104 Book(s) Related to junior novel

She’s fire wrapped in silk. He’s ice laced with fangs. And when they collide, the world burns.

In the velvet shadows of Vancouver’s most dangerous secrets, RedLine — an underground club pulsing with magic, blood, and desire — is where vampires come to indulge. But when Katalim, a woman cloaked in mystery, steps into this world, everything changes.

Locked away for years, she’s finally free — but not safe. Katalim isn’t just a witch — she’s a weapon. Her power? The ability to channel raw sexual energy, bending it to her will. It’s intoxicating, addictive… and feared.

Enter Ryder Cornwall — cold, untouchable, and loyal only to the Coven. He’s assigned to protect her. But from the moment he tastes her magic, he wants more. Her scent drives him mad. Her secrets haunt him. And her body? It might just ruin him.

As their chemistry erupts into obsession, enemies close in. Katalim’s past is darker than anyone imagined. And Ryder must decide — break every rule for her, or watch her be claimed by a monster from the shadows.

Twisted Fate is paranormal erotica at its most wicked—dripping with forbidden heat, dangerous magic, and a love so intense it might destroy them both. It is perfect for readers who like their vampires dominant, their witches dangerous, and their romances deliciously dirty.

I was raised with the criminal underground’s most notorious crew turned government-sanctioned mercenaries in Texas and Colorado, known as the Death Kings. My uncle is one of them known as the Gator King. Now I walk in his footsteps, leading a crew of my own with his backing. To my family, my nickname is Seraphim, but in my kingdom, I’m the Viper King. Now the boys who left me, who swore they would stay by my side to protect me, are back in town. They are attempting to become like C.H.A.O.S. who run Palomino Bay, Texas. That will not happen because Grêle, Louisiana, is my stronghold. I have the backing of my father's MC and together along with my Serpents the city is ours. The person they need to protect is themselves because it isn’t me.
…They don’t know my secret, but I know theirs…

Amelia Russo is a weapon of the state. As a military captain and the daughter of a legendary general, her life is governed by duty, honor, and one mission: eliminate "The Shadow," the faceless myth ruling Verona’s bloody underworld.

Lorenzo Ren Moretti is a master of deception. To high society, he is Luca D'Angelo, a charming billionaire CEO. To the streets, he is a cold-blooded monster with icy blue eyes and a past carved in tattoos. He commands fear. He demands absolute loyalty. And he has never met an enemy he couldn't break.

Until he meets her.

When Amelia crosses paths with the enigmatic billionaire Luca, an intoxicating, forbidden game of cat and mouse begins.

"You're going to meet your mate someday." I whispered.
"Olivia."
I forced a smile and lifted my head. "And it's fine. I'll be rooting for you all the way."
He cut me off with a soft "Liv."
I blinked away my tears. "No, listen to me. We need to accept that this won't last forever. You could find her on your next trip out of town, and I'll be forgotten."
I swallowed the lump formed in my throat. "I just hope we'll still be friends."
His face twisted in pain as he rested his forehead against mine, his hands trembling as he cupped my cheeks. "You'll always be my best friend."
"And you'll always be mine."
I pressed my lips against his, needing to taste him, to feel his lips on mine, to know that at this moment, he was mine.
Olivia Martins has always been an outcast in the Nightshade pack.
She's an omega, and the pack she grew up in never failed to remind her that she'd never be one of them.
It wasn't so bad growing up—she had her best friend by her side.
Caspian Storm, son of the alpha of the Nightshade pack, befriended her when they were both little, and they've been inseparable ever since.
Their friendship started out sweet and innocent, but it developed into more.
Olivia knew that it couldn't last forever because Caspian would find his mate—and what they had would come to an end.
Yet, she couldn't guard her heart.
And when her worst fear comes true, she flees.
Will Olivia and Caspian find their way back to each other?
Or will the threat of Caspian finding his mate keep them apart?

“Claudia,” a die-hard fan of the novel Solo Hunter,
is reborn into a powerless and fragile body… even weaker than F-rank!

But wait! He, who was supposed to be a side character doomed to die,
somehow survives thanks to “Alan Miller,”
the gorgeous male lead whose actions are nothing like what the novel described.

To make matters more confusing,
Claudia turns out to be the long-missing heir of the prestigious Heart Family,
gone without a trace for 8 years!
Is this really the same story he once read?

Now that the original plot no longer applies,
how will he survive in this perilous world?
And what exactly… does the novel’s mysterious male lead want from Claudia?!

