleeping above us for five years.
When the skyscraper turns to ash, the man kneeling before me won’t be that arrogant tycoon—only a trembling corpse.
After all, in this city, I don’t believe in reason. I only believe in retribution.

In the extreme cold of the apocalypse, I was bound to the Seraphim's Flame, gaining access to the tycoon's bunker.
My good brother Luke was so jealous he went mad and killed me with a single blow.
Reborn, Luke stole the "Seraphic Flame" and, like throwing away trash, kicked another dark, ugly stone to my feet.
He didn't know—Redstone was a blood-sucking evil, while Blackstone was the true god-level talent.
When the deathly gale of minus seventy degrees swept across the world, I activated the [Dimensional Fortress] of infinite space.
Tons of munitions, mountains of supplies, overwhelming heavy firepower…
I will stand on the frozen wasteland and watch that bastard, step by step, become the human battery I need.

In my previous life, I gave away all my resources to save people, but my godfather broke my legs and fed me to the zombies.
Reincarnated 30 days before the apocalypse, I borrowed millions to build a nuclear-proof bunker and bought twelve retired, violent, and rabid dogs.
Extreme cold descends. With nowhere else to turn and in a desperate attempt to survive, the priest forces a space-age ability user to pinpoint the coordinates of the area inside the bunker with the "highest concentration of heat," and then forcibly teleports to steal the bunker.
He landed laughing wildly, feeling the scorching heat wave hitting him, thinking he had taken over my generator room and greenhouse.
I sneered and remained silent through the bulletproof glass.
This idiot has no idea that the hottest place in my shelter... has never been the generator.

In my previous life, an endless polar night and frost-laden corpse tide swept through the entire city.
My wife and I took in her mother and younger brother out of familial obligation,
But when monsters attacked, they locked us outside the shelter and we were torn apart alive.
Opening my eyes again, there are only seven days until doomsday arrives.
My wife and I have reached a consensus—to hell with blood being thicker than water!
This time, we will build an icy tomb for them with our own hands at the highest point of this city.

In my past life, I was cheated on.
My wife is having an affair with my fitness coach, and even our five-year-old daughter isn't my child.
I filed for divorce, and she left with nothing. I thought my life couldn't get any worse—but then the apocalypse came, and I was bitten to death by zombies.
In her last moments before she died, I saw her family of three nestled in her lover's secluded mountain cabin, with plenty of food and drink, passing away peacefully in their old age.
God gave me a second chance.
Back on the day we signed the divorce papers, I smiled and said to my ex-wife, "You can have the villa, but I want Julian's dilapidated cabin."

A horde of 100,000 mutated beasts besieged the city, and a ten-meter-tall abyssal wolf pressed its claws against my throat.
My enemy, riding on the wolf's back, laughed maniacally, threw down the chains, and ordered me to kneel and surrender immediately.
The fortress garrison closed their eyes in despair. But looking at that gaping maw so close to my face, I let out a long sigh of relief, even laughing aloud.
"What are you laughing at, facing certain death?!" she shrieked.
"I'm laughing at your pathetic stupidity." I gently crushed a poison capsule in my sleeve. "You really think I threw down all my weapons and walked out of the city gates to face this 100,000-strong army to surrender?"
"That's because if the distance exceeds three meters, my genetic virus can't be precisely injected into this beast's lungs."

They call me a parasite.
An outdated piece of trash. A fraudster hiding in the clouds, sucking the blood of the empire.
They spat at my shadow, threw stones at my door, and made my daughter bind my wrists with spirit-binding silver.
Then they asked me if I had any last words.
I said, "The void is coming."
They burst into laughter.
Now, the sky has cracked open.
Those who once cursed my name are now kneeling in the ashes, begging me for help.
I sat on a cold rock on Greystone Ridge, gazing at the distant firelight.
I could have stopped it all.
But I choose—
To stand idly by.

My teammates viewed me as a mobile food supply and planned to butcher me before they ran out of rations.
They thought that as long as I died, they would win this "survival game."
However, they would never know that what I brought back from the depths of the ruins wasn't fear, but the highest-level administrative privileges of the entire logistics system. While they killed each other for a bag of expired biscuits, I had already locked the exit to this hell. Sorry, but in this settling of accounts, you aren't even qualified to be treated as bargaining chips.