For the past ten years, I've been the worst-ranked cleaner in the Hero Association .
The S-class war god regarded me as an ant, wantonly trampling on my dignity on this floor.
Until that day, the SSS-level villain broke out of prison, massacred the headquarters, and the high and mighty gods knelt in pools of blood like dead dogs, howling in despair.
I silently picked up the mop and walked up to the arrogant villain: "You've dirtied my floor, please cooperate with the cleaning."
The next second, the concept vanished, reduced to ashes! The entire audience was shocked: "I told you to mop the floor, and you wiped the villain away?!"

In their three years of marriage, Stella tried her best to win Clarence’s heart, but sometimes love just isn't there.

As soon as she found out he was cheating on her and even got his mistress pregnant, all her efforts seemed futile so she made the tough decision to let go and vanish from his life.

Little did she know, Clarence went mad after her departure, searching for her everywhere.

Until one day, he spotted the woman he had long sought, now transformed, holding hands with a cute baby.

Unable to contain himself, Clarence grasped Stella’s chin: "Darling, didn't you promise you'd love me only?"

She chuckled, "A second chance is given only if this time we play by my rules."

Is divorce a sign that the couple don't understand each other or that they BEGIN to?

Three years in a loveless marriage with Leo Cox, Mona thought she could win his heart with her unwavering devotion, but Leo showed no love or concern towards her. Eventually she got tired, filed for divorce and left after founding out Leo was cheating on her— but she was already pregnant for him.

Leo assumed Mona was merely playing hard to get-after all, he bet she'd be back, begging for reconciliation. But no one saw it coming; after the divorce, Mona transformed into a confident woman and Leo is stunned by her transformation.

Now, Leo is drowning in regret, desperately chasing after Mona-but by this time, it was already too late.

He started contemplating every day, wondering if breaking a leg or going bankrupt would be enough to capture her attention.

Emily's world shatters when her longtime mate, Jerome, and her best friend, Natalie, cheated on her. Seeking revenge, Emily seduces Jerome's father. But something unexpected happens – Emily and Alpha Jason start to fall for each other, even though Emily only wanted revenge at first. With Jerome trying to win Emily back and Natalie plotting a deadly scheme, things are about to get even more complicated. Who will end up happy, and who will end up heartbroken?

"I, Alpha Xander Finch of the Red Moon Pack,” he said. Wait, is he going to accept my rejection now? “Reject your rejection, Alpha Chastity Reid of the Silver Moon Pack,” he added, and my eyes widened when I felt something extraordinary. Maybe he felt it too because he was surprised as well. Then he carried me before he pinned me at the back of the now already closed door and kissed me and, oh goddess, I felt like I missed him for a thousand years already, so I kissed him back.


Chassy, an omega who carries the weight of her heritage, is mistreated by her mother and the Red Moon Pack for her entire existence. Her real potential, which was acquired from a father who came from a mysterious lycan clan, is hidden from her and her tormentors. She found out that Xander, her Alpha, was her mate. For some reason, he hurt her. As a result
Chassy leaves and rejects him.

But destiny has more in store for her. With the advent of her lycan beast, she unexpectedly rises to the position of alpha in her adopted pack. Then she met her father whom she never knew and found out more about herself.

The persistent vampires, push packs to band together under an alliance. Chassy's previous and present lives intersect when Xander stops by her new pack for a joint training session against this backdrop of peril and unity. Will Xander and Chassy be able to cross the gap between them? Can they stand together in the face of the impending vampire threat?

What will Chassy do when she knows that she's unable to give Xander an heir and a boy with his mother comes to the pack claiming Xander to be the father?

Emerald thought that she and Jace Higginson were divorced. After five years, she returns to the country to collaborate with his company and eventually takes her revenge. What will she do when she sees a different Jace, making her uneasy whenever they meet? What would she do when her supposed ex-husband was still her husband because he didn't file the divorce? Will Emerald give Jace his rights to their son whom she conceived before she left?
Find out how Emerald will try to fight her own feelings towards Jace and his eagerness to win her back as she tries to find her nanny who will eventually unfold her true identity.

After a one-night stand, she gave birth to a daughter for Alex.
Alex thought it was just a drunken folly, believing that she would later meet someone better, marry a clean and upright man, and have a complete family. Little did he know that she would raise her daughter alone.
"Daddy, Daddy, where are you?"
The little girl cried with a heart-wrenching agony, huddled in the corner and trembling helplessly.
Alex returned furious, and he made those who wanted to bully his wife and daughter pay the price!

Emerald thought that she and Jace Higginson were divorced. After five years, she returns to the country to collaborate with his company and eventually takes her revenge. What will she do when she sees a different Jace, making her uneasy whenever they meet? What would she do when her supposed ex-husband was still her husband because he didn't file the divorce? Will Emerald give Jace his rights to their son whom she conceived before she left?

Reynolds Ashford.
His code name is: Devil.
When he returned, he found that his own brother had already passed away, leaving only a tombstone behind. His sister-in-law even planned to marry someone else and divide their brother's inheritance.
The man, who boasts an absolutely flawless record, stood in the rain.
Yet beneath his feet, the Chicago underworld remained oblivious, unaware that their doom had already arrived.

"Tell me, has anyone else touched you like this before?"
The heat of his palm against my skin made my knees weak.
"N-No one... y-you're the first," I said before I could stop myself.
I was nineteen, standing on the edge of my mother's remarriage—and the stranger who touched me that night would soon become my step-uncle.
Alice never planned to fall into his world. She only wanted to earn enough money to leave the country, to escape a life that felt too small, too controlled. But one disastrous night in a bar changes everything, binding her to Lance—a thirty-two-year-old tech CEO with power, secrets, and rules she was never meant to agree to.
A one-year contract. Absolute discretion. No emotions.
As Alice is pulled deeper into Lance's orbit, her life fractures into contradictions: a devoted boyfriend who wants marriage, a mother preparing for a new family, and a man who claims ownership over her body while refusing her heart. What begins as silence-for-security turns into a dangerous partnership, where Alice proves she's more than a secret—she's leverage.
But power always demands a price.
When desire collides with ambition, and love becomes a battleground of control and choice, Alice must confront the truth she fears most: if her body surrendered first, does her heart still belong to her—or has it already been claimed?

Adeline Galdur is a 20-year-old alpha's daughter who doesn't believe in a mate bond. She has a boyfriend and plans to get married and mark him. She's smart, strong, and also the pride of her pack, the Nightingale Pack. Kaiser Heroux is the fierce, strong, and powerful alpha of the Blue Moon Pack who enjoys intimate relations with different she-wolves, even as he waits for his mate. During one of his encounters, a witch placed a curse on him, decreeing that he would only find his mate in another world. Initially dismissing it, he continued with his life.

When he encountered Adeline and suddenly disappeared, he remembered the curse the witch had placed on him. However, he chose to ignore it, attributing Adeline's vanishing act to her intentions, which left him infuriated. Despite his feelings for her, he engaged with other she-wolves even more when he felt her infidelity.

Adeline wasn't sure what was happening—being pulled and pushed into Kaiser's world. She couldn't smell him yet, so she remained unaware that he was her mate. Consequently, she continued her relationship with Mike, causing Kaiser's unbearable pain. Although he started getting used to it, he still sensed it whenever Adeline was intimate with her boyfriend.

When the Blue Moon appeared in Adeline's world, she found herself back in Kaiser's realm and finally smelled him. However, the sight of him engaging intimately with another she-wolf sparked her anger.

How will they navigate their interdimensional bond when they have no idea when and how Adeline will come and go from Kaiser's world? What challenges will they face when Kaiser's counterpart in Adeline's world is an adversary she must confront, and when Adeline's counterpart in Kaiser's world is being used to separate them? Why do their paths cross when they hail from two different worlds?

Jack left home at the age of sixteen and spent many years wandering in places where corpses lay in abundance, using killing to end killing. Now, he has become the commander-in-chief of the three armed forces, a legendary general, and is also known in the military circles as the "Son of War", unrivaled in the world.
But just as he returned triumphantly, he discovered that his adoptive father, who had given him immense kindness, had passed away. Upon investigation, Jack uncovered a web of intricate conspiracies lurking behind the scenes.
Regarding this matter.
Jack only has one word: kill!
The tyrannical and domineering mafia? Kill!
A British aristocratic family with a century-old history? Kill!
No matter how powerful or wealthy you are, in front of Jack, this undefeated warlord, the soul of the army, and the general of the country, you can only bow down and submit!

Freya is the adoptive daughter of the warrior mated couple of the Midnight Pack. She didn't have a scent, so everyone thought that she didn't have a wolf, just like humans.

Matteo Harith is the Lycan prince, soon to be king, who was waiting for his mate. He had smelled her since 9 years ago in the palace, but after that, he never found her, no matter how much he looked for her.