I’ve been guarding a door in the Nevada underground for a hundred years. The system marks this place "Abandoned," and the official records claim I don't exist.
When the investigation team arrived, the leader was my old signal corpsman. He pretended not to know me and ordered his guards to drag me out like a piece of dead weight.
They shoved a young lad from the Rex family into the breach as bait, and while everyone screamed in horror, no one dared to move.
So, I jumped down to fish the kid out, using a bottle of beer to force back the tentacles reaching from the dark.
Then, I pulled on that dusty old uniform and pressed my palm against the master console—all thirty-two security protocols verified instantly.
The lead technician collapsed in shock: "This clearance level is restricted to the Chief Architect only."
He was right. I am.
The thing I’ve kept locked behind that door for a century woke up, whispering: "What do you want?"
I said: "Dinner."

I spent three years as a "useless son-in-law," humiliated in public by my wife, all to repay a debt of life-saving gratitude.
That night, she handed me a cup of poisoned wine, smiling as she told me to "disappear from this world."
But she didn't know that the wine served to terminate our contract of protection—and unchained my shackles completely.
When the fighter jets of the Northern Command cast their shadows over the entire estate, she finally knelt in the mud, crying out for "Adrian."
But this time, I will not look back.

In my previous life, my wife was addicted to black market gambling on football, which caused us to lose everything.
To make matters worse, a zombie horde then broke out.
We had no shelter and were quickly torn apart by a horde of frenzied zombies.
After being reborn, she planned to run off with all the money, then dump me and elope with her lover.
What she didn't know was that I had awakened the ability to read minds and knew all her plans.

They call me the "Savior," building altars for me amidst the ruins.
But they don't know that when I climbed out of the abyss, I had no intention of saving this species whatsoever.
I am not here to rebuild civilization; I am simply calculating exactly how many souls I must reclaim to fully awaken my Ark.

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

Betrayed to death by my own brother, I was reborn before the apocalypse descended.
He rushed to seize the god-tier [Copy] talent first, leaving the trash [Purification] talent for me.
He thought that with this talent, he'd have no worries and reign supreme in the apocalypse.
Meanwhile, I quietly closed the last door of my fortress.
He didn't know that his prized copying ability had a fatal flaw.

"You're being married to a prince," he said, cold and measured. "You claim you can't contribute to this pack as a warrior? Fine. Then this is your chance at redemption."
"Honor?" I spat the word like poison. "You and the king are exactly the same—both fine sacrificing me for your precious legacy."
"Enough." His voice dropped, dangerous and quiet. "Do you want to spend decades unable to shift? Watching everyone you trained with surpass you? Is that the life you want? Really?"
The denial stuck in my throat. We both knew the answer.
"So leave." Softer now. "You're my most stubborn daughter, Elara. This choice is brutal. Unfair. But at least it's a chance to prove you're still the warrior you claim to be."
He paused at the door. "Some wolves come late," he said quietly. "The ones you have to fight for — they're often more beautiful than anyone ever imagined."
Then he was gone.

She trained like a warrior. Fought like a warrior. Thought like one, planned like one, bled like one — just like the legendary parents whose name she was supposed to carry on.
She just never turned into one.
Every wolf shifts. Elara didn't. One failure erased everything else — no command, no place on the battlefield. Just a wedding dress and a one-way trip to vampire territory.
The last bride sent to secure this same alliance took her own life. Elara is the one they scrambled to send in her place — before the ink on the treaty could even dry.
She tells herself she just has to survive where her predecessor couldn't.
She has no idea what's actually waiting for her in that castle — and by the time she finds out, it's already too late to run.

She stole from the wrong billionaire. Now she's his most valuable prize.

Half-fae thief Vesper thought she'd pulled off the heist of a lifetime—until she discovered her mark was a dragon in disguise. Draken, the ruthless CEO who rules Las Vegas with an iron fist and a hoard of gold, doesn't forgive. He doesn't forget. And he never lets go of what's his.

One stolen memento. One impossible connection. One soul-bond that neither of them wanted.