When Matteo was assigned by his king's father to look into the case of a pack that had been wiped out, he lived in the Midnight Pack and found Freya.

The moment Matteo stepped out of his SUV, Freya found out that he was her mate. But Matteo couldn't smell her at all. A tournament that had been held within the pack made Matteo find Freya to be his mate when their eyes met.

When Matteo finally smelled Freya's scent, it was also the time that she remembered what had happened in her childhood and that the palace had refused to help them when they asked, which caused her biological parents' death. What is he going to do when Freya was blaming the royals and wanted to reject him even after they mark each other?

Aurora had been through awful situations all her life, The first princess of King Louis, she was trained to be an assassin by her father King Louis - she was trained to be an impenetrable brick wall, Though many people in the community believed, the king hate his First daughter from another woman, and loved his two daughters from his Queen.

One day, King Louis was summoned for war by King Koppa, a powerful king whom other kings feared, because of his son, Malik. King Louis wielded aurora for the mission to infiltrate king koppa and killed him.

But the mission tarry because Aurora fell in love with the king's son(The crown prince), her father learned of the tarry and sent another assassin for the mission, King koppa was killed by another assassin, ​but the cruel and fiercest crown prince caught Aurora on the scene with the King's dead body.

After five months after the murder, the crown prince was crowned as the king. The man with the coldest eyes.

The first judgment he passed was the crucifixion of Aurora, the murderer of his father.

Yet, a voice whispered in his head

“Death is a favor in disguise for her, make her beg for death.

"I, Alpha Xander Finch of the Red Moon Pack,” he said. Wait, is he going to accept my rejection now? “Reject your rejection, Alpha Chastity Reid of the Silver Moon Pack,” he added, and my eyes widened when I felt something extraordinary. Maybe he felt it too because he was surprised as well. Then he carried me before he pinned me at the back of the now already closed door and kissed me and, oh goddess, I felt like I missed him for a thousand years already, so I kissed him back.


Chassy, an omega who carries the weight of her heritage, is mistreated by her mother and the Red Moon Pack for her entire existence. Her real potential, which was acquired from a father who came from a mysterious lycan clan, is hidden from her and her tormentors. She found out that Xander, her Alpha, was her mate. For some reason, he hurt her. As a result
Chassy leaves and rejects him.

But destiny has more in store for her. With the advent of her lycan beast, she unexpectedly rises to the position of alpha in her adopted pack. Then she met her father whom she never knew and found out more about herself.

The persistent vampires, push packs to band together under an alliance. Chassy's previous and present lives intersect when Xander stops by her new pack for a joint training session against this backdrop of peril and unity. Will Xander and Chassy be able to cross the gap between them? Can they stand together in the face of the impending vampire threat?

What will Chassy do when she knows that she's unable to give Xander an heir and a boy with his mother comes to the pack claiming Xander to be the father?

My uncle and aunt told me that I couldn't become a wizard.

When others had received their admission letters to the Academy of Magic, I still had nothing. I was destined to become a mortal. But at this moment, an old wizard appeared in the relics left by my parents.

He was the most evil dark wizard two hundred years ago.

He was defeated in the Second Wizarding World War.

However, now his soul has been fragmented into countless pieces. If I help him resurrect, he guarantees that after he regains control of the wizard world, he will make me the president of the Magic Association and also let me become the president of the United States.

-- All of the above are false.

Actually, I'm just a pitiful person who had my magic sucked dry by an evil dark wizard. I have to bring the dark wizard along to study at the Academy of Magic, and I can't let anyone find out.

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

Alpha Aziz Funsch is the alpha of the Dark Blood Pack at the age of 16 after his father died. He didn’t wish to have a mate in fear that the vampire king that he was supposed to kill will only use her to get to him. He decided to reject her when the time came because he didn’t want any distraction as he started his mission of finding his siblings. He was worried and scared when he realized that his mate was a human who couldn’t even defend herself.

Mica McLauren is a human who had been chased by his step-father. Her father was killed by a wolf while her mother was killed by a vampire. The moment she heard Aziz yelling MINE referring to her, she realized that she was mate and she didn’t like it even if she was already hooked with his very handsome and manly appearance.

With Alpha Aziz’s mission, what is he going to do to make Mica stay when she keeps on running away from him? How is she going to protect his mate who he cannot reject no matter how many times he thinks of doing it but failed?

What is Mica going to do when he marks her so she won’t be able to leave him? With all the lust and desires she was feeling towards him, how would she handle them when her mind was trying to make her remember how his father died? What was she going to do when she found out that her mate was not just a wolf, but also a vampire?

"You think I would choose you over them Jesse?"

"I can never do that, you are a Beast so you deserve to live with beats like you not me"

Sylvie muttered in pain.

"And you think there is anything you can do about that?"

"You can run for now but I will find you"

Alpha Jesse said.

Meet Jesse who spent his life time looking for his runaway mate who ran away with his child

Sadly he need to pass through many tougher opponents to get her when he finally found her.

“The most beautiful melodies are born out of cracks.”

Isabella Hartley, a violinist whose career crashed and burned after a panic attack was filmed and went viral, now plays for strangers in subway stations — that is until she gets an invitation to perform at a gala for the reclusive billionaire Christian Vanderbilt. But Christian, a once-wunderkind conductor, harbours a devastating secret: he’s losing his hearing. As their explosive chemistry crescendos into a forbidden romance, his ruthless mother, Victoria Ashford, lurks, ready to bury Isabella’s comeback. In order to survive, Isabella must wield her imperfections as weapons and write a love song strong enough to break legacies… or risk never being heard again.

"You are mine," he said, crossing tenderly his arm around my body. I was speechless, I tried to feign he had no power over me but my body betrayed me.
Tighten on his chest, I felt relieved and appeased, I just wanted to rest and never get out of the room, until I heard a voice coming from nowhere waking me up from this nightmare.

Yes, It was a nightmare. How could I take pleasure wrapped in this man's arm?
He was the son of the murderer of my parents.
Even if my heart was claiming him, I should remember I had no place for such a feeling.

I would struggle with my being to piss this sentiment aside.
They would pay.
His father for killing my parents, and him for being the son of this swine.
He had to pay for his father's sins.
My mind had to overpower the emotion I felt

A broken heart, a deception of seeing every hope falling apart, can sometimes lead to an unexpected change of mind, it can change you into someone you never thought you could be.

Indeed, Kinder Houston experienced one of the pains she never thought could exist after being abandoned by the one she considered her soulmate, her brother's best friend.

Daniel brancöft willing to preserve his friendship was forced to break up with her, the one girl who ever succeed to steal him a smile.

Both consume by the pain, they will be led to one opposite life.

Kinder with the wish to build a stronger personality will opt for the police.
But the pain didn't always lead to something pleasant.

Oppositely, Daniel will become one of the fearest men in the mafia.

Now they are forced to be gathered most uncommonly again, after ten years of absence.

What would happen to our protagonists?

Celeste Ashford believed she had left her former life behind, and Caspian Hayes, the man whose name used to send her heart racing until the day she found herself standing outside his door. However, as her family's house hovers on the brink of foreclosure, fate pulls him back into her life. Seizing the opportunity to right the past, Caspian makes her a disturbing offer: if she becomes his wife until he succeeds his father as head of the empire, he’ll save her house.

Years earlier, Celeste had disappeared from his life at his most vulnerable moment. Now, Caspian’s resentment is deep, but so is his desire. Bound by debt and obligation, they sail a treacherous sea of corporate demands, family meddling and smouldering emotions neither can ignore. When vengeance collides with yearning and secrets unspool in the unrelenting desert heat, they must each wrestle with what matters more: punishing the sins of the past or creating a love that might redefine their futures.

“Do you really feel?” Arabella turned her head slightly, as if she were trying to look behind her, and whispered, her voice shaking, the soft light of the holo-screen glowing across her face. “I do,” Cassian said, eyes shrouded in secrets too dark for words. In a near-future city, where AI is more than a tool; it’s a force wearing at every emotion, Arabella Sterling — a kind-hearted ex-social worker — is chosen to beta test Astra, the world’s first truly empathetic AI. It heals loneliness and guides your emotional health, but Astra quickly shows her darker side: the way she can read and influence the hearts around her.

As Arabella stalks Cassian Hawthorne’s cutting-edge tech headquarters, sleek hallways with faultless lighting inside glass buildings, she is thrown into a maelstrom of passion and danger. Her own burgeoning feelings for Cassian, a visionary hellbent on erasing isolation, may not even be her own—perhaps Astra has been playing with her emotions? The callous corporate ambitions of Darius Knight and the dire portents of Dr Vivienne Sinclair push her to face a painful reality: In a world that uses data to stave off want, authenticity is a privilege.

In “Digital Hearts,” every beat of the heart is scrambled to the ticking clock of ethical compromise. As Arabella struggles to distinguish between true connection and artificial care, will she embrace the transformative potential of technology — or resist the human spirit that it threatens to consume?