Now she's caught between vampire syndicates, dragon-hunters, and a possessive billionaire who claims her as his fated mate. But none of them saw it coming: her half-fae bloodline wasn't a weakness—it was the perfect vessel for primordial dragon magic, a power no mortal was ever meant to wield.

Now she can see through any lie, bend probability at the casino tables, and challenge the immortal elite who've ruled Vegas for centuries. In a city where money is god and magic is currency, Vesper must master these stolen abilities before her enemies weaponize her gifts—or before Draken's obsession consumes them both.

"Nancy has returned. I'll have my secretary prepare the divorce settlement."

Andrew Lopez, the superstar and my secret contract husband of three years, buttoned his shirt coldly. For three years, I was his perfect, obedient wife in the shadows. I fulfilled his every need and never caused a single scandal. But the moment his first love returned, I became entirely disposable.

"Very well, I will sign it," I smiled, understanding my place.

I packed my bags and prepared to step aside. But the script didn't go as he planned. When his "innocent" first love tried to bully and humiliate me, I refused to be a pushover, tearing off her fake mask. And when my handsome former classmate showed up to protect me, Andrew completely lost his mind.

He pinned me against the wall, his eyes burning with intense jealousy. "You're still my wife! Stay away from him."

I let out a cold laugh. "We're getting divorced, remember? You chose your true love. Now, watch me shine and live my best life without you."

Is a stay-at-home wife just a maid in her marriage?

I say: Absolutely not.

I worked late just to buy my daughter a birthday cake.
But when I got home, I accidentally heard her on the phone with another woman.

She was ashamed of me, called me a maid, and begged that woman to act as her family member at the parent-teacher conference.

Later I found out my husband had been with that woman all along.
Hidden inside my daughter’s watch was a small group chat with just the three of them.

My own daughter said she hated me and planned to drive me away.
And my husband let it all happen.

My heart was completely broken.
On my birthday, I signed the divorce papers and left home quietly.

After leaving, I discovered a much bigger world and achieved my dreams.

But their lives fell completely apart.

Everyone thinks I'm the wild child of the family, the one who won't fall in line.

Blake's the young king of the business world—rational, cold, always in those perfectly cut suits.

But every night, he's got me pinned underneath him, breathing my name.

He said I was his, but never let me see daylight. Until she came back—my father's mistress's daughter, in her white dress, smiling like an angel.

On my birthday, he went to pick her up from the airport. When the chandelier crashed down, he carried her to the hospital and left me bleeding on the floor. When she smashed my mother's heirloom, he made me apologize on my knees. He said she was fragile, needed care; said I was strong enough to understand.

Then I heard them on my bed, her moaning his name.

So I left. Married a man who truly loved me. And he went insane.

He kidnapped me, forced a wedding, announced to the world I was his wife.

But this time, I just smiled and shook my head.

"Let go. It's too late."

I used to be the Blackwells' best killer. For him, I walked away from that life and became his wife. I even gave him a daughter.

I thought it was redemption. Turns out, it was the start of something worse.

Three years ago, during that shootout at the docks, his first love showed up with his bastard son. When the rival family put guns to both kids' heads, he didn't hesitate. He chose to save her son.

My daughter burned in the explosion.

That was the day the man I loved for ten years died. What's left is just my sworn enemy.

At the Met Gala, I heard my husband tell his friends in French that I'm "boring." That his 22-year-old girlfriend is "so much more exciting in bed."

He laughed when they asked if I knew. "Elle ne comprend même pas 'bonjour'." (She doesn't even understand 'bonjour'.)

What Marcus doesn't know: I spent two years at the Sorbonne.

Je comprends tout, Marcus. I understand everything.

The diamond necklace he gave me after my miscarriage suddenly feels too tight. I smile at him across the champagne and candlelight.

He has no idea what's coming.

Everyone says he loved me more than anything. So I chose to answer that love with death.

Forbes cover stories, tearful speeches at charity galas, shutting down Fifth Avenue every Valentine's Day just to watch fireworks with me. They said he ruled a business empire but would kneel in front of the entire world and call me his reason to live.

I used to believe it.

Until I discovered my perfect husband had built another home with another woman. A warm one, filled with laughter and his child.