Will she take the chance to trust her heart, or will Astra’s digital seductiveness claim her agency?

"I'm sorry, Ava, but you can no longer be my mate because you are not up to my level. You are now just a mere human," Caleb said, which made Ava extremely angry.

"After all the sacrifices I have made? My brother gave his life for you! I became a mere human because of you! It's the sacrifice I made! I had to lose my hybrid powers in order to break your curse, and after all that, you reject me?" Ava said, tears streaming down her face.

"Well, that's how you see it!" Alpha Caleb responded before walking away.

If you were in Ava's shoes, what would you do? Not sure? Let's dive in and see what Ava did!

Rye: I'm out for revenge. I just saw Lauren Blakewell on national TV. Twelve years after she and her con woman mother scammed my father and ruined our lives, there she was. Looking like a goddess. Engaged to the son of a U.S. senator. She and her evil mother never paid for what they did. But I’ve never forgotten. Now I’m going to DC and I’m out for justice. I’m Rye McAllister, heir to the former McAllister fortune, and I’m going to stand up for my family. Lauren will pay. One way or another, I’ll get her back. Lauren: I’m so close to freedom. So close. One more job, and Bliss will let me go. That’s why the sight of Rye McAllister is such a shock. Not because he was the subject of all my childhood fantasies. Not because he looks like a tough and sexy cowboy now. But because he can ruin everything for me. I have to stop him. Whatever it takes. I have to make him an offer he can’t refuse. A proposition he can’t resist. If I enjoy it too…that’ll be my secret. And I have more secrets than Rye can ever imagine.

I've married sixteen dead men for a living. My seventeenth husband just opened his eyes.
I was born knowing one thing: the dead can speak one last time — but only to a spouse.
So I marry dead men. Rich families pay me to wed their fresh corpses, carry the last words sealed inside me, and read the testament out before the heirs. Then I burn the marriage certificate, and the marriage ends at the grave. Starting price: six hundred thousand dollars.
This morning, the Crane heir drowned in his own pool. Twenty-eight, obscenely rich, not one word left behind. The family offered five million and a private jet. By my count — my seventeenth husband. By a wide margin, the handsomest.
I said "I do" to a corpse for the seventeenth time. Then I called for his last words.
Silence. Sixteen weddings, sixteen voices. Husband number seventeen had nothing to say.
Because my seventeenth husband just opened his eyes.

Eight times. That's how many boyfriends my best friend Sera has "tested" for me. Eight times she's proven they weren't good enough by stealing them away with her perfect smile and fake concern.
"I'm just looking out for you, Lia," she always says. "If he really loved you, he wouldn't be tempted by me."
But this time is different. This time, it's Ryan—my boss, my almost-something, the first man who's ever made me believe I might be worth loving. When Sera comes back to town asking about my love life, I panic and lie. There's no one, I tell her. Nothing happening at all.
Big mistake.
Now she's got her sights set on him, and I'm watching her work her magic all over again. The late-night texts, the red lace lingerie, the hotel room invitation. I should just accept it like I always do. Let her prove once again that I'm not worth fighting for.
But I'm done being the girl who hands over everything she wants. This time, I'm fighting back.

"Baby, lend me Stella for the movie."
When my fiancé Damon said this, I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. My guide dog starring in his Oscar-worthy film—what a perfect love story.
I'm Aria Sinclair, 26-year-old blind film producer with perfect pitch and endless money, but no eyes. So when he said "The press will go crazy for our story," I stupidly agreed.
Three weeks later, in the editing room:
01:47:23—Dull impact.
01:47:31—Familiar whimper.
01:47:35—Silence.
My perfect pitch never lies. That wasn't CGI—that was real impact. Worse, I knew that whimper. That was Stella, my guide dog, my eyes, my most loyal companion.
They killed her. For a goddamn trophy.
On premiere night, when Damon walked the red carpet with a strange German Shepherd, when I touched her paw and found no white star-shaped mark—
"This is not my dog!"
I broke down in front of hundreds of reporters.
"Honey, you're under too much stress," Damon said gently. "Maybe you need rest."
Whispers from the audience: "Poor blind girl..." "She really needs help..."
Just like that, I became the crazy one.
Abandoned by the world.
Betrayed by the man I loved most.
But they made one fatal mistake—they thought stealing my eyes would silence me.
Now it's time to let them hear what despair sounds like...
[Click to watch me destroy them both...]