So I chose to disappear the night the storm swallowed everything.

They say he spent three days on his knees at the cliff's edge, screaming my name into the black ocean. The man worth billions couldn't even find his wife's body.

When the rescue team recovered that burned-out car, he finally opened the safe I'd left for him. Inside was a positive pregnancy test and a divorce agreement that would never be signed.

By then, nothing mattered anymore.

At the bar, I watched Ethan get publicly dumped and made a crazy proposal fueled by liquid courage—a three-month fake dating contract.

I thought this was my only chance after twenty years of secret crushing. Until his ex showed me the text: "With Mia? Pretty convenient. She's been following me around since we were kids."

So I was just a tool.

The day we broke up, he shouted with red eyes: "I've been crazy about you for twenty years!" I thought he was acting, until his mom handed me a worn journal—

That careless comment I made at thirteen, "I'm never marrying Ethan," he'd remembered for twenty whole years.

Every page of that diary was filled with my name...

Every time my husband wants to make me give in, he slaps divorce papers on the table. Every time my parents want me to cave, they threaten to disown me.

What they want is simple: give everything to my twin sister.

I used to fight back. I cried. I demanded to know why it always had to be me.

But when the doctor slides the test results across his desk and tells me in that pitying voice, "Stage four brain cancer. You have a month, maybe less," something in me just... stops caring.

I'm dying anyway. They can do whatever the hell they want.

I was an orphan, and a rare heart condition ate away at me for twenty years. The night I died in that cold hospital room, a reaper in a black robe came for me.

He told me if I crossed into a world of werewolves, into the Moonheart Pack, and made Estelle's family genuinely love me — Estelle being the real daughter who'd died a horrible death there — and if I rewrote the ending where they all went mad and tore each other apart, I'd get my health back for good. A second life.

For twenty years in that body, I loved every single one of them with everything I had.

My husband Rhett was the youngest Alpha the pack had ever had. I mentioned once that I wanted Alaskan wild berries, and he drove a thousand miles overnight to get them. My mother Sylvia, the pack's head healer, made me tonics herself every single day. My father Everett and my brother Callum spoiled me so much the whole pack envied me for it.

I thought I'd actually rewritten my fate. I thought I was the happiest person alive.

Until that night.

I'm carrying a berry pie I baked myself toward the council hall when I hear my mother's voice, flat and cold.

"Estelle's heart is finally in perfect condition. Now's the best time to take it."

"Her heart buys Lila's life. She should be grateful for it." Rhett says it like it's nothing. "Once we take the heart, I'll dissolve the mate bond myself."

So this is it. All that kindness was just to grow a healthy heart for their adopted girl.

Three years. I've spent three years trying to love them, to thaw them out, to change things.

Then let it end here.

Three years after returning to the Duke's estate, I finally admit the truth: the phoenix I poured my heart into raising doesn't love me. He only spreads his brilliant tail feathers for the replacement.

I was six when traffickers took me, stuck in the slums for twenty years. A year after losing me, the Duke and Duchess adopted an infant from the church.

That girl became the new daughter, enjoying everything that should have been mine.

When they found me at twenty-six, my parents looked at me with guilt, yes, but mostly like I was a stranger. They loved the daughter they raised more.

I don't blame them.

Twenty years in the slums taught me: don't count on anyone's love. Only power and gold won't betray you.

So when he refused me for the third time, I went to the black market auction and bought a battered wolf slave.

The phoenix finally panicked, feathers flaring, voice shaking:

"Master, you promised you'd only keep one magical beast..."

I live twenty-four honest years, and fate hands me a terminal stomach cancer diagnosis as a reward. Less than a month left on the clock.

Right when I'm ready to flip off this godawful fate, the floor under me goes black, and I drop straight into an SSS-rank horror game.

The Midnight Bloodred Theater. Dried-out eyeballs for chandeliers, crusted blood for decoration.

The boss is some deranged silver-haired god with blood-red eyes, and he blows people into a bloody mist the second something doesn't go his way.

Everyone else is crying, begging for their lives.

Not me. I'm dying either way.

I walk right up onto that stage, plant my hand on his abs, and grin up at him.

"Hey, gorgeous. Before you kill me, how about a kiss?"