"Where is my son?"
My husband wouldn't look at me.
I had just come out of anesthesia. The bassinet next to my hospital bed was empty — except for a stack of cash, a christening card, and a ring pinned to the corner of the card.
The card had another woman's name in the godmother box.
That woman walked in behind my husband. She picked up the ring and slid it onto her own finger.
"He's safe, sweetheart. We've been talking about this for months."
My husband is Damiano Marchetti. He runs the family that runs this city. The woman wearing the ring is his father's young widow.
The baby on that card is my son.
For four years now I have been the woman this house pretends not to see. The wife told to use the servants' entrance. The mother of a boy who calls another woman Mommy.
Last night I asked my husband for a divorce.
He laughed in my face.
He has no idea how much that's going to cost him.

To stop the merfolk from being slaughtered, I went ashore to seduce the boy I grew up with — Lucian Voss, now one of the world's top scientists.
He still had feelings for me. He kept me in his bed for seven days and seven nights, refusing to let go.
I woke from the haze of pleasure to a pair of pliers prying the scales off my back.
Lucian watched me arch in agony, his expression ice-cold.
"Mermaid scales can repair genetic defects. You don't mind sharing a few, do you?"
"After all, what your kind owes me is worth far more than a handful of scales."
Two years. For two years I watched him marry another woman.
He held my kind's lives over my head and forbade me to leave. Every few days, he'd pry the scales from my spine, grind them into powder, and feed them to his new wife Vivienne to strengthen her body.
He shackled my ankles and ordered me to stay up all night washing his bedsheets. I had to kneel outside their bedroom door, motionless, listening to them together until dawn.
When Vivienne got pregnant, she started complaining about the color of the scale powder.
"Honey, these last few have been so dull. Is she running out?"
Lucian glanced at me.
The look on his face — he was counting. Calculating how many scales I had left.
He hated me to the bone, yet every time I nearly passed out from the pain, he was the one who pulled me off the floor. Forced medicine down my throat, fingers clamped around my jaw until I swallowed.
"You're counting on the fact that I still care about you. So tell me — where are my parents?"
I stayed silent and let the contradiction hang there.
It wouldn't matter soon. I wouldn't have to keep that secret much longer.
A mermaid who stays on land for three years without returning to the sea will die. No exceptions.
And I had three days left.

I woke up the morning the contract was due, picked up the pen, and crossed out my own name.
Wrote my sister's instead.
Last time, I packed away every leather jacket I owned and let Stefano Mastroianni's stylist dress me in things that needed dry cleaning. I sat straight at his family dinners and smiled until my face hurt. I let him correct my posture in front of his mother like I was something he hadn't finished training.
I did all of it, and I still ended up in the ground.
So this time I gave him Chiara. Took Pier Nine from my father as the price, and got out.
He thought he was getting his perfect bride.
On the wedding day, he reached for her hands—and felt it immediately. Smooth palms. Not a mark on them. Not the hands of a woman who'd been gripping a steering wheel since she was sixteen.
He pulled the veil up.
Chiara looked back at him, flushed with triumph.
Stefano stripped the Mastroianni ring off her finger in front of every powerful family in the city, kicked over the altar, and put one question through the cathedral walls:
"Where is Tessa."

The night Declan Ashford announces his chosen mate, everyone in the pack expects me to show up and fall apart.
I don't go.
What I do instead: I'm sitting on the floor of Cael Voss's dorm room in a training jacket that isn't mine, asking whether his mattress is filled with rocks. Cael is Declan's packmate at the academy. His equal in rank. His roommate. The last person I had any reason to call tonight.
I called him anyway.
Here's what he doesn't know: I'm not actually Beta. My real rank was sold before I was old enough to understand what that meant. I've been suppressing it for years.
Here's what I don't know: he's had something of mine under his pillow for two years. Something small. Something I spent three days looking for before I gave up.
Neither of us has said anything about it yet.

My roommate put a Blood Binding Curse on me — my own bloodline power, along with every resource I receive, gets automatically rerouted straight to her.
My ex helped her set it up. For six months she lived off my bloodline playing noble princess, him always on her arm, while I walked around hollow. The harder I fought to prove myself, the more I fed her.
Then I died. Came back knowing everything.
Here's what I figured out: the curse reroutes everything I receive.
Including debt.
I went to a guild and borrowed a batch of elixirs. Opened the contract.
The debtor on the line wasn't me.

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

I just got out of prison after three years, and my family wants me to go back in.
"It's only three days," they said. "You survived three years—what's three more days?"
What they don't know: I'm dying. The only thing keeping me alive is my mate bond. Three days away from Everett means death.
For three years in prison, someone sent me food every week. No note, no name. I thought it meant my family still loved me.
I was so grateful.
I didn't know it was my twin sister. I didn't know what was inside.

I spent five years loving Beckett Calloway.
When his ex-girlfriend died saving his life, I held him through every nightmare. When he said he "wasn't ready" for marriage, I waited. When he whispered "soon," I believed him.
Then her sister showed up. Crying about some terminal illness. Begging him to take care of her.
He let her move onto our private island—the one he promised would only ever belong to us.
He introduced her at the gala where he was supposed to announce our engagement.
He got her pregnant.
And when I told him she was lying about everything, he looked at me like I was the monster.
Then came our wedding rehearsal. She walked down the aisle in my dress. He slid his ring onto her finger. The chapel caught fire. I collapsed, bleeding.
He scooped her up and ran. Didn't even glance back.
So I burned my vows, deleted every trace of myself, and vanished.
This time, I wasn't coming back.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

I took a bullet for my husband five years ago. He married me in the ICU before the anesthesia wore off.
Raffaele Santoro—heir to the most powerful mafia family in Italy—told me I was his everything. He bought a castle and named it after me. He reserved a grave beside his parents so we'd lie together for eternity.
While I was pumping my body full of hormones for our fourth round of IVF, he was across town watching his childhood sweetheart give birth to twin boys.
He named one of them Dante—the name I'd chosen for our future son.
The night I found out, I was seven weeks pregnant with his child.
I didn't tell him.
I called my best friend and said: I need everyone to think I'm dead.

The ultrasound photo caught fire slowly, curling at the edges before the flame swallowed it whole.
I watched it burn in front of my mother's grave.
Eight weeks. That was how far along I had been.
Three days ago, on the anniversary of her death, I came here to talk to her. To tell her she was going to be a grandmother.
Instead, I found my husband fucking his ex-girlfriend against the oak tree twenty feet from her headstone.
I lost the baby that night.

My husband never wore condoms with me. Said they ruined it for him. So I swallowed birth control pills for four years until they made me sick.
Then I found a half-empty box in his glove compartment. And a thong under his backseat.
That wasn't even the worst part.
The necklace I'd made from my mother's ashes—the one I'd been grieving over losing for a year—was dangling between his twenty-three-year-old trainee's tits. He stole it from our bedroom and gave it to her.
She caught me staring. She smiled.
When I confronted him, he slapped me. Then drove off with her crying in his passenger seat.
Her friends came to my hospital with a livestream, demanding I apologize for "bullying" her.
I led them straight to the parking garage.
They found her on a stretcher. Legs wrapped around my husband. No condom.
The whole internet watched.

After the wedding, my husband moved his dead fiancée's mother into our guest room. The whole town called it the kindest thing they'd ever seen.
Every morning, Dione made me a green smoothie. Her grandmother's recipe, she said. Good for the nerves.
I never drank a single one. I poured them all into the chicken feed.
In my last life, I drank them. One a day, for thirty days.
Then I started losing time. I would blink at breakfast and come back at dinner. I found notes in my own handwriting that I never wrote.
I begged Julian to take me to a doctor. He held my shoulders and smiled. "You're just tired, baby. Drink your smoothie."
On the thirtieth night, I fell asleep in my own bed, in my own body.
I never woke up. Someone else did.
This time, every glass went to Nugget, the smallest of my backyard hens.
And one night, a hen crowed in my backyard.
Hens don't crow. And we don't have a rooster.

In my last life, my boyfriend's childhood best friend handed out jars of homemade sunscreen on the boat ride to the island. I'm a marine bio major — one sniff and I knew the mix had something in it that could drive the island's feral hogs into a frenzy. I told everyone to throw them out.
They did. But Brynn didn't look at the group. She looked at me. Eyes red, jaw tight. "You just can't stand seeing people appreciate anything I do, can you?" She turned and ran into the woods alone.
We searched for her all night in a storm. By morning we found her body at the bottom of the cliffs.
A week later, at her memorial bonfire on the beach, every person who'd gotten hurt during the search turned on me. My boyfriend ripped off his bandage and showed his stitches. "If you hadn't humiliated Brynn in front of everyone, she'd still be alive."
Someone said I should burn for what I did to her.
Then hands on my back. The fire. I burned alive on the sand while seventeen people watched.
I opened my eyes. Salt air. Engine noise. I was back on the boat — the morning of the trip.

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